Do we have any ghost stories? It IS the season, anyway
I’ll share one
Several years ago - never mind how long ago, precisely - when I lived in another town than I do now, I used to run a nice 4-mile out-and-back along a road that passed through woods and meadows. In the few short years I lived there, the woods became a collection of hospital buildings and the Skate Zone , the meadows became parking lots, and the path became a sidewalk.
One spring evening - just after dusk, while there was still some light but getting darker - I made the turnaround at the stoplight (which once was just a 4-way stop, but now had two left-turn only lanes - with arrows) and headed back towards Wendy’s, OliveGarden, a couple banks, etc. I was suddenly aware of feet coming up up behind me. This caught me off-guard, because I hadn’t see anyone else running in any direction when I was at the light and I had gone quite a way down the road and way from the light before I heard them. I turned around to see a guy in his fifties, I guess, also out for a spring run, but dressed in summer gear (just a white singlet and old-school short shorts)
I was on the barely year-old sidewalk, but he was running in the street, almost right down the middle of the on-coming lane
“Hey!” I shouted over to him “You may want to use the sidewalk. I don’t think it’s a good idea to be in out in the road” as it is particularly twisty at this point and not all the streetlights were on yet, so a runner in the road might not be seen until it was too late
“What sidewalk???”
“Over here. It’s new.”
At this point we were just coming around a bend. I could see headlights approaching in the dusk. As they turned toward my guest, the driver leaned on the horn.
When I turned to say* “Told ya!”* … There was no one there
I stopped for a second to see if he had jumped onto the sidewalk after all, or had maybe scooted down a side road, but I saw no one, nor heard any footsteps
A couple of days later, my imagination and curiosity got the best of me. I called the Voorhees and Gibbsboro Police departments. To no surprise, I learned that many years before a jogger HAD been struck and killed right where I saw my running pal; or where he’d disappeared, anyway