The Night the Black Volga Ran Dry

It was a night I will never shake, the kind that burrows into your bones and stays. My cousins, Rhea and Arjun, and I had gone to our Uncle Prakash’s farmhouse in the countryside of Kerala, a sprawling estate surrounded by rubber plantations. The party was a wedding reception of a distant relative, a loud, boisterous affair with fireworks and too much sweet payasam. By the time we left, it was past two in the morning, the air humid and thick with the scent of damp earth and jasmine.

Our driver, a lanky, nervous man named Selvan, usually drove the old Ambassador, but Uncle Prakash had insisted he take the brand-new black Volvo, gleaming under the porch lights. Selvan was hesitant when Uncle Prakash suggested a shortcut through the old forest road, claiming it would cut the drive time in half. ‘That road is not maintained, sir,’ Selvan said, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. ‘I have heard stories…’ But Uncle Prakash, tipsy and cheerful, waved his hand dismissively. ‘Nonsense, man! It’s a straight road through the jungle. I used it as a boy to go to my uncle’s house. Just be careful of the potholes.’

Selvan sighed and agreed. We had all piled into the back seat, our laughter still buzzing. The road was fine for the first few kilometers, but then the streetlights vanished, and the asphalt gave way to a narrow track lined with tall, twisted trees. The headlights carved a ghostly tunnel through the dark, and the silence was unnerving. Rhea tried to turn on her phone’s torch, but the screen flickered and died. Arjun joked about a dead battery, but his voice had a nervous edge.

Then, the engine began to sputter. Selvan pressed the accelerator, but the car lurched and rolled to a stop. He tried to restart it, but the battery was completely dead. The dashboard lights had gone dark, and the radio, which had been playing a crackling old song, fell silent. We sat in the deafening silence, and I could hear my own heartbeat. Selvan got out to check the engine, and when he opened the hood, he took a step back. ‘The battery is fine,’ he said slowly, ‘but the cables… they’re severed. Clean cut.’

That’s when I noticed the smell. A sweet, cloying odor, like rotting fruit and burning incense, drifting through the vents. Arjun rolled down the window for air, and we saw a figure standing at the edge of the forest, maybe fifty yards ahead. It was a tall, thin man in a white dhoti, his face obscured by shadows. He didn’t move. He just stood there, as if waiting. Selvan shouted, ‘Hey! Can you help us?’ The figure didn’t respond, but it raised one arm and pointed towards the left side of the road, where a narrow footpath led deeper into the trees. Then, it lowered its arm and vanished.

We all stared. Uncle Prakash began to laugh nervously. ‘Must be a local, drunk. Let’s walk that way, there might be a village.’ I argued against it, but the others were already moving. The path was overgrown, and the darkness pressed in on all sides. We walked for what felt like an eternity, the sweet smell growing stronger with each step. Then, we came to a clearing. In the center was an old, abandoned well, its stone rim cracked and covered in moss. The moonlight filtered through the canopy, casting pale circles on the ground.

Arjun leaned over the edge to peer inside. ‘I see water,’ he said. But as he said that, a sound came from the well—a low, humming chant, like many voices speaking in unison. It was the most unnerving sound I have ever heard, and it made my skin crawl. Selvan stepped back, his face ashen. ‘We must leave. This is not right.’ But as we turned to go, we heard a soft splash from the well, and then a wet, slapping sound, as if a body were being dragged up the stones.

We ran. We ran back the way we came, but the path seemed to twist and change, and soon we were lost. The phone torches were all dead, and so were our watches. It was as if time itself had stopped. We stumbled into a small clearing with a massive, gnarled banyan tree. Hanging from its branches were hundreds of small bottles, their contents glittering in the moonlight. They were filled with oil and small, shriveled objects—fingers, toes, even a tiny heart. The chant grew louder, and I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I screamed, but it was my own hand, trembling. We were all alone, but the air was thick with malevolence.

Then, we heard a car engine. It was the recognizable purr of the Volvo. We ran towards the sound and found the car, seemingly fixed, the engine idling, its lights on. We piled in, and Selvan drove as fast as he could out of that forest, not stopping until we hit the main road. It was dawn by then. We didn’t speak of it. We went back to the farmhouse, and the car was never the same. Selvan quit the next week. But late at night, I still think about those bottles, and the figure pointing, and the fact that the well was not empty when we left it. And I still wonder what would have happened if we had not run.