The Underpass of Yellow Leaves

Eli wasn’t the type to die quietly. He was the kind of kid who could recite the entire periodic table backward while juggling, then vanish into the woods for a week and come back with a story about a porcupine he’d befriended. That’s why his death last October felt like a bad joke the universe forgot to deliver. He was only twenty, and the accident happened on a stretch of County Road 7, just past the old iron bridge that everyone called ‘the underpass’ because it wasn’t really an underpass, just a dark, mossy culvert where kids went to smoke and carve their initials into the concrete. I’d driven past that spot a hundred times, but that night, the night he died, I was coming home from a party in the next town, and I saw the lights. Not just one or two, but a whole swarm of red and blue, pulsing off the wet pavement like a heartbeat. I remember thinking, ‘Someone got caught growing mushrooms in the woods again.’ I didn’t stop. I didn’t look. I just kept driving, the Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ blasting from my speakers, and I sang along like nothing mattered. That was three months ago.

Now it’s the dead of winter, and I’m driving back from a late shift at the diner, the same route, the same time of night: 12:30. The road is empty, a skin of black ice over the asphalt, and the underpass looms ahead like a mouth full of teeth. My headlights catch something on the embankment—a shape, too big for a deer, too still for a person. I slow down, squinting, and for a second I swear it’s a man in a yellow raincoat, the same one Eli wore on rainy days, even though it was a sunny October evening when he died. But when I blink, it’s gone, and my tires skid on a patch of ice, and I have to grip the wheel to keep from sliding into the ditch. My heart is hammering, and I tell myself it’s just the wind playing tricks, but I can’t shake the feeling that something watched me pass.

A week later, I’m at home, sorting through a box of old photos my mom found in the attic. Most are faded and torn, but one catches my eye: a picture of Eli and me at the county fair, both of us grinning, his arm slung over my shoulder. On the back, in his messy handwriting, it says, ‘Still here, remember?’ I drop the photo like it’s burned, but the words stay in my head. That night, I dream of the underpass. I’m standing in the middle of the road, and the cold seeps through my shoes. The concrete walls are covered in moss and graffiti, but one phrase is new, painted in bright yellow: ‘Turn around.’ I wake up with my heart pounding, and I know I have to go back.

The next night, I park my truck on the shoulder near the underpass and get out. The air is bitter, and my breath fogs in the moonlight. The culvert is just as I remember—dark, damp, and smelling of decay. I walk inside, my footsteps echoing off the walls, and I see the initials we carved years ago: E + M, surrounded by a heart. But next to it, freshly scratched into the concrete, is a new message: ‘I’ll wait.’ I feel a cold hand on my shoulder, and I spin around, but there’s no one there. Just the wind, whistling through the cracks. My flashlight flickers, and in the darkness, I see a figure at the end of the tunnel—a silhouette in a yellow coat, too thin, too tall. It raises a hand and points at the ground. I look down, and there, in the dirt, lies a small key, tarnished and old.

I pick up the key, and as soon as I touch it, the temperature drops ten degrees. I hear a whisper, like leaves rustling, and I know it’s Eli. ‘Open it,’ the voice says, but I don’t know what ‘it’ is. I search the walls, my fingers tracing the cold concrete, until I find a small, iron door half-hidden by vines. It’s locked, but the key fits. I turn it, and the door swings open, revealing a narrow staircase descending into darkness. I shouldn’t go down, but I do. The stairs spiral deep beneath the road, and the air grows thick and stale. At the bottom, there’s a room, no bigger than a closet, with a single lantern on a crate. It’s unlit, but when I step in, it flickers to life, casting a yellow glow. On the walls, there are photographs—hundreds of them, all of me, taken from different angles, at different times, but all near the underpass. There’s one from last week, when I drove past, and in it, I can see my own horrified face in the windshield. And there’s one from tonight, me crouching down to pick up the key. At the back of the room, there’s a mirror, covered in dust. I wipe it clean, and in the reflection, I see Eli standing behind me, his face pale, his eyes hollow. He’s wearing the yellow raincoat, and he smiles. ‘Now you know,’ he says. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to see it too.’

I turn around, but there’s no one there. The lantern gutters, and I’m left in darkness, the key cold in my palm. I stumble back up the stairs, out of the underpass, and into the night. The road is empty, but I know he’s still there, in the yellow leaves that gather at the mouth of the culvert, in the whisper of the wind that sounds like my name. From now on, every time I drive past that spot, I’ll see him waving, and I’ll wonder if he’s trying to say goodbye, or if he’s trying to pull me in. But one thing’s for sure: I’ll never sing along to the radio the same way again.