ALL IN THE HEAD 1

THE GHOSTS OF MIKE AND JEFF

Neither Mike nor Jeff knew the other prior to the evening they were destined to come together. Their separate journeys on the same long stretch of road would most definitely alter both their lives in many ways.

How odd it is that one of the alterations to come will not be realized at all as it also would be far too difficult to understand. For the alternate existence will come to be, to exist both alongside and separate to the regular with the regular being none the wiser as to if anything that could be considered supernatural has occurred at all while alternate may just go on to see an eternity on that long stretch of road.

The night-time sky was falling, and the temperature was cold; so cold that the previously fallen rain along with the sky darkening had already begun to turn wet patches to pockets of ice by the time Mike well and truly came to be on this particular road. Roadside lights were few and far between leading conditions to be anything other than at their best.

Travelling at quite the speed, Mike received a sudden blow out to his front right tyre, and this blow out was such that it forced his car off the road and into a ditch.

Jeff knew this particular long stretch of road like the back of his hand, he had travelled it so many times before all without incident so when Mike, leaving his car behind, made his way out of the ditch and back on to the road, he had totally caught Jeff by surprise and Jeff only hit his brakes at the moment he had also hit Mike. As Jeff's car swerved and came to a halt, his head collided with his steering wheel and this completely and instantly knocked him out. It would also do something else.

How odd, Mike thought, it is that he was able to grab a hold of, and remain upon the vehicle that struck him, well it would be something that could be thought odd but not as odd as what was to come next for as Mike let go of his grip and came off the bonnet of the car that hit him, he noticed two things. The first of these things was that there appeared to be no one within the car that had indeed just hit him, and the second thing would be the sight of a body lying on the ground near-by.

His initial thought was that the person lying motionless on the ground must be the driver of the car that hit him, but how could that be? The windscreen was still intact and none of the car doors were open but on closer inspection Mike realized that the body on the ground so happened to be wearing the same clothing as he was. Yeah, the lifeless body on the ground was actually that of his own.

The impact of being hit by the car had killed him and somehow his soul, his spirit or ghost, or whatever he could be thought to be now, had clung on to the bonnet of the car leaving him at a complete and utter loss as to what the hell was happening. On top of this, as if it wasn't all odd enough as it is, where the hell did the driver of that car go?

Jeff awoke in the middle of a road, the same road he so happens to know so well, and he awoke to the sound of an oncoming truck which blew its noisy horns in frustration of there apparently being someone out in the middle of a road blocking the way forwards.

As confused as he is, Jeff got out of the way only to have some annoyance added to his situation with the truck driver shouting profanities as he passed on by. Now Jeff noticed a few things of his own. One, with the sun shining it was plain to see that it was now no longer night-time. Two, he indeed was still on that stretch of road he knew so well and neither his car nor the guy he had hit were anywhere to be seen.

Jeff assumed he had spent the night unconscious on the road and that whomever he had hit must be alright and had probably taken his car so Jeff done the one thing he felt was all he could do and that was to thumb a lift back into town. It wasn't long before he got that lift. There was a newspaper on the dashboard of the car he got into.

'Is that today's paper?' Jeff asked.

'It sure is' spoke the car driver.

After looking at the headline and the printed date, Tuesday 16th February 2010, Jeff said, 'sorry mate, this is yesterday's paper.'