CHAPTER 3
The Vengeful Ghouls
I was fit as a fiddle, except, for the partial memory loss. The psychiatrist described it as a ‘fuse that went off, resulting in a short circuit in my brain, which in turn, caused a black-out in certain parts of my memory palace.’ I found that explanation quite interesting and to the point. I did remember certain parts of my life, as clearly as I remembered my time in Hell (though, I now knew that it was a dream or a mere hallucination). Then, there were things, some missing links that I failed to remember, no matter how hard I tried! My best bet was Mayank, who would try to remind me of stuff that was washed out of my memory. Sometimes he succeeded, but oftentimes he failed.
To add insult to my injuries (mental of course), I was subjected to repeated interrogations by various government agencies.
Apparently, they were yet to recover the black box. The agencies had found traces of some chemical explosives in the debris of Flight No. IG-7203, as claimed by the news agencies. But that’s that to it. Hence, all their hopes of finding the clues were pinned on me. Though I wanted to be useful, I could barely help, as my memory ditched me. All I remembered was a fraction of my time with Sandhya, that terrifying turbulence and that sudden blast. No matter how much they insisted, probed, or coerced, all I could deliver was a Zilch!
Thanks to my psychiatrist, whose report finally forced the agencies to accept my mental condition and put them off my back. However, they made it very clear that they haven’t stopped pursuing me, and I was expected to be available at their beck and call.
I finally reached home. But nothing seemed familiar. I had no memory of that place, whatsoever. Mayank told me that this was the address written on my ID and the keys to the apartment were found in my pocket.
“But I don’t remember this place! What happened to the apartment we used to share?” I asked Mayank, puzzled.
“Hah! You don’t remember that part either!” He scoffed.
I looked at him, nonplussed. He then disclosed, “Well, you left. It’s been a couple of years now. To be honest, we didn’t talk much in between. I have no clue what you are up to these days.” He sounded disappointed.
“What? How? But why? How come we don’t talk? We work in the same place…” I was agitated. He didn’t make any sense.
Mayank took a deep breath and continued, “Look, I know it is too much for you to process. You’re just out of the hospital. You went through a lot. I get it. Let’s just say, we went our different ways. And, you left the job at the security agency two years ago to… to join some private firm. That’s what you told me when you last called about a year ago. We seldom spoke after that.”
I plonked on the couch, exasperated. My head was spinning and it felt as if someone was hammering a nail in the middle of my temples. I held my head tightly with both my hands.
“You better get some sleep. I’ll check on you tomorrow,” Mayank patted my shoulder and left.
I sat there for minutes, in a futile attempt to remember those lost two years. “How come I remember Sandhya then?” I had no clue.
Exhausted and dejected, I went to bed.
I woke up shivering on a midsummer night. I switched off the AC and stretched my hand to grab the comforter, lying at the edge of the bed. I sprang up as my hand touched something icy cold. As I adjusted my vision in the darkness of the room, I saw a silhouette of a woman sitting at the edge of the bed. I panicked. My entire body stiffened and I sought to find the switch to the bedside lamp. As I groped in the dark to locate the switch. However, before I could find the switch, she spoke, “Don’t you recognise me, darling?”
I gasped in utter disbelief, as I heard that familiar, silvery voice.
“Sandhya?” I asked, alerted. She moved gently towards me. But I still couldn’t believe it was her. As my eyes adjusted in the darkness, I could now see her voluminous curls, her curves and her heaving bosom. It indeed was her. Still, I was sceptical.
“How? They said nobody survived,” I blurted.
“But you did, didn’t you?” I could hear her chuckle. “Yes, but…”
“So did I! Is this too hard to believe?” she didn’t let me finish.
“You don’t seem happy seeing me,” she asked. I could sense her smile, teasingly.
“Oh, no, no! I am! Happy. I.. just didn’t expect to see you… again,” I somehow completed my sentence with many pauses.
“You know, you look so cute when you’re tensed,” she chuckled, as she came closer. She held my hands to make me believe that it really was her. But her touch made me shiver even more. She was cold! Dead cold!
“Why are you so cold?” I asked, trying to withdraw my hands.
“Why don’t you warm me up?” She responded, suggestively, slyly tightening her grip on my hands.
She then pecked my shivering lips and pressed her body against mine. I wrapped my hands around her waist and held her closer. I felt her soft, supple yet uncomfortably cold body against mine. Cold, but it was still her. I could now feel her heartbeat against my chest and her cold breath on my face. We kissed. It was divine to finally feel that way again, despite the chill that ran from her lips to mine! Since the crash, I had almost forgotten how it actually felt to be alive, to love, to be loved. The passion oozed from both of our beings and we were consumed in the carnal pleasure. I could feel her nails piercing through my flesh. But I didn’t mind.
While still in the act, overcharged, my hand fell on the bedside table and accidentally, pressed on the TV remote. As the TV screen came to life and the room illuminated with the fluctuating glow from the movie that was playing in the background, I could see Sandhya’s features clearly.
I froze in horror, as I looked at her. The skin of her face was peeling off, exposing her bare flesh! As I looked in utter fright, the flesh on her face and her body started melting away gradually, as if it was doused with bucket loads of concentrated sulphuric acid. My nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of Sulphur. I could see her disfigured lips turning into a curve, as she grinned, exposing her tarred gnashers. Petrified, I shrieked, but it rather came out as a yelp. My voice choked inside my throat, my eyes bulged out, and I lay there, frozen.
She was sitting on me, melting away like a wax statue. Suddenly, her mutilated face leaned on me. My reflexes activated, and I tried to move away fearing her molten flesh would drip on my face. But her skeletal hands gripped my shoulders firmly, pinning me to the bed. She whispered in my ears in a cold voice, “You killed me! I want revenge!”
I lay there, aghast, as she let out a gut-wrenching cry and her body burnt like embers before dissipating in thin air.
I was drenched in my own perspiration, panting. My heart raced at the F-1 engine’s pace. I was trembling and still unable to think or speak. It was difficult to believe what I had just experienced. This was even more dreadful than my dream about Hell.
My beliefs were oscillating between fact and hallucination. I wanted to believe that it was all a nightmare; the fall into hell, my rendezvous with Sandhya, or rather her ghost, me surviving a plane crash- I hoped everything was a distorted, ugly dream and I would wake up from that dream anytime now. But the mark of her clutch on both my shoulders told a different tale.
I couldn’t sleep a wink for the rest of the night. In fact, I was afraid to fall asleep, lest the nightmares reappeared.
The next morning, I tried calling Mayank, but he didn’t return my calls the entire day. My mind and body were exhausted with continuous, nervous pacing and overthinking. Sometime after late afternoon, I slipped into a deep slumber.
It was already evening when I woke up. My head was throbbing. As I tried to get up to get some coffee, I realised that my limbs were not moving. It felt as if someone had glued me to that couch. I was immobile. I looked around, panicked, when I saw several shadows all over the room. They were closing in, gradually taking the shape of humans – male, female, young, old, children…
I tried with all my might to move, to run. But I couldn’t even move a finger. The shadows then formed a circle around me, their eyes sunken, faces pale as if all the blood was sucked out of their veins. Their eyes were transfixed on mine. I tried to lower my gaze or close my eyes so that I didn’t have to face them. I hoped they would disappear if I closed my eyes. But I couldn’t!
They all spoke in unison. It started with inaudible whispers. Then gradually, their voices turned into high pitch noise. They kept repeating the same phrases, “You killed us! We want revenge!”
Suddenly, the doorbell rang. And the shadows vanished. Just like that! I looked around in disbelief. I tried moving my limbs, and as expected, I could!
But I was sure that they were still around, lurking in the shadows. With my wobbly legs, RUNNING FROM MY GHOSTS, I lunged towards the door. I opened the door to see Mayank standing there with another man. A stranger.
Who was that stranger? Whose ghosts were those? Why did they say I killed them?
—
CHAPTER 4
The Darkest Night
Mayank:
Mayank and I were brought up in an orphanage in Pune. Mayank was a year or so older than me. Though we were friends, he always took care of me as an elder brother. Under his shadow, I never really felt like an orphan. When he got a job as a supervisor in a security agency in Bangalore, he asked me to go with him. I agreed. I pursued my Graduation in Bangalore. Six months down the line, Mayank managed to secure a desk job for me in his agency. We were ecstatic! It was the first time we got a chance to live our lives on our own terms. There were no stringent rules that we had to stick to in the orphanage, no beatings from the wardens. We could eat what we wanted, wear what we wanted. We were free birds! Life was perfect!
***************
“Thank Heavens you’re here!” I heaved a sigh of relief as I saw Mayank. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you…”
“Can we go out somewhere and talk?” Mayank interrupted me. He was evidently uncomfortable.
I didn’t protest, as I too wanted to run as far away as possible from that house where those demons lurked.
But before I left, my probing eyes again went to the stranger.
“Oh, sorry! He is Samuel Chezhiyan. He is here to help,” Mayank explained.
Without enquiring further, I quickly grabbed the house keys and my phone before leaving with them.
As I settled in the passenger seat of Mayank’s car, I saw Mr Samuel intently looking at me from the rearview mirror. I felt uncomfortable, as he appeared to have dived deep into my soul and was swimming effortlessly to the deepest nooks and crannies of my soul that I myself had lost access to. I quickly shifted my gaze outside the window, in an effort to cover my naked soul from his prodding eyes. But I feared, I was a little too late!
“You know, Sam here is a genius. He’s a scientist-cum-spriritualist. A rare, but not unheard of combination, isn’t it?” Mayank revealed.
“Yes, it sure is!” I replied, still perplexed why he was there. “But you said he can help? How?” I asked, inquisitively.
“Well, before I answer that, I want you to know something,” Sam responded.
“I’m not any baba, or tantrik or mystic. My field of work is to establish a link between the subatomic form of life with the spiritual form of life. I’ve spent more than a decade studying this link and in my journey, I’ve come across several instances that, at the face of it, seem absurd or unbelievable, but have a deep connection with the two worlds at the sub-atomic, and subliminal levels. There’s a whole different world; the cosmic world around us that we cannot see or realise.
“I’m here to help open your mind and vision to that world. Because that’s the key to understanding the mystery of your survival. We all know that your survival is not something ordinary. It’s beyond any plausible explanation. Well, not a regular scientific explanation, at least. But the spiritual sciences do cite many such instances where the seemingly unnatural events were found to have a reasonable explanation.
“We are taking you to…”
“What the hell are you talking about? Spirits? Cosmic world? Is this some kind of sci-fi movie? Is this a joke to you guys?” I cut him short in utter disbelief. I was agitated.
“Just calm down, okay! At least listen to him,” Mayank finally spoke.
“I won’t! This is my life, you get it? Not any kind of scientific experiment!” I retorted.
“Just listen to him, will you? Do you have any explanation for whatever is happening to you? The crash, your survival, your memory loss?” Mayank fought back.
Sandhya’s mutilated face flashed in front of my eyes, and a chill ran down my spine. I closed my eyes to escape that vision, but to my dismay, I could see those dreadful shadows as I closed my eyes. I realised I needed answers. And I needed them fast!
“Ok!” I relented. I just wanted it to get over with. I wanted my life back. “Okay then. We are going to the crash site,” Sam declared, authoritatively.
“What? Why?” I panicked, though I was clueless why it incited that reaction in me. My heart skipped a beat.
“Because, sometimes just visiting the place of trauma is cathartic,” he said with an assuring smile. However, I sensed there was more that he didn’t say.
A few minutes later, the three of us were standing on an open field, a few feet away from the exact site of the crash. Though the debris was removed, there was a huge chunk of land with a dark, burnt patch, surrounded by a makeshift fence. As we approached the site, I could feel an inexplicable sensation in my body. I had goosebumps all over, my heart was beating faster, and I was sweating profusely, as if I was walking towards a blast furnace, emitting thousands of joules of heat.
Mayank went ahead of us and spoke with the two guards deputed at the site and then gestured for us to follow him.
“Touch the ground. See if you can feel anything,” Sam instructed.
I kneeled and touched the burnt ground with my hands. As my palm felt the rough grout and the ashes, a thousand watts of current ran through my veins, and I was thrown away with a strong thrust.
***************
“Are you ready? Are you sure you can pull this off?” The voice from the other side of the phone asked.
“Yes, I’m confident!” I responded.
“Well then, may you succeed in your mission! May the almighty be with you!” The voice said.
***************
“Deepa! Deepa! Are you okay?” I heard a faint voice.
“Deepa!” Mayank’s worried beckoning brought me back to my senses.
I opened my eyes to see Mayank and Sam hovered over me, worrisome.
“I remember. I remember everything now!” I declared. But I was equally ashamed and scared to divulge the details to them. After everything, I didn’t want to lose Mayank again!
After hours of coercing and assurances from both Mayank and Sam, I finally revealed everything to them. I had to, even if it meant putting myself in danger. I had decided to let all the skeletons in my closet jump out in broad daylight.
The Revelation:
“It all started about a little earlier than two years when Samar came into my life. We met in a pub, and I was swept off my feet by his charm and wit. It all happened too soon. I fell head over heels in love. I’d never felt that way. The entire feeling, the freshness of romance in my life, the tingling sensation when he touched me, the butterflies in my stomach when he looked into my eyes… Everything was so new, yet so dreamy!
“He proposed, and I said yes! Mayank, however, was dead against this alliance. He had immediately picked a dislike for Samar. No amount of reasoning helped. He wouldn’t see anything beyond his own opinion about Samar. This caused friction between us. For the first time ever! I was so blind to Samar’s love, that I was ready to put my relationship with Mayank at stake.”
At this point, I could see Mayank’s eyes fogging. I knew he felt betrayed then. He still does!
I was guilt-ridden, yet I continued, “When our differences went beyond mending, I left Mayank’s apartment and Samar and I got married in a temple.
“Soon after our marriage, he took me to his village to seek his parents’ blessings.
“Little did I know, he was actually taking me to the potential buyers, whom he had sold me to. I was caught off-guard. When we entered the house, which looked like a mini palace, I was intimated, as I thought how rich my in-laws were! But soon enough, I realised why I was taken there. At first, I protested fiercely, then I pleaded with folded hands, I begged them to let me go, and I cried for help. I fought back with all my might and did everything in my capacity. But they were many. I couldn’t save myself and my dignity from those hungry wolves. For days they feasted on me,”
I looked at Mayank. His face was flushed with rage, he sat there, mute, his fist clenched, and his jaws tightened.
Strangely enough, I didn’t realise how casually I was narrating my tale of my woe, sans any emotion.
“Finally, on the fourth day, when they were out, partying, I somehow managed to escape. I was beaten, broken, bleeding profusely, and barely clothed. My first instinct was to find a phone and call you. But I couldn’t get myself to call,” I looked at Mayank. He still sat there immobile, but his emotions were painted all over his face.
I continued, “So, I headed to the next safe place. I’d noticed a police station on our way to my so-called in-laws’ house. I dragged my rampaged body to the station somehow.
“I was naive to believe Samar. I was even more beguiled to think that I was safe in a police station. Upon hearing that I had no next of kin, the SI and two constables too took advantage of the situation. Instead of filing an FIR, they took me inside a damp, dingy locker, situated at a deserted corner of the police station. I was raped. Again! They then dumped my presumably dead carcass beside the highway.
“As luck would have it, I was spotted by a group of men. They rescued me and brought me back to life. They never touched me! Their selfless care and kindness brought back my faith in humanity. However, soon enough, I learnt the motive behind their actions.”
—
