Terror in the attic(Ishan Garg) Terror in the Attic
- By Ishan Garg


This incident occurred two years ago. We had just moved into our new house, more a haveli. It was situated at the outskirts of our city and the surrounding areas were more or less uninhabited. I still do not know why father chose that place to live in. Nevertheless, we shifted into the haveli.

My first sight of the haveli was not a very good one. It looked like a castle in ruins. The garden surrounding the main castle housed trees that were already dead or were on their deathbed. It seemed as if someone had died here and all the Nature that was a part of his grave mourned for that fateful person. The interior, though classic, was in a good condition. Altogether, everything was excellent.

Two weeks passed by. 2nd May, the most fearful and memorable day of my life, arrived. It was my parents’ anniversary that day. We had planned to throw a party at the city’s best hotel. ITC Sonar. Since it was an hour’s ride to the city, my parents along with my younger sister Neha left at 5 pm, while I was to leave at 7 pm.

Seven struck on the clock. I was all ready, dressed in a shiny black suit, a red shirt and a black tie, but my face was not at all ready. I was frantically searching for my car’s keys. I had rummaged up the whole house for this damned object, but in vain. Where have they disappeared, I thought. Suddenly I thought I heard a whistling noise. It was just a slight sound and faded away just at the precise moment I was going to recognize it. Must be a reflection of the mind, I thought. A few minutes went by. Quarter past seven struck on the clock. The whistling noise came again. This time it was more distinct. It was definitely coming from upstairs. I was on the second floor and it was the terrace upstairs. I checked out the whole terrace but nothing was wrong. It must be from the attic then, I thought. But how could it come from that strange closet where none of us has ever set foot since we moved in here? The caretaker of the house, Ram, was a rather dull sort of man. He prevented us from going there. “It is locked for years. The previous owner locked it for some secret reason, and forbade me never to open it. No one has ever known what is there inside the attic,” the caretaker used to tell us. Mother and Neha used to get the creeps, but I always wished to solve the mystery. Now I had a good chance of finding out what really was going on. I rushed to the attic. To my surprise, I found the lock broken and the door ajar. 'It must be the caretaker. He must be up to some mischief.' I thought. Hands trembling, I pushed the door and immediately switched on the lights.

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There was no one. The windows were open and a cool breeze was blowing into the attic. The wind blowing was making a whistling noise. “Phew! I was almost out of my wits. Fancy a window being open for so many years without anybody realizing it. The caretaker must have opened it.” I said to myself. “Yes, I have opened the window.” I heard the caretaker’s voice behind me. I turned around to see a stupefying sight. I was as if nailed to the very ground on which I was standing. Jaws dropping, I stared at the caretaker with wide eyes. It was the caretaker, all right, but his legs were nowhere touching the ground. The earth’s powerful magnet had no effect on him. He was a man flying in the air!

“R-Ra-Ram” I uttered. “Yes, it is me. I am your Ram, all right, but I was also the owner of this house,” he said. “But you once said that the owner was-.” Ram cut short my sentence and said, “Dead. I am the soul of the dead owner. Years ago, I was sitting at the edge of a cliff at the back of the haveli, merrily reading a book. Just then, some ‘masked man’ pushed me from the cliff and I fell down on a rock, dead. I could not find my murderer, so whoever comes here meets his death as my murderer. And you are no exception. Ha!”
The ghost started laughing terribly. I was starting to get the creeps. Death! This cursed word pricks the heart like a pin and leaves the heart sore. I froze at the thought of this word. All of a sudden, a hard object hit my head and I lost all consciousness.

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“Ishan! Ishaaan! Ishaaaan!” I slowly opened my eyes to find Mom trying to wake me and Dad sprinkling some water on me. My face had all gone white out of fear. I slowly sat up on the couch and tried to recognize how I had been brought down, when my parents explained everything to me.

After I fell unconscious, Mom and Dad tried their best efforts to contact me, but in vain. They rushed up to the house in a panic and frantically started searching for me. At last, they found me in an unconscious state in the attic. They carried me down to the couch and tried to revive me. I told them about my encounter with the caretaker’s soul. Dad said to me, “In the absence of the caretaker, we shall go down to the base of the cliff and search for the dead body. I believe that on burning the dead body, the soul shall get moksha and shall disappear from the surface of the earth. For the rituals, a sadhu will accompany us.”

Therefore, the next day, when the caretaker went out for shopping, all of us went down the cliff. After a tiring search of about half an hour, I crushed something hard under my foot. On seeing below, I saw that it was a bone. We started digging. After fifteen minutes, a whole mound of bones was discovered. Time now for the rituals. The sadhu started reciting mantras. All was going well when unexpectedly the caretaker appeared. He seemed in a terrific temper. He started grumbling loudly and was throwing thunderbolts at us. One thunderbolt just missed me by an inch. I started running but tripped over a stone and fell down. The caretaker was just preparing to nail me down to the ground when the sadhu burnt the body just in time and the caretaker vanished.

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From that day, the house became normal. We decided that the best thing was to forget the past and continue our lives. 2 years have passed. We have shifted to Delhi and are leading a peaceful life here. I still remember that fearful incident which is etched in our minds for the rest of our lives and continues to give us goosebumps to this day.

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