Evening was approaching when Brian and Tracy, walking at a good pace, left the main road and took what they thought was a shortcut to reach the nearest town.  

Rucksacks on their shoulders, wearing sneakers, jeans and flannel shirts, they lost themselves in contemplating the sunset for a while.

“Are you tired?” Asked Brian turning to his girlfriend. She shook her head and smiled at him. She didn't want to tell him that her feet hurt. The sneakers she wore weren't much comfortable. Brian turned round and looked at the street to see if a car was coming along by any chance. The road was empty. Not a soul was in sight. The narrow asphalt ribbon was a clean cut through the landscape. It slipped between yellow cornfields and green little woods like a long track of black ink.  The night was falling down and there were no streetlamps along the road. The darkness was about to swallow everything in one mouthful.

“Did you hear something?” asked Tracy.

That's exactly the kind of questions you shouldn't ask when the sun is going down, Brian thought. Did you hear something? Why, there was something to listen to? The bogeyman spying on them from behind that bush and unintentionally breaking a dry branch? Nonsense.

“Okay,” he said. “Let's go back to work.” Brian's jaunty thumb sprang out of his right fist and there it began to sway a little. Stretching for hitchhikers. Brian made as if to polish it on his shirt, and then he stretched out his arm. The only effect his exaggerated mime had was to cheer up Tracy. The road was disappearing. In a few minutes they would have to take out the flashlight to light up their way.

Streetlamps are not only useful, thought Brian. They're also (and that would be the important thing right now) reassuring.  

“No car will come our way, Brian,” said Tracy. “I really think...” and there she stopped to look over his shoulder. Brian turned round and saw shining eyes. But they weren't real eyes, they were just the lights of a ramshackle old pick-up truck with pistons in a total shambles under the scraped paint of its bonnet. It was going at full speed, as noisy as a caterpillar, eating up miles of empty road, running towards them.

Brian and Tracy cast a worried glance at each other in the twilight. Up to then they had thumbed many lifts easily, but that pick-up truck made them inexplicably nervous. Brian noticed that it kept too much to the right. He began to have a suspicion it was getting ready to run them over. He stepped backwards when it became clear that the insane driver was in the mood for nasty jokes. The dusty light of the pick-up truck lighted up the boy and the girl for just a second. Tracy screamed with fright. The vehicle sped past them, almost touching their sneakers, and then it skidded dangerously to move back to the roadway. Abruptly, it braked, renting the silence with the deafening noise of the old brakes trying to carry out their job. Finally it stopped, its exhaust pipe letting out a grayish smoke and the engine grumbling for the cruel treatment.

“You fucking idiot!” screamed Brian as he walked in the middle of the road, his fists clenched, his eyes full of anger. “Are you drunk?”

Tracy followed him, scared to death, and grabbed his arm, searching for protection.

“Are you okay?” Brian asked her. The girl nodded and got closer to him.

The door of the pick-up truck was flung open. A tall and stately shadow got out. Brian and Tracy couldn't help shivering with fear. They couldn't see his eyes, but they knew the stranger was looking at them. It was a hateful look, they were sure about that, as much as they were sure that the person staring silently at them wasn't completely sane.

“Get on,” said the shadow without a face, making them jump with fright at the sound of his voice. No accent, no intonation. An order given by a murky, hollow voice. And soon the shadow was back into the cab.

“I don't like that man,” Tracy whispered.

“He nearly run us over”, said Brian. “The very least he can do is to give us a lift,” said Brian.

“Let him go away, please.”

“Just a lift to the next town,” insisted Brian. “I've had enough of walking.” He gently seized Tracy by the arm and together they walked to the pick-up truck. In the middle of the loading platform there was a black oilskin wrapping something bulky. Tracy and Brian got on and put down their rucksacks. Brian tried to peep inside the cab, but the pane was so dirty he gave up at once. He was slightly scared, but the thought of keep on walking scared him more. As the pick-up truck began to move he was determined to keep a sharp lookout, and surely keep an eye on the strange oilskin wobbling in the middle of the box.

“What's beneath that thing?” Tracy asked.

“I don't know,” answered Brian. “Maybe his tools. He must be a farmer.” He reached out a hand and touched the oilskin. His forefinger sank into something soft. “No, I was wrong. I think the man is a hunter.”

“You mean that's a dead animal?” moaned Tracy.

“A deer or a fox, who knows.”

For the umpteenth time the pick-up truck bumped. The oilskin slipped away, revealing the cargo of the alleged hunter. It wasn't a deer and it wasn't a fox. Deer and foxes don't have hands.

Tracy screamed with terror. All of a sudden the vehicle braked. A bloodcurdling cry came out of the cab. An animal wild cry, but nevertheless human. Brian and Tracy jumped off the pick-up truck and plunged into the wood, running among the trees, eyes full of terror. Brian was squeezing convulsively Tracy's hand, listening to the footsteps of the murderer running after them.

“Help! Help us!” shouted Tracy even though she knew they were completely alone. She heard him right behind her, and she could even smell his fetid breath.

The monster snarled and let out a kind of ravenous bark. Tracy heard his fangs snapping shut and realized he was too fast for their legs. She was grabbed by the shirt. Her hand was snatched from Brian's. She fell down, landing on fern and pine needles, inhaling a strong smell of resin. At that very moment she knew she was about to die.

“Brian! Help me!” she screamed at the top of her voice. Through the vegetation she saw Brian turning round, goggling, as pale as a ghost. He couldn't see her, but  he could see the creature.

In the twilight the beast rose to his unbelievable full height. He had long monkey-like arms and big hands fitted with monstrous claws. Underneath his hirsute brow two yellow cat's eyes were shining. The horrible muzzle of a werewolf opened and showed white sharp teeth. He was the bogeyman. The main character of all children’s nightmares.

Brian looked at him falling on Tracy and thrusting his claws in the tender skin of her back. The girl let out a cry of terrible pain and began to writhe to try and escape his hold. Then the monster sank his fangs into her throat and she stopped screaming.

Brian watched motionless, shocked, incapable of reacting. The cruel cat's eyes were shining, half-opened in the ecstasy of blood and murder. He got rid of the corpse by throwing it aside like an empty can. His snout was now a mask of blood. When he made as if to move towards him, Brian turned round and began to run.

“Help me! Help me!” he screamed at the silent wood. Only the crickets and the rustle of the trees moving in the breeze answered him. Brian ran, his lungs going up in flames, his eyes full of tears and pain and terror, the muscles of his legs stiffened by the sudden strain to which they were submitted after several hours of walking. Behind him the creature was gaining ground, grunting like a bear and hissing like a snake.

Brian was already resigned to his death when he stumbled and began to tumble down a crag. The fall seemed to go on for ages as he tried in vain to brake the tumble by getting a grip on surfacing rocks and  roots. He scratched his hands, was wounded in the right knee by a huge stone, received a violent slap in the face from the stinging frond of a pine, and finally banged his head against the mossy trunk of a big fir. His fall ended there, at the back of that tree, where he fainted.

In a minute or two I'll be dead, he thought before surrendering to the night. But nothing happened.

 When he woke up a faint dawn illuminated the wood. Brian blinked over and over again. Some birds were singing on the branches of the tree above his aching head.

“I'm still alive...” he whispered. He got up and coughed, grimacing with pain. He was covered with bruises and scratches, dirty with earth and resin, and felt chilly and confused. But the memory came back to him after a short time later.

“No, no, it's not true. It can't be true,” he moaned, shaking his head. He looked around him and began to call out loud the name of his girlfriend. No answer. He called louder and louder and louder, until he ended up screaming like a raving mad. He frantically began climbing the slope, panting and moaning all the way up. When he reached the spot where he had lost his balance he paused for a moment to get his breath back. The silence of the wood, the quietness of the nature. Nothing else. Tracy wasn't there.

“Please, God, help me…” he whispered, trying not to burst out sobbing. He raised his head, addressing his plea to the blue sky he could just see through the branches of the trees. He had to go back to the place where the creature had caught Tracy. He was sure she was okay. Ought to be. She was simply lying on the ground, somewhere not far away, sleeping serenely in the grass, safe and sound. He didn't ask for more.

He began to walk. He couldn't help shivering at the thought of that monster hiding somewhere, waiting for him to come along. He kept looking about, trying to pick out a clue to guide him towards Tracy.

Finally he saw her. She was lying on her stomach on the carpet of pine needles, lifeless, her face sunk into a bunch of seedlings of yellow primroses. Her blood had spattered the delicate petals of the flowers.

Brian closed his eyes and stepped back. He didn't have the courage to touch her and he couldn't move away either. A sound in the vegetation made him turn round abruptly. The sound repeated. Brian began to run without looking back. He stopped only when his sneakers touched the asphalt of the road. Anguish was suffocating him, and terror didn't allow him to think rationally. He lifted his head and started back in fear.

The pick-up truck was still there with the engine switched off. He got closer with due caution. He craned his neck and peeped first inside the box and then inside the cab. Back to the box. The corpse was still there, wrapped in the black oilskin. The fabric, put back in its place by the wind, now covered the poor mortal remains again. Further on there were two rucksacks. The red one was Tracy's.

Bewildered, Brian looked at it for a long time. Then he looked at the wood. Then his eyes shifted again on the rucksack. He was about to go insane. He was sure about that. Tracy was still screaming in his head, calling out for help. He couldn't save her. Now she was dead. Nothing left but some yellow flowers stained with blood.

Brian fell to his knees and burst into tears, giving vent to his desperation. All his energy and courage had gone lost through the night. He didn't have the strength to keep on walking. But he had to get away from there, so he forced himself to get inside the cab. The cloth of the seats had been slashed, vomiting most of the stuffing on the floor. The key was inserted, ready to start up the engine. His  lucky star had finally decided to help him. Still crying, he took the wheel and turned the key. Stepping on the accelerator, he wondered if there was still some gas left. There was. Brian drove slowly, sitting stiffly behind the wheel like a robot, distraught with fear and grief. His life was over. That was it. He lifted his eyes to look into the rearview mirror to check the road. At that very moment the oilskin in the box moved.

At first he just kept stepping on the accelerator. He realized he couldn't stop doing that even though he knew it was useless. The oilskin slid down, exposing the muzzle of the creature snarling savagely and baring his teeth and scratching the pane with his claws.

“My God! My God!” screamed Brian.

“STOOOP!” shouted an angry voice off screen. “Damn it, I can see the zipper of your costume! I can see the damned zipper of that bloody costume!”

The pick-up truck braked. The horrid monster turned to the movie camera. “What? The zipper? Where?” asked a stifled voice from under the latex mask.

“The zipper of your costume!” repeated the director. "Am I speaking Greek? It was supposed to be covered by some mud! Why the hell the mud is not there? Does anybody can give me an answer? Can anybody tell me why we'll have to film the scene once again? Even though we're shooting a damned second-rate horror movie I'd really like you to offer to collaborate a little, if you don't mind! Costumier! Make-up! Here we go again! From the beginning!”