Who Was It?

Agatha had come to the Hill station many times. Both her daughters were studying in St. Mary’s Convent. The students were allowed to go home only during the winter vacation, so for nine months they were in the boarding school, and Agatha missed her children so much, that she took every opportunity to give them a look-up. The Rev. Mother had invited the parents to see the Sports in which her daughters were taking part in the Physical Training Display. She also wanted to give her children moral support and encouragement in all the events in which they were participating. So she had taken leave from office and was putting up Elphinstone hotel, way up on the hill, encircled by towering pine trees. In the night, the pale moonlight, with a lot of difficulties, penetrated and fell on the dried leaves carpeting the sloping hillside, through the grating branches, and rustling leaves, and made bizarre designs. The eerie sounds, and the dancing shadows, would conjure up awful imageries to make anybody’s hands and feet cold. Walking on the leaves, one felt very uncomfortable, as it seemed that the crunching, crackling sound, would wake up the whole hillside.

 Agatha had come alone, as her husband was not given leave from office. But staying all by herself in the isolated, spooky hotel, she had her heart racing, as she imagined all sorts of dreadful eventualities. She once saw a bare-bodied man slithering down a tree with his tongue hanging, and his head elongated, in the shape of a pumpkin, with the brains oozing out. She got goose-flesh seeing him; the hair on her hands stood on ends. Then it turned out, that it was only the light from a car on the street, together with the moonlight seeping through the leaves, which produced the uncanny, fearsome shape. This is just a backdrop of my story.

Agatha shivered. It was a cold Autumn- night. When she had come in, though the logs were burning brightly in the fireplace, after two hours they had become cold, and only thin threads of languid smoke went up the chimney. Agatha pulled up the blanket up to her ears and tried to snuggle in. She switched off the light, leaving only the dim night light on, but the next minute she got up with her heart racing, as she heard somebody breathing with a heavy, wheezing sound just outside the window. “Who was trying to get in? How was she going to protect herself?” was her frantic thought. She felt her whole body becoming paralyzed with terror. Then she saw some body’s hand clawing at the panes, and clumsily slipping off. She literally froze. Then she heard a thud as if somebody had fallen on the ground. After that, there was the sound of somebody groaning in pain. Agatha’s muscles became taut, and her breathing became rapid in anticipation of the assault on her. She stood stock still with a clothes hanger in her hand to hit back. By the way, that was the only protective instrument she could find in the room. She waited with her heart beating fast, and her blood pressure rising. She waited and waited for somebody to break the lock and step in. But nothing happened. Then becoming tired and fagged out, she found it exhausting to stand. So she thought it wise to again slip into bed.

 Now she wondered whether her calculations were wrong. Perhaps what she had seen, and heard, were not real human beings, but entities from the other world. She had heard that the hotel was previously the house of an army man, who had committed suicide because his wife, had had an affair with his friend, also an army officer, and had finally run away with him to the U.K. She had heard of many incidents of spirits not getting any peace, and roaming about on the earth, as the persons had cut short the time he was destined to live.

If it had been a burglar, he would have persisted in his endeavor to come in. So she lay trembling, becoming more and more convinced that the soul of the army man, wanted to be noticed. She wondered whether the spirit was going to harm her. On the other hand, why would it be pawing and clawing at the windowpane instead of just coming through? Nothing was making any sense. She tried to stop her teeth from chattering, but without success. She covered herself fully from head to toe, but it was very childish of her to imagine that the blanket was going to give her any protection.

It was then that this time she heard a distinct rattling at the door. Agatha became fossilized with fear. There was no imaging, no mistaking; somebody was now knocking at the door. Then she heard a voice. It was the voice of her husband. “Open, Agatha, it’s me!”

Robert, Agatha’s husband had been able to get off from office, and he had come straight to Nainital to join her. But he did not tell her beforehand that he was coming, because he wanted to give her a surprise. When he reached the hotel, in the beginning, he wanted to play a prank on her and tried to frighten her. But later on he realized, that the prank might be too much for her to withstand, and there were chances of her getting a heart attack through fright. So he knocked at her door, and let her know that it was he, who was trying to have some fun with her.

Agatha heaved a sigh of relief but made Robert promise that he would not play such a prank on her ever again.