Pastor Rising Part 2: Jason’s Story
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Part 2
Jason Hart was a long distance truck driver, and a well-read young man. His was a rewarding career, but his recent marriage to a spunky blue-eyed beauty had him looking for something more local to home. Besides, he’d been seeing some strange things on the road lately, things that kept him awake at night.
As a seasoned driver, Jason had seen his share of odd sights: a car exploding on the side of the road, a clown being chased by a bulldozer, and a herd of cows crossing the highway with an actual honest to goodness panda bear. Those were interesting memories and something fun he would share with his wife.
But he’d seen something on his last long run to South Carolina that haunted him as he drove along now, in broad daylight, on a busy highway. He could not make sense of it, and hoped that this Pastor he was going to visit was as knowledgeable as he seemed.
When he arrived, Jason signed his name on a ledger, then was instructed to wait inside a small room, not much larger than an elevator. An alarm buzzed and the door in front of him opened to reveal a room that reminded Jason of his high school lunchroom. Rubbing his jaw, he sat down at an empty table, seeing a few other people doing the same, and waited to see the Pastor.
Another alarm buzzed and a door slid open on the opposite side of the room from Jason. A guard with a large belly sauntered out, escorting a few prisoners who went to their visitors. The last man to walk out was probably in his early 40’s, not much older than Jason. This surprised the truck driver, who had expected a much older man. The pastor’s short, wavy hair was graying, and he had a muscular frame and cool gray eyes. His left arm was prosthetic, and hung lifeless at his side. He eyed Jason as he sat down.
Jason began, “Mr.-”
The pastor interrupted him with a smile, “You can call me Tuck, everyone else does.”
“Alright, then, Tuck, I’ve followed your story in the news, and uh,” he stopped here and rubbed his jaw, then continued in his southern drawl, “I don’t know, I just hope you can help me.”
Tuck stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Why don’t you tell me everything.”
Jason took a deep breath and began. “Well, you know I drive a big rig up and down the coast, that’s how I met my wife.”
Tuck said with a half-smile, “Ah, ok, you don’t sound like you’re from up north.”
Jason returned that half smile and nodded.
Then he continued, “Being on the road means a lot of late nights driving, lonely hours. A lot of times, I’ve stopped in some shady places because I had to get some rest. I try to be safe as I can, but there aren’t always the best options.” He glanced down at his folded hands on the table.
“The night I wrote you about, I was driving home from South Carolina. It had been a long day, there were some problems with the load and then getting it dropped off was more complicated than it normally goes. There was an inspector there that was on those guys like a duck on a June bug, and well, let’s just say, it took about twice as long for them to unload and get my rig back on the highway.”
He gulped, rubbed his jaw, then said, “I was tired, dog tired, and I knew I couldn’t make it to the next truck stop. So, I took the next exit I saw that had a gas station, but it turned out to be a few miles down the exit. When I finally saw it, it was some privately owned, tiny filling station, surrounded by trees, and the only light was the one inside the store. It looked sketchy, but, as I said, I was dog tired, so, I pulled on into the parking lot and hoped for the best.” He exhaled through pursed lips.
“I woke up to some horrible sound, like someone throwing up, but it was loud. I could hear it over the engine running. I got up and tried to see out the window, but at first, it was too dark to see anything. I moved around so I could see out the other side, and there was a,” he stopped to take an extra breath here, and Tuck leaned in, a stern look on his face.
Jason said, “There was a, a girl about 16 or 17, I don’t know, and it was dark, but I could tell she was, well she was naked, pastor, and she was acting crazy. She was pulling her hair and screaming and making that horrible vomiting sound and walking in a jerking motion..”
He looked up at the pastor, “It was disturbing. I thought she was probably drunk or on drugs and she obviously needed help, so I reached for my phone to call 911, but then…” He looked back at his hands again, rubbed his jaw, took another breath.
“A shadow moved, or ran, across the dark parking lot. I thought another person was there at first, but then, I don’t know, I…It was a shadow. It covered the girl and she started screaming, ear splitting screams and I was,” Jason licked his lips and tried again, “I was terrified, but I jumped to the door to go help her, but she, somehow, oh God, she exploded. Chunks of her were thrown into my windshield, her fingernails were painted. That shadow ripped her to pieces, pastor. I think. I don’t know what I was looking at, what I saw, but that’s what happened.”
Tuck, after a second, calmly asked, “What did you do then, what did you see?”
Jason answered slowly, slowly even for his usual slow southern drawl, “I climbed to the cab and flipped on the headlights. I saw a shadow fly to the trees. I bent down to pick up the phone, and when I sat back up, all the, you know… pieces, were gone. There was no blood, no…nothing. I thought I must be losing my mind, but I was terrified, too terrified to open the door and get out to look around. I just left. You can bet I was wide awake then. I motored on til I crossed the North Carolina border, it was daybreak by then. I pulled into a truck stop I know pretty well and pulled out my Bible. I fell asleep reading it. When I woke up, I wrote to you.”
The pastor took a moment to think, but really, there was only one question to ask. “How’s your faith, son?”
