What happens
Ronald Adams is driving alone from Brooklyn to California when he repeatedly sees a thin, grey hitchhiker carrying a cheap overnight bag, always standing where he has just passed. Each sighting unsettles him more, and the stranger appears again at gas stations, roadside stops, and across the desert of New Mexico. Adams becomes frightened and tries to make sense of what he is seeing, reaching out by telephone to his mother. The Mercury Theatre on the Air presented this radio adaptation of the Lucille Fletcher story, broadcast on June 21, 1946, as part of its summer series. The episode is performed by the Mercury company, and this guide covers the first part of the story.
Route 66 and the open roads of the United States, from Brooklyn through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Oklahoma and New Mexico
Characters: Ronald Adams, Mother, Hitchhiker
Listen for: The repeated appearances of the grey hitchhiker with his overnight bag and the spots of fresh rain on his shoulders, and Adams's growing panic as he drives faster to escape him.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.