The Groom

Part I

Marco sat behind the wheel of his Audi A4 convertible, a gift from his parents earlier that year. The road from Smederevo to Belgrade lay drowned in a stagnant fog, the kind that descended without warning and might linger for an hour, a day, or forever—it was never clear which. Mid-May, yet they huddled inside their jackets, collars pressed to their throats, their faces dampened by the spectral condensation that seeped through the open top.

“Should’ve taken your father’s jeep,” Anya murmured, her voice a tired blade.
“I thought you liked my cabrio.”

“Liked it until tonight. We’ll freeze before we even reach Belgrade. Even my old rust-bucket would’ve done better than this open coffin.”

In the backseat, Luka sat with his girlfriend, Irina—two years younger, pliant, brittle—and Stefan, the perpetual clown with his pockets of cheap smoke. They said nothing, which told Marco everything. The silence cut deeper than Anya’s words. He reached for the stereo. Thin pop beats rose, collapsed, and dissolved into the haze, like laughter in a mausoleum. Tonight’s plan was a youth-center rave in Belgrade, big-euro DJs exported to provincial Serbia. Vanilla diversions for children, Marco thought. The real festivities would begin afterward—Anya dropped off, and the boys hunting for powder in the shadows. He glanced into the mirror. Luka’s eyes, vacant, bankrupt, reflected his own hunger back at him.

Marco pressed the gas, released his grip on the wheel, and howled into the white oblivion: freedom. For an instant, the fog curling over the hood reminded him of cigar smoke in his father’s study, a memory that clung with a loneliness he would never admit aloud. Anya called him a fool and pushed away his arm. “My makeup’s ruined in this damp,” she muttered. The road yawned on, deserted, as if abandoned by civilization. Then—an impact. A rear wheel struck a rotting barricade; the car lurched, wavered between lanes, swaying like a beast caught in a snare. Irina clung to Luka, whispering her fear. Luka, grinning like a cutpurse, assured her: Marco was a good driver. He squeezed her hand briefly, almost shyly, as if afraid his own warmth might shatter the brittle world around them.

Marco laughed. The Audi shuddered as he pushed it harder, speed swelling underfoot.

Money passed between pale hands, followed by a kiss, a grope. Irina turned her head away; the silence that followed was more violent than any protest.

Stefan broke it with sudden reverence. “The clouds are clearing. Full moon tonight.”

“God, not another of your stories,” Anya groaned. Yet even as she scoffed, her hand crept to the window, fingertips tracing the fogged glass as if to reassure herself the world beyond hadn’t vanished.

But the others encouraged him, drunk on the unease. His voice shifted, low and incantatory: The Bride in White. A local legend. A girl named Maria, seventeen, burning with youth’s feral hunger. A forbidden love affair with an older, violent man, a criminal, a phantom on a motorcycle. A pregnancy. A family’s rage, their savagery. Beatings, confinement, the forced abortion. The boy hunted, beaten half to death. But vengeance was patient. One night he returned, and she was waiting—equally deranged, equally doomed. Together they silenced the dog, took the axes, and butchered her family in their sleep. At dawn they fled toward Belgrade, dreaming of buying a wedding dress. But fate—the whore fate—intervened. A fuel truck, a collision, an explosion that scorched the night and shook the earth. From then on, she wandered this very road, a phantom bride beneath the full moon, searching for the husband death had denied her.

A second of absolute silence fell, uncanny and weightless. Then laughter erupted—first Anya and Marco, spreading backward like contagion. Luka doubled over, shrieking, while Stefan’s face remained motionless, a granite effigy—its blankness making the others howl all the harder. Irina’s giggling fractured into shrill cries, her eyes transfixed on the storyteller, whose expression slowly stretched, becoming grotesque in its stillness, absurd in its refusal to break. The laughter boiled over, chaos spilling into the fog-cloaked road, a shrieking carnival of hysteria.

“Christ, this could kill a man!” Luka hissed, which only provoked louder howls. But when they looked at Stefan again, he sat stern, arms folded, his silence a rebuke.

“You don’t actually believe that story?” Anya asked, her scorn sharp. “It’s just campfire trash for children. Nicely dressed up, I’ll give you that—but you don’t expect us to take it seriously?”

Stefan’s voice came flat, resentful: “I don’t. But others do. And tonight… we’ll have ourselves a little game.”

The car slowed. A sign for the old abandoned mines passed in the haze. Stefan barked, “Stop here!” Marco pulled onto a layby near a fringe of trees. Fog descended in slow waves, spilling down the hillside to smother the asphalt.

“What the hell are you doing?” Anya snapped.

Marco only grinned. “A little theater,” he said, braking sharply. He and Stefan leapt out. Anya cursed and threatened, but her words fell dead in the damp night. One by one, the others clambered reluctantly after them, like sleepwalkers summoned to some arcane ritual.

From the trunk, Marco withdrew strange objects: lengths of plastic, balloons, a battered mask, a black duffel. The others watched, disoriented. “Something we saw on TikTok,” Stefan explained as he assembled it with unnerving fluency. He grinned as he worked, savoring the twitch of unease in the others, fascinated by the way old legends could twist flesh and nerves into fear. A crude figure took shape: spindly legs of rods, a torso of balloons, a pale mask painted with blood at the mouth, empty sockets for eyes. Draped in a torn sheet, it swayed on the evening breeze. Beneath it, a drone hummed alive, and the figure rose, hovering above the road—a mockery of a bride, a marionette of horror.

Irina whimpered and clutched Luka. “I don’t want to look at it.” But Luka stared transfixed. A flicker of fear ran through him, quick and sharp, yet something darker—a twisted curiosity—rooted him to the spot, torn between wanting to look away and needing to see the mask’s every movement. The mask stirred something nameless, some shadow that had haunted his fevered sleep: the faceless woman who stalked his dreams since the injury ruined his future, when pain and dread gnawed into his shoulder and his sleep. His coaches had once spoken of greatness, BC Partizan[^1], fame, money. Now there was only the grinding of cartilage, the dwindling of hope, and the face without a face waiting in the dark.

Stefan’s voice cut across his thoughts: “We’ll let it drift in the fog. Tomorrow they’ll be whispering again—the White Bride walks the old Mines Road.”

“Idiots,” Anya snapped. “What if you cause a wreck?”

“If anyone comes across it, they'll recognize it as a joke... eventually,” Stefan said. “And then we’ll all laugh.” He adjusted the controls. Marco filmed. He aimed the camera not just to record the prank, but to capture their terror—and his own daring—so everyone would see he was the one who dared, the one in control. The mask hung in still air, waiting for its victim.

The sound arrived first—a motor in the distance. Then the headlights, twin points swelling into orbs, bearing down on the curve. “This is it,” Marco whispered, eyes shining. “Hide!” They scrambled into the brush, leaves clawing at their faces, while the puppet swayed above the yellow line. The fog smelled of damp earth and rotting leaves, and somewhere distant a dog’s howl sliced through the night. The mask stared into the blinding beams.

“Luka…” Irina’s voice trembled. “I don’t like this.”

He forced a grin. “Relax. It’s just a prank. Nothing can happen.” Yet his throat closed on the words, his gut thick with dread.

The car approached, fast, the lights dazzling. The bride hung motionless, a phantom over the road.
“Any second now… he’ll brake… he must, am I right?” Stefan hissed. The curve came too fast, the headlights blinding, and the brakes screamed too late for anyone to leap clear. There was no shriek of tires. Only the brutal impact—metal tearing, glass splintering, the thunder of a vehicle rolling into oblivion.

Silence fell, once more.

Part II

The Mustang devoured mile after mile, yet Goran had no sense of movement. Everything blurred—the trees, the signs, the lights trailing in the rearview mirror. He was not driving; he was drifting through a nightmare that refused to end.

“Faster, you piece of junk.” He floored the pedal, but the car obeyed only in illusion. Why had he even bought this wreck? Perhaps to appease the boy inside him who had watched too many American action movies. Once, the Mustang had been magnificent; now it was decayed, its floor rotted, brakes failing, engine reluctant, thirsting for fuel like a tank. Not a euro of resale value remained, not with its expired inspection looming. This might be its last ride, and perhaps his last attempt at escape.

The dread in his head was tied to the reason for his flight, to the person from whom he ran: his fiancée, Marina. Their wedding was a month away. A week ago, panic attacks had begun, sharp as daggers, accompanied by headaches that stole his nights. Migraines, pills, haze, sleeplessness—all conspired to make him a walking corpse. No doctor could touch the real sickness: he had stopped loving her, and the knowledge gnawed at him, insoluble, unspeakable.

His right hand trembled on the wheel, cold despite the chill in the car. He fiddled with the radio, seeking a station to puncture the silence. Nothing fit. Beside him, a plastic box cradled an ultrasound; beneath it, crumpled hospital papers and bills—a dossier of his failure. “Now what?” he whispered, a man confronting the futility of his own escape. The plan had been simple: flee Belgrade, bury himself in a village near Smederevo, at his grandfather’s collapsing house. But her family would find him. No matter the distance.

Her father and brothers—their incessant, overbearing presence—loomed in memory. From the first day, they had treated him like a son, lending money, fixing cars, opening doors to opportunities he refused. Goran remembered Ranko’s contempt, the slaps across the cheek, the humiliations never voiced aloud. Even her brothers, hulking idiots obsessed with beer and local football, had their names etched in his mind: Dickhead #1, Dickhead #2. Anyone sane would have fled. And yet he had stayed. Until two hours ago, when Marina had revealed the truth he feared most: she was pregnant, desperate to keep the child, and utterly reliant on him. That revelation had shattered him, propelled him into the car, and out into the void.

Goran was no fool. He knew his act was vile, cowardly. But he drove anyway, and there would be no return. The old road to Smederevo stretched endlessly, each kilometer a torment. The fog—the goddamned fog—was thicker than ever. High beams cut only ten meters ahead.

At least he knew the road well, and traffic was nonexistent. Since the junction, he had passed no vehicle, no sign of life. The thought crept in—was the road closed, and he not informed? The Old Mines Road had recently been the stage for protests and blockades, citizens decrying mismanagement by the city of Smederevo and the Chinese Mining Company. Statistics of accidents, injuries, and deaths had circulated online. The road, mostly straight with gentle curves, encouraged reckless speed. Citizens complained that neither police nor municipal authorities regulated it adequately. Last year alone, ten fatalities were reported. Goran had absorbed all this from the news portals he followed—but it did little to soothe the dread crawling up his spine.

Still… he could recall no sign or notice warning of a closed road. Perhaps it was wiser to slow down, to avoid becoming just another grim statistic. But he ignored the thought and floored the pedal. The sooner he reached the old house, the sooner this nightmare would end. A buzzing throb filled his skull—not the usual effects of drink or drugs, but guilt hammering from behind his temples.

Then—his phone rang. The jarring, shrill intrusion nearly sent him skidding into the ditch. The screen blinked: Marina.Eleven missed calls.

Shit. He had forgotten to switch it back to airplane mode. Passing by the old mines, he’d flicked it on to check the news, to scroll Facebook, and then—forgotten. He snatched it up; her name pulsed.

Disconnect, goddamned it!

He inhaled, shivering. He could not speak, could not explain. Not now. He was broken. He rejected the call, killed the device, flinging it onto the passenger seat. It bounced, clattering to the floor. His pulse steadied—until the phone rang again.

How the hell was this possible?

Ring after relentless ring, grinding his tension higher. He pressed the pedal absentmindedly. The ringing ceased—then a single: beep. A message. Marina never sent messages.

He glanced down the road. Fog still gripped the world in a suffocating vise. He could not resist. Fingertips tight on the wheel, he leaned, snatched the phone with trembling hands. Eyes back on the road just in time. It seemed unnecessary; the road was dead, empty, waiting.

He swallowed the knot in his throat, tapped the screen:

"Goran, just so you know—it’s over. If you don’t want us, you don’t have to. But I can’t live like this anymore."

“No, no, no, fuck…” He clutched the phone, dialing frantically. Hands shaking. Marina had always had her episodes… suicidal inclinations. Goran knew of two past attempts (though he suspected more), rooted in fragile insecurities and the oppressive grip of her father, Ranko, whose control had hollowed her soul.

The phone slipped from his grip. He swore, released the wheel, bent down. When he looked up—it was already too late. A figure, pale and impossible, hair tangled like dark tendrils, stood barely thirty meters ahead. A girl—he recognized her. She met his gaze, freezing him where he sat. That look burrowed into him, deep into the marrow of his soul. He jerked the wheel, slammed the brakes…

Part III

No one spoke for the first thirty seconds. They stood frozen in the trees, staring down the slope. The silence after the crash was unnatural, suffocating, as if the world itself had inhaled and held its breath.

“Fuck… that was one hell of a rollover,” Marco finally muttered.

“Are you serious?” Luka tried for calm, but his voice betrayed him, quivering.
“We need to see what happened,” Anya said, stepping out of the underbrush. “What if someone’s seriously hurt?”

“Wait. If the people in that car realize they were the victims of a fucking prank, we’ll be reported to the cops,” Luka said, panic creeping into his tone. “We’ll be in serious shit.”

“Are you fucking serious now?!” Anya snapped, spinning on him. She had trusted Luka to be rational, a steady ally for her and Irina. “This isn’t a joke anymore! Someone could be dead! Irina, are you hearing what your boyfriend is saying?”

“Hey, don’t drag her into—”

“It wasn’t my boyfriend who caused the crash—it was yours,” Irina said, her voice low but clear enough for all to hear. Chaos consumed Irina’s mind. Her father could never know where she had been, what she had done, or where she got the money for this night. If someone called the police…

Stefan’s eyes remained on the doll hovering above the road. The wind had picked up, making the glowing sheet whip violently. “Come on, Marco, we need to get the drone,” he said. “Before anyone comes by.”

“Yeah, that’s the priority now!” Anya snapped. “Because of course, the drone is more important than a man tumbling down a fucking slope! I’m going down!” She pushed toward the sound of the impact, the underbrush tearing at her skirt and stockings, but she did not falter.

“Wait, Anya! Fuck! Look what you’ve done!” Marco yelled, glaring at her as he ran to catch up.

“Me?! What did I do? So now it’s all my fault? You fucking retard!” he shouted back, arms flailing.

Luka and Irina exchanged uneasy glances and followed, slipping through branches, sliding down the wet embankment. The fog shifted around them, darker patches appearing and vanishing like bruises in the gray void.

After a hundred meters, they saw the car. An ancient wreck, straight from an Eighties action movie, lay overturned between two stripped trees. Its hood crumpled, windows shattered.

“Look—the driver’s side door is open.”

“Hey, is everything okay? Are you okay?” Anya called, her voice trembling through the fog. “You in the car… can you hear me?” She couldn’t even guess how many people had been inside when it rolled. Please, no children. Please, no serious injuries, she thought. Memories of her grandparents dying in a car crash when she was four gnawed at her, leaving ugly, lingering trauma.

“Hello! Is anybody there?!” Marco shouted, overtaking Anya, reaching the wreck first. The stench of spilled gasoline hit him. He pulled at the twisted door. Blood smeared the steering wheel—but no driver, no passengers. Instinct told him there had only been one occupant: the driver. But where the hell were they now? “Not a soul,” he muttered.

“Don’t say that!” Anya snapped, nerves fraying.

“Maybe they went for help?” Luka asked, approaching along their tracks. “Maybe they walked back along the road?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Marco objected.

“Actually, it does. That person—man or woman—must be in shock. They went for help. We need to find them.” Anya pushed further into the thicket, calling, “Hey! You from the car! Come back! We want to help!”

“What is she doing?” Irina whispered, panic rising. She only wanted the night to end, to go home, to crawl into bed and forget everything—the things she’d been forced to do. Luka was the first real boyfriend she had: tall, handsome, dark hair, soulful eyes. Many girls at her school lusted after him. Money never mattered; her parents were just ordinary teachers. But it did matter to him—his suppressed jealousy, his quiet contempt and anger. That was why she helped him, once, for this special night. Special it had been—but not in the way she’d hoped.

Luka glanced toward the forest. “What if he didn’t leave for help… but ran because he saw something?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?!” Marco snapped, desperate, wanting to retreat to the cabriolet and escape this cursed place, with or without them. His connection with Anya had already fractured, though neither had said it aloud. So why was he still here? Did he really want to find the missing driver? And when they did… what could they even say? “Hey, sorry, sir. Just a prank. Saw it on TikTok. Ha ha. Don’t be mad.” No. That wouldn’t work.

Luka swallowed hard, staring into the ditch where they stood. “I know you don’t want to hear this, especially now, but… when I last looked at what was hovering above the road… it wasn’t a doll anymore.”

“What? What the hell, Luka?” Marco pushed him hard. “Stop talking this shit. I’m going for Anya, and then we’re gone. There’s no place for you two here. Call a fucking taxi; I don’t care. Anya! Wait—”

“Why’d you say that? You’re scaring me, Luka. Let’s go back,” Irina hissed. “Back to the road. I want to go home.”

“No. Something’s up there. Something is watching us.” He gripped her hand. “If you want to return to safety… follow me.”

At that moment, they heard a scream.

Part IV

The world spun around him several times; a paralyzing pain tore through his arm, then everything went black. When he regained consciousness, it took him dozens of seconds to realize he was upside down. The pain returned, scorching and throbbing. Iron coated his mouth. He struggled for air, and something hissed and sprayed around him. Ten seconds passed before he understood: it was his broken nose. I hit my head on the wheel, he thought, the realization forming slowly.

He unclasped his seatbelt and fell out.

“Aaah!!” The main source of agony radiated from his hand. His right wrist was shattered. Bone fragments tore into the flesh; the entire forearm and hand began to swell, turning blue.