Fear Files

Ghost Hitchhiker

I live in northern Christchurch, in the suburb of Belfast. In Belfast, there is an old house and property on Main North Road named the Kapuatohe Historical Reserve. Whenever I drive past this place, either by myself, or with friends or family, I always get a small chill. Since I was a small boy (18 now) I've always suspected the house was haunted. My experience around two months ago has almost made me certain.

It was around 1.30am on a Saturday morning, and I was making my way home from a party at which I was the sober driver. I had dropped off my mates and was ready to make my way into the loving arms of my bed. As I was driving north, towards the house, I thought I could make out the figure of a person standing at the side of the road, and what looked like a back-pack at their feet. A hitch-hiker? At 1.30 in the morning? It sounded ridiculous as I said it out loud to myself. But as I got closer to the house, the hitch-hiker clearly wasn't a figment of my imagination.

Curiously, although I could see the hitch-hiker quite clearly now, she - the person was female in appearance - was seemingly faceless. By now I was a little freaked out, but I wasn't about to stop the car. As I passed the hitch-hiker, she turned to face my car, and I felt myself going cold all over. Her face was anything but ordinary. Imagine an old leather volleyball that had had a rough going over from some vigourous high school students. I wrenched my eyes away from the hitch-hiker, who by now - in my eyes - was almost definitely a ghost, an apparition, whatever you want to call it. I punched the accelerator for the next half a kilometer, keen to put as much distance between myself and what I had just seen as possible.

As I pulled up the driveway at home, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I told some of my family about the episode. My uncle then told me of a story set about 10 years ago, in which a young woman was killed while hitch-hiking either from or at the historical building in Belfast. This, in my mind, is the same woman that I saw on my late night drive around two months ago.

Since that night, everytime I've driven past, I've looked for the mysterious woman, but I haven't seen her since.