City of Screams

by Neil D'Silva

  “Hear? Don’t you hear it?” Raghav asked, all aquiver.

  “Dammit, I am not very keen to be privy to silly bovine conversation. If you had your way, you would not even allow the cows to chew the cud in peace,” Shivam mumbled from under the coverlet.

  Suddenly there were shouts and closing and opening of doors.

  What was up?

  No one knew the answer, only the banging of doors became louder. On a sudden impulse, Hemant went out of the room to investigate.

  “You know, I heard someone whispering in the lobby that an entire wedding party of twenty people who had booked ten rooms is missing,” Hemant said, on coming back to the room.

  “But just a couple of hours back I saw many of them running around in confusion, carrying their suits and unironed shirts, yelling and asking each other for something or the other. Yes, I remember even seeing the bridegroom just back from the beauty parlor looking very sheepish, and someone and carrying his colorful turban,” Shivam said throwing away the coverlet and sitting on his bed, looking absolutely irritated.

  “And now all of them have disappeared!” Hemant said emphatically while Raghav tried to rein in his shivers.

  “Have you lost it completely?” Shivam asked, disdain writ all over his face.

  “But that is what everyone is whispering,” Hemant insisted.

  “We paid for all this, remember? The hotel is hugely popular because of its image as a haunted one. This is a marketing strategy, and we all know it,” Shivam reiterated.

  Weird sounds continued to emanate from different directions; they could even hear the lively beat of drums. “The marriage party has disappeared, only the sound of the drumbeats remains! All of you have gone bonkers!” Shivam had now started enjoying the rampant quirkiness.

  There was suddenly an angry chorus of shouts as if a rookery had been disturbed, followed by a high level of spirited conviviality.

  They walked up to the window and peered out.

  Just outside the window, under a straggle of trees, they glimpsed a veiled figure. Shivam pulled the others toward the door and they stealthily walked out toward the clump of trees, ears pricked to the whistling and skirling of the wind, restless beating of the branches and conspiratorial lisping of the tangled undergrowth and forked branches. A huge tree almost fell down on them, and they shrieked in horror, followed by the utterance of a queer mélange of ‘thank gods’, in three different tones and tenors.

  On hearing footsteps, the figure slowly turned his neck backwards, which swiveled like a clockwork toy. Was fantasy playing tricks? Had imagination gone into overdrive? There was a collective gasp from everyone.

  It was as if the Rembrandt figure had stepped out of the frame on the wall in the reception area. He was old and bearded, with knotted hands, which quivered visibly. In the moonlight, every strand of his beard appeared to have a life of its own. His walking stick stood loyally against a tree.

  “Did you see a Golden Retriever somewhere?” His voice was a hoarse whisper, a voice which did not know whether it was coming or going.

  “No, we saw no dog, but just heard someone training his dog.” Shivam answered, trying not to flinch at what he glimpsed strewn all around the old man.

  The old man’s sibilant hiss, an ‘Oh’, reached Shivam through a surrealistic haze as he stood dumbstruck, his eyes refusing to leave what appeared to be tangle of bones around him. Raghav stood next to him, his face distorted, and teeth chattering, almost unstrung by hideous fear. Hemant clutched him with a white knuckled intensity, his eyes almost popping out.

  “Wonder if he jumped to his death from that decaying bridge we saw on the way?” Shivam’s sneering whisper fell like molten lava in Raghav’s ears.

  Crunch, crunch, crunch…

  It was the old man munching away. Soon he slipped into a drowsy, ecstatic, and satiated languor. Suddenly the golden retriever appeared on the scene, tongue lolling and tail wagging. The old man, throwing off his lassitude, hurled himself at it with a squeal of delight, wiping away at his mouth with the sleeve of his gown.

  He patted him lovingly, kissing him all over, drenching him in blood-splattered endearments and then peered closely in the direction of the three. The dog headed toward the bones, its eyes gleaming with a maniacal glint.

  The wind continued tearing and wailing spasmodically through the skeletal branches and poking the gnarled tree trunks with its airy breath. The ancient banyan tree at the entrance of the hotel, shook its dreadlocks with a mind- numbing vehemence. As the threesome watched in numb horror, the edifice of the hotel crumbled and vanished from sight.

  The old man flailed his arms, shouting “More! More! More!” his shivering hands groping for his walking stick.

  Finding it, he picked it up, and with the golden retriever following him, started walking toward the rusted car.

  Thud, thud, thud…

  The walking stick seemed to be in love with the uncanny noises it was making. The threesome followed them as though in a somnambulistic trance.

  Soon all of them had reached the decrepit car, climbed into it through the rusted window, and merged with its innards. The moonlight fell on the decaying car, giving it an absolutely ghastly hue. Some echoes of shouts and screams kept resounding in the wilderness.

  “Sit, salute, rest, lie down, fetch…” And a chorus of cats, owls, bats, and dogs building up a threnody…

  Crunch, crunch, crunch…

  Some hidden monster was still crunching away… munching away… A few paces away lay something, probably a turban, and atop it, sat a robin singing its autumnal dirge.

  ABOUT Dr. SANTOSH BAKAYA

  Dr. Santosh Bakaya is an academician- poet - novelist - essayist -Ted Speaker, internationally acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu. Her poems have been published world over , awarded and translated into many languages. Her short stories and poems figure in many anthologies.

  Some of her other books are:

  Where are the lilacs?

  Under the Apple Boughs

  Flights from my Terrace

  A Skyful of Balloons

  Bring out the tall Tales [ a collection of short stories in collaboration with Avijit Sarkar)

  The Thirteenth Floor

  Hanadi Falki

  “I love it! Look at the view man. Amazing shit,” Karan said as he stepped out to the narrow balcony of the flat the broker brought them to.

  It had been two days of staying at the overly expensive, yet quite shabby hotel downhill at Royal Palms. Apart from the hotel, Karan had thoroughly enjoyed his stay in Goregaon so far. He received a warm welcome in his new company, one of the major post-production houses in Mumbai, and he was already smitten by Diya, the gorgeous team-member who had been assigned to take care of the newcomers.

  Karan would have stayed in the hotel for a few more days if he hadn’t overheard Diya discussing about ‘the poor newcomers’ who had to live downhill at the hotel. He had seized the opportunity to strike up a conversation with her and here he was today, standing with her in a spacious apartment.

  “But bhaiya, isn’t there a flat available on some other floor of this apartment?” Diya asked, and then turned to Karan and explained, “I just don’t prefer the 13th floor.”

  Karan was disappointed in her for believing in such superstitions, but he didn’t want anything to discourage her from visiting his place. So, he said, “We can look at other flats.”

  As they went about looking at other flats, Diya confessed something that made Karan judge her even more. She said, “Actually, this place is supposed to be one of Mumbai’s most haunted. I’ve heard of many suicide stories from the 13th floors of many buildings in this area. So, it’s better to avoid such things if we can, right? Why walk into this willingly?”

  Karan suppressed his smile, and with the best faked sincerity in his voice, he asked, “Do you really believe in ghosts and all?”

  Diya hesitated for a moment before saying, “Will you judge me
if I say ‘yes’?”

  It took strong willpower for him to shake his head in the negative. As they checked out the next flat on the 18th floor, Karan reminded himself of the reasons why he liked Diya. Apart from being drop-dead gorgeous with remarkable sea-green eyes, she was kind and helpful, fun to hang out with and she always had some random yet interesting titbits to share with everyone. Just as she shared one when they were on their fourth flat of the apartment hunting spree. “A huge number of Mumbai’s haunted stories come from Aarey Milk Colony, the forested area that you have to cross to reach Royal Palms. There is this lady with a kid asking for a ride and when you stop your car, they disappear into thin air. So creepy! The driver usually feels their invisible presence in his car until he crosses the area and drives back safely into the main Goregaon area. It’s uncanny that so many people, including the residents of the colony, have reported the same incident.”

  Believing that Diya was surely testing his patience, Karan now smiled and said, “A lady in white asking for a lift? Most cliched story ever. Are her feet twisted backward too?”

  Diya detected a hint of condescension in his voice and she answered back, “Well I don’t believe in everything that people say. As for the 13th floor, I had an eerie incident that was validated by others in our building too. It is said that every time the lift goes up or down through our building, it definitely stops at the 13th floor even though nobody lives there. Once I found myself alone in the elevator when I was going to my friend’s room on the 15th floor. The elevator suddenly stopped, and the doors flew open. It was the 13th floor and there was no one around. I even stepped outside and checked the corridors. No one. A cold chill went down my spine and I panicked. Ran all the way up two floors without turning back even once. It was such a close call, but I can still feel the creepy chill every time I think about that day.”

  Diya shuddered visibly, and Karan smirked. Again, a classic old tale that he had heard about several other buildings before.

  Catching the smirk, Diya flared up and challenged him, “If you don’t believe me, go ahead and take the first room we saw on the 13th floor. And don’t come crying to me about it anytime soon.”

  And that’s how Karan landed there with his luggage three days later. The paperwork was a breeze, almost as if the owner was in a hurry to sign the yearlong rent agreement at such a reasonable price. At least that should’ve warned Karan, but he wasn’t one to believe in signs.

  ***

  “I want to apologize for being harsh on you for your beliefs the other day,” Karan said when Diya finally agreed to hear him out over a cup of coffee in the office cafeteria.

  “You should be thankful that you aren’t the one experiencing these things. I was a nonbeliever too before I encountered an incident myself,” Diya said, sipping her coffee.

  Karan kept one of his foot over the other and pressed it hard, trying to stop himself from blurting out anything that would destroy his chance with her. Even though she had been avoiding him, he had been observing Diya from a distance for the last few days. The unusual sea-green eyes set her apart from everyone in the office. And she was well-liked by her peers and drew a smile on everyone’s face wherever she went. People had nice things to say about her, how she went out of her way to help them, and made sure that everyone was having a good time while working. Her smile was infectious, and he found himself smiling whenever he spotted her cheerful face in the office.

  “Why are you smiling?” she asked, bringing him out of his reverie. “You are mocking me again, aren’t you?”

  “Oh no, no, no. I was just thinking about something else,” Karan answered hastily.

  “So our conversation is boring? You definitely seem like you’ve other interesting stuff to think about.” Diya finished the rest of her coffee in a gulp and stood up to leave.

  Karan caught hold of her hand and said, “Diya, please. I didn’t mean that. Was just thinking about the elevator story you said earlier. Please sit. I would love to hear more about such incidents because honestly, I haven’t faced any such thing yet. And that’s why I don’t believe in the existence of supernatural forces.”

  Diya looked at him suspiciously but sat back down. “That’s understandable. But it’s not just me who encountered such incidents. The other day my roommate Prerna got locked in the washroom while having a bath. We tried everything to open the door because she felt claustrophobic inside with all the steam from the hot shower she just had. Ultimately we had to call the maintenance guy and break down the lock to get her out.”

  “So how is that a supernatural encounter? The door lock must be messed up somehow.”

  “It was fine just a while ago when I went in,” Diya said as if that explained everything. “And it is not just that. We have been having strange occurrences in our flat for quite some time now. Once we heard someone knock on our door and whisper out Prerna’s name at 3 a.m.!”

  “Did you check out who it was?” Karan asked. “Maybe someone was pranking you guys.”

  “I was the first one to be awoken by the voice. I woke Prerna up and it was so spooky that we didn’t dare to go outside. We kept our eyes shut and prayed until we fell asleep again. The next day, we checked with every one of our friends but no one was up that night.”

  Karan had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Why would someone admit to a prank that was clearly working? “Anything else going on in your apartment?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Yesterday when Prerna and I walked in our flat nothing was working. The fan, the refrigerator and even the plug points weren’t working. So, we called in the maintenance guy again and it turns out that—”

  Before Diya could finish her sentence, Karan budged in with the simplest logical explanation. “Let me guess, a tripped fuse?”

  “Exactly!” she exclaimed.

  Now, this was getting ridiculous and Karan was almost regretting his decision of inviting her for coffee. He tried reasoning with her one last time. “So you see there is a reason behind all these things that you mentioned. Someone pranked you with the lift as well as the scary noise. And the fuse tripped.”

  With an intense look, Diya moved her face closer to his and whispered, “When the fuse was repaired, everything shot back to life. The fan that I had turned off before we left and even the TV that had been broken for the last three months.”

  And that was the end of their conversation that day. Karan knew that the fan must be switched on when they must’ve returned and were checking why things weren’t working anymore. As for the TV, maybe something just snapped back into place when they were tinkering with it. That would’ve been an odd coincidence but the more he thought about it, he began to suspect that she was making this part up just to prove her point. And that was a huge turn-off for him. He decided to ignore his attraction for her from then onward and focus on his work instead.

  ***

  But the conversation had the opposite effect on Diya. She found Karan to be quite stubborn in a cute way and she decided to make him admit that he was wrong about the paranormal stuff. So when she crossed paths with him the next day, she invited him over for dinner at her place.

  “Er… Are you sure? Wouldn’t your roommate mind?” Karan asked.

  “No, of course not. She would be happy to meet you. And she cooks the best rajma chawal ever!” And that’s what got him to come to her flat that night.

  “Welcome home,” Diya greeted as Karan stepped in. Even though their flat was small, it was well-kept. His eyes were immediately drawn to the small mandir on the right corner with photos of deities, numerous small idols, an oil lamp and a few incense sticks. He hadn’t chalked Diya up to be religious and it pleased him to find out more about her.

  “And where is Prerna, the main chef of tonight’s famous meal?” Karan asked as he took a seat beside their study table.

  Diya looked around the flat as if noticing for the first time that Prerna wasn’t around. “She was here just a while ago.”

  “Mayb
e she is in there.” Karan pointed to the bathroom. Splashes of water could be heard coming from inside.

  “Oh, yeah. She must be showering.” Diya seemed distracted but then she focused her attention on her guest and asked, “What do you prefer? Orange juice or chai?”

  “Chai. I am always up for a cup of steaming hot tea.”

  Diya excused herself and went into the adjoining open kitchen. Karan sat observing her in silence. She looked cute in her simple T-shirt and comfortable pajamas. Karan decided that he was definitely attracted to her, despite her naivety of believing in paranormal stuff. Maybe he could ignore this other stuff and try making a meaningful conversation with her.

  “Hey, Karan!” Diya said, a bit louder this time. “You are always lost in some faraway land. I was asking whether you would like to have ginger in your tea. It’s good for the throat in winter.”

  “Sure, go ahead.” Karan got up and began casually inspecting the room, trying to gather more information about his crush. It pleased him to see a pile of books arranged neatly on the study table. He was an avid reader too.

  “You enjoy reading, huh?”

  Before she could reply, Karan’s eyes went over the titles of the books and he was dismayed to see some astrology and palmistry books there. But before he could react, Diya came and stood by him looking at the books too. “Nah, I prefer spending time on Netflix. This is all Prerna’s stuff.”

  Karan could never confess what a relief he felt after hearing those words. That explained a lot. And he ended up asking her whether it was Prerna who first introduced her to the paranormal observations around them.

  “Yes. I didn’t believe it at first but Prerna pointed out so many incidents that I had to accept their existence.”

  “And let me guess. Prerna must be living here before you did, and she was the one who informed you that the TV wasn’t working?”

  “Hey, how did you know that? Actually Prerna owns this place, and I moved in with her a few months back. The TV wasn’t working even then.”