[yokonaga]
Hitchhiking
This happened about seven years ago.
I had just graduated from college, but I hadn’t found a job yet.
I’ve always been the type who doesn’t act unless I’m cornered (cramming the night before exams was my usual style),
so I kept telling myself, “Eh, it’ll all work out somehow,” and just kept working part-time jobs.
Then, one blazing hot summer day that year, I was lazing around talking with my troublemaker of a friend, Kazuya (not his real name),
and somehow the conversation turned into, “Let’s hitchhike across Japan.”
And just like that, we got totally wrapped up in the idea.
Before I go on, let me briefly introduce this so-called friend.
Kazuya went to the same university as me—we met around the time we enrolled.
He’s a total womanizer, the kind of guy who thinks with his downstairs brain more than his upstairs one.
But deep down, he’s ridiculously cheerful and doesn’t have a deceitful bone in his body.
He’s the kind of guy who gets into a mess with women but still ends up having lots of guy friends.
Out of all of them, I was probably the one he clicked with most.
Our personalities were polar opposites—he was outgoing and upbeat,
while I was way more reserved—but somehow, we just got along.
Let’s get back to the hitchhiking plan.
Well, “plan” might be a bit generous—it was pretty half-baked.
The idea was to fly up to Hokkaido, then hitchhike all the way back down to our hometown in Kyushu.
Kazuya, being the woman-chaser he is, had his own pervy goal: “At least one hookup with a girl in every region we pass through!”
I mean… I wasn’t exactly not hoping for that kind of excitement either.
Kazuya had long hair tied back in a ponytail and looked kind of like a sleek bartender—
he actually worked part-time at a nightclub—so when we went out to pick up girls,
he definitely knew how to help me score.
Anyway, after all that talk, we submitted requests for long vacation time from our part-time jobs.
(I was actually planning to quit mine anyway, so I just left. Kazuya managed to get time off.)
We booked our flight to Hokkaido, packed a bunch of clothes into huge backpacks, brought some cash, and three weeks after the idea was born,
we were already up in the air.
We landed in Sapporo, grabbed some lunch, and wandered around the city for a bit.
Maybe it was the stress of flying—I wasn’t used to planes—but by evening, I was wiped and headed back to the hotel early.
Kazuya, of course, disappeared into the night.
He didn’t come back that night.
The next morning, I ran into him again in the hotel lobby.
He was smirking and making an “OK” sign with his fingers.
Looked like he’d scored with some girl he picked up.
And so, the hitchhike officially began.
Neither of us had ever done anything like this before, so we were both kind of giddy about it.
We didn’t have any concrete schedule like “let’s reach this distance by this date”—
our plan was more like, “let’s just go as far as we can each day.”
That said… turns out, cars don’t just pull over that easily.
We stuck our thumbs out for about an hour without a single car slowing down.
While we were standing around talking—saying stuff like, “Maybe it’s easier at night?”—
finally, about an hour and a half in, a car stopped.
It was only going to another part of the same city, but at least it was headed south—so technically, we were making progress.
Even short rides feel rewarding when you're hitchhiking.
And that theory about it being easier to get rides at night?
Surprisingly accurate.
Most of our rides ended up being long-haul truckers.
They covered a lot of ground, and honestly, none of them seemed sketchy.
Super efficient.
By day three, we were getting the hang of it.
We started buying small gifts at convenience stores—
like cigarettes for truck drivers and candy for regular folks—just to thank them.
The cigarettes were especially well-received.
Even when we hitched rides in regular cars, Kazuya’s gift for chatting filled the car with laughter.
Some of the rides came from groups of two or three girls, too—
and, yeah… we had a couple of really nice encounters.
By day four, we’d already reached Honshu.
We were getting the hang of it.
We took time to enjoy the local specialties in each town, and leaned into the whole “you only meet people once in a lifetime” vibe.
We made sure to hit public baths whenever we could and decided to sleep at internet cafés every other night to save money.
Sometimes drivers even let us crash at their homes out of kindness—which we really appreciated.
But then it happened.
Something that would become a lifelong trauma for both of us.
It was about two weeks into our trip, in a deeply rural, mountainous part of the Kōshin region.
Out of nowhere, we heard:
“Hey hey, pussy pussy, wanna lick that pussy~? Licky-lick~ Licky-lick~”
Whenever it was just the guys, Kazuya had this habit—he’d start belting out filthy songs. That night was no different.
It had been about two hours since we got dropped off at this rundown roadside convenience store, and no cars had stopped since.
To make things worse, the muggy summer heat had us completely wiped out.
Between the exhaustion and the weather, we were both in this weird, loopy mood.
Kazuya: “Man, getting dumped off at a convenience store in the middle of nowhere? This sucks. Maybe we should’ve just begged that last guy to let us crash at his place.”
He wasn’t wrong.
The driver who gave us our last ride had mentioned he lived about ten minutes down the road from this very store.
But it’s not like we knew where his house was, so there wasn’t anything we could’ve done anyway.
The time? Just a little past midnight.
We decided to take 30-minute shifts—one of us would stand out and thumb for rides, while the other cooled off inside the convenience store.
When we explained the situation to the store manager, he said:
Store Manager: “Hang in there, guys. Worst case, if you really can’t get out of here, I’ll drive you into town myself.”
That kind of warmth, the kindness you find in rural places, it really hit home.
An hour and a half passed. Still no luck. Barely any cars on the road at all.
Kazuya had already struck up a solid rapport with the manager, and we were just starting to consider accepting his offer when it happened.
A single camper van pulled into the convenience store’s parking lot.
That was the beginning—
The beginning of a nightmare I’ll never forget.
スポンサーリンク
The driver’s side door opened, and a man walked into the convenience store.
He looked to be in his 60s, more or less.
He was dressed oddly—wearing a wide-brimmed cowboy-style hat and a business suit.
I happened to be inside the store at that moment and casually watched him.
He started tossing random stuff into a shopping basket—tons of band-aids, and two big 1.5-liter bottles of Coke.
While paying at the register, he stared straight at me as I browsed through a magazine.
Something about it gave me the creeps.
But I ignored the stare and kept reading.
Eventually, the man left the store.
It was about time to switch shifts with Kazuya, so I went outside.
Out in the parking lot, I saw Kazuya talking to the man.
“Hey! He said he’ll give us a ride!”
So yeah—looked like we had a lift.
At first, I did feel something off about the man, but up close, he just looked like a kind, ordinary older guy.
I was too tired and sleepy to think clearly anyway.
“Ahh, makes sense,” I told myself. “He’s the outdoorsy type. Hence the camping car and the cowboy hat.”
A pretty dumb explanation, but it was enough to convince me at the time.
But the moment I stepped into that camper van, I knew I’d made a mistake.
Something was wrong.
I can’t even explain what exactly felt off—just that it was.
It was one of those gut feelings. You just know something's not right.
The driver had his family with him.
That part didn’t surprise me; it’s a camper, after all—obviously he wouldn’t be traveling alone.
But the people inside…
The father: the driver himself, probably in his 60s.
The mother: sitting in the passenger seat, looked like she was in her 70s.
And then there were the twin sons.
They had to be over 40, no doubt about it.
When a person sees something truly unexpected, their brain short-circuits for a moment.
As soon as we stepped inside that camper, the first thing that hit us was them—two middle-aged men sitting in perfect unison.
Same gingham-check shirts.
Same slacks.
Same shoes.
Same receding hairlines.
Same posture.
Same expression.
And—most disturbingly—the exact same face.
Kazuyah looked just as stunned as I was.
Now, to be fair, I guess there’s nothing inherently wrong with middle-aged identical twins.
But that scene, that atmosphere—you had to be there.
There was something wrong. Something off.
Something you couldn’t explain to anyone who wasn’t standing in that camper at that moment.
“Go ahead, take a seat,” the father said.
Almost mechanically, we obeyed, as if hypnotized by the strange energy in the room.
We gave polite greetings to the family.
The father started driving and began introducing them to us.
It wasn’t until the mother turned slightly in the passenger seat that I really saw her.
She was wearing what looked like a wedding gown—a pure white summer dress.
And her face… she was caked in heavy white makeup, like a kabuki performer—or a cartoonish funeral doll.
Then came the kicker: her name was Saint Josephine.
The father? Saint George.
As for the twins?
We were speechless.
They were simply called Red and Blue.
One had a reddish flush to his face—Red.
The other had a blue bruise on his cheek—Blue.
Who names their kids colors based on skin conditions?
Who the hell does that?
By this point, Kazuyah and I had already exchanged a look.
We didn’t need to say it.
We were getting out of this van.
As soon as possible.
This family was not right.
The parents were doing most of the talking, firing off questions and comments in a weirdly cheerful tone.
We gave vague, distracted replies, too unnerved to focus.
The twins didn’t say a word.
Not one.
They just sat there—same posture, same pace—gulping down their 1.5-liter bottles of cola in sync.
When they let out identical burps at the exact same time, a chill shot down my spine.
That was it.
I couldn’t take anymore.
“Um, thank you very much,” Kazuyah said, his voice slightly strained. “But this area’s fine… you can let us out here.”
It had been maybe 15 minutes since we’d gotten in.
But the father kept pushing—really pushing—to convince us to stay.
And the mother?
She blurted out, “There are bears out! Tonight and tomorrow!”
No context.
No explanation.
Just that.
Like it made perfect sense.
It didn’t.
None of this did.
We both half-rose from our seats, trying to make it clear.
“Really, we’re fine getting out here,” I said again. “Seriously.”
But the old man wouldn’t budge.
“At least stay for dinner,” he insisted, flashing a toothy smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Dinner? At two in the morning?
Who the hell serves dinner at this hour?
The twins—still silent—had now moved on to licking lollipops.
Not chewing. Not biting.
Just slowly, methodically licking in perfect sync.
“This is seriously messed up,” Kazuyah muttered under his breath.
I nodded, barely glancing his way. We were being bombarded with chatter from the parents, making it hard to even whisper.
It felt like they were trying to drown out our thoughts.
At one point, I didn’t catch something the father said, and instinctively asked, “Sorry, what was that?”
He snapped.
“Did you hear me or not?!” he barked, face suddenly twisted in rage.
Then the twins—both of them—started cackling.
Same pitch, same timing.
It wasn’t laughter.
It was a cue. A signal. A switch.
That’s when we knew.
We weren’t just uncomfortable anymore.
We were in danger.
When the camping van veered off the main road and onto a mountain path, we couldn’t take it anymore—we both stood up immediately.
“Excuse us. Really, thank you for the ride, but we’ll get out here,” I said, stepping forward toward the driver’s seat.
The old man just kept insisting.
“We’ve got dinner waiting for you. It’s all ready. You’ll love it.”
The mother chimed in too. “It’s a truly wonderful meal. You really must stay.”
We exchanged quick whispers.
If things go south, we run. As soon as it stops—we run.
It’d be too dangerous to jump while moving. But once it stops, we’re bolting.
The van kept driving along the winding mountain road for another 30 minutes before pulling into a clearing near a small stream.
“We’re here,” the old man said.
Just then—from the very back of the camper, behind the door we’d assumed was the bathroom—we heard it:
“Kya-kya!”
A child’s laugh.
A child's laugh.
We froze. There was someone else in here?
The hair on my arms stood on end. My skin crawled.
“Ohhh, Mamoru must be hungry too,” said the mother, turning slightly in her seat.
Mamoru…? That was the first name that didn’t sound like total insanity.
Maybe he was a young kid?
But then the twins—who’d barely spoken a word this whole time—suddenly leaned forward in unison and shouted:
“Mamoru can’t come out! Nooooo, heee caaaan’t!!”
Perfectly in sync. Voices overlapping in a hideous harmony.
“Yes, poor Mamoru. He has such a delicate constitution,” the mother added, completely calm.
Then the father let out a roar of laughter:
“Aaaah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”
Kazuyah leaned in close and hissed through clenched teeth:
“Yabai. These people are full-throttle.”
(Full-throttle—Kazuyah’s code for completely insane.)
We stepped out of the van.
And that’s when we saw him.
Another man, standing by the riverbank, tending a campfire.
My heart sank. There’s more of them?
He was enormous. Easily close to two meters tall, maybe more.
He wore the same kind of wide-brimmed cowboy hat as the father, paired with a suit—another bizarre combination.
The hat was pulled down low, casting his face entirely in shadow. We couldn’t see any expression.
In the flickering firelight, the crucifix painted on the camper’s front came into view. It looked sinister now, almost mocking.
As he stood there whistling—Mickey Mouse March, of all things—he was butchering something with a huge knife.
Whatever it was, it had hairy legs. Looked like some kind of animal.
A wild boar maybe… or a stray dog.
Either way, I wasn’t about to eat it.
We were already planning our escape, but this—this hulking man and that damn knife—froze us in place.
Our bodies refused to move.
“Come now, let’s take our seats!” the father said cheerfully.
The giant man set down the knife and turned to the pot bubbling beside him, adding something to it.
“I gotta take a leak,” Kazuya said.
I knew what he meant—he wanted to make a run for it. I nodded.
“We won’t wait too long~,” the mother chirped.
We casually made our way around the camper toward the woods.
Just as we reached the edge of the trees, something slammed against the rear window of the camper.
It had a grotesquely bulging forehead, eyes set abnormally low on its face, and hands so swollen they looked like balloons.
It pressed its face and both hands against the glass and screamed—
“MAMA!!”
That was it.
We bolted into the forest like rabbits fleeing a wildfire.
I could hear the father and mother yelling something behind us, but there was no time to process it.
“Shit shit shit shit,” Kazuya muttered as we tore through the woods.
We tripped and fell over roots and rocks, scrambling back up again each time.
“All we gotta do is get down the slope and hit the main road,” I said, gripping my tiny penlight.
We ran blindly downhill, heart pounding.
But we’d made a terrible miscalculation.
From that open field by the creek, we thought we could see the lights of a nearby town. But even after sprinting through the forest for an hour, we still hadn’t seen a single glimmer.
We were completely lost.
Our hearts were pounding, our limbs screaming for rest. We collapsed onto the forest floor, gasping for breath.
“Think that horror-movie family’s gonna come after us?” Kazuya asked.
“Nah,” I said. “It’s not like they were gonna eat us or anything, right? I mean… they were just a bunch of weirdos. Eccentric. That last thing we saw… okay, yeah, that almost made me piss myself, but still…”
“What about our bags…?”
“Luckily we had our cash and phones on us. Clothes are a loss, though.”
“Shit, that was seriously messed up.”
“Totally.”
For some reason—maybe because our nerves were completely fried—we both started laughing.
That kind of laughter that spills out when your brain just can’t handle the fear anymore.
[kijinai]
After laughing our asses off like maniacs, we were hit by the suffocating thickness of the forest air and the pitch-black darkness that let us see absolutely nothing. Reality came crashing back.
Sure, we’d managed to escape that freakshow of a family—but getting lost in the woods wasn’t much of a win either.
It wasn’t like we were in the freaking Sea of Trees or anything, so the chances of really getting lost were slim... but still, the thought of “what if” started creeping in.
“Should we just wait till morning?” I said. “Not that I’m worried about that old bat’s ‘bears’ or anything, but still—what if there are wild dogs or something out here?”
Honestly, I wanted to get out of that forest as fast as possible. But charging through the dark with no idea where we were going could land us right back at that creepy riverside clearing. That was the last place I wanted to end up again.
So we found a big, fallen tree we could sit on and decided to rest for a while.
At first, we talked—just random crap, trying to distract ourselves—but the exhaustion and stress had been so intense that before long, both of us were nodding off, slipping in and out of consciousness.
I snapped awake. Instinctively, I checked my phone—4:00 a.m. The sky was starting to lighten a little.
I looked to my side. Kazuya was gone. Panic shot through me—until I turned and saw him standing right behind me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You’re up... You don’t hear it?” he said, gripping a stick like he was ready to swing.
“Hear what—”
“Shh.”
There it was. Faint, but unmistakable. A whistle. Mickey Mouse March.
It was crisp—so clear it could’ve been a studio recording. But for us, that sound was pure terror.
“That tall guy...”
“Yeah.”
“He’s looking for us!!”
We took off running again, tearing through the forest in a dead sprint. The early dawn light helped—things were more visible than before. With fewer roots and shadows to trip over, we were running faster than ever.
We must’ve run for about twenty minutes before finally stumbling out into a slightly open space.
It looked like an old, unused parking lot.
Through the gaps in the trees, we could just barely make out the city lights. We must’ve made it pretty far downhill.
“My stomach hurts,” Kazuya said, clutching his gut.
Apparently, he couldn’t hold it anymore.
At the edge of the lot stood a weathered-looking public toilet, clearly as old and forgotten as the lot itself.
I had the urge too, but I couldn’t bring myself to lock myself in a stall—not with that giant guy possibly still on our trail.
While I stood outside keeping watch, Kazuya disappeared into one of the stalls to take care of business.
“There’s toilet paper, but it’s all stiff and crusty... covered in mosquitoes... ugh. Still better than nothing, I guess.”
He was mid-complaint—and mid-dump—when he suddenly called out loudly from inside.
“Hey... isn’t someone crying?”
“Huh?”
“No, seriously. I think I hear someone crying… over in the women’s side.
Isn’t that a girl sobbing?”
It wasn’t until Kazuya pointed it out that I finally noticed it too.
A girl—crying.
The sound was coming from inside the women’s restroom.
Both of us fell silent.
Someone was in there? Crying?
Why?
“Hey... can you check it out?” Kazuya called from his stall. “It’s getting worse, man. She’s really crying now…”
Honestly, the whole thing gave me the creeps.
But if some girl was alone in a stall, crying in a run-down toilet in the middle of nowhere, something had to be seriously wrong.
I took a breath and stepped into the women’s side.
The crying was coming from one of the stalls at the far end.
I approached and called out softly.
“Excuse me… are you okay?”
No response.
Only sobbing.
“Are you sick or something? Hey—sorry to bother you, but are you alright?”
The crying just got louder, more intense.
She still wouldn’t answer.
Just then, we heard the sound of a car coming from the road above the parking lot.
“Get out!!”
A sudden jolt of dread hit me—pure instinct, screaming at me that something was wrong.
I dashed out of the women’s restroom and pounded on Kazuya’s stall door.
“What the hell?”
“There’s a car coming. Something’s not right—just hurry up and get out!!”
“A-Alright!”
Seconds later, Kazuya came stumbling out, jeans half-on and his face pale.
And at the exact same moment—we saw it.
A goddamn camper van, slowly making its way down into the parking lot.
“…Shit.”
If we bolted downhill now, we’d be right in their line of sight.
There was only one option: hide behind the restroom building, the one blind spot we had.
The girl crying in the bathroom? We had no time for that now.
We darted around back, crouched low, and held our breath.
Please don’t stop.
Just keep going.
Don’t notice. Don’t—
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa… did they find them?”
Kazuya muttered under his breath, rapid-fire.
The camper’s engine had cut out—dead quiet now in the lot.
We heard a door open. Then footsteps.
They were heading toward the restroom.
Behind the building, we had nowhere to go. Just five meters behind us, the ground dropped off into a small cliff. We were already standing on the edge—any further back and we’d fall.
Unless they had a reason to check back here, we’d be fine… we had to be fine.
But if they did come around—if they spotted us? We’d jump. It wasn’t high enough to kill us, maybe a sprained ankle at worst.
We were ready to take that risk.
Just let them be here to take a piss. Please, please just that.
That was all we could hope for.
But the crying girl—the sobbing never stopped.
And now, all I could think was:
What if they hurt her? What if we’re just hiding here while she’s…
I couldn’t stop picturing it.
The family. The twins. The smile. The knife.
Goddamn it.
Someone had entered the men’s restroom.
From the voice, we could tell—it was the father.
“Ahhh, feels good! Hallelujah! Haaallelujah!”
Sounded like he was taking a piss.
A few seconds later, we heard the shuffle of feet—more than one.
The stalls creaked open. Probably the twins.
We held our breath.
At this point, there was no way they hadn’t noticed the crying girl in the women’s restroom.
Sure enough, we heard the mother inside too:
“There’s no toilet paper!”
Still, the girl kept crying. Sobbing hard, like nothing else mattered.
Then came the strange part.
The father and the twins left.
No reaction. No confrontation. No words to the girl.
Nothing.
Soon after, the mother exited as well.
Their voices faded into the distance.
It didn’t make sense.
There’s no way they didn’t know she was there.
She was still crying. Loudly.
Kazuya and I exchanged puzzled looks.
Then we heard the father’s voice again:
“Just wait for it… it’ll be here soon.”
We couldn’t catch what exactly he said they were waiting for.
There was some sort of resistance—maybe the twins?
We heard what sounded like a loud slap.
Then crying. The twins’ voices, we guessed.
It was getting more twisted by the second.
It was a nightmare.
This trip, our fun hitchhiking adventure—how the hell did it turn into this?
Until now, all we could feel was fear—shock from the sheer absurdity of what we’d fallen into.
But now, that fear was giving way to anger.
“That damn camper van,” Kazuya muttered under his breath. “We should jack it and get down the mountain. Beat the hell outta those freaks if we have to. The big guy’s not even here right now—this could be our shot. When they said they were ‘waiting,’ what if they meant him?”
His whisper was sharp, intense.
But I shook my head.
As long as they didn’t know we were here, the smarter move was to keep hiding.
Let them pass.
That girl though… I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
As soon as they left, I planned to go back and knock on that stall door.
Find out who she was, what had happened.
I whispered this back to Kazuya.
He hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod.
Then—about fifteen minutes later—
“...chan’s here~”
It was the mother’s voice again. Couldn’t catch what she said.
But whoever they’d been waiting for... had arrived.
We heard cheerful chatter, but it was too faint to make out.
Then—footsteps. Coming toward the restroom again.
And that sound.
The Mickey Mouse March—whistled, perfectly on pitch.
Him.
It was him. The tall man.
That same cheerful whistling continued as he stepped into the restroom to pee.
And then—from the girls' side—
the crying.
It got worse. Louder. Sharper. The girl’s sobs turned into screaming.
Why?
Why the hell weren’t they reacting? Didn’t they hear it!?
Then, just like that—
The screaming twisted into something else. A raw, strangled shriek—
and was gone.
Cut off.
Had something happened to her?
Had she been found?
But the tall man had been in the men's restroom the whole time.
None of the other family members had gone into the women’s side.
Eventually, the whistling faded as the man left the restroom.
Still no sign of anyone entering or leaving the girls’ side.
Worried that the girl might’ve been taken out, I ignored the risk—
and peeked my head out, just for a second, from behind the restroom.
I saw the tall figure walking away,
that same wide-brimmed ten-gallon hat and suit swaying as he moved.
“This was the place, waaaaaasn’t ittttttt!?”
The sudden shout from the tall man made me yank my head back in.
Did he see me?
Kazuyya gripped his stick tighter.
“Yeah, that’s right! This was the place!”
“So sinful, wasn’t it!?” said the father and mother,
as the twins burst into laughter.
“She screamed her lungs out, didn’t sheee!?” the tall man bellowed.
“Mhm, mhm!!”
“She cried, she cried!! She repented!! Hallelujah!!”
Again, the parents, and more laughter from the twins.
What the hell were they talking about?
It didn’t sound like they meant us… but still…
Then we heard the engine turn over.
The camper van drove off.
Morning had fully broken.
Once we were absolutely sure that the freak family was gone, I bolted into the women’s restroom.
I threw open every stall door—there was no one inside. Every lock was broken.
That couldn’t be...
Kazuyya followed me in a moment later, placed a hand on my shoulder, and murmured:
“Hey… you’d already figured it out too, hadn’t you? There was never a girl in here.”
What—were we supposed to believe we’d both hallucinated the same crying voice?
But… it kind of made sense. That twisted family never reacted to the crying at all.
Still…
Could hallucinations really sound that real?
スポンサーリンク
There was a road branching off from the parking lot—one way led up, the other down—and we figured heading downhill would take us back to the main highway.
But there was still a risk we’d run into that twisted family's campervan again, so we decided to cut straight through the forest instead.
We could still see the town not too far in the distance, and daylight was on our side now. There wasn’t much chance of getting lost.
We walked in silence. Not a word between us.
Roughly two hours later, we made it back to the highway. Safe.
No spare clothes. No backpacks. Nothing.
The first person that came to mind—
was that kind, sympathetic convenience store manager.
The highway wasn’t exactly bustling, but traffic had started to pick up now that it was morning.
After what we’d just been through, sticking out our thumbs again took some serious nerve.
Still, we eventually managed to get picked up by a truck driver.
At first, the guy was clearly confused by how filthy we looked.
But when we told him—well, a version of the story—we said we got lost in the mountains during a camping trip.
Didn’t seem wise to tell him the whole, insane truth.
Turned out he actually knew the convenience store we were headed to.
Stopped there often, he said.
About an hour later, we were back at that very store—
the one with the kind-hearted manager.
The store manager knew about the camper van—at least, we thought he did—
so we told him everything that had happened to us.
But as we spoke, his expression gradually shifted to confusion.
“Wait, a camper van? No, listen...
I saw you guys suddenly leave the store and start walking along the highway.
I figured maybe you didn’t want to trouble me, so you decided to head out on foot.
I even followed you for about ten meters and tried calling out, but you completely ignored me.
Honestly, I was kinda hurt! [laughs]
What was up with that?”
...What was he talking about?
We clearly remembered that camper van pulling into the lot.
We saw the old man at the register, paying for his stuff.
The cashier that night was the store manager. There had been a part-time worker too, but they must’ve finished their shift—no sign of them now.
Could the manager be in on it?
That sudden, creeping suspicion swept through my chest.
Kazuyas eyes met mine. We were thinking the same thing.
“Hey, excuse me, just need to hit the restroom real quick,” Kazuya said,
grabbing my arm and dragging me toward the bathroom.
“What do you think?” I asked, once inside.
“I don’t think he’s lying,” Kazuya replied.
“But if—if—he’s somehow tied to those freaks, then yeah, we’ve got a problem.
Still, what’s the point of pulling off something that elaborate?
You’d have to be completely off your rocker, right?
It doesn’t add up… but yeah, something feels off.
Alright, here’s the plan: just to be safe, let’s ask that trucker to take us with him. What do you say?”
That really did seem like the best move.
We were in agreement—ready to step out of the restroom—
when suddenly, just as we reached for the door, we heard it.
The sound of a toilet flushing…
and then that damn Mickey Mouse March whistle.
Even though it was broad daylight, and even though we were safe,
fear wasn’t the first thing that hit me. It was rage.
Apparently, Kazuya felt the same.
“Open the hell up!!”
He started pounding on the stall door with both fists.
The door swung open.
“Wh—what the hell, man!?”
It was just a local high school kid, standing there in his uniform,
completely freaked out.
“Ah—no, no—sorry, man. My bad, haha…”
Kazuya gave him a sheepish laugh, scratching his head.
Thankfully, the whole commotion hadn’t made it past the restroom walls.
After apologizing to the poor kid, we headed back to the front,
where the driver was chatting with the store manager.
“Didn’t wanna be a bother to the manager or anything,” Kazuya said,
“so hey, big bro—think you could give us a lift into town? Here, for the trouble!”
Kazuya slapped a full carton of the driver's favorite cigarettes down on the counter.
Deal sealed.
Reporting that freakish family to the cops?
No way.
The whole thing was too surreal. Too far off the rails.
All we wanted was to forget it ever happened.
Sure, we regretted losing the backpacks full of clothes…
but the trucker was heading toward the city anyway,
and thanks to the cigarette gift, he was all smiles as he drove.
Somewhere along the way, both Kazuya and I fell asleep in the cab.
When I came to, the truck was parked at a highway rest stop.
The driver had bought three servings of yakisoba and brought them back to the truck.
We ate together in silence, and once we hit the road again, Kazuya was out like a light.
I couldn’t sleep. I sat by the window, watching the scenery drift by,
replaying that hellish night in my head.
What the hell were those people?
That crying girl in the bathroom stall…
“Ah—!!”
My train of thought shattered, and I yelled without thinking.
“Stop the truck!”
“Huh?” the driver blinked.
“I—I’m sorry, I just need to check something real quick!”
“You sure? The city’s still a ways ahead,” he said, pulling over reluctantly.
The commotion must’ve woken Kazuya.
“What’s going on?” he mumbled.
“Look over there.”
I pointed.
Kazuya turned to look… and froze.
Parked outside a crumbling, half-abandoned roadside diner—
was that same goddamn camper van.
There was no doubt about it.
The colors, the shape, the cross painted on the front—it was that camper van.
But something was wrong.
The entire body looked like it had aged several decades overnight.
It was falling apart—rusted through, every tire flat, every single window shattered.
“Please, just give us five minutes. We’ll be right back,” I said to the driver, who pulled over and waited.
Kazuya and I approached the van cautiously.
“What the hell is going on…?” he muttered.
Hell if I knew.
As we got closer, there was no mistaking it—this was the freak family's camper.
But it looked like it had been abandoned for decades.
The daylight, the passing cars… maybe that’s what kept the fear at bay. Curiosity was louder.
We pulled open the rusted door. A rotting stench hit us immediately.
I peeked inside—
“Dude! That’s our gear!! That’s our goddamn backpacks!!” Kazuya shouted.
There they were—our backpacks.
Two of them, just as we’d left them when we ran.
But just like the camper itself, they were decayed, crumbling as if they’d been abandoned for decades.
We checked inside.
Everything—the clothes, the toiletries—was equally ruined, eaten away by time.
“What the hell is going on…”
Kazuya muttered again.
None of it made sense anymore. My brain had already given up on processing it rationally.
I just wanted to get away from this cursed camper van as fast as humanly possible.
“Let’s go. Let’s just go.”
Even Kazuya’s voice trembled now.
We turned to leave—
And then, from behind the farthest door in the back of the van—
“Thud.”
A sound.
The door was still closed.
We didn’t have the courage to open it.
We were already half in a panic, so I can’t say for certain what we heard.
Maybe it was just a cat.
Maybe it was something else.
But at that moment, from behind that farthest door in the back of the camper,
we both heard it—
or thought we did.
“Maa… maaa…!!”
We screamed as we ran back to the truck.
Oddly enough, the driver looked a little pale too—just barely, but it was there.
Without saying a word, he started the engine.
At the same time, both he and I spoke up.
“What happened?”
“Did you see something?”
He gave a weak smile.
“Nah… It’s probably nothing. Just my imagination. But, uh… that abandoned camper—there wasn’t anyone else in there with you, right? No one besides you two?”
“Of course not,” I said.
Kaz nodded. “No one.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know that. Just… forget it.”
“No, c’mon, seriously. Tell us,” Kaz insisted.
The driver hesitated, then finally spoke up.
“Well… I thought I saw something. Might’ve just been a trick of the light, but—like a shadow. A figure wearing a cowboy hat? Or maybe like a Boy Scout cap, I dunno. It was just for a second, but right when I saw that shape, I got this awful chill down my spine…”
He paused.
“And then… I heard whistling. Right by my ear.”
“…What kind of whistling?” I asked.
“Dunno the name of the tune,” the driver muttered. “Went something like this—”
He puckered his lips and started whistling.
And that was it.
That was the exact same tune—
Mickey Mouse’s March.
He tried to laugh it off.
“Forget it. I’m probably just tired.”
But none of us spoke for the rest of that ride.
The truck rolled on for another 30 minutes or so—none of us saying a word.
Finally, as we got close to the city, I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask the driver one last thing.
“Hey… back when you picked us up—by that highway… There’s a mountain near there, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Why?”
“I was wondering… has there ever been any kind of incident out there? Like, anything weird ever happen in those mountains?”
“Incident? Huh… can’t say I’ve heard of anything. But then again, those mountains stretch out across three ridges or so. That whole area’s a bit tangled.”
“Oh—though now that you mention it,” the driver said, “way back in the day, I think there was some murder case out in those mountains… young woman got killed or something. That’s about it, I guess. Other than that, just wild boars causing trouble. Those things are scary as hell when they charge.”
“Wait—where was the girl killed?”
“The restroom?”
Kaz jumped in before I could finish asking.
“Yeah, I think that’s the place. How’d you know?”
The truck eventually got us into the city. We thanked the driver and, probably from sheer relief, slept like the dead that night in a hotel.
A day or two later, we hopped on a bullet train and made our way home.
Even now, it’s hard to think about that whole thing—it feels more like a nightmare than something that actually happened. But sometimes, I still remember.
What was that family? Were they just some deranged group of people? A hallucination? Something not of this world?
And that girl—her crying in the restroom, the way her screams cut off so suddenly. What was that?
And what the hell was that old, rotting camper van…
And our backpacks, crumbling just the same—
What the hell were they trying to tell us?
"Ooh ♪ ooh ♪ Pussy, pussy, wanna lick it now ♪ lick lick~ lick lick~"
Kaz was riding high from a successful group date the other night, and yeah—his mood showed. He still belts out raunchy songs like this whenever it’s just the guys. Honestly, even now, nothing’s really changed between us.
Maybe it’s exactly because of his over-the-top, dumbass cheerfulness that I was able to mentally survive that trip. That living nightmare we went through.
Now we’re both nearing thirty. We’ve got jobs (been a while now), stable lives, and on the surface, everything looks normal.
But Kaz? He still can’t even look at a camper van without freezing up.
As for me… it’s that damn Mickey Mouse march. That tune is carved into my brain like some kind of curse.
♪ Chan-la-lan, chan-la-lan, chan-la-lan-la-lan...
♪ Chan-la-lan, chan-la-lan, chan-la-lan-la-lan...
At that same group date, one of the women had it as her ringtone. The second I heard it, my heart nearly stopped cold in my chest.
I still see that family in my dreams.
Especially him. That giant.
And that damn whistling.
Shall we collect some death-level seriously scary stories? #233
