Amballore House

by Thekkumthala, Jose

  As soon as the assembled crooks saw the rude intruder in their midst, in the form of a short man whom they recognized as not one of them, they came forward toward him en masse, in lockstep, to capture him and perform a crucifixion. But they stopped suddenly as if they were struck by lightning. They recognized who the diminutive man was. He was the famous judge of Amballore court, for crying out loud!

  The first reaction of the crowd was that he was there to apprehend them. That got them scared. The lunatics knelt in front of him to confess all the sins they committed ever since they were born, and beg for his forgiveness.

  The gathered crowd was afraid that he came after them from the nearby courthouse, having got the news that they broke into the bureau building. They were afraid he would sentence them again to hard labor and movie-less nights.

  The judge was keenly aware of the threatening look of most of the gang. He somehow saw them as a lynch mob, inching toward him to capture him. He stared them down with his official look, challenging them to cast the first stone if they were not guilty, like Christ asked the Pharisees when they accused the adulterous woman. They dropped their invisible stones one by one and just stood there, transfixed by the sight of the judge about to hold a midnight session of the court and condemn them to death by drowning.

  Sam-Som directed the crowd to capture him. They approached him, grabbed him, and tied him down with the intent of tackling His Honorable menace after finishing their task at hand—that is, after gathering all the confidential information from the bureau’s safes.

  The judge was not sure how he could see what he saw now—he saw Eli was in his chambers next door, another astonishing episode of the night, another aberration of the already unbelievable night! She was standing in his basement apartment, helping herself to toddy from his wet bar! What an outrageous thing to do to him, an honorable judge. After consuming the alcohol, the devilish woman put on his robes! The perpetration of another arrogant act!

  Through the special power of extrasensory perception that he acquired for no known reason, he was able to gather that Eli was headed to the bureau building, with a mission of capturing him and killing him. He realized that Eli knew he trespassed on the spy building with intention to steal!

  Eli arrived at the scene in the bureau building. To the spectators, she was invisible; all they could see was the judge’s robe levitating and moving toward them, since she had worn the official dress while getting drunk in his private bar. Loonies in the crowd started weeping in fear, seemingly seeing Count Dracula on a night mission of drinking their blood. They mistook the judge’s robe for Count Dracula’s.

  Sam-Som, the head crook, suspected foul play as soon as he saw the floating garment of the judge. The only person doing levitation magic in Amballore was Eli. He immediately realized that Eli, the terror of Amballore, was in their midst!

  She must have dropped by, not to exchange midnight pleasantries, but for inflicting some serious damage. He also suspected that Eli and the judge were conspiring. Why else was she wearing the judge’s robes? She was not a judge. His Honor had not held a court session to anoint Eli as a new judge, as far as he knew. He smelled foul play. Eli appeared soon after the judge came into their midst, and this meant that fireworks orchestrated by them were about to commence. Their collusion to come together at an odd hour to the bureau building was highly suspect.

  As for the judge, he thought his robe came in search of him to give him official status to qualify him to face the criminals and pass the judgment to summarily execute them. He was about to pull out his gavel and bang his desk to announce “order in the court,” when he suddenly realized that he was not holding a court session. Moreover, he was tied down by Sam-Som’s gang and he did not have a gavel handy.

  The robe came floating by and wrapped itself around him. As soon as this happened, Eli imitated the judge’s masculine voice and announced, “Order in the court! This is an order.” She then banged the nearby table three times as if a gavel rapped on it.

  This incredible scene of the judge talking without opening his mouth and rapping a table beyond his reach with an invisible gavel was too much to take, and the crowd panicked, running for the nearest exit. They thought that the famous judge died and that his demented soul was in command of the building to capture them, and hand them over to the devils in hell, his most probable post-death destination. All the criminals all over the world were adherents of the belief that the judges went to hell after their deaths.

  Eli got ready to unleash her nightmarish powers. She quickly assessed the situation and realized that the judge was tied down by Sam-Song’s gang. Since his position was compromised, he would be the one to be downed by the nightmare that she was going to unleash. She was OK with that scenario.

  Eli did not need to target anyone; all she needed to do was to create a panic, and the resulting pandemonium would take care of the rest. And that is exactly what happened.

  The first things that moved were the filing cabinets. The bionic arms of Eli did the mesmerizing act of cabinets with invisible wings spontaneously taking off into the air, like supersonic jets. For the spectators, the scene closely paralleled a bunch of large nocturnal birds having suddenly come to life and flying recklessly; it resembled a large number of drones having gone berserk and aimlessly flying and hitting anything on their paths.

  The cabinets were soon joined by their impatient colleagues: chairs and tables. Some in the crowd were hit by the flying objects. Those who escaped the hit became members of a stampeding union, faithfully trampling on their colleagues. Some jumped out from the second-floor window to the asphalt driveway, instantly killing themselves.

  There were tons of papers spit out by the cabinets, and they spread like gigantic tickertapes from a huge wedding procession. These flying papers blocked everyone’s vision, and most of them did not know what hit them. Some flying papers extinguished the lit candles, while some caught fire from them, and a fire started spreading.

  The building was on fire.

  The judge managed to untie himself. He ran down the stairs like a maniac. He ran to the outside and ran along the Hell’s Highway like a lunatic who escaped from nearby asylum. He ran with his robes fluttering in the wind, like a short version of Count Dracula.

  While he was running, he saw an unbelievable sight. The dead bodies in the pauper’s graveyard started rising. The corpses rose one by one, and soon there was a huge crowd of the walking dead. They were coming toward him. They were revolting against his judgment. Each of them held a placard that stated, “JUDGE IS GUILTY” and “DOWN WITH THE JUDGE.”

  He ran fast, but they ran faster. They caught up with him and caught him. They dragged him to the graveyard’s court of law. They took him underground, where a skeleton judge was sitting in a packed courtroom of corpses. As soon as the defendant joined them, they waved their placards wildly, shouting and screaming at him.

  The prosecution read the crime sheet of the defendant. It was a one-sentence charge sheet. It said, “The defendant, the Amballore court’s judge, is found guilty of issuing unfounded judgment.” That was it. The defendant was neither allowed a lawyer, nor was he allowed to self-defend. The judge passed his judgment after banging on his desk made of skulls, with a gavel made of bones.

  The skeleton judge declared in his funeral-solemn voice, “Found guilty. The defendant is to be buried alive in the pauper’s graveyard.” He was condemned to stay underground indefinitely. He was forbidden to issue any further judgments. He was asked to abdicate his judge position.

  The judge ran from the court screaming loudly. He climbed up and out of the pit, panting heavily, covered in mud. He resumed his race along Hell’s Highway. He ran away from the corpses.

  Wild animals in the wilderness along Hell’s Highway were awakened by screaming from the sprinting judge. They came out of the jungle and spilled into the highway. They chased the mud-covered judge. Suddenly he found himself transformed into a soccer ball both in size and shape. Elephants tr
umpeted and growled. They started playing soccer. They grabbed him with their trunks and threw him from one to another. One elephant scored the goal with such a powerful kick that it sent him to the outer fringes of the solar system. He stayed there and became a changed man by transforming to a dwarfish planet. He was ordered by an intergalactic judge to be imprisoned around the sun in an orbit just outside of Pluto.

  No, he did not stay there long. Subashini flew to rescue him from the unending winter of the outer solar system. She grabbed him with her claws and transported him to earth, traveling a zillion miles from the outer frontiers of the sun’s gravitational reach. She dropped him along Hell’s Highway.

  He ran like a madman along Hell’s Highway to get away from the madding crowd of mad elephants and wild animals who continued to follow him. He was chased by an army of monkeys, their tails holding posters that read “Wrong Verdict.” They descended from banyan trees lining the highway. They came in flux like ocean waves and climbed on him. Some dropped banana skins in his path, felling him during his sprint. They picked him up. They started playing volleyball by tossing him to one another. They carried him to the top of mango trees and dropped him. The man of law fell, screaming.

  The judge picked himself up and ran and ran. He ran into the outstretched arms of the apsara nymphs of the abandoned temple. They led him to the temple pond, where he drowned along with a crowd of star-crossed lovers, who spilled out of the temple after worshipping blooming paarijatham flowers.

  Suddenly he found himself standing in a queue of sacrificial animals to be slaughtered to please the demigods. The animals looked at him suspiciously and sang in a chorus,

  Evil judge, evil judge

  You’re not welcome here

  You issue wrong judgment

  Your sacrifice pleases none

  A demigod appeared, picked him from the line, and took him to the altar. A sword came down, splitting him into two pieces.

  That is when judge woke up, screaming wildly and sweating profusely and wiggling like an oversized worm in his bed. Eli was there at that moment at his wet bar, relishing the moment and witnessing his face contorted with fear. She had been there throughout the infernal dream sequence, drinking his toddy, weaving dreams, and having a good time. She now threw the toddy glass at him, bloodying his forehead. The glass bounced off to the marble floor, shattering into countless pieces.

  The man of law was about to get up and start sprinting along Hell’s Highway, when he realized the present scene was not a continuation of the dream scenes that he had been besieged by. He looked at Eli with unbelieving eyes. He looked like he was seeing a ghost.

  Being satisfied with the massively demonic dream that she had induced on the sleeping judge, Eli prepared to leave with “mission accomplished” written on her face.

  “Let this nightmare be your lesson and your punishment,” Eli the dream maker told him.

  She then disappeared into the night outside.

  8VAREED PAYS A VISIT

  Sam-Som, the king of the drug underworld, was closely monitoring the trial of Vareed and Eli, also known as “People versus Amballore House.” He was glad that he was absolved of any crime. Not that he was a defendant in the case. Nevertheless, it felt good that a judgment in the Amballore court targeted someone other than him. He was the perpetual defendant in Amballore’s court cases.

  He was also happy that he had to cut short his court attendance prior to the trial’s conclusion because of other commitments. This action saved his life.

  He was thrilled to see that Vareed was convicted and hoped that he was rotting in jail. These two were the titans in Amballore, and it felt good that his adversary was dethroned by the court. Vareed was the owner of Amballore House and its underworld, and Sam-Som was the owner of the drug underworld. Each of them was powerful in his own right. Theirs was an alliance of titans, not that Vareed wanted to have anything to do with Sam-Som, the scumbag.

  Sam-Som fondly thought that no one was going to steal the limelight from him anymore, since Vareed was behind bars. He wanted to retain his title of the most important citizen of Amballore. Per the press reports, Vareed and his wife were handcuffed after judgment to serve their terms in jail. Sam-Som convinced himself that this was a fitting conclusion to the story of the ghost-man, Vareed. That is the name he gave to Vareed—the ghost-man.

  It was while he was thus evaluating the trial and its aftermath, sitting in his comfortable office of the fortified Sam-Som’s Entertainment Center, that Vareed walked in unannounced. The drug capital was located along Hell’s Highway, not far from Amballore House.

  He was surprised to see Vareed well and alive and kicking. The ghost-man must have escaped the jail, Sam-Som told himself. He made a mental note to report the jail breaker to the police. Vareed had been sentenced for an indefinite term in the maximum security prison, and yet here he was, free as a bird, and as if nothing untoward happened! Having heard and having been convinced of an untold number of horror stories about Vareed, Sam-Som was scared of the impromptu visit. He smelled foul play. He called his guards, who promptly came to his side, ready to defend their boss.

  To be fair to Sam-Som, he was not aware of the flight from justice that Vareed and Eli had expertly executed after the trial. Somehow, he was unaware of the following Amballore Times report that came out in the aftermath of the sensational trial:

  The Midnight Express was surrounded by innumerable police cars just after the trial’s conclusion. This measure was taken to block the couple from escaping, in the event of them breaking out of the handcuffs slapped on them after the judgment. The police was aware that the couple was capable of doing this. The Midnight Express was encircled by two layers of police vehicles to ward off their escape. That was when the unmentionable happened: an earthquake started shaking the grounds, toppling the police vehicles, and creating mayhem. The bus lifted off and flew up in the air and away, escaping the deathly claws of the quake. A volcano, the evil cousin of the earthquake, erupted at the same time, and its molten lava boiled and fried the humanity leaving the courthouse. Vareed and Eli survived the judgment, earthquake, and volcano. They just took flight.

  Now, Vareed was back, catching Sam-Som by surprise. He wanted to discuss some urgent business with the drug lord.

  After walking into the drug complex as if to visit an old friend, Vareed did not have much to say. He was a man of few words and announced that he was there to screen a movie!

  Of all the damned things in the world, the ghost-man wanted to show him a movie! Was he missing movies in the jail and so jumped its walls to see one in the company of king of the underworld? How bizarre, Sam-Som told himself. He was, however, flattered by the gesture.

  He also made a mental note that a perfect partner for Vareed to watch a movie was his wife, Eli, the terror of Amballore. Seeing Eli was like watching a horror movie, and marrying her had given Vareed a daily pass to see one, so Sam-Som thought sarcastically. He chuckled at his own sarcasm.

  Maybe the ghost-man wanted to see a nice romantic movie for a change, and that was why he was there, Sam-Som convinced himself. He was about to suggest that they should order popcorn, when Vareed jumped into the business at hand, turned on his laptop (a device available to Vareed in 1960, a product of the futuristic technology of Amballore House), and delved right into the show.

  ***

  The robot stepped out of the Midnight Express parked outside. He did not feel comfortable leaving Vareed alone with the notorious drug dealer in his reinforced fortress. He stepped into the formidable drug castle and was glad he did so, since Vareed was in the company of Sam-Som and his equally devious bodyguards. The robot came in uninvited and joined the powerful men for a night at the movies.

  The movie was named Amballore House, made from multiple scenes assembled from various surveillance cameras installed at Amballore House. The speculation of the Amballore Investigation Bureau members was right after all; there in fact existed an online record of Amballore House’s daily
activities!

  The movie’s beginning scene took the breath away from Sam-Som, because the date shown in the background was December 17 of 1956, the day the honeymoon couple disappeared from the mansion. The high quality of the picture was striking, judging from night scenes that were very vivid. Obviously, the shooting was done with infrared cameras.

  Amballore House was shown with a backdrop of a setting sun. It was not night yet.

  One thing that went for Sam-Som was that he was a man with an excellent memory. He was gifted with a photographic memory, as his mom would testify. He, for example, could remember exactly how many popadums were fried on such and such occasion, a superhuman skill. He did not need to record the very many drug transactions that he completed, because he remembered every dirty detail, including who bought what on which day. His RAM excelled a supercomputer. As soon as he saw the date December 17 of 1956, he knew that the Honeymoon Disappearance movie was going to be played. He just knew.

  It soon became apparent that the movie was a chronicle of events at Amballore House, as Sam-Som guessed.

  9A ROBOT AND A COYOTE

  There was this man opening the gate and entering the Amballore House complex with the honeymoon couple, probably in their midtwenties. The man was the real estate broker who came to complete the signage of the property sale document, and hand over the house keys to the new owners.

  The couple appeared ecstatic when the broker showed them around the mansion prior to the formal transfer of the property. This was in spite of the fact that they were seeing the property not for the first or second time. The allure of the mansion was so deeply imprinted in their minds that every time they saw it, it was like seeing it for the first time. Amballore house had been built during the British Raj, and its architecture was impressive.

  The broker offered them a final tour to the major attractions of the estate that included an Olympic-sized pool, a quaint well in front of the imposing mansion, and the captivating architecture of both the interior and the exterior of the mansion. There was an eye-catching front yard with well-tended flower garden and a manicured lawn. Farther out was a mango grove, multitude of the coconut palm trees, and a medley of tropical plants, all washed in the setting sun. “This is a dream home. This is paradise on earth,” the broker added some sales pitch. They then completed the signing, followed by the key transfer. He wished the honeymooners good luck, and disappeared.