Salt Creek Road is a seven-mile road in Brown County, Indiana. It and Sweetwater Trail connect Nashville, Indiana to Sweetwater Lake. The road is a very narrow two-lane road with sharp turns and grated bridges.
I was 22 at the time. I had gone with my buddies to watch the Monday Night Football game at the golf course bar, just outside Nashville. Halfway during the 3rd quarter, I told my friends I was done for the evening and heading home. I wasn’t terribly drunk, just a little tipsy at worst. I lived on Sweetwater Lake in my family’s lake house that they had owned for nearly sixty years.
I had only been on Salt Creek Road for a few minutes when I heard the approaching noise of a large truck. That’s odd, I thought to myself. There are many other ways a semi could get to the lake that were easier to travel. Deciding to let it pass me, I slowed down and pulled over. I saw the two yellow headlights coming closer, and then, nothing. The lights passed my car, but there was no source of the lights themselves. I could still hear the noises of the diesel engine, growing fainter and fainter. Passing it off as some drunken hallucination, I continued driving. That’s when I started to smell diesel fuel, and blood. In the distance I could see an orangish yellow light.
I feared it was a fire, and reached for my cell phone, but I stopped in shock as I saw the entire scene in front of me. A large semi-truck had careened off the road into Salt Creek, and the rocky cliffs on both sides. The engine had exploded, setting the contents of the truck on fire. The driver had been catapulted through the windshield and into a nearby tree, decapitating him. The body was still squirming, blood pouring out from his neck and everywhere else on his body. I pulled over and stepped outside, vomiting on the pavement. I had only dialed 9 when the body stopped squirming. It stood up, and it seemed to be facing me. The stench of his putrid breath from this far away told me that I wasn’t dreaming.
I thought I was safe when I had sped off in my car, but I looked in the mirror and realized it was still following me, at superhuman speeds. And it wasn’t even walking, but seemed to be floating a foot or so above the ground. I floored it, only wanting to get away from that demon.
On the side of the road were two on-duty officers, hidden just beyond a curve in the road. They camped out here frequently, hoping to catch drunk drivers before they crashed and killed themselves. I must have been doing 60 when I passed them, because they wasted no time starting after me. I didn’t bother stopping. I’d rather be in jail than be caught by whatever that thing was. I had just reached 80 when I missed a turn in the road, plowing into the empty cornfield. I wasn’t hurt, but the cops had caught up to me.
“Are you crazy son? What were you thinking going so fast on a country road?” They questioned me as they put handcuffs on me.
“Officer, there’s something after me. I passed a truck accident about 10 minutes ago - it was terrible. The driver had been decapitated, but it started running after me. It went faster than any human I’d ever seen, and I could barely outrun it at 30.”
“Lying to the authorities won’t get you anywhere. Let’s g-" But the officer stopped short as the piercing shriek of something inhuman rang out. We all turned around, and I got a closer look at the creature that had been following me. It was around 6 feet tall, with filthy clothes and a dagger in one hand. They raised their guns in return but in a flash it had advanced on us, decapitating one of the officers. The remaining unloaded his entire cartridge, but the bullets seemingly bounced off the creature, melting into molten shreds on the pavement. Having run out of ammo, we took no chances. The creature seemed faster this time, and it was now screaming every few seconds. It was the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard as the creature’s claws slashed the sides of the car. Part of the rear bumper fell off with a clunk and tripped the creature, which crashed into the pavement.
For a moment, we thought we had lost it. I didn’t see him behind us, but the officer gasped and swerved to avoid something. I turned around to see the creature in front of the car, his dagger outstretched and an evil grin stretched across the decapitated officer’s head. We didn’t slow down in time, and the sound of the collision was gruesome. The head fell off and stuck to the windshield, now laughing malevolently in the voice of the officer. The innards of the head were now starting to ooze onto the windshield.
He let me go without explanation. I never plan on driving on it again. Every few weeks, there’s a report of a decapitated person or farm animal around here. At night, I can hear the malevolent laughing of that creature, and the scratching at the windows. My dog will bark and grow. It’s been like this for 5 months, and I’m the only one that still knows what’s going on. The remaining officer mysteriously disappeared a month after the incident. I’ve tried to send e-mails, but they are immediately deleted from my sent box or my computer shuts down while I’m typing it. I keep receiving mail that says the same thing every time: I’m closer than you think.
Excuse me, I’m going to take a bath with my toaster now.