The Last Fare

On a damp October evening in 2011, the city of Pune was wrapped in a thick blanket of fog that seemed to swallow the streetlights whole. I had a dinner reservation at a seaside restaurant in Alibaug, nearly ninety kilometers away, and the thought of driving through that murk was daunting. So I called the local cab service, a relic from the pre-app era, and booked a pickup at 7 PM. The dispatcher’s voice crackled over the line, confirming a driver named Raghunath Patil and a Maruti Esteem with the license plate MH-12-AB-4321.

At exactly 7:00, my phone buzzed with a call from an unknown number. ‘Saheb, I am waiting outside your gate,’ said a gruff voice. I grabbed my jacket and descended the stairs of my apartment building, where an old white Esteem idled, its headlights piercing the fog like two weary eyes. The driver, Raghunath, was a gaunt man in his sixties, with a weathered face and a woolen cap pulled low. He wore a faded blue shirt and held a small steel tumbler of chai. After checking his ID, I climbed into the back seat, and he turned to me with a strange smile.

‘The road will be slow tonight, saheb. The fog is thick, and there are diversions near the old creek bridge. We may take almost two hours, if all goes well.’ I nodded, glad I had left early. As we pulled away, I noticed the car’s interior smelled of old incense and damp earth, a combination that made me slightly uneasy. The radio was tuned to a classical station, and the sitar’s plaintive notes seemed to weave into the fog ahead.

We drove in silence through the city’s outskirts, the buildings giving way to empty fields and occasional clusters of shanties. The fog grew denser, and Raghunath slowed to a crawl, his face barely visible in the rearview mirror. ‘There is a shortcut I know, saheb, if you permit. It cuts through the old village of Khandala, which saves us at least twenty minutes.’ I agreed, eager to reach my friends sooner. He turned onto a narrow, unpaved road that wound between overgrown hedges and collapsed walls. The headlights revealed broken milestones and a forgotten signboard: ‘Khandala Village – 3 km’.

We entered the village, which seemed abandoned. The houses were crumbling, their windows like empty sockets. A thick silence hung over the place, broken only by the sound of our engine. Then, ahead, a shape emerged from the fog—a figure standing by the roadside, waving frantically. It was a woman in a white saree, her hair loose and wet, as if she had just emerged from a river. Raghunath muttered something under his breath and slowed down. ‘She shouldn’t be here,’ he said, his voice trembling slightly. ‘We should not stop.’ But the woman ran to the side of the car, pressing her palm against the window, her eyes wide and pleading. I saw her mouth the words, ‘Help me.’

Before I could react, Raghunath accelerated, leaving the woman behind. ‘She is a ghost, saheb,’ he said, his voice now steady. ‘This village is cursed. There was a drowning many years ago. A bride, on her wedding night, wandered into the well. Now her spirit lingers, seeking company.’ I was shaken, but I tried to rationalize it. ‘Maybe she just needed help. We should have stopped.’ Raghunath shook his head. ‘No. If we had stopped, we would have been trapped. She would have led us into the well.’

We drove on, the road growing rougher. The fog seemed to press in on us, and the car’s headlights flickered. Then, a second figure appeared—an old man with a walking stick, standing at a crossroads, pointing to the left. Raghunath hesitated, then turned right, avoiding the indicated path. ‘He is another one,’ he said. ‘He points to the old burial ground. If we follow, we never leave.’ My hands were clammy. I looked out the window and saw more shapes gathering at the edges of the fog—motionless, watching. ‘Why are there so many?’ I asked. Raghunath sighed. ‘This village was a leper colony, saheb. The British isolated them here. When the disease spread, they burned the houses, and many died in the fire. Their souls are restless.’

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. ‘How do you know all this?’ He glanced at me in the mirror, his eyes hollow. ‘Because I was born here, saheb. My family was among the last to leave. But some of us are bound to return.’ As he spoke, the car slowed, and the engine coughed. He pulled to a stop in front of a ruined church, its spire collapsed, its windows gaping. ‘The path is blocked,’ he said, pointing ahead. Indeed, a fallen tree lay across the road, its branches like gnarled fingers. ‘We must wait here until the fog lifts.’

I checked my phone—no signal. ‘How long?’ I asked. ‘Maybe an hour. Maybe more.’ He turned off the ignition, and the silence was oppressive. The fog swirled around us, and I could hear a faint, mournful singing, as if from a distance. It grew louder, and I recognized the tune—a lullaby in Marathi. I saw Raghunath tense. ‘She is here,’ he whispered. The singing stopped, and then a knock came on the roof of the car. Three slow knocks. Raghunath grabbed my arm, his grip surprisingly strong. ‘Do not look outside. Do not open the door. Whatever you see, whatever you hear, do not respond.’

I sat frozen, my heart pounding. The knocking continued, moving from the roof to the windows, circling the car. I saw a face press against the glass—the woman from earlier, her skin pale, her eyes black. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Then she spoke, her voice muffled but clear: ‘Let me in. Please, let me in.’ I felt an overwhelming urge to unlock the door, to help her. But Raghunath’s hand tightened, and he shook his head. ‘She is not alive, saheb. Do not be fooled.’ I closed my eyes, counting seconds, minutes. The voice grew desperate, then angry, then faded into silence.

After what felt like an eternity, Raghunath started the engine. The fallen tree was gone, replaced by an empty road. He drove on, and within ten minutes, we emerged onto the main highway, the fog thinning. The rest of the journey was uneventful. We reached the restaurant at 9:15, and my friends were already waiting. I thanked Raghunath and paid him, adding a generous tip. As he drove away, I noticed his car’s license plate was covered in mud, obscuring part of the number. I thought nothing of it.

That night, after dinner, I tried to call the cab company to compliment the driver. The phone rang, and a woman answered. ‘Hello, this is Pune Taxi Service.’ I asked for Raghunath Patil. There was a pause. ‘Sir, we have no driver by that name. And our cars are all yellow-black, not white. The number you provided is not in our records.’ I hung up, a cold dread settling in my stomach. I never saw that cab or that driver again. But sometimes, on foggy nights, I catch a glimpse of a white Esteem with a gaunt driver, and I wonder if I was the one who was supposed to be taken that night—if Raghunath was a guide or a warden, and if I truly escaped or if I am still sitting in that car, waiting for the fog to lift.

Years later, I moved to a different city, but the memory lingers. I told my story to a friend, who dismissed it as a hallucination brought on by stress. But then he showed me an old newspaper article from 1991: a cab driver named Raghunath Patil had died in a crash on the same road, on a foggy night, after picking up a passenger from that very address. The passenger’s body was never found. I felt the world tilt beneath me. I had ridden with a dead man, and he had saved me from the spirits of Khandala. Or perhaps he had been sent to deliver me to them, and for reasons unknown, he changed his mind. To this day, I check my rearview mirror on every drive, half-expecting to see a gaunt face in the back seat, whispering, ‘One last fare, saheb. Just one last fare.’