The Road Through Hollow Night

The first mistake was trusting the GPS.

We were somewhere between Germany and Austria, deep in the mountains, when the blue line on my phone decided that the main highway was no longer the best route. A quiet chime, a soft turn of the screen, and suddenly a thin gray road appeared, winding through a stretch of green nothingness.

“Left in 300 meters,” the robotic voice announced.

“It’s faster,” Luca said from the back seat, leaning forward between the front seats so he could see the screen. “Forty minutes saved. Come on, Anna. We’re already late.”

I was driving, knuckles tight on the steering wheel of our rented car, the wipers pushing away a thin layer of misting rain. Next to me, Elise hugged her coat tighter around herself, as if the cold could sneak through the glass.

“I don’t know,” she murmured. “Look at it. That’s not even a road—”

“It is,” Luca interrupted. “Look, it has a name: B-27… something.” He squinted. “B-276b. See? That’s official. There’s a letter and everything.”

From the passenger seat, Jonas chuckled. “If we die, it’s on you.”

“We’re not going to die,” Luca said, rolling his eyes. “We’re just taking a scenic route. Isn’t that why we rented a car instead of taking the train? To explore?”

The thing was, when we planned this trip—four friends from university doing a European road adventure—it had sounded romantic, exciting. Castles, alpine passes, small villages with cobblestones and carved wooden balconies. We’d just spent three days in Munich and were driving to a remote mountain guesthouse in Austria, somewhere near a lake that Elise had found on a travel blog. The pictures had looked peaceful. Sunlight on water. Wooden boats.

But it was late afternoon now, and the sunlight was a pale, sickly thing smothered by low clouds. The mountains were dark silhouettes ahead of us, cut by strips of pale snow. The air felt heavier the higher we climbed.

I hesitated, then flicked on the turn signal.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll take the detour.”

The new road narrowed quickly. Forest closed in on both sides, dense pine and spruce pressing close, branches heavy with moisture. The asphalt was old and cracked, stitched with pale lines where someone had tried to repair it years ago. Moss crept along the edges. There were no other cars.

“I told you,” Elise whispered softly, half-joking, half not. “This looks like the beginning of a horror film.”

Jonas grinned. “Perfect. We’ve got all the roles. Anna’s the responsible one, which means she’ll live until at least the last act. Luca’s definitely the one who says, ‘Let’s go see what that noise is.’”

“I’m offended,” Luca said. “I’m not that stupid.”

“And me?” Elise asked.

Jonas opened his mouth, then paused. “You,” he said slowly, “are the quiet girl who knows something is wrong from the beginning, but nobody listens to her.”

Elise shivered. “I don’t like that.”

“Relax,” I said, though my own voice sounded a bit too bright. “We’re just on a small road. We’ll be out of the forest soon.”

But the forest didn’t seem to end. The trees grew taller, thicker, leaning over the road like they were listening. The light faded faster than it should have. My phone screen dimmed of its own accord, and when I glanced at the battery, I saw it was down to eleven percent.

“Do we have reception?” I asked.

Luca checked his phone. “One bar. Edge, not 4G.”

“Same,” Elise said. “But at least there’s something.”

We passed a sign, its metal rusted, its words in German. I caught fragments: Achtung, Lawine, Straße. Warning. Avalanche. Road. The arrow pointed up ahead.

“We’re still okay,” Jonas said. “It’s not snowing.”

We drove on.

The road took a sharper curve to the right, then another to the left, then dove into a dip where the light seemed to disappear entirely. My headlights caught only a few meters ahead, painting the wet asphalt with a pale, sickly glow.

Then, suddenly, the GPS voice spoke again, but it sounded… wrong.

“In 200 meters…” it said, and then the word cut off, like a breath taken in and never let out.

“Did you hear that?” Elise whispered.

“It probably just lagged,” Luca said. “Bad reception.”

Then the blue line on the screen flickered. For a moment, there was no route at all—just a gray crosshatch of map—and then a red message popped up: No connection.

“Great,” I muttered.

“Don’t worry. We stay on this road until the next village,” Jonas said. “There has to be one.”

But we didn’t see any houses. No signs of life. No walkways or fences. Only the endless trees and the narrow strip of asphalt.

After another fifteen minutes, the first fog appeared.

It spilled out from the forest like something alive: thick, white, and low to the ground, clinging to the road ahead. My headlights turned it into a glowing wall. Instinctively, I slowed down.

“Okay, that is creepy,” Luca admitted. “Like, actually creepy.”

The fog swallowed the car. The world outside the windshield dissolved into white. The sound inside the car grew louder—the hum of the engine, the hush of our breathing, the faint rasp of the wipers.

I couldn’t see the sky anymore. I couldn’t see the trees. It was like driving through cotton.

“Can you see anything?” Elise asked.

“Barely,” I said. “But the road is still under us. I’ll go slow.”

“Maybe we should stop,” she suggested.

“And sit in the middle of nowhere?” Jonas said. “With no reception? I’d rather keep moving.”

Something passed in front of the car, just at the edge of the lights. A flicker of shadow, too quick to identify. I jerked the wheel, heart slamming against my ribs.

“What?” Luca demanded. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe a deer.”

But in the mirror, there was nothing. Just the fog, dense and shifting, like something breathing very quietly.

That was when I saw the figure.

At first I thought it was a tree, or a strange rock at the side of the road. A dark vertical shape emerging from the white. But as the car rolled closer, the shape became clearer: the outline of a person standing on the shoulder, facing the road.

“Do you see that?” I whispered.

Everyone leaned forward.

“Is that—” Elise began.

“Yes,” Luca said. “That’s a person.”

The figure did not move. It wore something long and dark, like a coat or an old-fashioned cloak. The head was bare, the hair long and dark, hanging down. I couldn’t see a face. Just the cold impression of eyes.

Maybe they need help, I thought.

“Should we stop?” I asked.

“No,” Elise said immediately. Her hand shot out, clutching my arm. Her fingers were ice-cold. “No. Please don’t. Just drive.”

“But what if—”

“Please,” she repeated, voice shaking. “Don’t stop.”

So I didn’t. I swallowed, tightened my grip on the wheel, and kept driving. As we passed the figure, I tried not to look. But I couldn’t help it. My eyes flicked sideways, just for a heartbeat.

There was no face.

Only a pale, smooth oval where the features should have been, like a mask made of skin. And just as we passed, the head turned, slowly, to follow us.

I gasped and nearly slammed the brakes.

“What?” Jonas hissed. “What did you see?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came. The fog swallowed the figure behind us. The road ahead stretched into white, empty and endless.

We drove on, and on, and after a while, we realized something that made my blood run cold.

The fuel gauge, which had been half-full when we left the highway, hadn’t moved at all.

Not up. Not down.

It was frozen. Just like everything else on the road through hollow night.