Scariest ghost story I’ve heard — or one of them (mind’s like an attic full of dusty lumber at the mo’ sorry). I heard this when I was a lot younger and still remember it.
It was the classic ‘phantom hitchhiker’ with a twist, and told to me by someone who was a bit of a raconteur and used to scare me rigid with his ghost stories (one of my uncle’s).
The story went that a man (let’s call him Pete for no reason) moved from town to a rural village and was getting to know the locals over a few pints in the pub. They were a friendly lot, and the conversation got into local folklore and ghosts.
The nearest market town (where most people shopped) was a few miles away, and there was the quick route to it, or one that was a bit longer.
‘Take the longer one,’ the locals advised. ‘At least when it’s dark. There’s a ghost with no face who haunts that road through the ‘avenue’.’
The ‘avenue’ was so called as the road from the village ran between tall dark trees. It was gloomy even in full daylight.
Pete laughed it off, and when he needed to shop, of course he used the quick route, but as autumn drew on and the nights crept in, he found himself alone on that road at night. In the day there were local buses and cars etc, but never after dark.
One night there was a mist turning to drizzle and then to rain, and as he returned from town with his weekly shop, he saw a man walking ahead of him wearing a long wind-cheater or cagoule. Pete thought it was a local going to the village and drew up, offering a lift. The man thanked him and got into the passager seat, still muffled up in a hood and scarf against the weather, and Pete drove on.
‘Where d’you want to be dropped off?’ he asked.
‘The end of the avenue will be fine,’ his passenger said.
Peter said he would take the man into the village if he wanted, but no, the end of the avenue would be fine. The car drove on into the gloom of the trees and as it was coming to the end of the avenue Pete pulled in at a lay-by.
The passenger thanked him and reached for the door-handle and Pete laughed and said, ‘I only moved to (village) a few months ago. They told me in the pub never to drive this way at night, because a ghost with no face haunts it.’
The passenger paused and turned to look at him.
‘What,’ he said. ‘Like me?’