THE HOUSE. It's in Delhi, and if you're in the abnormal-phenomenon circle, you'd have heard of it and can find out where it is. I managed to research into it quite exhaustively.
They say that if you want the real chill, then visit this house. Legend goes that the owner of this house (I'm missing out on his name here, but lets call him Mr. K) - before it came into being - was having difficulties with his business. He consulted a spiritual advisor, who asked for him to undertake some rituals 'in a permanent structure on a permanent piece of land', land that would be truly his i.e. won't tie him with anxieties of ownership or mortgage.
A quick background: Mr. K's family was a large one. a wife, 3 children - a son, the youngest, and two daughters, the younger of whom to be married soon. Mr. K was respected in social circles. we can't say anything beyond this with certitude.
To fulfil the given objective, Mr. K took great financial and mental exertions. He didn't merely want a house, he wanted it to be all that he was. The purchase of land was the easiest part of the challenge. What plagued Mr. K was seeing the house in exact image of his experiences, being the learned and well-traveled man he was. He had seen it all, and he wanted that to come out in the design and proportions of the house. The latter - tackling proportions - was easy...he had it built as HUGE as he could. As for the design, not much knowledge exists.
In the process - madness - of completion of this project, Mr. K lost his wife. Some say she's dead, but others say she left him for her in-laws; her life just got lost midway the chapters of this house Mr. K was building. Soon after Mr. K moved in with his remaining family, his eldest of daughters also vanished from sighting. The neighbours had barely known them by this time, so no factual explanation exists - besides that of her joining her mother (at her in-laws). In times that followed, occasional quarrels were heard in the house - Mr. K vs his daughter and her boyfriend. It would be a barrage of undecipherable verbal blasts in varying pitches and tones (that would suggest equal participation from both the sexes). Sometime in future, the quarrels stopped, and the younger daughter vanished as well. "Vanished" seems a word appropriate for Stephen King's usage, and not for us, but nothing better explains these incidents of people just not being seen anymore. In course of time, the boy 'vanished' as well. Few people have claimed to have seen him working up the stairs at times, listlessly; though where he emerges from and what his purposes are is a mystery and affects the credibility of these sightings. Nobody's sure whether Mr. K has deserted the place or not, but he's claimed to have been heard at times, shouting at himself.
To spook myself, I visited that house sometime back. I'd gone there alone, right after a day of hard rain, with clouds still looming overhead.
The colony where it's at is a posh one: Clean streets, wide roads, private garages, no overflowing gutters after a heavy downpour, no mongrels hating your presence. The house was located after some mental math with the street addresses leading in and out, though with ease.
The house really is daunting in proportions. HUGE, as described. It reminded me of those multi-storeyed MCD residential compounds - the dimensions of interconnecting structures and the porch seemed so familiar. The entire facade seemed to be built on blue/gray marble with resplendent, flowing, visceral patterns. There was tinted glass used higher up. Every edge had been rounded, so that there was nothing harsh about this structure.
A huge flight of stairs leads up into the verandah. I did not investigate whether there was a garage or a basement built at the ground level, because of which this would've been necessary. As I climed up these stairs, I couldn't help but feel odd. I could listen to my steps. The dull sky outside made it seem awfully empty and gloomy. It was puzzling WHY Mr. K won't have anybody to take care of this house, HOW Mr. K can do without anybody to take care of this HUGE house.
Upon reaching the vast tiled verandah, more of the structure comes into view. It all seems rather like the waiting lounge of a prestigious hotel. Everything is sparkling, speckless, flowing. But there's only marble all around - marble pillars, a marble bench to one side stretching all along, a huge marble doorway at some distance right ahead, narrow marble stairs to the right. My unease intensifies. Just staring at all that marble - cut so, as to keep the wavy pattern intact - makes me dizzy. Besides that, I also feel somebody staring at me from the stairs to my right. Those stairs extend deep before they bend back. I begin to palpitate, the chill starts (the same feeling just revisited me as I'm writing this down sitting in my home, I play some music to detach myself sufficiently). I am trying to call out to somebody, but my throat is glued from this mental aggravation and I find myself crippled in midst of this silence.
That thing in the shadow of the stairs is still watching me. I cannot make out who it is, but I can feel that I'm being observed. Two slender slits in an oblong head on a slender and tall body, slowly shifting. In the meantime that things are pretty still, I try to deduce that it could be the father, Mr. K and get engrossed contemplating an encounter with the shadow.
Suddenly, by an impulse, I'm possessed by fright. It takes time, but as I gain back awareness of my surroundings, I find them changing in their shape. Twisting, distorting; it's as if the house will melt with me at its center. It's the organic pulse to this whole act that numbs me; had it been more mechanical or random, I won't have felt this way. Then, askance, I see the figure in shadows moving towards me. I grow cold from the premonition that it wants to take me in. I dart back, the way I came. In long lunges I descend down that entire stairway, and onto the road, and then right out of the boundaries of that house. I never look back. I keep running, cold and mute.
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