Intro - Beyond the headlights

Driving down Kentucky backroads when the sun is down is a surreal experience. Trees tower over the road so thick in some places that moonlight can’t slither its way past their limbs to offer you what little help it may provide while you’re driving. Your headlights do the best they can to dispel the darkness, to keep it at bay just long enough for you to get where you’re going, but you can’t help but think of what might be lurking just beyond the light waiting to rush in.

Growing up down a holler in northeastern Kentucky, I had plenty of time to concoct my own stories of what waited in the darkness just outside of the headlights. Stories I’d heard from family members, stories I’d read, movies I’d watched, games I’d played, they all informed me of the things that could be out there, right behind the treeline inches from the road where the light couldn’t penetrate. 

As I got older, that fear of driving those backroads became a fascination. So, let’s park the car, let the dark close in, and step beyond the treeline to see what unnameable things might await us there.

- T. McAdams