Haunter of the Thar

Chapter One. The Haunter and the Haunted

In the greater Northern part of the Union of India, there stretches a lengthy dune known to all inhabitants of the state of Rajasthan, the homeland, as Thar.  The state is so-called due to a long history and numerous stately palaces and grand courtyards erected near the edge of this desert, long before the Republic and Independence from Britain. However, wild rumors of two counts have spread and caused the chief minister of the state to guard the desert meticulously.

The first rumor was more substantial, because it concerned the kidnapping of both foreign and native girls of teen age. The foreigners were mostly white Western girls, such as American, British or Canadian, aged between sixteen and eighteen years. The native girls were villagers of the same ages. The Ministry for Tourism had urged laws prohibiting kidnapping and abuse of tourists but always someone or another will flaunt them. State authorities had spent a lengthy term studying the suspected method of kidnapping, and their system included inspection of the premises, interviews with all who might have seen anyone concerned in the case and steady analysis of the case. Yet, their research, and particularly a few interviews, disclosed some valuable data. To begin with, the white teenagers were claimed to be ‘hot’ and had received men guests after returning late to their motels or inns. Accommodation managers told the investigators from state CID unit that the girls had gone to their rooms as late as eleven PM on some evenings and acted slightly intoxicated as from drink. The guests arrived a few minutes later. Interviews with restaurateurs and bars revealed that the victims had actually come for drinks at the mentioned times. The kidnapper was apparently the last guest.

The second rumor was less substantial but stranger. Someone believed that the desert was haunted by something. Rumors mentioned the remoter stretches of the desert, but some mentioned the locale of the palaces. State CID planned to study this case too. Almost one month after the latest case of kidnapping had occurred, the Rajasthan CID unit concluded that the victim, an American girl named June Addington, age seventeen years, with long blonde hair and cool blue eyes, and who had planned to return to the USA to begin university in autumn that year, received her kidnapper innocently at the hour of half past nine PM. The kidnapper handed her a modest payment, since she was not really a prostitute, and she had accepted it shyly. Then, he turned to the door for a moment. She thought that he would leave and began to redress into her lingerie. Apparently he did not leave the room then; and he turned and knocked her out with some drug. [They searched the room for a kerchief or towel containing the drug but he had taken it with him. Therefore, the drugging was a hypothesis only.]The manager had passed her room on his rounds and, later, found the door unlocked and the room vacant except for her clothes and suitcase. Then, he telephoned CID. Where had June Addington and her kidnapper gone?

This writer has mentioned the palaces along the edge of the desert. They stood vacant for long time; and, after the anti-kidnapping laws, few tourists or Bedouins had passed them. One palace as grand as the famous Taj Mahal with vast arches and vaulted chambers, and long, dark corridors stood away from the others. Tour companies and authorities had no knowledge of who built or lived there. They did claim that it was much older than the others. It was believed to be long-deserted and decrepit, possibly moldy. But in one dimly illuminated room, towards the end of the main corridor of that palace, there lay a three-foot mattress with a simple cotton sheet over it. A sensual girl with long straight blonde hair and smooth, white skin, small firm breasts and blue eyes lay unconscious. Her small wrists and ankles had been bound together with hemp ropes but not abrasively tight; and she had not been gagged. A few minutes later, some heavy footsteps resounded outside and then the kidnapper walked into the room. He stood near the girl and watched her. The girl, June Addington, slowly revived and looked at him. He bent towards her and gave her some water.

“Hello, Miss June. Are you okay?” he asked in broken English.

“Yes. You---! You’re--!”

“Yes, I was.”

“You kidnapped me! Why?”

“Be calm. Don’t scream. I will tell you. Someone is waiting for you and he wants your white soft skin and blonde hair.”

“That is white slave trading! You- you bastard!”

“Miss June, you must accept it in any case. You are now miles away from the capitol and thousands of miles from your home. Nobody can hear you scream. Just calm down. I do not think he is dangerous and anyway I refuse to deliver a girl to someone dangerous.”

“But you will sell me to someone to fuck him like a whore!”

“Whatever pays. Stay calm. I don’t want to hurt you. If I do, he may bargain for you.”

He left June Addington alone in the chamber and went for a stroll around the premises of the palace. When he neared the sultan’s sitting room, in the east wing, he saw a weird glow and headed towards it. Suddenly, he discovered that he was not alone with her in the palace. He found a seemingly aged and rather humped old man in a musty dark-colored hooded cloak sitting on the sofa over a particular book. From where he stood, the kidnapper saw that the language printed or carved on the cover was not Arabic. He thought it might be either Aramaic or Ashuri. It had a strange mark in the center too. The kidnapper strolled cautiously towards the reader, who heard him and looked up to face him. Then, the former gasped in shock. The face of the reader showed more than aging. It was almost fleshless and the remaining flesh was decaying and moldy. The eyes merely were deep, sightless sockets, but the reader was reading the book.

“Good evening,” the reader said, calmly, almost whispering. "Have you heard of Al Azif₁?” 

Chapter Two. A Joint Effort

Due to the remoteness from major cities and the desert, the Rajasthani CID unit was small and limited in personnel; so the chief inspector called the New Delhi unit to request assistance.  The Delhi unit assigned two officers including a lady detective, Inspector Kajol Misra, aged twenty three years, to assist them. Kajol Misra was a fair young lady with straight black hair and round eyes, an ovular face with rounded cheeks and a small round chin, and small hands and feet with slender fingers and toes. She was single and yet disinterested in marriage, and she had a fair knowledge of English as a second language, which her unit had expected to be useful in this case. She was accepted by the CID a month prior to the case and had been helpful until then. But nobody in either unit had expected the palace to be haunted any more than June Addington’s kidnapper had. Kajol Misra and her associate, Inspector Ramesh Thackerey, joined the unit the morning after receiving the call and the Rajasthani unit updated them on the case. Everyone involved simply suspected that the case involved kidnapping and sale of white teenaged tourists and an occasional village girl. The team eventually learned in the investigation that all the victims had innocently admitted the kidnapper after returning to their rooms late at night.

The team searched the villages surrounding the desert and interviewed the villagers; but most of the villagers had not noticed anything outwardly suspicious. However, in one village, they met a girl of sixteen years who reported to them that she saw something strange in or near one palace, but she could not identify the palace. Instead, she told the team the basic location and they urged her to guide them. She talked with her family and mentioned the CID, and her father permitted her to help them.

Meanwhile, the kidnapper had watched the stranger read the black book and had stared at it as the book responded. Then, he turned and crept away silently. He was certainly puzzled and shocked, and he planned to move June Addington from the palace.

The team had searched the area for a rover and chauffeur, and found one man with the rover after almost one hour.  They identified themselves to him and requested use of his vehicle, which he agreed to do at once. Kajol Misra explained about the case. He was shocked and volunteered his service without delay.

In the palace, the kidnapper had returned to June Addington and warned her about the visitor. He assured her that he would find a safer place for them and untied her feet. Then, he gagged her and explained that she must be silent until they had escaped.

Chapter Three. Under Investigation

The phantom captures Kajol Misra

Within approximately two hours, the rover arrived at the gate to the old palace. Due to international legal procedures, the team had to enter from the gate; so they assembled at the gate with their equipment and told the chauffeur and their guide to wait. Kajol Misra warned them to contact Delhi.

“If Inspector Thackerey and I do not return within one hour from now, call our unit at Delhi for support.”

“Yes, Inspector.”

The team opened the gate and headed for the threshold of the palace.  Meanwhile, the kidnapper had raised June Addington and they began to move towards the rear end of the palace. The strange visitor continued to peruse the Al Azif and ignored the action around him.  The police team had lit their battery torches and separated to search the premises. Kajol Misra and Ramesh Thackerey stayed close together. Despite her work and position in New Delhi CID, Kajol Misra felt uneasy. She felt that someone was in the palace beside them but she did not feel a sensation of humanity from it.

“Ramesh, someone else in here in this palace.”

“That may be the suspect.”

“Maybe. I don’t get that kind of feeling from him though.”

“What?”

“I feel something non-human about it.”

“An animal?”

“I am not sure yet.”

Nonetheless, they wandered further ahead boldly to verify the thing’s identity.  But the closer to it they came, the stronger the sensation. Both Ramesh Thackerey and Kajol Misra felt the sensation and Ramesh agreed that it was unlike any human he had known or encountered. Meanwhile, their Rajasthani counterparts had wandered into other places in the palace. Just then, the strange visitor felt their presences and looked up from his book. He lay the book aside where he sat and stood up to leave the room. He intended to meet them and interrupt them.

June Addington and her kidnapper were still preoccupied with escaping. They found that the windows in the back wall of the palace were either too small or too high to climb through. While the kidnapper thought of ways to escape and deliver June Addington, the visitor walked towards the door to the sitting room as Kajol Misra and Ramesh Thackerey approached the section of the corridor near it. Kajol felt more strongly about the visitor then, and warned Ramesh.

“Ramesh, that thing is near us now, and he or it is not like us at all. Be careful!”

“I can feel him, Kajol. You’re right.”

Suddenly, not farther away from the room than fifteen meters, they met the strange visitor face to face. Kajol screamed. Ramesh Thackerey stared at it. The hood had fallen to his shoulders and revealed a gray, slimy skull-like face with a beard of short tentacles at the chin.

“Who or what are you?” Ramesh Thackerey demanded.

“I come from a remote star in space and a time beyond time,” the visitor replied calmly. “Nobody among you knows about that. Who are you?”

“We are police inspectors. We are searching for someone believed to be held prisoner here.”

“I have seen nobody like that.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“As you wish.”

“We must finish our work in here,” Kajol warned him sternly. “Stand aside.”

“If I stand where I am now..?”

“We will have to use our weapons.”

“Those? They cannot hurt me!”

“You refuse to cooperate then?”

“Yes.”

Kajol Misra and Ramesh Thackerey aimed their pistols at the visitor and opened fire.  When they finished, about two minutes later, the visitor stood in place unharmed as he warned them. Then, his cloak fell open and several longer and thicker tentacles darted forth at them variously. A few swung at Ramesh Thackerey and knocked him out cold. Then they swung at Kajol Misra, who screamed. They entwined around her and bound her hands at her waist. She struggled to escape and finally fainted. The visitor dragged Kajol into the sitting room along the floor, pulling her shoes from her feet.  Kajol was unconscious for almost one hour. When she revived, she saw that the sitting room had transformed. She discovered that she was hanging from the ceiling by her wrists. She tried to scream or to speak, but the visitor had gagged her too.

Chapter Four. A Call of Nature

Sudden strange sensations around her feet riveted Kajol Misra’s attention to the floor beneath her.  Floor boards started to crack apart and fall away loosely. The room began to quake like a small earthquake and the floor under her feet opened to a small chasm.  A few minutes later, thin vine-like or tentacle-like appendages crept upward from the opening and bound Kajol’s feet together tightly. Kajol was certain that the creepers would wind upward and finally penetrate her. The phantom turned and looked at her unemotionally. His dead eyes seemed very alive then.

“Listen carefully.  I am an elder race that is slowly dying. Therefore, it is urgent to me that I create my descendants. To do that in your world, I must unite my cells with the cells of a female. So, I shall use your blood for this purpose.”

Realizing that he was forcing her to bear his young, Kajol Misra glared at him angrily and mumbled under her gag.

“I am not alone! There are others!”

The phantom was unperturbed.

“They will not find you. Look around. The room is still changing. When they do come, they will find something different ; and, if they should finally enter, they will be too late.”

Kajol Misra could only wait and hope that Ramesh Thackerey would revive and rescue her before then. But the creepers continued upwards along her calves towards her thighs. The heads began to taper narrowly and their surfaces were slowly lined with coarse structures that resembled the tools used in western websites. Kajol realized that either they or fear of their contact [or both simultaneously, as the case was] would compel her to spread her legs and expose her vagina. She tried to scream and call for help. The phantom reached one hand towards her chin and clamped it over her mouth tightly like a vice. Kajol felt the creepers moving under her skirt and knew that they were trying to pull off her panties. The lengths at her ankles still held them tightly.

“Do not try to resist. This is simply a call of Nature.”

However, a few minutes later, Kajol Misra’s luck suddenly changed.  Ramesh Thackerey had revived and he called her. She could not reply or warn him; so he stood up and went to find the other men. He had to alert them about her. Five minutes later, when Kajol Misra felt certainly that her panties were removed, Ramesh Thackerey and the two Rajasthani men had returned to the door of the sitting room.

“Kajol! Kajol, don’t panic! We’ll help you!”

“There is no more need to panic,” the phantom replied stonily.

Ramesh Thackerey stared anxiously at the two men.

“There is someone creepy in there with her and he is going to do something terrible. We must move fast.”

Together, they applied all their weight and physical strength against the door  and attempted to break it and enter. The creepers had exposed the lips of Kajol’s vagina and the heads were slowly and painfully forcing them apart. Kajol moaned.

“Whatever is in there with her is hardly a human like us!” one officer exclaimed.

“No! It is very unearthly,” Ramesh replied.

Nonetheless, they still attempted to enter. The door finally yielded suddenly and they almost fell to the floor. They stood up and the two Rajasthani men guarded the phantom. Ramesh Thackerey set to rescuing Kajol Misra. He searched for a blade to cut her loose but, finally, he removed her gag when she tried to warn him. The phantom watched him emotionlessly.

“Ramesh! That thing wanted to make me deliver his heirs!”

“No chance!”

“He has sent his creeping things into my vagina!”

Ramesh Thackerey stared at the phantom.  Then he started to grab the creepers and pull them off her thighs. Agonized, Kajol Misra screamed. Ramesh Thackerey worked fast.  He searched for the heads and grabbed them like serpents; then, he pulled them away from her, albeit with difficulty. He tried not to cause undue pain to Kajol Misra. Unexpectedly, the kidnapper and June Addington emerged. The kidnapper explained that he had seen the phantom with a strange black-bound book and he was certain that it would help them. They urged him to look for it. He released June Addington to their custody and began to look.  About five minutes later, he found it and opened it slowly.

“I found something. It may help.”

“Read it.”

He started to read carefully and, suddenly, the phantom crumbled to the floor at their feet. The creepers fell down as dead and released Kajol’s feet.

Chapter Five. Mission Accomplished

[Conclusion.]

The demise of the phantom left the old palace thoroughly deserted. Kajol Misra and her team assured June Addington that they would send her home safely and her kidnapper that he would get a fair and lenient trial for his change of heart. However, they both had to join Kajol and Ramesh Thackerey in New Delhi for an inquiry. Both agreed. The Rajasthani officers thanked Kajol and Ramesh Thackerey for their help in the case. Then, they ordered the palace sealed and posted a notice in English for tourists. Ramesh Thackerey, Kajol Misra, June Adington and her intended kidnapper, identifying himself as Suresh Malhotra, aged thirty years, boarded the rover and headed back to New Delhi. The Rajasthanis returned to their post in the city.

In New Delhi, Delhi CID handled the inquiry smoothly. Suresh Malhotra admitted to kidnapping June Addington after visiting her at her motel, and wanting to sell her. He admitted that he had expected the old palace to be a secret and secure place until he discovered that they were not alone.

“Inspector, when I discovered that someone strange was in that palace, my natural instinct was to lead Miss Addington to safer haven first. That creature was very abnormal and inhuman. He finally kidnaped Lieutenant Misra and suspended her. But I remembered that he had a strange book with him.”

“Yes, that book released me and disposed of the creature thoroughly, sir,” Kajol Misra added.

“Well! For your valor and change of heart in this case, Suresh Malhotra, we will insure a fair and lenient trial.  You did very wisely.  You must remain here till then. We must send Miss Addington back to USA for her term at university.”

Suresh Malhotra agreed and wished June Addington a safe flight home.

“Thank you very much, Mister Malhotra. And thank you all, Inspector, for your help to.”

“It is our duty, Miss Addington.”

_{1. Al Azif or Necronomicon. Former was used by Abdul al Hasred.}