The Living Ghosts

Onto the wave crashing sand, souls on parade.

Neil was humming rather loudly, his voice floating and drowning rhythmically with the gorgeous sound of the sea. A pleasant evening indeed! After months of planning, finally Rick and Tara managed to sneak a couple of days and escape for a break. Neil loved his best friend Rick. He had been inseparable from this carefree brat right from the time he would still wet his pants. After a score of casual flings over the years, Rick finally got bewitched by Tara. A steady two years of relationship and now they are going to get engaged in a month!

Neil smiled fondly as he recalled the first time he met Tara. No he didn’t think she was attractive, but she definitely had something about her that made her popular easily. She was a ‘dude’ almost! Cool and even kind of a tom-boy. Neil used to call her ‘Bro’ back then. Until of course she started showing certain feminine traits, particularly around Rick. How they both changed, for good. And here he was sitting on the soft sand beside the love birds, watching them snuggle against each other, Tara’s hair flying restlessly, Rick’s rugged features neatly outlined against the dying red sun. Neil flicked the cork open again and took another gulp from the bottle in his hand.

They had been gossiping and giggling for hours. The entire beach had lit up magically. All around there were small stores glowing up with sea-shells and showpieces, jewellery and toys, fried street food and evening snacks. The ocean was getting noisier by the minute.

“Pretty late Neil, wanna head to the hotel?”, Rick broke into Neil’s train of thoughts. Gosh it’s almost dinner time! Neil threw aside his second empty bottle of beer and stood up dusting the back of his pants. The hem of his jeans was still wet, sandy and heavy from their afternoon walk by the water. They started walking back lazily kicking tufts of sand – Neil’s arm around Rick’s shoulder, Rick’s arm still wrapped around Tara’s waist. “Stop being so gay Neil, don’t squeeze Rick’s neck like that” Tara laughed and faked a punch at his face. Neil pretended to be scared, his eyes shining with laughter about to burst out and started running from them; Tara and Rick chasing him down, laughing like silly children. They knew their evening wasn’t over. There would be another round of talking, laughing and singing tunelessly in Rick and Tara’s room way late that night.

A loud metallic clang woke Neil up. He was a deep sleeper in his own bed, a relatively light one in new places. Eyes closed, he stayed still for a few seconds, not sure if it was his imagination or there really was some loud sound somewhere. Nevertheless he decided to take a peek at his radium plated watch kept beside his pillow. 2:07 AM. It was a dream alright, Neil rolled over and pulled up his sheets a bit more. A few more minutes passed, and just when Neil was almost drifting back to sleep again, another metallic clang rang across his room. This time he heard it clearly. Neil’s eyes were still closed but he was awake now, waiting silently to catch the slightest sound again. Silence. And then soft but heavy footsteps that came from a different direction.

Neil sprang up on his bed and sat bolt upright. His head was still dizzy and felt heavy, but he was wide alert and ready to spring into action. A faint screech of a door being opened floated in, Neil thought, from the room where Rick and Tara were. Neil’s room was small and the walls were thin. More minutes of silence, and then a thumping sound outside his door. A chill ran down his spine as he realized it was an off season and other than himself and his friends there was no other occupant in the whole hotel! There was no security guard here, just a receptionist cum caretaker who sat at the front desk from 6 AM to 10 PM. They had seen the collapsible front gate being locked earlier that night when they got back to the hotel, which would mean other than these three human beings there could be absolutely no one around.

Neil’s hands were shaking slightly and his heart thumping audibly when he tried to fumble across to the switchboard in an attempt to turn on the lights. To his horror, he found that there was a power failure and no electricity. Pitch dark room, Neil was alone on his bed, and strange sounds floated in from multiple directions. Even his phone ran out of battery and was lying dead. The only hint of light he could see was the face of his watch glowing with a sickly florescent green gleam, not really lighting up anything around. Neil glanced out of the window and thought he saw a fleeting shadow that could be some human form. He had kept the windows open since it was stuffy inside the room, but the night sky was dark. It was new moon, and cloudy enough to hide whatever stars Neil was looking for.

Ghosts! That’s the first thing that came to Neil’s head. He had heard many spooky tales of Hotel ghosts. This one was definitely old enough to have its own share of stories. Neil was frozen in his bed. He couldn’t move a limb. There was a big lump in his throat that he couldn’t swallow. A jingle of metal keys could now be heard just outside his door, and somebody whispered something Neil couldn’t understand from the other end of the wall that was connecting his room to Rick’s. Ghosts or not, Neil needed to find out what Rick and Tara were up to. Were they hearing the same sounds? What was there in that room that made those noises? Are they awake or sleeping? Unconscious? Dead? No! Where are they?

‘Rick!’. No sound came out of Neil’s mouth. He tried once more – ‘Rick! Tara!’. A harsh rasp escaped his lips. Immediately a black head popped against the window (the ghost probably looked directly at Rick for the first time) before disappearing again. Neil broke into a cold sweat, and let out a sound that was between a gasp and a shriek. A thin ray of white light passed over Neil at lightning speed before plunging the whole place in darkness again. Whatever was outside wanted to catch a glimpse of Neil. A hammer started somewhere behind the wall, in swift consecutive light beats. More feet shuffling and harsh incoherent whispers outside Neil’s door. Another loud metallic clang very near, followed by a few more softer metal bangs.

The ray of light broke Neil’s stupor for the first time. Something told him that no ghost would need a light to see him. At least it was a mortal Neil had to deal with, that gave him a bit of courage. ‘Who’s there?’ Neil yelled not really expecting an answer. ‘What are you doing here? Who is this?’ he shouted again after a couple of silent minutes. Now there were more hurried voices. Deep male voices talking in a language Neil did not know. They were not even trying to keep it down. Neil jumped off the bed and reached the window in two long strides. He slid behind the curtain and tried to peep out in the dark. ‘Maybe they got weapons, at least a hammer’, he thought. It was unwise to walk out that door unarmed. He walked back to the luggage bag thinking desperately of something he had that could be used as a weapon. A packet of razor blades, and a cigarette lighter. Not much to boast, but still better than going empty handed.

‘Rick! Tara!’ Neil screamed one more time. No answer. Neil banged the wall connecting their rooms one last time before walking to the door. His temples were throbbing, he had to open the door and face whoever was outside. He slid open the bolt inside, and tried to pull the door open. It did not open! The door was stuck, locked from outside. Neil tugged at the door again, tried to push it out, did everything possible to open the door. But no matter what he did the door did not open. ‘Help! Open the door’ Neil screamed as he continued to pound on the door. He was greeted with the sound of shoes running, dark shadows fleeing against his window, followed by absolute silence.

Neil must have called for Rick and Tara a hundred times, punched the door and wall repeatedly. It had been hours Neil had been alternately flopping on his bed feeling numb and helpless, and making another desperate attempt to break through and reach his friends. He was tired and hungry and alone. He did not know the time, and did not feel that was important. It was still dark, there was still no electricity, and the place was still either empty or asleep.

Shouts of Rick and sobs of Tara woke Neil up again. He could not recall sitting on the floor with his head against the bed and dozing off. ‘Bloody thieves locked us in’ Rick was screaming from the next room. It was the break of dawn, a faint light filled up Neil’s room. Neil stood up unsteadily and yelled back hoarsely ‘Rick! What happened?’. ‘Damn it I can’t get out of here. Tara’s jewellery is all stolen’, Rick’s voice now sounded unsteady. Of course, Tara’s jewellery! Neil now recalled Rick telling him about Tara’s grand parents who lived nearby. Apparently her mother had asked her to carry some her old wedding jewellery and pass it on to her grandmother who supposedly knew a trustworthy goldsmith, so she could get new jewellery molded from there for Tara. Rick and Tara were supposed to visit them that day, and now Neil didn’t see that happening anymore.

Right now they had a worse situation to deal with. Neil peeped out of the window hoping to see someone on the street and call for help. Why couldn’t the caretaker come earlier? Thankfully the electricity was back, so Neil’s phone was going to come alive soon. Rick was still shouting for help to no one in particular. After a while, Neil spotted the first passerby of the day – a man with a van of vegetables. Neil called out for him from his window, tried to explain they got locked in and no one was around. The man stopped for a moment, looked up at him, didn’t seem to understand much, and cycled his van ahead out of Neil’s sight. Rick too called out to someone from his window, and failed to get help. More people – a middle-aged woman, an old man out on morning walk, a girl in headphones who jogged across, another vegetable van – no one understood what they were screaming from their windows, and no one came to help them.

The caretaker was probably late, since he never showed up even though the daylight was now getting broader. Neil checked his phone, it was back in action now. He stretched out his arm from the window and bent the phone camera to take a picture of the front of his door. Good Lord! The bolt in front was twisted in an odd angle and pushed back to jam the opening. Amidst the tangle there was a lock Neil had never seen before. It kept the latch from moving even an inch. No wonder Neil’s effort of breaking through was fruitless. His screams for help got louder, irrespective of whether anyone was on road or not.

It was nearly 10 AM when somebody finally responded to their calls. Tara had stopped crying. They had cookies and cakes in their room. Neil only had some leftover milk from last night and two eggs. He had boiled the milk, and then the eggs. That was all about the breakfast he could get. Neil had called the Police, but they hadn’t turned up yet. Occasionally Rick and Neil shouted and exchanged fragments of concerns and plans all morning, no one reaching a solution till their helper showed up. This guy was going with his tools to work on an under construction building nearby, when he heard the cry for help and looked up. Probably he understood some of their language, because he came upstairs right away. The man was just starting to hit the bolt with a thick iron rod when the Police arrived. Together they all started trying to break the two doors, but that was taking forever. Neil called out to the Police and asked if he could give it a try. Yes he was in a weird place to try it, yes he could not even see the lock from inside. But he was strong, and way more desperate than the ones outside. The police handed the rod to Neil through the window, and he bent his arm and started hitting the place where the lock was.

It took them ten minutes before the lock came off. The police and the man with the rod managed to pull apart the twisted bolt with great difficulty. Neil finally got out. Immediately he went to the next door and started breaking that door with the help of the two others there. Once all of them were out they pulled out their luggage and went along with the police. They had already kept everything packed, and decided a million times that morning that they won’t wait a second here once free.

Tara reported theft of her jewellery at the Police station. Rick reported that they were locked in and chloroform was used on them. Neil had guessed that much when he didn’t hear from them the last night. The Police had assured them they would take action, find the thieves and return their lost property; but they all knew better. At least the nightmare was over, although none of them could get over their experiences. Tara repeatedly asked the Police to call her if they found her stolen goods. ‘Calm down Madam, we will find the thieves. They can’t have gone far yet’, although that was hardly a believable consolation to the sniffing Tara. It was a grim end to that vacation which they had planned so many times and were so elated to finally execute. Sighing, Neil booked a cab to take them straight to the railway station.