Bogleech.com's 2018 Horror Write-off:

The Passenger

Submitted by Shieldman (email)

We started calling it "the passenger". No one ever saw it except in cars, see? You'd be driving along, radio on, doing 75 down the highway, then you check your mirror, and boom, there it is. This thing in the back seat of your car. Just... shows up there, no noise, car door could be locked, whatever. No one could agree on what it looked like. When I saw it, it had all these rocks growing out of its face and neck. Carla said it had a bunch'a gashes all over its shoulders. John said his was all blackened, like someone had burned it alive. But it's definitely the same thing. It's got these crazy eyes... like a regular person, but way clearer. The moment you see it back there, it locks eyes with you. Like it's staring into your soul. And that's when it gives you a choice.

It doesn't say anything, but you know what the choices are. Hell, it doesn't even really give you the choice. You either ignore it, or you pull over and freak out. Me and Carla, we were lucky enough to hear about it before it happened to us. We knew to keep driving and say nothing. I kept the radio on, too, but Carla says she turned hers off. I figured if it was gonna sit back there and bum a ride off of me, I still get to pick the music.

How did we know? Oh, well, you'd find the ones that didn't keep driving. They found some lady on the side of the road, half her face missing. Cops said it was some sort of crazy Amazon flesh-eating virus. That's the only one they reported on, but the Facebook group we put together found out about a bunch more. One of 'em was laying on the side of the road under all these weights, like, gym weights, you know? All stacked up on him in a huge pyramid. Another guy was just straight up turned to stone all Medusa style. The pictures were really messed up.

Yeah, yeah, show them what you got from it, Carla. We got shit from it, 'cus like, we kept driving, I guess? Carla got these weird old coins. I looked them up, says they're old Mesopotamian currency. I got a bunch of polaroids straight from some other family's photo album. Two kids, a mom and a dad, real cute family. Couldn't find who they were, though. I think John got a pile of teeth? All baby teeth. At first he was pissed because he thought he did something wrong, but I told him hey, you could have ended up like the guy it crucified on the flagpole by the school. Real nasty business.

I keep hoping it'll happen again, but like, I'm also really freaked out. I wanna see what else that thing has for prizes. That's totally fucked up, right? Wanting to see it again? I know, I know. I heard the next town over has started seeing it. Maybe it's gonna get where it's going sometime. I gotta catch it at least one more time before then.