The Secret Cargo Moving Across America Sinks People Straight Into The Earth

Every time the truck stops, whoever is standing nearest its back doors begins to slow. Words drag. Faces sag. Then they fall flat and sink into the asphalt, and they keep sinking.

The cargo is a warm grey stone the size of a fist, heavy enough to bend the light around it, resting on a stack of steel plates it is slowly falling through. The man paid to haul it has one rule: never stop longer than it takes to fuel. A voice on a sealed radio picks every stop.

Along Interstate 80, people...