The Ash-Colored Road

It was two in the morning when the highway spat us out onto a dirt road that didn’t exist on any map. My friend Arjun had been driving for hours, and I could see the exhaustion in the tight grip he had on the wheel. We were on our way back from a wedding shoot in the city of Solapur, but we had taken a wrong turn somewhere near the old district of Kalyanpur. The GPS had given up on us, showing only a blank expanse of gray, and the last village we passed had been a cluster of dark, silent huts.

We had stopped at that village to ask for directions. An old man with rheumy eyes and a tobacco-stained beard had pointed us toward a narrow road that wound up into the hills, saying it was a shortcut to the highway. He had a strange smile on his face as he said it, and his eyes seemed to glint in the light of our headlamps. We thanked him and drove on, but the road was soon swallowed by dense forest. The trees pressed in from both sides, their branches scratching at the car like clawed fingers. There were no streetlights, and the only light came from the moon, which was half-hidden behind the clouds.

Arjun was swearing under his breath, saying we should turn back, but there was no room to turn around. The road was too narrow, carved into the hillside with a sheer drop on one side and a wall of rock on the other. That was when we saw the car approaching from the opposite direction. It was an old Ambassador, its headlights dim and flickering. It stopped right in front of us, blocking the way. Three men got out. They were staggering, clearly drunk, and in their hands, they held machetes and a rusted sword. The tallest of them came up to my window, reeking of alcohol and sweat. ‘Don’t go further,’ he slurred, his eyes wild. ‘The witches live in the huts up ahead. They’ll rip your souls out.’ We laughed it off, thinking it was just a drunk man’s rambling, part of some local legend to scare travelers. But he was adamant, his voice rising as he insisted we turn back. ‘You don’t understand. They are not human. They have been here for centuries.’

Arjun, who was not known for patience, honked the horn and told them to move. The men just stood there, shaking their heads, looking at us with something that might have been pity or fear. Finally, they relented, and their car pulled off to the side, barely giving us room to squeeze past. As we passed, I caught a glimpse of their faces in the rearview mirror. They were pale, and one of them was crossing himself with trembling fingers.

We continued on, the road winding deeper into the hills. The air grew colder, and the forest became thicker. Every now and then, we saw old stone pillars covered in moss, and I noticed that they had markings on them that looked like a script I had never seen before. Arjun was uneasy, his knuckles white on the wheel. ‘This place feels wrong,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Let’s just find a place to turn around.’ But we didn’t come across any turning points. Instead, we began to see huts. They were small, with thatched roofs, and they were spaced far apart, half-hidden in the trees. None of them had any lights, and they all seemed abandoned. But then I noticed something. In one of the huts, I saw a faint orange glow, like a candle or a fire, and a silhouette moving behind it.

I told Arjun to slow down. ‘Look, there’s a village up ahead,’ I said. ‘Maybe someone can help us.’ He shook his head. ‘Are you crazy? They warned us about witches.’ But I was desperate. We had been on that road for what felt like an hour, and my phone battery was dead. Arjun, reluctantly, drove toward the glow. The hut was on the left side of the road, and we saw a woman standing in the doorway. She was old, with long white hair that fell past her waist, and she wore a black sari. She didn’t look threatening, just lonely. I rolled down my window and called out, ‘Excuse me! We’re lost. Can you tell us the way to the highway?’

She smiled, and her teeth were black and rotten. ‘Come in,’ she said, her voice like dry leaves rustling. ‘I will show you the way.’ There was something about her that made my skin crawl, but the cold was getting to us, and we had no choice. We parked and got out, feeling as if the forest was watching us. The woman led us into her hut, which was surprisingly clean and warm. There was a fire in the center, and a kettle hung over it. She offered us some tea, and despite our better judgment, we accepted. As she poured the tea, she talked in a singsong voice about the old days, about the people who used to live here, and how they had made a pact with something ancient to survive. She spoke of the ‘forest’s hunger’ and how it needed to be fed.

We drank the tea, and it was bitter, with an earthy taste. Almost immediately, I felt dizzy. Arjun looked at me, his eyes wide, and I knew he felt the same. The woman was still smiling, and her face seemed to shift, her eyes turning to black, empty pits. ‘The forest is pleased,’ she whispered. ‘Two more souls to feed.’ I tried to stand, but my legs gave way, and I fell to the ground. The last thing I saw was Arjun’s face, pale and frightened, as the woman began to laugh, a high-pitched cackle that seemed to come from all around us.

When I woke up, I was lying on the ground outside the hut. The sky was turning gray, and the sun was beginning to rise. Arjun was kneeling beside me, shaking me. ‘Wake up! We have to get out of here!’ I looked around, and the hut was gone. In its place was a pile of ashes, still smoking. The road was there, but it was overgrown with weeds, and the forest was so thick that I realized we must have never been on a road in the first place. We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees.

We found our car, but it was covered in dust and leaves, as if it had been sitting there for years. The engine wouldn’t start. We had to walk. We walked for hours, following a trail that we hoped led back to civilization. Eventually, we reached a small town, and people looked at us strangely, as if we were ghosts. When we told them our story, they turned pale and made signs against evil. One old woman told us that many years ago, a village existed on that road, but it was wiped out by a plague, and the survivors were accused of witchcraft and burned alive. Since then, travelers had reported seeing a woman who offers tea, and those who drink it are never seen again. We had been lucky, she said. We had survived.

But as I sit here, telling you this, I can’t shake the feeling that we weren’t lucky. We survived, but we didn’t escape. I feel something in my blood now, something cold and alien. And at night, I hear her voice, calling to me, whispering that the forest is still hungry. And I know that one day, it will come for me again. And this time, it won’t let me go.