The Sequeira Bungalow

The Sequeira Bungalow

I heard the door shut with an unnaturally slow screeching noise and hesitated one more time. Was I doing the right thing by taking up this challenge, I thought to myself. Rahul, Sunita and Deeksha must be laughing their heads off outside!

"I bet you a hundred rupees you won't have the nerve to go in," Deeksha had said mirthfully. Rahul and Sunita had added two more hundred-rupee notes and upped the ante. Everyone in the college knew that I scorned the very idea that the Sequeira Bungalow was haunted, and today, I had promised earlier, I would prove myself right by going in and coming out with a souvenir.

The legend that surrounded the bungalow was nearly 70 years old. According to what people believed, the Sequeiras had settled down in the town over a hundred years ago, and three generations of their family had grown up in the bungalow. They were cashew and coconut farmers in Goa, and their produce was one of the best from the entire bunch of similar farmers in the countryside. Ralph Sequeira, the patriarch of the family in the early 1900's, had toiled night and day to make the farms behind the bungalow fertile. His three sons had, in their turn, further improved the yield of the farms and made the family prosper so much that they were soon acknowledged as the richest cashew farmers of Goa. The eldest son Michael had joined politics and had soon became Mayor of Panaji, the chief city of the state.

About a decade after the demise of the patriarch, things began to go wrong. It seemed that in their greed to grow more and earn even more, the family became indirectly responsible for the death of an old farmer who had helped them for nearly forty years. The farmer died in an accident that was directly due to the poor maintenance of the machines that helped harvest the crop. When the farmer's family demanded compensation, the Sequeiras used their money power to throw out the case and denied even a basic package of relief to the widow and her children.

Over the next few years, local support for the landlords flagged and many farmhands left the family to search for jobs elsewhere. The attrition of the work force led to a gradual downfall of the business. Then, about 70 years ago, one of the granddaughters died a horrible death by fire when a part of the bungalow burnt down. Her body, the legend said, had been charred beyond recognition and only a few fragments could be recovered for burial in a family plot located within the grounds of the bungalow. The family moved out and resettled outside India, and the bungalow gradually fell into disrepair. Stories about ghosts began to circulate as time passed, and very soon, the bungalow gained reputation as a haunted house.

All this and more went through my mind as I shook my head, pushed the main door open, and walked into the large cavernous hall. The furniture was all covered, and cobwebs hung in every nook and corner of the hall. The sound of my footsteps echoed throughout the empty structure. From one of the dark corners of the house, a sudden cloud of dust erupted, and three, (or was it four?) pigeons flew out and went past my cheeks and out from the door behind me. Was I shaken? You bet I was. However, the fact that these were just birds and not ghosts soon restored my mood and I ploughed ahead.

Dried leaves and dust under my feet made a peculiar noise as I slowly advanced. There were stairs in front of me, and they went up to a first storey. To my left was a door that led to the kitchen and dining area, while doors to my right and in front seemed to go into the living area, guest rooms and what seemed to me to be a study room. I shone my flashlight into each of these rooms, but there was nothing unusual, just routine stuff. It was nearing dusk, and I knew I had to finish my "round" soon, or it would soon be dark.

I brought out my light and shone it into the study room. Books lined one wall; the table and chair seemed to be half-rotten. I opened the cover of the book that lay on the table absentmindedly. "The Scientific Cultivation of Malabar Cashews", read the title. It was written by one Edward Finnegan, perhaps an Irish author. Smiling, I closed the book.

Suddenly, my cell-phone rang. "How are you, Aditya?" asked an obviously worried Rahul.

"Now," I retorted, "that scared me more than any of the non-existent ghosts, you stupid ass!"

Sunita chimed in: "Are there any ghosts?"

"None so far, and not likely to be any," I said with not a little confidence. "Hey, guys, why don't you all come in too?"

"Er ... no," said Sunita. She seemed unsure. They had a small chat, and Deeksha was on the line.

"Are you sure there are no ghosts?" she asked timidly.

"Of course, I am sure, Deek," I laughed. "Come on, come over. I am right here, down in the large hall."

They were waiting just outside the main gates of the grounds, and they were soon with me.

With the chatter that grew between us, any ghost would have run away! We decided to take the stairs and go up.

Obviously, I was wrong. The fact that I am telling you this means that I am alive to tell you, right? Guess again.

*****

The moment we had stepped into the first bedroom, I sensed that something was askew. It had darkened considerably, and my flashlight could only scan about three feet ahead of us on the floor, or about four feet on the wall ahead of us.

The bed seemed to have been made for the night! Deek noticed this at first and pointed at the neatly arranged covers with a trembling hand. Rahul stopped in his tracks.

"May be someone is living here ... a tramp or someone who is comfortable sleeping here," I said, trying to convince myself as much as the others.

"I don't like this," said Sunita breathlessly. "Let's leave right now," she added for good measure.

"Leave?" I almost shouted with disbelief. "There must be a valid explan ..."

My voice was suddenly cut off when a gust of wind suddenly shut the door behind us. The sound of the slamming door was enough to make me drop my flashlight.

"Who ... who closed the door?" asked Deek.

The flashlight rolled this way and that, casting rotating shadows on the floor.

All four of us ran to open the door, but it would not budge. Rahul and I tugged at the wrought iron handle with as much force as we could bring to it, but the door stayed shut.

We were all scared beyond belief. We ran to the shuttered window on the other side of the bed, but this, too, would not yield to our combined efforts.

"We are doomed," said Rahul and none of us dared disagree with him. I realised that this was no joke. No one remembered the bet. We all stood apprehensively in the middle of the room, awaiting whatever had locked us in.

The noises seemed to start from behind the wall, ululating to a crescendo as they came nearer and nearer. There were human sounds too, but there were some that sounded very, very inhuman: they seemed to be the baying of a wolf, the imagined cackle of witches, the noises that goblins made in those C-grade ghost movies that we often saw in the vacations on the DVD, and the whoosh and wheesh of things that we could not even begin to describe.

The covers on the bed moved, and we all stood transfixed, no one shouting or screaming, as a dark creature rose from the centre of the bed, and grew till it filled the entire space around us. It seemed to have two burning orbs for eyes, and a mouth that expanded till it was more than a foot wide and long, and God knows how deep. I noticed that it had no teeth, but a large, elongated tongue that licked the edges of the mouth and made loud slurping noises.

"Who may you be?" it asked, and we all cringed back.

"Why have you come to my house?" it said, and I saw a flash of long hair behind its head. The voice was distinctly feminine.

It was all I could do to prevent the others from passing out. I stepped forward just a little, my hands folded in a universal "forgive me" posture in front of my torso.

"We just came to ... see ...this bungalow," I said with an unnatural bluster that I did not feel at all.

More voices grew around us as other forms began to gather. There was a stench in the room and all air seemed to have got sucked out.

The creature changed its voice as it turned into a gruff masculine timber.

"You had no business to come here," it said, and its tongue shot out suddenly and scraped my cheek. The feel of the gooey, hot tongue licking my face caused me to fall to the floor, my knees turning to jelly as I lost it. I screamed aloud then, and all my friends did likewise.

The entities around me must have become angry, for they all screamed too, like crazed banshees. The large creature in front of me drooled, and large gobs of the sticky liquid fell on both Sunita and Deeksha. At that moment, Deeksha passed out and Sunita changed from a coherent, grown-up woman into a mad, blabbering idiot, her words coming out unstoppably, running into each other as she wailed with deep fear and anguish.

I began to choke then, as the lack of oxygen began to take its toll on my mind and body. Things began to go fuzzy, the sharp borders of the bed and the covers soon merging into one blurred shape as I closed my eyes and remained there, breathing, but in tortuous gasps, as the air in my lungs emptied and my body began to ache and cry out for precious oxygen. Around me, all my friends, too, had fallen and lost awareness of everything around us.

The creatures began to make even more noise, this time, obviously tinged with pleasure, as they moved in for the kill. I opened my eyes momentarily, and saw jaws, teeth and blood – a lot of blood – as my friends became victims to their hunger and evil lust for human flesh. I don't remember the rest of it.

*****

Here I am, now, one of them: we await the next lot of humans. And, I must say, our leader, Mr. Sequeira, has taught us patience as much as the art of scaring, overpowering, and finally, devouring victims. Deeksha and Sunita are also with me, and my friend Rahul has been the keenest student of all; he has been promoted into the inner circle of the resident ghosts with his first kill last week.

END

Word Count: 1882

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