This story’s a bit different from my usual People stories. You see, this one is spooky.

This would’ve taken place some time in 2020 or 2021. I was driving along a major arterial road in my town late in the night, say, around midnight. In the car with me was my then-fiance and our partner. We were on our way to Taco Bell, listening to music, and having a good time. There was pretty much no one else on the road, so it made for easy driving.

We come along a section of the road where there’s a slight, gradual dip and then a raise in the road over the course of a couple thousand feet. You wouldn’t really think much of this dip during the day because it’s so gradual, but at night there is the possibility not having the visibility you need.

As I pass the lowest point in the road, I notice two things. One, the street light is out. This makes the visibility here worse than usual. Two, there are two young boys sitting on the curb of the road. Based on height and stature, I’d wager they were in middle school. I think to myself that that’s an odd place to hang out, but kids will be kids. What I see in my rear view mirror, though, still leaves me wondering.

After I pass the kids, I see them promptly get up from where they were sitting, and begin to walk into the road. “Oh,” I thought, “they were just waiting for me to pass so they could cross the street.”

And then one of them lays down in the road. Just straight up walks to the middle of a lane, and lays down. It wasn’t a trip or a stumble. What I saw was a very calm and intentional lay down. As they faded from my rear view mirror, the last thing I saw was the second boy standing next to his friend in the road just watching him.

Neither of my partners saw a thing. It took me a couple miles of driving to process what I’d seen. I finally interupted the music to tell them about what I saw, and ask if I should do anything about it. My then-fiance, who was a paranoid mess, started freaking out saying I need to call 911, as this was probably some sort of suicide ritual. My other partner agreed that something was definitely weird about it.

I did end up calling 911, and they said they would dispatch someone to check it out, but I never heard any follow-up. We took the same road back. The road was still empty of cars, and the boys were nowhere to be seen.

I didn’t think it was some weird suicide pact then, and I don’t think that now, but I still wonder what it was I actually saw.