It was the year 1990. The night was thick with darkness, the kind that seemed to swallow everything in its path.
Rahim, a weary rickshaw puller who suffered a death in his family just the night before, was cruising the desolate streets of Gazipur for hours. His torn watch blinked 3:33AM in eerie synchronization with the flickering streetlights.
Gazipur remained a small, forgotten town with roads as empty as the souls that inhabited it. Rahim, desperate for a fare to cover his bills, welcomed any opportunity to break the monotony of the night. He stopped at the Gazipur Railway station, expecting the late arrivals, waiting patiently for his next fare to arrive.
He finally found one: A man whose way home involved crossing the crematorium, also known as the “Shamshan Ghat” of Gazipur. Rahim was a bit hesitant as he just cremated his father there the night before. Brushing the superstitions off his mind, Rahim set out with the passenger.
Rahim’s rickshaw crept along the cracked asphalt when he suddenly noticed what he thought were two policemen under the bridge. Their uniforms were perfectly creased, and their badges gleamed in the dim light. It seemed as if they were trying to pull something out from the river, but failing every time. Paying no further heed to this, Rahim crossed the bridge and completed the trip.
On his way back, he had to cross the bridge again. This time the policemen shouted and called out to Rahim. “Hey you, come over here!” Rahim's heart sank as he pulled over.
"Need a ride, officers?" Rahim inquired.
The two officers turned towards him, but their faces were obscured by the shadows of their peaked hats. One of them stepped forward, “get down into the river and drag that thing here.”
Rahim’s face went pale. The thing they were asking him to pull out was none other than a dead body. Feeling uneasy, Rahim responded in a trembling voice, “but there is water over there sir.”
Enraged, the second policeman demanded “Let us do our job! So what if there is water? Get down and pull the body over!”
Rahim still hesitated. It was an unusual request at this time of night, but he did not want to get in trouble with the authorities. "Sure thing" he mumbled as he dipped into the river and proceeded to pull the body out onto the land.
“Very well, now take your rickshaw and leave. But listen, do not dare to look back, you understand?”
“Yes sir,” said Rahim as he made his way back onto the bridge.
While walking, he couldn’t control his thoughts. What were the policemen actually doing that they forbade him to look back? Come to think of it, he never even got a proper look at the policemen’s faces. His curiosity got the better of him, and so Rahim turned back, only to be stunned by the scene he witnessed.
The “policemen” were eating the flesh of the dead body. They looked up. As the flesh and blood dripped down their sharp fangs, their evil eyes glaring into Rahim’s petrified soul. Without wasting another second, he ran to his rickshaw.
Before Rahim could start the rickshaw, he heard a faint whisper, soft and chilling, coming from all around the darkness surrounding him. He tried to rush, but in his panic, he couldn’t step on his rickshaw pedal. Gasping for air and refusing to look, the whispers only grew louder. He finally managed to step on it and rushed home in fear.
He knew he had encountered something otherworldly that night, something that wore the disguise of authority but did not hold the characteristics of a human.
For the next few weeks, Rahim couldn't sleep. Consumed by high fever, the memory of that horrifying encounter haunted him every night. Until finally, in the fifth week, Rahim took his last breath.
“The ability of water, earth, air, and fire to unleash forces beyond the comprehension of mortals is the dreadful power of the supernatural realm.”
Arita Haque is a student at Oxford International School, Dhaka.