There is a rather long and winding road in
Singapore that's really beautiful in the day. Lush
green trees and bushes line the sides of the road
and large residential properties sit on both
sides. It gets especially breath-taking in the
evenings, when the evening sunlight streams across
the trees, onto the brown leaves scattered on the
road. We don't get to see much of such places over
here, given how small our island state is. It's
one of the places I love to drive through...but
only in the daytime now, and only if I absolutely
have to.
And never in the night.
About a year ago, I had a close friend, K, come
visit me in Singapore and it was a happy reunion
when I went and collected her from the airport. We
had a great time catching up on lost time and
talking about our lives and how much we'd
progressed since we first met. We got so engrossed
chatting and laughing that it was too late when
I'd realised I'd missed my turn, and had had to
make a huge U-turn to get to our destination,
which was her hotel somewhere just off of town.
Groaning inwardly and not wanting her to know that
I'd gone the wrong way, I simply drove on and
continued talking with her when I realised that I
was headed back for the highway which leads back
to the airport! Just as I was about to tell K how
silly I was to miss my turn, I saw the entrance to
that peaceful winding road and thought it would be
a great idea to show her what I felt was one of
Singapore's more beautiful spots. So I gladly
turned in and proceeded to tell her about this
spot which I'd always enjoyed driving on...
As we turned into the road and drove along, the
first thing I noticed was that there were no other
cars on the road, which I attributed to the late
hour - K had arrived at about 11.30 pm so by the
time we got here, it was already about 12.30 past
midnight. We were still having a great time,
singing along to some silly song on the radio and
I remember K remarking endlessly about how big the
houses were and how nice it must be for people to
live on this road. Just as I leant forward to turn
up the volume of the music on the radio, K
suddenly barked in a hoarse whisper, "Drive
faster." Confused and taken aback by her sudden
change in demeanor, I looked back onto the road
and was startled by the figure of a lone jogger on
the left hand side of the road. "What's he doing
here at this late hour?" I wondered softly aloud,
sensing that something was not quite right by this
time, and glanced round at K who had turned quite
pale by this time. "K?" I probed, "Are you ok?" K
then grabbed my hand, shocking me as her hand was
ice cold, and said shakily, " Damn it G, drive!"
Needless to say, I stepped on the gas as hard as I
could, overtaking the jogger. As I looked in my
rear-view mirror, I got the shock of my life - the
jogger was running just behind my car! It didn't
make sense, I was going at least 90 km/h by now
and still picking up speed, yet he was following
me so closely! I floored it and gripped my
steering wheel so tight I'm not sure how I managed
to move it around, given how curvy the road was. I
was certain by then that we were both in big
trouble, and was kicking myself for taking this
route in the first place.
Then K whimpered, and I thought I heard her
starting to cry. 2 seconds later, I realised why.
He was running alongside my car now, I swear, by
this time, I almost swerved the whole car out of
fright. From the corner of my eye, I saw that he
wasn't really running, but just seemed to
be..floating alongside us. Believe me, I never
knew what real fear tasted like, until that night.
Then the worst happened..
he turned and looked
right at me, and for some reason, I turned and
looked back. Dressed in a casual polo T-shirt, he
looked like any normal human man, probably in his
early thirties, of mixed heritage. Only the entire
right side of his face was all smashed up and I
could see some parts of his skull. He looked angry
yet his eyes were the most frightening of all.
They were so big yet so lifeless, but most of all,
he didn't have eyeballs, only whites. I looked at
my side-view mirror and only saw the empty road
reflected where he should have been, and knew that
if this went on any longer, I would certainly have
a heart attack or something.
Then as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone. Gone
from my rear-view and side-view mirrors. I sped on
and almost cried from relief when I saw the
street lamps on the main road just up ahead, and
almost got myself into an accident when I just
shot out onto it.
It's been about a year since it happened, and I
haven't gone back on that road since.
Incidentally, I was in a taxi just last week after
a few drinks and after chatting with the taxi
driver for a bit, I thought I'd ask him if he's
been on that road, to which he replied, "NO WAY am
I driving on that road at night! Not even if you
paid me extra, I'll gladly drop you off at the
roadside." When I asked him why, he told me that
his other cabbie friends have seen this lone
jogger and also experienced the same thing as I
did. Sometimes the man would appear in front of
the vehicle and go on running backwards (!!), and
other times he would just be following the vehicle
closely. According to what he's heard, this jogger
died in a hit-and-run accident and the rogue
driver was never found. I guess he's since taken
it upon himself to try and locate his killer,
therefore the hauntings.
Finally, when I asked K why she told me so
urgently to drive faster when she saw him jogging
alongside the road (after all, I've seen people
jogging late at night, it's nothing unusual), she
told me, "Because I already saw him jogging along
the MAIN road even before we entered the curvy
road. At first I didn't think much of it, but when
I saw him again inside, I knew that there was no
way any human being could run that quickly, so
that was when I told you to speed up."
I've since done quite a bit of research on places
with paranormal activity and so now avoid them
like the plague. Don't want to make the same
mistake again.
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