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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/SunHeadPrime on 2023-07-02 20:57:31+00:00.
I didn’t hear it, but I knew what had happened as soon as my car’s power steering turned sluggish. The serpentine belt had finally snapped. I knew it needed to be replaced, but I pushed it off until my next paycheck. I just didn’t have the extra cash to do it. If I had known it would strand me in the middle of nowhere, I would’ve asked someone to spot me the money. With great difficulty and a string of curse words, I pulled the car to the side of the road and rolled to a stop.
“Well, this sucks,” I mumbled, shutting off my engine.
My car had died in a stretch of dense woods just outside the city. It was the last vestige of mother nature in the surrounding area. These woods were preserved by some forward-thinking city councilman decades ago who suggested that it might be a good idea to not cut down every single tree within city limits. The dude was proven right, and the woods became a hiker’s dream, but, at the moment, I was less than thrilled with being here. It would take at least an hour for any wrecker to come save me. Maybe more.
I cursed again and shook my head. At the speed I was driving, I was a mere ten minutes from passing through the woods and five more from pulling into my driveway. Now, I was here for the foreseeable future. Worse, my phone signal was spotty, and I left my book at home. I would be alone with my thoughts until the tow truck arrived. A scary thought, indeed.
I tried calling my insurance, but my phone had trouble finding a network. I tried three times. One dropped the call immediately, one got to the menu before dropping, and one just rang and rang before disconnecting. I was gonna need to walk around until I found a signal, or else I’d be stuck out here forever. Traffic was slow at this time of night, and I imagined that the few cars that would pass by wouldn’t be too keen to stop to help.
After all, hundreds of horror stories start out that way.
I looked up to the sky and uttered a prayer to whoever was up there listening. “Send me some help, huh? Maybe a lost tow truck driver?”
About thirty feet behind me, red and blue lights started glowing. I looked up in my rearview and sighed. Yes, a cop could help, but they were last on my list of people I wanted to see. I’d rather see Bigfoot promising to throw me to safety than the boys in blue.
To say that I have a “strained” relationship with the police would be polite and way short of how I truly feel. It started when, at seven, I saw the cops illegally detain, search, and beat my dad during a routine traffic stop. Even with his wife and kids in the car, the cops accused him of having warrants (he didn’t) and of having concealed drugs in the car (again, he didn’t). They took him out, illegally searched him before claiming he was resisting, and threw him to the ground. He broke his arm in the encounter and was charged with resisting arrest and obstruction – both charges were later dropped. He had arm pain for the rest of his life, though.
According to the report, the reason for the initial stop was the unforgivable sin of failing to signal. His arm never worked right after that and was painful for the rest of his life.
There’s no feeling more helpless than watching uniformed men exact violence on a person you love, and you know there is nothing you can do to stop it. To watch a man you look up to, your own Superman, be made low by petty men hardens you. When you start with that as a foundational memory of the police, it’s not hard to see why I don’t back the blue.
I must’ve been inside my own head because I didn’t notice the figure walking up to the car until they were just behind my bumper. I rolled down my window and waited for them to ask for my license and registration. I tried not to look but kept peaking up in the rearview. After about a minute of waiting for the cop to come to my car, I started getting worried something nefarious was afoot. Why wasn’t this guy coming to my window?
“You lost?” a flat, monotone voice called out. It was the cop.
“No,” I said, trying to turn in my seat but not look like I was reaching for something. “Having car trouble.”
“Car trouble,” the cop repeated.
“Yep. I think it’s the serpentine belt,” not sure why I needed to add that extra information.
Suddenly, a bright beam shone through my back window and into the car. It scanned back and forth briefly before the cop asked, “Are you alone currently?”
That was an unsettling question. “I’m waiting on someone to come help. Should be here any minute now.”
“Need some help?”
“Not unless you have a spare serpentine belt and some tools.”
“I do not,” he said flatly before adding, “Are you currently alone?”
I swallowed. “No, you’re here too.”
He didn’t seem to appreciate my little joke. He reached for his sidearm and said, “Stay inside your car. Do not move.”
“I don’t have any weapons, man. That’s not necessary,” I pleaded.
“I am approaching your vehicle. Do not move,” the cop said, taking a few cautious steps toward me.
I froze but kept an eye on the rearview mirror. I wasn’t sure what this guy would do, but I feared it wouldn’t be amazing for me. I kept my hands on the wheel and prayed he didn’t pull out his gun. He got within two feet of my car and stopped. He kept his hand hovering near his gun.
“Why are you out here so late?”
“I was at work and lost track of time.”
“Do you live near these woods?”
That was an odd question, but I let it slide. “No,” I said, “I live in the suburbs up the road.”
“Suburbs,” he said as if it was the first time his mouth had tried uttering the phrase.
“Yep, suburbs,” I said as politely as I could muster.
“Are you alone currently?”
I was confused. He had to be able to see into my car. He had to see just one dude in here. Unless he thought I was hiding someone in my glove box, why did he keep asking me that? “Yes. For now.”
His radio squawked at his shoulder. He jerked like the noise spooked him. When he jumped, I gripped the steering wheel hard. I assumed he would do something violent and braced for the blow. It didn’t come, though. Instead, the cop plucked the radio off his shoulder and held it up to his face, confused.
“Units, be advised about a potential small aircraft crash in the woods near mile marker fifty-six along Lincoln highway. An investigative team is en route to confirm and establish a perimeter. Any nearby teams come back.”
I was on Lincoln Highway and hadn’t seen or heard any crash. When I pulled over, I had passed a marker for mile fifty-eight. There is no way a plane crashed, and I missed it. Did something else happen? I had just finished watching Chernobyl the other week, and the thought of a plane crash being cover for a more serious event seemed very plausible. Especially since I knew we were near some chemical factories. For a fleeting second, the thought of being strangled to death by toxic chemicals overtook my fear of being strangled by an overly aggressive cop.
“Should you guys go check that out?” I asked. “It’s not too far back.”
“There was no plane crash,” the cop said.
“Oh,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“No crash,” he repeated.
“Okay...but,” I said, unable to help myself, “shouldn’t you, like, tell them that? So they don’t send a team out there for nothing?”
The cop stood up and stared out into the woods. Something had caught his attention. I turned towards the woods, hoping to get a glimpse, but I saw nothing. He pulled out his flashlight and shined it into the densely packed trees. He slowly scanned it from right to left as if he was looking for something.
“Did you hear something out there or…” I trailed off.
“Are you alone currently?” the cop asked again.
“Yes,” I said, my attention drifting to those dark woods. “Is there something out there?”
“Yes,” the cop said in his cold, flat way.
I swallowed hard. “What is it? A deer?” I asked, trying to remain hopeful.
The cop didn’t respond. He flashed his light five times in quick succession and then twice in slow bursts. It looked like a message in Morse code or something, but since I wasn’t a sailor or born at the turn of the last century, I had no idea. He did it once more before shutting the flashlight off for good.
I turned my attention away from the now-dark woods and back to the motionless cop. “What was that?” I asked.
“A signal to my partner,” the cop said.
“What partner?”
There was a tapping on my passenger glass. I snapped around and saw another cop standing next to my car. I hadn’t seen nor heard him approach. He never leaned down, so I didn’t get a good look at his face, but he seemed to move and behave like his partner. Also, like his partner, he kept his hand near his weapon.
“Please do not reach for anything,” the partner said in a similarly monotone voice. It almost sounded identical to the first cop.
Visions of my dad’s beating came to me at that moment. It might have been irrational to some people, but once you’ve been touched by state violence, it sticks with you. You can’t turn it off because it makes you uncomfortable. Regardless of the result, you’re forced to sit in it until the moment passes.
“I’m not reaching for anything. I’ve barely moved this entire stop,” I said, feeling my anger rising.
“Be mindful of your tone,” the first cop said.
I let out a laugh because this whole goddamn encounter was a joke. I knew a laugh, even a nervous one, was a trigger for some police, but I couldn’t help it. Sometimes the absurdity of li...
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