The Welcome to another edition of Nightmarefews and Peepers.

I'm Dan Cummins, and I will be sharing another original short story of the fictional horror variety, another standalone this week,

not connected in any way to any of the other nightmare fuel episodes.

I hope you enjoy meeting Ace as much as I did.

I highly recommend noise cancellation headphones for the ultimate experience.

Hope you enjoy this new nightmare.

Time now for the tale of the hitchhiker.

Ryan's hands were shaking as he pulled his virtually new Arctic gray Porsche Cayenne GTS

Coop into the Shell Gas Station off of Highway 395 in the tiny desert census designated place

of Pearsonville, California. He felt sick to his stomach when he pounded the steering wheel with his

fists after he put the SUV in park following pulling up next to one of the pumps. God damn it!

He yelled in frustration and buried his face in his hands.

He tried to calm himself down to keep the rising, panic-induced bile in his throat from turning

into vomit. He kept repeating, it's going to be fine, it's going to be fine, as he rubbed his

eyes before he let out a dramatic, exasperated exhale.

Was it going to be fine? How could it be? He'd fucking hit someone. Someone he barely saw hitchhiking on the side of the road before he drove not just into but also over them.

How was life ever going to be remotely fine after something like that? And it was all his fault.

As much as he wanted to blame someone, anyone else, it was all his fault. It happened around 9.30 p.m.

Over an hour after the sun had set for the night, when the desert had begun to get truly good and dark.

He'd finally made it out of the very

last remnants of L.A. traffic, after he'd left his office in Echo Park a few minutes before six,

almost three hours later than he'd originally intended to begin the long, lonely seven-hour drive

...