The Thing on Tylorstown Road
PART ONE: The Night Shift
It was late autumn in Tylorstown, the kind of night where the mist rolls down the mountain like it’s alive.
Back in 2008, a delivery driver named Gareth Evans was finishing his final drop. The Rhondda roads were quiet, too quiet. Shops shuttered, streetlights flickering, and that strange stillness the valley gets after midnight.
He was heading along the old mountain road between Tylorstown and Ferndale, a route locals often avoid at night.
Gareth later said it started with the silence.
No wind.
No cars.
No sound at all.
Then, his radio cut out.
At first, he thought nothing of it. Bad signal, maybe. But then his headlights caught something up ahead.
A figure.
Standing in the middle of the road.
He slowed the van, expecting someone to move, but it didn’t. It just stood there. Tall. Thin. Unnaturally still.
And then…
It stepped forward.
PART TWO: The Woman Who Wasn’t There
Gareth slammed the brakes. The van skidded slightly on the damp tarmac.
The figure was now close enough to see clearly.
A woman.
Dressed in what looked like old-fashioned clothing, long skirt, dark shawl. Her head tilted slightly downward, her face hidden.
Gareth rolled down the window, calling out.
“Are you alright, love?”
No answer.
Instead, she lifted her head slowly.
And that’s when Gareth realised something was very wrong.
Her face… wasn’t right.
He later described it as “blurred,” as though he couldn’t quite focus on it. Not disfigured, just… absent. Like looking at someone through thick water.
Then she spoke.
But the voice didn’t come from her mouth.
It came from inside the van.
A whisper.
“Turn back.”
Gareth panicked, slamming the van into reverse. As he did, the woman didn’t move, she just watched.
Or at least… he thought she did.
Because in the rear-view mirror…
She was gone.
PART THREE: The Old Stories
Shaken, Gareth made it back to town and told a colleague the next morning. At first, he was laughed off, until an older worker, Dai, went quiet.
Dai had grown up in the Rhondda and knew the old stories.
He told Gareth that the road between Ferndale and Tylorstown had a history.
Long before the modern road, there were tramlines running through the valley, used during the coal mining boom of the 19th century.
And there had been an accident.
A woman, some say a miner’s wife, had been struck and killed on that very stretch. Others claimed she had taken her own life after losing family in a pit disaster.
But all versions agreed on one thing.
She was seen.
Always at night.
Always in the road.
And always just before something bad happened.
Dai looked Gareth dead in the eye and said:
“You were told to turn back, boy. Be grateful you listened.”
PART FOUR: The Return
Gareth avoided that road for months.
But work has a way of forcing your hand.
One winter evening, he found himself taking the same route again. He told himself it was nonsense, just nerves, just stories.
Halfway along the road…
The radio cut out again.
This time, Gareth didn’t slow down.
He kept driving.
Faster.
And then
Something hit the side of the van.
Not hard. Just enough to make him jump.
He glanced to his left.
And there she was.
Running alongside the van.
Matching his speed.
Her head now fully raised.
And this time…
He could see her face.
Eyes wide. Mouth open.
Screaming.
But there was no sound.
Gareth floored the accelerator, speeding out of the valley road until he hit the main street lights of Tylorstown.
When he finally stopped and checked the van…
There were handprints along the side.
Small.
Smudged.
And far too high up to belong to anyone standing on the ground.
Some say if you drive that road late enough…
and the mist rolls in just right…
You might see her too.
And if she tells you to turn back—
You really should listen.
More true ghost stories here – www.ladyparnormal.co.uk