I Worked For National Geographic As A Field Photographer And Weird, Unexplainable Things Have Been Happening To Me

Two years later, I had touched all the corners of the states, bathed in the oceans, and was frothing for new territory to cover. Following an extremely arduous trip along the Yucatan Peninsula taking pictures of the migrating Monarch Butterflies for a documentary on North America, I had bigger and better dreams. Aside from one possible interaction with a Skinwalker in the desert, nothing truly bizarre had happened to me since the meeting with the Keelut in the Arctic.

Ava hadn’t been assigned on any missions with me in a long time. She had also picked up some idiotic boyfriend she had met while taking pictures of New England foliage. It was sickening, but I tried to think about other things. I missed having her around, even if all she wanted to do was scold me for being too headstrong or beg us to stray away from danger. We made a good team. Unfortunately, no one else thought so.

Besides, after two years, we had enough experience to be in charge of our own investigations. We had a brief encounter in Chicago once, where we both happened to be getting our new assignments at the same time. She breathlessly exclaimed that she was being sent to the Amazon to take pictures of the rare Orinoco dolphins. If you don’t know why she was ridiculously excited, it was because these are those super special dolphins that are actually pink. Lastly, she was excited because Mark got named to her team.

I smiled happily for her and excused myself to go find out where I was going. Dreams began to run wild in my head as I imagined all the spectacular places they could send me. And then all of the terrible places they could send me. I might have just quit if they gave her that, and made me go back to Kentucky. Thankfully, as I walked into the room, that wasn’t what was by name.

“Miedzyrzecz Bat Sanctuary,” I said the words breathlessly, more confused than anything else. I honestly wasn’t happy or sad, angry or disappointed. I was simply and solely impartial. As I loaded onto the plane and stepped out into the airport in Warsaw, my excitement finally hit me.

And this is where I’ll be completely honest with you all. This story has absolutely nothing to do with the caves filled with bat eyes, staring down from the darkness. This story takes place when all of that is said and done, the photos have been taken, and I return back to Warsaw. I had one final day in the city, before I was scheduled to fly back to America. And in that tiny little bit of time, things got real interesting.

At this time, Poland had just been accepted into the European Union and was in the early stages of becoming a bustling new superpower. Construction was happening all around me, as I walked through the city streets. The other members of the team I was working with took me out for a tour of the city. Then, we went to a soccer game at the 10th Anniversary stadium. The sky glistened with stars throughout the whole game, and afterwards we went out for drinks. After a few drinks downed, we all parted ways, and they called a cab for me. As I waited outside for my cab to arrive, I began to get fixated on this black car that had parked on one of the side streets.

Now, it was almost three-in-the morning, and this was one of the only cars out. The others were all yellow taxicabs, but this fancy looking sedan was jet black. Also, it looked like it was straight out of the past, as if it had driven off the pages of a textbook or from a 1950s era billboard. In the semi-darkness of the night, I couldn’t make out anyone inside, and in the oddest way, I got the feeling that no one had driven it. I stood, outside this bar, waiting to see if anyone would come out. But no one did.

Being bored, drunk, and overly curious, I decided I was going to walk over, like I was just in the neighborhood, and check it out. As I approached, I saw that in the darkness, the car was full. In the driver’s seat was a man dressed from head to toe in all black. A black trench coat snugged up to his neck, and his face was covered with a black baseball cap and a pair of dark sunglasses. This again, was curious, considering that it was nearing three-in-the-morning. The passenger seat sat bare, and the most bizarre of all, was the back seat, which was occupied by three nuns.

As I passed by slowly, the driver’s side window rolled down and smoke began to pour out of the car. In the smoky haze, the man stuck his head out, tipping two fingers along the top of his cap. His glasses gleamed in the streetlight and I felt transfixed by his stare. In a gravely, dark voice he smoothly asked, “Would you happen to know the time?”

I was caught off guard at first. Not because he had asked a question, but rather because it was in English. Everyone else so far had talked to me in Polish than began to try other languages while I stared at them in disbelief. After a few seconds of wrapping my head around his question, I checked the time on my phone and told him. He nodded, smiled a toothy grin, and rolled his window back up. He never bothered to thank me.

From there, the car, started up again, and took off, leaving me in a cloud of exhaust smoke. Through the dense fog, I could see the headlights of my cab pull up, and I jogged over to meet up with it. As I approached the window, I could see the young driver’s face contorted into a shocked countenance. His skin was pale white and his eye’s large in his head. As I reached for the back door, he hissed, “Volga, Volga, no. No. No. No.” He kept repeating this until I closed the door and he sped off.

I sat dumbfounded on the curb and called for another cab. While I waited my mind raced and I tried to figure out what had just happened. When the next cab pulled up, I happily got in, and had a conversation with the driver in very broken English. At the end, I told him that the previous driver had freaked out when he saw me and started repeating the word “Volga.” As I paid the man, he silently, put his hands over his heart and looked into the stars. Then he made the sign of the holy cross in the air and said, “Son, I bless you. For you have witnessed he who wears all black and live to tell the tale. His curse breathes your air now.”

The next morning, on the way to the airport, I rode in the same cab as Sasha, who was one of my interns. I told her about the crazy night that I had and she began to flip through her phone absentmindedly. Or so I thought. Finally, her face went pale and she feverishly began to scroll down this page.

“The Black Volga is a luxury car reportedly driven by the Devil himself. All throughout the 50s and 60s it drove through the streets of Eastern Europe picking children off the street and using them as unwilling blood donors and sacrifices for the rich and famous that had leukemia. This practice has since gone out of fashion, but it is widely believed in urban legend, that the Devil was the main driver. He would appear late at night, dressed in all black, and ask someone what the time was. If they answered, they had been considered to give their soul to take. Considering any kind of wording, this person would therefore be marked for death.”

She looked up, and frowned towards me. “So, there you go.”

We decided together to stay another day in the city after that. Something lingered in the back of my head as I sat at the airport that made me feel uneasy about the whole situation. Sasha agreed to stay with me when she finally saw how freaked out I was. And it was a good thing too.

That plane went down. Said it got struck by lightning in the air. Only one guy survived. They claimed he had gone mad. I did research years later and found him. He told me from the confines of his room at the mental hospital that he saw a man dressed in all black standing on the wing of the plane. He said they locked eyes, and he asked the man for the time. He was too scared to do anything. He blacked out. And when he came back to consciousness, he was in a hospital bed.

So, I don’t know what to think. I guess I cheated death. But maybe its all just a crazy coincidence. There’s really nothing to say either way. Sasha thinks it was divine intervention; God shining through and saving us from going down. She said it was the cab driver’s prayer. But I still think I’m marked. And one day, the man in all black will come back. And I’ll ask him for the time.