Bija

“Did you hear that?” Mishti asked the woman behind the bar. She pressed the volume key to make sure the video on her screen was audible and held her phone up in earnest.

“I did.” Shivani smiled at her enthused friend lovingly. The drinks were going down fast. She was not going to pour Mishti anymore. In fact, she probably should have stopped one glass ago. “It’s pretty crazy to think. Mom said at least five sightings were reported yesterday alone.”

“Hear what?” Shankar joined the two girls at the corner of Long Night, a sprawling hotel-restaurant glitzed up in Christmas décor for the holidays. Shivani prepared a new cocktail in quick effortless motion and nodded at Mishti’s phone. “The news,” she tossed in an olive and placed the glass expertly on a coaster before pushing it towards Shankar. “Rumors on Bija are surfacing again and this time they’re saying he’s reached Mumbai.”

Shankar took his time peeling off his coat, scoffing. “Please, guys, not Bija again. I’ve had to hear about that all day from my colleagues at work.”

Mishti moved her purse off the counter to make room for her best friend and handed her phone to him. “So hear it again then. It’s on the news now. Like… fellas. It's actually true!”

Shankar grumbled but took Mishti’s phone compliantly. He sipped his drink as the three of them huddled closer. They watched the screen light up in the familiar reds and blues of National News, and soon found themselves staring at a blurry, green-grey photograph captured by a night vision camera. “And here, folks, play close attention,” the newsreader dramatized, “we are looking at a real photograph of what Yamini claims to be the figure of Bija. Yamini Gatkar was at Dada Dadi park for her usual evening stroll after dinner last night when she saw something move in the bushes. Yamini, do we have you on the line, Yamini?”

Shankar turned off the phone and placed it face-down on the counter. “Yadi yada. Let’s wait to see the Bija ourselves, huh?”

“Listen,” Mishti burbled, her cheeks pink in indignation. “This doesn’t sound like a joke to me anymore. I’m not going to be walking near any foresty areas from now on, you hear me? I have been feeling real weird lately. Like there’s this unknown presence following us all around.”

Shivani and Shankar glanced at each other. “Why don’t you take Shankar with you on the way back home tonight?” Shivani passed a bottle of water to Mishti. “It’s unsafe to walk alone by your house anyway.”

Mishti nodded. As a lover of nature, she had enjoyed her past month living by the national park, waking up to views of serene green foliage and lush hills outside her balcony. But ever since whispers about Bija had begun to circulate the city, she’d started to think her recent move had been scrappily planned. She was new to this city. Obviously she should have moved someplace closer to her friends and the rest of the metropolis.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Shankar gulped down his drink and pulled out his own phone. “Let me order a cab back. Mishti, water.”

Mishti started to respond when the oak doors of Long Night swung open violently. The spirited chatter and symphonizing chinking of cutlery in the restaurant fell to an immediate hush. Only the festive melody of a Christmas carol pierced through the air.

At the far end of the room, a woman cursed and screamed at her kid to step away from the door. The boy ran into her arms and stayed cowered into her shoulder.

The doors had swung open, but they were eerily still, not swaying back to close. The entrance was pitch black. No one was at the door, and there was no sign of wind. Any traffic that had earlier been slugging through the main road was now gone.

A couple of frantic whispers went around the room along with the uncertain shuffle of chairs.

And then Shivani gasped.

Slowly, from the corner of the doorway, a dark shadow began to creep in. It grew bigger and bigger, engulfing the frame with dense mass and the sounds of dripping liquid, until a single black tentacle hovered in the air. Thick slime oozed onto the floor before the tentacle came crashing down.