AN ENCOUNTER ON THE DARK ROAD

In 2004, Misty Tasker was a typical American teenager living in Live Oak, Florida, a small town right in the middle of the state. One Saturday evening in January, she and her mother attended a church service. Afterward, they hopped into her mother's truck, got on the country highway, and began their journey back home. Their house was just a 20-minute drive down this highway. Despite being a highway, it was a pretty dirty road, with thick forests on both sides for the entire way.Misty's mother was already a very anxious driver who kept both hands on the wheel, sitting up and hunching over it, her eyes intently focused on the road. She would go to great lengths to avoid driving at night, but the church service they had just attended had run a little long. So now Misty's mother was driving as fast as she could to try and get home before it got too dark.As they sped down the road at about 55 miles per hour, Misty, who was in the passenger seat, happened to look over at her mother for no particular reason. As she did, she noticed something out of her mother's window: it looked like a little girl was sitting on the side of the road. She said to her mom, "I think I just saw a little girl. We need to go back and make sure she's okay."Misty's mom glanced over at her, clearly reluctant to turn the car around. "Did you really see someone? We need to get home," she said. But Misty insisted, "Mom, I'm sure I saw a little girl. We have to go back." Finally, very annoyed, Misty's mother stopped the car, made a U-turn, and began driving back up the road toward where they had seen the girl.As they slowly rolled down the road, they both saw the little girl a little way up on the right side. Her back was to the road, her knees tucked up to her chest as she rocked back and forth. Misty's mother commented that it was surprising to see a girl out here. As they got closer, they realized she wasn't a little girl but a young teenager.As they drove right past her, they expected her to turn around and acknowledge the car creeping up on her, but she didn’t. She just continued to have her knees up to her chest, rocking back and forth. Misty and her mother were a little freaked out by this, but they drove past her about 50 meters. Misty's mother made another U-turn, but when they looked back down the road, she wasn’t there anymore. There were no streetlights, and it was now almost completely pitch dark outside. All they had were the headlights.Misty and her mother slowly rolled back down the road, keeping their eyes on both sides, but after traveling for several minutes, they decided that the girl must have just gone back into the woods. Misty's mom began picking up speed, and before long, they had gone maybe two or three miles away from where they had seen the girl. They were coming up to a four-way intersection with stop signs all around it.As they got close, Misty's mother gasped because, on the other side of the intersection, there was the girl again, sitting on the side of the road with her back to it, her knees up, and rocking back and forth. Misty's mother pulled up at the stop sign, and both women were stunned at what they were seeing. They had just seen her two or three miles back down the road; it wasn’t possible for her to have gotten all the way up here.Misty's mother looked at her daughter and asked, "Do you think it's a different girl?" Misty replied, "No, that's the same girl." They just sat there for a minute until Misty started to panic and said, "Mom, don’t stop! I have a bad feeling about this girl. I don’t know what's going on, but you can't stop next to her."But Misty's mom didn't feel good about abandoning this girl in the middle of the night on the side of the highway. Despite feeling hesitant herself, she let off the brake and began slowly rolling past the intersection. By this point, Misty was absolutely terrified. She took off her seat belt, went down into the footwell in front of her seat, closed her eyes, and covered her ears, begging her mother, "Please keep going, don't stop!" But her mother continued until she stopped right next to the girl.Misty's mother turned to her daughter and said, "Please roll down your window." Misty refused, so her frustrated mother reached across the passenger seat and grabbed the knob to roll down the window manually. Misty kept her eyes on her mom, who suddenly recoiled in horror and screamed. Then she took off, flying down the road.Misty jumped out of the footwell and looked at her mom. "What’s happening? What just happened? What did you see?" Her mom had her hand over her mouth and was crying, unable to find the words to describe what she had just seen. Finally, her mother said, "She didn’t have a face! It was hollow; there was nothing on her face when she looked at me." Her mom was crying as they sped home.They ran inside, practically falling over each other to get into the house. Misty’s mom called 911, but she didn’t even know how to describe what she had just seen. Embarrassed to try to explain it as a girl without a face sitting by the highway, she just told the police that they had seen a girl who might need help. The police searched the entire stretch of the highway but found no trace of the girl.