Menaka

Inspired by: Horror Story

Even when you’re the only survivor of a grisly mass murder rampage, where six of your friends were brutally murdered right in front of you, life is not such a rosy affair.

Even as I close my eyes, reclining my head on the rim of the bathtub, my body submerged in the warm, foamy bath, the memories of that fateful night come floating back. As vivid as a technicolour movie, and chilling enough to make the blood turn cold in my veins.

Yes, I have spent five months in a psychiatric institute in idyllic Panchgani. Yes, I have found a great shrink and a friend in Dr. Iyer. Yes, the anti-depressants and anxiolytics help me sleep, and ward off untimely panic attacks.

And yet, no amount of medication or counselling can make me forget what happened that cursed night.

Or change the fact that it has scarred my soul forever, the memories following me everywhere like a shadow. Dominating my dreams at night, waiting to spring at me from the shadows and dark corners of the city during the day.

I am now perpetually afraid of the dark – all rooms in my Versova apartment have small ceiling lights, which burn through the night and help me sleep. I come home from work before it gets dark, and on the days I have to stay late, I ask a friend to drop me home. I can’t enjoy a horror movie, or sit in darkened places, like a movie theatre, anymore. Because they trigger my panic attacks, I feel suffocated, and feel like she’s coming at me again.

She, Menaka, the vile spirit of a homicidal maniac, who, while she lived, murdered her own family, among other people; in death she murdered six of my friends, among other people.

I’d warned them, repeatedly, not to go in there.

“We don’t know what’s in that hotel, guys…people have died for no reason in there. I don’t think we should take a risk,” I had opined, sitting in the hip Barking Horse Resto-Bar in Lower Parel, as all of us drank wine and ate pasta with cheese sauce.

“Oh please. Don’t be such a darpok, a scared-cat, Nilu darling.”

“Yeah, the night is young, and so are we. Who knows when we’ll get to meet again. Don’t spoil the fun, Nilu.”

“Yeah, we must have one last night of fun before I leave for the States. And don’t worry, Nilima, we’re all together. No one will dare to mess with us.”

Casa Granda, the hotel in question, was famously rumoured to be haunted. Ever since it opened, guests had died in there under mysterious circumstances…which made sure the hotel shut down.

In an interesting twist, the last person to die there, before my friends, was the hotel owner himself. He just drove to the abandoned building one day, and jumped off the roof.

Visiting the hotel in the dead of the night and attempting to uncover the mystery behind the numerous deaths was our idea of fun.

Don’t ever get into anything you instinctively feel is wrong, Nilu, my mother always told me.

But I guess this is what characterizes us ‘Gen-Next’ – a cocky bravado that, on one hand, spurs us to achieve the heights of success, and on the other, encourages us to get into sticky situations and screw things up.

Taking a sip from the glass of wine kept on the rim of the tub, I wonder if I had stood my ground and prevented them from going in there.

Then I would not have been the only one to walk out of that hell alive the next morning.

If only we hadn’t been so foolhardy. If only I’d persuaded them to come here, and we’d all have an all nocturnal jamboree of music and dancing and wine, then my favourite Domino’s pizzas, and then more wine.

They would all be passed out drunk the next morning, not dead.

Their screams of fear and pain still reverberate in my ears. Visions of their mutilated bodies still haunt my dreams. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, screaming, from nightmares which have Menaka come for me again. Her arms stretched out, her pale white, half-burnt face bearing a wide grin, as she glides towards me, laughing.

 That high-pitched, evil laugh which merges with my friends’ screams at times.

I have already had three glasses of wine in the tub. I wipe off my tears, and standing up, drain the tub and take a shower.

Drying myself with a towel and draping it around me, I step out of the tub and walk out of the bathroom.

As I cross the large mirror above the basin, I see a shape in the mirror. A woman, with an unruly, large bushy mop of hair, pale white, half burnt face and a grin on her face.

I turn around quickly, to find only gleaming white tile, and no woman.

I must ask Dr. Iyer to increase my medications. I need to forget. Completely, and for a lifetime, I need to forget, to blur out that night forever.

I find myself unable to sleep. So I read a new James Patterson novel. The one good thing to come out of my ordeal is that I have grown from an occasional reader to a voracious one. I enjoy romance and fantasy novels, and relish crime and espionage thrillers. But I can’t even look at another horror thriller, for obvious reasons.

The silence in my apartment is too much for my frayed nerves, so I put on my headphones and listened to music.

But there is a reason for my insomnia. Tomorrow is the 6^th of April, six months since that incident. For the past few months, on the sixth of every month, I am in mortal fear of losing my sanity. I binge on food, drinks and read books the whole day, to stop myself from thinking about it. To keep myself from thinking anything, really. I haven’t dated anyone in a long time since I broke up with my ex-boyfriend two years ago. Men at work have asked me out, but I have refused them all. I’m afraid they’ll think I’m a lunatic, and I don’t think any man needs the burden of my past trauma. So no boyfriend to hug and cuddle and take my nightmares away.

It’s past midnight, and I have the other half of an engaging mystery novel to read. I don’t think I’m going to sleep, so I think I’ll make myself a cup of coffee.

Morning dawns, bright and clear. I bathe, get ready and go to work.

It is insane, the way the onslaught of traumatic memories affects me. I am seeing Menaka  everywhere. In the bathroom mirror. In the backseat of my car, her face, with that evil grin, visible in the rear view mirror. In the windows of my car. Her image reflected on the façade of glass everywhere, standing right behind me. I see her in the shadows, in the dark spaces, in the alleys between buildings.

I can hear her too.

‘Nilima’, she persistently whispers in my ears. I thought I killed her, back in that hotel, when I burnt down the electrocuting machine that served as the ‘energy source’ for the evil spirit. But perhaps I hadn’t killed her, only sent her away, to wherever it is that evil spirits are banished to.

How can one kill someone who is already dead?

What is happening to me?

I know she’s not real, that she’s a product of my trauma induced paranoia. And yet, I can’t seem to be able to shake her off.

I thought work will take away the stress, but it doesn’t. I am associate editor at a political magazine, which I run with a friend, so I try to concentrate on the article I’m supposed to be reading and editing.

My cabin is all brightly lit up, but the horrible, frightening darkness of the Casa Granda seems to pervade here too. Now terrifying visions of my friends come back too, their bodies horribly mutilated, dressed in the same clothes when they had been murdered, their fingers pointed at me, all of them chanting the same accusation, over and over. They are accusing me of being alive, for surviving Menaka’s tyranny, for seeing the light of day.

You deserve to die too, Nilu. We all faced a horrible death, so why not you? Why are you still alive?

As if I don’t already blame myself enough for my continued existence.

I put my hands over my ears, and close my eyes. I can’t take it anymore. I run out of my cabin, into the corridor, colliding against people.

And it gets worse by the second.

I see my friends in everyone I run into.

Here is Shlok. There is Anuj. That is Sheena. Beside her is Amit, holding his severed head in his hands. There, at the water cooler, is Joyleen. A door opens to my left, and out comes Monir. 

All of them glaring at me, holding me responsible.

The office around me suddenly starts to dissolve. The walls melt away, and so does the floor, but my friends remain, surrounding me, closing in, shutting out any avenues of escape.

Suddenly, I’m back in Casa Granda. The darkness is all around me now, pressing on me from all sides, boring into me, threatening me.

And she’s here again. I hear her before I see her. Her evil, high laughter, reverberating off the walls.

Welcome back, Nilima, she hisses from somewhere in the dark.

No, this isn’t real. I’m having a panic attack. I must have forgotten to take my meds this morning. But I never forget, usually. How could I have forgotten, today of all mornings?

But it seems real, alright.

‘Nilima’, comes the whisper again.

Shlok and Anuj, who are right in front of me, suddenly part, as if making way for someone else.

And there she is, again, gliding towards me. Grinning, her hands stretched out, perhaps reaching for my throat. I can hear someone screaming.

No! Please, no! Help me! Please, no, this is not real!

A moment later I realize the scream is my own.

Menaka is on me now, nose to nose, her hands closing around my throat. No, I won’t be killed by her. No. This time, I will send her away for good. I find myself still screaming, but the words are different.

Take this, you bitch! You killed all my friends. Now I will kill you!

I reach for Menaka’s throat with my own hands. My fingers grip her neck like a vice grip, and I press, hard, applying all the force I can muster.

Suddenly, I feel a searing pain in the back of my skull. Next moment, everything goes dark.

When I come to, I am in a room, with the walls painted white, and a single window, through which I can see the morning outside. This room seems familiar.

And I’m in a straitjacket.

A woman, dressed like a nurse, comes in through a door, and asks me how I am.

I reply my head hurts, and ask her how I have ended up here.

She says I’m back in the psychiatric hospital in Panchgani. I had a nervous breakdown yesterday, and I tried to strangle my colleague, right in my office.

I was shouting ‘Menaka’ while I attempted to kill her.