Desi Horror Stories

Cemetery Colony

There had always been a rumor that the land on which Savitri Colony stood was once a graveyard. Stories abounded. Some said that the graveyard was of a particular tribal people, from whom the land was usurped a century ago. The land was in dispute for a long period and then the colony was finally built. There was no proof of any of it, and yet, that did not deter the colony from getting the nickname of Cemetery Colony.

And then on one summer afternoon, the stories gained credence. That afternoon, workers installing a new gas pipeline had been digging the ground behind the last wing of the colony, and suddenly work was stalled. They had unearthed something—bones.

Panic hit the society like an avalanche. Everyone had questions. People huddled in groups and talked. And among these was a group of teenagers—Navin and his friends, who had suddenly found something more exciting than cricket. They would sit in the society park near the gate and talk about that haunted last wing.

Navin, all of fourteen then, took to it in a bad way. Mercifully, his house was in the first wing of the society, so he was far removed from that unholy ground, but he was cursed with a fanciful imagination. There were nights he couldn't sleep, but because he couldn't keep his eyes open either, he shut them forcibly till they hurt. He slept on one side, facing the wall and not the window, and woke up in the morning with terrible aches. He did not stay alone in the house. In the late evenings when his mother went down to chat with the neighbors, he would keep the door of the house open so that he could see the people going up and down the staircase at least.

There was a graveyard right below him—that thought had lodged itself in his mind. On the nights that he didn't sleep, he imagined the many skeletons buried underneath. He imagined their ghosts all around, passing in and out of the walls of his very house. One night he had a nightmare in which he saw a well on that ground. He went forth to look into the well, and then fell right in. Trapped at its bottom, he felt something touching him. Immediately, he jumped. It was a skeletal arm. It had broken through the wall of the well. Then another came, and another and another. Soon, he was surrounded by arms jutting out from all sides of the well, craving to touch his smooth flesh.

His friend Ravi was the one who noticed the change in him. Ravi was a year older than him, and at that age, a year older meant a lot wiser. "There's only one solution to your problem," Ravi said sagely. "You need to face your fears. You must come down tonight after midnight and walk around that last wing alone."

"What?" Navin asked, shocked beyond measure. "You want me to walk on that haunted ground? At midnight? Alone?"

"Yes. Trust me. That's the only way to get rid of this fear."

"Will you do it?" Navin asked.

"I already have!" said Ravi proudly. "That's why I am not afraid of it anymore."

It was decided. The friends gathered in the park at midnight. It was a mission for the entire group of friends—to rid their buddy Navin of his fear. Navin didn't know if he was ready. All the assurances meant nothing to him. But they were determined.

At exactly midnight, the friends fell into silence. Ravi pushed him from behind. "Go!" he said. Navin, his heart thumping wildly now, took the first step. As he walked, he saw his friends standing still in the park, their figures receding. And then he took the first turn and they went out of sight.

There were eleven wings in the building. He walked past them, observing that the lights in most houses were off. How blissfully people could sleep despite knowing that they were living on such a demoniacal ground! He saw ahead of him then, and the last wing was in sight. It was the smallest of the eleven wings, almost built as an afterthought, but right now it looked the spookiest. The ground was behind it, and it was plunged in darkness. Even that blessed building lights did not work there. How could it on such unholy ground!

Navin found that his nose had turned wet. He wiped it clean with his shirt sleeve and moved ahead. He walked in the space behind that last wing and the compound wall, and then he went past it, and there it was—the ground. He almost screamed. His heart was beating like a hammer now. If only he could just make a dash for it, the ordeal would be over.

Without waiting another second, Navin broke into a run. He had to run the length of this ground and come out through the other end, back into civilization. As he ran, he heard an owl hooting somewhere. He did not dare to turn behind and look, for just then his fanciful imagination had conjured the image of a white shrouded ghost gliding behind him.

He would have finished that round... but then he tripped over something and fell.

With rising horror, he realized what it was. It was that same pit the gas pipeline people had been digging. The pit where the bones had been dug out of. There was something happening in the pit. The ground was shaking. He could feel the rumble in the mud. Something was coming out! Something, bloody hell, was coming out of it!

And right then, Navin stopped breathing.

When he opened his eyes, his friends were hunkered over him. "He's good," Ravi said. "He just fell down." Everyone heaved a collective sigh of relief. Like good friends, they deposited him home and then ran away before the questions began.

That night, Navin slept soundly.

But he could never forget the episode throughout his life, especially the bit after he had blacked out. The feeling was beyond weird. Despite being in an unconscious state, he felt someone close to him, someone observing him, touching his face, trying to tell him something. He knew that thing wasn't human. Just before his friends came to look for him, it disappeared.

That was when he realized ghosts are just as frightened of humans as humans are of them. Maybe even more.