The Gas Attendant

Do ghosts really exist? I would like to think that the answer to that question is no. However, there are some people that I know and trust that swear to me that they have seen things that are not of this world. They are called spirits or by the lesser known name...'hant'. Which is the name given to a 'spirit' in the neighborhood where I grew up. Apparently they wouldn't harm you unless the mere sight of one gave you a 'heart attack', which is exactly what I thought was happening to my cousin when we were teenagers. We were walking an old country road near our home, called the 'cave in hill', one night when he started yelling and crying hant, I see a hant as he took off running in the opposite direction. Like an idiot, I also started running, even though I saw nothing...sometimes not knowing what you are running from can be scarier that seeing what you're running from. When we made it back to my house and he calmed down and was finally able to speak, I asked him what he saw. He said he saw old man Peter with a bloody sack over his shoulder standing in the middle of the road. This news sent shivers through my spines because old man Peter had died five years earlier. Sadly no one believed him but me, however if I hadn't been with him that night I wouldn't have either. There was no way he could have faked the expression on his face or the look in his eyes as he yelled that unforgettable word...'hant' Sometimes it's the parents that put these thoughts of ghost and spirits in the younger generation's head as my father did in mine. He would talk about the spirit of the 'ghostly stage coach' that roamed the 'cave in hill' road, on raining nights. As a kid I believed this story to be true and like all the other kids was terrified of that road at night but as I grew older, it became as true to me as Santa and his sleigh full of toys making a trip around the world in just one night. Athough this story has nothing to do with this book, it is relevant in one small way. Some people believe anything, while some of us believe only what our eyes show us. Sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth. What do you believe...?