HIGHWAY 19

“The Gas Station on Highway 19”

Report filed from Iron Junction Station, 10:47 p.m.

I’d been driving long enough that the night felt like a substance instead of an absence.

The highway was one of those old two‐lane state roads that wound through nothing inparticular, pine, swamp, the occasional rusted gate. No billboards, no towns, just an endless tunnel of black with my headlights carving out a little cone of reality in front of me.

Louisiana back roads at night have a way of getting under your skin. The dark feels thicker there, like you could take a knife and slice into it. The air presses against the windows; the cicadas buzz in waves you can feel in your teeth. After a couple of hours of that- your mind starts to wander to places you don’t want it to go.

My gas gauge had been nudging toward empty for the last twenty miles.

I knew better than to let it get that low out here, but there hadn’t been anywhere to stop. No exits, no lit signs, nothing.

Then, finally, a rectangle of light appeared ahead, floating in the dark like a mirage.

An old gas station sat at the crossroads, the kind built sometime in the 60s and left to age badly. One flickering fluorescent over the pumps, a bug‐splattered sign with half the letters burned out, a single pickup truck parked crooked along the side.

I pulled in a little too fast, relief and nerves tangled together.

Up close, the place didn’t lookabandoned exactly, but it had that neglected feel like dust layered on the windows, hand painted specials long out of date, the sort of place where the credit card machine might or might not work.

The lights were on inside. That was something.

I decided to check before I bothered with the pump. Locking my car behind me, I walked up to the glass door and cupped my hands around my eyes to peer in.

Someone stood behind the counter, it was a thin old man in a faded work shirt, motionless as if he’d been carved there.

He watched me watching him. Didn’t wave. Didn’t smile. Just gave a slow, almost reluctant nod, like gravity had pulled his chin down an inch.

I cracked the door open. A bell over it gave a tired jingle.

“You open?” I asked.

Another nod.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m gonna fill up, then come in to pay.”

He made a noncommittal sound something between “mm” and “uh‐huh.”

His eyes hadn’t left my face.

Fine. Social skills weren’t part of his job description.

I went back out to the pump, set the nozzle, and started filling the tank.

The air felt even heavier out from under the fluorescent.

The only sounds were the tick of the meter, the distant hum of the old soda machine, and the relentless chorus of insects.

That’s when I heard footsteps on gravel.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

The voice came from my right. I flinched and turned.

A woman stood a few yards away, just outside the circle of light.

Thirty‐something maybe, hard to tell under the yellowish glow.

Long hair pulled back, plain T‐shirt and jeans. Nothing remarkable except

for the fact that I hadn’t seen her anywhere when I pulled in.

I scanned the lot. Still just my car and the pickup- which looked like it hadn’t moved in a week. No other vehicles. No sign of anyone else.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said. “My car broke down up the road a bit.

Any chance I could catch a ride to the next town?”

Her voice was soft, polite. Not a hitchhiker drawl, not obviously drunk or messed up. Just... ordinary.

But something in me tightened.

There was a little hitch between her request and the rest of the night, like bad editing in a film.

I replayed the drive in my head; dark highway, empty shoulders, no hazards, no tail lights, no car with the hood up.

“I didn’t see anything broken down,” I said carefully.

“It’s a ways back.” She gestured vaguely into the dark. “Pulled off onto a side road. You probably missed it in the dark. I’ve been walking a while.”

The explanation was plausible. Everything was plausible out here. That was the problem.

My skin buzzed with the kind of instinct I’d learned not to ignore. This was a high‐crime state. I don’t like people in my car at the best of times, let alone strangers from nowhere in the middle of the night on a road no one else seemed to be using.

“I’m... not really comfortable giving rides,” I said. “Sorry. Maybe you can use the phone inside? The guy working might let you call someone.”

She shifted her weight, like she’d expected that answer and hadn’t. “Actually,” she said, “do you mind if I borrow your phone? Just for a quick call. Mine’s dead.”

My phone was in the car. Even if it hadn’t been, every hair on my arms was already standing up. “I don’t have it on me,” I lied. “And it’s dead anyway. Best bet is inside. There’s gotta be a landline.”

She stared at me for a second, long enough that the pump clicked off behind me with a sharp, final clunk.

“Fair enough,” she said.

There was no anger in her tone. No guilt‐tripping. Just two words and a closed door feeling. “Yeah. Sorry,” I said again, because I’m polite even when I’m creeped out. “Good luck.”

I put the nozzle back, screwed on my gas cap, and turned toward the station door to go pay.

“Hey,” she called after me.

The word snapped at the back of my neck like a rubber band. I turned.

She was standing exactly where she’d been, same distance from the light, the gas station glow drawing a soft line down the center of her face.

“Yeah?” I said.

She smiled.

It wasn’t a big smile, or overtly threatening. Just a slow, spreading curve that never reached her eyes.

“You made the right decision not giving me a ride,” she said.

The cicadas seemed to cut out for a moment. Or maybe it was just my blood roaring in my ears.

“What?” I asked, before I could stop myself.

Her smile widened a fraction, teeth showing now. Still no warmth.

“Have a good night,” she said, and took a step back into the dark.

By the time my eyes adjusted, there was nothing to see. No motion between the pumps, no figure crossing toward the road. Just darkness and bugs and the flicker of the station light.

The bell jingled weakly as I went back inside. The old man behind the counter didn’t look surprised to see me, or disturbed. He rang up the sale with slow, practiced motions.

“Everything all right out there?” I asked, because I had to say something.

He slid my receipt across the counter. His hand shook, just a little.

“Pump work?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then everything’s fine,” he said.

It wasn’t an answer, but I took it.

When I pulled back onto the highway, my hands were tight on the wheel. I checked the mirrors more than I needed to. The road behind me stayed empty for miles.

Eventually the night thinned. Other cars appeared. The dark became ordinary again.

Still, every once in a while, when I’m driving a long empty stretch and see someone standing at the shoulder with their thumb out or their hazard lights blinking, I think about that woman under the gas station light.

The way she looked at me when she said I’d made the right decision.

I think about how I never heard a car start up behind me. Never saw tail lights in the mirror.

And I keep driving.