Kumbhpur Rising

by Mayur Didolkar

  After a moment’s debate, Neeraj followed the men into the town. He had figured the men to be the muscles in this operation, the girl the brain. So it was easier to stick behind the men to see what action was due that night.

  His predatory sense of following was apparently as impressive with the undead as it was with the living. He followed the men to the local hospital, saw the girl arrive with the sexy woman living in his house and witnessed the grisly operation terminating the bad doctor. Just when he felt the fun was about to get over, he silently backtracked through the hospital and walked back to the farmhouse. His unlawful mind did not even consider the possibility of either saving the doctor from meeting his fate or informing the cops that a brutal murder was taking place in their town. The way he figured this was the town’s headache and the doctor got what was coming to him. The only thought in his mind was if and how this incident was going to affect his escape from the Indian shores the night after.

  That night he felt a sense of unease, but was not overtly disturbed. He did not have the trappings of the typical urban man to disbelieve what he had experienced. He had accepted that some unnatural forces were at work in this sleepy little town. But he did not think that their paths would cross again. But as it turned out, that was exactly the situation now.

  He did not intend to get mixed up with the visiting party in his house, though he knew that the guy they called Happy was mentally disturbed and the remaining team also had a few marbles missing here and there. However, he never imagined that he would end up making love to Ragini on the terrace and he definitely did not imagine getting involved in the bizarre situation in Kumbhpur. He knew something was wrong, the moment the old man walked in, however seeing him swinging that big knife towards the woman he had made love with, gave him no choice but to shoot him. And now here he was, hunted by the law on one side, and the undead on the other.

  As he reached the end of the road and saw the beach, his spirits sank. The rain was falling in such thick sheets that he could not see where the beach ended and the sea began. From earlier trips he knew that the beach was not especially big. From where he stood, the sea must not be more than a hundred feet, but in the downpour visibility was completely lost. He knew that the fisherman’s boat could not come anywhere close to the beach in rain like this. Even if they did, the coast guards were certain to spot and stop them. Fishermen were scared of storms at sea, anybody risking his life and his boat in weather like this was bound to raise suspicions.

  According to his arrangements, the boat would wait for him every day from today till the next three days from nine in the night till ten thirty. Neeraj knew that the boat would not come today. He glanced at his waterproof watch. It was barely past nine. He decided to wait out the designated ninety minutes. There was no shelter from the rain. Neeraj pulled the hood of his jacket further, and watched the beach.

  Though he did not know then, a ghost from his past was being resurrected almost right across the sea, the Kumbhpur beach was directly opposite the place where he had once performed a moonlight burial.

  Chapter 10

  On the other side of the sea, there was no rain at the moment. It was a pleasant night with the salty breeze rustling through the coconut trees. The place was deserted.

  Suddenly the weather changed. The pleasant breeze changed into a gushing gale, the sound of leaves rustling turned into a roar. In a moment, the sky darkened with clouds. Stray dogs turned their faces skywards and began howling in terror. In a couple of minutes, big drops of rain hit their upturned faces, and the dogs, still barking, ran away from the beach to the main road. By morning all of them would be dead, run over by the big trucks plying on the road, as they ran berserk in the terror for their lives.

  In the forest, the earth began shaking near a coconut tree. It was like the world’s smallest earthquake. The soil, moist yet solid, began to shake itself loose. The vibrations seemed to be moving a fifteen square feet plot violently. Branches of the trees snapped nearby, and crashed to the ground with a loud noise. And then there was an explosion, as the soil flew in the air and Adesh Bandodkar rose from the dead. When the dust settled around his explosive grave, he stood, still buried to his waist in the earth where Neeraj had buried him three years back. But now miraculously the earth was no longer solid, it seemed to have melted, and now it was no thicker than chocolate syrup. Adesh walked out of his grave, like a farm worker waddling out of a muddy rice farm. He took a few wobbly steps towards the sea and let out a terrible howl. The voice was no longer human but that was okay, he was no longer human either. He had left most of his skin inside his grave. He only had one eye, the other one was eaten long time ago by ants. His limbs were nothing more than bones. His flesh was eaten, and decayed in the three years underground. But somehow these things did not register in his mind. As he stood looking at the sea ahead of him, the rain-washed all the dirt from his body. He felt the pleasant touch of fresh water against his bones, and turned his head skywards and let out another howl.

  Adesh knew it was coming at some inhuman level for the last few days. Officially he had died exactly nine hours after Neeraj had leveled the ground above him. The cause of death was not asphyxiation or heart attack. While Neeraj was burying him, a large piece of loose stone had stuck him on the temple, and it was the hemorrhage caused by the wound that had extinguished his life. But as the saying goes “the human spirit still hovered” And ironically the spirit had learnt a quality that Adesh himself never had in his life. That quality was patience. It waited patiently for this moment. And now the moment was here.

  “Neeraj I am coming for you,” Adesh said softly in an almost human voice. In his mind’s eye, he saw a beach very similar to this, and there he saw his killer with the hood of his jacket pulled over his head, braving the rains.

  Adesh began walking towards the sea.

  “Police. Please open the door,” There was a series of loud knocks on the door that brought some order of sense to the chaos following the discovery of the bloodless human in Rajat’s house.

  “Oh the police are here, do you think they can send us to jail for killing an already dead man?” Rakesh asked Rajat, laughing hysterically. This is not happening to me, Rajat thought as he looked at the body lying half propped against the near wall.

  “Police. Please open the door NOW,” the voice outside became harsher. Happy calmly walked to the door, and threw it open. Vinit Kamble walked in, and a small woman followed him. She had a mean looking pistol in her hand. She was holding it in a professional stance. Both hands holding the stock, the barrel pointing towards the ground at about 45 degrees.

  “Mr. Rajat my name is Vinit Kamble, I hope you know me. We are looking for a man called Neeraj Joshi. I understand that he is a guest at this place,” Vinit said, he was holding a 4x6 color photo of Neeraj.

  “He is staying here all right, but I don’t know where he is just now. You see strange things have been going on here for the last hour.” Rajat said.

  “Follow me Inspector, everyone be quiet, and stay in this room,” Shilpa said and walked upstairs. Her gun was now pointing straight. Vinit followed her. They never bothered to look at the corpse, now partially hidden by the open door.

  Rani came back from the bathroom; her face was pale, like she was suffering from a bout of food poisoning. She walked into the room just in time to watch the cops disappearing upstairs.

  “What is happening here Rajat?” she asked in a bewildered voice.

  “Cops are looking for the bald man,” Rajat said in an inflectionless voice.

  “But he had no option, if he would not have shot, the man would have killed you,” She said.

  “They have not even seen the dead man, I guess Mr. Neeraj has done something more to invite the long arm of law,” said Happy.

  “What about this man?” Ragini spoke for the first time in a long time. As she turned around, her eyes widened and her hand shot to her throat in an expression of horror.

  Where there was no blood ear
lier, now there was blood everywhere. The dead man’s head resembled a crushed watermelon with dark splashes of blood on the wall. Sticky gray fluid was leaking out of his head wound.

  The sound of her scream took a long time to come, but when it did it was loud enough to bring the cops tumbling downstairs.

  Shilpa heard the strange story, as Rajat and Rakesh took her through the incidents in the evening, from the attacks of foxes, to the stranger coming through the rain, and threatening them with that big knife, and how Neeraj rescued them by shooting the old man through his head. When Rajat mentioned that Rajaji told them that the man was dead for eight years, Shilpa could hear no more.

  “Ok, so according to you, you and your friends were attacked by a wild pack of foxes in your own backyard and then this old man walked in and threatened to kill all of you. You called Rajaji and he informed you that this person was dead already. Then Neeraj shot him through his head without spilling a drop of blood. Now, I see a corpse lying in a pool of blood and we saw no foxes coming in here. You should know that foxes hate the rain; they would never come out in this weather. In short, I think you are dicking me Mr. Rajat. I have traveled more than three hundred kilometers today, I haven’t had a decent meal since the morning, my head is aching with this weather and I hate it when people dick me when I am feeling this bad.”

  Vinit knew this display of rage was calculated on Shilpa’s part. Cops did that all the time to throw God’s fear into ordinary people. It broke down their defenses, and made them speak the truth. He was expecting the city people to mumble apologies, or to whine about them telling the truth. The reaction of the group completely threw him off balance.

  Rajat stepped closer to Shilpa and glowered at her. Rakesh lit a cigarette and looked sad. The women were more vocal.

  “I will tell you what I hate ACP. I hate it when cops walk into my house and pay no attention to my complaints. I hate it when they are so dumb that catching a criminal is more important to them, than protecting citizens. And mostly I hate it, when cops try to bully me. So back off, and if you don’t believe what Rajat just told you GO FUCK YOURSELF!!” Ragini screamed. They stood inches from each other, their noses almost touching. Finally Shilpa looked away, a little confused.

  “Ms. Kumar, everybody, please calm down,” Vinit stepped in to defuse the tension. The way things were going in this town from the morning, he would not be least bit surprised, if these urban middle class tourists were to pull out handguns and ventilate him and Shilpa. He did not want that.

  “Mr. Rajat, please understand our point of view. What you have just told us; well it is just so far out. I mean dead people do not come back, ever. These things happen only in movies and novels.”

  “I know Inspector, but we are telling you the truth,” Rajat said calmly.

  “Ok, I want all of you to come along with us to the police station,” Shilpa said. She was still giving dirty looks to Ragini. Ragini looked like she would rather kick some ass at this point.

  “You can’t arrest us, remember we did not shoot him,” Rani said timidly.

  Shilpa turned to her and replied, ‘At this point, it is still not established who shot him, so we would like to make sure that it was Neeraj, and not you, who shot him.”

  “Hey baby, remember he was dead before he walked in here. You cannot arrest anyone for shooting at a person who was already dead.” Rakesh said. He giggled again, “I think there is a law against it. It is called Double Jeopardy.”

  “There is nothing called Double Jeopardy in IPC Sir and if you call me baby again, I will break your kneecaps.” Shilpa said.

  “ Suppose we refuse to come with you,” the thin man sitting on the window ledge turned and spoke for the first time, “ The way it looks, we are five against you two and apart from me, everyone else seems to be getting warmed up for a little physical brush with the law.”

  “He is right, you know we don’t have to do what this country hick and his high box bitch asks us. They don’t seem to have the first damn clue themselves,” Rani said. Rajat could not remember when Rani had called another woman a bitch. In another life, a gun at her forehead would not have made her talk like this to another woman, especially a cop.

  Vinit knew the situation had turned in to a confrontation out of nowhere, yet he also understood that it was a natural response of human beings when they were trapped in to a situation that they did not understand. Frightened people were like caged cats, likely to spring at the first throat available.

  “Madam, we are not arresting you or your friends, but even you would agree that something is not right here and you all would be a lot safer in a police station with us as company, rather than in this house all by yourselves. Suppose this dead man has friends, they would be looking for him right now and eventually they would reach here,” he left the sentence incomplete. Slowly, the expression on Rani’s face softened. Rakesh tugged at his collar and said something about not wanting to be in the same room as the creepy corpse.

  “You are right Inspector and anyway none of us would dare to break the law. My previous question was only academic,” Happy said and laughed. Shilpa’s arms brokeout in goose bumps at the sound of that laughter.

  “We will ask Raje to take these people back to the police station and call for reinforcements. You and I will wait for Neeraj to come back here,” Shilpa said.

  Vinit looked uncomfortable, and he drew her aside. The tourist group was watching them closely.

  “Madam I don’t think waiting for him here all by ourselves is a good idea. We should all go back and call for reinforcements. I guess I have had enough heroism for one day.”

  Shilpa was about to protest, but thought better. In the harsh glare of the tube light, the local cop’s face resembled one of the corpses. He was tired, drawn, and scared out of his wits. He had done more than expected out of an ordinary cop, but now he was approaching a breakdown point. And he was intelligent enough to see and accept that.

  “What if he escapes?” Shilpa asked.

  “We can take his bag along with us to the station. Anyway he is not going to go anywhere in this rain. If he came to Kumbhpur to escape from India, he will have to take one of the fishing boats and in this weather no fisherman is crazy enough to go to sea.”

  Shilpa thought it over, and saw the logic in it. She nodded and turned to the group. She kept her voice neutral and said, “I suggest you pack your things and come with us. With weather like this, your vacation is shot. I guess it is time to go back to the city now.”

  Outside, the tourists put their luggage in the backseat of their SUV and climbed into the police jeep. Rakesh and Rajat were to drive the SUV to the police station. Rajat saw the Mahindra Jeep waiting at the corner of the road and recognized it to be Rajaji’s vehicle but he did not go over to say hello. He just waved from a distance and saw no answering movement.

  They followed the police jeep along the narrow winding path. Rakesh, the expert driver, was careful to keep a safe distance from the police jeep. Their speed was down to a crawl due to poor visibility. Yet Vinit had to break hard enough to cause the vehicle to skid, to avoid hitting a mob of villagers that materialized out of nowhere. They were crossing the road in a neat double file. As the jeep stopped, some of them turned around to watch. In the harsh glare of the headlights Vinit saw the look and it scared him more than anything else.

  In his first year as a cop Vinit was called to question a rape victim in a nearby village. The victim was a teenager whose parents were killed before her eyes by a gang of dacoits. When Vinit and a lady constable entered her hospital room, Vinit saw a vacant look in her eyes that was beyond pain, beyond humiliation and shame. It was a look impossible for a living eye to have. Now, the expression on the faces of the villagers reminded him of the dead look of the rape victim.

  “Hey where are you going in this rain?” Vinit asked. He had to shout to make himself heard.

  None of them spoke. After a moment they resumed their awkward walk. Despite the rain, non
e of them had any umbrellas, any protection from the rain. They kept walking without any talk, and disappeared in the muddy woods on the other side of the road. The final member of the party turned to Vinit, and for a moment their eyes met. The man said nothing but raised his hand, indicating the general direction of the sea. ‘We are going to the sea’ the gesture indicated.

  Vinit, more worried than ever, changed gear and drove on. In his rearview mirror he saw Rakesh’s Black Scorpio following them closely. A mobile phone rang. It was Ragini’s. She answered it.

  “What the fuck was that Ragini?” Rajat asked.

  “Don’t know baby, they seem to be headed to sea.”

  “In this rain?” Rajat asked. Ragini turned, and looked at Vinit. He shrugged his shoulders and avoided her gaze.

  “Things don’t look too good, no sir they don’t. It’s a sad, sad situation and it’s getting more and more absurd.” Happy said and cackled. Shilpa, who was sitting next to him, flinched in revulsion. Rani batted her eyelids apologetically at her and smiled. Shilpa could not even smile back.

  Chapter 11

  Neeraj’s obligatory wait was almost over when he saw the procession coming towards him. Initially he thought they were farm workers returning to their huts after a hard day in the field. Just then he realized that they were walking straight towards the sea and he was in their path almost directly. Wiping his sodden face with the back of his equally sodden hand, he tried to estimate the size of the group. What initially looked like a small group was nearly a mob. The utter silence in which they were progressing made them look fewer than they were. By the time the leader of the procession was about five feet away, Neeraj realized that there must have been more than two hundred of them and they were walking straight at him.