A gentle breeze blew through the windows. The girls giggled.
“Come on! We have to be serious. Let’s be serious this time. Harshini, hold hands, please. Close your eyes!” Reema insisted.
The girls assumed their positions and chanted. “OH HOLY SPIRIT, GRACE US WITH YOUR PRESENCE. WE WANT TO TALK TO YOU.”
This time, an icy chill entered the room. It made them shiver. Everyone waited with their eyes closed. Some of them were afraid of what they might see if they opened their eyes.
“Is. . . Is there anybody here?” asked Reema, tentatively.
The piece of wood in the middle of the board moved haphazardly from one corner to another. The girls heard the piece move and opened their eyes. They screamed when they saw what was happening.
Reema took immediate control of the situation. “Sssshhh!” she told the others. “What is your name?” she asked.
The girls looked at the piece of wood but it did not move.
“Are you here? What is your name? We can’t see you,” she said, but there was no movement on the board.
“Maybe it’s not coming out because it’s too fat. Maybe it’s embarrassed to show itself in front of such pretty girls,” said Suravi, impatiently. She wanted to conclude the exercise as soon as possible.
Before Reema could say anything, the candles behind them erupted into flames that went up to the ceiling fan. A sudden gust of wind flipped the teacher’s table upside down.
This time, the girls screamed and ran to the far corner of the room, away from the door. The windows banged open and shut, as if possessed.
“We’re sorry! We didn’t mean to call you fat!” Reema cried out. The windows continued to bang against their frames.
“Ask it to go back!” one of the girls called out.
The wind grew stronger at this suggestion. It smashed the ouija board against the wall. The girls huddled closer to each other. A few of them burst into tears. A screeching noise drew their attention to the blackboard where the words, “I WILL NOT GO.” appeared.
“Make it go back, Reema! Make it go back,” Suravi cried. “Make it go back! MAKE IT GO BACK! MAKE IT GO BACK!” she screamed. She stood among them, hugging and rocking herself.
All of a sudden, the air was still. The atmosphere was calm. The only sounds that could be heard came from the girls who continued to cry.
Suravi’s knees buckled under her and she fell to the ground. She looked around, taking in the scene but failing to register it all. She fixed a vacant stare at the words on the board. She seemed, as if, in a trance.
Reema, who hid behind the other girls, stood up. She walked to where the ouija board had fallen and picked it up.
“We’ve got to get out of here. Let’s clean this up and get out of here,” she told the others.
They shook Suravi by her shoulders, urging her to get up. She didn’t respond. They had to help her to her feet and support her as she walked outside.
The next morning, Suravi examined herself in the bathroom mirror at home. She pulled at the deep, dark circles under her eyes. She couldn’t understand it. A night of restless sleep had never done this to her before.
She wondered if any of the other girls had managed to get some sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the ouija board smash against the wall in front of her.
She took a short cut while walking to school as she was late. She heard footsteps behind her when she walked down Fourth Avenue. She slowed to see who it was but she couldn’t see anyone. Suravi was gripped by paranoia. She felt prickles go down her spine. She was sure she was being followed. She picked up her pace and was running as the school drew near.
Wiping off the sweat from the run once she reached the class, she ran her fingers through her hair. To her horror, a small clump of black hair came away in her palm. She let out a squeak, staring at her hands, unable to understand how this could happen. Nobody around her noticed. She shoved the tuft of hair into the pocket of her skirt. She smoothed the remainder of her hair over the patch to cover it up.
“Suravi does not look good, does she?” Tharini asked, as a pale Suravi sat at her seat.
All the girls involved in the calling of the spirit just looked at each other but did not comment.
“No sleep last night, Suravi?” Tharini called out.
Suravi simply shook her head. She felt as if she had lost all her energy. Before she could recuperate, the history teacher walked in. As the class proceeded, Suravi was increasingly uncomfortable. She felt her body temperature rise and was a little dizzy.
“Ma’am, I’m not feeling very well. May I rest?” she croaked, a few minutes into the class.
Her face was so pale that it looked drained of blood. It was proof enough that she was genuinely unwell.
As she rested her head on the desk, she felt her body calm down. Her shoulders and muscles relaxed. The class fell silent. When she looked up, she was all alone in the class. A piece of chalk, suspended in mid-air, wrote the words, “I WON’T GO.” on the blackboard.
“Oh, god. No. . . No. . . Ph. . . We. . . Can’t. . . Oh, god!” she sputtered, pointing at the board.
The room spun around her. Again, she saw the ouija board fly smash against the wall.
“No!” she wailed.
She felt a tugging at her skirt. When she looked down, Harshini, the girl who shared her bench, urged her to sit down. Her classmates and teacher were gaping at her.
“Sorry,” Suravi murmured and sank into her seat.
“I am telling you there’s something wrong with her. She’s been acting odd ever since she walked in,” Pallavi whispered.
“I am not joking but I saw a clump of hair in her pocket as she sat down,” added Harshini.
The girls were discussing Suravi’s odd behaviour during the break.
“Do you think it might be related to what we did yesterday?” voiced Swati, timidly.
“What? That is nonsense. Nothing happened yesterday! Understand this: nothing!” Reema yelled, all of a sudden. When she noticed the other students turn around and look at them, she lowered her voice.
“We closed the circle yesterday. We sent back the spirit. If it’s still here, why is she the only one acting odd? Why not all of us?” she questioned.
“She was the one who called it fat!” Pallavi volunteered. “She even went into a trance, remember? Maybe she angered the spirit,” she added.
“Oh, that’s just silly,” Reema retorted. She walked away before the others could respond.
Suravi locked herself in a stall in the bathroom during the break. She cried until there were no tears left. Her hair continued to fall out in clumps. This wasn’t the worst of it. When she walked into the bathroom, she noticed little globs growing all over her body, steadily increasing in size. The one on her hand was almost as big as the bindi her mother wore. She could feel more growing on her face.
After a few minutes, she felt the self-pity recede. Understanding and anger settled in its place instead. She had called the spirit “fat” and this was its revenge.
“ARE YOU HERE?” she screamed, slamming her stall door open.
“ARE YOU? STOP BEING A COWARD AND COME OUT!” She spun around, waiting for a reaction but the air was as still as could be.
She stormed out of the bathroom, ran to her class, and asked the teacher for permission to speak to Reema outside. She noticed that most of her classmates were pointing at her and whispering. The teacher, also concerned, stepped forward to check on her. Suravi assured her that she was having an allergic reaction and that she was on her way to call her mother.
“What is going on with you?” Reema asked, irritated, when they were out of earshot.
“It’s the spirit! It never left and now I am being haunted,” Suravi shot back.
“Oh god! Not you too!” Reema groaned. She was sick of people trying to lend substance to a silly game.
Suravi ran her fingers through her hair and pulled out a clump to show Reema.
“Do yo
u think I’m joking? Look at this! Look at my face,” she said, holding out her hand and pointing to her face. “We have to send it back. We have to do it properly this time.”
“This is not a simple calling of the spirit. This is an exorcism you’re talking about. We don’t know how to do that,” Reema retorted.
“Listen, missy! I told you that I didn’t want to do this. You insisted that everything would be fine. Now it’s not. You are helping me out whether you like it or not. Get the other girls out of class and meet me in the bathroom before the next class starts,” she said and walked down the corridor.
By the time Suravi reached the bathroom, the blobs on her hand were dry. The skin cracked. Slowly, a gooey liquid seeped out. She watched in horror as the same happened to her face. She watched till she could see no more.
The five girls walked quietly to the bathroom. None of them wanted to participate in this endeavour but they were forced to do so.
As Reema pushed the bathroom door open, she saw Suravi squatting on the ground, facing away from them. Her head was bowed. She was shaking uncontrollably.
“Suravi, are you all right?” she asked, approaching her.
Suravi lifted her head.
“Suravi is not here, but please do come in,” invited a guttural voice. The head turned 180 degrees. All that the girls could see was a face melting before their very eyes as the door clicked shut behind them.
The Last Dream
- Bhavini
He stared at the gas stove. It was exactly the same as the one he had seen in his dream.
“Ma?”
“Yes?”
His mother was reading the newspaper while waiting for the milk to boil.
“Did we get our gas stove fixed recently?”
His mother looked up.
“What’s gotten into you today?” she squinted at him. “Are you sleeping well?”
When he didn’t say anything, she added, “Yes, it’s fixed. The building maintenance team must have finally shown up when we were out yesterday.”
The milk bubbled. She switched the stove off and poured some of the milk into a mug on the kitchen counter.
“I’ve been having strange dreams,” he said. “They’re not particularly scary. I keep dreaming of our house. I see myself roaming around in it. Nobody else is there with me. You’re asleep in your bed, I think. It’s always very quiet.”
His mother stirred the sugar.
“Nothing out of the ordinary happens. I keep walking around the house in the dark,” he said. “And then, just like that, I see something that I haven’t seen in the house before. It’s always something small and ordinary, like a heavy wristwatch or a pair of shoes. I go closer to take a look at it. I hear a soft, rustling sound and this is when I wake up.”
His mother gave him the mug of coffee. “These dreams seem pretty harmless to me. Why do you think they’re strange?”
He looked at her, and wondered whether he should tell her why.
“Nothing. I don’t know. I. . . Maybe I’ve been reading for too long before I go to sleep.” He ran a hand across his face. “Please forget I mentioned it. I’m going to take a shower. See you in the evening,” he said, and strode out of the kitchen.
He kept his Batman comic aside that night and watched reruns of the Tom and Jerry show on TV. He fell asleep with the lights of the TV gently flashing across his face.
He had stepped into the bathroom. A warm, fresh fragrance washed over him, as if someone had just had a bath. The floor was wet. The soap glistened with drops of water. The shower was dripping. He tiptoed across the hall to check on his mother. She was fast asleep, snoring gently. His mother hated having a bath with warm water. She had got the geyser installed just for him. He noticed her towel on the chair. It was dry.
He turned around slowly and walked towards the hall. His mother usually turned on a small bulb in the hallway but it was dark this time. He switched it on. The dull yellow light illuminated a strange object on the sofa table. He picked it up. It was an old smoking pipe, still warm. He bent down slowly to put it back on the table, when he heard it again. It was the soft rustle. He turned around to see what it was.
The next morning, he sat quietly at the dining table, stirring his coffee.
“I’m going to be late coming back from office today.”
He nodded.
“Do you want to have dinner at 9? If you can wait till 10:30, I’ll pick up some pizza and we’ll watch Batman Returns.”
He nodded.
She put a hand across his head. “Hey, don’t let those dreams worry you too much.” She bent down to kiss his cheek. “See you tonight. I’m looking forward to the pizza.”
After she left, he threw his coffee in the sink and got ready for school. On the way to school, he couldn’t fight the sick, empty feeling in his stomach.
He had woken up before his mother this morning. He had gone straight to the bathroom. It was exactly like he had seen in his dream. The fresh smell, the wet floor, the soap, the dripping shower. He had gone down into the hall, hoping he was wrong. When he saw the smoking pipe, he was trembling so hard that his teeth shook. The pipe was still warm.
He threw it forcefully into the dustbin.
He didn’t want to fall asleep that night. He walked around the bed, straightened the sheets and his pillow repeatedly. He was tired after some time. His head felt heavy. He lay down on the bed staring at the ceiling. Turning on his side, he punched his pillow in frustration and closed his eyes.
He was near the main door. A long, dark coat hung on a hook behind the door. The shoulders were wide, the sleeves long. He stood closer to it. It smelled faintly of tobacco. It took him a few seconds to realise that it smelled like the smoking pipe he had seen on the sofa table.
He walked towards the hall, and heard a creaking noise near his mother’s bedroom. Fighting panic, he walked towards her room. His heart was thudding against his chest. He opened the door slowly. The air-conditioner was humming and his mother lay asleep, turned away from the window. He walked closer to his mother’s bed and sat next to her. He looked at her and the pace of his heart slowed. She turned on her side towards the window. The light from the street lamp fell upon her face. He gasped as he noticed ugly bruises across her right cheek. He stretched a hand to wake her up.
His head exploded with pain. He shut his eyes tight and tried to focus on something besides the pain. Taking a deep breath, he got out of bed slowly. As he entered the bathroom, he heard his mother gasp in the next room.
He was wide awake.
He rushed to her room and saw her staring at the mirror. She had large, ugly bruises across her right cheek.
She looked at him. “I don’t know how it happened.”
He walked up to her and looked at her face. His heart was beating wildly. “Maybe you fell down on one side while sleeping. It happens sometimes. Don’t worry about it.”
Suddenly, she fell down on the floor.
“Ma!”
He knelt down and put his hands gently around her shoulders. She shuddered violently. He moved his hands away.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her quietly.
“Give me 10 minutes. Don’t get ready for school yet. Wait in your room.” She turned her face away from him and tried to breathe normally.
He couldn’t forget his mother’s pale, terrified face as she stared at herself in the mirror. He sat on his bed, waiting. His mother came into the room a few minutes later. She spread an old photo album on his bed. It was filled with pictures of a young woman and a man. He leaned in closer and recognised his mother.
“This is you,” he said slowly.
She was looking out the window.
“Who is the man?”
“He was your father.”
“My father?”
She nodded.
His mother had never mentioned his father before. He had asked her once when he was young. She had told him that she would tell him about it when he was older. After tha
t, she didn’t entertain any questions about his father. Over time, he had taught himself to be patient.
“We met when I was in college. He seemed like the nicest person I had ever met till I told him I was pregnant.”
The boy felt that sick, empty feeling threatening to take over his stomach again.
“He wasn’t very nice to me after that. He didn’t want any children. Sometimes we would argue, and . . .” She touched her face slowly.
He felt like throwing up. “What happened to him? Please tell me he was punished.”
She sighed. “I reported him to the police. They took him away and after a short trial, he was put in jail. Two years ago, I was told he died in a fight in jail.”
He looked at the picture again. He felt nauseous when he realised how much he resembled his father.
An hour later, he was about to leave home for school. He was on his way to open the main door when he noticed the coat hanging on a hook behind the door. He felt a maddening rage take hold of him. He wrenched the coat off the hook and ripped it to shreds. He soaked the cloth in cooking oil and burnt the pieces after he returned from school in the evening.
He came back to his room after he ate dinner with his mother. He had slipped out a kitchen knife without her knowledge. It ends tonight, he thought, as he kept the knife on his bedside table before drifting off.
As he walked towards the hall, he saw the kitchen door framed with light. He gripped the knife and walked to the kitchen. He opened the door. His mug was on the slab, with dregs of coffee at the bottom. A spoon lay near the mug with a few particles of sugar stuck to its coffee-stained end. The sugar jar was open.
He turned around and heard a creaking noise. It was near his room this time. He tightened his jaw and strode towards his room. It was dark. A breeze fluttered the curtains near his bed.
The Taxi Ride: and Other Spooky Stories Page 5