Horror fiction: What haunts Usha and Vishal’s home – the supernatural or the past?

The creature clung to a corner of the ceiling, with the aid of the fleshy suction pads in its hands and feet and observed the sleeping couple. It loved studying pathetic human antics – the interplay of thought, emotion, and action – things that were alien to its own nature. It had done so for centuries, and it never got tired. After all, it was important to appreciate the building blocks of the human soul – that most delightful delicacy. Its stomach rumbled as an ancient hunger gnawed at its core. It had heard them fornicate noisily.

For a moment, jealousy took root in its heart. The feeling was stillborn. It blossomed and withered in a matter of seconds. O, the things the creature had given up for greater joys. Sure there was a pang of sorrow for what was lost, but there was a greater desire for consuming the soul fires that blazed in the living world. It climbed down the wall like a lizard and studied the facial features of its prey. It observed the rapid eye movements beneath their eyelids.

Although both husband and wife were in the clutches of a nightmare it had willed into existence, the woman looked like she was about to escape its paralysing grip. As expected, Usha woke up screaming, and the sound pulled the husband up and out of the abyss of night terrors. He took her in his arms and consoled her. How sweet the assurances he whispered in her ears, to calm her down. The wife had spoken about it in disparaging terms. It would make her see the error of her ways. The husband, the child who was in its care decades ago, still harboured affection.

How beautiful.

That would make the consumption of his life essence more pleasurable. It looked on with its lidless eyes as the two humans decided to go back to sleep. There was lots to do before it sank its proboscis into them. It would show them the painful truths that lived in the shadow realm. It would teach them despair. When Usha and Vishal went back to sleep, it detached from its perch. Its humanoid form exited the room like an octopus clambering through a coral forest.

“Man, you don’t seem so flash,” Abhay, who was Vishal’s colleague and close friend, said to him as they sipped coffee in the planted courtyard of their IT firm. Vishal massaged his sleepy eyes, which were ringed by dark circles, as he nodded and sighed.

“We have been having difficulties sleeping. Nightmares and such,” he said.

“We?” Abhay asked in surprise.

“Yes. Usha has been suffering too,” Vishal said.

“Sorry to be nosy, but are you having marital problems? Mental or physical health issues? My ex and I had a tough time in our relationship when we were trying to conceive,” Abhay said.

“There are no financial issues. Work is good. We have been to the doctors about it. We even have a maid who looks after all our household chores, freeing up lots of time in the evening to relax. So, I can’t think of a reason for us to be stressed,” Vishal said.

“The maid. This is the one from your childhood you have told me about?” Abhay enquired. Abhay was the only person at work who knew about Vishal’s traumatic past.

“Yes. She has been very helpful. It took a while for Usha to warm up to her, but now they are like buddies. Aya even feeds her breakfast some mornings,” Vishal said, smiling for the first time in the conversation.

“Hmm,” Abhay said with a concerned look on his face. He turned his gaze towards two mynahs dipping their beaks in the fountain.

“What is it? You know you can tell me anything? You have earned that right as my bosom buddy. Tell me?” Vishal encouraged him.

“This maid. Do you trust her? I read this article about a servant who was slowly poisoning her owners. They lost their minds thanks to the hallucinogenic properties of the toxin and handed over tonnes of money to their abuser. Then she disappeared, leaving her masters dead in their bed,” Abhay said.

“No. Come on. Aya wouldn’t do that,” Vishal said incredulously.

“I am just raising my concerns,” Abhay said.

“Did the police ever question her about her involvement in your parent’s deaths?”

“No. There was no need for it. She had left days before the tragedy, and I, of all the people in the world, know that it was my mother who committed the crime before. . .”, Vishal let his words trail off.

He never saw his mother after running away from the kitchen, where she was hacking his father to shreds. No one told him how she had taken her own life in that dreadful abattoir. He hadn’t bothered to find out. There was a jackfruit tree covered in creepers on the northernmost border of his maternal grandfather’s orchard, where her ashes were buried in a clay pot covered with a red cloth. He refused to even go near the tree after her cremation.

“I am stumped, bud. I don’t have any theories left,” Abhay said, raising both hands in a gesture of defeat.

“How did you say the servant was poisoning the owners?” Vishal asked.

“She was adding some chemical – I can’t remember its name – to their breakfast,” he said.

“Funny you say that. My father always believed Aya had something to do with my mother going crazy. They had this fight once about why he refused to eat the food Aya cooked. He told my mother, what the hell has that woman been feeding you, for you to lose your mind like this? I am not eating that shit,” Vishal said.

“It’s a line of enquiry worth pursuing,” Abhay added with a stern face.

“But to what end?” Vishal said, still struggling with the idea. “Aya can’t steal our valuables that are in the bank locker, and I don’t see us writing blank cheques for her to cash in. No. Aya took nothing for our home when she left the first time. The police confirmed that,” Vishal said dismissively.

“Let’s dig a bit more and see if there is anything to be worried about,” Abhay said.

Excerpted with permission from Tales of Horror, Nikesh Murali, Fingerprint Publishing.