Bombay Shaman - episode 2: The Haunting Hunter

PART V: Scared of the dark

It was awful how Shilpa felt as she took a auto-rickshaw back home. The dark of the night resonated with the gloom blooming in her. She wasn't able to accept or even believe what had just happened. Just yesterday her life was almost fine. At least it was almost normal — apart from the hints of odd behaviour suggested by Pankaj's freshly born out of the blue paranoia, and the way she recently started fearfully gazing the shadows of the corners around her, as if some horror was imminent. Other than that life was alright because Pankaj was alive, if not fine.

Shilpa had thought it was just a part of their job, the dark side of being a journalist and reporter, how they had to scavenge the city scraping dry leads till they finally found the atrocious cores that had remained ignored and latent so long. Maybe it was the harsh reality that frightened her and effected Pankaj in an unusual way. But she never foresaw this, she never expected this, something so dark, to ever happen.

The recent days played in her head in uncomfortable flashes that stirred a mix of feelings. There was guilt, there was blame, there was shame, there was sadness, anger, confusion, and lack of clarity. Her head ached but not more than her heart. Her tears showed her dry eyes no mercy. She rubbed them, smudging the moisture messily. Her nose was ready to let loose all the water running inside. She sniffed and wiped it with her shaking fingers despite having a kerchief ready to do the job right in her handbag — public image meant no shit.

It was good that the auto-rickshaw driver was busy in his phone call, she thought. She didn't want any question from strangers.

By 1 a.m in the late of night, she had reached her apartment. She pushed open the door and stared into the shadow that engulfed the whole room. She wasn't one to fear the dark because she had just stopped believing in ghosts in the last few months. However, to her surprise, a shiver went down her spine. Her hands reached into the dark, groping the switchboard on the side wall for the tube light switch. When she found it and turned it on, the light fell over the whole messed up room. The incident was fresh in her mind again. Her heart got heavier.

She entered, closed the door behind her, and leant against it, sliding down slowly in despair like her tears. The loose strap of her handbag slipped and fell down her shoulders. She clutched her mouth with her hands and cried.

She stayed there a while, just crying and crying, remembering her friend. And when her tears and emotions finally exhausted her, she got up and went to her bedroom.

She wanted to just fall on her bed and sleep the time and pain away, but she could feel the salty tears and her ruined makeup dry on her face. Absent-minded, she decided freshening up a bit would've been better for her.

Washing up did feel better after what happened, but the replay in her head didn't stop. As she stood in front of the wash basin and splashed the water on her face, closing her eyes, the scene of Pankaj crawling insanely on the floor under the fluctuating lights became vivid. Her smile, her eyes, and her hair made Shilpa flash open her eyes, not wanting to imagine it so vividly.

She leaned on the basin, the drops of water on her face trickling down. Her eyes were on the basin, but she was remembering what they saw back there. She closed her eyes again and thought of the scary scene again. She paused that image and mentally tried to recall everything clearly.

Apart from Pankaj, like in an overlapping image, just for a brief moment, she had seen someone else in the reflection on the  squeaky clean marble floor before she ran in the opposite direction screaming and laughing and jumped out the window. That someone — or something — even though she could only see vaguely, was not even remotely human. It was horrifying whatever it was. But did she really see that, she wondered. Was her stress playing tricks with her mind? Even if that was true, she could've sworn she heard Pankaj whisper something, and the way she looked at her, she was sure those words were meant for her.

She couldn't remember what it was that she said, it was very vague. She went deeper into her memory, trying to make something out of those whispers. Suddenly and scarily, the memory came to life and it felt as if she was back in the hospital again.

Her neighbour and the nurse were standing in front of her, but she couldn't feel them. They felt unreal compared to Pankaj who was staring at her.

Her breath became shallow as she heard Pankaj nefariously say "You're next" in a voice that was never hers and could never be hers.

Immediately, Shilpa gasped and opened her eyes again, her heart racing in her chest, brutally beating against it.

She shook her head and wildly splashed lots of water on her face. The fright wasn't subsiding no matter how many times she did it. Her breath became heavier. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face seemed pale with fear. But she didn't get the time to fret over that as she noticed something else.

The bathroom door was half open behind her, but strangely the lights of her bedroom were off. She clearly remembered leaving the lights on before entering the bathroom. Had the lights fused, she thought. But immediately she remember she had just bought new lights. Looking at the dark, her heart squeezed and got instilled with fear again. She couldn't take her eyes off of the darkness.

The door slowly started to close by itself, creaking eerily. It wasn't the wind. The window of her bedroom was shut. even the fan was off.

Shilpa stopped breathing.

The motion of the door halted, revealing only a narrow band of dark leading into her room.

Sweat mixed with the water on her agape face. Her blood became hot. She tried to breath, but her fear didn't allow her.

Unlike her personality, she found herself expecting to see something horrifying.

Two, yellow slits opened in the shadows,  replying to her fears. They were eyes... The murderous intent she felt from them made her legs shake.

She couldn't take it anymore. She turned and looked behind.

The bedroom light was on. There was nothing there. But the door wasn't as open she had left it. She didn't know what she just experienced.

The memory of breathing returned to her. She melted where she stood, taking the support of the wash basin. Her legs were too shaky.

"I need some sleep... It's probably the stress..." She rushed out of the bathroom, and without bothering to change her clothes, she fell on her bed.

However, she wasn't able to sleep. Guilt was was having a chat with her, a chat she didn't want to have, at least not then.

Pankaj had been lately contacting her and telling of how she was experiencing weird phenomenon: hearing voices, seeing scary things, feeling some maleficient presence, and other horrible things. She had been losing it and all that Shilpa told her was to not worry so much. Earlier that day, before Pankaj had lost it, she had texted her of how her weird problems at their peak and she was being chased by someone. Even then Shilpa didn't believe her much and told her to come over to her house so she can comfort her. But the person who came to her home sure looked like Pankaj, but did not feel like Pankaj at all.

Now when she herself was experiencing what she discarded as overthinking in Pankaj's case, she realised how she had underestimated what her friend was going through.

But what they were going through, she was still not sure and still skeptical about. Her guilt plagued her till she fell asleep out of fatigue.

That night, she chose to leave the bedroom lights on. The light wasn't going to bother her sleep as much as the darkness.