Marcus Webb had been driving for RideGo for exactly eleven months when he picked up the woman in white. It was his 2,847th ride—he kept track in a spreadsheet, meticulously logging miles, tips, and memorable passengers. Driving rideshare had started as a side hustle to pay off student loans, but after getting laid off from his marketing job in February, it had become his full-time income.
The ping came at 11:43 PM on a Thursday in late October, requesting pickup from the Starlite Diner on Route 9. Marcus was finishing his dinner break—a cold sandwich eaten in his Prius in the diner’s parking lot—when the request appeared on his phone. The destination showed as Hillcrest Cemetery, 4.2 miles away. Estimated fare: $12.50.
Marcus frowned at the screen. A cemetery at nearly midnight seemed like an odd destination, but he’d learned not to question passenger choices. He’d driven people to stranger places at stranger hours—hospitals at 3 AM, closed businesses, empty parking lots where they met other cars for mysterious exchanges. The cardinal rule of rideshare driving was simple: drive, don’t ask questions, get your five stars and move on.
He accepted the ride and pulled around to the diner’s entrance. A woman stood under the neon sign, visible in the wash of red and blue light. She wore a long white dress that seemed out of place for the chilly autumn evening—no jacket, no sweater, just the dress that fell to her ankles. Her dark hair hung loose around her shoulders, and she clutched a small purse.
Marcus pulled up and lowered the passenger window. “RideGo for… Elena?”
The woman nodded and climbed into the backseat. Marcus caught a glimpse of her face in the rearview mirror—young, maybe mid-twenties, with pale skin and dark eyes that seemed enormous in her face. She was beautiful in an old-fashioned way, like someone from a vintage photograph.
“Hillcrest Cemetery?” Marcus confirmed, glancing at his phone mounted on the dashboard.
“Yes, please.” Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper. “The main entrance.”
Marcus pulled out of the parking lot and onto Route 9. The road was nearly empty at this hour, just the occasional semi-truck rumbling past and the glow of distant fast-food signs. The radio was tuned to a classic rock station playing at low volume—Led Zeppelin, “Stairway to Heaven.” Marcus always kept the radio low when he had passengers, ready to turn it off if they wanted to talk or make phone calls.
Elena sat silently in the backseat, staring out the window. Marcus studied her in the mirror, noting that she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He almost said something—he was supposed to remind passengers—but something stopped him. There was a quality about her, a stillness, that made him reluctant to break the silence.
They drove for three minutes without speaking. Then Elena said, “Do you believe in second chances, Marcus?”
He was startled that she knew his name, then remembered it was displayed on the app and probably on the placard attached to his dashboard. “Second chances? I mean, yeah, I guess. Everyone makes mistakes.”
“What if you could go back?” she continued, still looking out the window. “Go back to a moment and change everything? Would you?”
It was the kind of deep, philosophical question that sometimes emerged from passengers late at night. Marcus had learned that driving at odd hours made people contemplative, reflective. They treated him like a confessor, a therapist, someone they’d never see again so it was safe to say anything.
“Depends on the moment,” Marcus said carefully. “There are things I’d change, sure. But then I might not be who I am now, you know? Every choice leads to other choices.”
Elena was quiet for a moment. “I had a choice once. I made the wrong one. And now I can’t go back, no matter how much I want to.”
Marcus didn’t know what to say to that. The GPS showed two more miles to the cemetery. He decided to change the subject. “So, meeting someone at the cemetery? Kind of a late hour.”
“You could say that.” Elena’s reflection smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m going home.”
“You live near there?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
The conversation died. Marcus focused on driving, feeling increasingly uneasy though he couldn’t pinpoint why. The woman seemed harmless—sad, maybe, but not threatening. Still, something felt off. The white dress. The late hour. The cemetery destination. And now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember hearing the car door open or close when she got in, though he must have been distracted checking his phone.
They passed a sign: “Hillcrest Cemetery – 1 mile.”
“Can I ask you something?” Elena’s voice came from the backseat, making Marcus jump slightly.
“Sure.”
“Do you think the dead know they’re dead? Or do some of them just keep going, keep living out their routines, not realizing everything changed?”
Marcus’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. This was getting weird, even by late-night rideshare standards. “I… I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”
“I think some of them don’t know,” Elena said softly. “I think they’re stuck, replaying the same moments over and over. Like being trapped in a loop.”
The cemetery gates appeared ahead, wrought iron and imposing even in darkness. A small sign read “Hillcrest Cemetery – Established 1887 – Gates Close at Dusk.” Marcus pulled up to the entrance, noting that the gates were chained shut.
“The cemetery’s closed,” he said, turning to look at the backseat.
Elena was gone.
Marcus blinked, his brain refusing to process what he was seeing—or rather, not seeing. The backseat was empty. Completely empty. No woman in white, no purse, no indication anyone had been sitting there at all.
“What the hell?” Marcus fumbled with his seatbelt, twisted around to stare at the empty seat. He reached back and touched the upholstery—cold, as if the window had been open, though all the windows had been closed since leaving the diner.
His phone chimed. The RideGo app displayed a message: “Ride completed. Elena has been dropped off at Hillcrest Cemetery. Rate your passenger.”
But she hadn’t gotten out. The car had been moving, and he would have heard the door, felt the motion, seen her in the mirror. She’d been there, talking to him about second chances and the dead not knowing they were dead, and then she just… wasn’t.
Marcus sat in his idling car, staring at the cemetery gates, his heart hammering. Every logical part of his brain insisted there had to be an explanation. She must have gotten out when he wasn’t paying attention, maybe when he was checking the GPS or changing lanes. But he knew that wasn’t true. He’d been aware of her presence the entire drive, had seen her reflection in the mirror just seconds before pulling up to the gates.
He checked the app again. Elena’s profile showed a generic silhouette—no photo, no rating history. The account had been created that same day, October 27, 2025. One ride given, one ride taken. This ride.
Marcus drove away from the cemetery, his mind racing. He made it three blocks before pulling into a gas station, parking under the bright lights, and doing what he’d sworn he wouldn’t do: he Googled “Hillcrest Cemetery” and “Elena.”
The Accident
The search results loaded, and Marcus’s blood ran cold. The first result was a news article from the local paper, dated October 27, 2005—exactly twenty years ago to the day.
“Local Woman Dies in Route 9 Accident”
“Elena Vasquez, 24, was killed Thursday night when her vehicle was struck by a semi-truck on Route 9 near the Starlite Diner. According to police reports, Vasquez was attempting to cross the highway when her vehicle stalled in the intersection. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the truck was not injured and has not been charged. Vasquez had been on her way to visit her fiancé’s grave at Hillcrest Cemetery, according to family members. She had made the trip every Thursday evening since his death six months earlier.”
Marcus read the article three times, his hands shaking. Elena Vasquez. Dead twenty years ago, almost to the hour. Killed near the diner where he’d picked up his passenger. On her way to the cemetery where he’d just dropped her off.
He scrolled through more search results. There were follow-up articles about the accident, an obituary with a photo that made Marcus’s breath catch—it was her, the woman from his backseat, the same dark eyes and pale skin and hair falling around her shoulders. The obituary mentioned that Elena had been engaged to Daniel Reeves, who’d died in a motorcycle accident in April 2005. She’d visited his grave every Thursday without fail, friends said, unable to let go of their plans for a future together.
Marcus sat in his car under the harsh gas station lights, trying to rationalize what had happened. Mass hallucination? No, he’d been alone. Carbon monoxide leak in his car? But he felt fine, just scared and confused. A prank? But how would someone fake an entire passenger, complete with app verification?
The only explanation his mind kept circling back to was impossible: he’d picked up a ghost.
His phone chimed. Another RideGo request, this one from someone named David, pickup in five minutes. Marcus stared at the screen, then declined the ride. He declined the next one too, and the one after that. He sat in the gas station for forty-five minutes, reading every article he could find about Elena Vasquez, about the accident that had killed her, about the fiancé she’d been grieving.
Finally, he drove home, called in sick for the next three nights, and tried to forget.
The Pattern
But Marcus couldn’t forget. He dreamed about Elena—about her sitting in his backseat, about her questions about second chances, about the moment she vanished. He woke up gasping, checking his RideGo history to confirm it had really happened. The ride was there in his log: October 27, pickup at Starlite Diner, dropoff at Hillcrest Cemetery, $12.50 fare with a $20 tip.
A twenty-dollar tip from a ghost.
After a week, Marcus forced himself back to driving, but he avoided Route 9 and the Starlite Diner. He picked up rides downtown, near the university, out in the suburbs—anywhere but that stretch of road. He told himself it had been a one-time thing, an anniversary haunting, Elena’s spirit replaying her final journey on the twentieth anniversary of her death.
But then he started hearing stories from other drivers.
It happened gradually. Marcus joined online forums for rideshare drivers, places where they swapped stories about difficult passengers, good tipping spots, and navigation shortcuts. He found a thread titled “Weirdest Pickup Stories” and began reading.
User DrivingAllNight posted: “Picked up a woman in white from the diner on Route 9 about three years ago. She wanted to go to Hillcrest Cemetery at like midnight. I thought it was weird but whatever. We drove there, I turned around to tell her the gates were closed, and she was GONE. Door never opened, she just vanished. I looked up the cemetery later and found out about this woman who died in an accident twenty years ago trying to get there. I don’t drive that route anymore.”
Marcus’s hands trembled as he scrolled to the next comment.
User NightShiftRider replied: “Holy shit, same thing happened to me! October two years ago, woman in white dress, wanted to go to the cemetery. She vanished right as I pulled up. I reported it to RideGo but they said the ride was completed and I got paid so what was I complaining about? That was my last night driving. Too creepy.”
There were more. Dozens more, stretching back years. Always in October, always on or around the 27th. Always the same woman, the same white dress, the same destination. Different drivers, all of them shaken, most of them refusing to drive Route 9 afterward.
Elena had been doing this for twenty years. Every October 27th, the anniversary of her death, she somehow manifested in the rideshare app, requested a ride, and vanished upon reaching the cemetery. She was still trying to complete her journey, still making her Thursday evening pilgrimage to visit Daniel’s grave.
Marcus felt something shift in his chest—less fear now, more sadness. Elena Vasquez had died young, had lost the love of her life and then lost her own life while mourning him. And for two decades, she’d been trapped in that final journey, endlessly repeating it, unable to move on.
“Do you think the dead know they’re dead?” she’d asked him. “Or do some of them just keep going, keep living out their routines, not realizing everything changed?”
Maybe she did know. Maybe that’s why she kept trying, kept hoping that this time, this ride, she’d make it to the cemetery while the gates were still open, while she could still visit Daniel’s grave and somehow, impossibly, change what had happened.
The Return
October 27, 2026. One year after Marcus’s encounter with Elena. He’d thought about this day for weeks, had argued with himself about what to do. The rational part of his brain said to stay home, to avoid Route 9 entirely, to let someone else be the driver who picked up the ghost passenger.
But another part of him—a part that had grown over the past year as he’d researched Elena, read about her life, looked at photos of her and Daniel together, young and in love and planning a future that never came—that part knew he had to go back.
At 11:30 PM, Marcus parked in the Starlite Diner’s lot and opened his RideGo app. He sat waiting, watching the time tick forward. 11:35. 11:40. 11:42.
At 11:43 PM, his phone pinged.
Pickup: Starlite Diner, Route 9
Passenger: Elena
Destination: Hillcrest Cemetery
Marcus accepted the ride, his heart pounding. He pulled around to the entrance.
She was there. The same white dress, the same dark hair, the same pale beauty caught in eternal youth. Elena climbed into the backseat as if getting into a rideshare was the most natural thing in the world.
“Hillcrest Cemetery?” Marcus asked, though he already knew.
“Yes, please. The main entrance.”
This time, Marcus had a plan. As he drove, he studied Elena in the rearview mirror, memorizing every detail. She sat quietly, staring out the window at the passing darkness.
“Elena,” Marcus said, and watched her reflection’s eyes meet his in the mirror. “I know what happened to you. I know about the accident. I know about Daniel.”
She didn’t look surprised. “You’re the one from last year. I remember you.”
“You remember?”
“Not everything. It’s like… fragments. Pieces of the same journey, over and over. Different cars, different drivers, but always the same route. Always trying to reach him.”
“Daniel,” Marcus said softly.
“I was supposed to visit him that night. I visited every Thursday, you see. I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t accept that we’d never have our wedding, never have the life we’d planned. So I kept visiting, kept talking to a headstone, kept pretending he could hear me.” Her voice was distant, dreamy. “And then the truck came, and my car stalled, and suddenly I was—”
She paused, touching her hand to her chest. “I was nothing. But I couldn’t stop. I had to finish the journey. Had to visit him one more time. Just one more time.”
They were approaching the cemetery. Marcus could see the gates ahead, closed and chained as always.
“Elena, you’ve been trying for twenty years. The gates are always closed. You can’t reach his grave this way.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I know that. But I don’t know how else to find him. I don’t know how to stop trying.”
Marcus pulled off Route 9 onto the shoulder about a hundred yards before the cemetery gates. He put the car in park and turned to face the backseat.
Elena looked at him with those enormous dark eyes, and in them he saw infinite sadness, infinite longing, infinite exhaustion.
“What if,” Marcus said carefully, “Daniel isn’t at the cemetery anymore? What if he’s been waiting for you somewhere else all this time?”
“Where?” The hope in her voice was heartbreaking.
“Elena, Daniel died six months before you did. That means he crossed over, moved on to whatever comes next. And I bet he’s been waiting there for you ever since. But you’re stuck here, replaying this ride, trying to reach a grave when the person you love isn’t there anymore. He’s beyond. And he’s waiting for you to join him.”
Tears rolled down Elena’s pale cheeks. “I don’t know how. I don’t know how to get there. This is all I know—this route, this ride, this night. I’m trapped in it.”
Marcus thought about everything he’d read, all the ghost stories and paranormal accounts he’d devoured over the past year. He wasn’t an expert, wasn’t a medium or paranormal investigator. He was just a rideshare driver who’d picked up the wrong—or right—passenger.
But he knew one thing that appeared in every story, every account: ghosts stayed because of unfinished business. And Elena’s unfinished business was saying goodbye.
“I’ll take you to the cemetery,” Marcus said. “Not to the gates. To Daniel’s grave. Will you trust me?”
Elena nodded, unable to speak.
Marcus drove past the locked main entrance and continued along the road that bordered the cemetery’s north side. He’d done his research, had studied maps of Hillcrest, had identified the section where Daniel Reeves was buried. There was a maintenance entrance, usually left unlocked for groundskeepers. It was after midnight—no one would be there.
He found the small gate and, as hoped, it wasn’t locked. Marcus parked and got out. He opened the rear door, half-expecting Elena to have vanished already. But she was there, looking up at him with a mixture of fear and hope.
“Come on,” he said, offering his hand.
Elena’s hand was ice-cold when she took it, but it was solid, real. Marcus helped her out of the car and together they walked into the cemetery, following a path lit by his phone’s flashlight.
He’d memorized the location: Section C, Row 14, Plot 23. It took fifteen minutes of walking through the silent graves before they found it.
Daniel Reeves
Born March 15, 1979
Died April 8, 2005
Beloved Son, Brother, Friend
Forever in Our Hearts
The headstone was simple granite, weathered by twenty years of seasons. Someone still left flowers—plastic ones that wouldn’t die, eternal as grief.
Elena sank to her knees in front of the grave, her white dress pooling around her. She pressed her hands to the cold stone and sobbed—deep, wrenching sobs that seemed to come from somewhere beyond her translucent form.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry, Daniel. I couldn’t let you go. I kept holding on, kept visiting, kept pretending you’d come back to me. And then I died trying to reach you, and I still couldn’t let go. I’ve been stuck for twenty years, making the same journey over and over, and you’ve been waiting for me all this time, haven’t you?”
Marcus stood back, giving her privacy for this moment. The cemetery was utterly silent except for Elena’s voice.
“I’m ready now,” she whispered. “I’m ready to stop trying to reach your grave and start trying to reach you. I’m ready to say goodbye to this world and hello to whatever comes next. Because you’re there, aren’t you? You’re waiting for me.”
The air around the grave began to shimmer, like heat rising from summer pavement. Marcus watched as light began to emanate from the headstone—soft, golden, warm. It grew brighter, and within that light, a figure began to take shape.
A man, young, with a kind face and gentle eyes. He was as translucent as Elena, but he was smiling. He extended his hand to her.
“Daniel,” Elena breathed. She reached for him, and when their hands touched, both figures blazed with light.
“Thank you for waiting,” Elena said.
“Always,” Daniel replied, his voice echoing as if from a great distance. “I would have waited forever.”
Elena turned back to Marcus. “Thank you. Thank you for bringing me here. For helping me find him.”
“You’re welcome,” Marcus said, his own eyes wet with tears. “Go on. Go be together.”
Elena and Daniel walked hand in hand into the light, and the light grew so bright that Marcus had to shield his eyes. When he could see again, they were gone. The cemetery was dark and silent once more, just weathered headstones and the rustling of autumn leaves.
Marcus stood there for a long time, alone with the dead who weren’t trapped, weren’t searching, weren’t caught in endless loops. Just resting. Finally at peace.
Epilogue
Marcus drove home as the sun was rising, exhausted but somehow lighter. He checked his RideGo app. The ride with Elena showed in his history: October 27, 2026, pickup at Starlite Diner, dropoff at Hillcrest Cemetery. But this time, there was a message in the comments section, something he’d never seen before on any ride:
“Journey complete. Thank you. E&D”
He smiled through fresh tears.
Marcus continued driving for RideGo for another three years. He picked up thousands of passengers, heard countless stories, drove to every corner of the city and beyond. But he never got another ping from Elena.
Other drivers in the online forums noticed too. The October 27th rides to the cemetery stopped. The woman in white no longer appeared at the Starlite Diner, no longer vanished upon reaching the locked gates. The haunting was over.
Elena Vasquez had finally completed her journey and found the person she’d been searching for all along.
On October 27th each year, Marcus made a pilgrimage of his own. He drove to Hillcrest Cemetery during regular hours, walked to Section C, Row 14, Plot 23, and left two white roses on Daniel Reeves’s grave—one for Daniel, one for Elena.
And every time, he swore he could hear, carried on the wind, the sound of two voices laughing together, finally reunited, finally at peace.
The rideshare app on his phone never pinged while he was there. The ride had been completed. Elena had found her way home at last.
