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Short Stories

The Toll Booth

After stumbling upon an abandoned structure on an abandoned road, the story of Arthur Tolliver and his mysterious toll booth is told once more, but is it a local legend...or something more sinister?
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Word Count: 1,250

The Toll Booth

Along a dark, country road…
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In a dark, creaky forest…
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On a dark, cold night…
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You will find a toll booth. A forgotten relic, a rusted, narrow cubicle leaning to the right, as if the ground itself is slowly consuming it whole. Its once-bold paint had long since peeled away, leaving only patches of flaking grey, the metal beneath stained with rust. Faded stickers and advertisements cling stubbornly to the glass, their messages unreadable, the edges curling out like old parchment. A weathered sign, with its letters bleached by time, hangs askew above the window, swaying in the breeze.
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The window is streaked with grime, the inside barely visible except for the faint outline of something within. The road is cracked and uneven, lined with weeds that creep ever closer, as if nature itself is trying to reclaim what was lost. Most who pass barely notice it. In the corner of the eye, it could be a distant building, or when noticed, it could be abandoned equipment or perhaps the remains of a car accident, but for those who see it, who really look—something about it feels wrong. Like a place time has left behind. Like a place that should not still be there.
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After stumbling upon it myself one evening many years ago, I enquired with a local man in a local establishment about the history of this toll booth, and I relay to you now, the story as he relayed it to me:
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“The booth was erected nearly a century ago, back when the road was new and footfall was high. Back when a man still had to sit inside, counting the pennies by hand and noting each down in a leather-bound ledger. His name was Arthur Tolliver, but we’ll come back to him.
The booth was not marked out, nor was it painted or nailed; it simply appeared. One evening, there was nothing, and by the morning, there was something. It didn’t affect anyone enough to prompt further investigation. It wasn’t blocking any sight-lines or sitting on anyone’s land, nor did it bring any trouble, so it was simply let be.
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The real curiosity was Tolliver. A quiet man, as the story goes. He appeared with the booth itself, adorned with a shining name badge bearing the words “Arthur Tolliver, Toll Booth Assistant”, and there he sat, framed in the window with a face sunken and cold, but youthful, like a drawing of a man; clearly a healthy, living person, but at the same time, empty. None saw any family or friends, nor did any person see him arrive for a shift or leave at the end of the day. He sat with his palm outstretched, and a coin would be placed in his hand. His fingers would curl around it as his arm retracted, then the sound of a clink as it fell in a metal tray would announce its acceptance.
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No one paid him much mind. What harm did he do? Questions were whispered by gossips in hallways, but no individual had any right to question a man’s private life, and so he was left to go about his business.
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Folks drove up, paid the charge, and drove on. Tolliver stayed. The years rolled by, the booth aged, and Tolliver with it. Roads were widened, and cars grew slimmer and faster, but Tolliver remained, perched in his rusting cage, his hand outstretched, waiting for the toll. Over time, some began to wonder—had anyone ever truly seen him eat? Had he ever been seen outside of that booth at all? Had anyone even heard him speak, or so much as made a noise? A breath even? An uneasy feeling settled over those who thought too long about it, so they stopped thinking. They simply paid their toll and carried on their way.
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Some say he just never had anywhere else to be. Others reckon he lived in the booth itself, living off rainwater and the berries in the bushes. Regardless, he was there, day and night, rain or shine, and soon the booth was as you see it now: ruined and decayed. The decades had not been kind. The road was practically abandoned, cast into neglect by large highways that tore unapologetically through the landscape, and the trees and bushes were left to grow and spread and reclaim the ground, but Tolliver remained.
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By this time, the window had become filthy and green, allowing only hints of shapes to be seen from within. The only signs of life being the bony, grey hand, covered in wrinkles with skin as thin as paper, that creaked and snapped as it wrapped around the coins to take them back through the gap and into the dark void with it.
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Eventually, even that novelty ceased. No one knows quite how the tradition started, but brave souls would seek the booth out, and lost walkers would stumble across it, and see the outstretched palm, on which now sat a mound of euros, cents, pennies, arcade tokens, and they would place their own, perhaps as good luck, or born of superstition and fear. Occasionally a stray would fall to the floor, or roll beneath the door, but the hand would not move. There was no curl, or retreat, just an eerie stillness.
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Those who had known Tolliver, or seen the booth in its heyday, had long since moved or passed, and so it began to be accepted as some sort of novelty. An old container of shop mannequins or a forgotten circus gimmick. Children would kick balls against it or swing their makeshift swords at its sides, lovers would meet there at dusk, hidden in the shadows it cast, and travellers would lean bikes against it whilst they rested, taking in the fresh, forest air, and if anyone tried to enter, out of a dark curiosity, the door would remain tightly shut, almost fused by time. The extra curious would shine a light in to see if anything could be seen through the cracks, but the empty darkness inside would consume every attempt.
This was the way it was to be for decade upon decade until one morning… he was gone. Tolliver was no more. There were no trails along the ground, the door remained locked and rusted, no paint had fallen or sound had been heard, but the thin, decrepit hand was no longer there, as if he had simply turned to dust. As if its own structure had caved under the weights and the burdens of a century passing before it, and simply crumbled into nothing but ash.
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Not many know of Tolliver now. Stories have been passed down generations, language has changed, and the world has moved on, but the folk of the towns and villages all know one story very well. It is passed around on the playground by laughing children and spoken around campfires by drunken students. They say that if you listen carefully, on the quietest of nights, you can hear them still. Scattered pennies, rolling across the empty road. And sometimes, just sometimes, you might see Tolliver himself, crawling in the dark, on his hands and knees, searching for every last coin.”
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The old man finished his drink and softly placed his glass down on the table. Then he leaned forward, fixing a gaze at me that made my skin crawl and sent a cold air up my back.
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“So tell me,” he said, “when you passed by that booth…did you throw him a penny?”

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