Bombay Shaman - episode 2: The Haunting Hunter

PART VII: It all makes sense

The old elevator was just a little distance away on the right from the working quarters, next to the stairwell area. She pushed the down button and impatiently awaited it's arrival, thinking how right the other staff members had named it — turtlevator — even though the nickname was a bit not so catchy.

Her eyes were naturally drawn to the square stairwell beside it, visible through the glass door coated with semi transparent design. The light of one of the floors was fluctuating. The momentary darkness it cast made her uncomfortable, and she couldn't help but sink into the discomfort.

It was the sound of the elevator door grating opening slowly that snapped her out of the discomfort.

It took an whole minute for it to open. With time, the elevator had become a turtle itself.

Shilpa rushed in and pressed the ground floor button, rolling her eyes.

While waiting for the door to close, the dark end of the corridor with the fused tube light caught her attention.

Something shifted in the shadows and her heart skipped a beat.

The yellow, slitty eyes in the dark met hers again.

However... this time around... the horror did not stop there... it continued.

A monstrous, big, black hand emerged out of the shadows and pressed flat on the ground. Its sharp, long nails scratched the floor, the screech of it highly frightening.

Shilpa froze with fear, her senses going numb as her nervous head overflowed with desperate reactions.

Satisfied by her fear, a crude grin opened slightly below those slitty eyes... it resembled the grin on Pankaj's face.

Shilpa flattened against the elevator wall, wishing the elevator door would close soon, but it seemed it would take another light years for that to happen.

The grin parted and a chilling whisper reached her saying "Run."

Some black monstrosity jumped out of the shadows, big and broad, running towards her savagely.

The elevator door was not going to close. Hell with it. Shilpa darted out the elevator, flung open the door into the stairwell, and tossed herself down the stairs.

Whatever was coming after her  slammed on the elevator. The clang of the collision rung loud behind her and was immediately followed by the violent sound of the stairwell door being whacked open.

Hurriedly running down the stairs with a racing heart, she could see something black fiercely chasing her whenever she turned round the quarter landings.

Abandoning all the grace she ever practised, she literally threw herself down the flights of stairs, her shaky feet trying to maintain balance. To make sure she didn't fall rolling down, she grasped the railing with one hand and dragged her palm flat against the walls with the other in order to reduce the excess momentum. Crashing on the walls of the quarter landings, she changed her direction, her wavy hair becoming all straggly and whipping over her own face as it swished about.

"Struggle! Run! Cry!" A wicked, weighing voice bellowed behind.

With every turn, the creature was closing in, its evil laughter echoing throughout the empty stairwell.

The stressing fear brought tears up her eyes and she whimpered as she sprinted with an aching chest.

Just three flights away, the door leading into the ground floor awaited. She sped up, but in that reckless swiftness, her legs tripped at the quarter landing after one flight. The momentum took her forward flying across the second flight, her limbs wriggling helplessly in the air. She crashed on the wall and slid down, her bottom hitting the landing hard. Dizziness overtook her, but her fear still made her look behind. In her blurring, hazy vision she saw the demon come pouncing at her, big arms raised, bearing claws ready to tear her apart.

Shilpa quickly pulled herself half up and dived down the last flight; anything even foolish was better than falling prey to such a horrid being. She rolled down the stairs, hitting her head, back, and arms on each step.

She crashed again on the bottom landing, immediately got up without balance, held the door handle and gave it a hard pull. As the door opened, she twisted her ankle and fell out the stairwell, flat on the floor in everyone's sight.

Shrieking at the top of her lungs and drained of the energy to get up, she flipped her body on the floor and dragged herself away, scrambling to gain distance from the stairwell door, her eyes glaring it through her dishevelled hair fallen over her face.

The door swung to and fro creepily. the fluctuating lights behind it shredded her nerves, but there was no sign of the monster.

She could feel her blood flow hot throughout her tensed and fatigued body as her heart hammered against her heaving chest.

Someone placed a hand on her shoulder.

She squealed and backed off.

It was an office member she knew.

"What happened, Shilpa?" She asked.

She turned back at the door again. The monster still didn't come.

"Shilpa?" The office member helped her up.

Shilpa wiped her tears and tried to relax. "Nothing..." She replied in a shaky voice.

"Okay..." her colleague stepped away.

Everyone around were giving her the stare as if she was some mentally ill person.

At that moment, she finally felt the pain of the wound inflicted upon her body. Her forehead ached and probably was bleeding since she could feel the thick liquid trickle down her brow. Her elbow and back had sustained a fractured maybe. But more than all of that, the pain that overwhelmed her was the one on her forearm. It burnt brutally and stung excruciatingly like the hottest fire.

When she looked at it, to her horror she found her flesh deeply scraped in a straight line. That thing... it had reached her in that dive.

She finally admitted what she had been denying all along — Pankaj was not going out of her mind she had fallen prey to the same demon who was now after her — just like her neighbour had said.

Everything made perfect sense to her then: the way Pankaj behaved, that fight between her and her neighbour, and her suicide which wasn't a suicide at all.

Her past that convinced her otherwise, that nonsensical incident, was no longer relevant. Maybe she was wrong about the world. Maybe ghosts existed and so did shamans.

She knew what needed to be done, and she had no intention of delaying. She adjusted her bag strap on her shoulder and marched out of the office, staggering in pain.

At once, she caught a cab back to her apartment. On her way back, every dark corner or street that came by frightened her and make her heart sink. She decided to put on her earphones and close her eyes till she reached home.

Thanks to the traffic, she reached there by nine. Her neighbour should've been there by then, she guessed, thinking of the time they bumped into each other at the corridor.

She was right. When she walked to his door, she could hear him talking to someone and there was light streaming out from  the thin gap under the door.

After a moment's hesitation, she pursed her lips, sucked her breath in, and knocked on the door.

Footsteps approached.

The door swung open and there stood her neighbour, a Vada Pav in his hands.

"About time you showed up," He took a bite and beamed at her. "Hope you brought Gaajar Halwa 'cause I need some snacks while talking, you know."

His nonchalant face made anger rise to her cheeks.

"You were expecting me?" She asked, already having second thoughts about her decision.

"Well, since the demon after you is 'real' as you may have experienced, I knew you'd come around sooner or later. Come on in, we were just talking about this predicament of yours anyway." He waved his arms at his hall in a welcoming gesture.

"We?" Before entering, she scanned the inside of his home skeptically, but before she could complete the scan, she recognised a face sitting on the couch, tension all over his serious face. "Inspector Das?"