Most hitchhiker horror stories are about what happens after you stop. This one is about a man I never stopped for. I passed him at three different exits on the same empty stretch of Nevada interstate, forty miles apart, and he was always holding the same cardboard sign. I’ve heard plenty of scary hitchhiker stories since, and none of them explain this one.
In March of 2021, my grandmother died in Salt Lake City. I’m a nurse at a hospital in Reno, and I’d used up my days off to be with her at the end. The funeral was on a Friday afternoon. I had a shift Saturday at 7 p.m. So I left Salt Lake at about 6 p.m. Friday and drove straight through on I-80.
If you’ve never done that drive, it’s about eight and a half hours of nothing. Salt flats, then mountains, then high desert. Long gaps between towns. Signs that say “Next Services 72 Miles.” At night it’s black on both sides of the road, and the only lights are trucks.
I was tired and sad and I had a podcast going to keep me awake. Around 1:30 in the morning, I was west of Elko, and I’d seen maybe four cars in an hour.
The First Exit
There’s an exit out there for a ranch road. No town, no gas, just an overpass and a dirt road going off into the dark. My headlights caught a man standing at the bottom of the on-ramp.
He was tall and thin, in a long tan canvas coat. He had a backpack at his feet. And he was holding a piece of cardboard up at his chest. In black marker, it said “RENO.”
He didn’t put his thumb out. He just held the sign and watched my car go by. I remember thinking, that guy is going to freeze. It was about thirty degrees.
I didn’t stop. I never pick up hitchhikers. I’m a nurse. I’ve seen what happens in ERs when people trust the wrong person. I drove past and felt a little guilty for about a mile and then turned my podcast back up.
The Hitchhiker Horror Stories I Never Believed
Forty minutes later, near Battle Mountain, I passed another on-ramp.
A man was standing at the bottom of it. Long tan coat. Backpack at his feet. Cardboard sign. “RENO.”
I actually laughed. Out loud, in the car. I said, “No way.” Then I told myself it had to be a different guy. There are probably a lot of drifters on I-80 trying to get to Reno. Tan coats are common. Cardboard is common.
But I’d been driving eighty the whole time. There was nobody ahead of me. If someone had picked him up at the first exit, I’d have seen their taillights. If someone had passed me, I’d have seen their headlights.
Nobody had passed me.
I sped up to ninety. My podcast was still going but I wasn’t hearing a word of it.
About thirty-five minutes later, near Winnemucca, there was another exit. I saw him from a long way off this time, because I was looking for him. He was standing in the same spot, at the bottom of the ramp. Same coat. Same backpack.
But the sign was different.
It still said “RENO.” But under it, in smaller letters, there was a second line. As my headlights swept across him, I read it.
“WAIT UP.”
He was smiling. Not a big smile. Polite. Like a coworker in a hallway.
The Gas Station in Lovelock
I should have kept going. I know that. But my gas light had been on for twenty miles. Lovelock was the next town, and it was either stop there or run out in the desert.
It was 3:20 in the morning. The gas station was closed. Pay at the pump only. The lights over the pumps buzzed. There was one semi parked at the far end of the lot with its engine idling and its cab dark.
I pulled up to a pump and started filling the tank. I kept my eyes on the highway. The on-ramp was maybe two hundred yards away.
I smelled him before I saw him. Cigarette smoke and wet canvas. It was right behind me.
He was standing at the next pump over. Ten feet away. Long tan coat. The cardboard sign was tucked under his arm.
He said, very calmly, “You passed me three times.”
I didn’t answer. The pump was still running. I could hear it clicking.
He said, “I’m only going to Reno. Same as you.”
I pulled the nozzle out with the tank half full, gas splashing on my shoes, got in the car, and locked the doors. He didn’t move. He didn’t come toward me. He just watched me drive off, with the sign under his arm.
In the rearview, as I got back on the highway, I saw the semi at the end of the lot turn its headlights on.
What the Trooper Told Me
The semi followed me for about twenty miles. Not close. Just there. Then it took an exit and was gone. I didn’t stop again until I was in my own garage in Reno, at 5:10 in the morning.
I called the Nevada Highway Patrol non-emergency line that afternoon. I felt stupid doing it. The trooper who called me back was patient. He listened to the whole thing.
Then he said they’d gotten a few reports like mine over the years. A man with a sign at the on-ramps. He said their best guess was that the man was riding with a trucker. The trucker would drive ahead, drop him at an on-ramp, and pass the driver again while they were distracted. Then pick him up and do it again.
I asked him why anyone would do that.
He said, “Sometimes they’re picking someone. Sometimes they’re just seeing who’s alone.” He said I did everything right by not stopping. He said the reports always come from people driving alone at night.
Then he asked me something I didn’t expect. He asked if the guy ever said my name.
I said no.
He said, “Good,” and didn’t explain.
I went to work that night. I didn’t tell anyone. Around midnight, during my break, I walked out to my car in the hospital parking garage to get my phone charger.
There was a piece of cardboard tucked under my windshield wiper.
It said “RENO” in black marker. The word was crossed out. Under it, in the same handwriting, it said:
“HOME.”
Looking for more scary stories to read at night? Try the fake detour horror story about signs the county never put out, a train horror story from a crossing in Kansas, or one of our gas station horror stories from a north Alabama night shift.
Share your hitchhiker horror stories
Have you ever passed someone on a dark highway and felt like they were waiting for you specifically? Tell us your hitchhiker horror stories, or any late night drive horror stories from an empty interstate, in the comments below.
How scary was it?
More Highway Horror Stories
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A Voice on My CB Counted Down the Miles to Where He Was Waiting
The Payphone at the Rest Stop Rang, and It Was for Me
There Was a Scarecrow at Every Mile Marker on My Drive Home
Dana, Shower 6 Is Ready
The County Never Put Out Those Detour Signs