The Last Crossing

Ravi was a television repairman in the late 1980s, and his beat-up scooter was his lifeline. He lived on the outskirts of a small town, where the roads were barely paved and streetlights were a luxury. His route home from the city was always the same: a long, lonely stretch of asphalt that eventually curved past the old railway crossing, beyond which lay the municipal cremation grounds. Locals avoided that road after dark; they said the dead liked to walk under the moonlight. But Ravi had no choice—his job often kept him late, and tonight was one of those nights.

It was past 2 AM when he finally turned onto the road that led to the crossing. The air was cool and damp, carrying the scent of wet earth and burning wood from a distant funeral pyre. The scooter’s headlight cut a weak cone through the fog, illuminating the cracks in the tarmac. As he neared the crossing, he saw the red signal blinking ominously. He slowed, stopping a few meters before the barrier. The railway tracks gleamed under his light, and beyond them, the dark outline of the cremation ground loomed. He waited, the engine idling, the silence pressing against his ears.

The minutes stretched. No train came. He checked his watch—2:15. The barrier was still down. He thought of the stories his mother used to tell him: ‘Never look into the eyes of a dead man, or he’ll follow you home.’ He shuddered, pulling his jacket tighter. He decided to wait a little longer, but the quiet was unnerving. He switched off the engine, and the sudden silence was almost worse. Then he heard it: a faint, rhythmic sound, like something dragging across the ground.

He turned his head, but saw nothing. The sound grew closer. It was a soft, shuffling noise, as if someone was dragging their feet through the gravel. Ravi’s hands were cold on the handlebars. He tried to start the scooter again, but his fingers were numb and the engine wouldn’t catch. In the rearview mirror, he saw a shape emerging from the mist—a tall, gaunt figure, draped in a white cloth, its face obscured. The figure stopped at the barrier, just a few meters from him, and stood perfectly still. Ravi’s mouth went dry. He felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead.

He forced himself to look away, staring straight ahead at the dark trees lining the crossing. The figure began to move again, not towards him, but along the tracks, as if walking them. It moved with an unnatural fluidity, its steps making no sound. Ravi watched in the mirror, his heart pounding. The figure reached the edge of the track and stopped, then turned its head—if it had a head—towards him. In the mirror, he could see a pale, featureless face, but then something else: his own reflection, but twisted, his mouth open in a silent scream.

He gasped, fumbling with the key, and this time the scooter roared to life. He didn’t wait for the barrier to rise. He gunned the engine, gripping the throttle, and swerved around the barrier, speeding over the tracks. He didn’t look back until he was halfway down the road, and when he did, the road behind him was empty, the barrier still down, the fog rolling in. He didn’t stop until he reached his driveway, drenched in sweat, breathless.

He refused to tell anyone for years, but when he finally did, he was old, and his eyes held a deep fear. He said he saw the figure walking not just towards the railway line, but towards his own house. He saw it every night after that, lingering at the edge of his property, waiting. He moved away soon after, but it followed him, he said, in his dreams. On his deathbed, he clutched his son’s hand and whispered, ‘It waits at the crossing, son. It waits for the last train, and it knows when you’re coming.’ The last thing he said was a name, a name he never spoke while alive—a name that sounded like the river that ran past the town, cold and unforgiving.

Now, when I drive that road at night, I always stop at the crossing, even if the barrier is up. I wait. And sometimes, in the mirror, I see a figure standing by the tracks. And once, when I was brave enough to look directly at it, it lifted its hand and pointed at me. And I swear, it called my name.