Turning behind I saw nothing. 'Must be field rats' I thought, looking at the rice fields behind the house and kept walking .
A small room led to a big hall and it was here that the smell was more prominent. My torchlight illuminated heaps of cardboard boxes lying on the floor all packed with dolls. So this was Raghu's godown, I told myself. Did he live nearby or his friend had misguided me ? As the light shone on one of the boxes, a barbie doll's face peeped from inside the transparent cover.. I could recognize the company's logo instantly. As I began to open the top cover an uneasiness gripped me . Then I realized this one had a different face. And also a different body.This was ridiculous. It was an older version of Nisha, in fact an old lady wearing a gown and not a young girl wearing fancy dress . Her skin was shrivelled of age and hair dry and unkempt. Out of curiosity I took the doll in my hand and watched it open its hazelnut brown eyes. Wondering why
'Since when has your sister gone missing, did you say ?'Last night Sir.What brought you to her apartment ? You told she stayed alone'.She had called me.''You mean she called you to say she was leaving ?'I got a ring from her mobile number, but couldn't make out anything other than her groans and laboured breaths at the other end.What ?She was trying to spell out something amidst her gasps. I tried to call back but without result. I even tried to reach her landline. I thought maybe her health had deteriorated . She has asthmatic problems you see.Hmmm .. I see. At what time did you receive her call ?8:30 PMYou too stay alone or .. ?My husband is out of the city .. business tourWhat business ?Building promotingAnd you ? Are you working ?No. Housewife.Hmmm .. From Chandannagar to Saltlec .. takes two hours to reach by carYes. Aro
It was difficult to believe that Suparna would finally give in and take such a drastic step. They weren't on talking terms after that argument following the decision to sell off their ancestral property in Burrabazar. Actually it was Upendra's decision.Suparna was in the final year of her college when their parents died in a car accident. She had reluctantly stayed with her elder sister's family - Shivangi and her husband in Chandannagar for a couple of months. Then after she landed a job in BPO she moved over to Saltlec. Shivangi had caught her taking anti-depressant pills one day . Though she had pledged to dessist from such acts of self-destruction again, she knew once alone she would resume her habits. How many times Shivangi had asked her to refrain from watching those bullshit on TV. She had even locked up some TV channels in her Saltlec flat - but to no avail. She said the shows gave her thrills and made her forget her loneliness.But Shivan
'Did you notice the TV Mrs. Ghosh ? Shivangi looked at the broken LED screen in horror. The screen was sunk inwards giving rise to a vent which went deep into the wall behind, yet it didn't bore a hole through it . It looked as if someone had dug a tunnel inside the TV to pull something in. 'Could be a chemical reaction which caused the explosion', Arunava Sarkar murmured to himself. 'Can a TV explode by itself ? Is there some major electrical dysfunctioning in the circuits in this flat ?' He called the constable to collect samples of the wreckage. The forensics would take care of the rest.'Your sister had placed requisition for a mechanic .. a TV mechanic. The apartment owners' association informed us. She had complained that a particular channel was always showing up whenever she pressed the remote. And then videos would keep playing all by themselves with the remote failing to pause/ stop them. Reporting the cable operator had not helped - there are many users of that net
That was when she had her first nightmare. She found it impossible to move her limbs when she woke up. And things had only worsened further since then. The symptoms came up on her sister about a year later. Her father had consulted a number of doctors but to no avail. Referring to quacks, priests, even occultists had continued unabatedly and it wasn't long before the neighbours and relatives had labelled them as bananas - often sharing a laugh behind their back.Psychological diseases are still considered a taboo in the society in which they had been brought up. It took a great deal of concealing and cajoling on the part of Shivangi's parents to convince her in-laws that their daughter-in-law was perfectly all right. Still the air couldn't be cleared. On their wedding night when she had left him unsatiated at the peak of his desire, Upendra had charged at her directly.'Your father has deliberately married off a sickly daughter'.Shivangi knew there was no
Almost at the same time she let out a scream her hand also got released from her steering. She was approaching the bridge she knew from the sound of a train nearby and was aware that if she failed to stop the car now it would either fly into the railway track running parallely or go crashing into the river below. She tried hard to take her foot off the accelerator but her limbs had gone numb.She knew this was going to last for sometime. And within this time she had to manuovre the vehicle to save it from swerving left or right. Fighting her innermost fears for survival was a trial she had been subjected to many times before, a curse she had been suffering since childhood. But it was not the cosy comforts of her home. Again on second thoughts, where was the difference ?Till her parents were alive, she didn't doubt about her safety. She knew she could always fall back on them in her miseries. But now who bothered whether she lived or died ? With Upendra away from
Dodamarg, Maharashtra. Present Day :Strangely there was no lock on the door, it limped badly to a side on the floor. It was the reason why it didn't swing open inside, otherwise the latch wasn't strong enough to keep it closed. The possibility of someone using the room couldn't be ruled out from such a situation, yet the thick layer of dust on the floor raised doubts over a living soul to have come that way in a while. Dust had settled inside the room too causing the door to sink into it.The light from the torch revealed no other footsteps than her own as she guided it all around the floor. After several attempts the old, wooden panel holding desperately to it's rusty hinges finally creaked open letting out a gust of wind as if captivated for years. The smell of old furniture and furnishings laden with cobwebs immediately rushed out to torture her nostrils. The dampness in the room was sickening. Finding an electrical switch on the wall she pressed it in the hope of light, but in va
Before Arunava could stop his black Tata Innova and get out, Shivangi's red sedan crashed at the metal barriers. His heart seemed to stand still. The fog made visibility very poor and even with the foglights on he had difficulty in locating the car swinging on the left railings. He had screeched to a halt at the sound of the collision, but now while running on the deck, he found the distance to be around twenty paces. Even such a small distance appeared very long now and he knew every moment was costly. The bridge side they were negotiating was from Kolkata towards Howrah. The one carrying traffic from Howrah to Kolkata ran parallely in the opposite direction. A double line railway track separated the up and down routes, confined inside massive steel girders. Upon reaching the location, he tried to look inside the car to ascertain whether Shivangi was still inside. Then without a second thought, he climbed on to the railings. The dark waters was a raging torrent several feet below. He
Dodamarg, Maharashtra. Present Day:Something seemed to move in the dark. The thread of her thoughts snapped. Startled, she looked around her and then out of the window. Only the trees swayed in the distance. The moon light flooded the road outside. She felt a strange beckoning. As she started walking downhill, suddenly she saw something shining in the bushes. The ground sloped from here till it met the forest going down fifty thousand feet below. Coming nearer she found it to be a wrist watch. Her heart leapt recognizing her uncle's radium watch! It had an Om symbol painted inside the dial which glowed in the dark. The police hadn't made much effort in searching the place, otherwise such an evidence wouldn't have escaped their notice. But why had Uncle taken the route towards the forest? Did he find any evidence of the book being hidden inside the forest? There was another question which had been bothering her since she met the Acharya. If he had instructed uncle to find the book for