The Winter Road

This happened when I was fifteen, and my friend Marta and I were inseparable. We lived in a small village in the north of Sweden, where the winters were so dark that the sun barely lifted above the horizon for a few hours. Our houses were on the same street, and we spent almost every day after school at one or the other’s place.

One evening in late January, I was at Marta’s house playing video games. Around six o’clock, my mom called and told me to come home for dinner. It was pitch black outside, the kind of darkness that feels like a blanket. Marta, ever loyal, insisted on walking me halfway, since the streetlights were sparse and the path was lined by deep ditches.

We bundled up in our thick coats and headed out. The air was so cold it hurt to breathe, and the snow crunched under our boots. We were chatting about the weekend, laughing about something silly, when I noticed a shape in the ditch to our right. It was dark, but in the faint glow of the nearest streetlamp, I could see it was lumpy and misshapen, like a discarded bundle of clothes. But then it moved.

I stopped, my heart starting to race. ‘Marta, what is that?’ I whispered, pointing. She followed my gaze, and her face went pale. We both saw it: a figure, crouched low, its head tilted at an unnatural angle. It was watching us. For a split second, we froze, and then we ran.

We sprinted back to Marta’s house, our boots slipping on the icy path, our breath coming in panicked puffs. We didn’t stop until we slammed her front door behind us, gasping. Her mom found us in the hallway, shaking and pale. We tried to explain, but we couldn’t find the words. We just said we saw something in the ditch. She dismissed it as a deer or a dog, but we knew better.

After a while, my mom came to pick me up, and I went home. But I couldn’t shake the image of that figure. The way it moved was wrong, like it was crawling but also twitching. I lay in bed that night, listening to the wind howl, and I swear I heard a scrabbling sound outside my window. I pulled the covers over my head and tried to sleep.

The next morning, the snow was fresh, and I saw tracks in our yard. They led from the street, up to my window, and then circled the house. The tracks were not like any animal’s. They were deep, with long, thin toes, and they were barefoot. In the snow. In the cold. I didn’t tell anyone.

Days passed, and life returned to normal. But Marta and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. We started taking different routes, avoiding that stretch of road. We told ourselves it was nothing, but we knew it was something.

Two weeks later, I was at Marta’s house again. Her mom had gone to visit a neighbor, and we were alone. It was getting dark, and I was about to leave, but Marta begged me to stay longer. She was scared. She said she’d been hearing noises at night, like scraping on her walls. I stayed until nine, and then I had to go.

I walked home alone, my heart pounding with every step. The streetlights cast long shadows, and I kept glancing at the ditches. I made it to my door, but as I was unlocking it, I heard a sound behind me. A soft, wet breathing. I turned, and there it was, standing at the edge of the light. It was tall, impossibly thin, with pale, translucent skin. Its face was featureless except for a wide, lipless mouth full of needle-thin teeth. And its eyes were black, like voids.

I screamed, and the thing moved. It didn’t walk; it flowed, like smoke. I fumbled with the keys, dropped them, and ran into the street. The thing was fast, but I was faster. I didn’t look back until I reached the village center, where there were more lights and human sounds. I collapsed, shaking, and a passing car stopped to help.

They took me to the police, and I tried to explain, but they thought I was just a scared kid. They drove me home, and the tracks were gone. But I knew what I saw.

Eventually, the darkness lifted, and spring came. Marta and I never spoke of it again, but we both knew what we saw was real. We moved on, grew up, and left that village. But sometimes, when the nights are long and the wind whistles through the eaves, I hear that breathing again. And I wonder if it’s still out there, waiting in the ditch, smiling with its black eyes.

I don’t know what it was. Some say it’s a creature from the old tales, made of frost and hunger. But I know one thing: I never walk that road again, and I never look into the ditches at night. The winter road has claimed enough.

Now, years later, I’m writing this from my apartment in the city, where the streetlights never go out. But even here, when I turn off the lamp, I see its silhouette against the window. And I wonder if it followed me all the way here. Or maybe it was never about the place—it was about me. Maybe it’s always with us, waiting for the moment we’re alone in the dark.

If you live in the north, beware. Keep your eyes on the roadside, and never, ever stop to look. Because the ones we find in the ditch are not always lost. Sometimes, they are hunting.