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......

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"The reasons why puncturing the skin should be regarded with some degree of awe are not far to seek, for in the first place, there is the drawing of blood, which to the savage world over is full of significance as a rejuvenating and immortalizing factor. There is in addition to the opening of numerous inlets for evil to enter. . ." (Hambly Wilfrid D. 1925. The History of Tattooing and its Significance, p. 233)

Every ghost story normally starts with the protagonist being a paranormal skeptic but finally ends with him believing in the inexplicable phenomenon. But this is different. I’ve always believed in the negative energy; ghosts, elves, demons do exist, in the same world in which we live.

This may sound as weird as it can be. But this only bolstered my belief in demons. It was a perfect winter night. A thick fog engulfed the street, which was more desolate than ever before. Few hippies were making themselves comfortable in front of a bonfire. There was a chill surrounding me. I would’ve considered that normal but for the reason why I and my old friends are meeting over.

The streetlights flickered; an electrical disturbance is always an indication of an evil lurking around the corner. I could hear a dog howling at a far off distance. With hands in my coat to keep myself warm, I ambled towards the old building at the street’s end.

Over the past few days in Tia’s life, some abnormal events had occurred that finally led to her death. Niki too died under suspicious circumstances. I’ve seen their bodies, post mortem. In both cases, it was clearly evident that they’d undergone through a great deal of pain and anguish at the time of their death, though there were not any marks of external injuries that could’ve caused their death.

The only thing that seemed weird to us is the fact that Tia visited a psychic, days before she died. The very next thing that plagued my thoughts, Was she possessed?

We had invited the psychic, old man Joe too who had been treating Tia.

My friends were already waiting for me. As we started to greet each other, an elderly gentleman knocked at the open door with his walking stick.

“That must be old man Joe,” a voice from the gathering spoke out.

“I can feel the presence of a negative energy. It’s so bad,” old man Joe said as he walked towards us. He adorned a white beard and his cheeks were full, and looked very healthy for his age, except that he carried a walking stick.

“It is very close by. I can sense it. It’s very strong. It’s not a human spirit. It’s far more powerful..” he spoke and held his head. He was about to fall when one of us helped him sit on the chair.

He took a deep breath and looked at all of us.

“Sir, we know that Tia had visited you on some purpose. In case you didn’t know, she passed away a few days back,” I said when his face turned pale; clearly he looked scared.

“Does anyone believe in ghosts?” he cleared his throat and started to speak louder. I wanted to say an ‘Yes’ but fearing that my friends will make fun of me, I remained calm.

“There are a few believers as there are nonbelievers,” he said staring at me. I felt very uncomfortable by the way he stared at me.

“Your personal belief has nothing to do with their existence. The devil has existed long before man. Different religions have different ways of explaining their existence. For example, Christianity says that these devils are nothing but fallen angels.”

There was a long pause.

“A man of science may not believe in demons and ghosts, because his observation is purely based on his sensory perception. But is that all? There are more things around us which we cannot see and which we cannot feel. Has anyone of us ventured into the dark, all alone? Well, let me not deviate...”

“... There are spirits surrounding you and so are the demons. A devil or a demon is different from a spirit in the sense that a spirit may be human, the soul of the same person. But a demon is not human, though it may infest a human being. A demon is something more powerful, filled with more negative energy and hence you attribute the terms rage and malice to it; negative energy, obviously means destruction.”

The skeptics looked perplexed and unconvinced while I, the believer knew whatever he was trying to say was perfectly true.

“We don’t understand the connection,” a voice from amongst the skeptics, spoke.

Old man Joe took a deep breath, “Your friend Tia consulted me, after she started having visions. It’s a very rare case of possession, when the person possessed knows that she’s been possessed.”

“What visions,” yet somebody interrupted again.

“Visions of a demon, she could feel it inside her, the coldness and the deep rooted hatred. The moment Tia stepped into my place, I felt it too. Never before have I felt so much negative energy concentrated in a single entity,” Joe answered.

“So why Tia and how did it find Tia,” I asked him. He leaned back gaping at me, “That’s a nice question. I don’t know why Tia, but I can explain how it found Tia.”

“Demons as I said are a form of negative energy. And as your laws of physics would state that most forms of energy need a medium to be transferred, a demon would need a medium too. Hence they choose vulnerable people, why people, why not animals is again a case of convenience; humans are dexterous and adept at performing many things which animals cannot do. Why vulnerable, to attain complete control of the being. And the inlet for it to enter Tia’s body was a tattoo on her hand.”

He paused for a while, as we all panicked and started to sweat. Perhaps, Joe hasn’t noticed this and he continued.

“The art of tattooing is not a fashion statement alone. Tribes from various parts of the world throughout ages have tattooed religious and spiritual symbols on their bodies to denote their statuses, talismans to ward off evils etcetera.”

“She had a sigil tattooed on her arm and when she showed me her tattoo, I knew it was something related to demons. The tattoo resembled closely the insignia of Lucifer, Azazel and even Baphomet. My limited knowledge on tattoos couldn’t give me an idea of the demon but for sure I knew how the demon had entered her,” He paused for a while and noticed our pallid faces.

“You do know something about the tattoo, don’t you?” he questioned.

All of us nodded in affirmation. And then one after another we raised our sleeves to show him the tattoos on our arms.

“Oh God!”

“It’s the same one I’ve seen on her arm,” he cried aloud and jumped out of his seat. He collected his walking stick and started to walk away chanting some prayers.

“I am not involved in this, I am certainly not involved in this,” he said as he approached the door. “You all are going to die. This demon is so wicked that it will consume you all. You cannot escape its fury... May God save you all,” he said as he slammed the door behind him and walked away.

Inside the room we were looking at each other’s face, not knowing what to do next. The door suddenly opened with a thud much to our bewilderment and fright. A huge dark figure stood there at the door with a gleaming knife in his hand. It was old man Joe again. I saw him grip his fingers around the hilt and he slowly walked towards us.

“Watch out,” somebody shouted.

“We are four, and an old man can never match us,” another was confident.

As we were about to pounce, he stopped us, “let me do it please, the only way you can save yourselves” and without warning he thrust the knife into Jeremy’s arm. Jeremy screamed in pain. And Joe dragged the knife down Jeremy’s arm, tearing apart the skin.

“Now the devil shall not find a way to enter your body,” he exclaimed triumphantly.

Jeremy writhed in pain holding his bleeding arm. Joe then looked at me and proceeded to cut the flesh containing the tattoo part.
I found his theory credible and logical. We all thanked him for saving us and then we left the place with a heave of relief.

Few days later, I received a call from Jeremy, “Jonathan is dead just like Tia, just like Niki...”

A chill ran down my spine. I pulled back the sleeve and looked at my arm from where the tattoo was cut. The wound was healed but there were no traces of the tattoo.

How can this be? We have closed the door for the demon to enter. How could it have possibly killed Jonathan?

“What if the demon has already entered our bodies even before old man Joe sealed the inlet?” Jeremy’s voice quivered from the other end.

“We will have to reach old man Joe as soon as possible,” I suggested.

The very evening I reached his home. An elderly gentleman opened the door. His cheeks were tucked in but he was cleanly shaven, and his forehead, wrinkled. There was a magnetic charm in his eyes.

“I have come to meet old man Joe,” I spoke.

“I am Joe, please tell me,” he said.

I was shocked to hear that. “Y..you... Joe...” I stammered. And he nodded. “Any problem Sir?” he extended his hand. I just pushed him and ran away.

I don’t know how far I ran, for how long I ran. I stopped by a tree far away from old Joe’s home. I was panting heavily; my mind was blank except for the person’s face I saw during the meeting, that white beard and broad forehead. This man looked puny.

Who could that be? Could he be the devil himself? He cut the tattoos from our skins so that he could seal himself permanently inside us?

Thousands of questions crisscrossed my mind. I don’t know if I’ll ever find the answers. Recently I came to know that Jeremy too had passed away in the similar fashion.

I’ve started to feel it inside me. I suddenly suffer with bouts of cold breaths. I feel that my energy is being sapped away and a pointed object being shoved into my heart with so much thrust that I writhe in pain. My spine freezes that I refuse to move lest it might break. In that moment of vulnerability I see the demon inside me. There’s so much malice and fury, so dark and so evil.

I’ve isolated myself from the rest of the world. I live in the dark and dingiest corner of my apartment, hiding and trying to save my life. I don’t know when it’s going to devour me, inside out. I just count my minutes and await for it to consume me.

What would you do? Will you believe that you are possessed and that you are under the influence of an evil power? When your rational mind cannot explain things that have happened and are still happening before your eyes? When more particularly you know that for no apparent reason you’d killed your friends who you’d loved throughout your life!

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‘Beyond the mountains at the horizon, it is said that a cat deliberately walks into the snare set by poachers to capture a bear or a tiger. And unable to bear the pain, it bites off its own paw and walks away three legged. The remnant paw is considered to be a lucky charm, but it still holds in it, the trials and tribulations of the cat when in captivity’

Human beings are need driven creatures, the need to live life, luxuriously. It can make them do anything, even if it means to make a deal with the devil. I was in dire need of money, the money I lost in poker, horse-races; I need to earn that back. Much beyond that I needed a factor called luck.

After emptying four pints of lager and some whiskey, I was well away at the party. And then I started to drive back home. The road down the hill was extremely dark. I was cruising along the treacherous serpentine course.

And suddenly the car started to shake as if it were going down a rough track. Before I could realize what happened and braked, I have driven off the road by a few kilometers. Still reeling between a state of consciousness and inebriated ecstasy, I opened the door and staggered along the gravelly path.

The clouds engulfed the moon. The cold wind cut through my skin and the surroundings chilled me to the marrow for there was no flora in the vicinity. All I could see was an old dead tree with the branches spread out from its trunk.

But what swept me off my feet was a body hanging from one of its branches. Somebody came this far to commit suicide? I better investigate, I thought as I ambled towards the tree.

The sounds of the creatures of the dark, the absence of any human soul dint deter me from going to the tree. I slowly walked to the person and examined him. The body was half rotten. I could see the folds on his exposed parts. The skin on his face was green in colour and it shrunk completely almost exposing his skull. One part of his body was crushed as if it were run over by some truck.

He presented a frightening look that would scare even the most seasoned horror buffs. Suddenly my eye caught the attention of a crumpled paper he was holding onto. Must be a suicidal note. I broke a twig from the branch and tried to free that paper from his grip. After a while, I was successful.

Folded in the paper was perhaps the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. It looked like the paw of some animal. I immediately dropped it to the ground before I was reminded of a local legend, about the lucky charm of the cat’s paw. I unfolded the paper and had gooseflesh when I read the few words written on it.

“I would rather die a thousand times than living one more life”

I couldn’t understand a word, but I saw the pain cos of which he committed suicide. I slowly bent down to pick the cat’s paw from the ground when I heard the creaking of the branch behind me. I raised my head and what I saw almost stopped my heartbeat.

My blood ran cold for a while. The intoxication, all of a sudden, wore off completely.

He woke up. There were no eyes in the eye socket. He held the rope and started to shake, probably trying to get off the rope. And he was screaming in an unknown language. I took the cat’s paw in my hand and started to run towards my car, holding onto my dear life.

I tried to run as fast as my feet could carry me, before I tripped over something and fell down. I was hurt very badly after my ankle hit a stone. Lucky enough, it wasn’t paining though. Haven’t broken any bones. Still lying on the ground I turned around to see the thing that caused me to fall down.

It was a bag. I was a little circumspect about opening the bag, but fear is the last thing, a man would be worried about when he has problems, my problem being bankruptcy and desperation to get out of that situation.

I opened the zip and was aghast to see a huge amount of money, all in denominations of five hundred rupees. I valued the entire stash at more than a crore. My lucky day, I thought looking at the cat’s paw.

I made my way to the car and drove back. After reaching home, I ran a search for the cat’s paw. The legend was indeed true. “Let me see how my luck’s gonna change from tomorrow on,” I told myself.

I couldn’t get a wink of sleep. ‘So much money, let me win more in horse-race’, I told myself. I held the cat’s paw in one hand for I feared that I might lose it. I slowly slipped into sleep.

A few hours later, I was woken up by a purring sound. A cat? Gripping onto a vase, I slowly started to walk in the direction of the sound. A few feet ahead of me, I saw a huge Cat, with eyes red and claws drawn-out, standing on its hind legs and screaming in a callous voice ‘my paw, my paw’ to the man on the ground, the very same man whom I had seen hanging from the tree.

Then the man pointed his finger to me as the cat lifted its head and threw a furious look at me. With a sudden jerk, I woke up. A terrifying nightmare.

I held onto the paw. I was soft and cold. For a while, I felt frightened and then sorry for the animal, but nevertheless happy to have it for the luck factor, it brought along.

The following day, I travelled to the nearby town to invest in horse racing. As anticipated, I tripled, quadrupled my finances. It had been a wonderful day. I had all the money to pay debts, in fact I was be left behind with a decent amount. All cos of this lucky charm, I kissed the cat’s paw.

It was almost dusk and I had to travel back home before it gets dark.

I felt my leg too heavy when I looked down. The ankle was swollen as if it were sprained. But there was no pain, surprisingly. So I couldn’t drive my car faster, for the fear of hurting my ankle even more.

Within an hour, it was dark. The country road was almost deserted with no sign of any vehicle in the vicinity. It’s dangerous to travel with a lot of money, in these areas. And so I was a bit tensed.

I slowly stepped up the gas, before I heard a bursting sound. The car swerved like a snake before I maneuvered it to one side of the road. I got down from the car to see that I was running on a flat tyre.

Damn, I kicked the tyre, I don’t even have a spare tyre. The entire place was dark. There is every possibility of me being robbed and hence I decided to hide the money in some place.

I slowly walked into the nearby sparse vegetation and started to dig the loose sand with my hands. I then placed the bag into the pit and covered it up, before I felt someone watching me from behind.

I turned behind and saw a big cat growling, must be a panther. I looked into its eyes, they were same as the cat’s, I saw in my dream. I sprang to my feet and ran towards the car. The panther chased me.

I was almost nearing the road when I looked behind to see the panther. It was nowhere. I then turned to my front when I saw a beam of light and a loud honk. Something dashed me real hard and I fell to the ground. Before I could realize that I had been hit by a lorry, one of its rear tyres ran over me.

I was shell shocked when I realized that I was not under any kind of pain, and that I am alive too. I looked at the portion of the body over which the truck ran over. My left leg was completely crushed and I was bled profusely. I managed to crawl to the car when I heard the growl again.
The big cat appeared again and this time, he caught hold of my other leg with his jaws and dragged me into the woods, as I watched helplessly.

After dragging me for some distance, he stopped and walked over to my head. He slowly bent down sniffing all over my body and without alarm caught hold of my neck and plucked it brute force.

The blood splattered all over his face and he drank it with great relish. Surprisingly I had no pain at this juncture too, and I was able to watch all this happen to me.

The tiger left in some time, leaving behind a petrified me and a gaping wound on my neck. I touched my own body when a chill ran down my spine. There was no temperature. The body was totally cold. I tried to feel my pulse. There wasn’t any either.

All the things that happened since yesterday flashed through my mind. And then I realized. That I am not alive any more. But, why aint I dead either?

I slowly pulled a piece of paper and started to write something. After that I lifted a huge boulder and dropped it onto my own head. I could feel the crushing of the brain and the splatter. My hands were dead and lay motionless, but I could still feel and hear.

I don’t know for how long I lay in that position, hours, may be days, when I heard the footsteps of somebody walk towards me. Definitely a human, I thought. I could feel his hands run over my body. He seemed to be searching for something.

And then I realized that he pulled the cat’s paw outta my pocket as he read the paper, I wrote.

“I would rather die a thousand deaths than living one more life”

No, no… I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. With all my strength I jerked my body, hoping that he wouldn’t get away with the cat’s paw.

But the man screamed in fright and all I could hear was the sound of fading footsteps …

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When the hounds bay for blood, when the vampire bats squawk for life, when clouds engulf the crescent and when the stars align in an inverted pentagram, the creature of the dark will rise to life - the relic.

Recently we moved into a new house. And that’s when we brought home our new pup, Mike. The retriever pup was so active and friskily naughty. As days passed by, I found a gradual decline in its activity. ‘Growing pups are normally very active,’ a friend of mine suggested me to consult a vet.

“Nothing’s wrong with Mike, atleast physically. Don’t leave it alone all the time,” was the vet’s suggestion.

Plagued by the thoughts that the pup’s unwell, I couldn’t sleep a wink the following night. I was tossing and turning on the bed. Suddenly the lights blanked out. A thunderous lightening made me worry about Mike.

In the dark milieu, I managed to reach the window. It was raining heavily outside. I tried to look out for my pup. It wasn’t in its kennel. I was worried. I looked around and was about to go outdoors when something caught my eye.

In a lightning jolt, I saw a kinda projection out of the lawn infront of my house. In another jolt, I saw my pup trying to pull that thing. Perhaps a pipe or a piece of wood, I thought as I focused the torch and tried to get a better look. What I saw frightened me beyond all means.

It looked like a bone. Yes, it’s a human hand with the palm wide open. Of a recently buried corpse?

And I rushed to the outdoors; I wanted to confirm the same before I disturb my parents. My hands were trembling as I pulled down the latch and opened the door. I wasn’t worried about me being drenched. My primary concern was the human hand, the image that I couldn’t take off my mind.

“Mike… Mike…” I hollered when the pup looked in my direction. In a flash of lightning I saw its sharp canines dripping some slimy liquid. I wasn’t very sure if it was blood but before I could reach to any conclusion, I heard a growl which sent a chill down my spine. In the next instant, I saw it jump towards me at a gallop.

Shell shocked at the unexpected outcome of these events, I stood still when my pup whimpered as it dropped something at my feet. The bone? No, a book. The book’s soaked completely, it looked a little old with a tattered hard bound leather cover.

Having my dog leashed, I walked back to my bedroom and opened the book when I found a letter. Under the dim light from the torch, I unfolded the letter and started to read.

‘Centuries ago, a diabolic ghoul robbed the graves and ate the corpses of human beings. A priest cast a spell on the ghoul thus making it lifeless and the ghoul’s laid to rest once and for ever. Legend talks of a relic containing the spell that binds the ghoul.

In the early years of this millennium, on his quest for fossils, Paleontologist Mark Heines finds the so called relic with a hand clutching onto it. The hand was in such a preserved condition that Mark basing on the hairs spoke of the race of the human to which it belonged.

Nobody knows what happened to the hand, but a few years later, Heines was found dead, hanging to the ceiling, and with one of his hand, amputated. His severed hand was never recovered though.

Many are of the opinion that the ghoul’s back with a vengeance and it kills the one in possession of the relic. And the hand of whom will guard the relic forever. This is a vicious cycle’

I folded the letter and then started to read the relic. True, I dint believe in ghosts. They are just a figment of human imagination. As I flipped page after page much to the discontentment of my palpitating heart, I began to see visions. Visions of a goat inside an inverted pentagram called sigil of Baphomet, a ring of fire that almost engulfed me when I pushed aside the relic in fright, pushing myself to another corner of the room.

I buried my face into my knees seeing some impending horror when I looked out of the window. It was still raining incessantly. And in one strike of a thunderbolt, I saw the entire milieu, the sky and the clouds turning blood red.

Dogs were howling at a far off place. I approached the window and looked out. I saw a few bats cluttering at the place where my pup dug out the relic.

When hounds bay for blood, when the vampire bats squawk for life, when clouds engulf the crescent and when the stars align in an inverted pentagram, the creature of the dark will rise to life - I remembered a line from the relic.

And I felt a sudden drop in the temperature. A cold wave sent a chill down my spine. Sometimes, you have this feeling that someone’s watching you over. And tonight, I felt it. It’s more than just a normal human being.

I can feel the malice, the coldness of this diabolic being. In a wink, I was lying on my bed. The chill that cuts through your skin, the icy state when you are frozen and paralyzed when you know you are not alone, that’s the most frightening part.

For a while, I wasn’t able to fathom what’s happening. When something flowing touched my body, I regained my senses. It was warm and all over the bed.

I touched it with my hand. ‘Damn, its blood,’ I screamed and tried to push myself away from the bed. A stinging pain in the left part of my body prevented me from doing so. I looked beyond my shoulder and to my dismay found my hand amputated. I pressurized my palm on the open wound to arrest the flow of blood.

And I looked around. In the dim light, far in the corner lay the severed portion of my hand on the relic.... My hand now becomes the guardian of the relic? and I cried loudly in pain before I lost consciousness.

I don’t know for how long I lay in that position. But the next morning I woke up trembling. I looked around for the relic.

It was lying on my bed with my hand still on it. But my hand wasn’t severed. Was it my imagination? I saw things so close to reality... And I pulled the relic close to my body.

It indeed had the bite marks, probably inflicted by my pup when it was digging it up y’ night. And I saw the face of the relic. This was more frightening than all the things that happened over the course of the night. It read, ‘Domain level certification’.......

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Prachi’s a big time beer aficionado. Though I never tasted it throughout my life, I’d known a lot about beer, thanks to her. The first time, I saw a highly delectable her at a friend’s party in the local bar. It was love at first sight. After the regular dilly dallying, she finally reciprocated my love.

With a few tufts of hair falling to the fore and captivating luscious features, she could even make a devil ogle her. She attributed her good looks and youthful features to beer. She strongly believes that drinking beer can actually make you look younger. I really don’t know if that’s true or some lame excuse to drink.

That particular night we were returning from B’lore to Hyderabad on NH7.

“Enough, you drank enough,” I screamed at her as I tried to snatch the bottle.

‘No dear, it’s just my second bottle,’ she mumbled as she clenched the long necked bottle like a kid clutching to her Barbie doll and gave me that inebriated look with a wide lipped smile and blinking eyelids.

And that’s when I try to distract her by narrating a horror story. Anything related to horror spooks her. I remember her watching “The Exorcist” when she screamed like hell for all those scenes of demonic possession and including the spider-walk of Regan.

‘No, please,” I heard her speak faintly.

“Not so far from Hyderabad,” I started narrating. “There’s this place called Shankerpally. It’s a hamlet, a normal village except for one house. The house was circum-fenced by thorny shrubs and other outgrowth, the most remarkable feature being the stone statues that stood behind the house. They looked like the grandeur of perfect human art. Yet nobody in the village was qualified to chisel with such intricate magnanimity. And nobody knew who brought them there.

But everybody opined that it must be the work of the stone-witch as the kids called the woman who lived in the hut. For ages, she lived in the same old hut and anybody who pays her a visit and stays over night is bound to become a statue, according to the local folklore,” I finished as she trembled under fright.

“Wwwa… wid… stone statues?” she stuttered.

“The witch in order to keep herself young snatched the souls of the trespassers and converted the soulless bodies to stones.”

“Your voice cut through my skin like ice and I can still feel the chill running down my spine,” her teeth chattered and she opened the bottle and gulped down some beer.

I had to take an alternate route through a relatively uninhabited zone to cut short on the time of journey. The entire stretch of the road was dark as the moon slipped slowly behind the prevailing clouds. The trees on the either side swayed perilously close to each other under the heavy gust of wind.

She was silent for a long time, and so were I, staring at the seemingly never ending road and still clutching onto the bottle.

And as if the devil had the last laugh on Prachi, the car came to a screeching halt. “Damn,” I said, as she peeped out of the window, “We have a flat tyre, in fact tyres”

As we stepped down and looked around, we found ourselves stuck in the middle of nowhere. I pointed to a flickering lamp at some distance and said, “Let’s move to that hut. It’s dangerous to stay in the open dark. Wild animals could be lurking around.”

Trampling over the high rise grass and stepping stones, we reached what seemed like a small hut. “Excuse me,” I spoke in the local dialect when a middle aged woman opened the door. I explained the situation and she welcomed us in.

She was a queer looking woman. She stooped a little cos’ of a hunch that’s too early for her age. But there was a charm in her face. Prachi stood at a distance and was suspiciously staring at our host. I crossed her looks and gestured not to embarrass the woman.

An unprecedented breakdown enforced no feasible option other than an overnight stay. Our host spread the bed as we prepared to rest for the night after a good square meal.

Prachi clasped my hand tightly. “Your description of the stone-witch fits her,” she exclaimed. I dint reply. Lost in those words, I slipped into a deep slumber. Not for long when an owl’s hoot brought me back to my senses. I looked to the side and saw Prachi in deep sleep. I heard a flapping sound, perhaps from the owl’s wings, followed by a gentle rustle of leaves when I walked to the window.

Through the opening, I saw our hunched host holding onto a lantern and walk across in a hurry. Where to?

I slowly stepped out of the house and started to follow, hiding from her view by crouching behind the high rise grasses. After following her for a few minutes, I realized that I was surrounded by stone statues double my height.

Too many thoughts crisscrossed my mind. After all, the story I narrated to Prachi was indeed a figment of my imagination. There was no stone-witch in reality. The stone statues were in a particular pattern, lined up, a few feet from the hut, imposing a hauntingly leering look that scared me beyond all reasons.

The wind was cold and I felt like my blood freeze in the veins. She never cared to look back.

I followed her for a hundred feet, atleast, before I saw her walk into a graveyard.

She sat cross legged infront of a grave. I couldn’t see what she was doing for I was behind her.

My heart was palpitating, say out of fright or excitement to know what she’s up to. Then she moved her hand aside and seemed to slash her wrist with a knife. Blood started to ooze from her slit wrist and she seemed to wet something on the ground with her blood.

What’s she up to? Some ritual? Or reviving the dead? Or...

As I watched with wide opened eyes, she suddenly started vibrating. All this was too much for me and I wanted to flee the place. But my legs couldn’t carry me anymore. I felt so lifeless as if a knife’s pierced through my spinal cord and my fingers were numb. That’s when I realized that I had been seized by a bout of paralysis.

She was shaking violently a few feet ahead of me and suddenly she turned back. In the faint glow of the burning ambers, I saw blood spurting from her eyes. Her facial skin blistered and she fell to the ground, painfully hollering.

I almost fell to the ground but with a conscious effort to save myself from some evil that has taken her down, I crawled drawing all the power to my hands. And...

Prachi, she’s all alone in the hut, my thoughts raced in that direction.

In the foggy darkness, I could faintly see a silhouette approaching me. The witch, I thought. No, it’s Prachi. She must have come searching for me. I could hardly speak and I was trying to grab her when she came close to me. She helped me stand on my feet as I tried to narrate the incident and we fled the place.

I was terribly shaken and so was she as we walked back to the car. The clouds cleared and the moon was back to the fore. The nightmare’s over, I heaved a sigh of relief, when something strange caught my eye.

“Even in this state of fear, you still clung to this bottle?” I stared at her with bloodshot eyes. The bottle was empty though and corked.

“Of course, I had to look young for my boy friend!” she replied.

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