Desi Horror Stories

Dead Man Sitting

When Vishal came to stay at his uncle's bungalow in the village that summer, little did he know he'd come away with such a profound haunting memory. The bungalow was built on a raised foundation and had a row of bushes running around it. As he climbed the stairs and came to the verandah to enter the house, he found a stool in the way, almost blocking the door. He attempted to move the stool, when Ritesh, his cousin, nearly screamed, "No, don't do that. That's Bhiru's stool."

Vishal didn't mind the instruction, but he was intrigued at the tone. "Who is Bhiru?" he asked, even as he walked edgeways to avoid the stool and pass through.

"Uh... no one..." Ritesh said suddenly, and then he ushered Vishal into the house and closed the door behind him. Vishal had a glimpse of that round wooden three-legged stool just as the door closed, standing in the middle of the verandah like it owned the space.

After dinner, the two cousins sat in the balcony, upstairs chatting away. They talked about everything they could, and then Vishal's gaze fell downstairs. He could see the verandah below and the stool in it. His Aatya, Ritesh's mother, just came out into the porch and she avoided the stool too. It was odd to see a woman of such bulk trying to flatten herself out against the wall just so that she didn't touch a stool.

"You have to tell me now," he urged. "What's it about the stool?"

Ritesh was laughing at some joke he had just cracked, but Vishal's words made him clam up. With a changed tone, he said, "I don't know, bro. It will scare you."

"Try me."

After much insistence, Ritesh said, "Well, hear it then. Bhiru was our watchman. He used to sit on that stool every night, in that exact same place, and keep watch till morning. He was quite old. Must have been in the late sixties. Loved his job and our family. One morning, Papa found Bhiru sitting as usual, but there was something odd about him. Papa tried to talk to him, and that was when he saw—Bhiru had died in the night. His death was bizarre. No one could find out a reason, but the strangest thing was he had died in the same position he had been in—sitting ramrod like he were still guarding the house."

"Oh God, really?"

"Well, we did his cremation and all," Ritesh went on. "He had no family. But we could not take that stool out. In fact, many of us tried and couldn't."

"Why?"

"Because his ghost is still sitting on it," Ritesh said ominously, "and if anyone tries to even touch the stool, he attacks them. He doesn't spare even us till we keep the stool back. So, don't even try."

Vishal kept thinking about the conversation long after it ended. He went to bed thinking about the stool. The verandah was right outside the shut window of his room. He tried not to think about it, but around half past one, the little yellow bulb of the verandah suddenly went on. Vishal's heart leapt into his mouth, for he was sure everyone else was in the house. He then heard only the slightest scraping of wood against stone floor. Almost shivering now, he walked to the window. He didn't dare to open it, but through a tiny crack in the window, he dared to look outside.

And there he saw a shape, very much like the dark shape of a person sitting with his back to the house. Vishal immediately knew it was him, because only a dutiful guard would sit with that alert a stance.

Vishal somehow spent the night, and the following couple of nights. He would be kept awake by his fear but the exhaustion of the day would lull him to sleep and he was thankful for that. He still had four more days to spend in this house where a ghost kept guard, and it was considered as normal. He couldn't wait to leave.

It was on the third day that the terrifying incident happened. That day, his Aatya had prepared a wonderful curry that he gorged on at dinner. He regretted it only when he hit the bed at night. His stomach was rumbling and uneasiness coursed through his body like an electric shock. There was no way out but to run to the loo, which, quite unfortunately, was on the other side of the house, which meant he had run across the verandah.

Realizing that he couldn't hold it any longer, he came out of the room and looked into the verandah. It was empty then, for the night was quite young yet, and seizing that opportunity, he made a dash to the other side. He somehow made it, and miraculously did not touch the stool. He returned twenty minutes later, his business done, and feeling much lighter. But this time, as fate would have it, his leg hit the stool.

The three-legged stool was wobbly to begin with, and the moment he hit it, the other two legs lost their contact with the ground. The stool started to spin, and even as Vishal looked at it in great horror, the stool spun around to the edge and then fell into the bushes below, where it ended up with a sickening crashing sound.

"Oh no," Vishal gasped, checking himself in time from toppling over.

All of a sudden, the porch was empty. It was just a measly stool that had gone missing, but the verandah looked naked. Vishal thought of only one thing then—rushing back into his room and staying locked there till it was safe.

He was just about to turn. He almost turned too, but then he collided into something. Terrified, he took in air through his mouth. There was nothing there! And yet, there was something because he could not move past. Beginning to weep, he tried to run into the house again, but couldn't. An invisible wall was blocking him.

Then he smelled it—the whiff of coconut hair oil that he had on smelled the previous nights too. Now he knew who the user of that coconut oil was. He cried aloud now and said, "Please, I cannot see you. Let me go."

With that, he tried again, but this time, the wall had gone thicker despite the fact that he could see nothing. He made another attempt and this time, he had gone too far, for he felt a sharp sensation on his foot, and to his immediate horror he realized it was the pain of someone stepping on your foot.

And then the most violent thing happened. He felt himself being grabbed for a moment, and before he could retaliate in any way, he felt that same impact again. Only, this time it was under his shoulders. The next second, he was lifted up bodily, and before he could scream, he was thrown away into the bushes like he was some kind of used ragdoll.

He felt about a hundred bruises on him as he crashed into the bushes heavily, and even then he knew that this was not the end. He could see something gathering together again on the porch—a shadow of some kind. Fortunately, at that very moment, his hand felt the wood of the fallen stool. In a trice, he knew what to do. He picked up the stool, hopped on to the porch again, and placed the stool back in its position as much as he could.

Suddenly, something cleared. He couldn't say what it was, but it appeared like fog receding. He did not pause to look. He ran away into the house, and slammed the door shut behind him. He stayed under his blanket till morning.

Vishal left the house on the next day. He would not listen to anyone's requests to stay back. When his father came to pick him up, he ran to him not minding that he was a teenager now. As his flummoxed father took him away, Vishal vowed never to visit his uncle's house again.

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