A question about hitch-hiking ghosts.

[seanan_mcguire]

Almost everybody's heard the basic hitch-hiking ghost story—dude (usually) gives a girl a ride home, and later finds out that she was actually dead way before she got into the car—but there are some really fascinating regional variants. So here is my question for you:

How does the story go? Is she a victim, a predator, or just a confused kid trying to go home? Is seeing a hitcher like seeing the Bean Nighe—you're just doomed to die now? How does it go?

To be clear, I'm not asking you to make something up; I want to know how, in your part of the country or the world, the story goes. Or, if this is the first time you've encountered the idea (outside Disney's Haunted Mansion), I'd like to know that, too.

Curious cat is curious.

Comments

[aedifica]

The version I'm most familiar with, she's a confused kid trying to get home. Nothing happens to the guy except maybe he gets a fright from learning what happened.

I'm in the Midwest, but I'm not sure if I got this version from campfire stories, books, the internet, or what.

[lluad.livejournal.com]

The variant I'm familiar with (UK) the ghost is benevolent, and helps the driver get home safely (by keeping them awake, taking the wheel, what have you), and often the hitchhiker is the ghost of someone who died on a bad curve on that same road while driving home late at night some time earlier.

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

In my neck of the woods (suburban Phoenix, AZ), growing up, the version I heard goes thus:

A guy is driving home on an empty back road/highway at night. It's cold, sometimes raining, but usually not. Suddenly, he sees a girl in a party dress on the side of the road, and pulls over to see if she needs a ride. She's shivering and wet (even if there's no rain), so he gives her his jacket - usually it's a leather jacket or a letterman's jacket, the guy was always a 16-20 type of guy. In school, y'know? Anyway, he asks where she lives, and she gives him directions. He gets to the house, puts the car in park, and looks over at the passenger seat where she was sitting, and it's empty. So he frowns, and goes up to the door, and knocks. When someone answers the door, he asks if a girl who looks like the girl he picked up lives there. The parent tears up and says that a girl matching that description lived there, but she died in a car crash on her way to a formal dance of some sort, on a rainy night - lost control of the car in the rain or something. They show him a picture of their daughter from that night, and it's the girl he picked up, dress and all. In the morning, he goes to the local cemetery on a whim, and finds her grave - his jacket is draped over her tombstone.

So that's the one I grew up on.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

The only time I've ever heard the story was in a song.

And she was just a girl trying to get home. The guy goes to return her sweater to her house, and that's how he finds out from her dad she died in a car crash.

Boy ends up taking the sweater to the graveyard and leaving it there instead.

And as he turns to leave, the girl appears, smiling her gratitude for giving her a ride.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

Hmm. this sounds familiar to me too, so maybe I have heard this variation. Or read it.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Really?! Yours is the first benevolent hitch-hiking ghost I've ever heard of that wasn't my own Rose (she gets maligned a lot, but it's not her fault, poor dear that she is.)

Thank you so much!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

...this is a song? The hitch-hiking ghost myth is a song? Can you share the title of this song with me? I'll be your best friend...

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

Kid who loves her family just trying to get home; I'm in NH but can't remember where/when I became familiar with the story.

[amanda-nye.livejournal.com]

I've generally heard she is a lost ghost, victim of bad circumstances... doesn't realize they're gone, wants to get home. Driver just ends up spooked.

In one version I heard, she led the driver to something he'd lost

I'm from Southern California, though the versions I've heard were never based in socal or anywhere nearby

[solomons-pond.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, the versions I heard as a kid were a lot scarier... generally the hitch-hiker was male... and by the end of the story the driver was dead. Driven off the road in the same place where the hitch-hiker died, distracted in the rain, or just plain gobbled by the evil presence... Though some variations had the hitch-hiker just disappearing. It was never nice.

Of course, such stories were told by adults to kids to a) discourage hitch-hiking and b) discourage picking up hitch-hikers. Like it did a _bit_ of good. I spent most my late teen years (15-18) getting around on my thumb.

[ink-books-punk.livejournal.com]

I've heard several versions:

1) Girl gives directions to her house, he pulls up but she's suddenly not in the car, he goes to the door and talks to an old woman who turns out to be her mother, and finds out the girl's been dead for ages. Spooky! (Maine)

2) Girl forces the guy to drive off the road/cliff just after telling him that she was killed in a car accident/hit-n-run. Deadly. (Central valley CA)

3) Kerm's heard: guy picks up girl dressed nice, looks like she's going to a party, she tells him there's an accident up ahead, and as he gets near she disappears, and he sees her body on the stretcher with the EMTs/cops. (Sonora, CA)

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

Yes. Give me a moment and I'll find the title for you.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Of course, I've heard the story before. But I can't say what the regional variation is, because I've heard it a bunch of ways, and I don't know which was first. (I will say that growing up, I wasn't big on the urban legendry, so I can't say what was the standard then.)

Fragile Gravity, a webcomic with creators in the Virginia/DC area, did a version (http://unseenllc.com/core.php?archive=20071029) that seems to suggest "confused kid."

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I LOVE YOU LIKE BURNING.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thank you.

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

Here it is: Laurie (Strange Things Happen)

There are a couple notes on TV Tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurGhostsAreDifferent) about it.

And here are the lyrics (http://www.lyrics007.com/Dickey%20Lee%20Lyrics/Laurie%20(Strange%20Things%20Happen)%20Lyrics.html)

And here's a YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyiXt8beRjc).

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

There are a bunch of hitchhiking ghost songs (I'll go see if I can round some up for you), sometimes the ghost even gives the hitchhiker a ride.

[solomons-pond.livejournal.com]

There's always Leslie Fish's "Ferryman" which is the inverse in a medieval setting. The ferryman takes a desperate girl across in a storm, but when she shows up in the morning she finds out he's been dead for several years... spooky and good.

[taraljc.livejournal.com]

Resurrection Mary was the first hitch-hiking ghost I ever heard of, and she seems harmless as she disappears from the car once the driver gets to the cemetary.

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know if I saw it in a movie or read it or what. XD It's just one of those stories I can't remember NOT knowing.

[aedifica]

And I see from the comments below that there are more versions of the story than I was aware of, so I'll specify that the events follow the same general pattern as starletfallen describes below.

[wendolen.livejournal.com]

I grew up in the rural area east of Seattle. I have encountered the story occasionally, but mostly in passing, and couldn't recount it in more detail than you gave above.

[mpoetess.livejournal.com]

Ooh, The Ride, yes!

[geojlc.livejournal.com]

There was a version in one of the PeeWee Herman movies, but I don't remember which one and I don't remember what happened to the driver... Other than that, I heard the myth in Leslie Fish's Ferryman song. Sorry to be not so helpful... :-)

[mpoetess.livejournal.com]

Resurrection Mary was probably the first version I heard too, that wasn't a deliberately-literary one written up for ghost story anthology.

Most of those I've read have the "girl just trying to get home" motif, and include the talk with a surviving parent and the borrowed jacket located on a gravestone.