"Mehreen” said a voice… a man’s voice. “Mehreen”… “Mehreen”…
Mehreen sat up straight. This voice had come every night ever since Mehreen had moved to her new house. A week ago- this had been extremely unnerving, but now Mehreen was convinced it was a well repeated nightmare.
Mehreen slept alone in a room which was situated in a secluded corner of the big house, which was far apart from the rest of the house. Her mother had offered her to share or at least sleep in her sister’s room but Mehreen liked having a room all by herself.
So it was another night in the middle of which Mehreen had gotten up to find herself drenched in sweat and panting for breath from screaming being scared of the nightmares
Sure her voice carried to her parents, but having listened to her screams for a whole week (The first two days-they had come running. The other two days- they had come walking. Today…) they had not bothered coming.
Sure her voice carried to her parents… but “His” did not. Mehreen’s mother thought she must have been dreaming and his father thought she was hallucinating when she had confided into them. And Mehreen herself thought it was a dream… until that day.
Mehreen got up to splash her face with cold water, when her eye caught someone standing by the large and ancient tree that was visible from Mehreen’s window. Mehreen could not make out this man’s shape. She decided to have a better look from the window in the kitchen.
But when she reached the corridor someone was coming towards her from inside the house, in a zombie like way, with one foot in the front and the other being dragged behind, in complete darkness. She tried screaming but was unable to do so, her heart thumping madly. As it came closer and closer and ever so closer, Mehreen felt the adrenaline pumping in her veins until she could stand it no more. She unlocked the door behind her, her sweaty hand slipping on the lock. She managed it at last and ran into the back yard (where the tree was) though to only take a couple of strides. She slipped onto the soggy grass and scrambled away from the house as she lay…
“Mehreen” shouted her mother at her from the door that lead to the back yard “Mehreen is that you? Mehreen what are you doing outside at this time of the night? Are you completely out of your senses?”
"It took a moment for comprehension to dawn upon Mehreen, in this numbing relief she broke down and started crying. Her legs seemed wobbly. Her mother came out, hugged her and asked her what the matter was. This seemed extremely childish to ask, but yet Mehreen did “why were you walking like that? Dragging your foot behind you?” “My dear I was drowsy and couldn’t get my foot into one slipper so I dragged it being too sleepy to stop and put my foot properly in.” she said “Oh Mehreen! You are not telling me that you got scared of me? For heavens sake Mehreen get a grip over yourself!”
She supported Mehreen inside and kept muttering something under her breath which sounded very much like “One week has passed already and there is no one responsible enough to fix a bulb in the corridor” and “I did ask you to come to your sister’s room but you are too stubborn to listen.”
But Mehreen was not paying attention. Apart from the fear she had felt, the relief that followed, the slight humiliation, she was feeling something else. An attraction… a pull towards the tree. She glanced back at the tree but her mother pushed her into the house and closed the door shut.
Her mother was insistent that she sleep with her sister, but she did not want her elder sister to think that she was a coward. So despite her mother’s warnings and pleadings Mehreen still slept in her own room.
In the morning Mehreen was made fun of by all her siblings, which further strengthen her resolution to sleep in her own room. Only one man did not take this as a joke. And that was the Maulvi sahib who used to teach Quran in the evenings. When Mehreen related this story to him he looked at Mehreen with mild apprehension. “And then what happened?” he asked. “And then he disappeared” said Mehreen glad to find someone who believed her.
“Now let me tell you one thing Mehreen” he said his voice barely a whisper “what ever you do don’t go near that tree, for the moment I entered this house I sensed something was wrong with that place. Trust me Mehreen you would do better to stay away from it okay?” Mehreen nodded.
But remembering how her sisters laughed at her in the morning Mehreen returned to her room all the same. She closed the lights and lay down but she was afraid to fall asleep. But after an hour of restlessness she drifted into slumber.
“Mehreen…” “Mehreen…”She woke up and instinctively looked towards the tree… and there he was, much closer than he had been the day before. The horror that grasped Mehreen was so great that words simply cannot define her state. For now Mehreen understood why he looked deformed the day before. The man standing in white clothes… had no head at all.
Mehreen ran for her mother’s room and then stopped… something strange was happening and the same feeling was creeping over Mehreen as it had the previous day… the attraction … the pull.
She turned and began unlocking the door that opened to the back yard. She was crazy… thirsty… passionate… she wanted to get near that beautiful tree.
Some part of her head was still normal. It wanted to return to the house and was forcing her towards the opposite direction but it was nothing compared to the longing she felt to reach that tree. And finally she reached it… but as soon as she did, all the longing and attraction was gone it was a simple tree, a scary one at that. And she could do nothing but watch in horror as the beheaded man approached her with an axe.
The scream that followed was heard several blocks away. From that day Mehreen was never found. There was no body outside or anywhere. She seemed to have disappeared off the face of earth.
Struck by this grief and the advice of Maulvi sahib the family decided to leave the house and shift elsewhere. Nobody saw Mehreen again unless you count her sister, who came back one night later to collect some stuff of her that she had previously forgotten to take.
She was about to leave the gate when she saw her. She stood near that tree in the moonlight half her face missing as if cut asunder by an axe, the other half, smothered in blood was smirking… calling her sister towards her.
