Connection. It's what we crave. We know how good it feels to have it, how bad it feels to lose it, how we do anything to get it back, even something crazy. A few years ago I went through

a bad breakup. It drove me out of my mind and into my car.

Before I knew it, I was road tripping across the southwest trying to outrun my feelings.

I'd never been to Santa Fe, but I'd hope to find peace in New Mexico. Let the desert sun bake the bad vibes out of my brain.

Well, love led me astray. I didn't realize that Santa Fe was actually a mountain town high in the Rockies.

It was midnight when I drove up a steep curvy highway headed to an Airbnb in the hills.

I wasn't sure I'd find it since a mist was moving in.

Different than any I'd ever seen. A purple black cloud that I could smell through my window.

It was sweet but sick, like rotting flowers.

Even after flicking on my brights, I couldn't see more than five feet ahead.

So I slowed down, and thank God I did, because the light came at me fast.

I skid it to a stop. The light came from a down motorbike on the road.

Next to it was a youngestish guy hunched in pain, cuts

crisscrossing his flesh. He faced a woman, half in shadow. All I saw was a

glimpse of her dark hair shining in the moonlight.

The man dashed to my car, begging for help.

I unlocked the door. He scrambled in, and I told him he needed a doctor.

He said I could take him anywhere, anywhere but here.

I shifted into gear then remembered the woman he was with. I looked to the road but she was gone. I asked, where was she? Who was she? My terrified passenger whispered,

the date from Hell.

You're listening to Run Fool. I'm Rodney Barnes and this is episode 14, La Mala Ara. I drove downhill scanning my phone for a nearby hospital. My passenger was out of it. kept looking back mumbling at me to speed up. We had to beat the mist.

Look, it did seem like the mist was tailing us, but I chalked it up to my nerves.

...