WRITER – Rahul Sharma
1. The Last Bus From Khedgaon
In 1998, a bus driver named Mahadev Patil drove the final route between two villages in Maharashtra every night. The road was old, narrow, and wrapped around miles of sugarcane fields. Most people avoided traveling after dark because stories about disappearances had followed that road for decades.
Mahadev laughed at those stories.
He had driven that route for twelve years and claimed ghosts were inventions made by drunk villagers. Every night at exactly 11:40 PM, he would leave Khedgaon with whoever remained at the station and arrive at Sonale before midnight.
One rainy August night, only three passengers boarded.
An elderly woman carrying a bundle wrapped in white cloth.
A man with mud-covered shoes.
And a young girl no older than ten.
The rain hammered the roof so loudly that nobody spoke during the first half hour. Mahadev occasionally looked into the mirror hanging above his seat. The old woman stared straight ahead. The man kept his head lowered. The girl watched the darkness outside with unsettling focus.
True Scary Stories Halfway through the route, the bus passed a banyan tree where a deadly accident had occurred years earlier. Villagers believed spirits waited there for travelers.
As Mahadev drove past the tree, the engine suddenly died.
The headlights flickered.
Then everything went black.
The rain stopped.
Not gradually. Instantly.
Mahadev muttered curses and tried restarting the engine, but the ignition refused to turn. A strange silence covered the road.
Then he heard footsteps outside.
Slow.
Wet.
Circling the bus.
He grabbed a flashlight and shined it through the windshield. Nobody was there.
The old woman suddenly spoke.
“Don’t open the door.”
Mahadev forced a laugh. “Who said I’m scared?”
The mud-covered man lifted his head for the first time.
His face was pale gray.
“Because if it gets in,” he whispered, “it won’t leave.”
Mahadev’s smile disappeared.
A loud knock exploded against the side of the bus.
BANG.
Then another.
BANG.
The little girl began crying softly.
Mahadev walked toward the folding door near the front entrance. Before he could touch it, something scratched against the metal from outside.
Long nails.
Dragging slowly downward.
The old woman started praying under her breath.
Mahadev looked through the glass window beside the door.
At first, he saw only darkness.
Then a face appeared.
Upside down.
White eyes.
Wide smile.
Mahadev stumbled backward.
The thing outside tilted its head unnaturally and whispered through the glass:
“Let me in.”
The driver instantly restarted the ignition.
This time, the engine roared alive.
Mahadev slammed the accelerator and the bus sped forward violently. The passengers were thrown sideways as the vehicle bounced over potholes.
When they finally reached Sonale station, Mahadev jumped out trembling and ran to the station office. He shouted for help, telling everyone what had happened.
The station manager listened quietly before asking a strange question.
“What passengers?”
Mahadev pointed toward the bus.
“It was full!”
But when the station workers checked inside, the bus was empty.
No old woman.
No man.
No child.
Only muddy footprints leading to the back seats.
Police later investigated. They discovered something horrifying.
Twenty years earlier, a bus had crashed near the banyan tree during heavy rain. Three bodies were never recovered:
An old woman.
A laborer.
And a little girl.
Mahadev quit driving after that night.
Until his death in 2014, he refused to travel that road after sunset.
People say the last bus still passes through Khedgaon during storms.
And if three silent passengers board—
someone never reaches home.
2. The Apartment Above Room 203
In 2007, college student Riya Sharma rented a cheap apartment near Pune railway station. The building was old but affordable, and she needed somewhere close to her nursing college.
The landlord gave her one warning.
“Never go to the fourth floor.”
Riya laughed, assuming it was because of repairs or storage. The building had only three visible floors anyway.
At night, however, she heard footsteps above her ceiling.
Every night.
Around 2:13 AM.
Someone walked slowly overhead.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Her apartment was Room 203.
There should have been no fourth floor.
One evening, she asked another tenant about it. The old tenant immediately became uncomfortable.
“You hear the walking too?”
Riya nodded.
The woman lowered her voice.
“A family died there.”
She explained that years earlier, a fire destroyed the top floor. Officially, the fourth floor no longer existed. The burned area had been sealed off permanently.
“But sometimes,” the woman whispered, “people still hear them moving.”
That night Riya couldn’t sleep.
At exactly 2:13 AM—
step.
step.
step.
The footsteps began again.
This time, they sounded heavier.
Closer.
Then came a dragging noise.
As if someone were pulling something large across the floor.
Riya finally lost patience. She grabbed her phone flashlight and went into the hallway.
The staircase ended at the third floor.
But that night—
another staircase continued upward into darkness.
It had never been there before.
Her breathing quickened.
Someone was standing at the top.
A woman.
Burned skin hung from her face in strips.
One eye missing.
She slowly raised a finger toward Riya.
“Come upstairs.”
Riya ran back into her apartment and locked the door.
The footsteps immediately stopped.
Silence filled the room.
Then came a knock.
Three soft taps.
tap.
tap.
tap.
Riya froze.
A voice whispered from the other side:
“You left my daughter upstairs.”
Riya didn’t answer.
The doorknob began turning slowly.
She called the landlord, screaming for help. The old man arrived within minutes carrying a brass container filled with ash and holy water.
He sprinkled the doorway while chanting prayers.
The knocking stopped instantly.
The landlord finally confessed the truth.
In 1986, a woman and her daughter died trapped on the fourth floor during the fire. Witnesses claimed the mother had continued searching for her child even after flames consumed her body.
Several tenants later reported hearing footsteps and seeing a burned woman asking about her daughter.
One tenant disappeared completely.
His apartment was 203.
Riya moved out the next morning.
Years later, the building was demolished.
Construction workers reported something terrifying during demolition.
Behind a sealed wall on the old fourth floor, they discovered tiny footprints in soot.
Leading nowhere.
3. The Voice From the Well
In 1974, twelve-year-old Arjun lived in a small village in Rajasthan where every house depended on a single ancient well.
The villagers treated the well with fear and respect.
Children were forbidden from approaching it after sunset.
Arjun thought the warnings were foolish.
One summer evening, while returning home late, he passed the well and heard someone calling his name.
“Arjun…”
It sounded like his mother.
He looked around.
Nobody.
Again.
“Arjun… come here…”
The voice came from inside the well.
He slowly stepped closer and peered into the darkness below.
At first he saw only black water.
Then he saw a face floating beneath the surface.
A woman smiling upward.
“Help me,” she whispered.
Arjun screamed and ran home.
His grandmother turned pale after hearing the story.
Without saying a word, she locked every window and lit incense near the doorway.
Then she told him the truth.
Years earlier, a newly married woman named Meera had jumped into the well after villagers accused her of witchcraft when several children died during a fever outbreak.
Before drowning, she reportedly cursed the village.
“Your children will follow me.”
After her death, children began disappearing.
Many claimed they heard familiar voices calling from the well shortly before vanishing.
The villagers eventually sealed the well with iron chains and forbade anyone from approaching it at night.
But during drought season, the chains were removed temporarily for water access.
That same week, another boy disappeared.
Then another.
The village became terrified.
One night, Arjun woke to soft whispering outside his window.
“Arjun…”
His mother slept beside him.
Yet her voice called from outdoors.
“Come help me…”
He walked toward the door in a trance.
His grandmother suddenly grabbed him.
“Don’t answer it!”
The whispering instantly became angry.
Something scratched violently at the wooden walls.
All night long.
The next morning, villagers discovered wet footprints circling the house.
Bare feet.
Facing backward.
The village priest decided to perform a ritual at the well. Nearly everyone gathered around carrying lanterns and prayers.
As the chanting began, the water inside the well started bubbling violently.
Then screams echoed upward.
Not one scream.
Dozens.
Children crying.
Women wailing.
Men begging.
The villagers panicked.
Suddenly a hand emerged from the water.
Rotting.
Thin.
Reaching upward.
People fled in terror.
The priest continued chanting until sunrise.
By morning, the water became still again.
After that day, the well was sealed permanently with stone.
No one used it again.
But decades later, travelers passing through the abandoned village claim they sometimes hear voices from beneath the earth.
Calling their names.
Using the voices of people they love most.
4. The Hospital Basement
In 2015, security guard Imran Sheikh started working night shifts at an old hospital in Mumbai.
The pay was excellent because nobody wanted the basement assignment.
The basement once housed the psychiatric ward before the building was renovated years earlier.
Most of it remained abandoned.
Imran didn’t believe the rumors.
Until his third night.
At 1:00 AM, the CCTV monitors suddenly lost signal in Corridor B.
Only Corridor B.
He went downstairs carrying a flashlight.
The hallway lights flickered weakly. Paint peeled from the walls and old wheelchair tracks marked the dusty floor.
As he approached Corridor B, he noticed Room 17 standing open.
Hospital records claimed the room had been sealed for years.
Inside, rusty restraints still hung from the bed.
Something smelled rotten.
Imran heard breathing behind him.
He turned quickly.
Nobody there.
Then the intercom crackled alive.
A woman’s voice whispered:
“Patient awake.”
The power instantly failed.
Darkness swallowed the corridor.
Imran used his flashlight and hurried toward the exit, but every hallway looked identical.
Then he heard wheels squeaking slowly behind him.
A wheelchair.
Moving on its own.
Closer.
Closer.
His flashlight beam landed on it.
An empty wheelchair rolled toward him.
Then stopped.
The chair slowly turned.
As if someone invisible sat in it.
A voice came from directly behind his ear.
“Where is my face?”
Imran spun around screaming.
A woman stood inches away.
The lower half of her face had been surgically removed.
Blood dripped onto the floor.
She pointed toward Room 17.
Imran ran blindly through the basement until he reached the stairwell. But the door upstairs wouldn’t open.
Someone began laughing from the darkness.
More voices joined in.
Dozens.
Patients screaming.
Crying.
Begging.
Then hospital alarms exploded throughout the building.
Lights flashed red.
Over the intercom, a calm voice repeated:
“Containment failure.”
Imran pounded against the locked stairwell door while footsteps rushed toward him from multiple directions.
When the door finally opened, he collapsed upstairs in front of nurses.
Security footage later showed something terrifying.
Imran had not been alone in the basement.
Several blurry figures appeared walking beside him throughout Corridor B.
Hospital management eventually revealed a hidden truth.
During the 1980s, illegal psychiatric experiments allegedly took place in the basement. Patients underwent brutal surgeries without consent. Several died under mysterious circumstances.
Room 17 belonged to a woman whose face had been destroyed during an experimental procedure.
After her death, staff members reportedly heard her wandering the basement asking the same question:
“Where is my face?”
Imran resigned immediately.
To this day, no security guard stays in the hospital basement after midnight.
5. The Train That Never Stopped
In 1962, station master Devendra Rao worked at a small railway station in West Bengal.
One foggy winter night, he received an unusual message through telegraph.
A train numbered 417 would pass through at 3:00 AM.
There was only one problem.
Train 417 had crashed twenty years earlier.
No survivors.
Devendra assumed it was an error.
At exactly 2:58 AM, the signal lights activated by themselves.
The tracks began vibrating.
Then he heard it.
A train whistle in the fog.
Slowly, a black steam engine emerged from the mist.
Old.
Rust-covered.
Windows cracked.
The train moved silently toward the station.
No lights inside.
No passengers visible.
Yet every compartment seemed occupied.
Devendra stepped closer holding his lantern.
As the train passed, faces appeared at the windows.
Pale faces.
Motionless.
Eyes completely black.
One woman pressed her hand against the glass.
Her skin looked burned.
Another passenger appeared to have half his skull crushed inward.
A child smiled unnaturally wide.
The train never slowed down.
Yet the station clocks stopped moving as it passed.
3:00 AM froze permanently.
Devendra noticed one compartment door hanging open.
Inside sat dozens of silent passengers staring directly at him.
Together.
At the exact same moment.
Then every mouth opened.
Screaming.
No sound emerged.
Devendra dropped his lantern and stumbled backward.
As the final compartment passed, he saw something written across the rear carriage in dripping letters:
“LET US OFF.”
The train vanished into fog.
Instantly, the station clocks resumed ticking.
Police later found Devendra unconscious beside the tracks.
He refused to speak for three days.
Eventually he explained what happened.
Investigators checked historical records and uncovered disturbing details about Train 417.
Before the crash, passengers reportedly complained about smoke filling the compartments and hearing strange screams from beneath the train.
When the derailment occurred near a bridge, nearly every body was mutilated beyond recognition.
Several victims were never identified.
Years later, railway workers across multiple stations reported sightings of a ghostly train appearing during heavy fog.
Always at 3:00 AM.
Always silent.
And always moving toward the location of the original crash.
Devendra retired early and never worked another night shift again.
But railway employees still share warnings with new workers.
If a train arrives with no scheduled number—
never wave it down.
And never look inside the windows.
6. The Call From My Dead Brother
In 2021, software engineer Nikhil Verma lost his younger brother Aman in a motorcycle accident in Delhi.
Aman died instantly after colliding with a truck during heavy rain.
The family was devastated.
For weeks, Nikhil barely slept.
Then the phone calls started.
At first, he ignored them because the number displayed “Unknown.”
But every call came at exactly 1:17 AM.
The exact time Aman died.
One night, exhausted and angry, Nikhil finally answered.
Static filled the speaker.
Then came breathing.
Soft.
Weak.
“Nikhil…”
His blood froze.
It was Aman’s voice.
“Help me.”
The line disconnected.
Nikhil convinced himself grief was affecting his mind.
The next night, the phone rang again.
1:17 AM.
This time the voice sounded clearer.
“It’s dark here.”
Nikhil began recording the calls.
Friends insisted someone was pranking him, but no tracing service could identify the number.
Every call originated from nowhere.
The conversations grew stranger.
Aman described hearing people crying nearby.
He claimed he couldn’t see anything except darkness and headlights.
Then one night, Aman whispered something horrifying.
“I wasn’t alone on the road.”
Nikhil sat upright.
“What do you mean?”
“There was a woman standing in the rain.”
The call crackled violently.
“She was smiling at me.”
Then screaming erupted through the speaker.
Not one voice.
Hundreds.
The line died.
Nikhil became obsessed. He revisited the crash site repeatedly searching for answers.
An elderly tea vendor nearby finally told him a local legend.
For years, drivers reported seeing a woman in white standing beside the highway during storms. Those who stopped for her often crashed shortly afterward.
Some believed she was the spirit of a bride killed there decades earlier.
Others believed she wasn’t human at all.
One week later, Nikhil received another call.
But this time the number displayed Aman’s actual phone number.
The same number disconnected after the accident.
Hands trembling, Nikhil answered.
“Aman?”
The voice sounded terrified.
“She knows you can hear me.”
“Who?”
A whisper replied:
“She’s behind you.”
Nikhil slowly turned.
Nothing there.
Then his apartment lights shut off.
His phone speaker emitted wet breathing.
A woman laughed softly.
Not Aman.
The screen suddenly filled with static before an image appeared briefly—
a pale woman with hollow eyes standing inside his room.
Nikhil threw the phone across the apartment.
The call ended.
The next morning, he discovered muddy footprints near his bedroom door.
Small footprints.
Bare feet.
Facing inward.
Terrified, Nikhil contacted a paranormal investigator who reviewed the recordings.
During audio analysis, they discovered something hidden beneath Aman’s voice.
Another voice speaking simultaneously.
A woman whispering repeatedly:
“Bring him to me.”
The investigator refused to continue after hearing the final recording.
Three months later, the calls stopped completely.
Nikhil tried moving on with his life.
Until one rainy night in 2024.
At exactly 1:17 AM—
his phone rang again.
And this time, when he answered—
he heard his own voice crying for help.
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