***
It was revelation to Sam-Som and his gang that an unending tunnel existed under the well which was anything but an ordinary well, with a false bottom that opened to drop the intruder to earth’s center and to his death, like a hangman would open the trapdoor leading a prisoner to die by hanging.
The old-fashioned well in the compound was originally thought to be a harmless, inconsequential feature, a ubiquitous sight of rural Kerala. The circular well wall was built by red tiles from Amballore Tile factory, just like other wells in and around Amballore, giving it appearance of an ordinary-looking well. But it was far from a normal well.
Geologists from Amballore University had reported that they observed volcanic activity on the Amballore House’s property. They had been puzzled by this and were seeking an explanation. They found out that the well was an opening through which lava found an outlet. Volcanic fireworks with accompanying picturesque ashes erupted from the well at times, as reported by them and as seen by customers of Judas Toddy Club. Aliens had deliberately bored the well far deeper, all the way to earth’s interior!
Occasional instances of seismic activity were detected, and these incidents were attributed to nuclear bomb explosions, which meant that the aliens used nuclear bombs to dig the deep hole.
The well was a conduit to death in more than one way. It hosted a watery grave and a tunnel leading to fiery grave at earth’s center. There was a crematorium awaiting the intruder deep inside. This innocent-looking well cleverly disguised and carefully camouflaged a death trap more vicious than Dante’s Inferno.
The aliens were tapping into an inexhaustible source of geothermal energy easily accessible because of the long tunnel. They used this source of energy to power their sprawling underground facility and secret projects.
Liquefied soil and rock generated by the nuclear explosions were cleared by robots who were powered by geothermal energy. This clearing led to lengthening of the tunnel in steady steps. The tunnel was interspersed periodically by repair and maintenance stations called hubs built into its sides. The hubs housed remote-controlled robots. The tunnel housed infrared cameras which monitored the activities of the interior earth and of the robots.
The robots had already reached the earth’s outer liquid core, which was made of iron and nickel, and the inner, solid core, which was made of iron. The robots were made of a material that could withstand the high temperature as they moved toward the center. The heat-resistant material was courtesy of the aliens’ advanced technology.
The robots were programmed not to meddle with the outer liquid core. If they did, it would alter earth’s magnetic field, which, in turn, would affect Malayalees and other earthlings adversely by removing the earth’s radiation shield, which was protecting them from the sun’s harmful radiation.
The aliens gained the ability to trigger artificial earthquakes to any region on earth, a feat they achieved by reaching the earth’s center.
Amballore House, among other things, had an outer space exploration center. Multistage rockets powered by nuclear fission were built there. Also built were satellites that rode on these rockets. A good number of the aliens’ projects required a considerable amount of energy. Geothermal energy addressed part of their energy need. How they were able to harness geothermal energy and stored it for future use was answered by their futuristic technology.
The tunnel also functioned as an elevator shaft through which Midnight Express would descend like an elevator.
Amballore House underworld was one mile deep, three to four times the height of the Empire State Building. A free-falling object took approximately one minute to reach the bottommost level of Amballore House.
In short, the well was the opening of a tunnel to the center of the earth; it was an opening that let out volcanic lava and ashes; it was the opening to an underground inferno that cremated intruders; it was the opening of an elevator shaft that serviced Amballore House and its underworld; it let in the Midnight Express, a bus-cum-spacecraft with its uncanny ability to fly to the center of the earth, in addition to functioning as an elevator cab which serviced Amballore House and its underworld. It also led to the Amballore House underworld which housed mobile launching pad which could be moved into the tunnel—for a rocket with their attached spacecraft to be launched through the tunnel to the outside world!
It was not an ordinary well.
All these were riveting revelations. This was the first time that the drug lord became aware of the enormity of the consequence of his and his gang’s reckless tossing of human beings into a seemingly innocent well.
The movie audience realized that the earthquake tremors and volcanic eruptions common in Amballore were not natural events but were triggered by the robots manning Amballore House. Sam-Som realized that the catastrophic disaster that consumed the Amballore court and its surroundings on the day of judgment was not accidental after all. It was engineered by Amballore House robots.
The question that lingered in everyone’s mind was how the aliens got hold of nuclear bombs. Did they bring them from outer space, or did they steal them? Only Vareed and the robot in the group knew the answer.
11THE REVELATION
After Sam-Som’s henchmen threw the honeymooners in the well, they were puzzled to hear some unusual sounds coming from the well. The killers heard the sound of water draining from the well. It was a loud whooshing sound. This was followed by sound of metallic parts clashing together like the cymbals of a marching band. They were unaware that the well dispensed the pair to the tunnel, and afterward, the metallic plates came together to hold water from the pool.
“Where in the hell is the well water draining to?” one of them asked the other. The other one answered by another question, “Did you hear the marching band?”
They were running away from the well to distance themselves from the crime scene. The abnormal sounds took them by surprise, needless to say, and almost made them retrace their steps to check it out. But they were under strict orders to vacate the premises as soon as the homicide was committed. They ran out from the grounds, and disappeared into the night beyond the perimeter wall.
The robot in the movie room realized that it had been a good idea, after all, for him to join the audience for a night at the movies. Vareed was holding in his hands incriminating evidence against the drug lord, good enough to throw him in jail, good enough to qualify him for a life sentence or even good enough to face the hangman. An implicit or, more realistically, an explicit threat was entwined in the screening of the movie making Vareed an instant target for assassination by Sam-Som’s killing machinery.
Therefore, the robot was happy that he was there to protect his master. The guards in the room were no match to the robot’s superior physical strength and unwavering stamina and perseverance. The machine knew this, as well as everyone else in the room. They did not dare touch Vareed in the presence of the robot.
Sam-Som, in spite of his crime-hardened mind, was red in the face after seeing the movie so far. He felt humiliated, especially because he was in the presence of men who witnessed his atrocious crime. Sam-Som was a man who was discreet and always covered his tracks, and therefore no one had seen him in action. This was the first time some people were privy to his crimes.
He was careful not to hurt Vareed, especially in robot’s presence.
***
Inquiring minds needed to know: Why in the whole wide world would Sam-Som kill his home buyers? Vareed was eager to know the answer, and he questioned Sam-Som during intermission.
There were glaring contradictions in Sam-Som’s actions. It was apparent that he was desperately trying to sell the property by heavily subsidizing the asking price of the mansion. He was also trying to wiggle out of the government’s questioning of his illegal occupancy of a property. His approach to solve this riddle was by cutting the Gordian knot, that is, by selling the property and making the problem vanish. His desperation in selling before the authorities would approach him and
confiscate his property under the newly established land transaction laws was conspicuously apparent. The home buyers were indirectly helping him to ease out of an apparently insurmountable problem, and he should be eternally grateful to them. Instead, why kill them? Why in the world? For God knows what reason?
The drug lord’s response to Vareed’s inquiry revealed another intriguing can of worms. There was a malevolent reason for getting rid of the buyer and that reason was a guarded secret that Sam-Som had kept close to his heart. On the day of the movie show, he was forced to reveal his game plan under the threatening eyes of Vareed and the fearsome presence of the robot.
Here is what he revealed:
The killings usually took place the night of the property sale transaction and the key transfer. Under ordinary circumstances, it usually took three weeks after the key transfer to complete the final paperwork of the sale. This involved the new owner paying the property tax and getting the property title. This procedure was completed at the Amballore land sale office. This critical step was needed for the new buyer to legitimately claim the property as his.
By eliminating the buyer prior to the title transfer such as on the day of the key transfer, Sam-Som ensured that the critical step of the ownership could not be completed, enabling him to retain the ownership title, along with the sale price that he received from the buyer! It was easy for him to retain the title, because no one else was placing a claim on it, and he had influence at the corrupt land sale office. The dead did not come out of their graves to claim land ownership; they had their own six feet of mud to claim.
The real estate agent had discreetly chosen the buyers, by making sure they did not have close relatives or friends who could come out of the closet and file a lawsuit.
The agent was not a bona fide, licensed agent. He was nothing but a crook on Sam-Som’s payroll, working for him in his drug kingdom. He impersonated a real estate broker and was able to fool the likes of the honeymoon couple—young, naive, and ill-informed about the detestable schemes of Sam-Som and his empire.
Sam-Som would repeat this process sale after sale, making himself immensely rich. He reaped profit after profit on the same property, a very clever scheme. A treacherous scheme, if you asked an upstanding Amballore citizen.
The plan was for the agent to pretend to leave Amballore House after handing over the keys to new owner on the day the sale transaction took place. However, what happened after the key transfer ceremony was different, as revealed by the movie.
According to Sam-Som, his action helped maintain the status quo for the aliens. He effectively instituted a strategy whereby an ongoing search for a new homeowner was always in place, even though the program had blood on its hands. This meant that no permanent buyer stayed at the mansion, leaving it to the sole use of Vareed and Eli for long periods of time at a stretch. An occasional hiccup or interruption would happen when a new homeowner came on board, but that problem was cleverly solved by Sam-Som’s killing machinery.
Even though the drug lord claimed that he was looking out for the aliens, he was far from doing that. His claim was a ploy to disguise his real intention. His strategy was to make the aliens continue to stay at Amballore House to take the heat for the crimes he committed. He was outsmarting the aliens by giving the entire world an impression that the ETs were behind the massacres, because they were the mansion residents, and the new homeowners were a direct threat to them. For this reason, Sam-Som would not even think of getting rid of the ETs, even if he could. He was using the ETs’ cover to execute his vile scheme, and make money which was soaked in homebuyer’s blood.
It was, however, true that the ETs could keep on living at the mansion peacefully because of Sam-Som, because there was no buyer able to occupy the mansion for an extended period.
It was a marriage of convenience for both of them; a marriage that Sam-Som deviously planned and consummated—just a marriage of convenience, nothing more, as they hardly loved each other.
Sam-Som was wielding a sword with many edges: he was not suspected of the crimes because of the smart cover he used, he was making truckloads of money, and he was giving the impression that he was looking after alien’s interests by offering them extended uninterrupted stay at the mansion, thereby hoping to curry favor with aliens. If anything disastrous was to transpire, he left room for the aliens to be arrested.
Sam-Som was an extraordinarily devious and cunning man.
12MURDER IN THE GRAVEYARD
Vareed fast-forwarded the movie and came to the day September 12, 1958. He started playing the events of that day. Sam-Som knew this date by heart and prepared to see what he already knew and what he did not know. Some of the events of the night were quite foggy in his mind, because of the instance of a violent meeting between his head and a concrete wall. He hoped to see what exactly happened that night.
That night was without a full moon, unlike during the previous incident’s night; in fact the night had no moon at all. There was no moonlight guiding any criminals to their victims’ rooms.
Amballore House was shown after dusk. The picture of the estate did not look crisp like during the first tragedy. The ceremony of the key transfer to the new owners took place very late in the evening, and so there was no scene of a setting sun. There was no twilight hue of the evening sun that acted as a backdrop to the previous movie. The night looked more ominous.
The movie began with another broker (another drug criminal masquerading as real estate agent) walking through the gates of Amballore House, heading toward the mansion. Behind him walked a middle-aged couple and their teenage son of nineteen years, looking probably like a man of twenty-three years. The foursome stopped by the well and poked their heads in to check it out. Nothing out of the ordinary, they agreed among themselves.
Then they walked across the yard and took a look at the swimming pool. “Ideal pool for a housewarming party,” the broker announced to the new owners.
The pool was large enough for a teenage party, the boy calculated in his mind. The broker did not show them other parts of the property, since they had previously seen them. Also, it was getting late and the middle-aged couple was eager to retire for the night.
They then headed to the mansion. The interior was well lit with multiple chandeliers hanging from a tall ceiling. The family room at front of the house hosted a sofa set and TV. Behind it was kitchen where Eli cooked many dinners for Vareed. There was a large dinner table where the agent and the trio settled. The contract was signed.
That was it; the property exchanged hands. The broker looked like he was in a hurry. He handed over the key to buyers, bid good luck and goodbye, and disappeared. He gave an air of a busy professional.
The boy had previously arranged the night’s teenage party. The guests started arriving promptly. The house was alive with teenage group taking over. The heated discussions, singing, and games of the teenage crowd transformed the dead house into a thrilling place one would want to come at end of the day and spend the whole night and thereafter to welcome the following morning with a reenergized body and refreshed heart. The guests congratulated the boy of the house on being privileged enough to occupy such a magnificent mansion.
Soon the crowd dispersed. The group consisting of twenty split into small groups of three or four and they scattered all over the house, light coming on in all the rooms. From afar, the house looked like a sprawling Christmas tree, lit as it was by the innumerable lights scattered throughout.
The elderly couple retired to their bedroom after dinner.
The youth strolled around the grounds in small groups, some of them staying indoors to watch TV, play games, listen to music, you name it. An ideal first night to be followed by many, many more happy nights and days, as everyone thought. Eventually, the teenagers moved to a dancing hall at the farthest end of the house. A band played music, and the young crowd danced to its beats.
While all these activities were going on, the broker left the house and come back at midnight
with two other accomplices. The audience watching the movie saw who they were. They saw one of the would-be killers was Sam-Som. The drug lord had more crooks with him than at the Honeymoon Massacre night. It was clear that he anticipated trouble and resistance.
“The task at hand is not going to be easy,” Sam-Som was heard telling his gang.
The trio split three ways and each went his way to scrutinize the estate both inside and outside. They planned to have a rendezvous in half an hour and report their findings.
“Watch out for robots; also for coyotes,” Sam-Som instructed gang members.
It helped them having new moon night to easily blend into darkness and make themselves invisible to probing eyes.
They did their promised rendezvous in half an hour. Sam-Som reported the couple was still awake, watching TV. The other two reported that the teenage party would last the whole night. They expected the visitors to leave not earlier than 2:00 a.m., or perhaps the next morning after a sleepover at the mansion.
This created a problem for Sam-Som. According to his original plan, he had to deal with only three people—the middle-aged couple and their son. Suddenly nineteen additional lives appeared on the list. The odds were stacked against him for this task to be tackled successfully. This was a tall order. The logistics involved in completing the tough undertaking were too challenging. Sam-Som’s limited workforce of three lent no hand in concluding the imposing task overnight. But the trio was prepared to move heaven and earth to accomplish what they came for. The night was still young, according to them, even though it was midnight.
Sam-Som’s predicament of finishing off a large number of lives in a single night did not originate on moralistic grounds; he did not even know how to spell moral, even though he had been an English professor once upon a time.
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