Even though the joke was meant to be on the doctor, little did the men realize that the joke was on them, because by sheer irony of fate, many of their wives would gladly disappear when these men entered their bedrooms.
Eli moved to the passenger side to accommodate the cardiologist. Professor Sharif took over the wheel and eased into the street traffic and headed home. The usual stuff followed: a commuting car driver’s nightmare of fighting the pedestrians, bicyclists, auto-rickshaws, cars, trucks, and you-name-it. Steering clear of the drunk-driven cars coming straight at one’s vehicle was always a challenge, but the professor was adept at handling it. Everything appeared normal.
It was when the doctor noticed that the car was turning by itself that horror came rushing to his mind. After the bizarre event in the parking building earlier, the good doctor had doubts about his mental stability. He had been slowly entertaining thoughts of visiting a psychiatrist. He was troubled. He was not sure if he was once more seeing things or if the car was steering by itself.
“My son, don’t be afraid. Head toward Amballore House,” Eli intoned to the doctor in a solemn voice, while turning the car suddenly to Hell’s Highway, a sharp deviation from the doctor’s planned path. This sudden turning of the car and the unexpected voice from inside the car was so unnerving that the good doctor was startled. He tried to locate the origin of the voice by looking to the passenger seat and over the shoulder to the back and panicked when he could not see anyone except himself in the car. The car veered into the oncoming traffic lane.
The moment he turned back to face the front and to take control of steering wheel, it was too late. He was greeted by a Honda Civic coming at him at breakneck speed.
There was a horrific crash. There were loud screeching sounds from vehicles stopping at the scene of the accident. Then there was a scene of a Corvette tumbling; there was a scene of the invisible old couple scrambling out of the car unhurt (of course, no one could see the invisible couple); and there was a scene of the Civic crumpling. There was scene of the Honda’s passengers ejecting out like the rockets they fire from Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in Thiruvananthapuram and landing in the paddy field by the side of Hell’s Highway. Lastly there was a heartbreaking scene of professor Sharif trapped in the car and crushed to death.
Police appeared on the scene. There was a smell of rubber in the air, and there was a smell of barbequed steak. The Corvette was upside down. Drivers from nearby cars got out of their cars to see what happened. The crowd multiplied. The scene appeared to be a rerun of the Trichur Pooram festival. There was a huge crowd. It was surreal.
The scene that followed in full view of the motorists and curious spectators and traffic police was far-out and unbelievable. As if acted upon by an invisible force, the Corvette suddenly flipped around and was standing on its four wheels, a dramatic turnaround from the upside-down position it was pitted to just after the accident. The Corvette was as good as new, with no scratch to testify to the horrifying crash. Vareed and Eli, invisible to all, managed to accomplish this superhuman task immediately and unnoticed.
Then everyone saw the unbelievable! The dead man was moving! Professor Sharif—dead, of course—suddenly moved into action and got hold of the steering wheel. The car roared into drive gear and took off, hurtling away with vicious speed. Those who loved their dear lives moved out of its way.
A dead man was driving the car!
The car vanished into thin air—so it appeared to the astonished crowd. “‘Aliens Abducted the Cardiologist’—that is how tomorrow’s headlines would be,” Vareed told Eli, who was driving the car. The dead cardiologist was sitting in her lap.
Once more, the Midnight Express would appear at the Amballore Junction later at midnight. Professor Sharif would be taken to Amballore House’s underworld, where he would be resurrected and granted an everlasting life. He would become part of Amballore House’s team of professionals.
PART III
AMBALLORE HOUSE
MYSTERIES
1SAM–SOM’S EMPIRE
The tile factory by the side of Hell’s Highway was thriving once upon a time. It was the main artery of the local economy; it was its lifeline. How bad times visited the factory after Indian independence in 1947, leading to its demise, and how consequently the entire economy of Amballore and neighboring little villages folded is known to Amballore historians.
Drug dealers, gamblers, and pimps with their prostitutes descended on the tile factory at night. Sam-Som was leasing the space to them. The police were afraid to walk into the building to arrest the criminals, because huge, muscular bouncers were stationed at the entrance, the kind capable of creating the instant obituaries of intruders. Some of the policemen who dared to enter disappeared. Yet some others were greeted by prostitutes, and became loyal lovers instead of continuing as law enforcement personnel.
The druggies and the gamblers did wheeling and dealing, ready for anything, including the murder of rival members. Blood would flow when they took the law into own hands. There was no law and order in the building. It was a lawless land, like in Wild West movies.
Gamblers erected makeshift casinos in the building at night. Cash rolled and exchanged hands. Black money ruled. The odds were 99 percent in the house’s favor; no less. If someone made good money, his life would be in danger. He would be thrown to the wolves—not in a figurative way, but literally. The casino was capable of feeding the winner to the wolves in the nearby wilderness, with no questions asked. The house always won.
Come morning, they were all gone, with no trace of any illegal activity that had kept the night awake.
Sam-Som was dominating the drug sales. He was the uncrowned king of the drug cartel. He easily outmaneuvered other drug lords, and was able to establish his drug empire along Hell’s Highway. How Sam-Som got into the drug business is a fascinating story in itself.
Believe it or not, Sam-Som had been a faculty member of the English department of Amballore University! During the days of the British rule, he was frequently hired to translate Malayalam to English and vice versa. He moonlighted as a translator and made more money than what his faculty position brought. His services were required by high-profile clients like the courts of law and the British government offices.
In particular, he translated for Amballore House’s owner, an English gentleman who was a drug addict and a binge drinker. He loved Kerala’s own toddy. His name was Dick Spyder, but he was fondly called Spyder Dick, thereafter Spider Dick, and yet later Spider Penis. Sam-Som translated his name that way to everyone, including drug dealers.
The drug cartel in Kerala at that time got their drugs not only from across Kerala and the rest of India, but also from Southeast Asian countries. Spider Penis was fascinated by the mind-altering illicit drug grown in the eastern mountain range of Kerala, sold under the name Instant Heaven.
A translation of a typical drug transaction went along the following lines:
Spider Penis: “I want to buy one pound of Instant Heaven.”
Sam-Som (to the drug merchant, translating to Malayalam): “I want to buy ten pounds of Instant Heaven.”
Drug merchant (in Malayalam): “That costs one thousand rupees at a rate of hundred rupees per pound.”
Sam-Som to Spider Penis (in English): “That costs one thousand British pounds.”
Spider Penis handed over one thousand pounds to Sam-Som who handed over one thousand rupees to the drug merchant. Sam-Som received ten pounds of Instant Heaven from the merchant, of which he handed over one pound to Spider Penis and pocketed the rest.
Sam-Som stood to gain nine pounds of Instant Heaven instantly, and also pocketed the difference between one thousand pounds and one thousand rupees. On top of it all, he got a cut for his translation services from both Spider Penis and the drug merchant. It was a win-win situation for him, but a losing proposition for Spider Penis.
Sam-Som’s translation service made loads of money. He became very rich and became a full-
time translator and quit his esteemed faculty position. Spider Penis referred Sam-Som to his friends, and his business expanded and flourished. He had to find a large storage area to stash away the truckloads of drugs he collected.
After the British left, and the tile factory collapsed, Sam-Som took over the building and moved his drug sales business there. He stashed away his big loot in a huge underground facility he built as basement to the tile factory. He sold drugs in black market for a huge profit.
He leased the main floor of the building for various gangs of the drug cartel. He became immensely rich from the cut he took from them.
Amballore’s citizens remembered how he protected his friends in his capacity as a translator for the British court. As he became powerful in the drug world, he built a drug cartel. His gang members used to get into trouble with the law, not surprisingly. It was said that he gave “Sam-Som’s translation,” meaning incorrect translation, to the court rulings, thereby reducing the jail terms of his friends from, say, thirty years to three years. Usually, a factor of ten was applied, and therefore 90 percent got lost in the translation. On the other hand, jail terms for his enemies increased by a factor of ten.
Sam-Som was called Factor-Ten Sam-Som.
He had huge influence in businesses and government. He used this to run a parallel government in Amballore. He bankrolled influential government officials to build a cadre of powerful, loyal friends. His one-man government infiltrated wide variety of businesses and industries, making him a very powerful man in Amballore.
His drug empire was spread across Kerala and was staffed by a number of crooks. It was headquartered in Sam-Som’s Entertainment Center in Amballore. These crooks often got into trouble with the law, but Sam-Som’s long arm bailed them out of jail.
After the British left India, his translation service came to a grinding halt. However, he was still able to bail out his comrades wielding his political influence which he had painstakingly built over a number of years.
Sam-Som had an intriguing scheme to save his accomplices-in-crime from even the reduced jail terms, which they availed through his translation service. After a few months of staying at jail, the prisoners got depressed, which was not an unusual story. It had happened to many newcomers to jail. However, Sam-Som took further steps to exploit this natural outcome. Under his instructions, the prisoners feigned insanity on the heels of becoming clinically depressed, which was a staged act too. Nothing in the world would depress a hard-core criminal working for Sam-Som! A psychiatrist under Sam-Som’s payroll examined the mental patient and declared him unsuitable to undergo the brutal life in the jail, which, according to him, would only aggravate the depressive stage, leading to suicide.
The mental doctor promptly recommended him to be transferred to the lunatic asylum, which happened to be the next building. The so-called lunatic would become a free citizen in a short time, since he showed improvement in his mental health, per medical notes from the crooked psychiatrist. The lunatic asylum used this positive outcome as a testament to the high-class treatment it provided, helping it get huge grants from the government.
Almost all the mental patients in the lunatic asylum were Sam-Som’s crooked colleagues waiting out their term to get out and resume drug/crime activities.
2AMBALLORE INVESTIGATION BUREAU
It was night. The full moon was shedding its cool light as if it was inviting the world to see the happenings at Amballore House.
As a contrast to the night with its pacifying calmness, Judas Toddy Club was noisy, filled as it was by large number of customers. The pub was crowded especially at midnight and beyond. When the doors closed at 2:00 a.m., it was a struggle for Judas to kick out the drunks who stayed on, claiming it is their home. The bouncers carried these drunken patrons, who clung to their toddy glasses and to their prawn plates as if their lives depended upon them.
The scene at the closing time fell along the following lines: shouting matches broke out, overstaying patrons were thrown out the door, toddy glasses were shattered by high-impact collisions of patrons with the asphalt parking lot, the lights in the pub turned off one by one, the doors closed shut, and silence descended. These then were followed by loud snoring of a band of drunks sleeping in the club grounds, unable to drag themselves to their cars. The sober members driving out of the club struggled not to run over their comrades who were blissfully sleeping as if there were no tomorrow.
This would repeat day after day, week after week, month after — well, you get the idea.
On one particular night, Judas and Elsa got busy serving toddy and refreshments, the usual story. It was while Judas was walking carrying toddy and fried chicken that it happened.
Everyone thought it was thunder and lightning, because there was a thunderous sound and a brilliant flash. But it was something more sinister. A volcano erupted in the Amballore House complex, followed by an earthquake. The natural forces simultaneously showed up in Amballore on that night, shaking the pub and everyone inside.
Judas involuntarily dropped his tray. The patrons ran outside and up to the second-floor balcony to get a good view of the night’s display. The second-floor balcony offered a good view of Amballore House. Judas Toddy Club was located not far from the mansion. It was located by the side of Hell’s Highway just a stone’s throw from the mansion—or to put it in the toddy drinkers’ language, a toddy-spit away from it.
The midnight show started with water spewing out sky high, caused by the upward thrust of the earthquake and volcano. The water sprayed high and it resembled a gigantic sprinkler system that was just turned on. The water came from the well, the swimming pool, and a pond in the complex.
The volcano spilled out multicolored lava. Bright, colorful plumes of ash jettisoned out of the mansion grounds. It was like fireworks at Trichur Pooram. The fiery lava lit up the sky with brilliant pyrotechnics. The water spray was illuminated by fireworks, creating numerous colorful bubbles.
The earthquake rattled the Judas Toddy Club building and other buildings along Hell’s Highway. The earthquake had a small, focused epicenter at Amballore House, and therefore the impact was mostly confined to the mansion grounds and the immediate neighborhood.
The lava spread in the compound, and its froth covered the well, pool, and parts of the mansion itself. It was as if some gigantic night creature was taking a long-needed bath with shampoo froth filling the mansion grounds. The smoldering fire lingered for some more time, glowing like a large glowworm. The glimmer finally subsided. Silence followed.
Not for long. The eerie silence was suddenly disrupted by deafeningly loud wailing sounds from the young couple who disappeared few years ago. Their sad sobbing rose in the night sky, and then there was deep silence again.
This gripping show took place on the anniversary night of the Honeymooners’ Disappearance.
The toddy shop patrons hypothesized based upon the show that unraveled in front of them that the honeymoon couple had not jumped into the well on the night of their disappearance. Their heartbreaking wailing was arresting enough to give the impression that someone was behind their tragic disappearance, and that it could not have happened voluntarily.
This show was immediately followed by a cluster of young voices—a chorus of terrified voices over the backdrop of the sounds of waves beating against a swimming pool wall. The patrons’ attention was drawn to the swimming pool. Big waves started rising from the pool, as if hit by a tsunami. The water became reddish bit by bit, wave by wave, until the entire pool became crimson red, at which point the waves spilled out of the pool. The waves in the pool, arrayed in a sinusoidal standing-wave pattern, emerged out of the pool, intact in shape, as if they were made of solid material, refusing to uncoil and spread over the ground—an amazing sight. This scene was followed by an even more arresting sight of the wave pattern moving forward like a marching band of boy scouts. The giant water-made snake spread longitudinally and laterally as if it was alive. The reddish water animal looked like a
live red carpet, like a magical flying carpet of an Arabian Nights story. It proceeded to the well, wrapped itself around it, and collapsed amid horrifying screams.
The chorus gradually subsided, a single scream leaving the chorus at one time, followed by another, and so on until nineteen voices died down. A single horrifying scream remained, sending chills through the spectators’ spines. That too died down, and then there was silence again—an unsettling silence.
The chorus of young voices belonged to the teenage crowd massacred in the mansion grounds. The pool was their watery grave, and so it was unsurprising that the terror-struck screams originated in the pool. The screams could not have come from a group of happily swimming youngsters. Their end was marked by panic and desperate calls for help. Death came to them individually, judging from the slowly diminishing number of wailings as time progressed. The end of the last unforgettable cry marked the merciful culmination of a frightening swimming party.
Speculation was that the teenage crowd in the second tragedy died by drowning, but prior to drowning, they struggled to get out of there and run for their lives. Some evil presence was there for sure, which held the struggling bodies forcefully underwater, suffocating them to death. The fear that marked the wailings was almost palpable, and it was a telltale story in itself.
There was meaning attached to the wave traveling to the nearby well and wrapping itself around it and collapsing. It probably meant that the teenagers’ bodies were dumped in the well. However, no bodies were found in the well after the tragedy. This contradiction puzzled everyone.
***
The two tragedies that transpired at the famous Amballore House as described above—one of a young couple vanishing on their honeymoon night and the second, of a teenage crowd meeting their watery end—did not go unnoticed by the law enforcement agency. Amballore police investigators were entrusted to resolve the mystery through their investigational branch called Amballore Investigation Bureau.
Amballore House Page 25