The story
The night in Villavicencio was thickening with that heavy, muggy heat that usually comes before the flatland thunderstorms. At exactly eleven o’clock, Jairo was only one ride away from meeting his daily quota and getting home. When his phone screen lit up the handlebars with a new‑ride alert, he accepted it automatically, out of habit. But as soon as he looked at the digital map, a pang of unease chilled his chest: the pickup point was the main entrance of the municipal cemetery, on a lonely stretch where the streetlights were nothing more than a line of broken bulbs.
He thought about canceling, but the surge pricing outweighed the gut feeling. He rode through the empty avenues until he reached the unpaved road that ran alongside the brick walls of the cemetery. When he arrived, the darkness was crushing. The outlines of crosses and trees were stark against the murky sky. Being a seasoned rider, Jairo didn’t get close to the rusted iron gate; he stopped the bike a few meters away, engine running and in first gear, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.
He gave the horn a couple of short, dry blasts that echoed hollowly in the silence. He expected to see the silhouette of a guard or a lagging family member, but no one emerged from the shadows. There were no flashlight beams, no footsteps—just the distant rustle of wind shaking the scrub. He checked the time on his phone and decided to wait the two‑minute courtesy window before canceling.
At that moment the phone screen seemed to take on a life of its own. To start any night ride, the platform always required a four‑digit security code that the rider had to give the driver in person. Jairo watched, frozen in disbelief, as the empty boxes filled themselves one by one, marked with the precision of invisible fingers: four perfect numbers. The device emitted a high‑pitched confirmation tone and the interface instantly turned green with a clear message: route started to the final destination.
A cold draft, completely out of place in the warm Llanos midnight, raised the hair on the back of his neck. In that same instant, the rear seat springs gave a faint creak and sank under a sudden weight that cast no shadow. Panic clenched his throat. Without daring to glance at the rear‑view mirrors, Jairo floored the throttle. The rear tire skidded on the gravel before shooting forward onto the pavement. He rode at full speed for miles, never letting his guard down, feeling a freezing presence on his back that only seemed to dissolve when he passed the first lights of a gas station.
The next day, still shaking and convinced the app had suffered a programming glitch, he called the support line to cancel the record. The answer the operator gave left him speechless: according to the geolocation system and the trip logs, there was no error; the passenger had boarded at the cemetery and had stayed with him for the entire ride.
