TALE OF THE SHACKLED SHADOWS

By Anurag Basak

It was a night with a rusty wind

That blew across the silent valley

The man was lost in the misty road

And saw a house end of a blind alley.

The house was big and dark and damp

The bushes covered o’er the fence

The gate was broken with a shattered lamp

And the wind was making the old trees dance.

The wind was cold and it was drizzling then

The man thought he might find some shelter

He saw a faint light through a window-pane

And some shadows across the alter.

He approached the door with a nervous step the floor beneath made a crackling sound

He rang the bell covered in spider web

And saw some shadows move on the broken ground.

An old man came to the door

With wrinkled face and shivering hands

And though he looks like an ancient boar

With a soothing voice, ‘come on in’ he commands.

The hall was huge and moist and dark

The walls are old with cracks and breaks

The floor was damp with grey black marks

‘it’s from the old grey carpet’ the old man said.

The man asked if he could find someplace to stay

That he’s been lost in the misty valley

He’s been traveling all through the day

In search of a certain Mrs. Everly.

‘Oh this is the house of Mrs. Everly’

The old man said, ‘and who are you’, he asked

‘I came to deliver a letter for her from her husband’, he uttered.

‘She is upstairs’ the old man said, ‘but she’s sleeping now’

you can meet her in the morning, in the garden with tea

‘Please rest now, for the night, anyhow,

‘it’s too late to meet a sweet young lady.’

‘yes, yes sure, I can wait’, the man exclaimed

‘I will have some warm food and rest, if I can

I am thirsty and hungry and tired and feeling drained

From all the travelling through the valley’s dreadful span.’

The old lad took the man to a room,

It’s small and dark yet warm somehow

He gave some soup and bread to him

And told, ‘goodnight sire, rest for now’.

The man closed the door and ate his food,

Silently listening to the whistling wind

He was too tired and with a gloomy mood

He slept over the warm big bed with a weary mind.

It’s something about this house, he thought

That’s so unsettling and he felt disturbed

Maybe it’s the rusty weather outside

Or the huge house and its dark shadows that he had observed.

When he was talking with the old man before,

He observed some moving shadows on the floor

Crossing and observing him as he spoke,

And he felt it’s a shadow of a woman in scarlet cloak.

Suddenly the man woke up as the clock stroke midnight

And as the room was dimmed with the weary candlelight

He saw some shadows across the wall

Moving towards him, shadows of someone dark and tall.

The man, terrified, sat silent like a stone

He felt he can’t move or groan

As the wind outside was rumbling aloud

And the air inside was misty, like of a thundering cloud.

The shadows advanced, slow and quiet,

The room is dark almost, with the fainting candlelight

And as the clock outside rang the last bell of midnight

The shadow came across the bed, to the man’s right side.

The man still sitting unable to move

He heard a whisper echoing through his ears’ groove

‘You came to see the lady, you told,

The lady is long gone, her coffin is covered with mold’.

‘The old man that you met downstairs,

He killed her beating bound with the chair

The lady is the old man’s daughter

He is the killer who even killed his child’s mother.’

‘As we speak now, he is sharpening his knife

It’s for you, he’ll take your life

Now you can only wait or die

Or escape fast as you can and never come by’.

The man can now move and so he jumped,

He opened the window to escape and run

He turned to the shadow one last time

‘Who are you’ he asked while out he climbed

‘We are all the lettermen, that the husband sent before

He knew his wife was killed and yet he wants to fill this house’s floor

With sounds of shackles and chains a bound

With lifeless shadows crawling the cracked ground

With marks of blood on the old house’s floor

To make the house never shut its door.

‘For if this house won’t eat a soul

It shuts its door and unleashes the ghoul

That now sleeps quietly in chambers above

He’s the dead young lady’s old love.

Unleashed, if he becomes, he’ll kill the old man

And her husband, who lives from where you came

Run o’er there and tell him to cry in vain.

As the ghoul will rise today and he’s blood will drain.’

As the shadow was uttering about this dreadful affair,

He felt a smell of metal through the rusty air

The old man came standing with the sharpened knife

Off he jumped outside, with a cry for his life.

A while he fell on the wet ground down

He was living on the fourth floor above

He could feel his bones shattered

And the life’s last breathe out and blood scattered.

When again, he could feel the rain

But aint he could feel no pain

He realized his escape was in vain

He just thought he’ll go insane

But just then he heard the shadows whisper,

‘Welcome to the house where the dead despair.’

By Anurag Basak