A true ghost story

As you know, I write ghost stories. 

As you may have guessed, I'm a believer. 

But you may not know that I've encountered a few ghosts myself, and seeing really is believing. 

The event I'm about to recount is true and, apart from minor vagueness caused by the passing of time, factual. It may not be the most terrifying tale you've ever read, but I'm betting it will be on your mind the next time you're driving at night on a badly-lit road.

I'm guessing the year to be about 1998, based on the boyfriend I had at the time. He was driving- I don't remember where we were going or where we had been- but it was late, dark, and we were on the country lanes between the small villages that surround Arundel, in West Sussex.

We were chatting about our evening as he drove, trivial stuff, when I saw a dark figure by the side of the lane on the edge of the trees, on the right, wearing what looked like a hood pulled up over its head. Before I had a chance to even frown at the strangeness of someone standing by the side of a country lane in the middle of the night, the figure stepped into the road and into the path of our car.

I gasped and opened my mouth to shout out a warning, just as my boyfriend stamped on the brakes. Too late. We hit the figure head-on... and passed straight through. It was that quick. No bump, no impact of any kind- just the lingering image of a tall, hooded, midnight-coloured smudge of a man silhouetted in the beam of the headlights. Heart pounding, I turned to my boyfriend, his face pale beneath his surfer-tan.

"Why did you brake?" I asked urgently. I knew what I had seen but I needed to know if he'd seen the same. It could have been a trick of the light; a smear on the windscreen. He shook his head slowly as he began to accelerate away from the spot. My hands were trembling as he struggled to answer.
"I don't know," he managed at last. "I saw... I thought... someone ran into the road."
"What did they look like?"
"Tall- a man- and he was wearing a black hoodie. He ran into the road from the right..."

Do any of you have a true ghost story? I'd love to hear it!

Also, if you want to read a fictional ghost story that is just as chilling, try Late: a ghostly tale. It's free to download this week!