The desolated road

With a can of ‘Calsburg’ in left hand and cigarette in the other, inhaling the puff of ‘Marl Boro’  followed by quaff of beer on IGMC hostel road, he moved slowly and clumsily, reducing the distance of his destination. On the desolated road with only street light that too in its blinking mode, the clinking of crickets and dry whispers of the chilly breeze ploughed the ensued eerie silence. The silhouette of the trees, Deodar and Rhododendron, was obscuring in the moonless night. The reminiscence of ‘Ghost Stories of Shimla Hills’ and recollecting a haunted story about IGMC road, he had freshly heard, brought  chills in his spine. He smoked heavily  and gulped a large amount of beer to curb his developing trepidation.  He could easily appreciate his quick and sturdy heart beats and  to swerve away from the circumstances, he gave an unsuccessful attempt to rekindle  his dead phone.

 His steps moved quicker than his so-called inebriated brain and  he crossed the blinking street light with a pace. Still he needed to cover about half a mile. Suddenly, he found his steps slowing down despite of  all his vigor as if they were grabbed by someone. He peered at them only to find them free without any grasp. Streaks of sweat trickled down from his forehead on the frosty night of mid January, wetting his face.  The can of beer was empty now and he was left with a single cigarette and the only matchstick.

He tossed himself forward for few feet and ensconced the concrete bench along the roadside. He carefully lit up the matchstick and before he could light up the cigarette, a sudden zephyr quenched it.

‘What the….’ He shrieked.

He was about to leave the spot when someone sitting beside him offered him a fully loaded matchbox. He stood riveted in fear. ‘I was alone here all this time. Then who is…?’ He said to himself. He slowly looked at the person.

She was sitting beside him draped with old-fashioned white dress, as worn by British Women in 19^th century, over her deteriorated body with unkempt hair waving along with the breeze. Her wrinkled pale face with twinkling blue eyes glared in darkness. He was perplexed to notice such bizarre aura all over her body in midst of dark night that was scientifically impossible.  She smiled wittily and quivered her feet making sure the sound of her anklets was easily audible. His eyes shifted from her face to her feet and froze. Her feet were backwards! She laughed eerily as she looked up in the sky and then suddenly stared at him.  ‘You are not alone here!!!’, she said in her hoarse voice frightening  him further. Her eyes riveted on his scared ones, staring at him hard.

‘You are not alone here’, kept on resonating in his ears and her face whirling around his eyes, he fainted on the spot.