Submitted by: Marcus Lind, 44
Former taxi driver
I drove taxis for almost fourteen years. Drunk passengers, violent passengers and people running from the police never frightened me as much as my final customer.
It happened at 3:20 on a Tuesday morning.
Dispatch sent me to a bus stop outside a small industrial area. The booking listed only a destination: an address near an old care home.
When I arrived, a man was waiting beneath the bus shelter.
He appeared to be around seventy. He wore a brown suit and held a plastic shopping bag on his lap.
He opened the rear door and sat behind me.
“Good evening,” I said.
He did not reply.
I confirmed the address. He nodded once.
During the drive, I tried making conversation. He remained silent, staring through the side window.
The streets were empty. Light rain covered the windscreen, and the heater made the car uncomfortably warm.
About halfway there, I noticed an unpleasant smell. Damp soil mixed with something medicinal.
I checked the mirror.
The man was looking at me.
His eyes seemed unusually cloudy, but I blamed the poor lighting.
“You all right back there?” I asked.
He leaned closer.
“You should not take the road by the lake,” he said.
It was the first time he had spoken.
The navigation system wanted me to use that road because it was faster. I asked why I should avoid it.
He looked down at his plastic bag.
“There has been an accident.”
There was no warning on the dispatch system, but I chose another route.
When we reached the address, I stopped outside a dark red house.
The man did not move.
I told him the fare.
He said, “Wait until she turns on the light.”
A few seconds later, a light appeared in an upstairs window.
The man opened the door and stepped out.
I watched him walk through the gate.
Then my phone rang.
It was dispatch.
They asked why I had been parked beside the industrial area for twenty-three minutes.
I said I had completed the journey they sent me.
The dispatcher insisted they had not assigned me a customer. According to their system, my car had remained stationary since 3:20.
I looked toward the house.
Nobody was standing near the gate.
The rear seat was empty, but the plastic shopping bag remained on the floor.
Inside it was a folded hospital gown and a pair of brown leather shoes. Both were wet and covered in mud.
I called the police.
While I waited, several emergency vehicles passed along the main road.
There had been a collision by the lake. A car had left the road and landed upside down in shallow water.
The driver survived because another motorist had taken an alternative route and noticed the damaged barrier. He called emergency services before the car became fully submerged.
The motorist was a woman driving home from a night shift.
She lived in the red house where I had stopped.
Police later reviewed my taxi’s internal camera.
The footage showed me talking during the entire journey.
It also showed the rear door opening and closing at the bus stop.
But the seat behind me was empty.
When I leaned toward the mirror and asked whether my passenger was all right, the camera briefly distorted.
For less than a second, an old man appeared in the back seat.
His face was turned toward the lens.
The police could not explain the footage.
The woman who lived in the red house identified him immediately.
He was her father.
He had died in the care home six years earlier.
I stopped driving nights after that. A month later, I resigned completely.
I still have the leather shoes.
I have tried throwing them away twice.
Both times, they were waiting outside my front door the following morning.
Editorial note: This is an original fictional horror story presented in a realistic user-submission style. It is not a verified eyewitness account.