It was late december, in fact the night of Christmas Eve. The weather had become relatively mild compared to the last couple of days with sub zero temperatures.

John had been the only one available to make the delivery as he was the last in the team to apply for this year’s holiday leave, as usual. He would probably have been the assignee anyways, as he since the divorce weren’t considered to have the same obligations during holidays, or any other time for that matter. He wasn’t complaining about it, he liked his job, and driving “Big trucks” had been an interest of his as far back as he could remember. He didn’t even mind working night shifts, he liked being alone with the radio, for the season playing cheesy County Christmas carols. He even liked the roadside cafes and diners, or staying at truck stops for the night. It was almost like camping but with the possibility of actually locking the door behind him, crawling back in the truck’s rather narrow sleeping compartment, all by himself, reading whatever he wanted without anyone interrupting him.

He liked that. He had his collection of comic books, yes he still read them even though he was a full grown man. Of course he had his collection of literature of more adult nature as well, for moments of “self entertainment”. Well, literature was a bit of a stretch, really it was a bunch of dirty magazines he had been reading countless times already by now.

Needless to say, on top of everything, working nights and weekends sure was making a welcome contribution to his financial situation. And furthermore, it was a very effective way to keep his thoughts off of the divorce.

The snow had been falling pretty much all day, light at first, but it had intensified increasingly during the evening. The mild temperature had started to partly melt the icy landscape making the roads treacherously slippery and he had to use all of his driver skills and experience to keep close attention to all the little signs that could mean the difference between a smooth safe ride and basically the end to everything. He had seen quite a lot of accidents along the roads during his 30 years as a driver. In his head he sometimes pictured to himself scenes of accidents and flashing red and blue lights around a corner or beyond the crest of a hill. Luckily these were mostly just his imagination, maybe it helped him stay on his toes about the dangers that may be hiding behind the next turn.

The long narrow road had been winding through the woods and was now finally starting to open up as he rolled into a village. It was only around 10 pm so John was quite surprised about how quiet this small town was. The Christmas spirit seemed to have forgotten this place completely. It gave him a sense of unease, and he wondered this might be one of those abandoned old societies he heard about or had seen on TV. This place really gave him the creeps. He was happy just to be passing by.

He was just approaching a larger intersection with a fire station on one side and a gas station on the other, when suddenly a woman was running out right in front of him, waving her arms ferociously seemingly for him to stop. In panic he stepped on the brakes putting his entire weight on it, but the enormous vehicle just skidded on the slippery surface and the trailer started to Jack knife on him. “Noo, Noo, Noo!!!” he yelled, before he heard the heavy thump in the front. The brakes screeched loudly across the dark, and otherwise quiet night. He kept his foot on the brakes until eventually he came to a full stop. He couldn’t move. For at least a minute he was just sitting there, panting heavily, with his heart pounding so hard his ears got numb making the radio sound muffled. The radio slowly came back and went on with its relentless country carols as if nothing happened.

As he finally found the courage, he slowly opened the door. The cold of the snowy weather swept in, but he hardly even took notice of it. He looked around before he stepped out of the truck. The rhythmic sound of the truck’s engine still running was pretty much the only sound except for the flags at the gas station flapping in the wind and with the wires hitting the flagpoles. John looked around, he tried to see if anyone was there.

“Hello.” he said, “Hello! Anybody there?” he shouted, but still no reply. He couldn’t discover any trace of anyone actually being hit, either behind the vehicle or, he paused, under it. He was expecting something, screams, blood, a body, but nothing. He shuddered. Was this all his imagination?

He suddenly jolted and his stomach clenched when he heard a voice behind him.

“Thank you for stopping.”

He turned around and found himself looking straight into an almost pitch black pair of eyes. The eyes of the woman who had just been running out in front of him. Woman, or should he say girl. She looked to be in her lower 20’s at the most, long dark hair all wet by the falling snow, she was rather pale which he wondered probably was because she wore nothing else than a thin nightgown also soaked by the snow. The way her gown was falling over her body showed him she was quite slender, and the wet sheer gown was clinging around her revealing a rather nicely shaped body. He forced himself not to look at her breasts, tried to keep eye contact with her. There was something very special about this girl, she was cute, straight out gorgeous, yet, there was something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, something, in lack of a better word, haunting.

“Stopped? Eh, where?” he stuttered, still in shock from the accident.

“I stopped, yes, are you ok miss?” he continued.

“Are You ok?” she replied.

“Yes, eh, yes I’m ok.” He was ok, or was he. He had just hit this girl with his truck and she just asked him if He was ok.

“Yes I am ok, miss, but how are You?” She didn’t reply. “Are you cold?” he tried.

“Can I come with you?” she asked.

John didn’t know what to say, he lifted his cap and ran his hand through his hair.

“I don’t think you should, miss. Do you live here?” He was quite confused about all of this but business policy strictly forbids picking up hitchhikers, or what this would be called.

“Can I come with you?” she repeated, and her voice was sheer and fragile. This place was really crawling up on him and all he really wanted was to get out of here and get going.

“Look, miss,” he started, “I will get in trouble if I pick you up.” He paused, “Where do you live? I can give you a ride home, or maybe you need to go to a hospital?”

“You’re in trouble?” she asked.

Her question made him shudder. Hi couldn’t quite make out if it was a question, or a statement. Quite frankly he felt like he was in trouble? Where was he even? An empty town in the middle of nowhere, a girl who survives completely unharmed being hit by a truck. Nothing she said made any sense to him, and this conversation didn’t lead anywhere. But she seemed rather cold, he couldn’t just leave her out here on the street. Maybe, if he lets her ride with him and he lets her off on the way back tomorrow. At least, the truck is warm, and she could hide in the back during the loading.

“Listen miss, you seem cold, what if I let you ride in the truck, at least it will keep you warm and I’ll drive you back tomorrow, will that be ok?”

Every single word he just said made his stomach hurt, he really had a bad feeling about this.

“I am cold.” she replied and started to walk up towards the open door of the truck to climb inside, while John walked around the truck to check the front for signs of any damage, he didn’t wanna be pulled over because of a broken headlight, not now.

What he saw made him stop, the front was in fact quite severely damaged. The bumper and grill was pushed in pretty bad, he really had hit someone, or something. But, there was something else, he couldn’t make it out at first, but it almost looked like scratch marks. Two of them, slightly above and to either side of the main bump, almost looked like grip marks made by hands, or, this must have been caused by something way heavier, sharper. There were cuts spreading out from the imprints, like, claws, as if the grill had been soft as clay.

He reached out and touched the bump, the front of the heavy truck sure was hard. There was no way in hell this could have been made by hand, or “hands”. He glanced at the girl who now sat in the passenger seat, how did she survive a hit like this? Was this a prank, or one of those Christmas miracles. Who was she, or rather, what?

He bent down to look under the truck, was there anyone still under it, were there any leaks from the damage? No matter how hard he looked he didn’t discover anything and decided to go back inside the truck. Before he closed the door he looked at her. He tried to discreetly studdy her hands, delicate hands like that couldn’t have done damage like that, could they? Something wasn’t right here. She wasn’t right. Part of him wanted to throw her out and get the hell out of here, yet he felt pity for her, a girl all alone in an empty ghost town at night.

“You are afraid of me.” Her words made him wince. In fact he was, his heart was racing as if it wanted to leave his body. He summoned all the courage and came back to his senses.

“No,” he lied, struggling to keep his voice steady, “Of course not, are you ok?”

She just kept looking at him with her dark black eyes.

He closed the door. The truck made a loud wheezing noise as he released the brakes and he steered the truck back onto the main road, and sped on into the night.