Lurking in the Dark

It was Good to See an Old Friend

When I was 37, I went to my high school reunion. I flew into the nearest airport and rented a car. The distance was about 35 miles through a very rural and almost abandoned part of the country. About three miles outside of town I see someone on the side of the road, flagging me down. It turned out that it was one of the guys I had attended school with. Jim (not his name) gets in the car and we start talking. I had not seen him in twenty years, but he still looked the same, maybe a little older. We get to town and I ask him if he wants to come to the VFW and have a drink. He says "No, just take me home." Jim's parents had lived only a few blocks from my grandmother’s house, and I turned in that direction but he said to take him to the outskirts of town. There was a mobile home park out there, and I figured that is where he lived. When we reached the end of the turn off he said, "Just drop me here. It was good to see you again" and he walks off into the night.

I go to the VFW, met some of my old classmates, we start to talk. As we are talking about who is coming to the reunion, I mention that I had just picked Jim up three miles east of town and had dropped him off. Everyone gets quiet; even the guy singing karaoke stops and lays down the mike. My cousin goes white as a new t-shirt.

"Barb, Jim died on that curve eight years ago. Rolled his car. We were all at his funeral," I was told. I started to feel really dizzy, and I went out to the car to take some deep breaths. There on the seat is the local newspaper, printed eight years previous, containing Jim's obituary. I still have the paper.

Someone take Reddit away from me. I can’t stop reading ghost stories