The Colorado highway was drowning under a violent downpour when the driver, moved by pity, let a strange woman and her daughter into his car. But twenty minutes later, when she begged him to stop abruptly by a pine forest, a chilling truth began to surface… and what he saw in the rear-view mirror froze him in place…..

Interstate 80, Nebraska, 2:14 a.m. November.
It wasn’t raining, it was pounding. Droplets as big as marbles pounded against the windshield of his battered Ford F-150, making the wipers screech as if they were about to break. Caleb Morrison, 34, a long-haul delivery driver from Omaha, had been driving for eleven hours. He just wanted to get home to Lincoln in time for his six-year-old son’s birthday tomorrow morning.

The last rest stop had been more than an hour away. Not a single tow truck, not a single other car daring to drive in this weather. It was just him and the pitch-black night torn apart by his headlights.

Then he saw her.

A woman stood at the curb, thumbs up in classic hitchhiker fashion, her blond hair plastered to her face with rain. Next to her was a girl of about eight or nine, wearing a pale pink raincoat with a large tear at the shoulder, her bare legs trembling. No shoes, no socks.

Caleb slowed down. Reason told him not to stop. He’d heard enough stories about disguised robbers on Nebraska highways. But when the headlights swept over the child’s face—lips blue, eyes wide with cold—he slammed on the brakes.

“What’s wrong?” he rolled down the window, rain hitting his face.

The woman ran up, her voice hoarse with cold: “Our car died three miles ago. No cell service. She’s going to hypothermia. Please…”

Caleb glanced at his watch. If he drove straight, he’d be home by 4 a.m. If he drove them to the next gas station in Grand Island, he’d be at least forty minutes late. The child’s birthday…

“Get in,” he said, unlocking the back door. “I’ll take you to the gas station.”

The woman—who introduced herself as Jenna—slung the child into the back seat. Her name was Lily. She didn’t say anything, just shivered. Jenna sat next to her, rubbing her arm as if to give her warmth.

Caleb turned the heater up to full blast, glanced in the rearview mirror. “Why are you walking in the middle of the night?”

“My husband… he was drunk. He hit me. We ran away.” Jenna bowed her head. “I don’t want to call the police. He’s a cop.”

Caleb was silent. He knew this kind of thing. Nebraska was big, but small towns were small. Calling the police sometimes only made things worse.

The car drove for fifteen minutes. The rain was still raging. Lily had fallen asleep, her head on her mother’s lap. Jenna suddenly spoke, her voice so low Caleb thought he’d misheard.

“Caleb… can you stop for a moment?”

He frowned. “What?”

“I… I need to go to the bathroom. She’s almost awake. Just five minutes. There’s a dirt road down here that leads into the pine woods. No one will see.”

Caleb looked around. The highway was deserted. On both sides were flooded meadows and pitch-black pine forests. No streetlights, no cameras. His instincts told him to refuse.

But Jenna leaned down and whispered to her. Lily opened her eyes, her voice sleepy: “Mommy, I’m so sad…”

Caleb sighed. “Just five minutes.”

He turned onto the narrow dirt road. The tires sank into the mud. The headlights swept across the pine forest, the towering trees appearing like bony fingers pointing to the sky.

He stopped the car, leaving the headlights on. “I’ll wait here. Hurry.”

Jenna nodded, opened the door. Rain immediately poured into the car. She helped Lily down, the two small figures disappearing behind the rain and the shadows of the trees in seconds.

Caleb waited. One minute. Two minutes. Five minutes.

He began to feel uncomfortable. He turned on the rear lights, looked at the empty dirt road. No one in sight.

“What the hell…” he muttered, opening the door and stepping out.

Rain poured down on his head. He shouted, “Jenna! Lily!”

No answer.

He grabbed his phone flashlight and shone it into the woods. The raindrops glittered like diamonds in the white light. He walked a few more meters, his heavy boots sinking into the soft ground.

Then he saw.

A pair of pink children’s shoes, lying alone in the mud. No socks. Next to it was a torn, pale pink raincoat—the same one Lily had been wearing five minutes ago.

Caleb’s heart pounded. He turned back to the car, about to rush to call 911, when he found the back seat empty. Jenna and Lily had long since disappeared from the car.

But the car door was still closed. He was sure of it.

He stood frozen in the rain, flashlight shaking in his hand.

That was when he heard laughter.

A clear, childish laugh echoed from behind the pines. Then a female voice, soft as a breath, right next to his ear:

“Uncle Caleb… want to play hide-and-seek with me?”

He spun around. No one was there.

The flashlight fell into the mud.

In the remaining light of the car’s headlights, he saw Lily—barefoot, hair dripping wet—standing less than ten meters away, right in the middle of the dirt road. She was grinning, but her eyes were white, pupilless.

“I found you,” she said, her voice honeyed. “Now it’s your turn to find my mom.”

Caleb backed away, his back hitting the car door. “You… what are you?”

Lily tilted her head. “Mommy said you were a good man. Good men keep their promises.”

From the woods, Jenna stepped out. Not wet. Not cold. Completely dry. She wore her Nebraska State Police uniform, her badge gleaming in the headlights. On

In her hand was a smoking Glock 22.

“My husband wasn’t drunk,” she said, her voice calm. “He died. Three months ago. In a car accident on this very stretch of road.”

Caleb froze.

“Hit-and-run,” Jenna continued, stepping closer. “A black Ford F-150. Nebraska plates. The driver was Caleb Morrison.”

He remembered. It had been raining hard that night, too. He’d crashed into a Chevy Tahoe, found a man and a child inside, but he’d panicked, thought they were dead, and… run.

Jenna stood in front of him, the muzzle of the gun pointed at his forehead.

“She wants to see you,” she whispered. “She says she’s been dreaming about you every night for the past three months. She says you have to apologize.”

Caleb fell to his knees in the mud. Rain mixed with tears on his face.

“Sorry…” he choked. “I… I didn’t mean to… I was scared…”

Lily stepped forward, her small, cold hand touching his cheek.

“You’re lying,” she whispered. “You’re not scared. You just don’t want to go to jail.”

Jenna pulled the trigger.

The explosion echoed through the pine forest without a single witness.

Three days later, Nebraska State Police found the Ford F-150 abandoned on the side of Interstate 80. The car door was wide open, the driver’s seat covered in dried blood. In the passenger seat were a pair of pink children’s shoes and a torn raincoat.

The driver’s body was not found.

On the database, Caleb Morrison’s file showed the status: “Missing – suspected of fleeing after fatal accident August 2025.”

And on that stretch of road, on rainy nights, passing drivers would occasionally see a woman and a little girl standing on the side of the road, holding out their hands for a ride.

They always ask the same question:

“Are you a good person?”