The White Parasol (Summer Horror Story)

This happened about 3 years ago.

I work construction, interior renovation stuff. Small company, just me, my boss, and two coworkers. We were all pretty close. So on slow days we'd go skiing together a lot. Our office is in the suburbs of Nagoya, and if you take National Route 19 up into the mountains you hit the ski resort pretty fast, so we went constantly. We'd leave around midnight, arrive around 3 or 4am, sleep in the car, then ski. Normal routine.

That night we did the same thing. Met at the office around midnight, got on Route 19. Halfway there the road gets narrow and it's basically just trucks and other skiers at that point. Boss was driving, I was shotgun. K and Y in the back. We were all hyped, being loud and stupid.

Then the boss goes, "should we try a back road?"

I was into it honestly. I like creepy detours and mystery spots. So we turned off onto this mountain path that branched away from the main road.

Looking back I genuinely cannot explain why he suggested that. We literally could've just kept going the normal way and none of this would've happened.

Anyway. We go down the mountain path and it branches again into an even smaller road. Nothing else around so we take it. Five more minutes of driving. It's... just a normal countryside road. Paved but completely flat, rice paddies on both sides, dark as hell.

Everyone was like "welp, nothing here" and we started talking about turning back.

That's when I saw her.

A woman standing on the side of the road. White sundress. White parasol.

At 2am.

My eyes just automatically went to the dashboard clock. 2-something. We were doing about 50km/h. I thought I was just tired and seeing things in the dark, so I didn't say anything.

We kept driving for another 5 minutes or so trying to find a place to turn around.

Then we saw her again.

Same woman. White dress. White parasol. Short hair. Pale face. Just... staring at us. Standing there in the dark like she was floating.

I looked at the boss.

He was already looking at me.

"Did you see that?"

"Yeah."

"I... actually saw her earlier too."

"Me too."

"This is bad."

"Yeah I'm scared as hell right now."

I turned around. K and Y in the back were making the most horrified faces.

We debated turning around vs pushing forward. Decided to keep going.

Without anyone saying anything, the car just... started speeding up.

Less than a minute later. Another woman. White dress. Same spot by the road.

Nobody could speak.

Boss was hunched over the wheel gripping it like he was about to crash.

We turned the corner.

and.

They were EVERYWHERE.

In between the streetlights. At the next corner. All along the road. Women in white dresses lined up on both sides, one after another, as far as we could see.

Smiling at us.

I couldn't take it. I curled up in the passenger seat and shoved my face down toward my feet.

And between my feet.

There was a face.

A woman. Black hair. Looking straight up at me.

She said: "Found you."

I blacked out.

When I came to, everyone had blacked out. The car was in a rice paddy ditch. Somehow the four of us managed to push it out (thank god we were all guys built for physical work). But skiing was obviously not happening. We just drove home.

Back at the office, we were grabbing our bags when K suddenly SCREAMED.

On top of his bag was a white parasol.

None of us brought a parasol. It wasn't the boss's. It wasn't anyone's.

I felt the cold run all the way down my spine.

The boss ended up taking it to a nearby temple and explaining what happened. Asked them to perform a memorial offering for it.