Creepy Guy or Tree?

..or ...
Stacy Will Hurt Me Eventually If I Don't Tell This Story.

If you all have been reading this blog for a while, you'll notice that Stacy has a large number of weird things happen to her. Enough weird things to truly make me wonder if she's some sort of magnet for the strange and unusual. Me? I don't really attract strange and unusual unless its a very strange and unusual person who wants to make me their special friend.
I'm fly paper for freaks. I don't know why. It's been this way as far back as I can remember. So where Stac has tales of the supernatural, I have tales of the guy who could have a severed head in his back pack and wants to give me a hug. My stories though tend to be pretty short and sweet. This is because I don't stick around long enough to find out if any of these people could be threatening. But there is one story that Stac would like me to tell. Granted, I don't think it translates to the written word or even to me telling it in person very well. It may just inspire some "huh.."s in you. But All I know was at the time? It scared the shit out of me.
So Flash back to when I was about 19. I grew up in a relatively small city that was interconnected with another small city by a busy main road called Appian Way. Now Appian is a pretty busy street day and night. It connects to some main shopping areas and such but there was a section of just eucalyptus trees and dirt walks as it lead into the suburbs. Considering one of my best friends lived in the neighboring small city, I drove Appian all the time. Day, night, whenever. Its really not a creepy road in any way.
I was driving Appian on a really rainy night. A couple of friends and I were coming home from the movies and I decided to take Appian because I really hated driving the freeway in the rain at the time. I was still a pretty novice driver. So we're putt-putting down the road in my little 1987 Ford Escort. We're all high on sugar and popcorn and laughing and talking loudly. The usual event after a movie for us. We're passing through the barren part of Appian and I'm not giving much thought to anything other than the conversation and the road in front of me.
As we're driving, I hear my friend in the back seat say "Umm...What's that?" I glance up ahead to where she's pointing and I see what looks like a man. He looks tall, probably about six feet. But that's about all I could tell you about him in detail. He appeared to be wearing a raincoat, a hat, and some sort of scarf or muffler that covered the bottom half of his face. He was just standing on the side of the road half in and half out of the bushes, completely dead still and looking straight ahead at nothing. Seriously. I don't even remember the wind even touching his coat. I kinda laughed it off and said "Oooh, phantom hitch hiker" to mask the fact that I suddenly got really creeped out.
Obviously there was no way in Hell I was stopping that car. Why? Because that's how stupid people in horror films behave. So I continued on by. We drove past this figure and as we passed, the man slowly turned his head and watched my car go by...ONLY my car. And we were not the only car on the road. The three of us went quiet for a moment all of us feeling the collective heebies.
"Did he just look at us?" A friend said.
"I..think so" I said.
"Was that even a guy?" My other friend asked.
"I have no fucking clue" I said.
We drove a bit further then curiosity got the better of us and we decided to turn around and see if we really saw what we saw. I was young and stupid though and feeling adventurous. so I flipped a U-ie and went back the other way to see if he was still there.
We were on the other side of the road now and I slowed down ever so slightly and we tried to take a good look. Yeah, he was still there. And damnit, if he didn't watch my car AGAIN going in the other direction. JUST my car...again.
"Yeah....that was a guy" I said.
Unfortunately we were now going the wrong way. And the stretch on Appian we were on was one where there were no major turn offs to lead us to an alternate route back to my place. So after a long while of quiet driving, and realizing we were getting more freaked out since the road gets more rural the further we wet down I pretty much said "Oh fuck this.", flipped a bitch in the road, hit the gas, and sped down Appian to just get out of there.
And he was there again. Standing in the rain and looking across the road at nothing. My friend squealed at me to gas it and I did. We whipped by the guy at a speed I really should go to jail for. And as we passed, I looked over and notice his head snap after my car. I caught him staring after us in the rear view mirror.
Needless to say the rest of the ride was pretty quiet.

I still have no idea what I saw. He could have been some freaky homeless guy, some joker screwing around, or something else entirely. Hell, he could have been a tree. It was dark and raining after all and my imagination has a nasty habit of running away with me.
Its been almost fifteen years since that happen. And damnit, sometimes I think I see that same figure on the side of the road on my way home from work at night.
I don't even live in the same city anymore.