“I was around seven years old in the summer of 1978, and it was one of those Texas summers that seemed to hum with heat even at night. My mom, my aunt and uncle, my grandmother, and my two younger cousins had decided to take a road trip to Reynosa, Mexico. My uncle had just bought a 1977 Ford LTD Country Squire—a big, luxurious station wagon with wood‑panel sides that made it look like the kind of car families in magazines took across America. To me, it felt like riding in a rolling ship.
I’d never been to Mexico before, so even as a kid, I was buzzing with excitement. We pulled out early, packed to the roof with suitcases, snacks, and the chatter of grown‑ups planning the trip ahead. By the time we reached Falfurrias on Highway 281, the sky had turned inky black. The radio faded in and out with ghostly static, and farms and trees blurred past in the darkness.
It was getting close to 3 a.m. My cousins had already fallen asleep beside me in the back compartment, a wide space behind the second row of seats that felt like our own little fort. I was still awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the tires and the steady breathing of my family.
Then, my uncle’s voice cut through the stillness. “What is this? Who would be out here at this hour?”
The car began to slow. I could feel it—momentum fading, the soft deceleration pressing me gently forward. We were on a long, desolate stretch of road where there were no signs, no towns, nothing but brush and the occasional flicker of fence posts in the headlights.
Before I could lift my head to look, my grandmother spoke sharply, her voice trembling with something I’d never heard before—fear. “Don’t stop! Step on it, mijo! Go!”
The tension in her voice jolted me upright. I peeked over the seat just as the headlights swept over the right side of the highway.
There, illuminated in the yellow glow, stood three elderly nuns. All dressed in black habits, their faces pale as bone, and each with her thumb raised for a ride. But what froze me wasn’t that—they were smiling, wide, unnatural smiles that seemed to stretch too far, too fixed. A chill ran through me.
Before I could stare any longer, my mom’s hand came down over my head and pushed me down behind the seat. “You can’t see this,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
I heard my uncle’s deep breath, then the roar of the engine as he hit the gas. The car lurched forward, and for a moment no one said a word. The road swallowed us back up, dark and endless.
We reached McAllen before sunrise and checked into a small roadside hotel. At breakfast the next morning, nobody mentioned what we’d seen—or thought we’d seen. The silence around the table was heavy, like everyone was pretending nothing had happened. But I knew we all remembered.
On the drive home a few days later, as we headed north on Highway 281 again, my uncle made sure we crossed that same stretch in broad daylight. He never said why, but he didn’t have to. Everyone kept glancing at the side of the road, quietly hoping the nuns were gone.” -Bigfoot Bob