Ghost Corp – Part 1
Abhilash stood in front of his house and sighed. It was a happy sigh, because he had finally purchased a house from his earnings and was ready to move in. It was a two-bedroom house with a huge yard in the front, lined with trees a few hundred years old. The price was a steal, what with the skyrocketing land prices and the area. Abhilash couldn’t believe he had finally made it. He almost saw his future kids running around and swinging from the trees.
The honking of the moving van rudely abrupted his daydreaming. Abhilash then got busy directing furniture to be arranged. It was midnight when most of the house was set. Abhilash had spent hours unpacking his stuff. When he couldn’t go on anymore, he sat on his favorite chair and started scrolling through Instagram.
Suddenly, he felt uneasy. He had switched on the fan when he had sat down, but now it was too chilly, as though he had walked into a freezer. He switched off the fan but the cold remained. “Shouldn’t have tried to unpack everything in a day,” he said aloud. “I’m dead tired. I’ll sleep.”
Abhilash got settled into the house nicely. He would spend most of his day in his office and come back home near dinnertime. He would cook himself a nice meal and go to bed around midnight. Although he spent his day with his colleagues, he felt lonely in the house. He had contemplated getting a roommate but then decided it would be too much of a hassle. “It’s fine,” he thought, “I’ll get married soon.” His parents were trying to find him a bride for the past 3 years, but none of the matches had worked out.
On a Wednesday, when Abhilash came home, he found all the kitchen drawers wide open. He looked around, confused. “Wow, I think I left in a hurry today,” and proceeded to close them. “I don’t even remember opening them. Stupid.”
He went to bed early that night, after double-checking the drawers. Around 3 AM, his blanket slowly started getting pulled and once it reached his legs, it was yanked suddenly, waking him up. He shivered. It felt like the cold just after a rain.
Abhilash sat up and murmured, “I kicked the blankets again. Weird. I didn’t do this before.” He crawled to the end of his bed and bent down to pick up the blanket. While he was bending down, a pair of glimmering eyes stared at him from the edge of the bed. He looked into them for two seconds and said, “Looks like I’m still dreaming,” He pulled the blanket over him and went back to sleep.
After a week of no weird occurrences, Abhilash came home to find all the kitchen drawers open, once again. In addition to them, the windows were also wide open. “Ah, forgot to check if everything’s in place today before leaving. I’ve fallen into a lull. I need to be more careful,” as he closed the drawers and the windows. He turned to go into his bedroom and walked maybe two steps when there was a bang loud enough to shake the house. He spun around to see all the windows and kitchen drawers open, just as before.
“Damn, this wind! If it keeps blowing like this, then I’ll be uprooted along with this house,” he said and chuckled.
“What? Are you crazy? You delusional wet piece of cardboard!”
Abhilash was thrown to the floor and he fell in a heap. Before he could get up he saw a figure with white billowy robes floating in front of him. The figure’s eyes were completely black and every one of its teeth was sharp, clearly visible to Abhilash as it leered at him. There was a strange aura around it because clearly, it was a —
“I’m dreaming!” Abhilash exclaimed. He slowly sat up, held his hands in front of him, and examined them. “But, if you fall in your dream, you wake up. So, this isn’t a dream.”
“Yes, this isn’t a dream,” it hissed. “This is your worst nightmare, and it’s only beginning.”
“Of course!” said Abhilash. “This is sleep paralysis. You are a figment of my imagination that my brain created.”
“What? No — ”
“But,” Abhilash continued, not acknowledging the floating entity. He got up and started pacing around. “If I was in sleep paralysis, then I wouldn’t be able to move like this. So, what is this? Am I sleepwalking and dreaming at the same time?”
“YOU’RE NOT ASLEEP, YOU STUPID HUMAN!” The figure floated down and stood facing Abhilash. Its robe was so long that it formed a small mound on the floor. “You’re awake, and you’re seeing a ghost. A GHOST!” it screamed.
Abhilash laughed. “No, no, no. Ghosts aren’t real.”
The ghost looked like it wanted to hit him. “Look man, I’m trying my best not to hurt you. If you keep insisting that I’m not real, I will hit you. Badly.”
“But — ”
“Look here,” the ghost floated over to the sliding kitchen drawer that was wide open. It pointed its hand towards it and it closed with a thud. “Wind cannot open sliding drawers, you idiot! I can, because I — am — a — Ghost!” it said, opening and closing the drawer for every word.
Abhilash looked at the ghost, and the drawer several times, but didn’t say anything.
“Never, in my 150 years of service, not once,” the ghost kept grumbling. “Go to sleep!” it yelled at Abhilash. “I don’t want to see your face.”
Abhilash turned silently and went to sleep.
Abhilash woke up to the sound of his phone’s alarm the next morning. “Wow, that was a weird dream I had, so real.”
“It was real, man, come on.” The ghost was standing right beside his bed. Although, it no longer looked like one. It had ditched its long white robe for a plaid checkered shirt and plain black pants. Brownish pupils now replaced the completely black pupils with a backdrop of white. Even its teeth looked human. Now it pretty much looked like an ordinary man except for the aura behind it.
“After everything I showed you, you still think it was a dream? I’m a ghost, and I got tired.”
Abhilash was confused. “So everything that happened last night was real, huh?”
The ghost-man nodded. He sat down on the bed and said, “Look, I’ve been doing this for a very, very long time. You are the first person who has reacted this way. Tell me this, you got this house for such a good price, why was that?”
Abhilash still looked confused. The ghost-man rolled his eyes. “Because I scared the previous guy so bad that he had to leave! He sold it to the first person who approached him for a price much lower than his buying price and bolted.”
Abhilash’s forehead creased. “I always wondered why,” he said in a small voice. “But the price clouded these doubts and the house — ” he looked around, “the house is so nice! I fell in love the first time I saw it.”
That’s when it hit him. “Of course! How could I not see it? I’m so worried that I got this place for such a cheap price, that my brain created this narrative that the house is haunted! I have to admit, that’s cool. You’re awesome, brain.” He patted his head lightly, chuckling. He got up and started getting ready. “I have to get out of this place for a while. I’ll be alright once I’m back from the office.”
That evening, Abhilash unlocked his front door, whistling. He kept chuckling throughout the day, thinking about the crazy night before.
“I hope there’s no ghost in here,” he said in a sing-song voice as he entered.
“Oh yes, there is,” said a gruff voice. Abhilash screamed.
The ghost-man walked towards him, looking mad as ever. He pulled Abhilash inside and shut the door, all by standing 6 feet away from him.
“No,” the defeat in Abhilash’s voice was so thick that even the ghost looked a little uncomfortable.
He said, “Look man, we can keep doing whatever it is that we’re doing right now, or you could start believing that I’m real.”
Abhilash started crying. “What do you want from me?”
“Come,” the ghost guided him into his bedroom and sat at the edge of the bed as Abhilash curled up into a ball, sobbing. Once the sobs turned into sniffles, the ghost started talking.
“My name is Shankar,” he raised his hand as Abhilash opened his mouth to say something. “I get the irony, yes. But Shankar was the name I was given by my parents and I didn’t feel like changing it when I became, well, this.”
“Why are you here? What do you want? Do you want to kill me?”
“If you still decide to not believe me, then maybe,” Shankar let out a guffaw as Abhilash’s eyes widened.
“I’m not dreaming, am I?”
Shankar suddenly lifted his hands and Abhilash was lifted into the air till his face was inches away from the ceiling. He lowered his hands and Abhilash crashed on the bed with a loud, “Ow!”
“Wha — WHY?”
“You fell. Technically, you should be awake now and I should be gone. But I’m still here. What does that mean?”
“That this is real?”
“Correct! Good boy. Now go have dinner.”
“I think I’m going to lie down for a few hours.”
“Yes, that’s probably for the best. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” Abhilash saw Shankar float away as he passed out.
Read Part 2 here – Ghost Corp – Part 2
