Highway Sheila
by SSJ
(South Africa)
I have always heard the stories of a woman that prowled the Higginson Highway. I never once believed any of them until the night I almost died.
It was October 2 2009 and I was traveling home from a friend's house around 11:45pm. The road was dark as the street lights were not working. I was traveling at about 120Kms per hour when suddenly my SUV started to lose power. The speed kept dropping until it reached 60kms per hour. A car hooted and flashed his headlights at me as I was traveling in the fast lane, so I moved over to the far left lane for him to pass. Suddenly I saw the man brake in his lane and I got distracted and veered of the road onto the yellow lane.
I was so shocked that my SUV completely stalled. By this time it was a few minutes before midnight. I tried to start my car but it just went dead, my headlights didn't even work. So here I was sitting on the Higginson with a dead SUV and a dead cellphone battery. I saw a vehicle approaching so I got off quickly and flagged it down. The lady was kind enough to stop to help me. She said she didn't have a cellphone but she lived not too far from where we were and that she didn't mind towing me to her house where I could phone my family to come and get me.
So she tied the tow rope to my SUV and we drove off. She took me to a big double story white house that was situated at the corner of a dead end road. I got off and she insisted that I come in and get warm and phone my family. So after much convincing I went in. She gave me a jacket to wear and let me use her phone to call home. I tried but no one answered and I started to panic, so the lady said that I should leave my car there and she would take me home. So I said ok.
After the 30 minute drive home, I found that my parents were not home so I had to let myself in. The next day, my dad and I went to the lady's house to tow my SUV back. When we arrived at the big white house, my SUV was gone...so I went to the door and knocked and no one answered. So panic-stricken, I went to the next door neighbour to ask if they knew where the lady of the house was...what I heard next was something I will never forget.
A man came to the door and said that Sheila lived in that house but she had died over 22 years ago. The house has been empty for almost 5 years after her family had moved out. According to the man, Sheila was traveling on the Higginson one night when she had a breakdown and someone came racing past her and ran her over. She died on the scene.
To this day, I never found my SUV and I still have her jacket that she gave me that night to keep me warm.
