Disappearing Act

"One night, my best friend's boyfriend's mechanic, Trevor, was driving home from a weekend trip at the lake. He had had a little too much to drink and probably shouldn't have been driving. He was driving down a dirt road, trying to find his way back to the highway from the campsite. He and his girlfriend had broken up and he had way too much on his mind. He somehow got lost and took a wrong turn. He wasn't sure where he was going and his cell phone had no reception."

Amanda continued with her story. "He came to an intersection of two dirt roads which he found quite odd. Who really needed stop signs way out here? Did that many people venture out this way? He was confused, but allowed the car to come to a complete stop. As he drove through the intersection, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head to the right and saw a girl. She was alone and seemed to be lost. He wondered if he should stop. The dangers of hitchhikers didn't weigh on his mind very often, but he hesitated a little. Then, he thought of his girlfriend, well, now ex-girlfriend. How could he leave this poor girl out here all alone? He stopped the car, backed up, and slowly pulled up next to the girl. She peeked her head in the window. 'What are you doing out here all alone?' he asked."

Amanda chuckled again before she resumed the story. "The girl answered him in a soft whisper. She wiped a tear from her eye and he could see that her eyes were swollen like she had been crying for awhile. She said, 'My boyfriend and I broke up. We were on our way home from the lake when he started to yell at me. I told him to stop the car and let me out. I told him I would walk home. When he stopped, I got out. I didn't expect him to really leave me.' Trevor felt horrible. He told her to get in the car and that he would take her home. Once in the car, they briefly talked about life, although it seemed the girl didn't have very much to say. She gave him directions and he pulled in the driveway. He was busy looking out the window, thinking about his own his ex-girlfriend when he turned to the girl in the passenger seat."

"No!" Amanda couldn't believe Stephanie's imagination. "She was gone. He hadn't heard the door open or close and he didn't see anyone around. He did see, however, her purse lying on the seat. He didn't want to look through it and just figured she had left it on the seat by accident. He sat there confused for a moment, wondering how long he had been daydreaming about his ex-girlfriend. Then he realized he had to return her purse. He got out of the car, closed the door softly, and started to walk up the drive. When he got to the door, he rang the doorbell. A woman, in her early fifties answered the door."

"No, Heather, not at all," said Amanda, impatient now to finish her story. "The woman looked confused as Trevor started to tell her the story of the young girl who had asked to be dropped off at this house. The woman even started to cry. Trevor was confused and wondered what he had done to make this woman so upset. She explained to him that her daughter had been killed in a car accident three years ago that very night. It happened at the exact intersection where Trevor had picked her up."

The girls were glad Amber was finally getting into the stories. As they started to talk about the story and about how they would have reacted, the lights in the elevator started to dim. The wind gusts got louder and they could hear it whistling outside the windows of the floors they were stuck between. They sat quietly for a few moments and then laughed - not as loud as they had before and their eyes seemed to be getting bigger. Clearly, they were becoming more and more scared the longer they were trapped, and their fears were starting to show.

"What scares me the most about this story is that ghosts can show up whenever and we may never even realize they are ghosts. I mean, Trevor had a ghost sitting in the passenger seat of his car and didn't even know it!" Amanda decided that her biggest fear was interacting with ghosts without knowing it.

I bet you're wondering what Amber's biggest fear is. You'll have to read on to find out.

Author's Note:
Many different versions of this story exist. In the version I read, a doctor was on his way home from a country club dance and stopped at an intersection. He saw a beautiful woman in an evening gown, who asked him for a ride. She rode in the back seat because of all the items on the front seat of his car. She asked him to take her home and gave him the address. He drove the girl home, but seemed to be irritated that it was, in fact, out of his way to take her home. He turned around and she had vanished from the back seat of the car. In this particular story, the girl did not leave anything in the car. When the doctor reached the destination, the woman was gone, and he was very confused, but he went and rang the doorbell anyway. He started to explain about the woman to the man who answered, but the man had already heard the story. It was his daughter who had died in an automobile crash almost two years earlier.

The man in my story was driving home from a lake camping trip instead. A camping trip seems more like something that the women in the elevator would talk about, rather than a country club dance. I also ad the main character ask the girl if she needed a ride. Because of his personal situation as I described it, he felt obligated to take the girl home as he was thinking of his girlfriend being alone in the dark. I also had the girl ride in the front seat, and she left her purse behind. It seems odd to ask someone to ride in the back seat when you have offered him/her a ride. The fact that the girl left something in the car gave the main character a reason to ring the doorbell, other than sheer curiosity, as in the original story.

Coverpage Introduction Elevator Mist Bloody Mary One Missed Call

Bibliography
"The Vanishing Hitchhiker" by Barbara Mikkelson. Websource: The Vanishing Hitchhiker

Picture of a Dirt Road. Websource: Archives of Ontario