The Thing on Highway 98

A True Ghost Story • A Men At Work Cover 👻🎸

How do you write what people actually want to read?

It’s a guessing game really, and what may interest you is just not my thing and vice versa. So who cares.

Hey, how about a ghost story?

A true one, that really happened to me late one winter night in 2o15 when I was living in Florida.

Or are you chicken? bawkity bawk?

If you’re scared, just say so. It’s ok to be. I would probably be too right now if I were you.

Cmon, man up, turn the lights out, take the covers off your head. Stop calling for your mama. You can handle it. I believe in you.

Okay, without further ado, let’s get into it. Before you change your mind and scroll away.

It was around 3 a.m. and I was driving to work, and my wife at the time was with me. I was working as a truck driver, driving an 18-wheeler on a dedicated run twice a week. I would leave Lakeland Florida, and head up to Atlanta and get loaded, then back down to Jupiter Florida, I was delivering helicopter parts to Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company, in Jupiter, where they make them, and then finally back home to Lakeland. The entire run was around 1,200 miles and took two days to finish. Then I would take a day off and do it all over again.

My truck was too big to keep at my house. There was no room for it. So I found a business down the road that had a secured, gated parking area for large vehicles, and I paid them monthly to keep it there.

So yeah, my wife and I were driving, I often took her along, she enjoyed it and it was nice for me also to have her, to help pass the miles, so we arrived at the storage place. I pulled up to the gate, punched in the code, voilà! the gate opened and I proceeded to drive to the back where I kept my big ole shiny black sexy brand new at the time Peterbilt 579 with 53-foot trailer.

So we pulled up and parked, got out and grabbed our bags and traded our little bitty Ford pickup for the big dawg Pete.

Also on a side note, after skillfully maneuvering the big boys around all the time, once you get behind the wheel of your personal vehicle, you feel like you’re driving a little go-cart or bumper car or something. No matter how big or what it is. It still feels so small in comparison.

We got in and got settled and I fired her up and started doing my pre-trip inspection and my log book and all the other paperwork, and entering everything in my onboard computer. There’s much more to it than just driving, like many think lol

It was always a ghost town around here at this time of night. No pun. No fun. Absolutely nothing or no one around, and it was an eerie place on an eerie stretch of road. Just had a noticeable feel to it. If that makes sense. Just had to be there to see for yourself.

I had been working this particular run for over a year and it was routine for me now and I was very familiar with it and my surroundings. Too familiar, actually lol.

So I got everything entered in my computer and all the freakin paperwork done, then one last look at all my dashboard gauges and air pressure and stuff, then a final nod and wink to my co-pilot and we are ready for take off.

Seemed like any other night.

The business sat right on Highway 98, and as I exited the gate and approached the road, I yielded and looked both ways and there was absolutely no other vehicles coming in either direction. We were totally alone. Or were we? So I slowly proceeded out. I crossed the two southbound lanes and made my way into the center turning area to make a left turn onto the two northbound lanes.

As I started the turn into the far right lane, I was going very slowly when suddenly my headlights hit the side of the road, I could not believe my eyes. WTH IS THAT!?! I slowed even more. So I could see.

She and I both saw it at the same time. She gasped loudly. Every hair on my body stood up as she said, “OH MY GOD, BRYAN, GO GO GO!”

It was right on the edge of the road, just a few steps into the grass, and it was directly in front of us, maybe 15 feet away, with my super bright headlights right on it, lighting it up like the noonday sun.

I can still see it so vividly in my mind today.

Would you like me to describe it to you?

I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.

It was a person, but yet it wasn’t.

It was wearing lighter colored semi baggy blue jeans and a red long sleeved hoodie sweatshirt.

It wasn’t transparent. It was a solid figure that you couldn’t see through at all.

About 5’8 or 5’9 and around 170 pounds if I had to guess.

And it was frozen there, looking through us. We were frozen too. We just knew at the time that it wanted us to see it.

Are you ready for the good part?

The hoodie was up and filled as if a head were inside it, but it had no face. Just thick utter darkness instead, that I can’t even describe well to you.

It had no hands. It had no feet.

And it appeared to be hovering maybe six inches or so off the ground.

It was just clothes that were filled out as if a person was wearing them.

But there was no person.

And it was staring us down, with no face or eyes.

My wife then cried out in fear again for me to “GO GO GO!”

And I did.

As I passed, I tried to look back in her passenger side mirror for another glimpse of it, but I couldn’t see anything. It was too dark and hard to tell.

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We never saw it again but every time thereafter, when I drove by that spot I would nod and wink and think to myself, “Yep, right there, right there. That’s where that thing stood. That thing we saw. That thing we saw that night.”

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I would like to hear your thoughts and comments.

Have you ever had anything like this happen to you?

What do you think we saw?

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© 2026 Bryan Loia Hudson. All rights reserved.

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