What Is a Summary of “The Hitchhiker” by Lucille Fletcher?

In “The Hitchhiker” by Lucille Fletcher, a man named Ronald Adams keeps encountering the same solitary hitchhiker as he drives alone across the country. At first, he is curious as to how the hitchhiker seems to be everywhere he goes, but then his sense of dread gradually increases.

Ronald finally tries to stop at a phone booth to call his mother. A stranger answers the phone only to tell him that he, Ronald Adams, died 6 days earlier while crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. The story ends with Ronald returning to his nightmarish drive across New Mexico at night.

“The Hitchhiker” was performed on Orson Welles’ radio show, “Mercury Theater,” in 1941, and was made into an episode of the TV show “The Twilight Zone” in 1960.