The Cursed Country
Updated: 6 days ago
I: Flint’s Nightmare
On a foggy night in the Flint Country, a woman was ready to have supper at home.
“Where are you? I am calling you for dinner,” she shouted.
“Jen, our dinner is ready. Come on, dear, we can have it”, she kept calling him.
Meanwhile, she could hear water leaking. Soon enough, she could hear it was fast increasing. She said to herself, “Hoof! I have to go there now. I am vexed with this man!”
“Tlick, tlick.” She walked into the washroom to tighten the tap, and at once the door was shut in her face.
“Tlick, tlick.” She walked into the washroom to tighten the tap, and at once the door was shut in her face.
She said, “How many times should I keep on telling you to tighten this tap?” not bothering to shut the door. She tightened the tap and turned around slowly, saying, “Stop teasing me, Jen, open the door!”
The door did not open. So she said again, “I am sorry to scold you, dear. Please open the door.”
The surroundings are calm at once, and for one last time, she said, “Jen! Jen! Are you there?”
She heard a mourning sound soon after she spoke last. She was frightened and began to scream. All of a sudden, water from the tap started to gush on her face.
She began to cry louder, “hel...p... he..lp me!”
After a moment, silence prevailed. Everything is calm and dark. The door suddenly opened, and she ran out of the washroom in search of Jen.
She shouted “Jen! Jen!” and continued, “Jen! Something is happening here. Come on, we should leave this place.”
Walking slowly into the living room, she said again, “Dear, can you hear me? It’s completely dark over here. Talk to me so that I will know where you are.”
She whispers to herself to build strength, “It’s better to light a lantern.” She moved towards the dining hall with a lantern, calling Jen repeatedly with fear.
She saw something red flow down the steps. She touched it with her fingers to sense that it was blood. She thought, “What happened to Jen? Is he okay?” and she followed the blood trail. She shouted, “Nooooo!” and stared at Jen.
He is lying on the floor bleeding through his nose and ears. His tooth is broken, and his eyes are red with blood. She began to cry, and her voice echoed throughout the house. Again, all the doors of the room were shut. The next day, early in the morning, the guard of that ménage found blood flowing from the house and lodged a complaint with the police. An hour later, police and media reached the scene. The police stepped into the house towards the dining hall, observing the fingerprints, footsteps and slowly followed towards the bodies.
Those bodies are in a state of decomposition, and that frightened them, but they noticed that the blood is still fresh! That is a new experience for the police, and it was pretty confusing. They instantly started interrogating Jen’s neighbours. “We found two bodies in the Flint country; the situation crossed limits. The villagers are greatly scared and seeking protection from the police”, the reporter described the situation to the NEWS studio, in the interim.
“Do you suspect anyone regarding this issue?” the host asked the reporter. And the reporter replied, “All that they said is that the investigation is still in progress”
“This is the second time in thirty days that there were killings. So could it be suspected that these murders are done by the same person?” asked the anchor.
“No, the police have confirmed that there is no match between the evidence of the last murder and this incident,” said the reporter, concluding the session.
That afternoon, the police arranged a meeting and announced the names of two victims, Mr Jen and Mrs Rek. They also stated that “The last murder’s victims were also the natives of that country”. While the conversation was going on, a person from the last row in the hall raised his hand, asking, “Excuse me, sir!”
“Yes, Mr Tinkron?” replied John, the person addressing the throng.
“May I know about it in detail?” asked Tinkron.
John replied, “Sure!” and both of them walked out of the address.
Tinkron asked curiously, “When did the last murder happen?”
John replied, “Thirty days before the couple was killed in the same way.”
Tinkron asked, “Could you show me the files on the last case?”
Being a renowned detective, John had only one reply: yes.
John handed over the reports to Tinkron and said, “I hope you find this case interesting. But be safe and fast; people are dying!”
Tinkron nodded and left for Flint country.
Days passed by. Flint country was never so silent. Streets are calm, cold, and shivering; water has frozen into ice. On the spur of the moment, water turned to vapour, the temperature rose to the extreme, and the villagers’ skin was badly burnt. In the next second, the temperature dropped, and all the vapour condensed into ice. All people relaxed at once and took a deep breath. They are in great confusion and couldn’t understand what is around them.
That night, an eighteen-year-old girl was walking through the main street of the country, carrying burgers on her way home.
“Hey ... wait!”
She heard someone calling her from the back. She turned back, her eyelashes falling onto her pupils due to the dense fog, and she couldn’t see the person coming towards her clearly. Slowly, fear crawled into her, and her eyes were slowly brightening. She started to step back as the man came closer. Soon enough, she began to run away from him.
II: Flint’s Outcry
The man shouted, “Stop! Why are you running, Lesia?”
The girl halted and recognised the voice to be her father’s. He walked up to her and said, “I followed you because you are too late.”
They continued to walk when, in just a blink, a truck hit Lesia’s father. She shouted and ran madly after the truck. All of a sudden, she heard a voice call, “Lesia....!”
She turned back, and there was no one. She looked in the direction where the truck was going, and there was nothing. Her father had also disappeared. She cried out loud with fright and rushed towards the junction. Her dad stood before her, horrified. She ran back, but her legs ached while her blood oozed out from her foot. She sluggishly slipped beside a tree. After a minute, she could feel blood oozing out from her eyes. Her hands swelled, and in pain she cried out for one last time.
The next morning, ‘Tinkron’ found the dead body of Lesia on his way back to the country. He was shocked to see the body. Her post-mortem report said that she was greatly hassled before her death, and he returned to the location to trace clues. He went searching at every step, following her footprints, walking to the end of the avenue. He was bemused to see that every third footprint held a burger wrapped in silver foil. Tinkron walked to the nearby restaurant, famous for its burgers.
Tinkron assumed that the burgers might have been bought at the restaurant and that the girl might have started her journey there. He went inside the Rica Samva restaurant. He walked around to take in the surroundings after talking to the manager, seeking to get started. In one room, he found a photo frame in a corner fixed to a wall.
He observed the dates written below “16th March 1905- 21st August 1986”
.
He thought it had not even been a year since the person in the photo had passed, and then he saw the name Richard Samwan. Tinkron repeatedly said “Richard Samwan! Samwan! Samwan”. He tried recalling the person in the photo, and then he remembered “Samwan was the registered name of the couple who were murdered earlier”
He presumed that there might be a relation. Now he put off his hat, took a chair, called a waiter and enquired about the person in the frame who was Mr Richard. After a few minutes, Tinkron planned to travel to Richard’s residence in his jeep, which was a mile away from the restaurant.
However, his friend called him for help, so he started visiting him. On his way, one of the jeep’s tyres got punctured. Tinkron lost control and dashed to a pole, falling unconscious.
It was nine in the evening. A cold breeze started to flow, as always, and the old bar music kept the girls dancing and the men drinking. All of a sudden, the music stopped, and the people inside the club started freezing. Bottles cracked, and all of them shouted for one last time in cold, and the entire bar collapsed within seconds.
The next morning, wayfarers saw ‘Tinkron’ and took him to the hospital. Three days went by, and the people of Flint’s Country and a few of them started leaving the city to settle in a remote village. A few days later, Tinkron recovered and heard that people were leaving the city, so he organised a press meet, assuring them that everything would stop.
Later, he travelled to Mr Richard’s residence and knocked on the front door, but no one answered. He went to the back of the bungalow and found a broken window. He managed to enter the bungalow. It is very dark, with a smell like rotting bodies. He slowly walked through the hall and climbed upstairs. Alas! He did not find anything useful. For one last time, he turned back to the living room of that bungalow, which was much darker and wetter due to moisture. He switched his torch and noticed photo frames fixed to the walls. He took a few frames and returned to the police station. He verified the death file of “Mr RICHARD SAMWAN”. On seeing the file, he was shocked to see that “Mr Richard” was killed by his brother “JAMES SAMWAN”; “JAMES” was also killed by a stranger on a snowy day.
Tinkron realised both of these deaths were not natural. An hour later, he went to Jen’s residence to trace the clue to the murderer so that he could get a match with SAMWAN’S murder.
He searched the whole house but couldn’t find anything useful there. He stepped out of the house. Opposite the house, a man was found under a tree. Tinkron was in no mood to talk to him, so he headed to the police station. He searched post-mortem reports of Richard and James Samwan, and both of them stated that they were killed in accidents. Tinkron took those reports to the mortuary and compared James’ face closely with the photo frames he had taken from Richard Samwan’s bungalow. James’s face was completely different from the body, confirming that the body was not James. He reopened the case and started an investigation from the beginning.
Credits
This story was written by Krishna Phani Sharman, edited by R. K. Chamarla and illustrated by Nikhil Narayanasa.
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