A Midnight Terror Tale (Part Deux) - The Grand Finale

(Continued...)

A very windy night...Midnight...Time: 12.30 am...Scene of a Celebration...
Location: On the terrace at Becky Ma'am's place.

Bottle opening...Popping sound...Loud cheers all around...

Kohil: "Now this is what one calls...Bliss..."

Everyone (chorus): Yeah...Yes...True...

All of us had a plastic cup in which Kohil had poured some beer...

Kohil: Guys come on...Lets celebrate...Take a sip..Y'all..

All of us took a sip of the divine drink which had been eluding us for a long time...
I took a sip of the bubbly golden drink...Quite excited...My first time...Yuckkkk...Wat a bitter taste...How could one drink this? A big disappointment...I had a tough time to decide whether to spit it out or not...And finally deciding not to...my pride and honour was at stake...Spit it out...and that's it...I would look like a total loser in front of these guys...

I was a bit anxious to know how the others were takin it...I watched with open mouth...Kohil was the only one who was drinking directly from the bottle...experience counts I guess...I saw him swallowing whatever was left in the bottle..in a single gulp...Amazing...While I was having a hard time taking a sip of the drink...

I watched all around...Both Sandeep and Sachith were also having a hard time drinking the elixir...But wonder of wonders...I watched Bobby and Mithun finishing whatever was there in their cups in one huge gulp and waiting for Kohil to open the second bottle...And to think that it was their first time...Guess those guys were born drinkers...

Jayce who started the whole funda of having beer, never even took a sip...wisely opting out of the celebration and finishing watever snacks we had bought...

With great difficulty I had 3-4 sips of the drink in the cup... and slowly i was feeling my head become light...I glanced up...and i swear i cud see the moon grow bigger...I looked around...The whole terrace was spinning around me...

"Pop...Fizzz..." I heard the second bottle being opened...I was feeling dizzy and was already on a high...Someone (dont remember who) poured some beer in my cup...This was the 2nd round i s'pose...anyway who cares...

This was wen Jayce started off wid his horror stories...

Jayce: "Guys, How many of you believe in Ghosts?"

Mithun: "ME...!!!"

Me: "Eh? Why? Why do u believe in Ghosts?"

Mithun: "Kohil...Remember that story I told you?"

Kohil(His voice barely making any sense): "Whash? Whish SShtorry? Hic..."

Mithun: "That day i told u right? When me and Lukman were ridin his motorcycle after midnight...We saw some blurred dark image on the road...and as soon as we passed thru that image, we felt a sensation of cold and we went off balance...We found out later on that a woman had been run down by a truck on the same highway at the same spot...the night before..."

Me and the others: GULP...

Me: No way...that's not real, you can't scare us...(I was looking around, half expecting a ghost to jump out from the dark...while I was saying this...)

Mithun: No dude....This is for real...It was not just me...Even Lukman was there...we both felt the same...

Me:(All the more scared): GULLLPPP..."No I dont believe you"...The effect of the beer taking it's toll on me...

Kohil: (Clearly intoxicated): "No...Don't doubt Mithun...Whatever he shayshh issshhh truee..."

Bobby: :"Yeah even I do believe in Ghosts and Spirits....Do you know...there was a Banyan tree in my dad's village, under which if you would spend the night...you are sure to be possessed by a spirit...It seems that this particular tree has a long history of haunting...and the village exorcist used to exorcise spirits from people who were possessed and the spirits were driven out and made to dwell in this particular tree..."

Moans all around...oohhh...aahhhh...

Me: "Hell...I am scared...I wanna get outta here..."

Bobby: "Any way....I am feeling thirsty...Anyone coming with me?...Let's go downstairs..."

Kohil: "Meee...I will come wid u...And by the way if we are lucky we might see some of the gals downstairs...U guys coming?"(Looking at all of us)

Me: (Too scared to budge) : "Nooo...Not me..."

Kohil: "Ok Bobby...Lets go...Mithun is also coming I guess..."

Mithun: "Yeah...U bet..."

Soon the 3 of them left downstairs....

Jayce: (Continuing wid his obvious fake horror stories): "You know what? When I was in Kuwait...I was put up in the boys hostel...And one night when we guys were chatting on the terrace...we saw a white figure floating on the terrace of the old laboratory block...where supposedly a student committed suicide years back for failing in an exam...by jumping from the building..."

Me: 'Brrrr...'

Sandeep: (All of a sudden...Quite scared...Pointing out) Look...There...Oooohhh....

We followed his pointed finger...To have the greatest shock in our lives....There indeed was something...moving across the terrace of the deserted house opposite to Becky ma'am's house...we could make out a white figure...Floating in air...
We all were rooted to the ground... spell bound...scared to move...not even an inch...The situation was really scary...

Sandeep: "Remember what Becky ma'am had told us?...The owner in that house had committed suicide long back...by hanging from the ceiling fan due to financial problems...And now no one lives there now..."

Jayce: "Eeeks...Then no doubt...Tats him..."

I thought i was about to faint...

At the same time...Cut scene...Downstairs...

Kohil: (Whispering) "Dont make noise...You might wake up Becky ma'am...I guess the girls shud be around... watchin TV...Lets go and have a chat with them..."

Mithun: "I dont see anyone...Theres no one here and besides...it's pitch dark...i can't see a thing...and they all shud be sleepin now..."

Bobby: "Hey...I was always fancying takng 'pull-ups' on this bar...I shall do it right now..."

There was a steel bar, on the stairs leading downstairs...Once upon a time it was used by Becky ma'ams son, a tall guy, for doin his exercises...There was no way this drunk moron could reach that bar...let alone do pull-ups on it...
Up jumps Bobby, missing the bar by a few inches, falling right on a flower vase which was kept just beneath the bar on the landing...

PLINNNGGG...TUMMM...PLINGGGGG....Falls the vase downstairs with a loud noise...

Becky Ma'am: (shouting loudly from her room): "Who's there?"

Mithun: "Ohh God..."

Kohil: (Loudly): "Its a CAT...Bow wow...Woof woof..."

Yes...He really was drunk...

Becky ma'am: (In an even more louder voice): "What?? Kohil is that you?"

Up scampers the trio...Kohil, Mithun and Bobby...

Scene....Cut back to Terrace...

Jayce: "AAHHHH...Nooo...Let's run for it guys..."

Yeah..Right...There's no need for a second opinion...Off we dashed...All of us from the terrace....into our room....

And diving straight into the bed...All of us...on top of the other....

At the same the trio from downstairs too...arrived at full speed, unluckily diving into the same bed...A combined weight of about 600-700 kgs on the poor bed...

KERRRPPPLLLOOOONKKKK...BOOM...THUD...

That was it...The last straw...The bed came crashing down...broke in the middle...in two...with a loud thud...

Huge confusion all around..."Ehh? What happened? What was it?"

Loud voice from downstairs...

Becky Maam (Shouting): "What is that? What happened? Sachith...What is it?"

Sachith: "Nothin ma'am...Jayce just fell off the bed in his sleep"

And Jayce hit Sachith for having said that...

All kept quiet for sometime...No one dared to even breathe....

Kohil:(after a few seconds) "What happened?"

Me, Sachith, Sandeep and Jayce still scared...

All of us in unison: "Ghost!!!"

Bobby: "What?"

Sandeep: "Yeah its true... we all saw a ghost..."

Mithun: "Crap...What nonsense...U guys r just drunk"

Me: "No we all saw the ghost at the same time...It was not just a single guy...We all saw the ghost at the same time...No...we r not imagining things..."

Kohil: "Crap...Lets have a look"

Kohil and Bobby goes out to the terrace... all of us following behind at a safe distance...

Bobby: "See...There is nothing here..."

True...We couldnt find anything across on the opposite building terrace.

Jayce: Now turning towards Kohil, Mithun and Bobby: "By the way, why did you guys jump on top of us on the bed, yelling?"

Mithun: "All thanks to Bobby dear...Becky ma'am almost caught us on the way downstairs..."

None of us were allowed to go downstairs after lights out...

Sandeep: "Ok guys...Now we have got an even more bigger problem in our hands...Forget the Ghosts...We have got a bed to repair...Becky ma'am is sure to kill us if she finds out that the bed is broken...And tat means an end to our stay here...Any ideas?What shall we do?"

All were deep in thought...

Kohil: "Hmmm...probably i could fix the bed...Lemme hav a look"

Kohil really had a knack for repairing things...He had one look and said..."Yeah i think i can fix this...There are a couple of nails that has come out...But since we dont have a hammer...i don't know how far we could fix this properly..."

Sacith: "You could use my geometry set box as a hammer..."

Kohil: "Ya..That should be fine...Atleast for now we could fix it up temporarily...and maybe tomorrow morning wen Becky ma'am goes to the market, we could ask Ramesh Chettan to come and fix this bed. That way we should be safe"

Ramesh chettan was the local carpenter who used to take care of all carpentry work in the locality...

Soft Hammering sounds..in the middle of the night...Kohil at work...

After about half an hour, with all of us watching, Kohil announced that he was done...He warned us not to use the bed until we got the carpenter...cos this was just a temporary fix...

With that done, all of us heaved a sigh of relief...
Half of us had to spent the night on the hard floor...and i was one among them...and mind you...its not tat easy to sleep on the floor, especially wen one was drunk...It was just 2 small cups...but the effects were huge...especially since this was the first time...And i started cursing myself...This was going to be the first and the last time that i was ever gonna get drunk...

Morning...6 am...I was the first to wake up...I didnt get a proper sleep...and i was having a terrible head ache...And we all had to leave by 7.30, back to our homes...The others were still asleep...I got up...Oooh...my back was aching like hell...I started brushing my teeth...I was lost in thought...Thinking about the events of the previous night...Was there really a ghost? Was it for real?What was it?

Now I used to have this very bad habit of brushing my teeth sitting on the bed...And coupled with my back ache, head ache and my deep thoughts...
I sat on the bed which Kohil had just repaired the last night...

KERRRAASHHH....THUD...

Down I fell...toothbrush and all...straight on top of Sachith, who in his sleep, had rolled underneath the bed...

Needless to say...that woke up the entire house...Loud shouting from Becky ma'am, asking what that was and girls chattering downstairs...All the guys were wide awake now...shouting at me and poor Sachith...still wondering what fell on him...

Becky Ma'am: "Come down...All of you...Right now...or else I will come up there"

We all went down the stairs in a single line...no one wanting to take the lead... hiding behind one other...Me coming down last...And unluckily for Kohil, he was pushed by someone and had to take the lead coming down, followed by Sachith...

Becky Ma'am: (Arms folded...Clearly angry): "What's going on?"

Sachith: (whispering to Kohil): "I will handle this..."

I was still hiding behind Jayce...Out of view from Becky ma'am...

Sachith: "Ma'am...Did Ramesh Chettan finish his carpentry work here? Will he be coming today?"

Good...Now that's a nice start...

Becky Ma'am: "He finished his work here last week...Heard he got a job in Dubai...And if I am right...he must have left by the early morning flight today...That's what his wife told me when i met her yesterday...Why, what happened? and this is not the answer to my question..."

Sachith (With a sheepish grin): "Ma'am, one of the beds upstairs in our room...It's...It's broken..."

Becky Ma'am: "What??? Ohhh...My bed...How did it break?...What were you guys doing up there?"

Sachith: "Nithin was showing us some wrestling moves by jumping on the bed...That's how it got broken..."

Waah Sachith...Waah...Well done...He had his sweet revenge, for me falling on top of him...just great...

All others: "Yeah...He was the one..."

Now i became the scapegoat for everyone...very convenient...how nice...
And did i mention? All the girls were watching the entire fun...Laughing...

Becky Ma'am: "Daaaa....Nithin...Where are you?"

Me: (coming out from behind Jayce): "Ma'am it was not mee...It was...aaahh..."

Jayce had stamped on my foot, whispering in my ears...Rather more like a threat...

Jayce (Whispering): "We wud hav easily gotten away with this...But you spoiled the entire thing...and now u will quietly accept the responsibility...Or the rest of us will definitely bash you up..."

And that was more than enuf...There was no need for any more persuading...I accepted defeat...I became the scapegoat...And now it was official...

Becky ma'am: "YOU...I never expected this from you...You will bring a carpenter the first thing today...and get it repaired...Understand?...Wait till your mother hears of this.."

Now I heard a loud giggle...I turned to see who it was...And there she was...The girl of my dreams...giggling like hell...And I couldn't bear this...no...not at all...What would she be thinkin of me?...Total disgrace...

And moreover, I was facing 2 threats...One from my so called buddies...and the other from Becky ma'am...If Mom comes to know about this...I am finished...

Becky Ma'am: "Now out you all go...I have had enough for the day...Go...All of you..."

Hearing this we all ran...at top speed...straight outside the house...got our cycles...and off we went...

Last I heard was a huge roar of laughter from inside the house...
Paahh...Gals...I hate 'em...I really do...

Epilogue: As a favour, for me accepting the blame, Kohil had himself volunteered to fix the bed...He went there in the afternoon with a huge hammer, a small plank and some nails. By the time we came back in the afternoon...it was all fixed up...And he did a really good job of it...

On our way back, we did stop our cycles in front of the old deserted house...Eventhough scared, we went up slowly to the old rusted gate and looked inside...And there...in front of the house...was a huge white bedsheet!!!
Still floating around...caught in the wind...