Spooked..

Last night, my children wanted me to sit with them till they went to sleep.  As they relaxed and stretched in their bed, we talked about silly things and shared a couple of jokes. Slowly they dropped off. I had stretched out ..and unbeknownst to myself, I fell asleep in the kids room too!

My husband had gone to sleep early, as he had a headache.

I did not realize that I was fast asleep, until I was woken up by the ringing of a phone.  It took me a while to get my bearings in the room, I moved my hand over the side table and found the phone.It was not mine.

I was still floating in layers of sleep. Finally, some sane corner of my brain figured that it was my husband’s phone. He uses a different brand of phone from mine, and my sleepy head was trying to switch off the annoying alarm.

My eyes were only partially open till then. When I finally looked properly, my heart nearly popped out of my rib cage. It was past midnight and it was a call. The shocking part was that the call was coming-in from our own landline.

Needless to say, I was spooked. My brain was alert with fear, but unable to think coherently. I rushed out of the kids’ bedroom to find that all the lights in the house were switched on!

I called out to my husband in fear. He replied that he was in the living room and asked me if I had seen his mobile? He had tried to locate it using the landline, thinking that it may have gone between the sofa cushions as it usually does.

I felt weak and silly and stupid. I can laugh about it now. But last night…….

Reverse Spooked

My son has just come back from school. He looks a little off-colour. He has his snack and runs down to play with his friends.

When he gets home, he still looks a little worried. I sit him down for a mom-son talk.

“Is everything ok?” I ask.

“I am scared”, he replies.

“Scared of what?” I ask.

“Today, in school, all the boys talked about an evil ghost called ‘Bloody Mary’. They have warned me that if I visit the bathroom after dark and look into the mirror, I will see her face and her scratch marks. Can I stay with you? I am terrified”, he replies.

I guffaw loudly and rubbish him saying, “Your friends are trying to fool you because this is April. ‘Bloody Mary’ is actually a cocktail, containing vodka and tomato juice. Don’t believe all these stories.”

I continue to smile as I remember such stories that went around when we were kids, but my son still looks  worried and afraid.

I try to calm him down and bring the iPad to show him what a Bloody Mary looks like.

So I sit next to him and type Bloody Mary on Google images.

I do a double take as I see horrible looking pictures of a ghost, blood dripping, hollow eyes…there are only a few pictures of the cocktail.

My son screams in fear, “See, I told you.”

I quickly close Google. I am working on damage control now. Sigh!

Spooky Midnight Visitor

It was the Monsoon season in India and the rain lashed mercilessly, accompanied by heavy winds that howled through door cracks and key holes, sometimes carrying thin sheets of water into the house through the cracks at the bottom of the door.

The season was characterized by days of continuous and heavy rain, that rendered umbrellas useless, as the rain changed direction with the wind. Fallen trees and power cuts were very common, as we huddled together, and played family games.

On one such night, as the rain fell in heavy sheets and the wind actually caused the windows to rattle, we went to bed early. Soon, we were fast asleep.

It must have been around 1 a.m. in the night, when the calling bell rang. We had just bought an electronic calling bell that played one of twelve tunes, in a sequence, each time someone pressed it.

Needless to say, we were startled, when it rang at this unearthly hour, playing ‘Bach’. We hugged our mom, as our Dad went to check. When he looked out of the window to see the porch, there was no one there.

My Dad called out sharply, “Who is it?” There was no reply.

The calling bell rang again. Now it played ‘Mozart’. My younger sister started crying.

We were worried if an intruder had chosen this rainy night to steal, or attack us.

My Dad secured the back door with a chair and did the same for the main door of the house. After checking all the windows, all of us went back to bed.
The incident had us worried for a few days; then, as with everything else, the worry faded, though it came back now and then to haunt us.

At the tail-end of that year’s monsoon season, we finally solved the mystery of the midnight caller.

It was yet another rainy day, with very heavy winds. The door bell rang just as we all sat down to have lunch. When we opened the door there was nobody there. While the door was still open, a heavy gust of wind blew through the house, and it was so strong that the doorbell played ‘Mozart’ again.

Phew! Our midnight visitor was the monsoon wind.