A Snowy Night

Years ago when I was younger (circa 1985), my friends and I used to go parking with our girlfriends down a deserted old dirt road that was close to a river. We called it "The Place." It was kind of a spooky place so the girls would, of course, be hanging all over you because they were frightened (just what we wanted them to do).

One of my friend's uncles told us that there once was an old house down there that had long been abandoned even when he was a young man and it had a reputation of being haunted. The house had burned down by the time we started going there so the only thing left was the foundation and some scattered pieces of burnt wood from the old house.

One snowy night, my friend Bob and I went out with our girlfriends. Being bored we decided to head down to the Place and hang out. Bob was driving, with his girlfriend in the front seat beside him. I was in the back seat behind Bob with my girlfriend beside me. A light snow had started falling early in the evening and it was quite cold out so there weren't many cars let alone people out on the roads.

We drove down the dirt road and parked near the foundation and we talked as the radio played softly in the background. As we conversed, Bob and I were facing our girlfriends who were on the passenger side of the car.

After about 45 minutes of talking, Bob and I were startled to see someone walk by the car, on the passenger side, from the back of the car to the front. The figure appeared to be dressed in some kind of cloak and was walking fast. The girls must have known something was up because I stopped talking in mid sentence, while Bob exclaimed, "Who the Heck is that?!" They both turned around just in time to see the figure disappear at the front of the car! At this point pandemonium broke loose in the car, both girls are screaming while Bob and I are trying to calm them down. Unfortunately, we had filled their heads with all sorts of spooky stories when we were down there on different occasions so they just freaked out. They were practically crying, begging us to leave. I tried to be the voice of reason, saying it was probably someone out for a walk (on a night like that?) And how did we not know that maybe that person had taken a fall at the front of the car in some unseen hole (although I has walked that ground many times and knew it to be perfectly flat).

I convinced the girls that the best course of action would be for me and Bob to take a look outside the car and make sure there was no one hurt out there. Of course, that didn't go over very well with the girls (and Bob wasn't too thrilled with it either) But my curiosity got the best of me and I had to see if anyone was out there. So gathering up our courage, Bob and I got out of the car with his little flashlight and proceeded around the front of the car to the passenger side to see where the mysterious person had gone.

We got to the front of the car and shone the flashlight all around but didn't see a soul nor hear a sound. Then Bob shone the light on the ground, and to our horror, we noticed that there were no footprints in the freshly fallen snow on the passenger side. Just then we heard an ear splitting scream from the girls in the car. We ran up to the passenger side doors and the girls opened the doors and breathlessly told us that someone had just walked past the drivers side from the front of the car to the back while Bob and I were looking for footprints in the snow on the passengers side!

At that point we decided to get the heck out there. Bob ran around the front of the car and I, holding the flashlight, went around the back of the car. Just as I got in the car, I pointed the flashlight down and discovered the only footprints were Bobs and mine! At that instance, I could feel all the hair on my body stand on end. We hightailed it out of there and once we got the girls calmed down, they told us this person had appeared out of nowhere from the snow and swiftly walked by the car (that's when we heard them scream).

I was never a believer in ghosts but needless to say that was the LAST time I ever went to the Place. And after we told our story to our friends, none of them ever went parking there again either.