Deja Vu

Author's Note : Ankush here. I wrote this when I was 15, so excuse the immature application of the English language. It was the first horror fiction story I've ever written. I hope you guys like it.

[ The words ‘Déjà vu’ describes a feeling when someone thinks that something happening has happened before to him ]

Every time my car speeds by the ITC Sonar Bangla, the wind pulling wildly at my hair, and the familiar stench of decayed matter penetrating deep into my nasal passage leaving me unable to experience any other smell during the journey, I sit back and compel myself not to look at the vast expanse that lies before the afore-mentioned hotel.
I don’t do it to escape the reek. I am not afraid of the stench. I am afraid of the place itself.
And this is why.

I believe I was twelve at the time. I was, as all children are, at that age, very curious to see anything new. Unfortunately, the only sight I ever saw quenched my curiosity for ever.
It had been the first time I was taking that road after my return from Germany and we were happily driving along till we came to that junction. It had been more expansive in those days, and over a mile of the horizon could be beheld from the rushing vehicle.
It was night, but I am told I have the eyes of a cat. I squinted amidst the other cars to see how far I could see. I could see a long way, and was about to admire the miracles of nature when a sight petrified me. I gazed like a stone statue; unable to move a limb, compelled to view the horrendous spectacle that unfolded in front of me.
A well built fellow carrying a heap on his shoulder walked near a particular copse in the open field. He put the heap down, and my previous thought (that he had come for a lonely picnic) was soon smashed to smithereens. He took out a knife, and cut the sack open. I stared, taken aback at the cool confidence of the man. It seemed as if he had done this on a regular basis.
He let a medium sized object fall out, bent over it, and with some rather detrimental strokes, finished off what was left of the thing.
Our car sped into the night.
The light had turned green.

The next morning, I noticed a small paragraph in a local newspaper. The headline was MERCHANT HACKED TO DEATH.
The story was written briefly. A Russian, Gustav Fivorsky had been found with his throat slit in the area behind the ITC. Similar attacks, it read, on foreigners seems to be on the up, and though the police are trying their utmost to handle the situation, it seems they are not enough to capture their suspects.
Descriptions of men followed in the column, and as I had reckoned, the fellow I had seen matched perfectly with the suspect. They even gave a name.
Beads of sweat dripped down my forehead…

I walked out of the stuffy room in the hotel to get a breath of fresh air. I failed. The entire complex was encumbered with the unmoving artificial atmosphere of the air conditioner. It was cold. Luckily, it was a formal conference, so the suit I was wearing fought the cold off.
The speech had gone well. As planned. I thought I had deserved more applause, but I let it go. I felt pleased, listening to the drone of the other speakers. I grinned smugly. We’d get the required permission for the project. I knew it.
Finally, I grew aggravated with that ludicrous soliloquy that that insolent braggart was imparting to none other than himself. I decided to leave the room temporarily. A walk before dinner would be great. Old German habit.
I walked out of the hotel, after a rigorous walk down an endless flight of stairs. I was hungry for some impure air. I soon found it. I decided that one little stroll around the building would be enough to provoke my appetite. I walked a bit, and then decided to turn back. I was about to –
When everything went black…

When I woke up for the last time, I felt the cold fingers of steel on my throat. A hefty man was bending over me, and suddenly –
I understood.

This had happened before. Previously, I had been a witness to the affair. This time though, I was hugging the spotlight. All my amassed rage for the horror this man had inflicted upon me, all the nights I had not slept, pondering on whether to tell my parents about my nightmares, all the times I had closed my eyes as the car flew past the ITC, shivering with fear every time I thought of the incident – all my fury exploded like a supernova. I writhed and twisted against the metal grip of the man, feeling the soft caress of blood dripping down my body.
Flesh and steel kissed.

Just before the final drop of life-force exited from my wounds, I gathered enough strength to sit up to stem the blood flow. But the instant I lurched up, I noticed something else…something that would haunt me even in the netherworld.
A small child, in a blue WagonR like mine, seated in the back seat, his arms frozen on the glass. He was looking at the copse behind which I lay, a look of pure horror in his eyes.
The same sight which had haunted me for a lifetime.

Forewarning

The day before the last History examination in his life; or at least Aden Ketcher hoped so.
Page after page of what anyone below the age of eighteen considered useless, tiresome and impossible to remember had entered his 16 year old cranium, and as Kennedy died for the third time that evening, Aden felt a wave of fatigue overwhelm his five-foot-eight frame. The next day was the D-Day for all sixteen year olds everywhere in the country, he reminded himself. He prepared to give his all the next day. He readied the 540-page tome in the flat of his palms and continued reading. The Americans mourned JFK’s death yet again.
A few minutes later, at the completion of the chapter, the time read 8:17:24. He returned to his book.
A few weeks later, Aden found himself dreaming of terrible things. They all ended at 8:17:24 in the morning.
The next day, he told his mother what had been happening.
“It’s ok, son. Happens to everyone. Now, when I was a kid…” And Aden was forced to listen to his mother’s nightmares about vampires the night she had watched Dracula with her friends.
Aden realized that his mother had not understood his plea for help at all. It was not the nightmares that bothered him. He had had nightmares before. What he found inexplicable was that they all ended together at the same time.
And they all had the same conclusion. Death.

A month passed by, and Aden found himself being ushered into a psychiatrist’s chamber. As he walked in, he felt that the place had a vague resemblance to the morgue. The same feeling of a still, morbid breeze blowing, the same eerie silence. The same helplessness as his father held him by the hand and took him in to see the doctor.
Aden was asked to inform the doctor about everything. He did so, hesitantly at first, but gradually opening up, divulging every little secret he had kept from his parents as he realized that this man was the first one to take him seriously.
When he had finished, the doctor spoke to his father gravely. Aden was asked to stand outside.
He felt as if he was standing alone at the cemetery on Halloween night.

A couple of months passed since his History exam. He was informed by his parents that he’d achieved the impossible. A+.
That was the first time in eight weeks Aden Ketcher smiled.
It was the last time too.

Extract from The Evening Times :

Ransburg, Massachusetts : The government of Massachusetts has decided to lay down $250,000 for the maintenance of the public roadways connecting Ransburg to Greyshame owing to the increased number of accidents taking place on a particulary dangerous curve known by locals as the Hangman’s Noose. The most recent accident involved a seventeen-year-old boy of New Helm School, Ransburg. The van carrying him to a nearby mental hospital ran off the curve into the dense vegetation below. No one survived the 1600 foot fall. However, the time of death was ascertained by the watch on the child’s hand.
It had read – 08:17:24.

Invocation

Ceaseless strumming of a mindless guitar
I hear;
In an empty field
In a field of cornflowers.

“’Tis a far, far better thing that I do now,
Far better than any I have e’er done;
‘Tis a far far better rest that I go to,
Better than any rest I have e’er known.”

The three gods of humanity,
Me, Myself and I,
Rejoice,
In the painstaking enterprise we call life.

The cliffs rage under the ocean’s yoke,
The constant battering of the young tide’s frolic,
Lovelorn it stands up to mighty skies
Forever seeking the lover’s ship:
A ship lost in the watery void.

The gates to Eternity are barred
Aye, barred
By the chains of Pandemonium
Another Pandora’s box is born.

Those of free spirit roam,
Roam the lands in search,
Seeking the hidden truth.

Through obscure paths
They journey
To find the unfound
To seek the non-existent
To die in painful serenity
‘Neath the infinite horizon.

The rivulets flow, the moonlight glows,
The nightingale’s song is heard,
Heard, but wasted in foraging winds,
Winds which churn the sands of time.

I hear the incessant strumming again:
The cornflowers have awoken.

The Masterpiece Of The Devil

The village of San Dorino has only one crossing. The driver faces a choice when he reaches it. He can go left, right or forward. If he decides not to go forward, the road bends sharply and after a few minutes, he reaches the crossing again. But from the opposite side, it looks like a different crossing. Satisfied that he is on the right path, the driver again accelerates, enjoying the cool breeze blowing down from San Jose peaks to the North-west.
The pinnacle of enigmatic architecture of the Inca.
A few minutes later, his petrol runs dry, and he is forced to accept his fate. He is lost. He gets off. He walks over to the vegetable seller, a man called Pablo. The honest Chilean has seen this type of driver many times, lost in open space and short of petrol. His eyes glitter at the prospect of unexpected income.
“I’m looking for Adavile, senor.”
“Si.”
“Por favor?”
“You want directions, senor?”
“Si.”
“But first, you must buy some tacos from my son. Business has been slow, ya?”
I understood what the plea meant. Money first, directions later. I took out a few pesos, hoping they’d quench his greed. It worked.
“Gracias, gracias.” I noticed his accent. It was hardly Spanish. It sounded more crude, more raw. Doubtless you don’t understand me, but I have heard the silver speech of Spaniards so long that any variety of dialect thoroughly unnerves me.
“You are not Hispanic?” I asked.
The old man looked into my eyes with an expression betraying his astonishment.
“Neither are you,” he said, recovering.
“Si. I am of mixed parentage. My father is Russian, my mother Venezuelan.”
He didn’t seem too interested. I left him, taking the directions carefully. I drove away as fast as I could. The air there was too still for my comfort.

I was shocked when my boss asked me to go to San Dorino the next Monday.
I was even more shocked to hear that a series of murders had taken place there. Serial killings with a terrifying twist. So far eight bodies had washed up in a nearby lake, each with a part of the anatomy missing. The photographs drew bile from my stomach.
It was thoroughly disgusting. No similarity connected these people except that they were all journeying through the village. Not residents. Not locals. Each had something missing. Either the eyes, ears, tongue…
One poor soul had lost his face, cut away by an incredibly sharp object. The perfect outline of a human face remained in the picture. Devoid of skin. This was the work of an artist, I thought. The carving could almost be called divine, if it weren’t degraded to being hellish.

An hour, and I was back in front of the old man, his son selling tacos. He couldn’t answer any of my questions properly, so I went away, asking for shelter in a nearby motel. This case would need waiting, not talking.
I noticed that the road to the church was closed. An elderly woman informed me that it was being repaired. The same glint in the eye, the same awkward accent. It was rather odd. In the middle of Chile, people existed who were not Spaniards??

The motel was dirty. Yellow walls, grime and dust covering every inch of walking space. I walked over to the reception counter. Slime covered the seat, so I decided against sitting down.
“Room?” The accent again.
“Yes, please. Single bed, windows facing town.”
“Facing town, senor? The San Jose does not please you?”
“Not at all. I lived in Adavile. The mountain is my courtyard.”
The man said something in a different language. I did not understand. Another fellow, slightly older to him, looked at me and nodded. An agreement. The elder fellow looked like a professional. He had steady hands, a keen glance and behind his impassive face was a brain that was continuously thinking, formulating, planning.
Planning what?

Night.
The room was cosy. The lack of company slightly disturbing. In a village of odd people, the last thing I wanted to do was sleep alone. It couldn’t be helped though, so I did the best I could, blocking the door with a chair and locking the windows.
I tried to figure out the cause of the killings. Hardly money. Travelers passing through San Dorino would not be tourists. Kill a man and deface him to get ten pesos and a car with a half tank of gas. Hardly.
Then I remembered the dangerous looks of the townsmen. Eyes always laughing at some hidden joke. Faint smiles at the edge of lips, quickly covered by an odd accent.
I drank something they brought me. Tasted like sherry mixed with grapes. Disgusting.
That night, I dreamt.
Or did I?

It felt real enough.

Hands grabbing…bars beating against the wooden windows…splinters hitting the floor with muffled creaks…eyes burning through form outside…wind blowing…its moaning slowly increasing in volume…windows going down…door creaking…groaning…people entering…words uttered…unknown language…blackout.
I remember the journey back to the church…
Was I dreaming still? Did it hurt so much in dreams? Did it feel like a thousand horses were pulling you apart in the middle of the night?
The church.
Congregation of the unholy. Hymn of the diseased. Faith of the wayward.
It was there that I finally understood.
The language was not Spanish at all. It was an old Aztec dialect. They were singing one of my mother’s songs. “Penance” she had called it. I remembered the words well.
This was not a mass murderer at large. It was something much, much worse.
Cult.
I was taken to the altar. The church bells sounded. A late night sermon.
Then suddenly, the head of the congregation spoke in Spanish. The words – aimed at me.
“Behold the unveiling of Supay – our god of death – the ruler of Uca Pacha. What you call Hell.”

The sight was spectacular.
Forged of the remains of the dead was a sculpture. Pieces of flesh from different individuals had been sewn together, revealing a hideous face. The entire body was made of different men’s limbs, paled by the loss of blood. Dried blood stained the ground, forming a garland of red around the so called diety.
He asked me to look at the face.
Lifeless eyes stared back at me. Drained of blood, drained of emotion.
I realized why I was witnessing the sight.
The fingers were missing…