Men in Cars
By Lisa M. Bradley, first published in Anathema
In a small town in present-day America where an ominous legend and a recent string of male disappearances have unnerved the public imagination, a hitchhiker and a barefoot traveler tread in the dark woods.
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Plot Summary
In an unnamed small American town, a young girl walks, barefoot, every night through a dangerous area named Bad Luck Bends to get home. She meets a hitchhiking woman who's all dressed in white, much like the infamous Woman in White of local legend. The woman looks for cars with men in them, gets in, and disappears each night. The girl and the woman become friends as they walk together. Despite their agreeable encounter, the girl doesn't see the hitchhiking woman for a while after that. The girl is left alone to walk through the woods. One night, the girl is walking alone when a man pulls up and offers her a ride. The girl gets in. The man pulls up a picture of a man and asks the girl if she's seen him; the girl says no, although she gets the sense that there's something on the edge of her memory related to the man on the flyer. The driver says that the man on the flyer is his brother, who recently disappeared when driving through the area. Another night, the girl is walking through the woods when she hears a mysterious noise. She runs to the road and begs a man to drive her home. The man acquiesces, but he begins talking about his life and profession: his name is Antonio Lopez, he's a true-crime podcaster, and he came to the area to investigate the recent disappearances. He hypothesizes that the disappearances are connected to the Woman in White myth, for the men are always found off the road, naked, after presumed encounters with a prostitute, with white women's clothes nearby. Legend has it that the victims of the Women in White veer off the road; they believe that the woman disappears before the car crashes. The girl realizes that the man knows too much. She touches him, causing him to crash and die in a horrible accident. She is the true Woman in White, her mission to kill men after she was assaulted as a young girl and buried in the woods. She kills Antonio because he would've been a danger to her hitchhiker friend. Satisfied with the killing, the girl acknowledges how much she appreciates her friend, but how it might be dangerous for them both to work in the same area, murdering men.
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