The Ghostly Hitchhikers

This incident happened a couple of years ago.

Around 15 old college friends of mine decided to have a small reunion at a seaside beach resort around 60 Kms from Mumbai, India. The place is called Murud, famous for its pristine beach. A great place to chill out for a couple of days.

We had booked a seaside resort for the weekend and hoped that it would be great fun. I didn't want to miss the occasion because it was a rare occasion when we could get the entire gang together. We had decided to leave from Mumbai on Friday afternoon and reach Murud by evening. But as fate would have it something important came up and I couldn't join the others when they left in the afternoon.

It was decided that I would leave later in the evening and reach the resort at night. My friend Anand magnanimously volunteered to accompany me in the evening.

It was around 8.00pm when we were able to finish off my work and start off. The road leading to Murud is a very lonely one especially during night time and there is a very narrow stretch of road which is an accident prone area. We were initially apprehensive about driving along that path at night but finally giving caution to the winds decided to make journey anyways.

It would have normally taken us 3 1/2 hours to reach Murud. But driving in the night along narrow roads can be quite difficult especially at night and can increase the total time by up to 1 hour. We started out in Anand's 4X4 SUV rest assured that the potholes along the highway would pose no hindrance to us.

It was around 11. 30pm when we were on the lonely stretch of road around 40 Kms from our destination. A couple of minutes after joining the lonely road we saw a couple asking for a lift. Normally we wouldn't have stopped to give a lift to hitchhikers at such a late hour. But the couple looked like honeymooners who had come to spend some quiet time together after marriage. On closer inspection they seemed well spoken and safe enough to give a ride. The guy told us that they were staying at Kashid beach, around 10 kms from Murud. They were staying at a resort there and had been stranded for 2 hours. They had rented a bike for the evening but it had suffered a puncture. I could see a bike parked on the side of the road with a punctured tyre and so it made his story more believable. We asked them to hop in and told them that we would drop them off at their destination which was on the way. Along the way we found that both of them had a good sense of humour and we found that we got along quite well. They introduced themselves as Ravi and Sunita, married recently and had come over to Kashid beach resort for a honeymoon from Mumbai. Time passed by and the conversation grew lesser since all of us were quite tired. However our couple had made themselves comfortable in the backseat of our car and all we could hear were whispers from the back seat. Anand and I smiled silently at each other but said nothing.

Then something chilling happened which still gives me the creeps. Somewhere near Kashid, our vehicle suddenly came to a halt. I knew that we had a full tank of petrol and it wasn't the reason for this. Without looking back I got out of the car and opened the bonnet trying to figure out the reason for the sudden breakdown. I heard the guy Ravi call out asking whether I needed any help. I couldn't see him because of the open car bonnet. Surprisingly there was no word from Anand who was my co-passenger and would naturally have come out of the car to give me a hand. I called out to him and walked to the window. Anand was just sitting there sweating profusely. He looked at me and pointed to the back seat with trembling hands. What happened next is truly eerie.

I could still hear the couple in the back seat of the car whispering to each other, a couple of feet away from me, just the way when we were travelling but there was no one there now. Continuous whispering but only... Empty seats! My head started reeling and I thought that I would probably lose consciousness and faint. Gathering all my strength I opened the door, got Anand out of the car and we ran from there like our lives depended on it. When we were a couple of meters away from the car we heard a loud laugh in a man's voice and a wail in a woman's, coming from the car. After that there was eerie silence.

Fortunately for us there was a police station around half a kilometer from where our car broke down. We were badly shaken and on the verge of collapse. The cops on duty were very sympathetic to us but were not surprised on hearing our story. They told us that this wasn't the first occasion that such a thing had happened. It seems that some years back, a honeymooning couple who were stranded on the lonely road at night were brutally murdered. Their bike had developed a puncture and they tried to hitch a ride to their resort which happened to be at Kashid. They hitched a ride from the wrong people and eventually met their grievous end. The sightings had happened a couple of times earlier too.

We were told by the constables to spend the night at the police station. We immediately called up our worried friends and informed them about the incident. We also forbade them from driving down on that road as we did not want a repeat of the incident which happened to us. Anand and I spent an uncomfortable night at the police station. We couldn't believe that this had happened to us.

Next morning at around 6 am, the cops escorted us to our car which was now empty. A friend also arrived there shortly. We thanked the cops for their help and started back towards Mumbai without even bothering about the re-union plans. I was just happy that both Anand and I had escaped unscratched.

While driving down towards Mumbai, I sleepily glanced from the window where we had picked up the couple. I could not see the bike which we had seen last night but I definitely thought that I saw an old worn out rusty bike tyre lying on one side of the road. I might be wrong considering the state that I was in, after the previous night's ordeal.

I went to Kashid a year later. On the way we stopped at the police station and enquired whether any further sightings of the couple had been reported. We were happy to learn that there were none after our incident.

I can only hope and pray that the souls of the poor couple find peace.