The man who hunted me on the freeway every morning stood in the center of the ballroom, shaking my CEO’s hand and laughing.
For a year, that man in his black monster truck made my commute a fifteen-minute nightmare. He used two tons of steel to make me feel small and powerless, a nameless target for his daily road rage.
Here he was, a corporate shark in a suit, preaching about aggression and dominating your lane while my own boss nodded in approval. He had no idea who I was.
He never saw the driver in the silver Volvo as a person, but he was about to learn my name in a calculated collision of his own making, with a powerful witness he never expected.
The Daily Siege: The Beast in the Rearview
The monster appears at exactly 7:38 a.m.
It crests the hill behind me on the I-5, a black slab of steel and chrome that blots out the sun. It’s a pickup truck, but calling it that feels like calling a great white shark a fish. It’s been lifted, armored, and given tires that could conquer a small country. And it’s my personal, daily specter of death.
My hands, already slick with a low-grade anxiety, tighten on the steering wheel of my sensible Volvo. The first wave of adrenaline hits, a familiar metallic taste on my tongue. He’s two lanes over, but I know the dance. It’s always the same.
He weaves through the commuter traffic like it’s a slalom course, a predator cutting through a school of minnows. No signal. Never a signal. Just aggressive, decisive lunges that force other drivers to slam on their brakes. I watch him in my side mirror, my heart a frantic hummingbird against my ribs.
Then he’s behind me. The four bone-jarring high beams fill my rearview mirror, a glaring, angry sun. He’s so close I can’t see his grille, just the void of his windshield and the blinding light. My own car feels like a tin can, a fragile shell about to be crushed. My breath catches. The world shrinks to the two feet of asphalt between my bumper and his.
It isn’t just traffic. It’s a violation. A year ago, a minivan ran a red light and T-boned this very car, spinning me across three lanes of traffic. My son, Leo, was in the back, screaming. We were lucky. Whiplash, a concussion for me, and a terror of intersections that still makes Leo go quiet. Ever since, a car getting too close feels less like an annoyance and more like a physical assault.
And this man, this stranger in the black truck, assaults me every single morning. He’ll ride my bumper for a mile, maybe two, a constant, threatening presence. Then, just as my nerves are completely shot, he’ll jerk the wheel, swerve into the fast lane without a glance, and disappear ahead, leaving me shaking and spent before my workday has even begun. He’s not just a bad driver. He’s a hunter, and I am his sport.
White Knuckles and Weak Coffee
I pull into my reserved spot at the Sterling Solutions corporate park, my hands trembling so badly it takes me two tries to get the key out of the ignition. I sit for a full minute, just breathing. In, out. The leather of the steering wheel is imprinted with the panicked grip of my fingers.
“Rough one?” Jenna, my assistant, asks the moment I walk into the office. She’s twenty-five, sharp as a tack, and sees everything. She’s already placed a steaming mug on my desk.
“You could say that,” I manage, trying to force a casual smile that feels like cracking plaster. “The usual I-5 demolition derby.”
She leans against my doorframe, arms crossed, her expression a mix of sympathy and Gen-Z cynicism. “Was it him again? The Truck-Zilla guy?”
I nod, shrugging off my coat. The fact that my daily tormentor has a nickname around the office is somehow both comforting and deeply pathetic. “He seemed particularly dedicated to re-enacting a scene from Mad Max this morning.”
Jenna shakes her head. “You should get a dashcam, Carolyn. Get his plates. Report him.”
I’ve had this conversation a dozen times, with her, with my husband, with myself. “And say what? ‘An officer? There’s a man who drives aggressively near me every morning.’ They’d laugh me off the phone. He hasn’t actually hit me. He just lives in the space where a threat becomes a promise.”
She doesn’t have an answer for that. No one ever does. She just gives me a tight-lipped smile and backs out of my office, leaving me alone with the weak coffee and the lingering vibration of fear in my bones.
I stare at the project timelines on my monitor, the sales projections and regional reports, but the numbers blur. All I can see are those four headlights, burning a hole in my memory. I’m a regional manager. I handle multi-million dollar accounts, oversee a staff of fifty, and negotiate contracts with cutthroat executives. I am competent. I am in control.
But for fifteen minutes every morning, a man I’ve never met reduces me to a terrified animal. And the rage at my own powerlessness is almost as bad as the fear itself.
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