Fiction & Nonfiction

The House on NH5

The House on NH5


They loved the location more than the house when the agent showed it to them. After having lived in the heart of the commercial city for quite sometime, Rahul and Divya looked on the serene surroundings rather longingly. Though it looked a bit off the track, everything was within sensible driving distance. Rahul’s firm was just about five miles off and their little son Nishan’s school bus could be spotted from afar. The house on National Highway 5 seemed the right choice.

The detailed tour they took with the agent, showed that it was a furnished house, a rare feature in these parts. The kitchen was in shipshape. The oval rosewood dining table seated six. It bowled Divya right away. Besides the two bedrooms with attached baths and a dining cum kitchen, there was a room upstairs, which could be used as study or nursery. The last owner suddenly sold the house dirt-cheap to the realtors and went away without a trace, Mr. Sharma told Rahul and Divya. Divya was more than puzzled.

The yard on the other hand, looked unkempt. No one lived there long enough to plant a garden or clear the debris that must have been swept inside by a gale or two.
Nishan was running about in the wrap around veranda with a black cat – a stray obviously found its way into the house that had neither a fence nor a compound wall to prevent it. Rahul thought of putting up a bamboo fence as soon as they moved in.

As the family walked out into the open, Divya was startled to see a tree facing the entrance door. It looked desolate and bare. With its branches spread out in a shapeless grotesque way, it looked a specter. A black cat perched on a low branch. In the late evening under the pale light of a wintry moon, its agate eyes looked menacing. Divya felt a chill creeping up her spine. She sensed someone’s watchful eyes on her back. She suddenly turned back and saw the back door unlocked and swinging to and fro making creaky sounds on the old worn out hinges.

‘Mr. Sharma! You forgot to lock the back entrance.’
‘No madam. I have locked it alright.’
‘Then why is it open?’
Mr. Sharma went back to check on it. Almost immediately he returned.
He observed smilingly  ‘it is locked Madam’
Divya went back and found that the door was locked. She was puzzled. ‘It must be the excitement’ she convinced herself.

Two days later the family moved into their new house. The movers and packers finished their chores in two hours flat and left. After the initial excitement died down, Divya started settling down in the new environment. Things appeared normal to begin with.

On the morning of the third day when she got up, she heard the voice of Nishan. She walked into the hall way and what she saw stilled her movement. Nishan was playing ball with someone invisible. Someone of his age and size. The ball rose and stopped in mid air as if someone was holding it.
‘Nishan!’ she cried out in shock.
The ball rolled off the floor and Nishan came to her.
‘Mom I was playing with Lallu’
‘Lallu?’
‘Yes mom, he lives here with his mom and dad. I saw them, mom. They were all angry with us.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the house used to be theirs’
The black cat started meowing and then making raucous sounds.
‘Can cats sense the unseen presences?’ wondered Divya.
When she told Rahul about it, he brushed it aside saying that he didn’t believe in spirits and stuff.

Divya couldn’t ignore the incident or Nishan’s words. Rahul wouldn’t like to move house again, she was certain. ‘I should have enquired more about the house before moving’ she thought dispiritedly.

The tree opposite looked on in mockery, appearing to control devilish laughter.

To Divya’s great dismay, Nishan continued playing with someone of his age in the evenings. She saw he was playing either hide and seek or simply having fun on the bed with someone enshrouded under the sheet.

A week later-
After a particularly busy day, Rahul was returning home after nine in the night. A couple miles from his house, his car suddenly stopped. He tried to start but the engine spluttered and died. A brand new car stopping without any reason- Rahul couldn’t get it.

“Hiya Rahul! Need any help?”
Rahul who was looking into the carburetor looked up and was shocked to find his old flame Neetu standing close. They were college friends. Neetu being bold and liberated had no time or thought for morals. Rahul was one of the many men she fancied and lived with. Rumor had it that she met a millionaire in aviation business and married him.

‘Neetu! You here?’
‘Strange we meet after all these years. I live uphill’
The car suddenly responded and started.
‘Do you want a lift to your place?
‘Yes love, that will be great.

She climbed in and sat close to Rahul. Her favorite scent and something else besides assaulted his nose. ‘So how’s life Rahul? "You must have married?’
He told her of his family and job and asked her about her life. She looked a bit morose and said
‘Sometimes things do not work as we plan. My husband turned out to be a sadist and a womanizer. I had hell with him.’
‘Oh no that is too bad. Now you live apart?’
‘Yes at least now I don’t have to face him and be tortured by his words and actions.’
Rahul offered to take her home and introduce his family. She agreed without a demur.

As Divya crossed the hallway to go to her room, she heard the phone ringing.
‘Hi sis! How are you?’ said her younger sister Madhu.
‘Hey Madhu, where are you talking from?’
‘From the rail station. As I don’t know the route to your new house, I thought one of you would receive me.’
‘Ok I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Be at the entrance gate’.

When the sisters were about five miles from NH 5, they saw fire in the distance. They thought it was wild fire, which sometimes ignited the bush on top of the hill.

‘Oh God! The fire is at our place. Oh my God what shall we do? Oh no! Nishan will be home by now!’
Divya got completely broken down and heartrending sobs tore through her. Madhu took over and drove on to the house on fire simultaneously trying to reassure her sister.
The sisters called out ‘Nishan! Nishan! Where are you son?’ when they stopped the car in the front yard. The boy appeared on the side steps. He looked agitated and seemed in a hurry to run away.
By now it became pitch dark. The moon rose. It looked murky and red as if smeared by blood. The cat looked blacker and its meowing harsher and continuous.

As Madhu crossed over the threshold a big burning log fell on her head. Divya and Nishan started screaming. Madhu fell in a heap and immediately something shadowy rose from the flames and assumed the shape of Madhu and went through the back door.

Divya was on the verge of becoming hysterical. She saw a strange woman entering the house with Rahul following her.
‘Divya this is Neetu, an old friend’. Rahul introduced her to Divya.
‘Hi Rahul and I were very close friends,’ said the woman. Divya felt the pangs of jealousy.
‘Rahul! My sister Madhu was here. A burning log fell on her and she fell on the floor’
‘Where?’ asked Rahul. ‘What fire?’ there was no trace of fire.
They looked for Madhu. She was nowhere to be seen. Divya was in agony. She called her parents and they thought Madhu was with Divya. Divya felt she was turning crazy.

All of them went in calling for Nishan. He was nowhere to be seen.
Divya went around the house and found her son at the base of the tree. The bare brown tree looked as though it was to enclose its branches around him. Divya hurried and caught him by the arm and brought him in.
‘Don’t worry Divya. I just called the police and lodged a complaint about Madhu’s disappearance. They should be here in an hour,’ said Rahul.

A very worried and tense Divya started the kettle boiling for some tea.
‘Mommy they are going to kill us today,’ said Nishan as Divya prepared the tea things to carry out to the guest.
‘Don’t make me crazy, son. Don’t talk to them.’ said Divya in a frustrated tone.
‘No mommy it is true. They live in the tree. They are waiting for a chance to kill us.’

As Divya approached the sofa, she saw Neetu walking towards the big window facing the side. Divya felt frozen in her tracks. Fear tore through her. She clutched Nishan to her side protectively. She thought her eyes were playing trick on her. She felt the whole place was full of eerie presences looking on with devilish excitement.
Divya looked on Neetu’s toes, which turned backward. Her serpentine locks reached her ankles. Her black trouser suit further emphasized the satanic apparition.
She cried out in alarm,
‘Rahul!’
Rahul turned to her with his hand locked in Neetu’s.
‘Rahul leave her side. Come away! She is a ghost!’

Rahul turned and watched Neetu’s eyelids turning white and not batting at all. He got really scared now. But it was already late for him to get away.
Rahul was being dragged away by Neetu before he could utter a sound. Divya watched in horror as he was pounced upon and fell down on the floor.
Divya started running towards the front door.
She halted in her tracks when she saw a number of people from the base of the horror tree coming towards the house. She saw they were all steadily advancing towards her with a single determination. All they wanted was to kill her and her son and get their house back silent and desolate. Nishan was right.

She held Nishan with one hand and got the car keys and slipped away through the back door. Her legs were shaky and her heart a faint flutter with mounting tension. Her tongue stuck to the hard palate and she felt her energy draining and started feeling faint. But she had Nishan to take care of and get him as far away as possible from the haunted house.
The few yards to her car seemed a great way off by the time she reached her car parked out side the gate. It was almost midnight and Divya knew that the witching hour could be even more dangerous for humans. Her fingers trembled as she inserted the key into the ignition.
As she backed out to the main road, she heard screaming and shouting and a great din. She sped away pressing on the accelerator.
‘Look mommy there is a fire after us. Go fast mommy!’ Nishan started shouting excitedly.

Divya spotted the police car in the distance. Now she knew they were safe. She heaved a sigh of relief and sped on to a close friend’s house.
It was reported two days later that two dead bodies were recovered from the deserted house on NH5; those of a young woman of twenty or so and a man in late thirties. Post mortem revealed that both suffered some mysterious internal injury beyond the doctors’ guess.

The house on the NH5 is still a conundrum for the state authorities. Investigation is still going on when last heard about it.


Word count: 1970