The Fare on the Fernwood Grade

My father used to tell me about the night he nearly picked up a passenger on the Fernwood Grade. That’s a stretch of road that snakes down from the ridge above our town, where the old logging company used to run its tracks. It’s a brutal hill, steep and winding, with a ditch on one side and a sheer rock face on the other. On a clear night, the headlights cut through the pine and fir, but on the night he told me about, a thick fog had rolled in, and a cold drizzle was falling.

He was driving home from the mill, his shift ending at two in the morning. His old pickup’s wipers squeaked back and forth, and the radio was just static, so he turned it off. He was tired, the kind of tired that makes you see things out of the corner of your eye, but he knew these roads. He’d driven them a thousand times. Then, about half a mile ahead, his headlights caught something white.

At first, he thought it was a deer, maybe a stray sheet of plastic from the lumberyard. But as he got closer, he saw it was a woman, standing in the middle of the road. She was wearing a long, white dress that looked soaked through, clinging to her skin. Her hair was dark and hung over her face. She didn’t move, just stood there, her arms at her sides.

My father slowed down, his heart pounding. He knew the stories, the ones the old-timers told about the girl who’d thrown herself off the Grade after her husband left her, or the one about the nurse who’d died when her car went over the edge. But he also knew you never stop for anyone on that road at night. So he gripped the wheel and drove straight at her, expecting her to disappear at the last second. She didn’t.

At the last moment, he swerved, but she was gone. He didn’t feel a thump or see her fly over the hood. She was just gone. He let out a breath and kept driving, telling himself it was a trick of the light, maybe a reflection from a mile marker. But then, just as he passed the spot where she’d been standing, he heard a noise from the back of the truck.

It was a soft, wet thud, like something heavy landing on the truck bed. Then another, and another, as if something was dragging itself across the metal. He looked in his rearview mirror, but all he saw was the dark bed of the truck, empty. The noise continued, a scraping and a slithering, until he reached the bottom of the Grade and the road flattened out. Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped.

He drove home shaking, and when he parked in his driveway, he didn’t get out for a long time. He finally worked up the courage to check the truck bed. There was nothing there, not even a wet spot. But, on the tailgate, in a pattern that could have been from the rain, there was a pair of handprints, small and pale, as if someone had pressed their hands against the metal and left a stain. He tried to wash them off, but they wouldn’t come off. He even repainted the tailgate a few months later, but after a week, the handprints reappeared, faint but there, like a memory that wouldn’t fade.

He never drove the Fernwood Grade at night again after that. He took the long way into town, even if it added twenty minutes. But here’s the thing: years later, when I was sixteen and had just gotten my license, I was driving home from a friend’s house late one night, and I had to take the Fernwood Grade because it was the only way. I remembered his story, and I was terrified. I drove slowly, my heart in my throat, watching for anything white.

I was halfway down when my headlights caught something. A figure, standing in the road, wearing a white dress. My blood went cold. I thought, this is it. But as I got closer, I realized it wasn’t the woman. It was a man, standing there, in a long white coat, like a doctor’s coat. He was holding his hand up, like a traffic cop, telling me to stop.

I slammed on the brakes, my tires screeching. The man walked to my window. He was old, with a gaunt face and hollow eyes. He leaned down, and through the glass, he said, ‘You made it. I’ve been waiting for someone to stop. My car broke down a ways back. Can I get a ride?’

I was frozen. I didn’t know what to do. But then I remembered what my father always said: ‘If you see someone on that road, you don’t stop. You keep driving, no matter what.’ So I rolled down the window just an inch, and I said, ‘Sorry, I can’t. There’s no room.’ And I gunned it.

In my rearview mirror, I saw him standing there, watching me. And then, as I rounded a curve, I saw the white shape again, but this time it was in my truck bed. A white hand pressed against the back window, then another. I screamed, and I lost control. The truck spun, and I crashed into the ditch.

When I woke up, the truck was against a tree, and the airbag was deployed. I was bleeding from a cut on my forehead. The engine was hissing. I looked around, and there was no one there. The road was empty, and the fog had started to lift. I crawled out of the truck and walked the rest of the way home. It took me an hour.

I told my father what happened, and he went pale. He didn’t say much, just that I was lucky to be alive. But a week later, I found something in the glove box of my truck, where I’d thrown it in a panic. It was a business card, old and yellowed, with a name and a phone number on it. The name was Dr. Elias Grey. Below it, in pen, was written: ‘Call me, I’m still here.’

I’ve never called that number. I have a feeling that if I did, someone would answer. And I don’t want to know who. But sometimes, late at night, I think about that man in the white coat, and I wonder if he was the same one my father saw, or if there’s more than one thing waiting on the Fernwood Grade. And I think about the handprints that my father could never wash off. I still have that truck, and every once in a while, when I look in the bed, I see fresh sets of prints, as if something is climbing on and off, waiting for the next traveler who is foolish enough to stop.