The Trap

Sameer cursed his irresponsibility as he glanced at his wrist watch. It was 11.30 PM. He doubled his pace as he prayed to reach the station well in time for the last train. Regretting the absence of a handkerchief, he wiped away the sweat accumulated on his forehead and thought to himself – that one more round of carrom before dinner ruined it all.

Sameer lived in the Dumdum area of the City of Joy. He had graduated in the field of chemistry a year ago and had secured a job in a bank recently. That night he had an invitation for a dinner party in one of his colleague’s place at a suburban area. The place was an hour train journey from the city. Sameer planned on leaving for home at around 10 PM but he lost track of time in the friendly company of his colleagues and ended up racing through the dark streets with a hope to catch the last train.

The nights in the suburbs are generally much quieter and darker as compared to the city. Hence, Sameer felt a kind of peculiar and unknown chill down his spine as he advanced through the desolate roads. There was not even a single dog to be found. The ghastly ambience enshrouded by ornate silence planted in him the strong feeling of being constantly followed. Generally, Sameer was a boy of brave disposition gurgling with the wine of youth and juice of physical strength. Hence, fear never featured in the list of his attributes. However, that night his bravery took a little dent as he turned over his shoulder in every ten seconds in order to ensure his singularity in the scene. He overworked his aching legs in a bid to reach the station as fast as possible.

Finally, when he reached the station it was completely deserted. Not a man was in sight but a stray dog and the lights of the signal posts added enigma to the scene. The ticket counter was shut and no railway official was in sight. As Sameer entered the station and paused for a moment to catch his breath and give his tired legs a moment’s respite, he heard the whistle of a train. The last train was on the other platform and was about to leave for its final part of the journey. Sameer hurried to the other platform and jumped on board when the train was on the move.

Sameer was elated with his achievement as he leant by the door enjoying the cool breeze of the night as the train marched on into the darkness of the night. He had a smile of complacency all over his face mocking the evil plan of destiny to make him miss the train but little did he know the true plan of fate. He was too overjoyed to take in his surroundings in the beginning but eventually, he looked around. The compartment was completely empty which was not a surprise taking the hour of the night into account. It was dimly lit with few red bulbs here and there as the neon lights malfunctioned due to some reason. The ghastly ambience of the compartment quite rightly complemented the pitch-black darkness through which the train scurried on. Sameer didn’t mind this solitude as it gave him a sense of unprecedented freedom. The cool breeze and darkness in and out of the train tranced him into a state of tranquil ecstasy.

Sameer leant against the door while grabbing the handle for safety and yelled out a song with a lack of melody and harmony but filled with euphoria. He didn’t worry about his limited singing abilities as he had no audience and went on with his act of merriment in full force when suddenly he was interrupted. The front page of an English newspaper had hovered onto his face and covered it completely cutting off his song midway. He gathered the paper and glanced at it once to find it to be the front page of a week-old version of The Times of India. He looked at it insipidly and then crumpled it into a paper ball. He was about to hurl it into the darkness outside when suddenly another piece of paper fluttered onto him and then another and soon he was almost covered with newspapers. As he struggled to free himself from the onslaught of the newspapers he saw that the whole compartment was filled with newspapers as if it was struck by a storm of newspapers. For the first time that night he felt genuinely alarmed. The fact that when he boarded the train there was nobody in the compartment and it still was devoid of any other man but he made him wonder about the source of the newspapers. Moreover, the presence of a sheet of old crumpled newspaper or two in a railway compartment is quite common but the presence of such heaps of newspapers is pretty unusual. Sameer thought hard but couldn’t remember seeing even half of the heap in the compartment when he boarded the compartment and so much of paper can’t go unnoticed. Moreover, if they were present from the beginning then they should have been flying around as soon as the locomotive gained speed.

When faced with bizarre situations human mind loses its intellect and acts in the silliest possible way and that was the case with Sameer. He foolishly did a complete survey of the compartment looking for the possible source of the newspapers and quite expectedly discovered nothing. Bewildered by the lack of reasoning and understanding Sameer tried to laugh it off but deep down he felt a cold shiver in his heart. Those who knew him for a long time knew that he wasn’t a coward. He never believed in ghosts and the horror stories and movies were laughing stock to him. However, that night an unknown and inexplicable angst shook the foundations of his bravery and crept in his heart. He tried to ignore the mass of newspaper laying all over the compartment and once again stood by the door and gazed out into the darkness although this time there was no hint of joy in his face. As he was looking at the darkness through which the train galloped he grew even more uneasy. He never knew a darker night. It seemed to him as if some conspirator had covered the train in a black shroud to sequester it from the world. Even the sky was robbed of the moon and the stars. The only thing visible were the tracks through which the train advanced relentlessly. A thought suddenly struck him. Since he boarded the train, it had not stopped at a single station and neither had he seen any station that the train passed by. He was genuinely worried now. He wondered where the train was taking him. He assumingly was the only passenger on the whole train as he didn’t get any sign to think otherwise. He once thought of pulling the chain. He just wanted to alert the driver and talk to him and what better way could be to alert the driver other than pulling the chain. However, the chain was on the inner part of the compartment and he would have to cross the heap of mystical newspapers. He didn’t want to go anywhere near those papers. So, he stayed glued near the door and tried to tell himself that the train was on the right track and he would surely reach his destination in a matter of few minutes.

Sameer wondered what was the time and looked at his wrist watch only to find the hands of the watch stuck at 11.45PM. As he was examining his watch a gust of cold wind came from nowhere and made him chilled to his bones. It was so cold that he sprang back into the compartment trembling vigorously. His aching legs and the bleak wind forced him to take a seat beside the heap of papers. As he sat down, another gust of cold wind blew a few of the newspapers which ended on the floor with their front page facing Sameer. He instinctively looked at them and was shocked to find the exact same picture on all of them with the exact same headline. He picked three of them up. They were each a week-old version of Hindustan Times, The Statesman and The Telegraph all published on the same date. Sameer wasn’t in the mental state to realise the eeriness of the fact that all three of them bore the same headline and exactly the same news. The gust of wind had robbed him of all his senses. It seemed as if some supernatural force was at work and made him sit down and read the news. He did so like an obedient boy –

 

The Nocturnal Carnage at the Bishnupur – Dumdum railway track

13th June 2017

Last night the Bishnupur – Dumdum connecting railway track experienced a terrible bloodbath. A young man of about 23 years of age was run over by a goods train near the Dumdum yard. From the identity proof found in his wallet, it was discovered that he was a resident of Dumdum. The deceased was Mr Mehul Sen. The probable reason as to how this happened maybe the fact that he wanted to reach home early and hence got off at the yard where the train halted for a couple of minutes. He must have wanted to cross the yard and reach his locality which was nearby. However, he failed to locate the goods train in the darkness of the night as he entered the side track designated for goods trains which led to this debacle. The picture of the deceased is given below.

Sameer glanced at the image given below the new and as he looked at Mehul’s picture, his blood froze. It was his picture along with Mehul’s name. He couldn’t believe his eyes for a moment but how could he not recognise the face that he has been seeing for the last 22 years in the mirror. Sameer was suddenly jolted to his senses as he flinched and threw the papers which started gyrating with the rest of the papers in the moving compartment.

The sight of the emergency chain suddenly reminded Sameer of his earlier ploy. He ran up to it and pulled it with all his might. However, to his surprise, the train didn’t show any sign of deceleration. For the first time, Sameer suspected the mortality of the driver of the train. As he was in pursuit of an escape route from this enigmatic and ghastly turmoil, he remembered about his mobile phone. Euphoria in the beginning and terror from thereon completely made him oblivious of the phone. He jumped with excitement as he saw a ray of hope but that ray was soon extinguished as well. His mobile phone was out of network coverage as is always the case when one travels to suburbs. Sameer shouted loudly out of sheer chagrin and terror as he threw his phone away. That was when an idea struck him. He ran to the door and started shouting his heart out for help. Any pragmatic individual would know how foolish the idea was. The sound of a moving train gulps down the desperate scream of a human voice. However, sensibility was one luxury that one can’t afford when one’s life is threatened especially by some supernatural or obscure force.

While Sameer was peeping out of the train and shouting his heart out, his eyes for the first time caught the sight of something other than the railway tracks. As the thing came closer, Sameer understood what it was and that added to his frenzy exponentially. It was a long goods train which was stationary. The goods train was the cause of Mehul Sen’s death whose name bore his picture in the news. However, as his train started crossing the length of the goods train his eyes got transfixed on something moving on top of the goods carriages. He exclaimed with fear on understanding what it was. It was a woman clad in absolutely white saree and untied hair strolling gradually on the carriages in the direction opposite to his train. He had no idea as to how she climbed up so high to the top off the carriages. As his compartment was crossing her another gust of chilly wind blew the hair off her face and Sameer got a glimpse of her face. He knew straight away that although the skin was that of a woman, what hid underneath was in no way human. Her gaze was bloodthirsty filled with the lust for human flesh and innocent soul. Her eyes were red and ferocious while at the same time they were calm and keen like a predator framing its prey. Her tongue was peeping from behind her red lips like that of a snake demanding blood. She was clearly a dweller of the underworld who found a way out lately and conspired to trap her prey to quench her hunger for flesh, blood and soul. Unfortunately, the last train at night was her designed trap to lure her prey in.

The sight threw Sameer off guard as he let out a cry and sprang back into the compartment. The train had started slowing down as soon as it started crossing the goods train and now came to a halt. Sameer had lost his mind by now and jumped out of the train as soon as his tortured journey came to an end. As he landed on the tracks, he examined the goods train vigilantly but couldn’t see any sign of the witch. He then turned forward and saw some specks of light in high-rise buildings in the distance. He understood that he was very close to the dumdum yard. He started running towards the lights frantically along the length of the goods train. As he traversed the whole length of the train, he was elated at the sight of the bridge beside the yard that led to his locality. He was crazy with joy and relief and tried to rush across the track of the goods train right in front of its engine. Something caught his left foot and brought him crashing down on the tracks. Another gust of the chilliest possible wind blew with a scent of woman perfume in it. Sameer was stupefied with anticipation and looked up at the engine gradually. There she was. The witch was standing on the top of the engine with a calm and solemn demeanour much like calmness before a storm. Her gaze almost chiselled into Sameer’s heart. Her face now bore a smile as evil and malevolent as Hades himself. Sameer saw no other way out and accepted his fate as he looked at the witch smiling with lust for a human soul. There was a couple of seconds silence and then Rita Sen or whoever she was pounced upon Sameer with a cry as shrill and scary as the call of an eagle with ferocity and cruelty of the roar of a tiger. The scream of the witch shook the goodness that was present in every nook and corner of the earth.

*****

The next morning the locals discovered the body just like they did a week ago. They informed the railway officials. One of the middle-aged men informed the Railway Police in a perplexed manner – Sir. I was the one who discovered the body of Mehul Sen last week and it was again I who discovered the body of this unfortunate man or at least what was left of him today. I noticed that both of their bodies were lying in pieces in exactly the same place bearing exactly the same form of mutilations. As if the goods train ran him over exactly in the same way like it did Mehul Sen a week ago. Much like an action replay. Isn’t that spooky?