Tom, Billy & It!

"Hey, Tom!" hailed Billy, " How you doing?"

                                               "Hungry and cold. Br." said the other man. Both were two homeless men walking in the street.

                                   "Today is All Soul's Day, Billy. Shall we go down to the cemetery and see if folks have left anything on the graves? Anything we can use?"

                                   "It is so far gone into the night. Do you think we can make it and stay the night in that place?"

                                   "We will try it, Billy. Is there any harm?"

                                   "The ghosts will get to us and squeeze the life out of us. Aren't you scared of them?"

                                   "I am more scared of the cold and the hunger, my dear Billy! My tummy is so empty it is paining me a lot. Maybe some fellow left some sweetmeat on a grave to appease his ancestor. Let's find out. I am starving for seven days now."

                                   "Tis true. I agree. This winter has been really hard for folks like us. Okay, let us make a sign of the cross and go into the cemetery. It is better to die of fright than of this terrible hunger and cold."

                                   They were close to the cemetery. They dawdled and paused before entering. Billy made a sign of the cross on himself and on Tom. "Now may God protect us! Let's go in."

                                   At the gate was the gatekeeper's home. He and his family seemed to be fast asleep with the door firmly shut up. These two men shuffled noiselessly past that house. They entered the cemetery and saw a strange sight.

                                   Many of the graves were lit up by weird candles and joss sticks. Most of them had mounds of chrysanthemums and other flowers heaped on them. There was a strange smoke and a sticky perfume rather cloying pervaded the place. These strange smells wafted right into their nostrils and made them cough. They coughed silently. They didn't want the gatekeeper to know that they were in the cemetery.

                                   Slowly they made their way to a corner, as far as they could muster the courage to go.

                                   There was a vast edifice, one grave built up with an arch made of the statue of two guardian angels. "Hey Billy, let's sit here and see what is on this grave. It shields us from the chilly winds."

                                   They found some chocolates hidden amongst the many flowers strewed on the grave. They picked them up and solemnly divided them equally before gobbling them up. Rested and a little hungry, they then went about scouring the graves nearby for anything worthwhile. They pocketed smouldering candles. But the flowers, they ignored.

                                   Here and there on some graves, they found some forgotten biscuits or bread. They shared and ate up all food they found. Unfortunately, it was not much.

                                   They came back to the huge grave and rested on it. Both of them went into a restless slumber. Billy was alert, and he heard many noises. It startled him when he heard a moan and sat bolt upright. Then he discovered that it was a groan made by his friend Tom. He had a fitful sleep. Tommy was snoring as he slept deeply.

                                   Tom heard the Church clock strike the hour. Shivering and scared, he counted the chimes and found that it was twelve O'clock. He had heard stories of how the ghosts were let out at midnight. He shivered with fright. His sense of hearing became sharp. He could hear some crickets.

                                   Suddenly he heard a loud whoop and harsh cry. He jumped up and screamed. Then he realised that it was an owl. As he stood up, he saw many bats flying in the dark smoothly. He stared into the distance and thought he saw an apparition, some human-like figure in white, approaching them. He stifled a scream and shook Tom roughly. He whispered, "Hey Tom get up, there's a ghost coming after us."

                                   "Br. Who is waking me up at this hour?" complained Tom as he got up. He whirled around and found Billy shivering in fright. There was a pool gathering at the feet of Billy. He had wet himself. Tom stood up and looked. The white apparition was coming closer to them. The hair on his hand stood up as fright set in.

                                   Both of them were frightened to death, almost. Tom heard a loud thud as his friend Billy fell down unconscious. He hurriedly felt for his pulse and couldn't feel it. He shouted, "Billy, Billy!" There was no response. Having had some vague memory of his training in first aid, he felt for an artery in the neck. He was sweating profusely.

                                   There was no pulse. He hurriedly checked if Billy was breathing. It was difficult for him to do so. He carefully laid his friend down on the grave and got up to go to the cottage of the gatekeeper to seek help. As he got up, he noticed that the apparition in white was close to him. He or she was floating towards him. Closer and closer. Tom continued to sweat. He was close to panic. "What should I do? Should I call the gatekeeper? What about Billy?" he thought. But the apparition confronted him.

                                   "What are you doing here? Who gave you and your friend permission to come and disturb us? Get lost immediately from here, the both of you?" The words seem to come from the mouth of the ghost, but there were no lips forming them. It was so weird. The panic intensified in Tom and he felt his heart palpitating. He suddenly lost his foothold and fell flat on the ground in front of the ghost.

                                   The ghost seemed to settle down on his chest. He felt his chest caving in. His ribs seem to break with the pressure. He could not breathe. He tried to scream and shout, but not a sound was coming out. He was sure that he is going to die now. His entire life flashed before him in a second. Then, oblivion.

                                   The next morning, the gate-keeper, as usual, was making his rounds. To his utter shock, he stumbled on the corpse of Tom. He bent low and looked at his face. He was dead. But to make sure, the gatekeeper Mason checked his pulse and breathing. "How did this vagrant land up in our cemetery?" he wondered as he looked around. He spied the other corpse, that of Billy, on the large grave. He went there and checked it up too. That seemed colder and stiffer.

                                   "O my Lord God! What am I to do with these two stiffs? These homeless dudes seem to have come here to steal some candles and landed up dead.” He fished out his mobile phone and called the police and reported this to them.

                                   Soon the police landed up there with the SOCO team and started taking charge of the two corpses.

The forensic doctor who arrived found a slight pulse in one corpse and called for an ambulance. It was Tom. They rushed him to the hospital, trying to resuscitate him in the ambulance. They got him up once but lost him again as they neared the hospital.

                                   Once in the hospital, the emergency team was ready with the defibrillators and all the equipment. They resuscitated Tom. But he was fast sinking, and they infused him with fluids and shifted him to the Medical Intensive Care Unit.

                                   He was slipping in and out of consciousness. The doctors had no hope for Tom. But he had a strong will to survive. After two days he came out of the ICU, declared out of danger. The police had a lot of questions for him. But he could remember nothing.

                                   He was sobbing as they asked him about the night. He kept on repeating, "It was sitting on my chest, and I was dying..."

                                   After he recovered, they shifted Tom to the Home for the Destitute as he said he did not have any home or next of kin. He seemed to have grown old quickly and his hair turned grey almost overnight.

                                   Even there, he seemed to have lost his mind. Every night he had bouts of horrid nightmares and could hardly sleep. This made him irritable in the day. He yearned for a peaceful sleep. When he pestered the doctor, sometimes he gave him a sleeping draught, but the effect lasted for Tom only for a few hours.

                                   Weeks passed, and Tom continued to be in the same state. One day, his amnesia left him. He remembered how he and Billy had gone to the cemetery and were squatting there on that night. "What fools were we to go to the cemetery?" he thought. That night he had a terrible dream, a nightmare of the ghost. This time the ghost was successful. Tom passed out and died that night.