It took Anay the better part of an hour to explain to Vishwa what was transpiring in his life. Vishwa sat in rapt silence as Anay unfolded event after event and came right up to this point in his life. Vishwa, stupefied, absorbed all of it and said, "You mean there's a spirit in this room?"
Anay nodded. "He latches on to me."
"Are you guys fucking with me?" Vishwa said.
"Why would we?" asked Anay. "You just saw it. Dude, this thing whatever it is, is quite powerful. Imagine something that can make a tremor like that or make an entire café collapse."
"Fuck! Have you seen it?"
"I have." Anay provided grim details of the episodes when he felt the clammy fingers on him.
Vishwa rose. "All right, then I have to leave. Sorry, guys, but these kinds of things super-freak me out. I won't be able to sleep for nights now, thanks to you. And now this hotel room creeps me out. Sorry, I am not going to stay here and play detective with you two."
Darkness was already permeating the room with a bad vibe. The evening hour had come and they hadn't realized it.
After Vishwa left, Kautuk and Anay filled up two ashtrays with cigarette butts thinking what could be done. There were the practical things to talk about too. What would Anay do next? Where would he stay? So much of it! Kautuk had offered to stay on for a while.
"But be careful, Kautuk," Anay warned. "He's hell-bent on taking everything that gets close to me. The way this is going, I am afraid for your life too."
Kautuk laughed aloud. "I am not afraid of ghosts," he said. "They don't scare me. I'll hang out with you for a while. Let's really hope that your ghost guy appears. I will get a good look at him."
Anay did not protest further. In fact, he was happy his friend was staying back. It gave him a measure of courage.
For long moments did they sit in silence then, doing nothing but scrolling down their phones. Anay was reminded of Shanaya when he saw her last message. She hadn't messaged today. There hadn't been a goodnight message from her after their uncomfortable parting at the multiplex. Nor had there been her customary good morning message.
"She's not replying, is she?" Kautuk said, noticing his frustration.
"It's good that she is not. Better to keep her away."
But his face showed his disappointment. He had managed to annoy her finally. He suppressed that pang of guilt; it was the right thing to do. After everything was sorted out, he would go and apologize to her. She would understand.
Kautuk was now pacing up and down the tiny hotel room. Outside, there was the highway that connected the city to the other northern parts of the state. The evening traffic on it had increased, and the incessant honking and screaming of the irate drivers made things like ghosts and spirits seem so far removed from the real world. Was such a thing as haunting even possible? How could one account for it?
"It's a waste of time," said Anay. "He is very clever. He is a spirit; he knows. He won't come out of the shadows now. Ghosts don't appear when you are looking for them."
Kautuk could not suppress a sardonic laughter. "Do you realize what fools we appear to be right now? What the holy hell are we doing here? Ghost hunting?"
"He won't make his presence felt unless I am at the most vulnerable and alone. You go, Kautuk. You have done a lot."
Kautuk did not reply. He walked up to the window.
And then something happened.
It was at the moment when he was just about to go to close the window to keep the evening mosquitoes out. Hardly had his fingers grazed the handle of the window when the entire thing shuddered with a loud bang again. It almost caught Kautuk's fingers between the two panes, and he would have lost them if he hadn't been quick.
"What the fuck was that!" Anay said, jumping off the bed where he had been sitting on.
"I don't know," said Kautuk, his eyes round as saucers. "I was just about to close the window when it hit back at me. Ouch!"
He looked at his fingers. He hadn't escaped unscathed. The bleeding cuts on them bore testimony to the fact.
***
It took two hours for Vishwa to reach Versova from Mira Road, and then a further hour to locate and convince Mukesh Patel to give him the keys to the house. That part had been especially difficult, but he had had nothing to lose. "Sir, I am an office colleague of Anay Ghosh. You know he had to leave in a hurry and he does not wish to trouble you anymore. But he has left behind some important papers in the apartment. He has asked me to fetch them. Could you please let me into the apartment for a few minutes?"
Vishwa did not think that ruse would work. Only an idiot would fall for it. He would probably be kicked out of the building or even worse. But he had to get to the bottom of Renee's death. He hadn't fallen for those bullshitting theories about ghosts, though that was what he had made them believe. He had to somehow break into the apartment now. He did not know why, but he felt he owed it to Renee to find out more about her death.
"Anay's friend, you say?"
"Yes, sir."
"You know he's a murder suspect, no?"
"It's an office file, sir. Very urgent. We need it."
"How do I know you are Anay's friend?"
"Sir, I can call him," said Vishwa, thinking furiously on his feet. He took out his phone and suddenly remembered he had one of Anay's previous numbers—a prepaid number that he did not use anymore. He called that number. He knew the SIM had been long deactivated, but that didn't stop his heart from beating like a war-drum. What if the number had been reassigned and the new owner picked it up? He let the phone ring on loudspeaker. It went unanswered. "I think he's busy. It won't take more than ten minutes." He scrolled through the phone and found a pic of Anay and him goofing around at some party. "See, we are good friends, sir."
Patel thrust his gnarly fingers into his loose white home pants and got out the bunch of keys. There were about twenty of them, all looking absolutely similar, undistinguished by any marks or labels. Without even looking at them, he got one of them out. "Here," he said.
"Are you sure this is the right key?" Vishwa asked.
"Sure as you are standing here. Now go and return the key in ten minutes."
Vishwa climbed the stairs of the E wing of the building. He came up to the third floor from where she had fallen. The exact spot was made identifiable by the marks made by the police. He noticed some grills lying propped against a wall. Perhaps the builder was fencing up the area now. But for poor Renee, it was too late. A tear glistening in his eye, he touched that wall. He felt the damp coldness, but it didn't unnerve him. It was as if he was communicating with Renee.
He could, in fact, feel her presence there still. "Come to me, Vishwa," it had breathed in his ear, causing a sudden ripple of longing to course through him. "I am still in the apartment where I died. Come. I will tell you everything..."
He was now at the door, holding the key, ready to thrust it into the keyhole. What would he find on the other side? What did Renee want to show him? He knew she was here. Or, maybe he just wanted the closure of seeing the place where she was at last. Yes, that was it. His subconscious mind had wanted him here and that was why he had heard her. Mumbling the name of the god he prayed to, he pushed the door open.
The utter darkness of the apartment disoriented him for a moment. When his eyes focused, he first saw the long couch in the main hall. Surely the two of them had sat there. He kept his hand on the couch, trying to feel Renee's warmth still on it. Then another thought made him jerk. Did they drink? Did he start kissing her on the couch itself or did he wait? Who initiated? He was loath to believe it was Renee. Surely that bastard Anay had made the first move. He balled up his fist and hit the wall behind him.
Vishwa was enmeshed in such thoughts when he was suddenly alerted to a noise in the inner room, the bedroom. He had been to Anay's house earlier, but he had never seen that part of the house. He waited, and his ear twitched again as the noise repeated. Like someone walking in the room. But was it an illusion? This house, situated so close to the beach, was no stranger to uncanny noises.
"Renee?" he called, half in hope, half in terror.
There was something in there. He leaned a bit to look into the room. The white door was partly closed but he could see a portion of the dark room, and in it he could discern something in the darkness. His heart leaped into his mouth. Someone was standing in there. A hooded figure dressed in some kind of a long black gown fluttering in the sea breeze that the neighborhood was famous for.
The next moment, he chided himself. It was his mind playing tricks; that was all. He had had all that ghost talk with the boys and that was where this was coming from. There was no Renee anymore. This was all a wild goose chase. He slapped his cheek to bring himself back to full alertness.
But that gown-like thing was still there. He could see it.
Maybe it was a garment left behind, now hanging away forgotten on the doornail behind the door. He would have ignored it, but then there was something.
And then, in the wind that blew in his face, he clearly heard a word. It was a whooshing sound, and in that whoosh, he heard: "VISSSSHHHWAAAAA..."
He jumped. He heard another sound. A dull thud-thud-thud. It was like a sack filled with something beating slowly against the door. Something was beckoning him.
That was the moment Vishwa should have run out of there. He had already heard the stories from his friends. He should have left everything and run. But as he stood there in that starkly empty and dark house with the salty breeze from the sea licking his face, he felt he was meant to be here. Something had called him, or why would he foolhardily come here at all? Whatever was in that room was calling out to him now, seeking his attention.
"Hullo! Is someone in there?" he said. Then he took a step forward, in the direction of that room, and he could no longer tell whether that sound he heard was the thudding of that thing against the door or his own rapidly increasing heartbeat. Coupled with that fear was a magnetic attraction in his legs that was remorselessly pulling him toward the door.
Just like that, he said, "Renee? Is that you? Please tell me it is you."
He wasn't able to see anything apart from the fluttering shred of the black gown yet, but some unknown intelligence in his mind hoped that it was Renee. And so overwhelming was that feeling that he forgot all caution.
His pace accelerated. There were only seven steps he needed to take to reach the room, and he took them very quickly, and pushed the door aside, and then he looked behind it with an eager expression on his face.
That very moment, his hands flew up to his eyes. He shrieked like the sky had collapsed on his head. He had seen something there, behind the door, and even if it was for only a split second, he would forever wish that that sight had never met his eyes. So ghastly was that sight, that he now rubbed his eyes with such fervor that it appeared as if he was trying to scratch them out.
What he had seen could only be described as this:
The black thing fluttering away and banging against the door was almost like a human body. But its feet did not touch the floor. That could not be made out very clearly, for the body wore a long black robe, made of many shredded cloth fragments, or at least they looked like cloth, and those were the things that were flapping away in the breeze. The thing had long arms that hung limply by its sides, and only the hands were visible; their fingers too long and too pale to be of human origin. These were the hands that were hitting the door rhythmically as that thing swayed in the breeze. It was inconceivable how that body would sway because of the breeze, though, for the body looked heavy enough to be moved by it. And in that one glimpse, Vishwa also saw what would be seared into his memory forever—the body was dangling from a doornail which was embedded into the back of its skull.
All of this, he absorbed within one glimpse. He recoiled and made his way to run out of the room, but something stopped him. There was a purpose to this, he knew. He had been summoned. Why had he been summoned? Somehow, he braved himself and looked at the face of the person who was hanging thus.
The face was devoid of all color and most definitely dead, the lips having gone blue several moons ago. He did not know whose face it was and felt a pang within his heart when he saw that it wasn't Renee.
As he moved in closer to see who it was, it was the ultimate moment of terror! Those eyes, those lifeless orbs, suddenly flickered. And that hanging limp and long-dead corpse opened its eyes—so wide that it was if there weren't any eyelids at all and the eyes were simply thrust into their skull sockets—and a pair of blue, intensely blue, irises looked right into the very soul of the terrified man.
Vishwa shrieked and backed off with such force that he toppled over and fell. He did not dare to open his eyes anymore. He knew his eyes were accursed forever, for he had glanced into the very soul of hell.
An object fell on him then. He felt that object—it was something flat and rectangular and light—and he knew it wasn't just an accident. That thing, whatever it was, had flung that object on him deliberately.
That was when he heard the words:
"TAKE IT TO ANAY."
Here it was, then. The ghost or the spirit or whatever that was had given him something. That villain dressed in attire that looked like a nun's shredded habit had entrusted him with a precious secret. The importance of it did not escape him, but he could not bring himself to look at it.
He took that thing and fled out of the house. He ran over to Patel's house, flung the keys at him, and rushed out of the building. He stuffed that thing in the folds of his shirt as he ran, still not daring to look at it. He was sure that anybody who saw that infernal object would be similarly accursed. He had to give it to Anay; that much he knew. Without wasting another moment, he hailed a cab that would take him all the way back to Mira Road. It stopped on the other side of the road.
As he ran to cross the road to get to the cab, he failed to notice the 48-seater public service bus that was hurtling down the road from the far end.
***
Damn, what just happened?