The Hollow Marker

The rain had stopped an hour ago, but the asphalt still gleamed under the pale moon like a ribbon of wet coal. Lola Remedios drove slowly, her knuckles white on the wheel, the radio tuned to a static whisper that she couldn’t quite shut off. She was taking the old coastal road, a shortcut she knew like the back of her hand, though lately it felt less familiar. The acacia trees lined the route, their branches drooping low, and the air smelled of damp earth and salt. It was past midnight, and the only company was the occasional flicker of a firefly and the distant hum of the city they’d left behind.

A knot tightened in her stomach. Not pain, but a kind of unease, as if a spider had crawled down her spine and settled there. She glanced in the rearview mirror—nothing but the empty road, the dark silhouettes of trees. But the feeling persisted, the sense of being watched. She slowed the car to a crawl, her eyes scanning the edges of the road, the patches of shadow between the streetlights that seemed to pulse with the rhythm of her heartbeat. That’s when she saw it: a figure standing dead ahead, unmoving, right in the middle of the lane. She slammed the brakes, the seatbelt digging into her shoulder as the car screeched to a halt.

It was a woman, draped in a long white dress that seemed to glow faintly in the gloom. Her hair hung over her face, obscuring it, but one arm was extended, finger pointing directly at Remedios. The old woman’s first instinct was anger. ‘Get out of the road, you crazy fool!’ she yelled, rolling down her window just enough to be heard. But the figure did not move, only kept that finger aimed like a judgment. Remedios felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. She shook her head, muttered a prayer, and floored the accelerator, swerving around the apparition. She didn’t look back.

Five minutes later, the feeling returned, stronger. She checked the road ahead—clear. But something made her glance to the side, and there it was: the same tree she’d passed just before the incident, a gnarled acacia with a hollow trunk. Now, underneath it, she saw the white figure again, still pointing, not at her this time, but toward the tree. Remedios slowed, her curiosity battling her fear. The finger seemed to indicate a spot at the base of the tree, where a small mound of dirt was barely visible. Her heart hammered. She had passed this tree many times, but she had never noticed that mound before.

Without thinking, she pulled over to the side of the road and got out, her legs shaky. She approached the tree cautiously, the figure still there, now completely still, like a statue. As she drew closer, the woman’s face became clearer—not a face, but a hollow void, almost like a mask with no features. Yet the finger remained, unwavering. Remedios knelt down and began to dig with her hands, the dirt cold and sticky. It didn’t take long to hit something hard: a small wooden box, rotted and waterlogged. She pried it open with trembling fingers. Inside was a child’s bracelet, a faded photograph, and a newspaper clipping. The clipping was yellowed, dated ten years ago: a story about a young woman who had gone missing near this very road, her body never found. The photograph was of a woman smiling, but her eyes were hollow, and it was the same dress.

The figure was gone when she turned back. Remedios clutched the box, her hands shaking. She realized then that the woman had not been pointing at her in accusation, but desperate—pointing to the evidence that would finally give her peace. Remedios took the box to the barangay hall that very night, and the authorities later identified the remains under the tree as the missing woman. They buried her properly, with her bracelet and photograph. But even after that, Remedios never drove that road again. She says she still feels a cold finger pressing on the back of her neck whenever she passes a certain tree, and sometimes, in the rearview mirror, she sees a white figure standing under a hollow acacia, no longer pointing, but waving—a slow, grateful wave that never ends.