The Ashen Road

My shift at the processing plant began at five, but I always left by four-fifteen to beat the worst of the morning traffic. The commute took me along a stretch of new highway that was still under construction, a fifteen-kilometer ribbon of packed gravel and half-finished asphalt that cut through the abandoned farmland east of the city. My friend Ravi, who lived five kilometers down the same route, usually rode with me partway, but today he was sick, so I was alone.

The sky was a bruised purple, the sun still an hour from rising. My headlamp cut a weak cone through the darkness, illuminating the pale stones of the road. I kept my speed moderate, knowing the loose gravel could snatch the wheels from under me. The air smelled of dust and cold metal.

About eight kilometers in, where the construction had paused for a month, I saw him. A figure stood dead center in the road, motionless. My instinct was to slow, and I did, the bike’s engine dropping to a putter. As I closed the distance, the headlight revealed a man in his late twenties, his face smeared with dark grease, his clothes caked in dirt and grime. He wore a yellow t-shirt beneath a torn denim jacket, and his jeans were stiff with dried mud. He raised a hand, palm out, in a pleading gesture.

‘Anna nilso, anna,’ he called out in Kannada, his voice dry and cracked. ‘Brother, please stop.’

I remembered Ravi’s warning, delivered just last week over chai: ‘Never stop for anyone on that stretch, not early morning, not late night. There’s been talk of people pretending to be stranded, then…’ He had not finished the sentence, but the implication was enough. So I shook my head, keeping my eyes on him as I passed, my bike swerving slightly to give him a wide berth. He did not move, just watched me go, his hands falling to his sides. In my mirror, I saw him turn to follow my tail light, but I was already accelerating, the distance growing.

At the plant, I worked my usual eight hours, but the image of the man stuck in my mind. His eyes had been too white, the whites stark against the grease, and he had not blinked, not once. When my shift ended, I called Ravi to tell him about it, but he only laughed, saying I was imagining things.

It was dark again by the time I rode home, the same stretch of gravel waiting for me. The sky was clear, the stars faint, and my headlight was the only illumination. I was halfway through the construction zone when I saw a figure again. My heart lurched. This time, he stood at the side of the road, not blocking my path, but close enough that I could see his details clearly. He was the same man, still covered in grease, still wearing that yellow shirt. But now, he was holding a small, rusted metal object in his hand – something like a badge or a keychain.

He did not wave or call out. He simply stood, watching me as I passed. I sped up, but my bike sputtered, the fuel gauge dipping lower than I remembered. I had filled up yesterday; it should have been enough. The engine coughed once, twice, then died, and I rolled to a stop just fifty meters past him.

The silence was suffocating. I tried to restart the bike, but the battery was dead. In the mirror, I saw the man start walking toward me, slow and deliberate, his footsteps crunching on the gravel. I fumbled for my phone, but the screen was dead – I had forgotten to charge it.

The man stopped a few feet away, his face inches from my helmet. He leaned in, and I could smell burnt oil and something sweet, like rotting fruit. He spoke in a low, steady voice, still in Kannada: ‘You did not stop for me this morning. That was a mistake. Now I must ask you again.’

I tried to move, but my legs were frozen. He reached out and placed the metal object on the fuel tank of my bike. It was a small, flat rectangle, engraved with a single word: ‘Ashen.’

‘This road,’ he said, ‘was built over a funeral ground. The ashes of the forgotten were mixed into the gravel. Every night, we wait for someone to come, someone to acknowledge us. You denied me. Now you must pay the toll.’

He stepped back, and I felt a sudden heat around me. The gravel beneath my boots began to glow a faint orange, as if warmed from below. The man’s form wavered, and for a moment I saw dozens of shapes behind him, all covered in gray dust, all with white eyes.

I don’t remember how I got home. My bike was found the next morning on the side of the road, the tank empty, the key still in the ignition, and the strange metal token lying on the seat. I reported it to the police, but they found nothing. The construction company had no record of any missing person, and the road was completed a week later.

But every night since, I dream of the ashen road, and the man in yellow standing in the middle of it, waiting. And sometimes, when I ride home late, I see him in my mirror, running after me, his mouth open in a silent shout, urging me to stop. I never do. I never will.