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Travel, Distress
Escaping Danger: A Spiritual Encounter in West Virginia
A chase, a church and a new chapter
At last, I saw a clearing next to the road where I could pull over and let the madman behind me pass. With flailing arms, he had been following me in a green sedan so old and damaged that, if later that day, the police asked me what the make of it was, I would not have been able to tell them.
With two wheels already off the road surface, I glanced back. I realized my pursuer did not want to pass me but was coming for me — following my tracks onto the shoulder of the road on the outskirts of the town I was leaving. An agitated, disheveled-looking man was driving so close that in the rearview mirror, I could see the foam in the corners of his contorted mouth, his face animated like a muted recording of a psychotic fiend.
I swung back onto the road surface, accelerating. The green car followed my every move, inches behind me, sometimes veering into the other lane, then back behind me. With lights flashing, the horn blowing, and a fist swinging outside the car, we left the town, heading for the open road.
Less than 20 minutes before, I entered this town, which looked like any other small, forgotten town in West Virginia, apart from the colossal police station with…
