She
turned to run, dragging her children with her, and bumped against something
hard. A pillar... She grabbed her children, pressed her body against the pillar
and pulled the children close to her. She saw the form bending and flailing, as
if looking for them. She used the cover of the pillars and the darkness in the
parking lot – for she realised this is what it was – to stealthily make it to
their car at the entrance.
The
car stood with the bonnet closed. Standing on its own, with no Udit in sight. Where
was he! She looked here and there and went around the car. But there was no
sign of him. Worried, she turned back to look at the building. She saw the
giant forms looming large, but the original one seemed shrunk in size. In fact,
it was shrinking fast! Her heart beat raced. What if the shrunk form came
running towards them? Where was Udit when you needed him!
Had
he run away? Had he come looking for them? She looked towards the building, her
heart sinking. She could find no clue and the dark made it difficult to make
out anything. She took her mobile phone out and dialled his number. She heard
the phone ringing, and the sound seemed to be coming from inside the car. She
looked at the complex again, wondering where he was. She felt certain that he
had gone into the complex but the two had missed each other.
Now
what should she do? She decided to wait, hoping he would come back. The
monsters were still swaying, but she realised that the shrinking one had not followed
her. Had that caught Udit?
As
the seconds dragged to minutes, it seemed like hours to her. If she were alone,
the question would have been easier to answer. With two preteens on her hand,
her dilemma deepened. Obviously leaving them behind was out of the question.
Not looing for Udit was out of the question. What was she waiting for? She
turned to her children and said softly, “Your papa is in. We have to go back
and look for him. You have to come with me… Be quiet, okay?”
The
children nodded gravely.
She
turned to face the colony gate and braced herself for the worst. She could still
see the monsters swaying. It sent a shiver down her spine. They looked eerie.
She determinedly ignored them and hoped they would ignore her too.
She
glanced around and could find no trace of any movement. Where should she look
for Udit?
There
seemed to be at least 70 apartments in the complex. She ran a quick eye and
noted that there were 8 blocks; each block had three floors; each floor seemed
to have three houses, though it was hard to be sure of that.
Was
he climbing up and down each block looking for them? But they all seemed abandoned
and dark. Even the prospect of meeting him in one of the blocks could not
motivate her to step into any of them. She decided to wait. He was bound to
come down.
She
was exposed, in case someone was watching. But that also meant Udit would be
able to spot them from any of the floors if he cared to peep out. Only, there
seemed no chance of that.
It
was eerie and she felt scared, she reluctantly admitted to herself. But she
didn’t let it show, for the sake of her children. “What are we waiting for?”
Manya whispered.
“Where
do you think daddy is?” she whispered back.
“Shall
we split and search?” Param, the devourer of detective novels, asked.
Sulekha
shook her head firmly.
She
glanced behind her. It was dark and impenetrable. The complex was at least
visible to her in starlight, and the monsters etched obviously against the dark
sky – darker than the sky.
She
observed them, to see which direction they would move in. It dawned on her that
they were rooted to one place. They bent forward, backward, swung their arms…
But they did not move from the spot they stood in. Even the one that had shrunk
had not budged an inch.
She
frowned, wondering if she was overreacting. Maybe they were harmless. But why
were they there? She moved forward slowly, egged on by curiosity, forgetting
Udit for a second. Forgetting even her fears. She ducked into the shadows,
forgetting to be visible when Udit came down. She entered the parking space,
glad that it was at ground level and not underground. The cover of the
apartments above protected her from the prying eyes of the monsters. But what
else lurked in this place, who could tell?
She
looked at the stairway entrances on this side. Something whizzed suddenly,
brushing against her, and she squealed before she could stop herself. She
turned and was relieved to see it was just a bat. Just a bat, she thought and
smiled wryly at the irony. Once upon a time, that would have freaked her out.
She kept an eye open for more bats when she thought she heard a humming sound.
The
bat hovered around her and the sound was coming from the bat. Her heart
stopped. She stared at it. Bats tend to circle, she knew. But this one hovered
above her. She did not know much about bats, except that there was a vampire
bat that sucked blood. She wished she had paid closer attention to the
photographs. Right now, in this darkness, she couldn’t make much out.
She
reached out for her children and told them to keep an eye on the bat. Gingerly
she sought for some weapon to chase the bat away.
It
was then that she realised that though the bike was mostly empty, there was one
truck standing near the compound wall, outside the parking area.
She
started moving towards that but stopped because the bat seemed to follow. She
turned to look at it squarely. She remembered Udit, and that he had not come
down yet. She realised the monsters were still swishing but had made no move.
Chapter 4
