What Just Happened...? Part 2

                            Now that you know what a nervous wreck I'am, let me introduce you to the startling transformation my friends underwent in the aforesaid two minutes of high pitched activity. The regular snoring had ceased and the source of it was standing near us with his face enveloped in curiosity but with an unmistakable tinge of fear in it and not a trace of drowsiness. He had been well and truly woken up.
                            The three guys with me, each sturdily built, normally excitable and enthusiastic were now breathing a trifle too heavily with furtive glances towards the yes, cemetery. The two minutes had reduced the lot of us to a puddle of panic. In a minute or two, we managed to bring ourselves out of the trance and I was the first to speak, "What just happened...?" Obviously, nobody had an answer. One of my mates ventured to the window overlooking the burial place three storeys down, looked out for a brief second and closed the window declaring with finality and high priestess, "The air is sinister".

                            











For once, no one argued with him. He had been saying that for sometime but in light of the twin screams we had just been subjected to, we weren't exactly looking to convince him otherwise. A friend suggested, "I felt like it came from somewhere above, not below". We duly nodded our solemn heads. He was right. That was how it had seemed. I said, "What shall we do..?"

                            "What the hell will you do..are you crazy? Just sit on your butt and and...." he trailed off. He was nervous too. I complied without comment or complaint. The guy had a point. 

                           The third scream was much closer to us and in accompaniment to it, followed very closely a deafening thud on our front door. The scream, more urgent this time and the thud, almost like a demanding knock for us to open the door to the other side. We weren't gonna oblige.

                            I started to freak out. 

                            "Arey, what the hell is happening ra..."

                           A friend, wise guy retorted, "Ghosts do not knock on doors and windows. They come right in".

                            I was too aghast at his reply to offer one of my own. I just stared open mouthed at the rest.

                           This was unprecedented. Totally. A few minutes past midnight on a cool winter night, we had lived through triple deadening screams and a singular deafening (knock?) on our door with our backs to the (resting?) dead. Freaked out though I was, I couldn't resist the thought that finally something exciting was happening after a long time. True, I just wanted something slightly out of the ordinary, not paranormal in nature. But certainly, adrenaline production which had taken a sabbatical for sometime, was rapidly being pumped and it was pulsating stuff.

                           Now, the five of us were in a dilemma. Two of us wanted to open the door. The rest, you guessed it, yours truly included, would have none of it. With melodrama borrowed from Bollywood and a seriousness derived from Scully, I shouted, "Who knows what's out there?!!"

                           Gingerly, I got up and proceeded to the balcony overlooking the entrance to our building. The rest followed. We looked down past the branches of the neem tree and saw two figures walking around. Being already on tender hooks, I jumped and tugged at my friend's sleeve, "Look,look"!! 

                            "You ass, that's the watchman and his wife"!

                            Ok, I thought but what were they doing making rounds at the dead of night. I called out, "What are you doing there"?

                            The both of then looked up ,then looked at each mysteriously for a second but didn't reply.

                            "I'm talking to you, what are you doing there"?

                            This time he replied, "I heard a noise and saw someone running just now. Woke me up".

                            "We heard it too, it looked like someone knocked on our door".

                            Within moments, the doorbell rang and the watchman with a couple of other residents was at the door. A friend of mine was trying to retell the incident from our perspective. Triple screams peppered with a demanding knock/thud.

                            I pulled the same guy's sleeve a second time. He looked at me annoyed and said sharply, "What now"?

                            This time however, he did not call me names, he didn't say anything in fact. He just looked at what I was pointing to, not offering anything 'cept stunned silence. In a couple of seconds, the others sensed something was afoot and looked at what we were staring at. The eight of us looked, hooked completely. My heart wasn't mine any more.                            

What Just Happened...? Part 1

                   The verdict of Ayodhya was out and contrary to popular belief, the city of Pearls was relatively quiet and the entire day was uneventful. Well, almost.
                   Over the last few years or so, we had been lucky enough to have been part of something or the exciting at least every other night. Alas, it was not the same now. Nightly ventures, harmless run-in's with the law and those wonderful nocturnal escapades, they were history now. We passed most of our time reliving those dramatic events of yesteryear. Times had changed. Life, simply, was not that exciting any more.
                   We were playing cards, four of us. Weren't playing for money, nor for fun. Just for want of a better thing to do. The others were playing to win, while I was looking to end it and hit the sack. My boss at work did not appreciate a dreary face in the morning. A fifth was snoring away in the next room and provided the only regular yet irritating sound in the house which otherwise hung in a bored silence. The hand on the clock was nearing midnight. 
                   Just as I was about to pick a card from the deck, I sensed something move in the room next door. Something white in colour for a brief moment, causing a flutter of excitement in my tummy. Though soundless, it had triggered my ever jumpy instincts. I said to the guys, "Something's there..". As expected, they didn't react to it with any interest and we went on with our game. A couple of highly eventful moments later, all our cards were down, our antennae were up and we were looking at each with stricken faces full of fear and bearing expressions that would have made Hitchcock proud. For that was when we heard the scream. Only the first, mind you.
                   My relation with paranormal activity started with Mulder and Scully. It graduated to Stephen King and his "The Shining" which actually prompted a spate of sleepless nights that fortunately ended in school and a very vivid imagination of unearthly beings that continues to haunt me to this day. And there was "The Exorcist". For days, I would examine closely every pair of female legs for any that were turned away, all the while dreading the green fluid that might emanate any moment from their mouths. I have encountered quite a bit of unpleasantness come forth from a female mouth, but luckily not the famous bile. I know, I know, I'm weird.
                   However, having grown up and away from the childish apparitions and dreadful imaginary beasts, I was now more or less content in the world I lived in and not exactly looking for a date with the other world.
                   Now, the scream. All 340 m/s of the Speed of Sound brought with it only the scream. Shattering my otherwise humble existence of playing cards with my mates into a frenzy that I still remember. The shudder it caused me and my cholesterolated heart was spine chilling to say the least. My hands grew numb and I thought, Yes, I might die this very night, and damn, that too a virgin. 
                   I know thinking of dying on hearing a solitary scream is baseless, but my thinking basically is baseless. I thrive on momentous decisions and a terrible foresight borne out of severe pessimism. As we looked at each other, a gust of wind blew in over the tombs as if to remind us that we live right next to the resting place of the dead, an old run down cemetery and that such instances should be dealt with nonchalance and a sense of familiarity. 
                   My heart was breaking all records, running at full hilt and then, almost stopped when we heard the scream again. Boyish, yet high pitched like a girl's, not exactly earth shattering by way of decibels but clearly in its own way wreaking havoc and bringing our routine of jaded silence to a literally "screech"ing halt.