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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Glittering-Slip2879 on 2024-09-30 01:52:35+00:00.

I used to be a trucker. Was for about 10 years I think? I don’t do driving anymore. Try to limit as much as I can, even outside of work.

Now, I don’t have a fear of driving. I have a fear of destinations. Every time you get into a car, you have a destination in mind. A place you wanna go. Even if you don’t have a specific place in mind, that place is just away.

The saying “it’s about the journey, not the destination”? Bullshit. When is the car ride to your vacation spot the fun part of the trip? Never. Usually just awkwardly quiet. That’s besides the point though. What I hate the most though, is driving through the Midwest. I swear, every single one of those towns is just the same. Identical. Cookie cutter. Gas station, few neighborhoods, corner store. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

Its mid summer. I’ve been going through miles and miles of just cornfields, as far as the eye can see. Flat fields of corn. Oddly beautiful during the day, like a sea of green spreading out there. During the night though, you can only imagine what might be hiding in those cornstalks. As a trucker, you have to remain vigilant. If something, or for some god forsaken reason, someone, were to dart out, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Just don’t like the fields at night.

I’m on route 23, somewhere between Iowa and Nebraska, and its getting dark. When it gets dark in the midwest, all you have is the lights on your truck, and the light of the moon. Here’s something you might not know, the majority of large truck crashes happen in rural areas. I personally have had some of my closest calls in rural areas. Just nothing for miles, not even a turn in the road, and your brain basically just starts to turn off, go on autopilot.

Never a good thing when your mind starts to wander while operating a 30 ton killing machine. So, when I start to get tired, I start to look for a place to rest for the night. That’s what I was doing when I stumbled across exit 202.

I had driven down this route a good few times before, but this exit was new to me. I just figured there might have been some new development since the last time I had been down the route. I was curious, tired, and hungry, so I took the exit, and headed down the road.

Corn. That’s all I can say, corn. This road was narrow, a struggle to stay in my lane as the highway ended and gave way to a mostly neglected road, unkempt and rough. Looking into the distance, there was nothing. No lights. No buildings. Not even another car on the road. Just corn. So much corn.

Then that’s when I saw it. A small clearing on the side of the road, with a large neon pink sign beckoning me closer.

Mabel’s Diner. Getting closer, it looked like it was on its last legs. The light was dim, flickering in the night. From what I could see from the safety of my truck, the diner looked rusted and near decrepit. Although, an open sign and lights within, with no where else to go, I hopped out of my truck and entered the building.

As I entered, a weak sounding bell heralded my entry. The place was nearly empty, with a few patrons who barely even looked up from their plates as I walked in. The waitress behind the counter looked at me with a dull gaze. This poor woman seemed exhausted. As if she had been working here as long as the building had been. Her name tag was only more proof of this, reading Mabel. I just asked for the house special, and she served me some pretty basic eggs and sausage with a tired smile.

My nose began to sniffle. I’ve always had allergies. Something about this place though, was especially bad. Like stuck in a hayloft bad. My nose just would not stop leaking, my eyes were starting to water, and I was severely starting to regret not taking my allergy medicine earlier.

As I ate, my mind began to wander. The food was just forgettable. It was sustaining, but utterly unfulfilling. Makes sense why the place looked so worn down, who would come all the way out here for this?

That’s when a big feeling of unease began to creep into my chest. The place was silent. Not a single noise. There is always noise no matter where you go. Scraping of utensils on plates, quiet murmuring, hell, even the humming of lights or even a fly buzzing past.

The place was just utterly silent. I quickly paid for my meal, throwing down a wad of cash as I left, leaving all of the disheveled patrons behind me. I walked out into that pitch black parking lot, and came to a terrible realization.

The parking lot was empty.

Not a single vehicle was out there, including my truck. It was gone. I was stranded in this horrible place. I pulled out my phone, tried calling my boss, and of course because I’m in the middle of nowhere, no signal, and no escape. I heard a faint jingle of a bell opening, and a cold voice cutting through my chest. Mabel, she said to me,

“Oh dear, your truck gone? Come on in, stay a while. We’ll call someone for you.”

She stood so still in the doorframe, a silhouette dimly lit by the dingy light behind her. When people stand still, they still move. Their chest rises and falls as they breathe. Maybe a drum of their fingers against their leg. A small shifting back and forth in their stance. But she was deathly still, like a mannequin. It wasn’t just that, but her voice just sounded…wrong. Flat, hollow. I was filled with a sense of dread, like if I followed along with her, I would not be leaving that diner.

So I slowly turned around, and began walking back the way I came. Maybe if I made it back to the highway, I could hail someone down and get to a place to fill in my boss, and figure out what to do about my truck. And I walked. And I walked, and I walked, and I walked. The corn all around me, so utterly alone. It was dark. No lights, no nothing. Just the rustling of corn and the moonlight to guide me.

Then I heard that piercing voice again. “Stay a while. We’ll keep you company.” I spun around, and there she stood, standing in the road, deathly still. “Stay a while.”

The corn to my sides shifted as some of the patrons of the bar slowly made their way out. Now looking closer, I came to a terrible realization. The reason they were silent, the reason they didn’t even seem to breathe. In the glimmer of the moonlight, as they approached me, I saw what they really were. Their skin was stretched tight, more of a mask than their own flesh. Peeking from underneath the seams of their skin, around their neck, was straw, poking out from between the stitches that held them together. They grabbed me, holding onto me with a strength I had never felt before. Mabel just got closer and closer to me. I trashed against their grip, screaming and crying against the men who were holding me back.

Mabel only got closer, her cold, dead, eyes staring into me. “Stay a while.” Her hand stretched out, touching my neck, an icy stillness spreading through my body.

Adrenaline is one hell of a drug. I kicked her right in the stomach, with all of my strength. It was like kicking a brick wall. She stumbled back, looking more confused than shocked. The men’s grip on my loosened just barely enough, and I broke loose, running as fast as I could for the highway. My heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through, letting me push past the ache and pain of my joints and my ragged gasping for air. I kept running and running, running past the burn of my lungs and the tightness of my throat.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally saw headlights in the distance. I waved my arms, screaming until my voice gave out, and he stopped for me. I explained my situation, that someone was trying to kill me. He let me into his car, and started driving to a nearby town. Toward the diner. I began to panic, to tell him to turn around to the highway, that the people who attacked me were this way.

And he looked at me confused. That the highway was nowhere nearby. That there was no “Mabel’s Diner.” That there was no exit 202.

A feeling of pure fear flooded me. We drove for a while, and as I saw the lights of the town in the distance, the man was right. There were no signs of my assailants. There were no signs of the diner. No signs of my truck. The cornfields ended, and I was greeted by a small midwestern town. The man dropped me off at the local police station, and I gave them my statement. I called my boss about the situation, and they sent someone in the area to swing by and bring me back home.

When I got back and tried reporting my truck and all its details, they gave me the most confusing revelation yet. My truck was still in the garage. Only when I went to check on it, it wasn’t the same truck. Different license plate, the color was a different shade, and the keys in my pocket, did not work on this one. I brought it up to my supervisor, and he looked just as confused as I did. The keys didn’t go to any truck in the garage, or any on the record ever. I still have the keys now, not sure what to do with them. I quit pretty soon after, not a big fan of leaving my town, much less the state. Especially those cornfields. God I hate those cornfields. I’m just trying to separate from it all. I’m worried that this might be a curse for me, cause on the highway to get my groceries today, I saw an exit 143.

And despite all the information I look for it online, there is no exit 143.