It was a foul night, high winds and driving rain and all I wanted to do was to get home. I had been working late, reports to be made, e-mails to be sent and I had not realised how late it had got. After glancing at the clock in horror, I quickly tidied my desk and hurried down to the car park.

I settled myself into my driving position, switched on the engine and headed off into the rain and wind. I lived only a few miles out of town so fortunately it was not going to be a long drive. I had not long been in either the job or the area but I definitely felt I had made the right move and those kind of thoughts were crowding my mind as the lights of the town twinkled behind me as they were left in the distance.

Three miles further on I was driving down a particularly straight piece of road, concentrating hard as vision was impaired when I saw something on the side of the road, picked out by the headlights. I instinctively slowed down and peered into the gloom. the 'something' revealed itself to be a man, rather optimistically hitch-hiking.I had never had a rigid policy on picking up hitch-hikers, it all depended on my mood at the time. This evening in view of the awful weather I decided the prevailing mood would be one of benovelence.

I pulled over and opened the door.....it was a young guy who was, as you might expect, very wet indeed. He got in without a word and made himself comfortable, I turned up the heater a notch and drove on. I asked him where he was going and he mumbled something about the next village, which was only five miles away, the village next to mine in fact.

We drove on in silence, my attempts to engage him in conversation failing. After a few more minutes like that, he suddenly spoke :

" Sorry, forgetting my manners, thanks for picking me up".

"Thats okay" I replied " I would like to think that on a night like this anyone would stop".

" I hitch along here regularly" he said. "It can be very hard indeed".

I had not seen him before but if he hitched this time of night then it wasn't so surprising.

" Its mostly strangers that pick me up" he said " as opposed to locals I mean" .

It seemed odd to me that locals who could be expected to know him by sight did not stop for him, perhaps there was something odd about him, a bad lot maybe and here he was in my car.I asked the question.......

" The locals all know the tale you see and take no chances".

" What tale would this be then ? ".

" This stretch of road is haunted by a phantom hitch-hiker, I know its laughable but thats the problem I face when hitching along here ".

The weather was already unnerving me and I thought this was just an attempt by my passenger to spook me but he seemed very serious.

" Phantom hitch-hikers " I replied " are just an urban myth almost like folk-lore. What is this phantom of yours supposed to do, leap out in front of cars, shrieking and dragging chains ? " I said laughing.

" Not my phantom mate, but there have been unexplained accidents along here and some say this spectre of a hitch-hiker is to blame somehow. Its all rubbish anyway, I don't believe it any more than you do".

We were not far off his village now and I was just about to ask him where I should drop him off when the car hit a deep patch of lying water and even though I was not travelling all that quickly, it immediately went into a spin and as I fought to control it, the glare of headlights told me another car was approaching. I pulled on the wheel furiously trying to bring it back into a straight line but when I turned it one way, I was met with huge resistance. As I prepared myself for the certain impact, control came back to me and I was once again travelling in a straight line. I breathed a sigh of relief and idly wondered what my passenger would make of my driving skills. I opened my mouth to make my apologies and glanced at the seat beside me...

Which was empty.