BESERK! Read online

  Chapter 3: Death Plot

  The bungalow rose over them like a beacon. Even its eerie dim lights were comforting.

  The trio reached the gate and stopped, out of breath. Sumo was last to reach it puffing and gasping, ashen-faced.

  Shan was a suddenly a changed person. Gone was his dark demeanor. Gone was that wild look in his eyes. He was now apologetic, in between gasps he spoke, “Sorry guys but I was scared. I felt like…Ganesh was following us.”

  He did not complete it. But they all knew the feeling. They stood silent. The stone staircase lay before them black, drab and cold akin to the castle of the medieval ages. They huddled in a tight bunch and began ascending it. Cold sweat bathing their bodies. Fear slithered through them like a reptile.

  “Guys let’s get out of here,” Sumo spoke, a plea.

  Narayan immediately interrupted. “Our sudden return may cause suspicions.”

  They reached the silent corridor. It was long, empty and foreboding. Menace was thick in the air.

  “Guys, let’s spend the night together,” Again it was Sumo. Again it was a plea.

  The two readily agreed as if the thought was their own. They all settled in Sumo’s room for the night. Each sat silent mulling over the day’s happenings.

  Only Shan worked on the cigarettes, fixing an ample amount of hashish in each. They needed it tonight.

  Slowly, Narayan began speaking, “My granddad frequently told stories of this place. He said the villagers revealed to him that this land was a mass grave…a cursed land. The spirits still haunt this land… the villagers would also tell him about ...”

  Shivers raced through Sumo. “Shut up you idiot...shut up,” he screamed.

  Unheeded Narayan continued “Dead and live men were buried together....in the mass grave. On Amaavasya—the no moon night, they rise together...”

  Shan sprang like a cat, grabbed and slapped Narayan. “Shut up, another word from you and I’ll kill you....Enough of all this spooky talks…”

  Narayan sat there whimpering. “But I know all of us will die tonight… this is cursed land...”

  Even before he could complete his sentence the three froze!

  Out in the corridor they heard footsteps! The slap of naked feet on stone was audible. Footsteps! Then feet dragging on, slowly, as if injured.

  Beside the three of them there wasn’t any other living being. The closest village was miles away. Nobody ventured out after sunset for the fear of tigers and other wild animals.

  Fear made them immovable, their breathing felt troubled. Lunar silence prevailed in the room. The dragging sound reached their door and stopped.

  Their panic stricken eyes reached for the latches and bolts. All were shut tight. They were safe in or were they trapped?

  What ever was there outside never seemed to move. Seconds ticked like hours.

  It slowly came to life when the dragging sound began once more. They traced the sound moving to the end of the corridor. Then like thunder one of the doors swung open. Its sound reverberated through silent corridor. To their horror they realized it was Ganesh’s room!

  Had the dead man come for revenge?

  The trio sat glued, terror stricken, minutes ticked into half an hour.

  Finally, Shan declared, “I am going out to check. There is no thing as spirits and after life...” The wild look had come over him again.

  The two stared dumbly at him. He slowly arose. Only then they realized that he meant what be said.

  “No Shan don’t do it,” Narayan was first to speak. “Let the dead be undisturbed. We made a mistake by killing him. Don’t challenge him now.”

  Shan turned around. “You speak as if that Thing out there is a spirit. How can you be so sure? Didn’t you hear the sound of footsteps? Do spirits make sounds while moving? It could be a traveler who has lost his way! You both are nothing but eunuchs!”

  “There is evil out there don’t bring it in,” pleaded Narayan “we’ll wait through the night and once its morning we’ll get out of here...”

  They waited once again. Minutes passed as ages.

  “I’m going out!” Shan suddenly shouted like a possessed man.

  “No you are not!” Narayan protested. “The spirits will kill you... then us!”

  “Screw the spirits!” He spat. He picked up a rod, unlatched and opened the door

  Within an instant they knew Shan was wrong. Outside, the corridor smelt of mild but fresh cigar smoke. All along the floor was a trail of fresh muddy footprints leading down the corridor. It ended outside Ganesh’s room.

  Chapter 4: Death Plot

  Shan warily looked up and down the empty corridor. “It can’t happen,” he said aloud, “there’s nothing as ghost... spirits. Once a person dies return is impossible.”

  Sumo winced at his words. It also seemed as if Shan never believed it. He only kept repeating it to extract courage.Slowly, he stepped out.

  The two looked at each other, and Narayan instantly followed. Sumo found himself alone. Even though not wanting to leave the safety of the room, he could not dare to be alone. Quickly, he followed Narayan.

  They trekked warily to the dead man’s room and peeped.

  On the spotless white bed cover was an imprint soiled with mud. As if somebody had lain on it.

  Their blood froze to subzero degree.

  Shan swung around savagely, “It cannot be…” he simply muttered. Entering their room, he grabbed a flashlight and bounded down the corridor.

  “I got to see this to believe,” he shouted over his shoulder at them. The other two called after him but he was walking on with fast determined steps. They raced after him.

  In a moment they realized where he was going…The possessed man was going to the grave? The non-believer was going to check the grave for the corpse!

  The duo did not waste a moment. They were at his heels. He ran down the steps, skipping two at a time. The duo followed pleading after him.

  They reached the open, and the cold bore down on them. It was cold, an unpleasant kind of cold... An uncanny chill that struck right to the spine. They trembled, but not with the cold. Shan walked through the shrubbery determined. The two followed warily.

  Leaves and branches scratched at them as if with harmful intent. The cold grew stronger around them. They reached the copse where they had buried Ganesh. Slowly Shan shone the torch on the spot.

  He gasped in fear. The grave lay violently disturbed...empty. The corpse had disappeared.

  Panic flooded Shan, he turned around and bulled into his two friends and ran.

  Narayan almost fell but quickly regained his balance. Sumo was trying desperately to keep pace with his terrified friends.

  Shan raced into the gate. He never went up the stairs. Instinctively, the others knew that he was heading for the parked van. He was getting out. As he reached the van, he dug into his jeans’ pocket and got out his car remote. He pointed it at the van and jabbed the button.

  With a ping the van’s door unlocked. In a few strides he reached it and clambered in. His friends raced around and he flung open the door. He barely waited for them to get in and turned the ignition key. The van purred slightly but did not move. He turned the key, again the same result.

  “Shit!” He swore. Suddenly the lights in the building blew off, camouflaging the whole area in the black mist—called night. Only the twin cones of the van’s headlights eerily lit the ground ahead.

  They sat frozen like rats. Nobody saw a short shadow move, until too late. The van’s window closest to Sumo shattered like a mild explosion.A hand snaked in and gripped Sumo around his neck.

  The other two were out in a flash, flinging the door shut behind them.

  In his terror Sumo barely heard the ping sound of the locking door. This meant he was trapped in the van. Shan had deliberately locked him up!

  The duo ran, the flashlight lighting their path. They ran up the stairs, reached the first floor and stopped. “What the hell is Ganesh doing?�
�� Narayan angrily asked, “I distinctly told him not to bodily harm Sumo. He just had to frighten him to death. We do not want any signs of struggle in the damn forensic reports. It has to be natural! Damn it!”

  “Yeah,” answered Shan, “Everything was going hunky-dory until Ganesh gave a realistic entry. I nearly leaked in my pants.”

  Narayan had masterminded the plot to murder Sumo months ago. But the death had to appear natural. He hated Sumo. He hated him for his intelligence, his silky smooth tongue, his meticulous sense of etiquette, his ability to be comfortable with friends, relatives even with Narayan’s father. A kind of sibling hatred had developed. He could never compete with Sumo in any fields except, maybe, fear. Sumo was a terrible coward and everybody knew that.

  The final straw was when Narayan got the wind of his father’s will. It revealed that he would have to share a good part of his property with Sumo. At that instant he had plotted with Shan to murder Sumo, promising him a good sum of cash. But it had to be done cleanly.

  That’s when Ganesh Hollerman came into the scene.

  Ganesh was a con-artist who gave live performance of fake zombies to tourist in the West Indies. It was really a trick. Youths undertaking this act had to undergo arduous training for years. A fatal drug, of dilute proportion would be injected in the performer. It was meant to shut down the nervous system temporarily. And slow down the respiratory system, lowering the body temperature. A kind of short hibernation period.

  In this state the body would be buried in a shallow grave. Within an hour or so the drug would wear off. The performer would then climb out and behave like a zombie, thrilling the spectators. This act was decreed illegal in recent times, for the spectator’s faith in ‘zombies’ and superstition increased. Yet, it was secretly performed in remote villages.

  Ganesh was offered a huge sum of money to perform this act and frighten Sumo to death.

  And now the half-breed was bodily harming Sumo. The dark idiot could lead them to the gallows. For now there would be circumstantial and physical evidence. They had put together every thing too well, too convincingly. It was now their turn to feel frightened.

  For weeks they had rehearsed every bit of the plan-Ganesh going through his slow moving walk, the scary talks in the room, and the transformation of Shan as he picked up the corpse... Now their well laid plan was falling apart.

  They waited for sometime, afraid their presence might harm their objective.

  At last, they heard the same slow dragging footsteps. Shan shone the flashlight down.

  It was Ganesh.

  Chapter 5: Death Plot

  “Is he dead?” Shan asked, aiming the flashlight at him like an artiste in the strobe light.

  Ganesh continued towards him. His lack of verbal response angered Shan.

  “We warned you not to harm him bodily.” Shan took him to task. “What was the need to break the window of the van?”

  Ganesh continued his nonchalant walk. The slow dragging of his feet…The vacant look in his obsidian eves.

  “You can shut that act down, now, you fool.” Shan ordered.

  Ganesh did not pay attention and moved slowly towards him.

  “Stop it,” he repeated again, panic rising in his voice. Then he detected a blackish red smear on Ganesh’s temple. “Stop there!” He ordered again, this time unable to hide the panic.

  Suddenly he realized Narayan was quiet, too quiet. “Narayan tell him to stop,” he ordered.

  Narayan stood there, still as if a piece of furniture.

  All of a sudden Shan whipped out a pistol and laughed harshly “Damn Bastards…! I am not Sumo to be scared. I came prepared. Stop it or I’ll shoot.”

  Unheeded, Ganesh continued towards him. The pistol spat lead with a brilliant flame. It hit Ganesh but the man never flinched. He shot another two rounds but Ganesh continued towards him.

  “Blanks!” He yelled in frustration. “You did me good, Narayan you son of a bitch!” In almost a nerve reflex he squeezed the trigger. The pistol exploded and a bullet blasted into Narayan.

  The man screamed and went down like an empty sack. In a flash Shan realized he was not dealing with Ganesh but a zombie or whatever supernatural thing it was. The zombie lunged at him. He dodged the outstretched hand and raced up the staircase.

  Before he could reach the second floor a bloodcurdling cry of death shook the bungalow. Instantly, he knew the zombie had slaughtered Narayan. The same way it had killed Sumo. Somewhere along the con-artist had been transformed into a soulless corpse…a zombie.

  He raced up like a madman till a barred door confronted him. He braced himself and smashed into the door with his shoulder. The door shuddered but remained barred. Once again he bulled into the door. But it remained sturdy. From below he could hear the sound of dragging footsteps.

  The zombie was getting closer, he realized in panic.

  Suddenly, strength was born out of desperation. The next time he hit the door, it flew open. He raced out and found himself on the roof of the bungalow. Quickly he bolted whatever was left of the door. He looked frantically for a place to hide. There were plenty, a large storage water tank, scraps of iron, heaps which were barely discernible in the dark.

  He ran for the tank. It was mounted on low cement blocks. He crawled under it, flattening himself to the ground and waited.

  Soon, very soon, he consoled himself, whatever was after him would go away by sunrise. It would he a matter of hours. Tomorrow he would go and hand himself to the law. Tonight he had to live.

  He cursed the moment he had stepped in this place. Suddenly the silence of the night was assaulted. It sounded like an explosion. Wood and metal shrapnel rained on the floor. It had broken the door. It had come for him. He had to remain quiet.

  The slow dragging feet sounded loud in the silent night. It came closer, then went another way and nearly disappeared. To reappear near the tank, he could see its bare feet. He tightly cupped his mouth to stifle a scream. Its feet were grotesquely twisted backwards! A sign of the dead evilly resurrected. He now realized why it dragged its feet. As he watched in terror, drops of fresh blood dripped near its twisted feet. Fresh blood, from where? He wondered.

  Now he could smell the foul odor, the stench of death and blood. Clumsily it went away.

  For a moment he was tempted to arise and make a break for the door but better sense prevailed. No matter what happened he had to wait, relax himself. He could not let panic take control of him. He had to stick to sanity. As long as he remained silent it did know where he hid, he was safe. Concentrate on something, anything, he told himself.

  Something came rolling under the tank, with a dull scraping sound. Moving towards him in an erratic manner, unlike a ball. It stopped inches before him. Reluctantly, he felt it. It was soft, mushy and…hairy. It oozed a warm liquid on his hand. Within seconds he realized, it was a human head!

  The decapitated head of Narayan! The lifeless eyes stared back at him.

  Fear caused him to empty his bladder in his jeans.

  With a maniacal scream he threw away the head and rolled out from his narrow confines.

  The zombie stood grinning diabolically at him. It lunged at him. Shan dodged it, ran to the edge of the terrace, still screaming he flung himself into the empty space.

  He hit the tarmac with a thud that drowned the sound of his shattering bones. He lay there breathing his last, barely knowing that a few yards away Sumo’s corpse lay.

  The zombie walked to the edge of the roof, watched the crumpled fresh corpse of the youth. Slowly it made its way down the stairs.

  It stopped at Narayan’s headless corpse. Bending down it tore the chest and extracted the heart.

  Moving down the stairs, it reached Sumo then Shan, collecting their hearts too.

  It took the three hearts and buried it at a particular spot in the ground.

  Then the zombie walked all the way to its grave and lay there to rest eternally... or would it be disturbed again?

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  Chapter 6: Death Plot

  EPILOGUE

  The Chaudari Haveli was indeed built on a site that was once a mass grave. It was built way back in 1927. But the site had a gory and much ancient history...

  Gambavandevi—The British Indian Province of Central India 1839

  The pit was a mass grave. Human corpses lay sprawled at the bottom, layer upon layer with barely a thin coverlet of soil over them. It seemed as if the mud was strewn only to cover the grisly sight.

  From above it was a gory scene, a jumble of human limbs all twisted and skewed, half decaying skulls and disemboweled torsos.

  The heavy heat prevailing in the region would soon transform the mass grave into human mulch. For meters around the pit the air would grow foul. With a stench of disease, blood and death.

  The eight villages of Gambavandevi had been hit by a year of drought then by plague. Men and cattle succumbed to the disease like dried leaves in autumn. Wood fell insufficient to consign the deceased and the villagers irreligiously went on to bury their dead, more out of the fear of infecting the healthy.

  The corpses were hauled in the pit like sacks at a loading dock, with no respect at all and by strangers.

  Weeks later the then ruling English took the matter into their hands. They adopted the quickest way, the Kill-to-Control policy.

  The British Cavalry rode into the village like a horde of demons from hell. Raiding the villages and slaughtering every diseased person. Even those individuals showing mild symptoms of the disease.

  All these slaughtered ones were tossed in the pit. But all of them were not corpses, many still held sparks of life in them. And according to the religious scriptures the villagers believed—the dead and the live should never be rested together....

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  The Spirits of the Ancient Slaughtered had transformed Ganesh into the living dead. They had made him cast off his live form to become one of their innumerable slaves. They had wrenched out his life in the most brutal and painful manner and now he was in their control.

  They were the unfortunate cursed lot trapped in the world of the living, akin to an injured animal waiting to strike back. They had lain harmless like the soil until they were desecrated by the living when a living being was buried alive on their ground.