sideswipe

·44 min·4 clips

A priest fights for his life as a grotesque wolf-like creature forces its way into his car.

Father Leo Moss begins in exhaustion. He gives his name plainly, then sets the listener after a hard conversation with Jane, a bar he would not normally enter, and a drive home at about one in the morning. The accident opens the door, but the excerpt is less about the crash than the pressure that follows it. Cold pavement, broken glass, a wandering contact card, and a hurt man with accusation in his voice do most of the work. The man keeps returning to blame. He talks about thirteen months with doctors and strangers online, buying a gun, holding it at home, and driving for days to get away from what it might let him do. Leo tries to keep the scene reasonable, which is exactly what fails. To the other man, reason sounds like dodging. Only a spoken admission from Leo will count as truth. Then a scraping sound moves nearby. It could be an animal, the car settling, or some small complaint from the cold machinery, but the narration leaves it hanging beside the card as if the dark has started to answer back. Leo feels the danger becoming physical. He gives in, partly from fear and partly from the priestly habit of meeting a suffering person where they are. The concession does not soften the man. It makes him more exacting. He does not want an explanation that helps. He wants fault pulled from somewhere deeper, from Leo's heart, with the weight of confession. That is where the story gets meaner and quieter. No big reveal is needed. A desperate person can turn facts into a room with no door. The final image pushes the fear wider: unprepared people meeting an indifferent force, and a complicated soul stripped down to hunger, pursuit, and violence. When Leo calls the man his new friend, the line lands with a dry, nasty closeness. Readiness here sounds less like courage than giving yourself over to what is already on the road.

As heard by us

A roadside encounter turns into slow, electric dread.

Father Leo Moss's late-night drive home turns sideways at the roadside, where a small act of help only makes things worse. The piece keeps its focus on ordinary details first: the scrape of something nearby, a contact card gone missing, a man who stays calm right up until he…

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Why you'd press play

You want one dark night drive that turns into a reckoning.

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