The Last Turn Before Dawn

The fog rolled over the serpentine asphalt like a slow tide, swallowing the jagged edges of the cliffside. On any other road, the descent would have been a postcard, but here, on the ridge above the Chasm of Hollow Winds, it was a death trap. Two decades of twisted metal and hushed funerals had earned this stretch its name: the Cork of the Damned. The locals knew better than to drive it after dusk, but Anish and his college friend Rahul never listened to the whispers of old men selling tea at the roadside shack. They were young, they were invincible, and the morning arati at the Sunlit Temple in the valley below was worth the risk.

Rahul’s battered Maruti coughed as it took the first hairpin, its headlights carving pale cones into the darkness. Anish leaned forward, squinting at the map on his phone, but the signal had died an hour ago. ‘Don’t worry,’ Rahul said, tapping the wheel. ‘I’ve done this drive twice. It’s just narrow, that’s all. You just have to hug the mountain side.’ Outside, the valley dropped into an abyss so deep that the end of a thrown stone would never be heard. Anish watched the guardrail posts flicker past, each one ending in a jagged, rusted stump, as if something had bitten them off. ‘How many gone off here?’ he asked. Rahul shrugged. ‘Enough that they stopped counting after the nineties. But they fixed the road, see. Wider now. We’ll be fine.’

The first sign that they weren’t fine came at mile marker six, where a fresh avalanche of scree had half-blocked the lane. Rahul swore, gunned the engine, and they scraped past with inches to spare. Anish felt the cool draft from the chasm seep through the window, carrying a faint, sweet smell, like rotting flowers. He rolled the window up, but the smell lingered. ‘You smell that?’ he asked. Rahul sniffed, frowned. ‘Probably a dead animal. Or the river below. Sometimes it makes weird smells.’ But Anish had grown up in the city, and this wasn’t river scent. It was cloying, deliberate, like incense in an abandoned temple.

They rounded another bend, and Rahul slammed the brakes. A car sat in the middle of the road, its lights off, its doors open. It was an old Ambassador, the kind that had been out of production for two decades. A man in a white kurta stood beside it, waving his arms frantically. ‘Thank god! Help me! My clutch is gone, and I’m stuck!’ Rahul honked, but the man didn’t move. ‘Get in first, we’ll push it aside,’ Rahul said, but as the headlights swept over the man, Anish saw something wrong. The man’s face was shadowed, but his mouth hung open at an odd angle, and his arms moved in jerky, puppet-like motions. ‘Do not stop,’ Anish whispered. ‘What?’ ‘DO NOT STOP. This is the story my grandmother told me. The one who appears to drivers on this road. They say he’s a spirit of a traveler who died here, and if you stop for him, you become his replacement.’ Rahul laughed nervously. ‘Come on, man, it’s just a guy in trouble. We can’t leave him.’ But Anish grabbed his arm. ‘Look at his feet.’ Rahul leaned forward. The man’s feet did not touch the ground. They hovered a few inches above the asphalt, and as they watched, he drifted closer without moving his legs.

Rahul floored the pedal. The car shot forward, and they swerved around the Ambassador, but as they passed, the man’s face filled the side window, his mouth now stretched into a silent scream. The sweet smell intensified, and the car’s engine sputtered. ‘No, no, no,’ Rahul muttered, pumping the gas. They crested a rise, and there, in the headlights, the road was gone. A massive gap yawned where the asphalt had been, the result of a recent landslide. Rahul yanked the wheel, but the car skidded on loose gravel, spun, and came to a stop with its front wheels hanging over the edge. The headlights dipped into the blackness, illuminating nothing. The engine died. In the sudden silence, they heard a voice from behind, soft and close: ‘There is always one more turn.’

They sat frozen, the car tipping slightly as the ground crumbled beneath it. Anish looked in the rearview mirror. The man in white was standing at the back bumper, his hand resting on the trunk. ‘Turn off the lights,’ the voice said, now sounding like Rahul’s own. ‘Turn them off, and I’ll let you back away.’ Anish’s hands trembled. ‘Don’t,’ he said, but Rahul, desperate, reached for the knob. As his fingers touched it, the car dipped further, and Anish heard a sound like metal tearing. He threw open his door and scrambled out, but the ground was slick with something dark. Rahul tried to follow, but the car gave way with a groan, and he was thrown backward into the pit, his scream swallowed by the chasm. Anish lay on the roadside, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The Ambassador was nowhere to be seen. The fog was thin now, and in the distance, he saw the faint glow of the Sunlit Temple’s lights, a distant promise of sanctuary.

He walked for what felt like hours, hugging the mountain wall, until he reached a small tea stall that appeared out of the mist. An old man sat by a fire, stirring a pot. ‘So, you made it,’ the old man said, not looking up. ‘Most don’t, after they meet my brother.’ Anish collapsed on a stool, shaking. ‘Your brother?’ The old man smiled, showing black teeth. ‘He’s been waiting for a new vehicle for twenty years. His own went off the edge, just like your friend’s. But now he’s got yours, and he’ll be able to drive to the temple at last. He always wanted to see the arati.’ Anish stared at the old man, realizing he wore the same white kurta, and his feet too did not touch the ground. The old man poured tea into a clay cup and pushed it toward him. ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘You’ll need your strength. You have a long walk ahead, and the morning prayer starts in three hours. But don’t worry, the road is open now. You just made the last turn.’

Anish did not drink. He looked at the cup and saw that the tea was the color of rust. He stood, backing away, and the old man laughed, a sound like stones rolling. ‘You can run,’ he said. ‘But the chasm always finds its due.’ Anish turned and ran, leaving the stall behind. The temple lights grew brighter, and he finally reached the main road, where a bus with flickering headlights was climbing up. It stopped, and the driver, a young woman with tired eyes, asked, ‘You going to the temple? We have room.’ Anish got on. The bus was empty, except for a man in the back. The man was Rahul, his face pale, his eyes black. He smiled and waved. Anish screamed and lunged for the door, but it sealed shut. The bus drove on, into the fog, and the driver hummed a tune that Anish recognized as the arati song, but in a minor key.

At 4:00 am, the bus pulled into the temple parking lot. The devotees were lined up, waiting for the first prayer. Anish stumbled out, his legs weak. The man in the back was gone. He joined the crowd, hoping to find safety in numbers. But as the priests began the chant, Anish felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned. It was the old man from the tea stall, but now he was young, wearing Rahul’s face. ‘You’re right on time,’ he said. ‘The arati is beautiful at dawn. I’ve been waiting to see it for twenty years. Thank you for the lift.’ And then the hand tightened, and the fog rolled in through the open temple doors, and Anish understood that the road had not just taken his friend. It had taken his place. He would take the bus back up the mountain, his face pale, his eyes black, waiting for the next car to come around that last turn.