This is a story that was told to me as a youngster and gave me chills. It frightened me one night as I drove this same highway to visit someone. I know I saw this hitchhiker ghost. Enjoy!
On a chilly October night, a young man from Youngsville, NC was on his way to a party at a local dance hall. While traveling there on NC Hwy 96, he passed an attractive young woman on the side of the road. He stopped to offer her a ride and eventually agreed to accompany him to the dance. While there, everyone at the party found her very charming and after the dance was over, the young man offered a ride home.
She told him his address, an address in Oxford, NC. As they left the dance hall, the night had turned rather chilly. The young man offered her his jacket to wear to keep warm as he drove her home. After a short drive down NC Hwy 96 to the young lady’s home, they pulled into the driveway of the house where the girl said that she lived. As the driver turned to the girl to tell her they had arrived, to his amazement, she was gone! The passenger seat of the car was empty, even though the door had never opened. The young lady had simply vanished.
Not knowing what to do, the young man went up to the door of the house and knocked. An elderly woman answered the door, and he explained what had happened. Almost immediately, the aged woman seemed to know what he was talking about. The young girl that had accompanied him to the dance was, in fact, the elderly woman’s daughter; the same young daughter that had died in a car accident 10 years prior out on NC Hwy 96. She tells him that since she has passed away; she had been trying to get home ever since.
The frightened young man didn’t believe her, even though the name of the girl that he had taken to the dance was the same as the woman’s daughter was the same. In order to convince the young man, the old woman told him exactly where to find the deceased young girl in the local cemetery. The young man proceeded to the cemetery; armed with a flashlight and the directions he had been given. He quickly found the headstone with the girl’s name on it, with a death date of 10 years ago to the exact date. Neatly folded over the top of the grave was the coat that the girl had borrowed to ward off the night chill.
Every year, on the same night that this young woman died, her spirit continues to walk NC Hwy 96 looking for a ride home to which an unexpecting young man gives her before she disappears into the cold night air never getting home. So if you’re ever riding the road on NC Hwy 96 between Youngsville and Oxford, just note that the young woman that you see walking alongside the road will amaze you, but when it’s time to go home, she will never make it.
Be A Man Universe 