Scared

It’s midnight and the bus screeched to a halt at the bus-stop. The conductor pushed the door open. I alighted from the bus and observed the signpost. Yes, this is my destination, I told myself. A few hours back, I got a call from my parents asking me to come to my grandparents’ village for my grandfather had suddenly taken sick.

A gravelly road ran across the vast plains to the village. The moon’s shining brightly above me, and I didn’t even need a torch, needless to say, these remote villages do not have electricity.

I am reminded of my childhood holidays I’d spent at my grandparents’ place. Grandpa and grandma would tell me stories which I used to listen with great interest. The only thing that I never liked about them, they always quarreled. Last year, they had a bitter quarrel and my grandma had hurled abuses at him and cursed that he would die a miserable death. And my grandfather had returned the curse by saying that he would haunt her till her death.

Lost in my thoughts, I seemed to have walked a long distance from the bus-stop. I looked around; the vast stretches of the land were barren except for scattered vegetation. Not a single soul in the visible horizon. My legs started to tremble and my heart started to skip a beat.

The loose clips suspending from my bag were striking against each other and were making weird sounds. ‘Sanjeev….’ I heard someone call me, a whisper, when fear gushed from my spine and surfaced as goose bumps on my skin. I stopped there and stood motionless, not knowing if I should turn behind. The surroundings were tranquil again. Silence is sometimes scary.

‘Sanjeevvvvvv………’ I heard the whisper, this time, more clearly as if the thing was gaining on me. Shivering with fear, without even looking back, I broke into a sprint. Somebody was behind me, I clearly heard him call my name. It wasn’t the wind. It wasn’t my imagination.

The village was getting closer and I mustered all my strength and ran faster and faster. As I reached the village I slowed down, and was gasping for breath. I have never experienced such a thing in my life before. Whatever it was, scared the shit out of me.

There was nobody in the village. Not an uncommon thing though, people living in villages are seldom awake at this time in the night. But this didn’t bother me. I was all alone. If the thing that followed me at the outskirts attacks me again, I would have nobody to come to my rescue. But my thoughts seemed to kill time and I’d already reached my grandparents’ home.

I expected relatives and others, around, but there wasn’t anyone. Perhaps they were all inside, I walked to the door and knocked at it. The door was not locked though. I gently pushed it open. It was eerily dark and that there was no one inside made me cringe in fear.

I switched on the torch and flashed it around. The house was empty. There are no chairs, no tables. As I frantically searched for everyone, I just realized that I’d seen something move. I heard a low purring sound and I could gauge its distance from me, by the soft platter of its feet and the claws striking the ground. I flashed my light in the direction of the purr.

I saw two glowing red ambers and I jumped back in terror. The torch slipped out of my hand and rolled on the ground. The beam had circled the walls of the room before the torch stopped rolling. I slowly extended my hand to fetch the torch when I suddenly saw on the wall, a shadow emerge from a corner, so huge and so dark, so ghastly. I pulled the torch and flashed the beam. The cat, phew, how much it had scared me.

Then I heard a low wail. I flashed the torch in that direction. I was even more freaked out. A woman was sitting down on the ground with her hands folded and her head buried into her knees. A banshee? What if it is someone whom I knew? I gathered all my courage and walked to her. And put my hand on her.

In the faint moonlight, I could see the wavy hairs and as she slowly raised her head, I could see her face weighed down by old age as seen from the wrinkles on her forehead.

“Grandma?” I shrieked in delight. There was no sign of joy on her face. She again buried her head and started to cry.

“What’s wrong grandma, where are others, where is grandfather?” I held her knee and shook her.

“Grandpa suffered a stroke and passed away on the way to hospital. Everyone had gone to pay the last rites,” she sobbed.

“Why did they leave you alone?” I was angry at them, for they shouldn’t have left her behind, all alone. She didn’t reply. “Let’s go and get you some sleep,” I tried to comfort her.

“No,” she screamed pushing me aside. “I will not go into that room, its haunted, haunted by your grandpa’s ghost. He said he would come back to seek his revenge, and he will keep his word,” she spoke with such assertiveness that I almost believed in what she had said.

“Our fear is the ghost. There are no ghosts,” I told her as I led her to the room. The door was huge and was made of rosewood. Only a man of my grandfather’s stature can open it effortlessly. I had to push it hard enough, and then it slowly moved on its hinges, with a creaking sound.

The room, for it was properly ventilated, was illuminated with the moonlight. The giant rosewood four-poster stood infront of us projecting a splendid and a magnificent look. The rocking chair would have missed its owner, but for its inanimateness would never let us know.

I helped grandma climb the four-poster and as she lay on the bed, I pulled up the quilt. “There are no ghosts,” I reemphasized, “I will be sitting on the sofa over there.”

She smiled back at me and I loosened my clasp. I was tired partly because of the journey and partly because of the unknown thing that made me run. I slowly fell into a gentle slumber.

It must have been an hour or so, when I was woken up by a thumping sound. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The heavy four-poster was up on two legs and it came crashing to the floor. This repeated for two to three times before it finally stopped.

Silence ruled the surroundings once again. I immediately ran to the bed, whispered, “Grandma, get up… get up, we need to get out of here” and jerked her, trying to wake her up.

She pushed the quilt aside and stepped down from the bed. I looked around while she held onto me, firmly. Outside the window, the branches shook gently under the wind, and the wind howled in the trees. The rocking chair creaked on its own and swung back and forth.

Grandma clasped my hand tightly as we started to walk towards the door. As I placed my hand on the door, I was thrown aback as if somebody had pushed me with brute force. The doors suddenly closed on their own and banged against the sill.

The room was freakishly cold. I could feel the malice and the deep rooted hatred. This couldn’t be my grandfather. It was even more evil. Or perhaps it was him?

“Sanjeevvvvvvv, don’t……” I heard the same chilling voice again. The voice sounded very clear and was very familiar. Grandma was frightened downright. I could feel her hands tremble in fear.

“See, I told you he’ll come,” she said in a tremulous voice. I flinched at the sight of a man in the rocking chair appear and then vanish in quick succession. The shadows of the branches outside the window, cast on the walls, suddenly started to grow in size. They looked like giant arms trying to grab us.

I ran to the door and tried to open it frantically. The door suddenly opened and I held the hand of my grandmother literally dragging her out as we ran away from the house.

My grandmother who was looking behind all the time shrieked, “There he comes.”

I never looked behind, all I had to do was to get as far as I could from the house. As we ran into the streets, I realized that the huts and other houses had been deserted. Not a human being or an animal in sight. The entire place had been abandoned.

Something sinister had happened. Grandma was already panting and covered in sweat, and so was I. In a few minutes we had reached the gravelly road that leads to the bus-stop.

‘Sanjeevvvvvv, don’t…….’ the same haunting voice, I heard again. Why me? Grandma was already dead tired and she collapsed to the ground. I heard a low whirring of a bus; we’d almost reached the main road.

But grandma was not in a position to move. I loosened her grip and started waving my hands and shouting for help as I ran towards the bus. I’d almost reached the main road when I looked behind.

An apparition was sitting on its knees next to grandma. It hadn’t taken me much time to realize that it was the ghost of my grandfather.

His skin was very pale. And the thick blue veins formed striations that swelled through his skin. There was no sclera in his eyes. They were so dark that you feel that you will be sucked into the vast emptiness if you stare at them for a while.

There was no smile on his face and the lips were chapped. And he ran his whitish hands over the face of my grandmother; she became more and more lifeless.

I was scared. My grandfather’s ghost was looking at me with the totally blank eyes as he sucked the life out of my grandmother. I was scared. A chill ran down my body, the warmth slowly vanished. My legs couldn’t carry me anymore and I slowly fell to the ground.

‘Sanjeev, don’t be afraid,’ I heard the voice very clearly and then everything suddenly blanked out.

**************************************

“The same result again, from the MRI scan,” the neurologist said. Nothing’s changed. “It’s a very peculiar case. He was pronounced brain dead when he was admitted to this hospital. But there wasn’t a complete necrosis of the cerebral neurons.”

“Shock pushes him into a dream like state, and then he remembers what had happened a few minutes before he jumped into the current state. In the state of shock, his eyes and ears seem to carry some message to his brain which is otherwise in a vegetative state”

“So there is no way in which he can recover?” the psychiatrist asked.

“This is amygdala where fear memories are formed,” he said pointing to a portion in the scan, “as compared to the normal brain, this fear is inhibiting his brain from sending and receiving responses. And hence his comatose condition.”

“In simpler words, if he needs to wake up, he should not be scared.”

“Let us start the shock treatment once again”, he said.

**************************************

It’s midnight and the bus screeched to a halt at the bus-stop. The conductor pushed the door open. I alighted from the bus and observed the signpost. Yes, this is my destination......