The Mystery Man

The buzzing mosquitoes did not let my body rest in the late hours. The bizarre sound created by them was actually more infuriating than their bites as they kept on hovering near my ears. In closed eyes it sounded as if an old gramophone player is playing a 1940’s song in fast forward mode. Both my palms clashed with each other almost once in every ten seconds creating an applaud sound; someone observing me by now would have definitely taken me as a Kawali practitioner. The rascals had targeted me as their feast when I was trying to get a rest in the dark corner near F6 pillar resting on one chair and stretching my legs on another. I did not realize; when I caught a sleep. As I had just gone unconscious for some time, something quivered on my left thigh; my cell phone was vibrating. I gave an awful look to my cell phone for few seconds for disrupting my sleep. The person with a charming mustache from the US Operations desk had called me, asking me to authorize few payments. I checked my watch, it was 2.30 am. “I have to come back tomorrow at the most by 12 pm to start my day, so must take a short nap, atleast for 1 hour after authorizing the payments”, I thought. I Went up to work station 596 and authorized the payments. “Huh, Just for few authorizing the payments that too for some other desk I have to stay whole night in office. I cannot even sleep without a break without even having regular work, atleast these tiny carnivorous bugs won’t let me sleep”, I murmured myself squeezing a mosquito with anger that was hovering near my right ear.
I hurried back to my temporary sleeping platform with a desire to get back to an unconscious state till the next call. The two aligned chairs were so comfortable that I fell asleep very soon. After sometime, I got up and headed to the washroom. Just near the entrance of the washroom, something caught my attention. There was a note written on the notice board near the washroom which read as- “Be careful in the dark, you are never alone.” I was little astounded to see such a writing, “who posted this here? This was not there in the evening, where did it come from!!”? I did not engross my thoughts so much about it and entered the wash room. I did not want to splash water on my face, coz I did not want my drowsy eyes to get freshen up as I preferred to sleep for some more time. When I came out, I was stunned to see the changed color of the floor. The entire floor had been shaded with darkness as if someone has cloaked up the floor with a blanket. That view of the floor was fearsome, had never seen it like that before. Even the lights in the washroom started deeming. I was totally awake now as the drowsiness had faded out. I screeched at the top of my voice, Rajendraji. But I could not hear any voice. Tried calling Mukesh too, still there was no response. That terrified me. “I should better run to the reception”, I thought. The darkness had diffused its wings to each and every corner. “What happened to the people on night shift?”, I cried in despair. The entire floor including the reception had turned a no man’s land; I could not even see the security guard in night duty. “Am I the only creature left in this entire floor!!”, I wondered. I felt like a character in an old Bollywood horror movie held up in an abandoned palace with no one nearby. So I decided to get outside the building, on to the road, perhaps to catch some crowd. I dragged my feet faster on the stairs to get down to the ground floor as soon as possible. When I reached the ground floor, I thought of checking the lift area. Usually I see the lift man on night duty sleeping on the floor near the lift. So I checked there and found him in his usual position. I tried waking him up. But he was lying down as if he is dead, as usual. So I did not bother him and went outside. “Atleast now I have the lift man with me in this building” I assured myself with a relief.
The street lights had gone dead. I could not see a single vehicle on the road, there was complete silence, felt as if I am in a jungle. “Atleast if I can see a stray dog”, I thought. I walked a little ahead on the road. I saw something lying down on the footpath, around 30 feet’s from me. I went closer to see what it was and turned on the mobile flash light. Saw a dog on footpath, the head was missing. My eyes almost popped out seeing the vicious scene. It looked like some sharp weapon had been used to execute the dog. The sprouting of blood was still fresh. “Who did this to the dog, is that a man or….” In chilling cold of December night I started sweating. My throat almost dried up. I saw line of blood droplets near the dead dog. “This must give a clue to me where the assassin has gone after executing the dog, may be in search of his/her next target”, I thought. I could follow the droplets hardly till 20-25 feet’s after which I could not see any more blood drops. That spot was very close to the entrance of the Empire Industrial complex. “Has he gone inside empire complex?” I wondered. I thought of calling Rajendraji to check where he is. When I tried calling him, it got disconnected after 2-3 rings. I tried calling him again, but it got disconnected again. “Is everything all right?” Just that I thought this; I got an sms from him- “Come near pillar no E9.” It was a little unusual that he sent me an sms; he could have picked my call or called me back. But I did not think deep into it and headed towards 2nd floor. While I reached up till the CNBC office, I saw the black cat which normally inhabits nearby that office gazing at me with his tiny but scary gleaming eyes. It looked as if it was warning me about some upcoming danger. Looked at me quite a few seconds and then it mewed and crossed in front of me. I kept looking at the cat and started walking again. “Madam Curie must have had got inspired by the blushing eyes of cats which inspired her to invent Radium”, I added to my chain of thoughts. I wanted to keep my mind busy in motivational thoughts so that it does not get occupied in scary thoughts. I wanted to see my colleagues as soon as possible. I was walking very fast but still the distance from empire corridor till the 2nd floor looked like marathon distance. I was constantly looking back; my thoughts were “Is someone following me”? When I reached near the ground floor stairs, I thought of checking the lift area again, I would kick the liftman if I had to, if he would not get up by gentle shaking. When I reached near the lift, I could not see the liftman there. Instead I could only see his cap and chappal lying down on the floor. “Where he could have gone, leaving his chappal and cap?”, I wondered. Suddenly the picture of the beheaded dog flashed in my memory. I felt dizzy. I thought of reaching 2nd floor as soon as possible to get some gathering out there. I started taking the stairs. My memory played the flash back of all that happened starting from the black out on the floor till now in my thought as I was heading up.
It took half the time to step up roughly 40 stairs as it would take in normal course as I wanted to cross the staircase area as soon as possible. When I reached the reception of the 2nd floor; I found it the same way as I had left it before some time; dark and silent. I opened the door and started moving towards US Canada desk. As I was walking through the aphotic floor, I tried shrieking up- “Rajendraji”, there was no response. I tried even louder, no voice responded back following my scream. So I went till his row and saw there is no one. “Then why did he send me the text. Was that he or someone else sent the sms from his cell”, I pondered. Just that I turned thinking this; I saw lights from inside the dispatch section room that falls on the left side of US Canada desk. After the black out, that was the only light source I had come across. “May be all the people have gathered there”, I thought. I lugged myself towards the room; I wanted to see what is happening inside? As I came closer to the dispatch room I heard someone chanting something followed by a group of reciters. I could not guess what is happening in that room. I peeped into the room; to my surprise, all my fellow colleagues were sitting on the floor surrounding a havan fire. Among them I could see an unknown face wearing a wired outfit, something that will never come in the purview of corporate/modern attire. He was the one who was enchanting the mantras the rest were reciting the same in a frenzy. All the people were sitting on a parallel line on both the sides of that stranger. I preferred to stay in my position only and keep observing. The chanting of mantras final stopped after some time. “What is next?” I was curious. The stranger then handed over a sword to the person sitting to his right. He asked him to offer few drops of his blood to the fire incising his right thumb and to close his eyes. That person then slashed his right thumb against the sharp edge of the sword and offered his blood to the fire. He then closed his eyes and remained idle. Then I observed something strange in the lit up fire. The color of the fire was changing constantly. Suddenly a smoke exiled from the fire; it took the shape of a ghost and got inside that person who had offered blood. It shook him and his eyes turned blood red. A cold chill ran through my body seeing this spectral scene. My heart was throbbing. I still could not understand what is happening there. The mysterious man’s face was still not unveiled to me. He then asked rest of the people to follow the same process. Every time someone offered blood to the fire, a smoky ghost entered his/her body. When everyone finished their turns, the stranger said, “You all have offered your blood to the fire, now you have to obey my orders, and if you don’t, then the ghost inside you will reduce you to ashes.” It looked like; everyone indicated their acceptance by keeping quiet. By now I had understood; that why some people keeps on saying about sprits or ghosts. They probably would have seen some real ghosts like this. The mystery man then took a meditation pose and kept quiet for some time. “It is now your turn to offer blood to this Havan fire, Abhisek.” I felt like a landslide happening beneath my feet as I realized, there is only one person with the name Abhisek in my department, and that is me. He looked at me and indicated to sit beside him. His red and bold eyes had some magical power, I guess, because I lost control on me and started walking towards him. I think he had hypnotized me like he did to the rest. As I sat beside him, he closed his eyes and started chanting mantras. He stopped chanting after sometime and handed me over the sword. I took the sword in my hand and saw the edge of the sword had been covered with blood. “Perhaps this is the sword which executed the dog, and now it needs my blood too”, I thought. I was partly in my sense, I could understand something wrong happening with me, but my hypnotized mind had started obeying the orders of the mysterious man. I slashed my right thump against the aciculated surface of the sword. Blood gushed from my right thump and I offered it to the havan fire as the rest had done. My blood ignited some change in the fire and it stared changing colors. Suddenly a smoke exiled from the fire and started changing its shape. I saw it taking shape of a ghostly face. “I wish that I would have been watching a 3d show only, not the real ghost”, I cogitated. But I was wrong, it came closer to me. I was too scared that I closed my eyes. I felt a heat in my heart as the ghost entered my body. It shook me completely. Suddenly I heard someone saying “Default ho jayega, get up man”. My eyes opened, I saw Mukesh standing in front of me with a smile on his face. I tried to look for the mysterious man. I checked my right thumb, there was no bleeding. My forehead was covered with sweat. I saw the lights on the floor were back. “What a nightmare man”, I whispered to myself as I realized that all happened with me were not real, it was Mukesh who shook me, not the smoky ghost. Mukesh said “what?” I said nothing. “Authorise the last 2 fund transfers. Then you leave”, Mukesh said. I logged into swift and authorized the payments and left for home. I could not sleep in the cab on my way back home. I thought the mysterious man might return in my dream once again. So I preferred to stay awake for some more time atleast till the time the mystery man completely dissolves from my memory.
The stranger was still alive in my memory while started my day in the office next day. I thought of sharing the same with other colleagues, but later thought of not disclosing as they might think that I have a phobia towards darkness. But I could not forget the scene inside the dispatch section, even though the mystery man never existed, but his spooky appearance was still alive in my memory.