I Followed a ‘Lost’ GPS Signal… And Ended Up in a Nightmare

Prologue: The Last Normal Night

The whiskey burned going down as I crumpled Rachel's goodbye letter in my fist. One year together ended with three sentences on hotel stationery. I threw my duffel bag into the backseat of my '98 Honda Civic - the only thing I owned outright after the breakup. The digital clock read 2:37 AM when I turned the key, determined to drive through the night and put three states between me and my shattered heart.

I should have paid attention to the storm warnings.

Chapter 1: The Wrong Turn

Rain hammered the windshield like angry fists when the GPS first glitched. I'd taken this route a dozen times before - straight down I-90 until Spokane - but tonight my phone insisted I take exit 147B toward "Blackpine Route."

"That's not a real exit," I muttered to the empty car. Yet as I passed mile marker 112, there it was: a crumbling off-ramp with a single flickering streetlight illuminating a sign that read "BLACKPINE - 2 MILES" in peeling paint.

The GPS made a sound I'd never heard before - a wet, gurgling noise like a drowning man trying to speak. Then the screen turned blood-red for three terrifying seconds before resetting.

Chapter 2: The Town That Shouldn't Be

Blackpine wasn't on any of my maps. The town consisted of eight buildings lining a single main street, their facades frozen in what looked like the 1950s. A diner's neon sign buzzed "EAT" in erratic pulses. The gas station's pumps were the old-fashioned kind with glass cylinders on top. And the streetlights... they didn't cast shadows so much as absorb them.

My phone died the moment I stepped out of the car. The sudden silence was deafening. No crickets. No wind. Just the oppressive hum of the diner's neon sign and my own ragged breathing.

That's when I noticed the diner door was propped open with a human femur.

Chapter 3: The Waitress Who Knew My Name

The bell jingled as I entered, the smell of burnt coffee and rotting meat making me gag. Every red vinyl booth was empty except the last one, where a woman in a pink uniform sat smoking a cigarette.

"You're late," she said, blowing smoke rings that hung suspended in the air. "He's been waiting."

The ashtray in front of her overflowed with teeth.

I never told her my name. But when she slid a slice of pie across the counter, the whipped cream spelled out "MICHAEL" in shaky cursive.

Chapter 4: The Basement

The waitress pointed to a door marked "PRIVATE." "He's down there," she said, suddenly serious. "You'll want to see what he's showing tonight."

The wooden stairs groaned under my weight. The basement smelled like wet earth and spoiled milk. An old film projector whirred in the corner, casting flickering images on the concrete wall:

• Me, age 7, falling off my bike (but I never had a bike)

• Me and Rachel at our wedding (we were never married)

• Me , much older, screaming as something peeled my face off like a mask

The projector jammed. The film strip showed a single frame repeated endlessly: a road sign reading "BLACKPINE - COME HOME."

Chapter 5: The Chase

I ran upstairs to find the diner empty. Outside, my Honda was gone. In its place stood an identical car - same plates, same dent in the rear bumper - but the interior was covered in thick black mold.

That's when the streetlights began going out one by one.

I heard it before I saw it: a wet, dragging sound coming from the alley. The waitress emerged, her limbs moving all wrong, her jaw unhinging like a snake's. "You can't leave," she gargled through a mouthful of blood. "You've always lived here."

Chapter 6: The Escape

I drove through the night without headlights, the Honda's engine screaming. The rearview mirror showed the entire town chasing me - not running, but slithering along the road like a single monstrous organism.

At dawn, I collapsed at a real truck stop outside Missoula. The waitress there called an ambulance when I couldn't stop screaming about the teeth.

Epilogue: The Package

They discharged me after 72 hours. The doctor said it was a psychotic break brought on by stress.

But when I got home, a package waited on my doorstep. Inside was a VHS tape labeled "MICHAEL'S WELCOME HOME." The security footage shows me entering the Blackpine diner... and never coming out.

Now my GPS keeps turning itself on. The screen always shows the same message:

"WELCOME HOME. NEXT TIME STAY FOREVER."