Desi Horror Stories

Cab Ride

All his caution of not traveling in a cab alone was thrown to the winds that mid-December night. There was a corporate event at Mira Road, and to return to his apartment in Kandivali, Mehul had to book a cab. It was 2 in the morning and added to that, there was a heavy feeling on his shoulders, probably from the food.

The driver was a tall guy, clearly uncomfortable in the low ceiling car. Sitting in the back seat, Mehul observed him shuffling more than once, and then he stared at him in the rear-view mirror—shiftless eyes that bore no expression. Unnerved, Mehul changed shifted to the middle of the seat, but the driver's eyes followed him there too.

Mehul looked at his map as if his life depended on it. 47 minutes to home, it told him. The highway stretch was now up ahead. At this hour of the night, the highway would have only by fast-moving heavy vehicles and late-night travelers like him. It offered little respite.

Just as the highway was to start, the driver began talking. It began with random questions. Was he comfortable? Was he a regular traveler on this route? Did he want music? Mehul hated this part—he wanted his journeys to be silent, and more so at this hour. He answered in monosyllables and wasn't even sure that the driver heard his replies, for soon he launched into a narration of how his cab service was paying him a pittance and the usual woes that drivers unload on willing passenger ears. Mehul put on his earphones and looked out of the window.

He was awakened by a rude jolt with the sudden feeling that he had been touched. There was just that cold feeling on his knee, which was covered only by his thin cotton trousers. He looked at the tall well-built driver suspiciously, his tongue tied up in knots, but the driver's focus was completely on the road. Mehul had never felt as helpless and vulnerable as at that time. The cab had suddenly shrunk, and he felt claustrophobic and secretly watched, and a part of him wanted to tell him to stop the cab and get off.

Then the driver said something again, something about how there was no trust in the world anymore, and he said that with the air of someone continuing a conversation. As if nothing had happened.

Those last ten minutes in the cab, when it left the highway and turned into his home street, Mehul counted his lucky stars. Would he be home safe? If only he could be in the warm confines of his house again! He took the money out of his wallet before the cab turned, and when it stopped, he almost stuffed it in the driver's overlarge hand and ran away without waiting for change, petrified that the cabbie might actually follow him home.

He entered his house breathing heavily, drenched in sweat, and darted to the bathroom. A torrent of vomit left his system. And then his phone rang.

Still on the commode, he picked up the call thinking it was his team leader asking if he had reached home safely. The voice was an unexpected one though. "Sir, I am the driver. You were just in my cab. I think you left your bag behind."

"What?" Mehul spoke quickly. "I didn't take my laptop bag today at all."

There was a moment of silence. Then the driver said, "Oh, not you, sir. I mean the other man who was with you."

The walls of the bathroom closed in on him. "Other man?"

"Yes, the older man in the black T-shirt with the silver ring. The one I was talking to."

"There was no one with me," Mehul said slowly, his voice fading away.

"Why joking, sir? I saw him enter your house with you with his arm on your shoulder."

The phone slipped off Mehul's hand and he slowly rose. And in the bathroom mirror up ahead, he saw it—the translucent shifting apparition of a man, tossing away slightly like a cloth rag on waves.