Night of Horrors

A murder of crows whizzed past the window, from which the setting sun was clearly visible, half swallowed by the western horizon. The orange sky and the clouds were extremely picturesque. The wind blew lazily. The traffic was spellbound in their own illusion of business, getting suffocated in the narrow streets packed with hundreds of people. The darkness covered the welkin, lazily, like a large drop of ink that soaks the whole paper, as soon as the procrastinating sun left the sky. The grey streets turned yellow under the street lights. Thus the dark night fell, replacing a peaceful and yellow evening. The room got dark and there was no one in the apartment to turn the lights on. The sofas were fluffed up, in the absence of people to sit on them. Sound of the second hand of the clock in the next room, which ticked rhythmically, pierced through the silence of the house.

Sound of an engine came in through the window and filled the entire house. The yellow headlights of a car penetrated through the window panes and cast a dynamic shadow of the grills that moved across the opposite wall of the room. Sound of closing car doors abruptly dominated the silence for a moment. For a few long seconds, the sound of footsteps on the stairs came floating through the air. The door knob turned and the door was opened by a couple; a wife and a husband.

"Wasn't it amazing?" asked the wife.

"It certainly was. The ending was a bit hastened though. And they tried to make it perfect, explaining everything in the end. If you ask me, I wouldn't write a story like that. I would leave it halfway, when the climax is maximum... Anyways, movie makers these days are focusing on money rather than the art," criticized her husband.

"Yes, they don't make movies with iconic endings often," sighed the wife.

She changed her clothes to something more homely. The husband didn't. She made coffee for both of them. She picked up the hot sauce pan and poured in the milk in their cups. Her husband called and said he was already late and told her to be a little quick. She quickly added the coffee and stirred both the cups with a teaspoon. The cups were laid on the dining table. The husband picked up his cup of coffee and drank it without taking a seat. He bent his elbows and pulled down the sleeve a little, to take a look at the watch. It was already 7:20 pm. He went to his room and picked up his brown briefcase. It contained all the statistical reports of the company's investments within the last two years, that his boss told him to make ready. He had an important meeting with a big investor today that could promote him if the meeting doesn't get botched. Within a minute he exited through the front door. Another minute later the sound of a reluctant engine filled the compound. The closing of a car door was followed by footsteps on the stairs, which were again followed by the opening of the front door.

"Where's the engine-oil?" asked the husband, frustrated.

"Here," after a moment the wife brought out a bottle from the balcony, with was adjacent to the kitchen. They kept lubricants outside of their rooms, for their foul smells.

"Thank you, I will leave it in the garage," he extended his hand to take the can, but it slipped and a considerable amount of oil got spilled on the floor. "Oh crap!" he exclaimed with even more frustration.

"Don't worry, I will clean it up," his wife took charge of it.

This time the sound opening of the hood and finally a successful ignition filled the air. The car left the compound to serve its master as he pleased. The wife took out a torn cloth from the bottom of the cupboard and placed it on top of the puddle of oil trying to soak the oil. The cloth soaked some of it though not the complete puddle. The wife realized that it would take some time. So she left the cloth there and went to the bathroom. She took off her clothes and turned the tap of the shower. Warm water began to precipitate from the shower and fell on her skin. She savored the warmth and began humming the tune of a song that she had heard a long time ago, probably when she was still in the university. She thought about the movie that she had watched with her husband. It was an average movie. Not conveying any references of messages through symbols. The last movie she watched was of Bong Joon-Ho. It was purely symbolic and the symbols conveyed beautiful meanings. She was not a film enthusiast but she knows how to watch a movie and what to watch. As she was musing about films, suddenly the light went out, leaving her surroundings drenched in the darkness.

"Ah! Here we go again!" she exclaimed, knowing that it was the faulty inverter. It had to be banged hardly to make it work again.

She wrapped the towel around her wet body and came out of the bathroom. All the lights had gone off. She tried to find the torch. But it was not in the bedroom, where it was supposed to be. Then she remembered that she had taken it with her when she went to the cinema, as her husband had told her that they would walk. She had probably left it on the car.

"What a great evening!" she blurted out sarcastically. She remembered about the cigarette lighter. Her husband didn't smoke while going to the office. So she walked to his room, sensing her way through the darkness by moving along the wall. Thankfully the dressing table, where her husband kept her portable belongings, was near the door. She sensed it with her hands and pulled the drawer. The first thing she laid her hand on was the purse.

'Did Nishant forget his purse?' she thought, with extreme frustration.

About 14 kilometres away, when Nishant entered the toll gate, he couldn't find the purse to pay the toll. No, it was not in his pockets. He searched in the dashboard, it was neither there. 'Shit!' cursed Nishant. He neither had any change in his pockets. But how can it be! He had taken the purse to the cinema, and now he was directly here. He didn't remember taking the purse out anywhere, except for when he paid for the tickets. 'Wait... I didn't pay for the tickets. It was Ruhi,' he now remembered. He hadn't taken the purse even to the cinema. It was a major problem. It had the key-card to his office cubicle. How would he enter the office of he didn't have his key-card! 'Damn it,' Nishant cursed loudly this time. The man at the counter asked what the matter was. The car behind were honking incessantly. The man opened the barricade and told Nishant to take a U-Turn. He did so. Now he had to travel back 14 kilometres again. It was one hell of a night!

Ruhi found the lighter. It would emit enough light to let her find the way to the store room, where the inverter was. She was about to light the candle when she smelt it. 'Oh! You have to be fucking kidding me!' she almost screamed this time. It was the smell of LPG. The gas was leaking. Now she can't light the lighter without stopping the gas leak. Where was her phone? She hadn't seen it anywhere. She tried to find her phone by going back to her room. No, it wasn't there. Where could it be? Yes, she remembered that she left it in the kitchen while making coffee. That lead to another remembrance that she had forgot to turn the gas off, after pouring the milk. The flame might have been extinguished by the wind and hence gas is leaking. She had finally a plus point this time. Two of her problems shared a same destination. She began striding towards her kitchen, when she heard a sound. Something was rustling. She turned around and look here and there, straining her eyes in the dark, in vain. It rustled again. By guessing that the sound came from the window, she thought that it was only the wind. But before she could walk again, something whizzed past her. She felt a chill running down her spine. She turned her head behind, sharply. No, there was nothing. The smell of the cooking gas was getting stronger. Her pupils were now completely dilated. Still she could see no far than the sofa that was about two feet away from her.

She tried to look what had just whizzed past her and when she was looking towards the kitchen, it came from behind and scratched her left ear. She jumped in reflex. It was a bat. She saw it, before it hid itself again in the darkness. Ruhi felt sharp pain in her ears. She touched to look if she was bleeding. No, not yet, it was just a bare scratch. And then the bat came again, this time it flapped its wings at Ruhi's face. Her reflex made her jerk again, but this time, unfortunately, she stepped on the oil-soaked cloth that she had put on the spill, and slipped. She fell on the floor headlong, and by an extremely unfortunate stroke of bad-luck, the light got lighted.

Nishant was accelerating his car at the fastest speed possible to attain in the traffic. Fortunately there was no jam. He stepped on the accelerator again as the car neared his home. He took a right-turn, to enter his street. But before he could pull-over, an ear deafening explosion took place. It shattered the windows of the car. Nishant couldn't hear anything except for a long non-ending beep. As he looked upwards towards the explosion, he saw that his house was on fire. His heart skipped a beat, his throat became dry. The shock paralyzed him. He saw people running towards his home. Finally after gaining his wits, he immediately got off the car and ran towards his home.

"RUHI!!!!!!!" he shouted as loud as he could.

"HELP!" someone shouted back.

"Oh my goodness, she's alive!" someone said looking at the burning building with disbelieve in his eyes.

"HELP!" she shouted again, probably louder this time. But how? The whole house is on fire, how could anyone save her?

Nishant couldn't hold himself back. He ran into the building. People tried to stop him. Someone even tried to grab him. But he couldn't be held back. He ran into his home. The fire stopped him though. The wail of the sirens of Fire Brigades could be heard above the sound of the city.

"HELP!!" she shouted. Her shouts could be heard over the sirens. Two of the men had gone inside the house to bring Nishant back. He was on the brink of unconsciousness. The others, who were standing outside the gates, looking at the burning building, saw something that none of them will ever forget. A woman on fire jumped through the window of the second floor and landed on the courtyard, unfortunately, on her head. Her skull cracked and brain splattered out...

But the full-moon and the stars that remained in the sky as a substitute for the bright sun, gave them a chilling cold look and didn't give a damn about what happened.

***