Chapter - 9 Tantric's Macabre

Rudra Uncle had a stock full of stories: fantasy, adventure, horror, suspense, and, of course, his huge collection of "real stories" of ghosts, spirits, witchcraft, etc., which he confirmed were real. However, I had no evidence of their authenticity.

One evening, I was back in my village, sitting against the kitchen fire along with my grandmother, who was busy murmuring and preparing chapattis. I had hunched on a wooden stool next to the fire, delving deep into the fantasy stories in a book gifted by Rudra Uncle.

Suddenly, Lallan kaka came running to my grandmother. Lallan kaka was the caretaker and, most obviously, my grandmother's spy who would bring all the news of the village to her.

He came running, almost out of breath, having learned something.

In the last six months, four children had gone missing from the village. No one knew about their whereabouts. They seemed to vanish into thin air all of a sudden, either while playing or returning from school.

The incidents mainly happened when these children were alone, and hence rumors arose about children being kidnapped. The families, the parents, were in deep distress, looking for their children everywhere but in vain.

The local police station was informed, but they had no clue. The incidents mainly started happening from the time Dhananjay came to the village.

Dhananjay, the village tantric, was a man shrouded in suspicion. Whispers linked him to the disappearances of several children. Although the villagers were suspicious of him, they had no evidence against him.

The police could do nothing. He initially seemed to be an amiable person, using his black magic powers for the good of the villagers. Slowly and gradually, he showed his true colors, and his greed and demands increased in exchange for helping others.

The villagers were fueled by fear and anger, yet they were scared of the Tantric's power. Lallan kaka's brother's child was missing. When nothing worked, he came to Rudra Uncle for help.

Rudra Uncle, as usual, set out to help the villagers again and be their savior. He understood magic, having studied about it, and he was almost sure that the Tantric was responsible for everything. He took the villagers into his confidence to confront the Tantric and initiated the fire of unity among them.

Fueled with anger and distress, the villagers finally decided to confront the Tantric. They stormed his hut, expecting to find the missing children and evidence of his dark arts.

Instead, they found Dhananjay dead, slumped over his altar, and the children's whereabouts still unknown. The mystery of Dhananjay and the missing children remains unsolved, a chilling reminder of the darkness that can lurk beneath the surface.

Although there had been no incidence of a child missing from that day onwards.