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STOP!

You must read the previous part of this creepy tale before pressing onward.

I peeked up in the direction of the sound, my eyes blurry from not enough sleep. The bathroom door slowly creaked open. Annoyed, I got up and pushed it shut until I heard the latch engage. I got back into bed and was just dozing-off when, as before, I heard the noise; a soft click. I’ll be damned if the door didn’t slowly swing open again! This time I let it go. The latch was probably faulty and the door may not have been hung level. Not a biggie.

Then a thought struck me, and I got out of bed and turned on the room’s overhead light. During my travels, I had gathered various, shall we say, ‘precautionary measures.’ Better safe than sorry, and there were items in my duffle bag that would make me feel better about staying in this slightly spooky hotel. I had twice visited Hong Kong and picked-up numerous Taoist, Wuist, and Chinese folk religious objects. While there I frequented joss shops and bought obscure hell bank notes and charms for my personal collection, as well as fetishes and Weixinist articles. Some of these novelties I kept with me in my juju bag, which I carried in my coat pocket. It was a simple change purse containing a variety of religious and cultural talismans, as well as a glass bottle containing my late sister’s ashes and a thimble-sized bag of dirt from my home town. But what I was really looking for was in my large duffle bag. I opened that and rummaged through underwear, socks, and t-shirts, then extracted a small hand-carved, ornate box made of cedar wood. It was my wu box, which I had bought off a Chinese shaman. I placed this neatly on the room’s dresser opposite my bed. Then I drew out my nkisi nkondi doll, which was securely wrapped in antique cheese cloth. This magical clay fetish was created for me personally by a woman of the BaKongo people of western Zaire, and was of a protective god covered in small iron nails. I unwrapped the nkisi nkondi and placed it next to the wu box, then I opened the box and took out a small red clay ceramic, yoni-shaped bowl I had bought at a curio shop years before. It was of Indian origin and had a swastika carved into the bottom of it.

I arranged all three objects then fished around in the bag for the box of sandalwood incense I typically brought with me on my travels. Not only was the incense important for rituals, but its pleasant scent made any musty hotel room more tolerable. There was an ashtray, a candle and a book of matches in the desk drawer. I placed one of the cones of incense inside the red bowl, struck a match, and applied it to the cone. A cheerful red glow and small flame sprang to life, then went out. I watched as the thin ribbon of fragrant smoke floated up into the air, curling slightly as my breath disturbed it.

“Please accept my offering,” I said softly and clapped my hands in front of me. The smoke trail scattered with the sudden breeze. I quickly looked around the room to see if there might be a smoke detector, but there wasn’t. It was a small cone, so only burned for a few minutes; enough to feed any ghost in the room, I assured myself.

Having cleansed my room, I felt more at ease. I shut off the main light, and got back into bed and began to drift-off almost immediately. As consciousness was giving up the fight, the sounds of the city at night—the honking of car and truck horns more than anything else—muffled as they were, filtered through the walls of my room. For some odd reason, these resonances were mingled with human chatter. A woman’s voice, to be more precise, indistinct and far away, no doubt belonging to another person checking into the hotel.

I pulled the sheets up to my shoulders, tucked them in, and rolled over onto my left side, hugging the pillow as I let out a sigh and began to fall back sleep. Just then a soft creak came from somewhere in the room. The building settling, no doubt. It was old, and despite the obvious renovation work, some minor shift of the foundation was to be expected now and then. I opened one eye and stared at the bathroom door for a moment then pulled the sheets up over my head.

The world began to get fuzzy as I drifted carefree in that pleasant limbo between wakefulness and sleep.

All of a sudden, I heard the creaking again, this time followed by a faint patter of bare feet on the floor-tiles of my room accompanied by an equally soft jangle of metal. A barely audible wet slap-slap-slap sound moving in the direction of my bed from the bathroom! Hearing things during the phase before falling asleep was nothing new to me, having gotten used to it over the years. Sometimes my brain took a while to wind-down. This new sound was no doubt another in a long series of auditory hallucinations.

Then something settled into my bed next to me…

My eyes popped open and, oddly enough, I thought of home; how my housecat would often leap onto my bed at night and snuggle-up with me. The present situation felt very much the same. In my state of mental fuzziness, I reached over to pet whatever it was that had crawled into bed with me. I expected to feel soft fur, vibrating with loving purring. Instead, I felt something smooth, warm and wet … human skin, without a doubt. Solid yet yielding flesh.

Then it shivered…

With a yelp, I bolted out of bed and stood there in the dimness of the room, trying to make out who (or what) was my uninvited guest for the evening by the faint light emanating from around the bathroom door, which was still slightly ajar. Other than for the rumpled sheets and pillows where I had been lying, the bed was empty. I stared hard at the bed, then walked around and felt the space where I believed that someone had lain against me. Nothing. Not warm or wet, just a dry, flat and unruffled sheet.

Feeling understandably rattled, I double-checked that the main door of my room was locked. Both the top and side bolts were still in place, confirming that no one could have gotten in while I was falling asleep. Chuckling nervously to myself for being such an easily-spooked a fool, I closed the bathroom door for the third time. Then, out of habit, I distractedly checked my phone for any missed calls. Since there were none, I settled back down under the covers. A simple hallucination caused by my state of physical and mental exhaustion, that was all I’d experienced, I rationalized to myself, feeling foolish. It had been a crazy first day in India, that much was for sure! I hunkered-down with my pillow and breathed a long sigh. The faint fragrance of sandalwood still hung in the air. I was now certain that the incident was just some weird hallucination, like those nightmares we sometimes experience during which we are jolted awake, only to have the same nightmare continue as soon as we fall back to sleep.

Mere minutes after I’d gotten comfortable again, I heard another click and the room lit-up once more as the bathroom door slowly swung open... Then the soft murmurings of a woman’s voice started again, as did the creaks, the slap-slap-slap of wet footfalls and the faint jangle of metal.

It crawled into my bed with me again, this time slipping under the covers. I felt her firm, damp body next to mine, smelled the light fragrance of neem as she snuggled close to me. An arm slipped across my belly as she pulled me into her embrace. I was acutely aware of the curvature of her ample breast as it pressed up against my back. What would have been an erotic experience under altogether very different circumstances was now filling me with dread.

“Main thandi hoon aur garm hone ki kaamna karti hoon,” I believed I heard her say in Hindi; not that it made much sense. “Mera badan thanda pada hai. Muze tumhare badan se lipatkar garm hone do,” she spoke again softly, like my lover, and was close enough that her breath tickled my ear. “Hold me, I am cold”, she repeated, this time in heavily-accented English that chilled me to the bone.

My teeth began to chatter and I stifled a scream. A ghost, a fucking GHOST!

She nuzzled in so close that I felt her lips pressing against the back of my neck.

I couldn’t move…

More accurately, I wouldn’t move. I didn’t want to turn over and experience something that shouldn’t be there. Something dead. A corpse grinning at me; eyes dead, mouth agape, rotted teeth, putrescent skin, lumps of flesh writhing with maggots… I closed my eyes tightly and kept them that way.

“Hold me tight,” she said again.

I should have leapt out of bed and fled the room in horror. Then I heard a soft sobbing coming from over my shoulder. Her hand squeezed my right arm and she repeated her plea, “Hold me, sir. It has been too long…”

Not knowing what else to do, and so frightened that my legs likely wouldn’t be able to carry me very far if I did decide leap out of the bed, I shifted to my right and eased my arm free of her grasp. With my eyes still clenched shut, I did something out of habit. I lay my free arm across the pillow and felt her hands crawling onto my chest, upon which she laid her head. I then slowly curled an arm around her bare back and shoulder, hugging her to me. She shivered.

The ghost-woman then let out a long, weary sigh, and her breath, which I felt on my chest, smelled of lavender; not at all like any dreadful spirit I had ever read about. She shifted her position and, my eyes being still closed, I could only assume she was looking at my face. The temptation not to meet her gaze was too much, so I cautiously opened one eye to peep at the lonely female spirit whose head rested on my chest.

What I saw was not a hideous phantasm… nor was it a beautiful woman, either. Instead, my vision was flooded with a rapid-fire succession of key events from her life. Images of her family, her loves and losses, then a cruel gang-rape followed by her brutal drowning death at the hands of three street thugs in a toilet. She had died in this very room. My brain felt smashed, like a bowl of pudding that had been thrown up against a wall. Pain and loss poured into me, filling every nook and cranny of my panicking soul. Whoever she had been whilst actually alive (as opposed to what she had since become) was now unimportant, as she could no longer even recall her own name. Her death had occurred many, many years in the past—so long ago, in fact, that it seemed nothing more than a dream even to she herself. What was important to her was the urgency she felt to escape from her existence of being an attached spirit (or aatma in the vernacular).

She was murdered in this very room, and her ghost wanted desperately to leave it. Via more flashes of her memories, I saw her body being disposed-of by the former proprietors of the inn. They thought she was gone for good—yet she still remained. Many men had encountered her ghost in this room over the years. They were only horrified and lashed-out at her spectral being in a panic of fear Some had died and some had been driven mad, because they did not care.. They showed no compassion. Just fear… blind fear.

Could my earlier precautionary ritual be the reason why I was still in the land of the living? Or was it because I had showed her kindness? This I would never know, as she then suddenly broke contact with me, and I lay there for a few minutes while my brain slowly recovered from the ghost’s psychic barrage. I rolled out of my bed and onto the floor, where I lay for only the gods knew how long. But she was gone, I was sure of that. And I was alive. Upon gathering my wits about me, I stood up and braved a glance at the unkempt bed. Nothing was upon it but crumpled sheets.

But wait… I squinted my eyes, then crossed the room to switch on the overhead light. There was something on the bed besides the covers: a piece of jewelry. Upon closer examination, it turned out to be an anklet made of what appeared to be either white brass or low-grade silver. A cheap piece of junk costume jewelry with small, flat, heart-shaped links alternating with beneficent swastika symbols. I picked it up and placed it in the palm of my right hand. The anklet felt oddly heavy and warm in my palm. It was hers—no, it was her.

It was approaching dawn by now, and since I wasn’t going to get any more sleep in this haunted establishment, I packed my things and left, returning my key to the day clerk, who blinked a few times when she read the room number on it before asking me if I had found the accommodations to my liking.

“Yes,” I said, smiling. “I had a wonderful experience.”

Leela (as her nametag read), blinked a few more times in rapid succession, nodded at me, then went back to her computer terminal. I left New Delhi by train that afternoon to visit my old friend Santosh in Dehradun. However, after spending some time with him, the rest of my vacation would have to wait. I needed to find a suitable Hanuman temple to visit for the purposes of an exorcism.

*******

“That is my story, and why I have come to you,” I said via Ahir.

Vanara looked at me, then at my wu box on the table in front of him, then at me again and then at Ahir, who was visibly upset he had been asked to translate my story to the priest. A thoughtful look crossed his face, and he picked up the box and placed it in his robe. I paid our bill and we left the tavern.

We headed back to the stone pathway that led back up to the temple on the hilltop. On the way Vanara and Ahir were having a passionate discussion, and I could only guess it was about me and the box with its cursed contents. Both men then stopped and turned towards me, but it was the priest who spoke:

“I will help,” he said in a thick accent, his English halting. Vanara then paused and gathered his thoughts, “She will be at peace. ‘Moksha.’ Do you now what I mean by that?”

I smiled and gave my thanks.

He looked forlorn for a moment, then nodded to me and Ahir and, as he turned to ascend the steps, he stopped and said something to my guide, then laughed.

For the past two weeks I had carried ‘her’ inside my wu box, half-expecting another haunting to occur. But she had remained quiet, and I wasn’t once tempted to open the box to check whether the anklet was still there (although I did from time to time shake it and listened to the familiar jangle of the chain within). I felt both anxious and relieved to have delivered the anklet to a proper temple, where the murdered woman’s restless spirit could be exorcised and she would be released back into the cosmic scheme of things with a chance for reincarnation.

“What did he say?” I asked Ahir of the priest as we began our trek back to the parking lot, where his tuk tuk was parked.

Ahir turned to me, saying with a grin, “He said to thank you for bringing her home, and that you are always welcome to return to the temple. But he also asked, please my friend, do not bring him any more ghosts to take care of!”

Fair enough.