Fast Food Horror - Season 2 Episode 7 - The Rest Stop

I'm sharing this story here. You can decide if its fact or fiction...

Episode Transcript

(00:37):
Welcome listeners to this installment of fastFood Horror with this tale entitled The Rest
Stop by E. J. Miller. There are countless scary stories I could

(01:07):
tell here, Tells of things thatgo bump in the night, of things
that lurk in the shadows, ofgoblins and ghouls, and other frights stories
the depraved or the unimaginable, worstof the human experience only thought of in
nightmares, or the recounting of trueactual events. This is one of those.

(01:33):
I won't tell you which the latteror the former. You'll have to
decide on your own. I'll onlysay that I have spoken to many people
about this subject about what I'm aboutto share with you, that if it's
fiction, how it should be portrayed, there are very many that are very
emotional about that, and if thestory is real, way too many questions

(01:57):
to field from the same. Herewe go. I had taken my wife
and three daughters down to Raleigh fora soccer match. My youngest was a
very very big Alex Morgan fan,and she was scheduled to play that night.
I don't have a lot of money, and this would be the closest
she would ever get to us so, trying to be a good dad,

(02:22):
I got us tickets. I hadto cut a lot of corners to make
it work. We drove halfway theday before, subsisting on two large coolers
of sandwiches and other things we hadpacked, stayed the night in a campground
instead of a hotel or a motel, then drove right to the field that
day, arriving minutes before kickoff.We took in the game, and to

(02:45):
save cash and time, when thematch was over, autograph signed, merch
purchased. We loaded the kids backinto the mini van to head home that
night. Like I said, Ihave a lot of money. I couldn't
rightly afford a hotel, stay orcampground, extend the mini van rental and

(03:07):
a day of meals since the coolerswere low, so I intended to drive
straight through to Buffalo ten hours.That's right, sounds crazy, right,
I figured, with coffee and somered bull I could do it. We
made good time getting out of NorthCarolina and then on through Virginia. However,

(03:30):
the problems didn't start until West Virginiainto the mountains, the mist and
the fog of Appalachia. It madeseeing very tough through those twisty mountain roads,
bending right and left, then upfor no reason. I knew with
one wrong turn we'd be off,falling into the abyss. I had to

(03:52):
take things very slow, well slowerthan I'd like, only driving as fast
as my headlights. It was alsoabout then that the third or was it
the fourth red Bull started to wearoff. I felt like I was going
to crash, not the vehicle,just I got really, really tired,

(04:15):
so I let my wife drive fora while while I tried to nap.
But about thirty or forty minutes intothe drive, she really wasn't having the
mountain driving either. It was scaringher as well, the darkness and the
fog, not knowing if the roadwas going to turn or end, so
she pulled over at an overlook andwoke me up. I was rather groggy,

(04:38):
and we were in the middle ofnowhere, if you want to call
high up on a mountain, surroundedby forest and darkness nowhere. I urged
her to drive a bit further,hoping to find somewhere safer. After another
fifteen minutes, she pulled off intoa rest stop parked in the rear of
the lot, and we joined thegirls in a nap. I set my

(05:00):
phone to wake me up in anhour. I just needed to close my
eyes a little bit longer and thatI could power through. Maybe the fog
would lift. Maybe with a littlebit of sleep it would be easier,
Maybe the sugar crash would wear off. I remember watching one of those documentaries
in school when I was a kid. It was concerning the parts of the

(05:23):
human brain. You probably remember watchinga high school too. The cerebellum,
the temporal lobe, the brain stem, and the amygdala and limbic system.
Those last two are the primal parts, the parts of your brain that automatically
detect danger, the survival parts.And mine woke me up from a dead

(05:46):
sleep, like my body was shotwith a current of electricity. My eyes
flew open, and I was immediatelylooking around my surroundings, not knowing or
questioning why, but quickly and efficientlylooking all about. Not in the minivan,
not the interior where my family layasleep, but my eyes immediately began

(06:08):
scanning what was in the woods orsurrounding us, looking, scanning with a
feverish intent for the danger I knewinnately was there, and then my eyes
locked on it. Forty yards upthe hill directly in front of us,
Illuminated only by the moonlight and stars, it stood watching me, watch it,

(06:33):
watching me with a predatory gaze,with red eyes. It stood maybe
seven feet tall, a large,framed, hulking thing that easily tipped the
scales at four hundred pounds, withbroad shoulders, long, well muscled arms

(06:54):
extended well past its waist. Itwas not a person. It was too
large to be that, and whatlittle I could see of it appeared to
be covered with some dark fur.I could not see its face, aside
from the eyes, whose stare hadnot broken From my position, I watched

(07:15):
as it slowly made its way downthe slope, long careful strides, arms
swinging corresponding to each footstep, purposefuland slow, like a lion creeping on
its prey, getting ready to pounce. Ever decreasing the gap. Again,
that part of my brain, thatprimal, basic part of my brain,

(07:39):
engaged, and it screamed survive.I pulled my wife from the driver's side
of the minivan and quickly leapt behindthe wheel. She woke with a start.
Our eyes locked, and we bothheard a howl from outside the minivan,
emanating from the mountain. I wasjust watching and ang angry howell.

(08:01):
She scurried into the back of theminivan, demanding what it was in a
panic voice, what had happened?What was outside? I started the minivan
and put it into a reverse andgund it. The engines roar, not
loud enough to mass the roar ofthe thing now running towards us. As
I exited the parking lot, Ilooked in the rear view mirror and saw

(08:22):
it standing there, eyes glowing,chest heaving at the edge of the parking
lot, enraged, a dark thingwith long, muscular arms and legs covered
completely in dark, matted fur.I looked back at my wife, who
was holding our two youngest, ourthird behind her, clutching her neck.

(08:43):
My wife's primal brain had kicked inas well, without hesitation, understanding protect
the young. The rest of theparts of my brain finally started to kick
in as we put distance between usand it, and as the questions started
to flood from the rear of theminivan of what it was, what was

(09:07):
chasing us. The only thing thatcame out of my mouth was the thing
that didn't sound as crazy as thetruth. Because the truth, well,
I said the only thing I couldthink of, A bear,