It's September 1986, My parents and I are in a Lime Green 1978 Baywindow Transporter, Two bench seats in the back and some small curtains mom sewed up a few years before. we were driving to San Jose California Near Panoche Junction to visit family. If you've ever traveled along that stretch of I-5 at night, it is a dark and remote area of the Interior of California directly between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
It was a Friday. Dad had to work until 5 pm so we waited for him to get home, and mom already had the bus packed when dad got home. After eating a light dinner, we hit the road about 7 pm. We were on the Interstate going northbound. Dad was up front driving with mom sitting passenger. We pulled over at Panoche Junction rest area to fill up the tank and continued on. We've now found ourselves alone on I-5 with no cars in front or behind us for miles. It was getting dark fast and the moonless sky was revealing the hidden stars. I was a 9-year-old kid playing with my G.I. Joe action figures and Hot Wheels, jumping back and forth from the back bench to the middle bench in the dimly lit interior. That was pretty normal for kids to do that back in the 80's. Dad might have even been smoking his Menthol Salem light Cigarettes like he always used to. The radio playing was playing "Sweet love" by Anita baker and mom was softly singing along to it while lost in thought, looking out the passenger window towards the darkening horizon. There weren't any cars behind us so all I could see was the dim reddish glow from the brake lights illuminating the back curtains and the occasional glow of the oncoming headlights lighting up the interior, from vehicles traveling southbound. That's when I saw it. I glanced out the back window . A hand, pressed against the window from outside. It was oriented sideways, on the bottom edge of the window. Illuminated with the reddish glow of the taillights. Someone's right hand with the thumb pressed right up against the glass. We were still going 60 mph and I couldn't understand it. I looked at it for a few moments in terror as I tried to make sense of what I was looking at. I couldn't speak. I turned and looked at mom and dad in the front, they had no clue what was happening. Then I turned back around... I need to get this off my chest. please stay tuned.