Curtain

By Vasudev Patel

"To be or not to be", Sunny paused because he couldn't remember what came next. "You forgot didn't you", Sneha said correcting her glasses. Sunny looked at her with the patience of a feral cat," I didn't forget, I was just...giving a dramatic pause". "There is no dramatic pause there", Sneha said getting up from her chair at the bottom of the stage. The stage where their group was going to present a rendition of Shakespeare's Hamlet the next day. "We don't have time for your dramatic pauses", Sneha said with an exasperated look on her face.

"Oh, just let him be", said Ravi, the designated director, "He'll pull through". Sneha said nothing even though her face was still irritated. "Ok", she said at last, “But if he can't, it'll be on you Ravi". Then she went to the others to see how their preparation was going. "You really should practice more", Ravi said to Sunny after Sneha was away at a safe distance," Or she will be very very angry". "Go away and let me practice then", Sunny replied. Ravi went away to where the others were practicing.

There weren't many people in the auditorium that night, just Sunny, Ravi, Sneha— who was playing Ophelia —, Abhishek — who was playing Claudius —, and Shreya — who was their costume designer. The rest of the cast had already practiced their part to the director's satisfaction and had already gone home.

It was around 10:30 that the guard came to lock the doors. If the guard had been a little more competent, he would have checked inside the main hall of the auditorium and found these five kids in their 20s and asked them to leave. If the kids had been just a little bit louder, their voices would have gone out of the soundproof walls of the auditorium's inner hall and reached the competent ears of the incompetent guard. But the guard was in a hurry to catch a cricket match and the five inside the main hall were just a little bit respectful of their surroundings.

It was around eleven that Ravi decided that they were as ready as they will ever be and that they should go home and rest. There were no objections to Ravi's long-awaited suggestion. They all went out of the inner hall and towards the wooden gates to the outside. Abhishek was the first one to reach the doors. He placed his hands on the ebony handles and pulled, then pushed, then pulled again for good measure. The doors were locked, he realized and said as much to the rest of their party. Abhishek tried yelling for the incompetent guard, but by now he was at home watching the match he couldn't miss. Then came out the smartphones. There was no signal inside the auditorium. Each and every one of them was walking from wall to wall extending their hands like lightning rods, just for that small bar, so that they could call someone and get out of there. Sunny got a single bar and he quickly called his home but the signal went away as soon as he dialed the number. Ravi's phone was low on battery already, at around 11:45 it was completely out of juice. The rest of them didn't get a single bar. By midnight the realization had set in each and every one of them, they were not getting out of there until morning.

"I think we'll be stuck here till morning", Ravi said. His voice was calm but Sunny noticed a hint of panic. He may have imagined it but Abhishek seemed to have noticed it too." How will we get ready for the play then", Sneha said. She had more than a hint of panic. "The morning shift starts at five", Ravi said, “The play will start at eleven, we'll have time to go home and freshen up"." Have you forgotten that we are stuck here", Abhishek said, "We have walked into beginning of a horror movie and I for one want no part of it". Abhishek was actively afraid now. They could see sweat pouring down his face like he was just walking in rain." What do you suggest we do, idiot", Sunny asked. Abhishek ignored his remark and said, " I am going to look for the back door, or some other way to get out, I suggest you do the same". Then he went to the corridor on the right of the main hall. It goes all the way to the back of the hall. None of them had ever gone to the other side of the hall and they have certainly never used the back door if there was one. There were no windows in the auditorium to climb out of, so there only options were to wait for morning or try the backdoor. So, they went after Abhishek. When they reached the other side of the main hall, they found Abhishek sitting beside the back door. The sight of the door was enough to calm them. Abhishek was sitting with his head between his legs. He seemed to just sit at first. But as they drew closer them could hear him crying. Not very loudly, like boys cry when they don't want anyone to find them crying. "What happened?", Ravi asked knowing full well what had happened. Abhishek looked up at them. If there was any one of them who hadn't realized what happened, they did when they saw Abhishek's face and his red eyes. The back door was also locked.

They had no option but to wait now. It was just four and half hours now. They could wait that long, they thought. So, they went back to the stage in the main hall and sat there. None of them was going to sleep tonight, and they knew that. It wasn't that they were alone with no connection to the outside world. It wasn't that they were afraid that they will not make it to the morning. Someone must be looking for them, they thought. It would have been true if they were still teenagers. But they were not and, in that moment, they seemed to have forgotten what they had told their parents when they were coming out to practice. Call it coincidence if you like but in one way or another, they had told their parents that they may come home in the morning and not to worry if they don't come home that night. But it was none of these things that was scaring them. What scared them was the thought of being locked in.

"We should tell each other stories, you know, to pass the time", suggested Sunny. Ravi was about to agree when Abhishek said, "You want us to tell each other ghost stories, what are you, ten", seeming less intimidating than he wanted to be and more shaken up than he thought he was. "Who said anything about ghost stories?" asked Sunny. "I think we should tell stories, not ghost stories though", Ravi said looking at Abhishek. Sneha nodded and agreed with Ravi. She and Shreya hadn't said a word. They were more shaken up than they seemed. They could here rain outside. It was just a drizzle earlier but now it seemed like it was pouring hard. They could here thunder and lightning. Under different circumstances they may have told ghost stories but not tonight. As sunny was about to start his story they heard a loud thunder and boom. The electricity was gone. They were drowned in a deep and crushing darkness. Sneha screamed and held Ravi's hand as tight as she could. Shreya, who was sitting a little distance away panicked and started crawling towards Sneha but bumped into a wall and decided it was best if she stayed there. Abhishek also decided that it was better to just stay put than run around in the darkness. Sunny thought he should turn on the flashlight on his phone but when he tried it his phone didn't turn on. That was when he found out that his phone has run out of battery too.

For about twenty minutes they sat in the darkness. None of them uttered a single word. The darkness felt heavier by the minute. When twenty minutes later the lights came back on, they felt relieved, at least four of them did. Abhishek was the first to notice, "Where is Sunny?", he asked now not even bothering to hide his fear. Ravi and the others took a little longer to adjust to the lights. When they were adjusted, they noticed that Sunny was missing. " He was sitting right there", Shreya said pointing toward the place Sunny was sitting on. " He must have gone to the washroom", Sneha suggested. " In the dark, without so much as a flashlight", Shreya remarked. Nobody seemed to notice the expression on Ravi's face except for Sneha. " What are you looking at? " Sneha asked looking in the direction of the balcony seats, where Ravi was looking. Then she saw what Ravi saw and screamed once again. This time not because of the dark. She saw Sunny there. Ravi ran toward the stairs and the rest followed once they noticed Sunny. When they got to the balcony seats their fear plunged deeper into them like someone was pushing a hot knife into a block of butter, smoothly and noiselessly. But they felt it, no matter how smoothly it went in, no matter how noiselessly it pranced through their veins. They knew that the fear was there. None of them wanted to look at Sunny but none of them had the strength needed to avert their eyes. Sunny was hanging from a rope tied to one of the fans. On the wall behind him were writings. Sunny's limp body aligned with the writing on the wall. It made the long part of 'T'. That 'T' was part of the word 'NoT'. When aligned with Sunny's corpse the writing said 'To BE or NoT To BE'.

They froze at the sight of the almost marble like body of their friend. For a few moments none of them uttered a single sound. It was Abhishek who broke the silence. "We should get him down", Ravi moved as the last word left Abhishek's lips. They got Sunny's body down from the rope it was hanging on. The rope had left marks on his now broken neck like a snake, curling around his neck, tightening and tightening its hold on it. The marks seemed oddly alive to them. It felt like if anyone tried to touch it, it will jump on to them and they would join Sunny in his porcelain slumber. "What do we do?", asked Shreya in a voice barely a whisper. "I DON'T KNOW!", Ravi yelled. Everyone was shocked at this sudden outburst. Then Abhishek said, " We will leave the body here, then-", " the body? ", Sneha interrupted, "That body is our friend, maybe not yours but he was our friend". Abhishek replied," He was my friend too, but it won't do any of us any good-", "Any of us any good?", Sneha said angrily, " It's not about good, say it, you are glad he is dead, aren't you? ". Abhishek said nothing but just stared at Sneha. He seemed angry at her. " What's going on? ", asked Ravi. "It's nothing", said Abhishek. "They had a fight a couple of days ago", Shreya told Ravi, "I don't know what it was about but it got heated and," Shreya let out a sob, " And Abhishek threatened Sunny". Ravi turned towards Abhishek, " What happened? ", Ravi tried his best to hide it but now he was thinking what Sneha thought and Shreya was starting to think. "Nothing", replied Abhishek, " It was just a little argument between friends ", a nervous smile spread across his face, " I wanted to play Hamlet, and I just asked him to let me, he couldn't remember the lines anyway, he was the one who got all angry and started fighting", there was that smile again, "I admit I got a little angry, and said somethings I shouldn't have, but I wouldn't want him dead, he is my friend", he paused, " He was my friend".

" Whatever it was about, doesn't change the fact that Sunny was murdered", said Ravi, "There is someone else in this building". Until Ravi mentioned this fact none of the others had realized this implication of Ravi's death. They were so quick to point fingers, to assign the blame that they forgot, if none of them did it then someone else did. Ravi thought that it would be impossible for any of the girls to drag Sunny and kill him without Sunny making a single sound. He knew Abhishek, he wasn't clever enough to plan this out. "We should leave Sunny here as Abhishek said and lock ourselves in the green room", Ravi suggested. The nods seemed to be unanimous. They slowly made their way to the green room. Once all four of them were inside, they locked it. The green room was full of old costumes and props. They sat on the places they could find. Their phones were dead, they were locked in an auditorium, possibly with a murderer, and now none of them trusted each other, even Ravi who justified everyone in his mind that they cannot be the one to murder Sunny.

For what seemed like an hour there was no sound except for the roar and tap tap of the thunder and rain outside. None of them let out a single word. It wasn't as if they tried. None of them wanted to speak but each and every one of them was regretting the silence more and more. It may have been the death of a friend, it may have been the possibility of a murderer on the loose, who knows. But as the tap tap of the rain slowed down, it felt more like the wait all of them had experienced before, the wait before the curtain rises. The slow tap of the rain, the distant thunder felt like the opening salvo for the performance of a life time and the reluctant leads are locked in the green room...waiting.

Outside the green room, right at the center of the stage where Sunny was practicing his lines for Hamlet, was a man. The man had been running when he decided to sneak into the auditorium to hide. Someone had seen him hiding the girl he was sure was glad to be painted in red. And that someone had decided to get him away from the painted girl. The girl looked more beautiful that way. He would have gone away after admiring her. She would have liked that. But there is no shortage of meddlers. He, like the incompetent guard, never heard the people practicing on that stage just a few hours ago. Not that it would have made any difference to him. When he found out that the auditorium was not empty, he was glad. It was difficult dragging the boy up the stairs without alerting the others, but he did. He even wrote the line the boy was speaking when he first saw him. The boy would be glad to see that line. The man didn't know where that line came from, neither did he know what the kids were doing here. But he was glad they were here.

Without letting out so much as a breath he made his way to the door of the room the other four were hiding in. He put his ear to the door, as slowly as he could, he didn't want to spoil the gifts he was going to give them. It would have been difficult if the thunder was still roaring but now, he could hear them breathing. Years of hiding and giving gifts to strangers had made his ears sharp like an animal. As long as there was no noise to disturb him, he could hear them.

In the green room, unaware of the eavesdropper, Ravi broke the silence. "We need to get out of here", he said. "But how? The doors are locked and our phones are dead, and even if they weren't there is no signal", Shreya replied. "We will break down the door, I don't know how but we will, okay, we can't just wait around here for him to get us", Ravi said. "For who to get us?", Sneha asked as the truth slowly seeped in. There was someone out it the auditorium. Someone who dragged Sunny up the stairs and did that to him. "I don't want to go out", Abhishek said, "We can just wait here till help arrives". Ravi turned to face him, “If you want to wait, that's okay with me, but I am going". Ravi waited for someone to agree with him and Shreya did. Ravi was surprised to see her agree with him. "I'll go with you", Shreya said, "I don't want to wait around here if you do get the doors open". "And if you don't, we can just come back here, right?", asked Sneha, "I don't want to be alone with him", she added pointing to Abhishek. "It's settled then, we three will go and breakdown the door, of we do I'll come get you, if we don’t, we will come back here", Ravi said to Abhishek. Abhishek was just starting to argue that they should stick together when Ravi opened the door. "Lock it after us ok" Ravi said to Abhishek. He reluctantly agreed.

The man hid in the shadows just beyond the green room. None of the three who left the room thought to see there. The man wanted to give the gift to one of the girls first but the other boy will have to do for now. A few moments after the three had left he knocked on the green room door. The boy didn't answer at first. The man knocked again. This time the boy opened the door. Before he could say anything, the man covered his mouth with his hand. The man hated it when they refused his gift. They begged him not to give them the gift but he knew they would be very happy once they received it. He put a knife on the boy's neck and put the index finger of his left hand on his lips in the gesture of keeping quiet. The boy nodded. The man loved it when they were obedient. It was just a gift he was giving them, he made all of them beautiful. The once who understood this kept quiet.

When they couldn't break the door, they decided to go back to the green room and wait. They slowly made their way to the green room. The door was open. Ravi pushed the door open all the way and when he saw Abhishek, his voice just went away. Sneha screamed and Shreya fell to the floor. Abhishek's head was dangling from the hooks on the roof on a rope made from the clothes in the room. His other parts were also dangling, some from the roof some from each other. He looked like a puppet dangling from his strings only this one's joints were all torn apart. When Ravi gained control of his body back, he saw that the parts of Abhishek's body that were torn apart were not only torn, somebody had bitten right through them, bone and flesh alike. When he saw this, he quickly closed the door before the other two could see it. "We need to go back to the door", he said to the other two and started to walk. The other two followed him without making a single sound. The didn't seem to notice the bite marks to Ravi. He didn't know what to do now, they can't get out, they can't stay in the only lockable room. He just didn't know what to do. The doors of the toilets weren't sturdy enough to stop whatever did that to Abhishek. And the toilets were on the opposite side of the building. Whatever or whoever it was could get them before they even get there. The safest option, the only option, it seemed to Ravi, was to try and break the door down. Even if they were unsuccessful, somebody might hear them. If only they were lucky enough to make it to the door unnoticed. Just as they turned the corner to the doors, Ravi saw a man, a thing covered in blood standing in front of the doors. Its hair was covering its face. It, whatever it was, seemed more animal than man. It was waiting for them at the door. It knew they would come here. It knew. That was the last thought Ravi remembered having as that thing was slowly scraping his skin off his flesh piece by piece.

They next morning, the incompetent guard came to open the door to the auditorium. It was just an hour after Ravi and the others saw that think at the door. If only they were lucky enough. When the guard opened the door, he saw what was possibly the last thing Ravi and the other two felt. He saw three pink skinless dancers dangling from the balcony just above the doors to the main hall. They had smiles on their faces, made from wires sewn on their lips. They made different dancing poses. The still bleeding wounds would suggest that they were alive until recently. But a mere guard wouldn't know anything about that. The shock of seeing three flamingo like dancers had taken the strength out of him. He collapsed to the ground. If he were competent enough, he would have called the police. But he wasn't, it was at least half an hour later when another guard came to check on him and called the police.

By Vasudev Patel