I've been working as a taxi driver in a regional city in Kyushu for ten years. Business has been terrible lately, though, with hardly any passengers. So I decided to shake things up and try a different route for a change.

That day, I headed toward the cemetery on the north side of town. Unsurprisingly, the area was packed with temples and gravestone shops. Thinking I might get lucky and pick up someone finishing a grave visit, I cruised around for a bit. Then, even though my windows were completely closed, the smell of incense somehow began drifting through the car.

I quickly rolled down a window to vent the smell, and that's when a woman standing outside the cemetery caught my eye. She was holding up a hand to hail a cab. The moment I welcomed her into the back seat, she mumbled her destination in a low voice.

The whole time I was driving her, a sinister vibe filled the cab. She kept her head down in complete silence, giving no response whatsoever when I tried to make conversation. Then the scent of incense drifted over again, making me grimace. We were far away from the cemetery by now, so why...?

In the back seat, the woman bowed her head politely.

"I'm sorry. That's my smell."

"Huh?"

I twisted my head around and was hit by an exceptionally intense wave of incense that nearly made me gag. The mysterious woman stared at me with unreadable eyes and whispered.

"It isn't you. I had the wrong person."

After driving for about thirty minutes, we arrived at a single-family house in a residential neighborhood.

"Is this the right spot?"

I asked to double-check, but received no answer. When I looked back, the woman was gone, leaving a single stick of incense burned almost completely to ash on the seat. I found out later that the wife living in that house had been killed in a hit-and-run the month before. The man arrested a few days later was a fellow cab driver.