The Last Drive by Carl Jacobi Episode #159
Carl Jacobi | December 21, 2023-
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The Last Drive by Carl Jacobi Episode #159
Carl Jacobi
THE LAST DRIVE
Episode #159 · Written by Carl Jacobi · Narrated by Scott Miller
A winter storm sweeps across the hills as Jeb Waters makes the long haul back to Marchester. He knows every rise and curve of the road, but tonight the landscape feels different—emptier, harsher, almost watchful. In the back of his aging van rests a coffin carrying home the town’s most celebrated son, a young racing driver whose ambition once pushed steel and rubber to their breaking point.
When the engine dies at the crest of a hill and the snow begins to bury the road, Jeb finds himself stranded in the growing dark. The wind presses against the thin metal walls. Power lines hum in the distance. Isolation tightens around him as the temperature drops and the hours stretch thin. Then the truck begins to move again—without the sound of a motor—and a figure appears in the cab where no living man should be sitting.
What unfolds is a story driven by mounting tension and a single terrible question: if something refuses to let go of the wheel, how do you take control back? The storm offers no help. The hills offer no refuge. And the road ahead leads only deeper into the night.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carl Jacobi was a prolific contributor to American pulp and fantasy magazines from the 1930s onward, publishing regularly in Weird Tales, Strange Tales, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Startling Stories. His fiction often blended rural settings with supernatural or psychological shocks, grounding uncanny events in familiar American landscapes. Jacobi later gathered many of his stories in collections such as Revelations in Black, which cemented his reputation for atmosphere and tightly controlled suspense. “The Last Drive” showcases his talent for building dread step by step, using weather, isolation, and a single unsettling image to deliver a haunting final impression.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to The Last Drive by Carl Jacobi — a vintage science fiction short story of a stormbound truck and a final ride that refuses to end.
SCI-FI HORROR AND DARK SCIENCE FICTION
Some of the most unforgettable science fiction doesn’t just imagine the future—it unsettles it. These stories move beyond exploration and invention, stepping into places where something has gone wrong and no one fully understands why.
Strange signals arrive from empty places. Creatures appear where nothing should live. Ordinary people find themselves facing forces that ignore reason, defy explanation, and refuse to be controlled. Whether the threat comes from deep space, another dimension, or the hidden corners of Earth itself, the result is the same: a slow realization that the rules no longer apply.
These stories explore isolation, transformation, unseen presences, and the quiet dread that builds when answers never come. Step into worlds where the unknown isn’t waiting to be discovered—it’s already here, and it’s watching.
- The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson
- The Hounds of Tindalos by Frank Belknap Long
- The Last Drive by Carl Jacobi
- The Shambler from the Stars by Robert Bloch
- The Grip of Death by Robert Bloch
- Spawn of Inferno by Hugh B. Cave
- The Dream Snake by Robert E. Howard
- The Fearsome Touch of Death by Robert E. Howard
- The Man Who Was Pale by Jack Sharkey
- Upon the Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick
- The Thing Behind Hell’s Door by Robert Silverberg
- The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce
- The Eater of Souls by Henry Kuttner
- Dance of the Dead by Richard Matheson
- The City of the Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith
ABOUT THE LOST SCI-FI PODCAST
The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is the most listened-to vintage science fiction podcast in the world. Ranked the #1 Science Fiction Podcast in 34 countries and heard in more than 190 countries, the show has surpassed 3.8 million listens.
Each episode features carefully selected stories from the Golden Age of science fiction, professionally narrated. Timeless storytelling the way it was meant to be heard.
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Vintage science fiction. Professionally narrated. Carefully curated.
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