The Haunting of Sarma House
Siddharth Roy, Rehabari
It was a bright Tuesday morning when Bishal, Jatin, and Srishti had enough of math class in their school. The summer heat was already making the classrooms unbearably hot and the thought of another class on calculus was unbearable!
“Let’s bunk,” Bishal whispered softly in Jatin’s ear while loitering near the gate of the school. His eyes were filled with mischief, that look which always seems to get the other tw o in trouble.
Srishti with a hint of refusal, “Again? If we get caught, we are done.”
Still, Bishal was already looking outside at the road, the pull of temptation was strong. “Come on, Srishti. One day will be totally worth it. Decide fast where we should go.
That’s when Bishal leaned a little closer, “The old Sarma House. At the end of the deserted by-lane no. 11.”.
Just the name alone made Srishti felt queasy. The old Sarma House had been abandoned for decades. Everyone had stories about it. The lights flickering in the windows at night. The disembodied voices drifting out of a house that had no people living in it. Mischievous kids sometimes dared each other to run up to the rusty front gate of the House and touch it.
“You mean the haunted house?” The undercurrents in Srishti’s voice were of sharp anxiety layered with disbelief.
“That’s right,” Bishal smiled. “We’ll prove to all our friends at school once and for all that there are no such things as ghosts!”
There was a flicker in Jatin’s mind, he was nervous but was suddenly determined to endure the adventure. “Okay. But if we die, it’s your fault.”
Srishti groaned at first but later yielded to her friend’s decision. The three left school, with their hearts pounding with exhilaration and thrill.
The House at the end of the By-lane
By the time they turned on deserted lane, the sun was high but the air around the house felt different. It was cooler, heavier. The Sarma House, sat heavy at the end of road, windows shattered, glass spilled all over the vicinity and the roof sagging like an old man tired of carrying the burdens of life.
As the three approached the gate of the House, the iron gate opened with a creek. Shristi engulfed in fear, screamed. Bishal was still the bravest “It must be the gusty wind blowing, that moved the gate”. He walked through the open gate first. “Did you see, guys? Nothing scary yet!”
But as the three entered the old house, Srishti whispered. “It feels like… the house is watching us.”
Inside the gates, the garden was shabby with overgrown thorn bushes and weeds higher than their knees. The path was full of broken stones, partially buried in dirt. The smell of rot and damp wood came from the shady wooden walls of the house whose foul smell lingered far and wide.
Jatin took a deep breath. “Okay, let us quickly look inside, then we can enter.”
“Done.” Bishal agreed.
The First Room
The front door was huge, and the wood was swollen with age and moist. The three of them managed to push the heavy door open. As they did so, the door creaked so loudly that it seemed to echo in the empty house.
Dust danced in the slant of sunlight slipping through the broken window, as if the house itself were still breathing. The foyer, once proud and welcoming, now stretched wide in silence, its grand staircase sagging with age, the banister scarred and broken like an old wound. Above, a weary chandelier clung on a single chain, swaying gently, as though too tired to hold itself much longer.
Their footsteps made an unnatural echo as they walked.
“Creepy,” Jatin said softly, looking at the shady wallpaper that was half torn, exposing the damp walls of the house.
Srishti held her backpack close to her, as if it could protect her from the supernatural. “Why does it smell like something…burnt?”
Bishal laughed. “You are overthinking Srishti.”
All of a sudden, they heard the sound of slow dragging footsteps coming from somewhere above. The three of them froze as if they had seen a ghost.
Portrait Hall
The group of friends exchanged nervous glances. Logic told them it was probably just the house settling, or even a hungry rat running around the empty house. But curiosity outweighed their nervousness. They climbed the stairs at a slow pace, one creak at a time.
At the top of the stairs was a long hall with portraits decorated on the walls. Not just a few, but dozens. It felt as if the faces were staring at them: men in dark suits, women in elaborate dresses, and children with cold, empty eyes. The portraits were covered in dust but yet they looked alive in an eerie way.
“Are their eyes…following us?” Srishti’s voice shivered as she spoke.
“Relax!” Bishal laughed. “It’s just a figment of your imagination.”
As the group made their way down the hall, Jatin suddenly stopped. There was something strange about one of the portraits; A grumpy man, wearing a long beard and shady clothes. It was completely off-putting and scary. The man’s mouth seemed to be open, some bizarre painting effect that made him look as if he was going to speak something. Jatin blinked and within a friction of a second, his lips suddenly closed again. Fear creeped through their veins as they kept staring at the portrait.
“Let’s go guys,” Jatin muttered quickly.
At the end of the hall, there was another door which was partially open, a faint glow spilling out into the hallway.
The Secret Room
When they pushed the door open, they entered a study room. Bookshelves encircled the walls, books leaning from the shelves, pages eaten by mould. There was an enormous desk in the middle of the room, covered with yellowed papers smothered with dust.
But what drew their attention was the portrait, over the fireplace. It was the same bearded man they had seen in the hallway. But in this portrait, he looked angrier and revengeful; as if he is about to shout at them; his eyes were sharper, almost real.
Before they could fathom what was going on, the portrait came crashing down from the wall, hitting the ground with a deafening crack! Behind it was a small hole in the wall, a hatch.
“No way. What just happened?” Srishti screamed, taking a step backwards.
But Bishal’s eyes lit with raw enthusiasm. “Come on guys! This is the adventure of our lives!”
Without even finishing his sentence, he opened the hatch and crawled inside. Jatin followed, groaning as he slid through. Srishti muttered in anger” You both are fools” as she crawled inside gasping in fear.
Suddenly, they were in a small, dusty room; spider cobwebs were dangling down from the ceiling. That’s when they saw it—a box, ordinary yet out of place, planted in the centre of the room like some kind of dare. Jatin filled with curiosity, opened the box, hoping for a hidden treasure. But all they found were dozens of school books with faded covers and brittle pages.
Srishti picked one up. The name written on the cover page made her skin crawl: “Asmita Class 7.”
Another said, “Bikash, Class 5.” There were a few pictures of children as well, half torn and hazy.
“I think these belonged to kids,” Jatin whispered. “From this house.”
Bishal flipped through one notebook. On the last page, there was a shaky scrawl: “We bunked school today. The Housekeeper locked us in. We could never get out.” That means the kids were not residents of this house but were inquisitive wanderers like them, trapped inside.
The three stared at each other, horror dawning, their bodies shivering in fear.
And then, the temperature dropped. Their breath became heavy. The sound of the footsteps suddenly came from behind them – closer this time, inside the hidden room.
The Ghost
Engrossed in fear, Srishti yelled “Run!”.
They crawled out of the hole, books tumbling to the floor as they dashed toward the little study. Their expressions shifted in horror; fear flickered across their faces as the door in front of them slammed shut on its own. The glowing light suddenly disappeared, plunging the room into darkness.
From the far corner of the room a dark shadow appeared – tall, hunched – with glowing white eyes. Suddenly, it started speaking in a whisper. They could hear many whispering voices echoing as if many children were speaking in unison.
“Leaveeee…Leaveeee” whispered the eerie figure.
Jatin cowered against the wall in fear. “Whaaa-What do you want?”
The shadow moved closer to them and began changing its shape. For a moment it took the shape of the strange man from the old portraits – but suddenly it shifted again and morphed into smaller figures. A shiver ran down their spine as the shadow took the shape of the children from the notebooks.
“Leave…. or you will stay forever…” in an eerie echoing voice
Suddenly the books spread across the wood floor began to rustle, a few of them started hovering in the air and the pages began flipping quickly, as if blown by an unseen breeze. The chandelier above began to creak and clink as chain links began snapping, one by one.
“Door! The door!” Bishal screamed.
They all raced towards the door, they threw their shoulders onto the door and it broke open. Trembling in fear, they started running from the shadows which were now pursuing them. They bolted down the open hallway, down the old staircase, the noise of their footsteps overshadowed the pounding footsteps of the dark figures approaching them from behind.
The chandelier fell just as they reached the foyer, shattering into a thousand pieces, missing them by inches.
They raced out of the house, through the shabby garden, and emerged onto the road panting. The metal gate slammed shut behind them with a deafening clang.
The Aftermath
For a long time, they just stood there on the road, shivering in fear, unable to speak. Finally, Srishti whispered, “We should never have gone in.”
Jatin nodded, looking pale. “Those kids… they were just like us. They had bunked school and went inside the house and it seems they never came out.”
For once, Bishal seemed speechless. His earlier bravado was gone and on his face was a haunted look, eyes teary.
As they were walking down the lane, the silence was broken only by the crunch of gravel under their shoes. Just as they were about to exit the by-lane, Jatin felt he heard the voices again. Carried by the wind, faint and chilling.
“Leaveeeeee…Leaveeeee”
Epilogue
The next day at school, the three of them sat through their classes in silence still engulfed in fear from yesterday’s incident. What they experienced in the Sarma House was beyond their wildest imagination. They were still in disbelief and plagued by fear of the supernatural. The teacher was astonished by the amount of attention Srishti, Jatin, and Bishal were giving but in reality, their minds still frozen with horror.
Srishti stared at Jatin and Bishal. None of them spoke of the Sarma House again. But deep down, they knew the truth: the house was alive, and it kept watch for children who dared to skip school.
And if you ever walk down the by-Lane no 11, you’ll see the house still standing there, windows like dark eyes, waiting for the next group of curious souls who think ghosts don’t exist. Because once you enter the house, it never truly lets you go.