City of Screams

by Neil D'Silva

  While he stood near the door in a confused state, he was stunned to see Maya and the bouncer enter again. They had the huge black box with them.

  ‘What the hell! The murderers are back! Don’t they have any shame? They seem so casual as if nothing happened earlier!’

  Gautam blocked the way towards the salon, and before he could open his mouth, the bouncer had already started opening the compartments of the black box, revealing various products. Maya enthusiastically introduced each product as she pointed at the neatly laid out sets of bottles and pouches one by one.

  Gautam was hardly listening as his mind was still occupied with the thoughts of the killings. He kept nodding as Maya tried her best to lure him. Finally, he lost his cool and asked her the question point-blank, “Why did you kill my customers? What wrong had they done?”

  Everyone in the room, including the staff, looked puzzled.

  Maya said, “What are you talking about? Kill? Whom did I kill?”

  “You poured the red oil in the dispenser which caused the dangerous fumes. My staff inhaled them; their eyes turned red while their mind seemed to be under a spell. And then all of you as a team brutally killed the five customers and ground them in this vicious machine!” Gautam retorted.

  Maya lost her cool. “I challenge you to prove it – do you have any witness who saw this happen?”

  “I am the witness and I have a very good memory.”

  “I think you are either drunk or just had a bad dream. No one has insulted me this way. I will never visit your shop again!”

  Maya barged out of the glass door, almost hitting the bouncer as he followed her with the box.

  Gautam threw himself on his chair. ‘What? Was I dreaming? How can that be? Well, I am pretty sure it had happened, I can’t be remembering all the minute details otherwise.’

  ***

  Suddenly, the salon door opened and the two ladies happily walked out, followed by Meenakshi. They couldn’t stop praising the way his staff had made them feel.

  Gautam had been dying to hear such words. He had almost forgotten to smile in the previous few hours. He requested them to express themselves in the customer feedback book. The two took a few minutes each to fill out the feedback. The entire staff was in smiles and it was a happy moment.

  Then, Gautam tried to probe Meenakshi by asking about the previous customers, but she maintained that they had gone back, feeling equally satisfied just as the ladies did. She asked him to check the feedback book, which she had managed to get filled out when they were leaving.

  Curious, Gautam opened the book and the Gujarat-to-Arunachal smile was back on his face. The two ladies had given them 5 stars and from the previous customers, there were three who had ticked 5 stars while two had ticked 4. Gautam finally accepted that he had indeed been dreaming and something of the sort he had seen, was not possible at all.

  ‘What an eventful day indeed! Looks like the scary prediction came true, for a change! I need to do two things now — apologize to Mayaji and get the CCTV installed at the earliest.’

  Soon it was time to shut down and everyone started winding up. Just then, Celina brought his pen which she had found from the salon room, lying between two chairs. Gautam closed his eyes and recollected the scene when he was pushed on the chair and his hands were being tied. During that struggle, the pen had jumped off his top pocket and landed between the chairs.

  He observed it very closely and could even spot a tiny droplet of blood when he gently pressed the push button. While he sat there in a confused state, Ravi walked to him from the massage room and brought what he had found. It was a multicolored earring. The sight of the lovely lady swinging her head around while being tortured came back to him. He could remember the earring separating out from her right ear!

  ‘This cannot be a coincidence! I don’t think it was a dream. No matter what others say, I will continue to believe that it did happen, unless I see one of those five killed customers again. If only the CCTV on the second floor wasn’t down for repairs, I could have checked the footage to satisfy myself.’

  Over the weeks, the spa became highly popular and started doing good business. Gautam’s eyes kept looking for the five initial customers, but they were never seen in the mall again. He treasured the cut-out of the horror-scope in his drawer and looked at it once in a while to remember the incidents, which no one else knew about.

  ABOUT SID KAPDI

  Author Sid Kapdi’s fascination with stories began while he was a toddler, listening to the magical bed-time tales from his granny. Writing fiction was more of a hobby for Sid in school, which continued in his Engineering days at WIT and later in his B-school, NMIMS.

  Sid is a veteran in the IT industry with over two decades of experience working with best-in-class organisations. Leveraging his articulation and creative skills in the current role with a global consulting & IT company, he leads a team of senior authors engaged in Sales Enablement to win large deals.

  An avid reader and a movie buff, Sid has extended his authoring expertise to professionally pursue his interests in fiction writing, mainly in the horror genre. He has been active on various social media and literary forums, and guiding students on the art of writing. His novel, which is a NaNoWriMo winner of 2018, would be published soon.

  Sid is based out of Mumbai in India and has lived in US and UK in the past.

  IF ONLY…

  Aindrila Roy

  If I were given a chance to do things over, I would have done them differently. I would have covered my ears with my hands, closed my eyes, and looked away. I would have listened to that inner voice that kept telling me to mind my own damn business. Nothing good ever comes from not heeding your gut feeling and I am learning that in spades. If only I had paid heed to my own advice. If only…

  Life had been wonderful for me. Born and brought up in Jamshedpur, I longed to get out of the place as soon as I could. Don’t get me wrong; I love Jamshedpur. Its heat, its idyllic life, the friend-circle, the panipuris, and the chats—I love it all. But life tends to stagnate there. I wanted to touch the skies and that wasn’t possible when my feet were chained to the ground. As a girl from a middleclass family, I had only two ways of getting out of there, and I wasn’t ready to get married. Hence, I studied hard and found myself the other way out—I landed a job in Bangalore (now Bengaluru).

  Next few months were a whirl of excitement as I moved to a whole new city. It felt as though I was soaring through the skies. I found a house where I could be a paying guest for a not-so-nominal rent. The quarters weren’t anything to write home about. Stuffed into the tiny confines were two single beds and two wooden chests-of-drawers. The cherry on top of that claustrophobic sundae was that I was told that I would be sharing with a roommate. Abysmal as my living conditions were, they did nothing to dampen my spirits for I was tasting freedom for the first time in my life. Little did I know that things were about to change soon.

  One day, almost two months after I had moved into the PG, I came in to find Amina aapi (the woman who ran the PG) waiting for me. A girl of about my age sat next to her, dressed in a yellow and green salwar-suit.

  “Kajal, come sit,” aapi told me, pointing to a chair. I did as told. “Beta, this is Anushya. She will be your roommate from today.”

  “Oh. Okay,” I looked at the girl sitting across from me. She looked up and gave me a tentative smile. I was at once struck by how exhausted she looked. Pale and waif-thin, there were dark circles under her eyes. Her hair hung to the sides in lifeless braids, while her lips were dried and cracked. I smiled, “Hi.”

  She nodded slightly. “Hi.”

  An awkward silence settled between us as the three of us looked at each other, perhaps waiting for someone to break it. Then, finally, Amina aapi stood up abruptly. “Kajal, why don’t you take Anushya to your room. I’ll make tea.”

  Glad to find a direction, I walked to the room. “That would be your bed, Anushya.”

  “Thank you,” she muttered. He
r voice was a tad raspy.

  I dropped my office bag on the floor and settled on my bed. “I’m from Jamshedpur and I work at Wipro. What about you?”

  “I… I’m here for my treatment,” she said haltingly.

  “Treatment?”

  “Yes,” She sat down on the bed, hardly making an indent. “Don’t worry, it’s not contagious. I suffer from a sleep disorder. There is a famous sleep therapist here. I’m getting my treatments from him.”

  For some reason, it never occurred to me to ask why she was apparently alone in the city. Instead, I felt a sense of distress for her. “Oh! That must be terrible.”

  She gave a shrug. “It’s tiring, yes. But it is what it is. Listen na, I need to say something important.” She licked her lips before continuing, “I may make some strange noises in my sleep at night. Buy some earplugs, okay?”

  “Strange noises?”

  “Just ignore them, okay? It is what it is. Buy some earplugs, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  ***

  For the next few days, things went on as it were, and I began to wonder why Anushya had asked me to get earplugs. The answer showed itself on the next Thursday. It had been a particularly trying day and I had returned from office at almost nine at night. I collapsed on the bed, overcome with exhaustion. Anushya looked up from her book and gave me a tiny smile of acknowledgment before resuming her reading. I wasn’t even aware when I fell asleep.

  I was woken up by a strange noise; a kind of keening, as though something metallic was being dragged across the floor. I struggled to open my eyes but my eyelids felt as though they weighed a ton each. Blearily, I looked at the time on my phone. It was one-thirty. What a godforsaken time to be woken up! I was just about to fall back to sleep when I heard it again, that godawful keeeee sound that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

  I sat upright in my bed, sleep forgotten. It took me a few seconds to locate the source of the disturbance and, much to my surprise, it was coming from Anushya. In the faint glow of the streetlamp outside, I saw a sight that chilled me to my bones. The girl lay on her bed, her back arched in a bow. Her head was rocking side to side in a frenzied rhythm while her trembling hands were drumming the bed repeatedly. From her mouth came that unholy sound, which was unlike anything I had ever heard.

  “Anushya,” I breathed, acutely aware of how tremulous my voice sounded.

  “Keeeeee.”

  It was a single note, unwavering and steady, grating on my nerves, as though a key was stuck on a keyboard. I rubbed my hands on my arms, trembling as I stood up. The short distance between the two beds seemed insurmountable on my heavy legs. I reached closer to her. She was flailing. As if someone or something invisible was pinning her down on the bed. An icy chill ran through me.

  “Keeeeeee.”

  “Anushya!” I touched her shoulder, only to pull my hand back. Her muscles were taut as if she was being wrung from within. Taking a deep breath, I tapped her shoulders again. “Anushya, you’re having a bad dream.”

  “Keeeeeee.”

  “Anushya!” I screamed.

  “Keeeeee.”

  My heart threatened to leap out of my chest. It took me a while to realize that the puffing and panting I was hearing was coming from my own mouth.

  “It’s okay, Kajal. You can do it!” I told myself. Muttering the Hanuman Chalisa under my breath, I shook Anushya with all my might. Before I could realize, she caught my wrist in a pincer-grasp. Her head turned slowly, as though she were a character in a stop-motion animation film. Wide eyes stared murderously at me and then someone screamed.

  ***

  The next thing I remember, I was lying on my bed and it was morning. Anushya was sitting next to me, her face a mask of agony.

  “I’m so sorry,” she began as soon as I opened my eyes. “I’m so very sorry you had to see that. I honestly thought that I was getting better, what with all the medicines… I never thought I… I’m so sorry.”

  I felt a mixture of annoyance and sympathy run through me. “You should’ve told me,” I said crossly.

  “But I did! I told you to ignore any strange noises at night!”

  She had a point. I tamped my frustration down and looked at her. “What was it? Has this happened to you before?”

  She nodded wearily. “Yes. This is what I have come here for. The doctor says I have something called sleep paralysis.”

  “Sleep paralysis?”

  “Apparently, it happens when I’m neither awake nor asleep but somewhere in between. I can see, hear, and feel everything but my body doesn’t move.”

  “I see,” I nodded. Not knowing what else to say, I got off the bed and walked to my closet. I was selecting my clothes for the day when something clicked. “Wait. You said you can’t move.”

  “Yes?”

  “But… you were moving. Your head was moving side to side, and your hand was flapping on the bed.”

  A shadow passed across her face and was gone before I could talk about it. Then, she smiled, although I couldn’t help but think that it was forced. “Oh, it happens... The…the paralysis is not always for the entire body, okay? Sometimes, it’s just… part of it… like yesterday? Yes. Part of the body. Just like yesterday…” her voice petered off and there was a faraway look on her face. I wondered why she was behaving so strangely but then my eyes fell on the clock.

  Shit! I’m so late!

  Ignoring my odd roommate, I grabbed whatever came to my hands and shot to the door. Having freshened up in record speed, I came back into the room to do my hair and grab my bag. I was about to step out when Anushya called out.

  “Please get earplugs, okay? And remember to ignore any strange noises.”

  ***

  Days went by without another incident and I chalked it up to one unfortunate event when Anushya was having a bad day. Everyone did. It would be unfair of me to hold that against her. I no longer took her warning for earplugs lightly, though. Every night, without fail, I tucked them in before I went to bed. Since things had been quiet, I foolishly convinced myself that the terrifying experience was behind me.

  But on a hot, humid night, I was rudely shaken from my complacence. Exhausted from a long day at the office and irritated at the mugginess, I took a long shower and retired for the night. Anushya wasn’t much of a talker and the pall of silence lay rather heavy within the four walls of our coop. I struggled through a few pages of the thriller I had been unsuccessfully trying to read for the past few days but my lids grew heavy. I put the book down, shoved the earplugs, and bid my roommate a good night. If she replied, I didn’t hear it.

  I was jolted from my sleep, my entire body trembling with cold. Cold is an understatement; it was frigid. I sat up, shivering and, to my surprise, I found my breath fogging.

  Odd. It had been unbearably hot earlier today.

  In the three months that I had lived in Bangalore, I had never once experienced such drastic shift in temperature. Yes, the city had a tendency to get cooler at nights and I had seen my fair share of cold days in Jamshedpur as well, but this chill was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I pulled my legs up to my body and hugged myself in a futile effort to get warm. I was weighing my options when I heard something that made a slither of fear snake along my spine.

  It was a low croaking kind of sound that, much to my distress, reminded me of the ghost from a movie that had given me many sleepless nights. That was one image I did not need in my mind at that point. I shook my head, telling myself that I was being unnecessarily scared. I checked on the earplugs and to my chagrin, one of them had slipped out in my sleep.

  Yet again, Hanuman Chalisa came to the rescue as I walked to my cabinet to grab a blanket. I had almost made it back to my bed when that low, rattling croak sounded again. Fearing the worst, I turned around to find Anushya’s bed empty.

  What?

  I blinked a couple of times to make sense of what I was seeing. From what I remembered, she had fallen asleep before me. So, when d
id she leave? Confused and still groggy from sleep, I had just about begun contemplating to call her when the ghastly sound rang in the room again. Something, perhaps an instinct, told me to ignore the sound and go to sleep. But curiosity got the better of me and despite my misgivings, I followed the sound with my eyes to see a grotesque scene.

  There she was, on the floor, twisted in a paroxysm of agony. Her body was contorted at an unnatural angle. Her pupils had rolled up showing the whites of her eyes. Her hands had gnarled into claws and a gargling croak bubbled from her throat.

  A terrified whimper escaped my lips and my toes curled. I walked over to her, quivering like a piece of paper buffeting in the air. Slowly I lowered myself on the ground next to her and touched her hand. It felt as though I had plunged my hand into the freezer, so cold were her fingers. Maybe the rest of my body was sympathizing with my hands, but I suddenly felt a chill run through me.

  I licked my lips. A tiny part of me registered how chapped they were but largely, I was concerned about Anushya. Ever since she had told me about her condition, I had done some rudimentary research on sleep paralysis (which is to say, I had spent twenty minutes scanning Wikipedia and WebMD). Nothing I had read talked about a situation like this. What was I supposed to do? I had no idea. Mind-numbing panic was rising through me, slowly obliterating rationality. That hair-raising croak coming out of her mouth wasn’t helping any.

  Somewhere, perhaps an instinct born from centuries of living in a community, I realized that I needed to wake her up. My body took a few precious seconds to shake off its inertia and latch on to the idea. Finally, I stood up and drew in lungs full of air. The deep breath abated the anxious pit in my stomach for a bit, allowing me to focus on what I needed to do. I marched over to my bed, the five paces seeming like miles, grabbed my water bottle and made it back to her. Without pausing to think further, should some thought dissuade me from doing so, I upturned the contents on Anushya’s face.