Ghost on the Road: The Vanishing Hitchhiker

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Ghost on the Road: The Vanishing Hitchhiker

The Vanishing Hitchhiker is one of the most famous urban legends out there. The story goes like this: a driver of a car (or in older versions, a horse-drawn vehicle) stops to pick up a hitchhiker on a lonely road. The hitchhiker asks to be driven to a particular destination, but once they arrive, the driver finds the hitchhiker has somehow disappeared, even though the car never stopped moving.

The story ends with the driver realizing they picked up a ghost. There are a couple of ways to do this: if the destination was a house, the driver can question its occupants and find the hitchhiker has been dead for years, either because the driver recognizes their photo, or because it’s not the first time the hitchhiker has tried to get home, and the family is used to it. The ghost may have left an item in the car (book, scarf, lighter, or even bicycle) that the family recognizes, or they might have borrowed a jacket or other item from the driver, who later finds their item resting on the hitchhiker’s gravestone.

Vanishing hitchhikers are often the ghosts of people who were killed on the road where they were picked up, and they may ask to be taken to the destination they were trying to reach when they died. They may have even been hitchhiking there originally. A favorite variation of mine is when the hitchhiker requests to be driven to an airport, and it turns out they’re from a plane that crashed before landing, and they just want to finally make it to the runway. (Sometimes this hitchhiker even smells like jet fuel.) 

Check out my blog post for the whole story and writing prompts, such as:

We meet again. Say the family of a woman killed in a road accident is used to drivers coming confused to their doors, holding the dead woman’s scarf. It’s such a regular occurrence that the family starts to wonder if they themselves might be able to pick up their lost loved one on the road. Would the phantom hitchhiker appear to her own family? What would they think on seeing her—especially if she looks injured or doesn’t seem to recognize them? Most importantly, would they finally be able to complete the journey, and bring the spirit of their loved one home? (And if they do make it work, do they come to wish they hadn’t?)

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