An Excerpt from K. Hari Kumar’s Bone-Chilling New Novel, Dakhma

Following their engagement, Anahita and Varun move in to an apartment in Malabar Hill, eager to begin their new life together. Unfortunately, nothing goes as expected.

After sunset, a presence makes itself known in a manner that leaves Anahita terrified – but determined to find answers. Her search leads to a window named Parizaad. As Anahita wades further into the mystery around the life and death of Parizaad, she uncovers a devastating secret that threatens many lives…

Read an excerpt from K. Hari Kumar’s bone-chilling new novel Dakhma:

17 July 1999, Saturday

7E, Paradise Heights, Mumbai

Death – it instils in one a feeling that whatever happens … just happens. Different people have different theories, and for ages, humankind could not decipher its mysterious nature, neither through the spectres of religion nor through the spectacles of science.

Death – it confirms that at the end of the day, this life has just one purpose, an inevitable end. All those curiosities of infanthood, obsessions of adolescence, and ambitions of adulthood just spiral back into a womb of nothingness. Death.

Death – it negates the existence of infinity and the absence of the Infinite. All the tenets that become the basis of religion and philosophy simply vanish, and the claim of knowledge of the unknown validates uncertainty of the highest degree.

The mind fears the unknown, and it becomes jittery when it has to ponder about death. People fear death, and what happens after that, or perhaps what happens to the person at that precise moment …

The lights went off inside apartment 7E. Flashes of lightning disturbed the dark room through the balcony’s glass door. Parizaad stopped writing. She raised the tip of her fountain pen from the coarse page of the diary. Amidst the rumbling of thunder, she could swear she heard the faint creak of the front door.

Is it here, already? Parizaad wondered. No, not tonight.

But there it was again – the creaking.

It is here! The scavenger is here for me. She was sure she had heard this sound before – just not in that house. With trembling hands, she picked up the pen’s cap from the desk and screwed it back on. From the top drawer, she grabbed her lighter and rolled the metal spark down with a trembling thumb, until flame erupted, bringing into focus a posh teakwood bed, the writing desk, the chair, the dressing table, and some vintage lampshades in the room. In the dim warm light of the single flame, everything seemed to glow a faint yellow, including Parizaad’s pale skin and her frilly maroon gown.

She rose from the wooden chair. Why is it coming from the living room? In Parizaad’s experience, the feeling of this unknown entity approaching her had always come from the balcony, through the glass door. Tonight, it was coming from the front room.

Her legs wobbled as she made her way towards the door. She put out the flame, and it was dark again. Outside, the storm raged on. Once at the front door, she bent and peeped through the keyhole. A flash of lightning illuminated everything, and in that brief moment, she saw something swish in front of the door. Parizaad recoiled in fear. Was it a shadow or the apparition of the scavenger?

She gathered herself and bolted the door from inside. She took a few steps back, ignited the lighter again, and walked towards the bed. Her seven-year-old daughter was sleeping, ignorant of everything that her mother had been fighting. My little angel, Parizaad thought, and quickly pattered towards her. How do I protect you from this monster? There is no place we can run. She wished she had never come back from Delhi. Her daughter would have been safer in the capital city. Her eyes welled up and a tear fell on the left cheek of the little girl, waking her up.

‘Mom?’ The girl touched her cheek where it was still wet from the tear. ‘Why are you crying, Mom?’

Parizaad gathered all the courage that she could. ‘Promise me you will be a brave girl tonight?’

The girl nodded.

‘Then come with me.’

The girl got up from the bed and held her mother’s right hand, and they walked towards the balcony. They were seven floors above the ground, and the skies seemed nearer from there. Thunder gurgled, sending bolts of lightning into the night sky. Clouds had darkened, gathered in numbers. The strange presence that had consumed Parizaad’s mind had now manifested in the skies. The little girl could only see the clouds, but Parizaad saw what hovered around them in circles.

‘Please save us from this devil, oh God!’ the woman cried, looking towards the sky. ‘At least save my daughter. Please do not punish her for the sin that she never committed. I beg you, God! I just need to survive this night, so that I can tell the truth to the world in the morning.’

Drops of rain poured from the sky.

Just one more night, Oh God! Are you even alive?

Meanwhile, the scavenger had entered the bedroom. It had access to every room in that apartment in Paradise Heights. The darkness inside the room did not deter it; it could still see clearly. It tore off the freshly written page from Parizaad’s diary, crumpled it, and put it inside its pocket. The world would never know what happened, and who did it if the sole evidence was destroyed. The scavenger knew she was outside; afraid and helpless. It glided towards the glass door that led to the balcony. Parizaad could see the diabolic presence coming towards her, and before she could blink, it was at the glass door, turning the knob, sliding it open. As it stood there, the woman saw the scavenger staring right into her soul. She tightened her grip around her daughter’s wrist and dragged her behind her back in an attempt to hide her from the monster. There was little else she could do at this point. Holding on to her daughter’s hand, Parizaad was losing hope, knowing she would not be able to protect her daughter. The scavenger tilted its head diabolically. At that moment Parizaad recollected what she had written in her diary, moments ago:

The mind fears the unknown, and it becomes jittery when it has to ponder about death. People fear death, and what happens after that, or perhaps they fear what happens to the person at the precise moment that death arrives …

That moment was now.