“It
waits in the shadows,
circling in silence,” his sister whispers.
They are sitting on the floor of his room, in
the dark. Chandru knows she is lying to him. She must be.
“It waits patiently for years once it has found
suitable prey, keeping its one bloody eye affixed on the target’s back at all
times. Following you, hoping – praying –
for that day.” His sister’s voice
goes even lower. He knows she is trying to be dramatic. He still gulps,
struggling to find his voice.
“For what day?” he mumbles, because though he
suspects she’s trying to scare him, he is still morbidly curious.
“The day you die,” she replies a
matter-of-factly.
His stomach drops.
“It waits for the moment that last breath leaves your
body so it can feast on your soul.”
This sounds ridiculous.
She shrugs. “I’m just telling you what I
heard. You know Rita’s uncle? He told her that he saw the creature when their
grandfather died. And then he died, a few months later.”
“How come Rita didn’t see it then?”
“Because,” his sister gets up from the floor, “you only see a chatthan if you’ve been chosen as its prey.”
Convenient. He frowns as his sister retreats to
her own room. “Good night, squirt.” she mumbles, pulling the squeaky door of
his room closed.
He flinches as the sounds cuts through the
silence of room. He climbs onto his bed and under the covers, eyes darting
across the room and lingering on the shadows.
He knows she is lying to him. But he can’t help
the way his heart races and how he searches in the dark for a white figure with
one eye, relieved when he does not see anything.
# # #
Chandru’s stomach drops when he sees the large,
red ‘F’ on the top of his test. This is far worse than his sister’s ghost.
“Oh crap,” Ananya whispers when she spots his
mark over his shoulder. He throws a glance at her paper – a D – not much better
but at least a passing grade.
“It was good knowing you,” he sighs, cramming
the pages into his backpack. “By tomorrow, my mother will have snuffed out my
existence. You can have my prized soccer trophy.”
“Who wants that garbage? I want your
skateboard.” She’s smiling, pushing her glasses into place. But the smile
slides away as she looks down at her own test. “I mean, I’m unlikely to survive
the night too, you know.”
“Probably true.” He aims his forced grin at her,
bumping their shoulders together as they walk out of the classroom. His palms
are sweaty and the lead in his stomach becomes heavier with each step he takes.
He knows his mother will find out eventually. Might as well be brave and face
his fears and all that.
It goes abysmally.
“I should have never bought you that
skateboard!” and “It’s all because you waste so much time in the park instead
of studying,” with some “Your siblings were never like this,” and with a dose
of “Those kids you hang out with are such a bad influence.”
She does not scream. She just moans for the
entire night. It is much worse this way, in his opinion (which obviously, no
one asks for).
His gaze is resolutely fixed on the ground. He
cannot meet her eyes. No matter how many times he hears it, her anger and her disappointment
terrify him.
# # #
Chandru hides in his parents’ walk-in closet, his
fear today more physical. Footsteps approach. His brother makes no effort to
hide his rage, stomping into the room in search of him.
Why is it that when his brother is doing
disappointing things his mother is never around?
“I told you not to touch my stuff, Chandru!” His
brothers words are partly muffled by the their his father’s long coats which
share the closet with Chandru.
He rubs his clammy palms on his shorts, trying
to control his breathing as best as possible. He twitches his nose at the musty
smell of the fur on the jacket he’s pressed against. He prays his urge to sneeze
will subside.
And all this for a lousy cricket ball.
He waits for the inevitable moment his brother throws
open the closet door.
But nothing happens.
Miraculously, he hears the sounds of his brother
receding. An errant yell sounds – an inquiry made to the other occupants of the
house about the youngest troublemaker.
Chandru swallows. It’s time he made his escape.
He extracts himself from between the coats, cracks
the door open to peek outside. The coast is clear.
He swings the door wide open and bolts out. Only
to run straight into his brother – his brother, who is the picture of anger
incarnate.
Chandru skids on the hardwood floor, his feet
screeching from the friction. He twists out of his brother’s flailing reach and
takes off towards the living room at full speed.
“Come back, you little brat!” His brother yells
from behind him. But Chandru already knows he’s won – what he lacks in
strength, he makes up with speed. His brother does not stand a chance.
As he bursts through the wide-open front door,
he cannot help but embrace, with a loud whoop, the mixture of fear and euphoria
coursing through him.
# # #
Fear is a strange thing, Chandru thinks as he
stares down the dark path ahead of him.
Is it his mother he fears most, for staying out
later than his curfew? Or is it that he fear his sister’s ghost may haunt the
broken-down house in front of him? No, it’s definitely his brother’s rage if
her can’t find his prized cricket ball.
Chandru presses between the wooden boards as
silently as he can, coming to a full stop at the sight of the overgrown
backyard.
How in the world is he supposed to find the
stupid ball in this jungle? The only light comes from the distant street lamp.
The stars glimmer in the distance, the absence of the moon starkly noticeable.
Cursing at himself and his brother (because what
is the point of his brother even having a ball if no one can play with it), Chandru
makes his way in, flinching at the crunch of grass underneath his sneakers. He
sifts between the tall green stalks, keeping one eye on the back door of the
old house.
He is so sure the ball landed in this corner of
the yard. He chances another look at the door. He freezes.
The door is open. A second ago it was closed.
He sinks to ground – the grass hides him well
enough. He waits, the blood pounding in his ears. The doorway remains empty.
Inch-by-inch he rises.
Still no one. Interesting.
Maybe – maybe the door was always open and he
didn’t notice? He wonders if someone found the ball. Maybe he should knock.
Taking a deep breath, he straightens up and
moves towards the entrance.
Every step he takes feels wrong. A rising horror
fills his chest as he approaches.
He almost turns back. Only, he has made it this
far. How can he return empty-handed to his brother?
Damn his sister and her silly stories. As for
his mother, he’ll figure out an excuse for breaking curfew on the way home. If
he lives that long.
He steels himself by taking a deep breath,
increasing the length of his stride for the last two steps. Finally, at the
door, he raises a shaking fist to knock.
No answer.
Weird.
There is a faint light in the window, he now
notices. Someone must be home.
He knocks harder.
Still nothing.
Maybe he’ll just peek in.
To his utmost horror, the door opens with
screeching hinges. He stands at the doorway, frozen in terror.
No one approaches.
Puzzled, he crosses the threshold. He knows the
inhabitants are an older couple and maybe they’re hard of hearing – some of his
friends helped to mow their lawn, last summer.
Somewhere in the corner of his mind, it occurs
to him that the backyard looks like it’s been untouched for years.
A few more steps and he can make out a kitchen –
mostly clean, a few pots in the sink. His nose crinkles as he catches a whiff
of something that’s most definitely going bad. Probably the pot on the stove.
He should to leave. He’ll just come back
tomorrow morning and knock on the front door.
But his feet take him further inside, his
accursed curiosity getting the better of him, as it always has. Something feels
strange. He wants to know what. He ignores his clammy skin and rising heart
rate and keeps going.
There’s light coming from the next room. He’ll
just peek in, then make a mad dash to the door. Bracing himself against the
wall, he slowly moves his gaze into the room.
His mouth falls open.
In the dim candle light, he can see a small
study. A figure sits on a couch. Unmoving. And behind it, a white face,
floating. He catches sight of a single eye trained on the still body.
Chandru’s eyes meet a single blood red iris.
# # #
Fear is a weird thing, Chandru thinks, over the
din of his mother’s ranting and his brother’s yelling. He cannot understand how
either of them could have inspired that feeling in him before.
He made it home that night, though he does not
remember the journey back. He did not find the ball.
His mother’s ire is now focused on his brother,
their raised voices still not really reaching his ears. His sister frowns at
him, silent but obviously concerned. Her grip on his hands is probably painful but he feels numb. The irony
of her concern almost makes him laugh.
His sister’s tales made him nervous as a child.
But it was an abstract feeling that he pushed to the recesses of his mind, not
something that took root and festered into palpable horror.
Until this day, fear – real fear – was a mere
idea, a concept. But this terror, he knows, he will carry inside him for the
rest of his life.
He glances back and sees his faceless, invisible
companion, floating next to him. Ever patient and ever hungry.
Whatever is left of his life.
Renuka Raja is
an aspiring writer that was born in Chennai, India. She moved to Canada in her
youth, growing up in the GTA. She has a passion for music and visual and
musical arts. She graduated from the University of Waterloo. Renuka spends her
spare time volunteering around the community and playing with her cat, Louise.
See Brian
Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and
weekend retreats in Algonquin Park, Alliston, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton,
Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Georgetown, Georgina, Guelph, Hamilton,
Jackson’s Point, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, New
Tecumseth, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Sudbury, Toronto,
Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA,
Ontario and beyond.
