Sneak Peek Into - THE SPOOKOHOLIC: DEMONIC WHISPERS

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THE SPOOKOHOLIC: DEMONIC WHISPERS

(the indipendent 2nd instalment of the Spookoholic Series)

Mastho Vamsee

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Preface

 Thousands of years ago, a mighty king named Janamejaya got into the mood for vengeance.

According to ancient history, this ruler’s father Parikshit was cursed to die of a serpent bite. So, he built himself a gigantic tower with no windows, ventilators or doors except one main entrance. In it, he lived in peace, content that no serpent could now enter his abode.

       But one day, a little worm crawled out of a fruit he was about to consume. The worm transformed itself into a horrifying serpent called Takshak, the leader of the serpents. Then Takshak finished his job.

       So, mad with rage, king Parikshit’s son king Janamejaya set himself up to some serious vendetta. He began killing every snake on the planet in a gigantic sacrificial ritual. It was a mass massacre and the serpents were on the run.

       Whenever one faces a dead end, one would surely find a fresh opening just around the corner… Law of the Universe.

So the Universe gave the ‘Nagas’, that was the name the serpent race was known by then, a new life. Enter, the great sage Aastik.

       Sage Aastik talked sense into Janamejaya and asked him to stop this madness. People in rage as a rule, don’t listen to anybody, but Janamejaya seemed to know better. He obliged and ended not just his act of mass murder but also his enmity with the serpent race.

       The Nagas were, at that time, perhaps a race that consisted of humans who had the power to get transformed into serpents. 

All the surviving Nagas were lead to a far off land by sage Aastik. Gladly, the Nagas followed the great seer, settled down happily and breathed a sigh of relief.

       The place where Sage Aastik took the surviving Nagas, was known as Mekshika and here, they flourished under the compassionate leadership of sage Aastik.

Once in Mekshika, the sage began building three realms or three different states for the Nagas. The realms were meticulously built with terrific engineering skills using an extraordinary technology that is still not available in this age of science. Sage Aastik’s personal engineer who built these realms or states, was known as Maya. The states were named Atala, Talatala, and Paataala.   

       The happy Nagas thrived on this new land, strongly establishing their culture in Mekshika. As years rolled by, they spread to further North into a place that is now known as North America. And they spread into South America and to lands in the East where they built structures now referred to as pyramids.

       Well, if you were wondering… Mekshika is known in the present day as Mexico. And the compassionate Sage Aastik’s protégés who considered themselves his children were called Aastikas… a word that got altered through usage to become Aztec. Engineer Maya’s name resonates with the Maya Civilization and the popular prophetic Mayan Calendar.

       Now to another interesting incident that would be very significant to this book…

       Ages ago, five brothers called Pandavas of Mahabharata, were wedded to an extraordinary beauty called Droupadi. As all the five brothers were wedded to the same woman, they had an agreement. Droupadi would stay with each brother for one year and the rest would have to wait for his turn.

       So, once it so happened that Droupadi was with the eldest brother of the Pandavas, known as Yudhishtir. At this time, the third brother Arjuna sneaked in and met Droupadi one day, for whatever reasons. Having done so, he later repented for his unfair act and in a mood for atonement; he set off on a yearlong pilgrimage.

       Some facts are difficult to believe for the modern mind that trusts nothing but logic. Yet, history is proof to the fact that esoteric knowledge imparted by the wise, though possibly faces ridicule, always proves true rendering a slap across the logical mind’s face. Logic is only a tiny part of wisdom.

Anyway, the wise say that in those times, the landmasses of North and South America, Africa and Bharat or India were not as far apart from each other, as they are now. Asia, Africa and South and North America were closer to each other with only small parts of ocean separating them. Remember the Continental Drift Theory?

Watching these three pieces of land closely on a map, one would notice that they are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that got separated. The water-body that existed between these huge landmasses was shallow enough for anybody to walk across to the other shore… just a foot or two deep. They say that the ancient Indians used to walk down to America.

       Back to the story, Arjuna traveled across to Mekshika or today’s Mexico as part of his pilgrimage. There he took a dip in a holy river.

The moment he did so, he felt he was being pulled in with great force. Moving rapidly into the depths of the river, he noticed that a beautiful Naga girl was the reason for it. Arjuna somehow didn’t feel like resisting. He let himself be lead to a realm that was the girl’s own city. Here, Arjuna found the king of Nagas and before him was burning a huge sacred fire.

    Without the slightest hesitation, Arjuna, understanding the gorgeous girl’s noble intensions, performed a certain ritual with the fire. The next instant, the God of Fire appeared and bestowed Arjuna with a boon.

The Naga girl was deeply in love with Arjuna and Arjuna had the same feelings for her. Eventually, with the girl’s father’s blessings, Arjuna got married to the Naga girl whose name was Ulupi. Her dad was the king of Nagas, King Kauravya.

Ulupi was the same woman who came to Arjuna’s rescue later on in his life. It so happened, that Arjuna owing to a curse, was killed by his own son Babruvahana in a battle. Ulupi came down and restored his life with a magical stone of the Nagas that she borrowed from her dad. This stone is quite popular even this day; it’s known as the Nagamani or the jewel of the Nagas.

       So ends this little story of Arjuna and his wife Ulupi.

       But that’s not quite the end as far as our story here is concerned. Years later, Bheema, the second brother of the five Pandavas, went down to Mekshika on an excursion with his second wife Hidimba who belonged to the Asura clan.

       There in Mexico or Mekshika, the couple fell in love with the lovely place and the enthralling engineering prowess of Maya. Being struck with inspiration, Bheema sought the help of Maya who obliged him in astral form, to built a beautiful underground palace where Bheema and Hidimba spent undisturbed moments filled with unparalleled joy.

       Finally when it was time for the couple to leave Mekshika, Bheema offered the majestic palace to the great sage Aastik. Sage Aastik accepted the gift and blessed the couple.

       This palace, called the Bheema’s Palace still exists underground in Mexico… unknown, untouched… and still unearthed.

Prologue

Samuel Ramirez lived a sweet life.

Sweet?

Yeah, sweet… that’s how perhaps he would look at his life fifty-nine years long. Sweet because he always did what he loved to do. He had around him, everyone that loved him. Haters had no place.

       The things he loved were many. Like slicing someone’s cheek with his ancient penknife and listening to the melody that ensued. He loved making love to the women of those men who he happened to stab with lightning precision. Or sometimes he fancied playing with the lever or making holes in one of the lungs of his victims. Sweet.

       In a career that spanned half a century, his drugs must have made at-least a million peoples’ lives a living hell. And the sweet part was that this thought always made him smile with inexplicable pleasure.

He lived a sweet life, sure. Because he had a sweet little collection of memorabilia from every body he happened to take the life out of and the room where these items were at display was a place he always went back to feel relaxed and energized on weekends.

Samuel Ramirez’s conquests made him a dreaded name in Mexico. He was so ruthless that once when he got mad on himself, he chopped his own left ring finger off. People spoke about this and said that Samie wouldn’t spare even himself. And when he did hear about this talk, Samuel Ramirez felt the familiar sweet feeling arising in him.

He would have felt sweeter, had he been able to see his funeral procession that day… Throngs of people who came all the way from places like Ciudad Juarez, Acapulco and Los Cabos made the funeral procession look more colorful… Of course, it is another thing that most of them were there just to confirm the good news and feast their eyes looking at the dead viejo hijo de puta or the old mothafukka.

The coffin was placed on an open top vehicle to give Samuel more visibility. The procession began from Samuel Ramirez’s home and was to snake its way up to the airport from where his body would be taken to the Jardines del Humaya cemetery in Culiacan. It was his mother’s place and he always wanted to be buried there.

Members of the National Guard and Police stayed far and watched the procession calmly. They knew that there was no reason for them to be there, yet they stood watching anyway just for the pleasurable feeling of riddance.

Mexico City was an enormous, bustling, modern city with triple-decker highways and gigantic tunnels that run through mountains. The procession was passing slowly on the roads of Mexico City, strangely in a disciplined manner so as not to obstruct too much of regular traffic.

All was well for the first sixty-four minutes of the silently passing funeral procession. But just as the procession neared the airport turning into the Av. del Panon road, at once the unexpected began to manifest itself.

At first the family member who stood next to the coffin on the vehicle’s platform thought it was just the bad roads. A few seconds later, the coffin began moving again, almost like it was jumping. The family member’s scream, though, reverberated in the quiet of the early morning air. Alarmed, two men of the family accosted her immediately. 

But before she could tell them anything, it happened again, now for the two men and a few more people to notice clearly. The coffin jumped up and down, like the vehicle had bumped off an unexpected speed breaker on the road. The two men at once took a step backwards in confusion.

A few more seconds passed by without incident. The procession was now moving into Av. del Panon, the road that lead to the International Airport.

 And then without the slightest warning, the coffin’s door swung open with unimaginable violence. Up sprang the fair, tall and stout body of Samuel Ramirez. It promptly stood up with its eyes closed…

The three family members who were huddled at the coffin jumped back toppling down from the slowly moving vehicle. It took a few seconds for the people in the procession to grasp what they just saw… and then there was pandemonium.

Just then, the vehicle’s driver happened to glance into the rear view mirror when Samuel Ramirez’s dead body’s eyes opened. They were crimson. The driver hit the breaks in utter panic.

At that very moment, about fifty meters away from the procession, Surya Narayana stepped out of McDonald’s.

Instantly, back at the procession, Samuel Ramirez’s body fell back into the coffin and the lid shut close like magic.

Surya halted as if he forgot something. And then he turned back and headed into McDonald’s again. The charming young lady on the counter smiled at the handsome young man who returned. “Sorry, forgot to give you a tip, Juana. Here…” said Surya slipping a bill across the counter. Juana gave a perfect smile… and there was honesty about it.

Meanwhile, folks at the funeral procession took a moment to gather their wits. A moment later, they had a feeling that it was some aberration and so the driver had to be brought back by force to get the procession moving again.

Eight seconds passed without incident. And then again… the coffin jumped up and down… out sprang the dead Samuel Ramirez to sit erect in the coffin. This time around, the dead body turned its head and looked at the family members who were walking on the left side of the vehicle. And then turned its head to its right.

The dead body’s eyes were a bright red in color and they were not exactly stable. Not stable in the sense that they popped out of their sockets and began swirling in circles.

The visual was so terrifying, especially in the backdrop of the dead man’s deeds while he was alive, that one of the family members suffered a heart stroke. The rest jumped back awkwardly, and some of them stumbling down, crawled on all fours trying to get away from the dead man. Meanwhile, the crowd began to run away.

At that very moment, about forty feet away, Surya Narayana walked out of McDonald’s and stretched his body lazily, letting out a short yawn.

In a flash, Samuel Ramirez’s sorry body fell back into the coffin with a loud thud and the coffin’s lid came crashing back into place.

The entire commotion died down at once.

Unable to understand what was going on, no body dared to venture near the vehicle. But the vehicle’s driver, who did not leave the vehicle due to the fear of the gentleman who got him back the previous time, got the vehicle moving... the airport was less than a kilometer away now.

Meanwhile, Surya Narayana turned back, suddenly realizing something. Walking back into the burger outlet and reaching the table he occupied minutes back, he bent down and looked under the table. There! He found the keys that must have slipped off the table. Retrieving his keys, Surya walked out glancing at Juana who too flashed a glance at him. Smiling to himself, Surya began walking out.

Out at the procession, some of the people seemed to have gathered courage and tried to catch up with the vehicle on the move. But what they failed to notice was that the coffin was shaking wildly again.

The family members were occupied with the old lady who suffered a heart stroke. Just as she was being loaded into an ambulance, the coffin burst open for the third time… only this time; it was more violent than the previous times.

The lid flew away like a tissue paper in cyclonic wind. Samuel Ramirez’s body stood up erect and jumped out of the coffin in the most awkward of movements ever possible. Standing next to the coffin, it turned briskly facing the people in the procession.

All those who were filming this weird scene were having a field day thinking about the mileage they would get on social media that day.

But just as Samie’s dead body turned to the crowd, a slender, well-shaped and attractive man promptly stood right before the dead drug lord.

With burning red eyes, the dead body stared at the man standing before it. And the next moment it opened its mouth letting out a horrendous shriek of fright.

Slap.

The sound echoed rebounding the walls of the nearby outlets. And dead silence ensued.

“Just what’s your problem in life… uh… sorry… death, huh?” said Surya burning his stare through the eyes of the demon.

Samuel Ramirez’s eyes closed in an instant. He promptly fell back into the lidless coffin, like a good

     dead body.

Chapter 1

A hundred miles below…

Deep down below the Earth’s surface…

In the darkest realms of reality…

Buried in heavy unconscious states,

vegetating at the lowest possible vibration…

Lurked a powerful entity,

deadly as consummate annihilation…

Waiting with venomous fury…

Waiting for something that shall deliver it…

to the unsuspecting human world…

The entity gave its filthy, gigantic and grotesque being… an appalling impatient wriggle...

Slowly, the whispering noises that it emitted started to be heard far up on the surface…

Chapter 2

“Don’t ever do that again! I am warning you for the last time, Antonio…” said the dad with a menacing expression, bending down and staring into young Antonio’s face.

       Six-year-old Antonio stared back as boldly as he could, fighting back tears. In his left hand were a brush and a box of black shoe polish, that were usually used to shine shoes. But Antonio had used them to paint a huge square and something akin to an amoeba on the freshly painted living room wall.

       Just a minute ago, Antonio was admiring his handiwork when he was startled by his dad’s sudden appearance and rebuke.

       “Don’t give me that stare, Antonio. Or I will have to put you in the storeroom until evening when mama returns from work,” said the dad angrily, pointing to the storeroom in the backyard.

       The mention of the storeroom had an instant effect on the kid’s innocent face. The tears were no longer holding back as he stared at the floor. What have I done? Just made a nice design on the wall.  Thought little Antonio to himself.

       “And you know…” continued Antonio’s father, “you know what’s in there… don’t you?”

       Antonio did not answer. He only turned his face away from the storeroom’s direction.

“And what’s in the storeroom?”

An adamant look now dawned on little Antonio’s face. No, he will not answer. He shall not take that name on his lips.

       Antonio’s dad was getting pissed off with this kind of behavior. “Answer me, kid! What is in the storeroom?” he said raising his voice.

       Still getting no answer from his son, he grabbed the kid by his arm and began dragging him toward the storeroom.

       “Suparogh… that’s what is in the storeroom. The ghost! Let me show it to you so you would learn your lesson. Come, you naughty devil, come with me…” Daddy kept talking as they neared the storeroom.

       Antonio’s pride did not let him wail. But his hold on his emotions was dwindling quickly as they neared the room. Silently yet frantically, he tried to break loose of his dad’s grip.

       Three feet from the storeroom, dad halted all of a sudden. He turned to Antonio squatting before him. Antonio was sobbing heavily, silently.

       “Kiddo… come here,” said Antonio’s dad, now in a subdued tone. He hugged his child tight. “Don’t cry. I’ll not lock you up in the storeroom… But look, I’ll surely do it if you resort such dumb things again. You know there is a ghost in there and I would not like for it to take a bite of my kiddo…”

       Saying that, Antonio’s dad let go of the kid who instantly fled into the house and out into the street. The kid’s dad felt bad for his own behavior and for lying to his son but he told himself that it was necessary.

       Straightening up, he walked to the storeroom casually and opened the door. As a pungent smell of sulfur filled his lungs, right in his face he saw the ghost.

“Hi, I am Suparogh… the ghost,” whispered the el fantasma.

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The Spookoholic: demonic whispers

(the indipendent 2nd instalment of the Spookoholic Series)

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