High Beams Kitty: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Winterjoy: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐
Here we present a classic: High Beams. This is a well known urban legend and has been told all over the country.
The girl driving the old blue sedan was a senior at the high school. She lived on a farm about eight miles away and used the car to drive back and forth.
She had driven into town that night to see a basketball game. Now she was on her way home. As she pulled away from the school, she noticed a red pick-up truck follow her out of the parking lot. A few minutes later the truck was still behind her.
“I guess we’re going in the same direction,” she thought.
She began to watch the truck in her mirror. When she changed her speed, the driver of the truck changed his speed. When she passed the car, so did he.
Then he turned on his high beams, flooding her car with light. He left them on for almost a minute. “He probably wants to pass me,” she thought. But she was becoming uneasy.
Usually she drove home over a back road. Not too many people went that way. But when she turned on to that road, so did the truck.
“I’ve got to get away from him,” she thought, and she began to drive faster. Then he turned his high beams on again. After a minute, he turned them off. Then he turned them on again and off again.
She drove even faster, but the truck driver stayed right behind her. Then he turned his high beams on again. Once more her car was ablaze with light. “What is he doing?” she wondered. “What does he want?” Then he turned them off again. But a minute later he had them on again, and he left them on.
At last she pulled into her driveway, and the truck pulled in right behind her. She jumped from the car and went into the house. “Call the police!” she screamed at her father. Out in the driveway she could see the driver of the truck. He had a gun in his hand.
When the police arrived, they started to arrest him, but he pointed to the girl’s car. “You don’t want me,” he said. “You want him.”
Cramped behind the driver’s seat, there was a man with a knife.
As the driver of the truck explained it, the man slipped into the girl’s car just before she left the school. He saw it happen, but there was no way he could stop it. He thought about getting the police, but he was afraid to leave her. So he followed her car.
Each time the man in the back seat reached out to overpower her, the driver of the truck turned on his high beams. Then the man dropped down, afraid that someone might see him.
*****
Schwartz cites a story reported by Carlos Drake from Indiana Folklore (now Journal of Folklore Research), Volume 1, pp107-109. (1) It was told by Erin Buckner, who heard it from Mary Lee Memmott (Ogden, Utah) while she visited Bloomington.
The Killer in the Backseat
There was once a high school girl who lived in a suburb of Ogden, Utah, and on the opening night of the school play, in which she had a main part, her parents were fated suddenly with a mild illness, forcing her to drive to the school alone at night.
This she did and the production was a success. When starting her journey home, she noticed that some man had parked directly behind her and had started his motor up about the same time she had started hers up. This didn’t bother her because many people were leaving at this time.
On the highway, she glanced through the side view mirror (her rear view mirror was broken or something) and saw that same car. This time it did occur to her that perhaps she was being followed. However, she still had to turn off on a vacated country road, and she felt sure that surely he wouldn’t be going in that direction because hardly anyone knew about this short-cut… and that if he did turn on it also… then she would be certain that she was being followed.
Her suspicions were strengthened as the trailing automobile crept up behind her and also turned off onto the road. She was just frantic and kept driving at a very high, increasingly dangerous speed… but then again so did he!
All of a sudden for no reason at all, she felt this blinding light hitting her in the face, and she realized that he had turned on his brights. She was tempted to believe that this was just a temporary thing… but after they had been off awhile… here they came back on again… as bright as ever. As the story goes, he kept turning his brights on and off at strangely unexplainable intervals… very rapidly… just quick enough to startle her for a moment, leaving her petrified.
Finally she reached her driveway and sure enough, he pulled in right after her, turned off his motor, but left his bright lights on. She dashed into her house, told her parents, who in turn telephoned the police.
When the police arrived the car was still in the driveway with the brights on. The cops went up to the car and tried to arrest the man, but he just resisted the arrest by saying, “I’m sorry, but I’m not the man you want.” Then he pointed to the car the girl was driving in and said, “I believe the one you’re looking for is up there.”
And sure enough, in the back seat of the car the girl was driving, a small man was crouched down. As the first man later explained, this tiny man would creep up on the girl driving the car and would attempt to strangle her, but at this time, the first man, who had seen the tiny guy slip into the car at the schoolyard but who didn’t have enough time to alert the girl, would blink on his brights and the strangler would dart back down into the back seat! Thus, the tiny man was arrested and the girl, as well as all the kids going to Mary Lee’s high school, learned to lock their car doors and to look into the back seat of their cars before entering.
*****
In 1965 in Russiaville, Indiana, Larry Miller collected a story that goes like this (a direct quote from the book):
“A woman in Chicago who works late one night has to drive home through a ”bad” neighborhood, and, as her car is nearly out of gas, must stop at a filling station. The attendant there notices a Negro man hiding in the back seat. The collector notes that this story and several other legends circulated simultaneously in his high school in 1965. They were said to be true, but hardly anyone believed this story, ‘except some of the girls.’”
Kitty
- In what environment did you read the story? Sitting next to my dog on the couch
- Do you remember having read this story as a kid? Yes, very memorable.
- Analyze the actions of the characters in the story. Did they make sense? Would you have done anything differently? I think everything is pretty normal and straightfoward, but if the guy had a gun and he knew the man who slipped into her car was weird, then why didn’t he just approach him before she got into the car?
- Which was your favorite and least favorite character and why? My favorite character was the girl, because she tried to get away from the guy when she thought he was following her. My least favorite was the knife man, because what was his plan, anyway?
- What did you think of the storytelling style? It built tension well by telling us what was going through the girl’s mind.
- Examine the art for the story. What are your thoughts on it? It’s not creepy, she just looks kind of shocked because no one likes high beams in their eyes while driving.
- Your overall rating and why: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ because it totally could happen.
Winterjoy
- In what environment did you read the story? In my room, window open and enjoying a beautiful October day!
- Do you remember having read this story as a kid? Yes! And the picture, for sure.
- Analyze the actions of the characters in the story. Did they make sense?
Would you have done anything differently? Everything pretty much made sense. Hard to picture a time without cellphones but apparently, it happened! Not sure if I would have jumped out of the car at the end but I go back and forth on that. The other driver’s actions weren’t too crazy either, I guess. - Which was your favorite and least favorite character and why? My favorite character was the man trying to warn the girl. My least favorite character was the man trying to overpower the girl. Major jerkface.
- What did you think of the storytelling style? I enjoyed it! You honestly couldn’t predict the ending as with some other stories.
- Examine the art for the story. What are your thoughts on it? It’s one of the few times a normal person, looking normal is drawn. Once I got to the part about the other man (because I actually forgot!) I quickly glanced at the picture to see if I missed a clue in the drawing but there wasn’t any. That was probably good, though.
- Your overall rating and why: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ because why not. I’m in a good mood. I actually genuinely couldn’t tell where the story was going so I was reading in suspense! That’s always fun.
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