It was hardly one year I went to the house of Vijay. We never contacted even through those days. However, we were connected through a wave of friendship between our hearts, I was sure.
The night has worn its dark long rob. I was participating in a cocktail party conducted by my best friend on the eve of his marriage. I was actually unaware of the passage of time. I felt the night was so young. After a spree of bout I started from there to home.
Escaping from the jam in the city, I entered into National Highway. There was another jam just before the bridge. I waited behind the long line of vehicles.
Suddenly I saw the side road. It was the way to the house of my friend Vijay. How long back I had been to his house. I thought. My bike turned to that road and leaped through that way. The road became narrowed and ended at the bank of a river. On the side of the river was the house of Vijay. The gate was seen locked and there was no light inside or on the road or in the nearby houses.
Vijay and myself were college mates. I used to come to his house, those days. There is a huge mansion opposite Vijay’s house. That mansion was locked for years since the inmates were abroad. We used to go to that house, sit on the large verandah and have long talks about literature, our beloved subject and occasionally have some drinks. Vijay had a habit of using narcotics and I was dead against it. I used to advise him against his bad habit. He will just laugh.
I stopped in front of his house. I took my pen torch and lit to the yard. The yard was full of dry leaves showing that no one is living there.
I took my mobile phone and dialled Vijay’s number, but there was no response. I walked forward to ask at the next door but there was no light. I looked at the watch and it was midnight!
I continued dialling and all the calls were “failed”, even then I continued dialling.
I decided to return back. I walked towards my bike. Suddenly the phone was on line. Vijay’s cell responded it was ringing. A feeble sound from far away place answered.
“Hello Roy, this is me Vijay”
“Hello Vijay I am Roy where are you?” I shouted. I heard a sound of tempest from his phone. A vibrated weak sound answered.
“Hello”
“Hello Vijay where are you now?” The tempest stopped. A voice as if from a distant planet heard. Now the voice is clear.
“I am here Roy, inside the compound of this mansion, opposite you.”
Somebody pulled me into that compound. I opened the old huge gate. The gate opened with a roar of a beast. There was thick darkness inside the compound. Huge trees stood like ghosts. Through the weak light of stars, the mansion looked like a monster. I walked inside the orchard.
“Vijay where are you?”
The dry leaves murmured in protest under my feet.
“I am here Roy - under the soil where you are just standing.” I was shocked.
The voice as if from a grotto continued.
“I am buried here under the soil. I am murdered”
A terrible wind blew in my ears from the phone.
Again the sound from a cipher spot…..unclear sound from a vacuum place…
“Roy I am sleeping under the soil as a dead body. I was killed and buried here.”
I heard a huge sound of an explosion, Vijay’s cell exploded, it felt so.
I returned back to consciousness. Yes I am here in the midst of darkness and fear, in a dreadful place. I was mad with fear. I don’t exactly remember what happened after then. I somehow came outside and started my bike and managed to run away and reached home and became unconscious. When I woke up, I was in a mental hospital.
How can I disclose this incident to other? If they remove the mud in the compound and see nothing is there they will say, it was just a hallucination of mine, under the influence of liquor. And if otherwise, if it is seen that his body is actually lying there…….. Oh ..I couldn’t just imagine of it. So I am keeping mum and people call me
“He is a mad man”, “who seen something horrible somewhere in the night”.
