Agreed. I liked how everything didn't make rational sense. It was implied that they had run across some kind of wormhole that linked to the past, but this was never fully explained. If it had been, it would probably have been a sci-fi story rather than horror. I really like tales of paranormal weirdness where people and objects disappear into surreal zones of the unexplained.
Wow, that is way more of an explanation than my subconscious demanded I make up for myself. I think I've always sort of conceptualized ghosts as inherently unstuck in time or something. I mean, they appear in the same place at random times for centuries and in most stories they never seem to change. Ghosts have an inherent air of antiquity.
Okay, I realize the whole classification of ghosts with agendas (see Carnaki stories, etc.) contradicts this, but I think of those as a whole different sub-branch of folklore from these creepy understated style of ghost story. When the ghost doesn't have a motive, it always seems to me like the ghost may not be particularly attached to a particular time in the first place, and why should it be?
All that said, this was a creepy enough story that it kept me from going to sleep the night I listened to it but on later reflection, it seems very...
average. It certainly isn't bad, I love the dreamlike quality of the writing and particularly how the hallucinatory stuff post-snakebite is done. But I'm sure I've heard stories about haunted taxis before and the whole thing had the feel of retelling a classic urban legend. Skillfully, but without much originality. The funny thing is, I can't place a source on where I've heard stories like this (I'm pretty sure there wasn't hiking involved, and probably an American setting), but it seems like a well-worn trope to me.
I wish there
was more to it. I'm not sure going into a full time-warp scenario would have fit well with the length and style of the story, but something bigger or more different along that line (or some other line) would have added something to make the story seem a bit less mundane and a bit more unique.
Overall, I'm right in the middle with this one, I think it's a solid 3 out of 5.