Stop Signs
Davis knocked on the door, holding his clipboard in hand. A few moments passed before it opened, and he was greeted by a somewhat elderly man; maybe in his mid-fifties. “Hello?” said the man. “Hi. You Sam Gordon?” “Yep, that’s me.” “Go ahead and sign here,” Davis said, handing over the clipboard. “Ah. Is this my new table?” “Sure is.” The man handed back over the signed sheet, and Davis nodded as he walked back to the company’s truck. He rolled the back of the truck up, sending the door high and away. He pulled out the ramp and set it on the ground, then walked up into the nearly empty compartment. “Here we go,” he muttered. He grabbed hold of the packaged marked for Mister Gordon and heaved it up, grunting as he did so. “You don’t have another delivery guy?” the man said. “No, it’s just me today. My usual partner took the day off, and the boss wouldn’t give me someone else I could go with.” He grunted again, moving the table a little. “Well, here you go,” the man said, stepping into the truck. He grabbed one end, and the two nodded at each other. Davis guided them into the front door. “Where you want it?” “Just right here is fine, the wife has a specific place for it that I don’t know where it is. Her and I will just move it when she gets back from work.” Davis nodded, looking earnestly at the man. He stood there for a second, and the man just started back. “If you’re hoping for a tip you can forget it. I had to come and help you, I don’t tip when I have to work harder than I should,” the old man snapped. “Okay,” Davis nodded, stepping out of the house. “Have a good day, sir.” “Yep.” He shut the door, and Davis gave him the bird as he walked off. “Stupid geezer. Why do all the old dudes gotta be so grumpy?” He grunted as he closed the back of the truck up. He got back into his seat, looking at his phone. “One more stop,” he murmured. “Then the day is over.” He pulled up the map and plugged in the last address. He sighed when he saw the little blue line stretch out across the city, going well past city limits and into the countryside. “Gosh dang it,” he groaned. He put the truck into drive and began moving forward. He scrolled onto his contacts page, highlighting his manager’s phone number. It began to ring, and she picked up momentarily. “What’s up, Davis?” “Hey, this next delivery is taking me way out of city limits. It’ll take me a good forty minutes to get there, then another forty minutes to get back. It’s already three-thirty. Are there any other ones I can do, and just save this one for another day?” Linda sighed. “They’ve been expecting this one for over a week now, we can’t put it off any more than we already have. Just take a bit of overtime today, you’ll survive.” He gritted his teeth, changing lanes. “C’mon, Linda! I’ve already had a really long week, and you know that. I don’t wanna be starting my weekend late because of one stupid delivery!” “If you think deliveries are stupid then you shouldn’t have applied for this job.” He groaned. “Yeah, yeah. Fine. I’ll do it. But I’m gonna be speeding the whole way.” He hung up before she could get another word in, focusing on the road. Left, straight, straight, straight, right, straight, left, straight, straight, straight…. He went ahead and pulled up his playlist on his phone, almost not noticing the car stopping in front of him. He slammed on the brakes as his first song started, almost unphased by the whole thing. He tapped the steering wheel, staring blankly ahead. The light finally turned green, and he continued forward, checking his map app occasionally to make sure he was still off in the right direction. Eventually the houses started thinning out, and the farm fields started getting thicker. After a couple more songs he dialed up Lenny, hoping to death that he’d respond. The dumb thing went to voicemail, and he grunted as he put the phone down.“Dang Lenny. I need someone to stimulate me.” He yawned, pausing at the occasional stop sign as even the farm fields started to become sparse. “Dang. this place really is out there,” he murmured, looking out across the empty fields. “Who the heck wants to live out here? You can’t do anything this far out of town! Psh, maybe these people don’t deserve the dang couch. They obviously like living away from civilization, why would they want a couch? Aren’t the logs they sit on enough?”His phone suddenly rang, and he picked it up. “Yo, Lenny!” “Hey, Dave. Sorry I missed ya. What’s up?” “Eh, just bored to death. There is literally nothing to do right now.” “No deliveries?” “No, I’ve got a delivery. It’s just a freaking hour outside of town. Dude, I’ll tell you what, there is nothing out here! Like, I couldn’t imagine a more barren place!” “Psh. Go to Mongolia. I’ve heard it’s pretty dang barren there.” “Yeah, I bet. Genghis Khan killed everyone who lives out there.” “Dude, that was centuries ago. That’s not why it’s abandoned.” “Yeah? Well, I failed sophomore year history twice. Remember? I don’t really pay attention to anything.” He pressed down on the brake gently, bringing the truck to a stop as they reached another stop sign. His eyebrow raised as he approached it, looking from side to side at the fields. There was no road there. Just a lone stop sign. “Yeah, you were never a school kind of guy.” “Yeah.” He let off the brakes and pressed the gas instead, moving forward yet again. “Yo, dude. I just came up to the weirdest intersection. Well, not really that. There’s just like this random stop sign out here alongside the road. Like, no other roads crossing it. Just the sign.” “Eh, I’m sure I’ve seen weirder crap than that. The world is full of weird stuff. Especially here in this state.” “I bet everyone says that about where they live.” “Which just proves my point. It’s all weird. Full of weirdness.” “Yeah,” Davis sighed. “Probably someplace they planned to build a road and just never got around to it.” “So… how are things going with you and Jamie?” “Psh. Bro. I think she forgot I exist. I haven’t heard from her in literally forever.” “Ah, dang bro. Have you texted her at all?” “I honestly think that she blocked me. She was always pretty good at responding to my texts and calls, but not anymore.” “Yeah, that’ll happen when a girl finds you making out with her cousin.” “Oh, that was cheap, bro. You know I didn’t mean that. She looked just like Jamie!” “The fact you didn’t know what your own girlfriend looked like is honestly kinda lame in the first place, bro.” “Yeah, yeah. I’m a male slut. How are things between you and Maggie?” “Good, actually. We just went out for dinner last night.” “Lucky you. Can afford to feed your girlfriend dinner.” “Ah, you can totally afford it too, dude. You’re just too much of a penny pincher.” “Is that a bad thing?” “Well…” Lenny trailed off, not responding for a while. “Hello? Yo, Lenny, ya still there?” No response. “Dang reception. Yeah, these people who live way out here are dang insane.” He continued to stare out at the road for a while, eventually stepping down on the brake pedal when another stop sign came up yet again. The truck came to a stop, and he looked from side to side. No road. He looked back at the red octagon staring back at him, the giant word “STOP” printed onto it in reflective paint. “The crap? Another one?” He squinted, trying to make out the writing on the green signs atop of it. He couldn’t quite make the two of them out, only the one that said “Stretch Road.” He looked at the delivery address again: 1016 Stretch Road. He was still on the right one. He eventually just shrugged and got the truck moving forward again, taking a yawn as he checked the time. Sheesh. It was only three-fifty. “Stupid Linda. Why couldn’t I have just done this on Monday? The dang trip is gonna take up half my evening by the time it’s all done!” He sighed as he continued to drive forward, the blades of grass on either side flying by in a collective blur. He noticed that the electrical lines were no longer following the road. He looked in the mirror, curious to see how far away they stopped. He couldn’t see anything, just the seemingly infinite field of grass both behind and ahead of him. He was startled by his phone when it began to ring. He picked it up, not recognizing the number. He shrugged, and answered it anyway. “Hello, this is Matthew from the IRS office. I am calling to inform you—” Davis hung up, setting the phone back down. “So I can still get spam calls but Lenny’s I can’t get, huh?” After several more minutes, he found himself clicking his tongue and making a noise with his mouth that was somewhere between a duck and the sound of passing gas.“Bored. Bored. Bored. I am so bored.” His foot found the brake pedal as he noticed another red octagon up ahead. The truck came to a slow, then to a stop. He looked on at the stop sign, quite a bit intrigued by this point. Again, there was just a stop sign. No road to stop for. Just the red of the paint. He looked both ways anyway out of instinct, then chuckled to himself as he began to pull forward again. “Psh. I don’t need to stop for these dumb things anymore,” he muttered. “There isn’t anything to stop for.” He looked down at his phone to check his ETA. It was still estimated at four-fifteen. He sighed, realizing that the speeding he’d been doing hadn’t paid off much yet. In fact, it seemed to have backfired a little bit. Just a few minutes ago his ETA had been four-ten.“Gosh darn it,” he cursed. “Why the heck is this dang road so long?” He let out an exasperated sigh, rolling his head about his neck. His eyes again fixated on the road and he continued to stare blankly ahead. He began to notice the grass around him, squinting hard enough to make out some individual blades. It was actually kind of pretty watching the sea of grass waving in the wind. Would make a great screen saver, for sure. All so lush, all so beautiful. He really didn’t get out into this area much, stayed mostly in the city. But it was quite nice. Peaceful. He had always yearned for some sense of peace in his life. But, at the tender age of twenty-four, he had come to discover that some people just don’t get peace in life. He didn’t. His mother didn’t. For his Mom, that thing was cancer and a bad marriage. For him, it was financial. Maybe peace was all an illusion, some sort of stupid bullcrap invented by Plato or Aristotle to keep people hoping. Eh, he had kinda stopped hoping at this point. He managed to just accept that things were the way they were, and he couldn’t really change that. His eyes spotted another sign up ahead. Another red, octangular sign. He sighed, rolling his eyes a bit as he began to slow the truck down. “Wait a dang minute, they’re aren’t any other roads here, are there? Just the stupid signs.”He switched back to the gas, going right past the stop sign. Well, actually, when he passed it he might have thought it said something else for a moment… “PLEASE STOP.” He was suddenly startled by the sound of police sirens, and he looked in his mirror. A state trooper was behind him, lights flashing. Davis sighed as he pulled over, rolling down his window. “Excuse me, sir?” Davis looked on at the policeman. He had a rather lanky build, not a lot of muscle on that body. His face was somewhat pale, too, and his eyes were sunken in on either side of his slender nose. “Yes, officer?” Davis groaned. “Are you aware you just blew right through that stop sign back there?” Davis put on a surprised face, trying to feign shock. “There was a stop sign back there?” “Sure was. Now, I’ll let you off with a warning. A lot of people miss that one.” “Is that why you caught me so fast? Because you hide there?” “Now, young man, respect your elders.” He sighed. “Right, I’m sorry, sir.” “Just make sure you read every sign you pass on the way.” “Yes, sir.” “Good boy. Now, off you go.” Davis nodded, rolling up his window as he watched the cop head back to his car in the mirror. He climbed in, then pulled off. He went around Davis’s truck, eventually becoming but a small speck near the horizon. “Read the signs?” Davis muttered. “Doesn’t he mean stop?” As he placed the truck back into drive and began to move forward again he suddenly became aware that he was now the only vehicle on the road. In fact, now that he thought about it, that had been the case for quite some time. He hadn’t seen another car pass him since well before the police officer stopped him. Actually, probably since he talked with Lenny. Gosh, that actually seemed like forever ago. But, looking at his phone, it was only about fifteen minutes since he spoke with him. That didn’t seem right, though. He’d been watching the gas gauge crawl slowly towards the “E.” It has covered a decent amount of ground since leaving his last delivery, as a matter of fact. More than it would after half an hour of driving around in the city, which proved to him he’d been off the phone with Lenny for much longer than a measly fifteen minutes. Eventually he noticed another stop sign coming up, and, remembering the state trooper, he came to a slow, then a stop. He looked both ways, there was no road. Just the stop sign. The… stop, sign? Rather than simply having the word “STOP” in big print across the octagon, white letters spelled out “I’M TELLING YOU TO STOP.” “Sheesh,” Davis muttered as he pulled forward. “Who the heck is vandalizing these stop signs?” Typically vandals who just want attention throw paint up onto places in town, not way out here. Then again, some kid who just wants to feel cool probably would come all the way out here to do anything. Less chance it’ll get caught, since there’s less chance it’ll ever even be noticed. But what kind of a stupid phrase was that? “I’m telling you to stop?” If it was up to Davis, he’d have painted something naughty. This? This was just dumb. And, plus, the time it must’ve taken them to draw out those letters… they all seemed to have such high precision. No sloppiness whatsoever. But, who was he to judge how some teenager wants to be rebellious? After another several minutes of driving he pulled out his phone again and opened the first social media app his thumb could find. He clicked on the first recommended video, shooting his eyes back and forth between the road and the screen. He chuckled as he watched a girl go right through a trampoline, landing on her behind and screaming. He swiped up. It was some guy talking about politics or something in his car, bashing some state governor. He scrolled past it, and continued to scroll until another humorous clip pulled up. “Ah, gosh dang it,” he breathed as a loading circle popped up on his screen. The video paused right before the guy on the skateboard landed on a railing. Based on his trajectory, he would have hit right between his legs too. He spent a couple of minutes fiddling with the connection settings, unable to connect it back to the Internet. He groaned as he simply turned the phone off and stared back ahead at the road. “Dang connection. Who the heck wants to live way out here where there’s no connection?”He squinted and saw another red octagon coming up. He stopped the truck, looking at the odd sign. This time, its message read: “PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU TO STOP.” “The crap is up with all these screwy stop signs?” he cursed. He stopped the truck, again taking note that there was no intersection there. He checked his ETA again, his jaw dropping as he saw that it had again changed. He wasn’t scheduled to arrive now until four-thirty.He quickly exited the maps app to check the time. Atop of his screen were the numbers four, zero, and five. “Five past four? Last I checked the time was like twenty minutes ago! It should be like four twenty-five by now.” He grunted, squeezing the steering wheel in frustration. This drive was seriously turning into a far longer ordeal than he had wanted it to be. The fact that only five minutes had passed despite him swearing he was watching videos for at least ten minutes seemed… odd. He went and checked his phone again. The time hadn’t changed, it was still four O-five. He determined to watch the clock until he saw the number change. In his head, he began counting out the seconds. Then, aloud. “Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.” His eyes darted back and forth between the phone and the road, when suddenly he saw another stop sign up ahead. He slammed on the brakes, and his body lurched forward before being pulled back on by the seat belt. “HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THESE? YOU HAVE TO STOP.” “The frickin’ heck?” he stammered. “What the flip is up with these darn things?” He looked at his phone again as he pulled past the stop sign, again noting there was no intersection there, just the sign. The clock on his phone still read four O-five. “Alright, let’s do this again. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten….” His eyes continued to switch between the road and his screen as his lips continued to move. He began to say the “ninety-four” when finally it changed to four O-six. “The crap? Was I counting fast?” he wondered aloud. “No, there’s no way. I’m a slower counter than usual.” He went to his timer app, setting one for sixty seconds exactly. He exited it again, watching his clock. He wasn’t sure how long he waited, but he was startled when he again saw another red sign staring at him from ahead. He pressed the brake pedal and strained to see what the sign read. “I HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU RECONSIDER HERE, STOP.” “How the flip do you even fit that many words onto a stop sign?” He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he was beginning to get fairly creeped out by the messages on the stop signs. It was almost like not a single one had said anything normal on it, except the first few. He went back to his maps app to double check he was on the right street. Stretch Road, the map said. Up above the stop sign was a small green one which said he was still traveling down that road. He looked back at his ETA, which had now moved past four fifty. “What the heck? How am I going so slow?” The map said he was still going in the right direction. He looked at the fuel gauge again, which had credit even closer to the “E.” He jumped as the timer suddenly went off. He looked at the clock again, which still only said four O-six. “Screw it. I’m not stopping again.” He slammed on the gas, and the truck started speeding forward. He had been going just ten or so miles per hour over the speed limit before, at around sixty. He didn’t let off the gas pedal this time until he was well past ninety, watching as the countryside flew past him. “Screw this. Screw this whole thing. I mean, where the flip even am I? How does this house keep getting farther and farther away?” He again heard police sirens, and he looked in the rearview mirror to see another trooper car behind him. He shouted and cursed as he pulled over to the side, putting the truck in park and rolling down his window again. “Yes, officer?” He jumped a little bit when the policeman stepped out into view. He had a lanky build, with quite a plaid complexion. His eyes were sunken in, and his nose was so thin he wondered how any air ever got into it. “You again?” The officer looked up from his pad. “Yes, me again.” “But I saw you drive out ahead of me. Way far ahead of me.” “I go wherever the law needs to be enforced, young lad.” “Yeah, but how did you get behind me like that? This is the only road out here. There have been no intersections at all.” “Does it matter? You’re getting a ticket.” “Yes it matters! I wanna know how the frick you broke the laws of physics.” “Psh. I was never very good at physics. Don’t really think they apply to me that much.”Davis stared with a dropped jaw as the officer handed him a ticket. He accepted it, still trying to wrap his head around all this. “You been reading the signs like I told you to?” “What? Yes, I’ve stopped at every… ‘stop’ sign I’ve seen.” “Yes, but have you been reading them?” Davis swallowed, feeling fairly off put by this whole interaction. By this whole delivery, really.“Uh… yes?” He nodded. “Good. Keep reading them. I like these stop signs.” The officer walked away, and Davis looked at his ticket. Instead of a ticket, though, he found a simple note: “Pay attention to the stop signs.” He scrunched up the paper and threw it across the truck into the passenger’s window.“Screw this. I’m asking that officer what the flippin’ heck is going on here.” He went to open his door, which is right when the officer blew past him in his vehicle. He disappeared off into the distance, and Davis fell back into his seat with a sigh. He looked at his phone again. ETA was now past five o’clock. And… and the time was four O-four. “The crap?” He rubbed his eyes, blinking a few times before confirming that they were indeed not incorrect. “The dang phone literally said four O-six earlier!” He looked up at the road with his brow wrinkled, unable to process what was going on. That’s when he saw another stop sign just a little up ahead, and he put the truck back into drive and started moving towards it, coming to a halt right before it. “IF YOU WON’T STOP, AT LEAST GO IN THE OTHER DIRECTION.” “Dude, these stop signs shouldn’t even be that big to fit all these words onto them!” He looked at his phone again, shaking. He reached for it and called Linda again, holding his breath for an answer. “What is it, Davis?” came her voice. “Oh, Linda, thank goodness. Listen, I can’t make this delivery. I’ve got to turn around and come back.” “You mean you’re not there yet? It wasn’t that far away.” “No, I need to turn around.” “Do that and you’re fired, Davis. C’mon, you’ve gotta do it. I don’t care how late it is.” “Linda—” There was a beep, and his phone went back to the home screen. He looked at the stop sign again, reading the message over and over again. Maybe this was worth getting fired for. Maybe he wouldn’t mind so much. He could find a different job, one that didn’t send him down roads where the stop signs started talking to him and the police officers could teleport. Then again, his mother had told him if he got fired from another job she wouldn’t keep sending him money to help out with groceries. He’d have to completely rework his budget, not to mention living off of a total of two hundred dollars in his savings account until he could get some more income. He couldn’t afford to be fired. Then again, he couldn’t really afford to go much further down this road. He might have a heart attack. He could already feel it beating faster and faster. Biting his lip in frustration with himself, he began moving forward again, past the next stop sign. “What the frick am I doing right now? What kind of an absolute idiot am I to keep going?”He began fidgeting with his fingers on the steering wheel as he continued down. He got up to a good speed, then slowly began speeding again. He found himself up to seventy this time, his eyes darting every which way on the lookout for another stop sign. He checked his phone again, a pit in his stomach growing as it continued to say four O-four. “C’mon now, Davey. C’mon. Time doesn’t go backwards, your phone is just on the fritz. I bet your ETA isn’t even five thirty. The dang house is probably just around the corner. Just over the horizon. C’mon, you’re almost there. Then you can go back into town. You won’t have to think about this street ever again.” His eyes caught a glimpse of another patch of red up ahead, and he slammed on the gas to speed up towards it. He slowed down right in front of it, stopping. Again, no crossroad. Just the one he was on: Stretch Road. “YOU HAVE TO TURN AROUND. I KEEP WARNING YOU.” “Screw it. Screw it all. I don’t give a dang if I’m fired. I’m going back.” He put the truck in drive again and began making a u-turn. He relaxed a little as he began going forward, then suddenly tensed up again. “No, I can’t get fired. I need the money. I need the money.” He sighed, and made a second u-turn to begin heading farther down the road. He bit his lip and squeezed the steering wheel, tapping it with his fingers faster and faster. The road still just went straight to the horizon with nothing on it. No houses, no power lines, nothing. Nothing but the infinite void of grass that was on either side of it. “Alright, Davey. You can make it. It’s just been a long day. Maybe Robert snuck some weed into your lunch today. He likes to do that kind of stuff, doesn’t he? Maybe I’m just high right now. Yeah, maybe I’m trippin’ out. The house will show up any minute now.” He knew it was a lie, but he kept repeating that story to himself just to make it feel better. He didn’t even see Robert at the depot today. Or at all this week. The guy was probably locked up in a jail cell somewhere after getting caught in a bar fight or in a drug deal or some crap. He was slowly becoming aware of every drop of sweat that formed on his head. Every single cold, paralyzing drop of it. One ran down to the tip of his nose, and he shuddered as it disconnected from his skin and went into a freefall down to his lap. Then another one down near his sideburn, rolling, rolling, rolling to the bottom of his chin where it too fell. “There isn’t anything wrong, Davey. You’re just freaking out. That’s all.” He reached for his phone, then went to dial up Lenny. The phone rang, continuing to do so until it eventually just went to voicemail. “Gosh darn it!” He looked back to the road, again pressing on the brakes as another stop sign came into view. “YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF ROAD, TURN BACK.” He began to squeeze the steering wheel even harder, shaking. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Come on. Think about this all logically. Your phone is just on the fritz. These stop signs are just some silly prank that’s being played on you. The fact they coincide is nothing but dumb luck. Very, very dumb luck. You can keep moving forward. That house will be coming over the horizon any minute now. Any single freaking minute.” He pressed on the gas again, the pit in his stomach growing as he did so. His eyes fixated on the horizon, his heart beating quicker with every passing moment as he waited for the delivery address to come up. He checked his phone again, with the ETA now estimating he wouldn’t reach his destination until four in the morning. The time said it was three forty-five as well. He set the phone down, repeating to himself that it was all just technology gone haywire. That is seriously all it was. No doubt about it in his mind. Nope, not one. He didn’t have one doubt. If he just kept repeating it to himself, all the doubts that were trying to worm their way into his mind would go away. He was close, he just had to keep going. It would all be fine. All of it. He’d get home late tonight, and things would all be great. Not a single problem at all. His heart skipped a beat as he made out another stop sign up ahead. He slowed the truck down, hearing the engine beginning to sputter as the needle pointed directly at the “E.”“No…” he said, barely able to speak. “YOU WERE WARNED, WHY DIDN’T YOU LISTEN?” “This is all a dream. This is all a dream. This is all a dream.” He heard a sudden tapping at the window, and he looked to the state trooper standing there. He rolled it down, struggling to catch his breath. “Well, I tried to warn you,” the trooper said. “Warn me about what, though? What’s going on here?” “Son, I’ve been asking myself that question for years now. I responded to a nine-one-one call down this road back in the seventies. Not even sure what decade it is now, to be honest. No matter how long I drive in either direction, I can never find the end of it. I’ve spent days going as far as I could. The horizon seems to grow with this road… like the Earth itself stretches out. No matter what, there is never any end to this road.” “So… we’re stuck here?” “Yep. There have been a few others who got stuck here with me over the years. They all end up killing themselves. I’ve wanted to do it a few times myself, too. Instead, though, I decided to commit myself to getting people to stay off this road. I’m usually pretty good about scaring them off. I guess I can’t bat a thousand with it, though, huh?” Davis swallowed, feeling his gut churning as the man spoke. “There’s really no way out?” “Not that I know of, at least.” Davis turned back to stare out at the road, unable to feel anything inside his chest. “Maybe… maybe I’ll just kill myself too.” “Now, don’t do that, son. It’s up to us, the survivors, to keep others away. This… this road wants people. We can’t let it have them.” Davis felt himself beginning to cry as he let all emotion break loose. He knew the trooper was right, but he didn’t want him to be. He wanted to just let himself die. “Son, can you promise me you won’t do anything to harm yourself, and instead commit to helping others stay off of this road?” “Yeah,” Davis lied. “Yeah, I will.” He already had a plan formulating in his head on just how to do it. Credit: The Quiet One Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.