Drops Of Blood (Short Horror Stories Compilation)/Gotas de Sangre

23. The Hitchiker

I always avoid going out at night as much as I could, but always my friends insisted that all the fun happens in the dark. One day we were invited to a party over a friend's place, it was far away from where some of my friends and I lived but since I was the only one with a car at that moment I drove us there, we were chatting and listening the radio, after a long period of time we arrived to our destiny. We were received gladly by the rest of our colleagues, everyone drank alcohol except for me because I was conscious enough to think I was going to drive back home and I am mostly the one who takes care of my friends in this kind of situations and they always rely on me to do so. The time passed and when we left it was almost 3:25 a.m., when we boarded the car the night became ominous or at least that's how it felt, the road was solitary and dark but I was the only one who noticed it, as I drove to the highway there was silence, we only exchanged occasional phrases, my three friends were in the backseats, I don't know why they took seat in the back of the car though, they just did. Something called our attention, a shadowy figure of a person standing by the road asking for a ride, my friends insisted to give whoever it was a ride so I parked and I saw a man, he was wearing a black hooded-cloak with the hood on, I asked him where was he going and he only said "Not too far" his appearance was weird enough to give me a bad feeling but I agreed anyways. None of us spoke a word, even my friends as drunk as they were noticed there was something odd about this man, I tried to ask him about his clothes but he only said he liked to dress like that, as I drove I felt he was watching me furtively but I pretended I didn't notice, at the distance we saw a big bonfire and a lot hooded people around, "Leave me here, by the tree" I parked and the man left the car "Thank you Adam" he said, my friends and I were shocked, how the hell did he know my name! No one said anything! He went up a hill to join the strange group, there was some screaming mixed with ritual chants which made us took flight, one of my friends looked back and said he saw they were carrying a person near the bonfire but all I wanted was get as far away from there as possible and to never find out what the hell did we just see. Since then, my friends keep themselves sober whenever we go out at night and insist to never pick up another hitchhiker ever again.