In the frost-kissed, moonlit expanse of rural Pennsylvania, sometime in the late 1970s, Emma Jenkins found herself navigating the lonely ribbon of Route 36. Her old Ford sedan crunched over gravel as she kept a steady pace, the radio her only companion on this desolate stretch. As she rounded a bend, she spotted a figure by the roadside, hunched against the cold. A hitchhiker. Emma slowed to a stop, her headlights illuminating the man’s worn coat and tired face. She hesitated, then popped open the passenger door. “Where ya headed?” she asked, her voice barely audible over the engine’s hum. The man turned towards her, his eyes glinting in the dim light. “John Fare,” he said, his voice like ice cracking. Emma’s heart stuttered as the man smiled, revealing teeth stained yellow by time and tobacco. He climbed into the car, bringing with him an almost palpable chill. Emma shifted gears, her foot heavy on the accelerator. But the car didn’t respond. It was as if they were drifting, adrift in a vast, black sea. Panic surged through her veins like wildfire. She glanced at John Fare, his eyes now burning embers in the darkness. He grinned wider, and with a sudden lurch, the car spun out of control. Emma’s screams echoed through the night as they careened towards the tree-lined ditch. The world outside blurred into a whirlwind of branches and stars, and then… nothing but blackness. When Emma came to, she was alone in the wreckage, her body aching like it had been beaten with hammers. She stumbled out of the car, her breath misting in the frigid air. As she surveyed the damage, a figure caught her eye. Standing by the roadside, his back to her, was a man in a worn coat. Emma’s heart hammered in her chest as he turned slowly, revealing a face twisted in a grimace of pain and rage – John Fare. Terror rooted Emma to the spot as she watched the ghostly figure dissolve into the night, leaving behind nothing but an eerie silence and the faint whiff of cold, damp earth. She knew then that some things were best left undisturbed, especially on dark roads like these. For out there, in the frost-kissed expanse, John Fare was waiting.