Professional Weirdo Podcast

Where I research strange stories and tell them to you. Because, let’s face it, I’m gonna research this anyway and blurt it to someone, might as well be a willing audience. Some of these stories might get dark, morbid, murdery…. so listener discretion is advised.

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Professional Weirdo Podcast

Episode 14 - Dark Roads

November 30, 2025 • Anonymous Narrator • Season 1 • Episode 14

Continuing the theme of the Halloween episode, we'll be talking about strange things people have encountered while driving. Some stories verified, some not verified, but all weird.

Songs for this episode are:

Lost Highway by NightCrawl
Black Night by Cheryl Thompson
A Tombstone Every Mile by Dick Curless

Sources:

Sound mixing performed by Brother Jay from The Rule of Scary podcast - check that out if you’re a horror movie fan! And hey! Thank you for listening to my stories. Keep it weird out there.

To find song recommendations for this podcast, check out the Spotify Professional Weird playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5jIkaamOZlCwtd2peUk9lF?si=0238d524a374492d

Email me at professionalweirdopodcast@gmail.com

Well, here we are. On the other side of Halloween, nothing left in the candy bucket but hard Twizzlers. Maybe some of you will be doing some holiday traveling, and if that’s the case I hope to have a few episodes out between now and the end of the year to help pass the time. And if you are driving…. Keep your eyes on the road, and the doors locked. Make sure to watch the gas gauge and check your tires before you depart. We wouldn’t want anyone to get tangled up in anything like the stories I’m about to tell you.

The is episode 14 - Dark Roads

Keeping the spooky season rolling, I’ll be sharing a few stories that are researched and verified, and a few that are not verified. And are instead surrounded with urban legend. And are just good fun! And they have inspired me to put one of those rechargeable car kits that can air up a tire or jump a dead battery on my holiday list, because who wants to be hanging around on a dark road waiting for help to arrive? Not me. I want to be peeling out of there. So today’s rating system will be 1 to 5 squealing tires.

Hurricane Beryl had been hitting Louisiana for two days, with pouring rains and whipping winds. A Texas truck driver named Reginald Walton was navigating I-10 when he spotted something in the ditch that caught his attention. At first he thought it was a doll, but then, it moved. He pulled his truck over and walked back down the road to find that it was a 1-year old little boy. The boy was sitting in the ditch, saw Reginald, smiled, and then stood up and started walking toward him. As it turned out, the little boy belonged to Aaliyah Jack. The 25 year old woman, high on drugs, had killed her 4-year old son in Lake Charles 2 days before and then simply walked off, leaving her 1-year old on his own. Somehow the child not only made it on his own for 2 days, but survived in the storm and found his way to the interstate. Aside from several bug bites, he was in good health. Thankfully, truck driver Reginald Walton didn’t peel out upon seeing such a strange thing. Reginald gave it zero out of 5 squealing tires and stayed to take care of business. Good on you, Reggie. (Can I call you Reggie?)

If you dive into spooky road sighting stories long enough, you’ll come across ones that feature deer. That may be common enough in some areas, but these stories usually talk about deer that act strangely. Usually erratically and with little fear of humans. Some describe zombie deer, with large parts of their bodies appearing mutated, with large growths, or parts of their bodies appearing to be malfunctioning, partially rotted, or just…. “On wrong.” And in other areas, people report the bodies of headless deer on the sides of roads. Now, I’ve always loved the creepy imagery of a cryptid when it incorporates parts of a deer - standing on its hind leg, the horns. And the thought that something normally so skittish would be unafraid of humans, and in fact, might be threatening us. It’s all just so spooky. But in this case, there are likely explanations for all of these strange sightings. First, let’s talk about the beheadings. While road kill might not normally be of much use to most people, if the deer has an impressive display of horns, a person might find it worth stopping along the road and, well, cutting a dead deer’s head off. So no headless deer running amok, just a trophy worthy deer that’s now dead and someone didn’t want it to go to waste. So all good there. Now for the zombie deer. There are some unfortunate diseases that can sweep through deer populations and cause horrifying symptoms.

First up is chronic wasting disease. This is called a prion disease, where proteins normally found in the body “misfold” (which is a new term for me - misfolded proteins - and in this context I find it very disturbing). The prions are spread through bodily fluids that can enter soil or water. Once an animal gets sick, the disease spreads throughout the body, eventually going to the brain and spine. It’s always fatal. Signs of the disease are weight loss and difficulty in moving. Due to the erratic behavior, the deer could have massive injuries. Brace yourself for this next bit - the deer also salivate excessively and grind their teeth. Combine that with the impact to their brain causing behavioral changes like no longer being afraid of humans, and that’s straight up nightmare fuel.

There’s also deer fi-brow-mah fibroma. Also known as deer warts. This is caused by a virus spread to deer through mosquitoes and it causes large growths to form all over body, including their face. Sometimes through rubbing the deer can cause them to tear open. Thankfully this one isn’t fatal and often the deer’s immune system can recover from the virus over time on its own. But it creates a visual that some have said looks like it walked out of Resident Evil.

Well, I’m a little sad to be debunking a very crazy cryptid, but this is all pretty gross and I’m ready to get out of here, how about you? 5 out of 5 squealing tires.

On the night of August 8, 2013, Brandon Lawson left his house in anger. His job had him working 60 hour weeks in the oil fields of Texas. He was a father to four, one being a newborn, and it’s believed the mounting stress led him to use meth. He had fought with his girlfriend that night and his plan was to go to his father’s home 3 hours away, but less than an hour later he ran out of gas and made a phone call to his brother. On the call he was panicked and talking about people chasing him. His brother thought he might be hallucinating but Brandon denied that he was high and asked him to bring gas. They spoke more over several phone calls back and forth the next 30 minutes and during one of these conversations Brandon told his brother that he was bleeding. Then at 12:50 am Brandon called 911 from the side of the road. What he said on this call is a bit hard to understand, but it’s clear that he says “Yes, I’m in the middle of a field. My truck ran out of gas. There’s one car here. The guy’s chasing...” And then he says something about the woods. He continues “Please hurry! We’re not talking to him. I told you I ran into them.” At 12:56 am another call came in to 911 from a truck driver. He was calling to report the tail end of Brandon’s parked truck sticking out into the road. Police and Brandon’s brother arrived at the same time at 1:10 am. Brandon was on the phone with his brother at the time, saying he was right there and saw him pull up, but the truck was abandoned and no one could find Brandon. Thinking Brandon was hiding from the police, his brother parked farther down the road and waited until police left. But Brandon never showed up and all further calls to Brandon were going to voicemail. After some time, his brother left, but returned in the morning to find the truck still abandoned and no sign of Brandon. The police searched the area, later using airplanes and helicopters, thermal imaging, and finally, cadaver dogs, but with no luck. 9 years later clothing was found in the area that belonged to Brandon, along with human remains. DNA is still pending, but it’s believed it’s Brandon. However, this doesn’t answer the many questions around what happened to him out on the road and why the searches that happened immediately after turned up nothing. 4 out of 5 squealing tires on this one.

Imagine this - you are driving along the Oregon coast, taking in the gorgeous view, when suddenly your car is covered in slime and creatures that are 2-feet long. That’s what happened July 13, 2017 when a truck hauling 7,500 pounds of hagfish overturned. It covered two vehicles and the highway in the animals and the enormous amount of goo they produce. Hagfish are sometimes called slime eels because they can produce up to four cups of slime in less than a second. Especially when they are stressed. Like, let’s say, the unlikely event that they are involved in an auto accident. And their goo expands in water, which is what they were being transported in. For instance, slime from one hagfish can expand up to five gallons when in water. The result was a five car accident that required fire hoses and a bulldozer to clean up the mess. 4 out of 5 squealing tires (if they can squeal when covered in so much goo)

Now for some unverified, spooky road tales. Not that getting covered in eels isn’t scary enough.

In Stevens Point, Wisconsin there’s an isolated road called Boy Scout Lane. It’s unpaved and between Cemetery Road and Little Chicago Road and was named because it used to belong to the Boy Scouts of America, who had planned to build a Scout camp nearby, which didn’t happen. Perhaps from the name of the road (but lack of camp nearby) an urban legend started saying that the road was named for a troop of Boy Scouts killed in the 1950s or 1960s. The story has many versions, blaming a murderous bus driver, or careless Scoutmaster, or a forest fire, for the deaths of the ficticous troop. And of course there’s one version where the troop just disappears for reasons unknown, never to been seen again. People driving through the area claim to see several lights moving through the woods at night, sounds of people walking through the forest, and small hand prints appearing in the dust of cars when drivers who park there at night want to test the legend. 2 out of 5 squealing tires.

In Southbury, Connecticut there’s a road called Jeremy Swamp Road. There are no actual verified reports of missing people, which conflicts with the urban legend which goes, people driving through the area at night will break down here but are gone by the time the tow truck shows up, never to be seen again. It’s said they’ve been taken by the Melon Heads, which is a new cryptid for me! They look humanoid, but have, you guessed it, large heads. And they quote “survive by eating small animals, stray cats, and human flesh, usually the flesh of teenagers” end quote - well if that’s not someone trying to keep teens from making out on Jeremy Swamp Road, I don’t know what is. I wonder if that works, or it just encourages teenagers to drive there. 3 out of 5 squealing tires.

Villa Ridge, Missouri has a long history. It started as an old wagon road that linked Springfield to St. Louis. It was also a telegraph station and a railroad station over the years. Many settled in the area, and in 1919 a roadside stand was opened as a hub for weary travelers passing through the area. Later gas pumps were added, 2 highways converged there, including the famous Route 66, and the Diamonds Restaurant was opened in 1927. For a while it was opened 24 hours a day, in a time when that was rare, and was called the “World’s Largest Roadside Restaurant”. Then in 1948 the restaurant caught on fire. The blaze was so large it temporarily closed Route 66. 2 years later the restaurant was rebuilt, but as interstate 44 was built, it bypassed the restaurant. So the owners took the restaurant to the people by building a new restaurant along the interstate and moving the old Diamonds sign there. The original site was rebranded to become the Tri-County Truck Stop and was open until 2006. Today, it stands abandoned. And I imagine an abandoned truck stop, off the beaten path, is pretty creepy all on its own. But this one in particular has raised the interest of ghost hunters who say it’s riddled with paranormal activity. It’s claimed where truck drivers once came to this cross roads, now spirits use the site as a portal to pass in and out of this world. 3 out of 5 squealing tires.

Then we have Paradise Road in Jefferson Wisconsin. There are lots of legends and creepy factors around the road, for instance it’s close to where a teacher conned her students into killing her husband in 1994. People say 3 sisters lived along the road many years ago and were accused of witchcraft and hanged from a tree nearby. People also report robed figures in the trees off the road, with lots of screams and scary sounds coming from the woods. But my absolute favorite, the best part for this whole episode, is people reporting the ghost of a bloody, angry, headless…. Raccoon. Who jumps into the lights of oncoming traffic. I mean… come on. We don’t have nearly enough reports of haunted road kill. They should be mad! Imagine if those headless deer want to come back for their heads! 5 out of 5 squealing tires.

And now it’s time for our last story which happened in 2021 but recently started getting a lot of attention on the internet. This was in Pender County North Carolina. A 911 call came in from a man reporting that he was driving how 210 and had just passed Black River when he saw a man walking along the road, covered in blood. The caller and the 911 operator are working out the details of the call when there’s a loud thump and suddenly the caller is panicked, yelling “That’s not human! That’s not human! There’s something in the bed of my truck!” According to the report after, the man said this thing had jumped into the bed of his truck, despite the fact that he was driving 50 mph. He hit the brakes and the creature was thrown over the roof of his truck and then disappeared into the dark night. It’s blowing up all over TikTok and was validated by local law enforcement. the Pender County Sheriff Alan W. Cutler has verified that it was a real 911 call. He goes on to say “I don’t know for sure what he saw or what he experienced that night, but it was obvious he was distraught. I’m afraid it’s just one of those things in this world that we may not ever know the answer to.” Welp, I know we would typically only have 4 tires on the ground, but we’ll squeal the fifth one for good measure, shall we?

That’s it for this round. I’m wishing safe travels to you all. Listen, when I have long drives I like to listen to music - which, remember, there’s that Spotify playlist out there full of weird music to go along with this podcast. But I also like podcasts (could you tell?) and if you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly recommend Radio Rental. While we’re passing around recommendations, don’t forget to recommend the Professional Weirdo podcast to your weirdo friends. As always, thank you for listening to my stories. For more fun, come on over and visit me on Instragram under the professionalweirdopodcast. You can also email me at professionalweirdopodcast@gmail.com

Songs I recommend with today’s episode can be found on the Spotify playlist I made to accompany this podcast. For each episode I’ve done or will do, I’ve pulled together a few songs. The ones for this episode are:

Lost Highway by NightCrawl

Black Night by Cheryl Thompson

A Tombstone Every Mile by Dick Curless

I’ll list these, along with the link to the playlist, in the show notes.