The Hitch-hiker

Good evening, Mrs. Orson Wells. Your producer of a special series of broadcast presented by the makers of Pabs Blue Ribbon. The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air. Ladies and gentlemen, the element of suspense is so vital to our story tonight that our sponsors, the makers of Pabs Blue Ribbon Beer, are emitting their usual commercial message during the intermission between the acts

so that our play will go uninterrupted from spooky start to spooky finish. We of the Mercury reckon that a story doesn't have to appeal to the heart, it can also appeal to the spine. Sometimes you want your heart to be warm, sometimes you want your spine to tingle.

While the tingling, it's to be hoped, will be quite audible as you listen tonight to a classic among radio thrillers. Its author is one of the most gifted of all the writers who ever worked for this medium, Lucille Fletcher, who wrote the greatest single radio script ever written. Sorry wrong number.

The title of this, for a terrifying little tale of gruel, with this evening, find Tingla by name, the hitchhiker, in an auto camp. On Route 66, just west of Gallup, New Mexico. If I tell it, maybe it'll help me. It'll keep me from going crazy.

But I must tell this quickly. I'm not crazy now. I feel perfectly well. Perfectly well. Except that I'm running a slight temperature. My name is Ronald Adams. I'm 36 years of age, unmarried, tall, dark with a black mustache.

I drive a 1940 Ford V8 license number 6B 7989. I was born in Brooklyn. All this I know. I know that I'm at this moment perfectly sane. That it is not me who's gone mad.