Outstanding Stories » The Bungalow Spectre

“The Bungalow Spectre” is one of the outstanding stories (sub-junior) of the second biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Advika Singh, Lotus Valley International Noida, India.

The Bungalow Spectre

My mother has twin sisters and my grandfather was in the army, so they kept shifting from one place to another. One of those places was Mumbai. When you hear Mumbai you think a bright nice place where most actors live. But when I think about Mumbai, I get goose bumps as it reminds me about that house where my aunts, mother and grandparents lived.

The house was a bit in the air with that spooky Peepal tree and when my mom’s family got the house they were instructed not to open the locked doors. It was believed that the bungalow was an army guest house many years back where lady dancers would dance to bone chilling songs. According to me, the house had certain areas which had a presence. I remember this swing mom told me about. It was surrounded by many Amla trees. As my mom was the youngest, she came home earlier than everybody from school.

My grandparents had hired a maid to take care of her till they came. One day, my mom came and sat on the swing. While she was swinging happily away, someone whispered in her ear and when she turned behind, there were only trees.

My mom was very agitated and petrified. So she ran inside the house but could not find the maid. So she peeped into the locked rooms and saw a lady’s shadow. She screamed and ran down and saw the maid making food in the kitchen. She asked the maid if she had gone to the locked rooms. The maid seemed all confused and replied, “I don’t even have the keys. Then, how can I enter?”

The same night, the whole family saw a ghostly figure of a lady dancing and singing. They were very alarmed. So they told the army about it and they had the house burned. But a few years before, when my grandmother visited Mumbai she said the house still existed…