Suspense The Hitchiker Sept 02 1942 radio script

Ronald Adams is a young man embarking on a cross-country drive from his mother's home in Brooklyn to California. Minutes after getting underway in a steady rain, a hitch-hiker steps into the path of Adam's car on the Brooklyn Bridge and he swerves to avoid hitting him. The incident slips his mind until later that day, when he's startled to see the same man hitch-hiking along the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey. Adams shrugs it off as a coincidence until he sees the same hitck-hiker along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, then several more times along highways in Ohio and beyond. Though the man looks like an ordinary hitch-hiker, Adams cannot understand how he keeps getting ahead along his route, and he's especially unnerved that his coat is always splattered with fresh rain even though the weather has been dry since he left New York.

After an unnerving encounter with the man at a lonely railroad crossing, Adams becomes reluctant to stop for the night. He's exhausted and desperate for company by the time he reaches Oklahoma, so he picks up a different hitch-hiker, a young woman heading to Amarillo, Texas. They make conversation until Adams sees the mysterious man again and almost crashes into a fence while attempting to hit him with his car. His passenger hadn't seen anyone, and after Adams admits that he'd tried to run someone down, she calls him crazy and flees the vehicle. She's soon picked up by a passing truck, and a shaken Adams decides to take a nap before continuing. However, the mysterious man soon reappears in a nearby field and Adams speeds away.

The hitch-hiker appears even more frequently as Adams races faster and faster through the American west too afraid to pause for longer than it takes to refuel his car and buy a sandwich. Eventually he spots a payphone outside a campground in New Mexico and stops to call his mother, feeling that he would be able to pull himself together upon hearing a familiar voice. However, he's confused when the phone at her residence is answered by a woman he doesn't recognize. After confirming that he has reached the correct number, the woman explains that Mrs. Adams was hospitalized with a nervous breakdown after the death of her son Ronald, who was killed six days ago in an auto accident on the Brooklyn Bridge. Ronald Adams is too shocked to reply or insert more coins to continue the long distance conversation, and the call drops.

The play ends with Adams expressing a new-found determination to find the hitch-hiker: "Somewhere I will know who he is – and who I am."