A Brush with Bushsh: Chapter 7 - Meeting the Monsters

Read Chapter 6

She picked up the fallen bat and saw that, as she had suspected, it was not a real bat but a mechanical one. She handed it to Param, who had followed her. He shook it and then dismantled it. It had electronic parts. They went out and approached the monsters. One of them bent and boomed. Though she knew it was Udit playing pranks, still it was scary. She went near slowly and touched the monster. She felt something wet and solid. She looked at her hand. Because of the floodlights, the visibility was better. She saw her hand was white and foamy. She smelt it, and was pleasantly surprised to smell detergent. She touched the monster again and realised that the smell of detergent was quite overpowering.

Rain Train

In the year 1986, one of my cousins was getting married. I was in Calcutta that time, studying in school. The wedding was in August, when school had started. My father was on tour, brothers in different cities and it was only my mom and I were to travel. I fell sick the first week, when I had anyway been denied permission to take leave. 104 at night, 102 during the day... But my mother was keen and so we started. Reaching the station itself was an adventure because we got delayed starting, got caught in the famous Howrah jam, but the govt. vehicle took us just in time to see the train starting. The driver and the inspector somehow got us in into some compartment, and the luggage in another.

Anyway, adventure had just begun.

A Brush with Bushsh - Chapter 6: Gagged and Locked Up

Read Chapter 5

Now that she was away from the prying eyes of the monsters, she pulled out her phone and passed

Illustration: M Rithika

it to her son. “Find our location and message Uncle Sandeep. Tell him to get help.” Anyone entering the house would be able to see the children easily, but she could not see any other spot that was safer – the CCTV ensured that it would capture anyone moving about in the room.

A Brush with Bushsh - Chapter 5: The Monster Seeks them Out

Read Chapter 4

And most importantly, she was scared. She could sense that her children were scared too. She

Illustration by 13-year-old Rithika Murugan

wanted to leave before either of them came to harm.

But she could not. Not without Udit.

The bat blocking that entrance seemed significant. Even injured, it looked scary, and add to that the monsters staring at her. She looked back at the monsters and counted five. But one of them had become smaller, another was shrinking. She frowned thoughtfully and turned to face them fully.

“Go! What are you waiting for?” the tallest one shouted and the shrinking monsters again swelled up with a bushsh sound. Sulekha recoiled in fear and nodded, wondering if the gesture would even be visible in the dark.

A Brush with Bushsh - Chapter 4: The Warning

Read Chapter 3

Any way she turned, she felt she was being watched, but could detect no one. She even turned rapidly, hoping to catch the prying eyes unawares, but met with no success.

Her children whispered to her, “Mommy, where is daddy?”

She covered her eyes with a hand and sighed. Why hadn’t he come down yet? Where was he? Was he alright? Were there other monsters nearby?

By now, Sulekha was fairly sure that these ‘monsters’ were not going to run them down and tear them to pieces. If they had not done so till now, they were definitely not waiting for an auspicious moment to start.

Though she could detect no soul around her, she knew she was being watched. She stared at the stationary bat steadily. It stared back. She knew it was no ordinary bat. She stepped closer. It moved back and then plunged towards her. She squealed and ducked. Her children scampered, shouting in fear.

The bat hovered at a distance. She felt it was watching her warily. She glanced at the stairway from which it had come. She wondered if there were more there. Normally they lived in colonies, or whatever a group of bats was called. She had no interest in exploring the social life of bats. And she assumed that Udit was not up there.

She went back to the first block near the gate and slowly made her way up. She could smell bats here too and a couple whizzed over her head. Her children cried out. “Mama, please, let’s go to the car and wait for daddy!”

She climbed down, only to try the next one. She went through each of the blocks and realised that the bat smell was missing in block three, the block from which this current, watchful bat had emerged. Her children glanced here and there as they followed her up and down in her frenzied search, not understanding what this was all about.

“What are you doing?” Param asked her. They had stopped bothering to whisper now. The bat was right behind, hovering, but not attacking.

“We are going up block 3. Come,” Sulekha said headed back to the third block.

She explained her guess as they walked hurriedly. The bat whizzed past and hovered in front of them. It seemed to block her way, confirming her suspicion that that was where she should go. She looked around, and finding nothing hard, removed her shoe and flung it at the bat. The bat moved, but the shoe caught it’s right wing and it rotated at the impact, hit a nearby wall before it righted itself. Something fell, apart from her shoe, that is. She sent Param to get her shoe as she bent to examine what it was. The bat seemed unsteady. She picked up the piece and noticed it was black and felt like the part of a gadget.

She looked at the bat thoughtfully. It was unsteady but still in the air. She took the shoe from her son and was about to throw it at the bat again.

The big monster boomed, “Nnnnoooo!!! Stop that, woman!”

The sudden sound after much silence startled the three of them.

“If you want to leave this place in one piece, stand still!”

Sulekha was stunned. She was drawn towards the one that had bent to speak to her when the voice boomed again. “Stop! Don’t move and drop that weapon!”

She stared at her hand before she realised the monster meant the shoe. She dropped it and wore it discreetly.

“Vacate this place if you value your life.”

The monster sounded menacing and as if it meant business. She trembled. Her children huddled around her. One monster straightened and stood tall against the dark sky.

She felt small and insignificant in front of it.

(Chapter 5) 

A Brush with Bushsh - Chapter 3: Missing Husband

Click here for Chapter 2

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.

Her children and she were silent and yet moving all over the place. Everything else seemed to be humming and moving and yet were at a standstill.

Chapter 4

A Brush with Bushsh: Chapter 2 – Spooked Out

Click here for Chapter 1

Sulekha looked at the surroundings. Unkempt fields with tall grass made her wonder what lurked within. She quelled her trembling heart and entered the colony. She looked around and felt butterflies in her stomach. She had to admit that the place looked a bit spooky. She had expected to see some activity, some children maybe, mothers, men, servants… Someone, anyone… But there didn’t seem to be a soul around. No security, no random resident, no visitor... Except them. She looked back. She could make out their car and Udit still puzzling it out.

"Mom, I want to use the bathroom," Param whispered as they moved through the passage between two buildings. Sulu's heart was beating fast. In the near dark, she saw a drain, partly covered. "Quick, do it there and let's get back," she urged.

A sudden 'bushsh' sound startled them. They stood frozen. The sound didn’t stop. White foam rose from the gap. It started small and fluffy. It was so incongruous, so unexpected that the three chuckled involuntarily. But they stared fascinated as the foam grew bigger and bigger. Suddenly, it was not so funny. The bushsh sound had amplified and it filled their ears. They saw two foamy limbs pushing itself up from the drain even as it kept growing in size. A scream froze in their throats as the foam became their size and then grew bigger, towering over them menacingly. They stepped back instinctively.

Mother's instinct kicked in. Sulekha reached out, pulling her children to her. The foam bent towards them as if examining them. Sulekha felt suffocated. She felt her children clutch her back and she felt hemmed in from all sides. "Mommy, mommy!" Param and Manya cried out. The foamy monster straightened and seemed to touch the sky.

“HHooo arrrre youuu?” asked a metallic voice. Sulu realised that it was coming from the monster, though it didn’t have a mouth. It was creepy. She looked around, to see if she could slip away with her children.

She stepped to a side. “Aaaa minnnnutttteeee lady,” the monster said, looking down, as if peering at her.

Sulu felt her throat go dry. Her hands were damp. She clenched it. The gesture reminded her of the mobile phone and she wondered if she could reach for it in her pocket without the monster noticing. She was paralysed with fear.

She put her hand into the pocket slowly.

“Nnoooo… Nnnnoooo guns pleeeeaaaassseee…” the monster said. Then it cackled. “OOOOr mobbbbile phonesssss.” She realised it was laughing. That did not reassure her.

She caught the sound of another hiss that was growing larger on a side. She glanced up and saw another monster. It was dark now, but still, the monster seemed carved against the sky, darker than the night.

For Chapter 3