I live in Western New York, and was driving from Rochester back towards Buffalo on a highway that gets very little use (the Lake Ontario Parkway, for anyone who may know it.) It was late on a summer afternoon, and mine was the only car on the road, which is not uncommon on the parkway. At any rate, one of my tires blew. Spectacularly. The car came down with enough force to damage the wheel to the point where I couldn't remove it to put on the spare.
I spent about half an hour trying to remove the damaged wheel, and in that time not one car passed. Being a poor college student at the time, I didn't have a cell phone. I decided to walk back to the last overpass, and walk north towards the lake, figuring I would find a shop or someplace where I could call a tow.
I started walking, against the direction of traffic (if there had been any) and before I'd gone 1/2 mile, a minivan (with only the driver inside) drove up and stopped. I should note that the weather was perfect that day, and if I had just waved the van on, the worst I was in for would have been maybe a half an hour's walk along a country lane. But for reasons that I've never been able to recall, I threw out the "don't take rides from strangers" lesson that I'd learned more than a decade before, and got in the van.
***I need to jump forward in the story for a moment, hopefully the reason will be clear at the end.***
The van dropped me off at a tackle shop, and I called a tow truck and my father for a ride home.
About 5 years after the flat tire, I was telling the story to a friend, within earshot of my parents. When I got to the part about the guy in the van, my dad cut in. I'd never told him about the guy who gave me a ride. I thought about it, and he was right. Looking back on it, it seems like I didn't really remember it myself, even that same day. But as it came back to me, there were quite a few things that don't really make sense about it.
First, accepting the ride at all was completely uncharacteristic. But on top of that, I don't remember the driver actually offering (out loud) to give me a ride. That's when I really started thinking about just what had happened. From what I can recall of that ride, the man never spoke. Not when he stopped, and not while he drove me. The only time he even turned his head was when he was pulled over and was looking at me through the window. I don't remember making the decision to get in the van, but I do have a vague memory of feeling as though it wasn't a choice. Like I was always going to get in.
Also, the van itself wasn't quite right. Nothing sinister, but it was an older model Caravan, maybe late '80s, early '90s. You could tell it was an old van, but when I finally remembered, I also recalled that the interior was spotless. Immaculate. I have been in brand new cars with more dust on the dashboard than this one. It was also completely empty. No personal effects of any kind, including other keys. Just the ignition key, and not even a key ring on it.
I still have almost no memory of actually riding in the van. In my mind, the course of events goes: flat tire, van pulls over, *vague images of driving*, I get out of van at bait shop. (and the timeline doesn't allow for me to be repressing any "creepy-guy-in-the-van memories"
) I'd driven on that road maybe 20 times in the intervening years, but when I started to remember this it occurred to me that even the shop where I was dropped off made no sense. Because of the way the exits are laid out on the parkway, the driver would have to have made a U-turn, then drove for about 5 miles to come to the exit he would have used. If he had driven straight on (which would have been towards home for me) there was another exit (with other shops) maybe 4 or 5 miles on. Why wouldn't I have asked him to do that, since it was obviously in the same direction he was headed? No idea. I don't remember telling him where I wanted to go.
The oddest part about the whole thing to me is that I didn't really remember any of it. My father asked me how I'd gotten to the bait shop, and although I have no memory of this, I evidently responded, "I was just walking." With no further explanation.
Once in a while, I will recall little bits to add on to what I already have. The most recent one was the clock on the van's radio. I remember it was set to the wrong time. I'm not compulsive about clocks or anything like that. My own car's radio has the wrong time on it. But when I remembered the radio in the van, and that it was set to the wrong time, I flipped. It hit me at work and I was so put off by it that I hung up on a customer. I don't remember what the clock was set to, and it's more of a vague feeling about the clock than anything else, but when I say wrong, I mean it on a very basic level.
Anyhow, I know it's not the scariest account here, but I've never actually shared the whole story before, and this seemed a good place to do it.
