A Small Curvy Road

There’s a small section of a curvy road, that’s well-paved by the way, that takes me through the hills and to my university. I live in Oregon and the mornings are usually humid and foggy, so driving around in early hours can be especially dangerous with wet roads and low visibility. It’s about a ten minute drive, according to Google Maps, but it takes me more like 20 minutes, since I drive extra slowly through this city.

I just moved here, so I’m still figuring out the city’s quirks.

One particular morning, I was heading down the road at around 6am to head to the newly-discovered 24-Hour Fitness Gym that was nearby. The road was dark and foggy, but inside the car I had some rap music playing, trying to get pumped up for the gym, since I hadn’t been there in a while but was locked into a contract with the gym and, well, I don’t want to get into that.

Anyway, as I was approaching the curvy section of the road, surrounded by big pine trees and steep drops, I lowered down the radio volume. I’m not sure why I do that when I begin to drive slower. Just a habit, I guess. Leaning more toward the steering wheel and windshield, I turned on my high-beams, big mistake, by the way, to do so in the fog. But I must’ve triggered something in the electrical system because my radio went haywire. The volume cranked all the way up and then the stations started changing by themselves, finally stopping at some station with a loud radio host talking about politics, he mentioned President Ronald Reagan, who was way before my time, by the way, as this event happened back in 2017, but the volume became so loud that my speakers began to pop.

I came to a full stop before the car stereo finally popped loudly and all the noise stopped. The silence outside was intense. Sorry, I’m just not sure how to describe the level of silence. It was… odd, to say the least.

I started to pull forward slowly, and then I started picking up a little more speed as I made my way down the hill, but suddenly my steering wheel became heavy and the car started leaning to the right, straight toward the gravel and metal barrier. I hit the brakes and my SUV started shaking to a stop. A flat tire, I remember thinking.

I put my hazards on and made sure to roll down my window in case my car’s doors locked automatically again while I was outside, as it’s been known to happen before, and then I stepped out of the car to check my front right tire.

It wasn’t flat. I went around the back of the car to check the other tires, but they all seemed fine. But just as I was turning to the driver’s side of the car to go back in, I heard a sound coming from the trees. Now, I know there are deer crossing signs everywhere, and I understand deer attract other predatory animals, but the sound was not animal-like. It was like a higher-pitched voice, a woman, perhaps… crying.

I couldn’t see to the side of my car since my headlights were pointing forward, so I just went back to my seat and rolled up my windows and changed my gear to drive. With automatic transmission cars, you need to step on the brakes before changing gears and you go through the reverse and neutral gears before reaching “drive”. This is important.

Red rear lights turn on when you hit the brakes. White lights turn on behind you when you pass through “reverse”. That’s when I saw the figure of woman standing right behind the car. She looked young, wearing a bright blue jacket, and long dark hair tied in a pony tail to the side of her head. I’ve heard enough scary stories to know not to be dumb and get out of the car in the darkness of the morning to quote/unquote help somebody.

I set the car in drive and continued down the road. I’m telling you the story all calm, but I guarantee you that my heart was about ready to jump out of my chest when this happened.

As soon as I reached the bottom of the hill and the first stop light, I grabbed my phone and Googled the local police station number, the non-emergency number. I told them about the incident, about a woman standing in the middle of the empty road and that perhaps she needed help. They said thanks and said they might follow up with me later, so they took my name and number down. The streetlights turned green, yellow, and red a couple of times while I was on the phone. That’s how empty the town was at this time of the morning.

The police never followed up with me, but I did experience the tugging of the steering wheel a couple of times, in plain daylight. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered the cemetery right before reaching the curvy road, though. I told my friends about it but they didn’t think it was too big of a deal.

I still don’t know if what happened that night was a big coincidence, or something supernatural, but I take the long way whenever I have to drive there at night.