THE TRIP

Ch 7 - Day 2( part 2)

Panting for some fresh air to breath in, Angy and me, entered into our room sweating like dogs. "We were lucky Ang!" I whispered. Angy flashed a fake smile in return. "We wanted to actually die" she made a face while she said this. Vas saw the panting us first. "Did you guys take part in a marathon race? I mean it's so damn cold in here and you people are sweating - do you guys believe this?" She asked the others seated by her. Others smiled. I replied with a frown while Angy replied "Kinda!".
Drinking enought amount of water, I sat down under the fan to relax my muscles. I switched on my cellphone to check it. The screen temperature read 24⁰C. I released a long  heavy breath in relief. "What is it?" asked Ashme as she noticed me."Nothing" I smiled at her. "Angy, we must pull all the beds together!" and eyed her our, mine and Mani's, bed. "Yeah sure thing" She nodded and helped me in pulling the beds into a clustered square.
After 30 long minutes of creaks and cracks and gifying us a few scratches on our arms, we brought all the six beds together attached. Rest was everything we two, Me and Angy, needed at that moment. Getting a quick shower and relaxing my muscles and I breathed freely, I changed into comfortable outfits and jumped into my warm cosy bed, Angy lay by me.
The others didn't disturb us as they felt that we were damn tired. It was already evening when we two were woken up by them. We were called out for snacks. We gladly went to help ourselves with the Pakodas, tea, and biscuits. We clicked some selfies. We chatted as we had nothing to do then. I was actually feeling a bit relaxed at that time. Silently, nobody from the six of us wanted to return to our room.
But at 7:30pm in the evening, we were forced return to our room the foils of warm heated food as dinner and were instructed to lock our rooms as soon as we entered our hotel. It was already 8:30pm when we all were sitting and munching on our foods after the other four changed into our night dresses we were lazing and gossiping a bit, when suddenly Mayu screamed,"There was someone when we clicked picture!" Vas choked on her bite.
Ashme glared at her. Mani looked over through her specs. Me and Angy turned pale. "What kind of a filthy joke is this Mayu?" Ashme yelled. "Show me the pic!" commanded Mayu. "Here" and Mayu handed her phone to Angy. Giving a slight glance at the picture, Angy handed me the phone. Taking the phone I flinched away. The selfie was clicked by Mayu herself while we five were sitting in a table.
But behind me and Vas there was someone or something in full WHITE. It was a lady as far as I could recognise from the picture at my first glance. When I concentrated over the picture all over again and with more courage, my hands started to shake. It was that same old lady whom we had met in that highway. But in this picture, she looked more aggressivethan we had seen her in the daylight in the middle of the lone Baleswar highway.
It was clear to me that I had the pretty fortune of seeing an apparition. Was she aggressive? Was she unhappy? There were a lot of questions fuzzing around  in my brain. I was in a total fuse. "Delete the picture, NOW!!" Ashme demanded as she looked like a scared kid. My reflexes acted accordingly. I deleted the picture. I looked blank and pale. Angy patted my back. I looked at her. "It's okay" she mouthed. I looked back to the black phone's screen.
I looked up from the phone's screen at everyone's face. They looked afraid. Well, No, they were afraid. "What?" I mouthed. "There is a ghost here. And you didn't warn us!" Mani said in a shaky voice. I shot an angry glance at Angy "What? I shared everything with them just now. I asked you before saying them. You nodded in agreement. And I told everything just infront of you. You were even vibing with my sentences. Weren't you listening! " she asked.
"Why did you even thing of spilling this out? I think I had told you, that spirits feed on fear!! What should we sacred bunch of shit do now!!!" I became furious at her. "You knew there are ghosts here" asked Ashme in a cool voice. "NO!" I surrendered" I suspected when I had first stepped in here." "Okay!" Vas nodded her head absent mindedly.
"Today night we sleep together. We should close all the windows tightly so that Sammy doesn't fall in trouble tomorrow." Ashme tried to sound cheerful. "Yeah" I nodded. Mani, Mayu and Ashme went to close the windows tightly while Vas, Angy and me made our beds. It turned out that compact lying of the six of us together made us use only 4 beds. The other two were blocked by our trolleys. We made a cage for ourselves guarding ourselves with trolleys and pillows.
It was 10:15pm at night when we all wished our parents 'Good night's and were still in our beds. We had decided to keep our tube lights to be kept switched on throughout the night. Waiting patiently for a long time, I started to doze of into sleep. I don't know for how long I had been dozing, but I snapped open my eyes when I felt a cold hand touching my wrist.
"Wh-" I was shushed by a sweating and scared Mani "Ssshhh! Chup! Chup!" She said anxiously "Listen" I sat up straight to see everyone wide awake alert. I adjusted my specs. "Do you hear that?" Angy asked in whispers I strained my ears and heard a faint sob. "Who's crying?" I asked in whisper.
I always actually concerned about that wailing lady. The sound seemed as if a kid was lost from her parents in a crowded area. "It's 3:30am at night, sweetheart. Who do you think is crying out in the roadside?" my throat dried up as Ashme hissed the words in anger and frustration. The sob rose a few pitches higher. As if the person outside knew that we six were awake in our room. Listeningto her, but not reaching there to help her out.
A female voice started to wail as if somebody had passed away in her family. Mayu got too scared. We all crept up towards the wall to protect ourselves from the unknown danger. Everyone started to chant their own Godesses mantra. I kept a notice at the time. It was 10 minutes to 4am.
A few minutes later,which seemed like an eternity, the wailing stopped and there was a thunderous banging on our door. Not once but thrice at a constant pace. Then everything was silent.
We started to pray to our gods and chant the mantras more vigorously. I looked at my watch. It said 3:57am. Everything was so silent that we thought we were safe. We thought of staying up for the rest of the few hours. Three of us stayed up- Ashme, Me and Angy.
We started to chat on various topics to remove our monotony as the other three rested their heads on our laps and went of to deep sleep. I had noticed that the window near the washroom was closed before sleep engulfed me. And somehow during those chats, we three slowly dozed of into deep sleep.