Spirit of the Night - Horror

This incident took place in 2004. I had just enrolled in college—a time when fear and superstition were supposed to fade from the mind. But strangely, a new kind of fear crept in.

Our village is the largest in the union, stretched out more east to west. Suddenly, an outbreak of cholera began in the eastern part of the village. There hadn't been any cholera in the past 25 years. Within seven days, five people from the east side had died. Despite all preventive measures, someone from nearly every household on the eastern side started getting infected. Slowly, the disease started creeping toward the western side of the village—where our house was located.

The elders of the western side gathered and decided to bring in a spiritual healer (a "kabiraj") to perform rituals to ward off the disease. A kabiraj was brought in, but nothing seemed to work. Then, an old kabiraj who had moved to Faridpur long ago was called back. Upon arriving, he immediately announced that no one should go outside after 11 PM.

By 10 PM, announcements were made through loudspeakers from every mosque in the area, telling people to return home. But honestly, there was no need for such announcements. Everyone was so terrified that they would finish all their chores by sunset and lock themselves inside. A strange silence would blanket the village. Even the shops would shut down after evening, and very few people would attend the night (Isha) prayers at the mosque. Our parents didn’t let us step out—but still, we’d sometimes sneak out.

We saw the kabiraj and his assistants running from one end of the village to the other, waving torches and burning incense, chanting strange, otherworldly spells. The atmosphere was so bizarre and terrifying that even thinking about it now gives me chills. The kabiraj would "lock" one area after another, claiming it would prevent cholera—or the spirit of "Ola Bibi"—from entering those zones. Almost every neighborhood in the village was "locked" this way.

One night, my mother heard someone crying on the road just outside our gate—making a strange "uhh uhh uhh" sound. She assumed it was a woman in distress and, being helpful by nature, didn't think about the spiritual lockdown. As she got closer to the gate, a terrible smell hit her—like something rotten or decaying flesh. When she reached the gate, she peeked through the slats and saw a towering woman—about seven feet tall—leaning against the electric pole on the other side of the road. The foul smell was coming from her.

The woman had a horrifying face. My mother took a step back in fear. The woman was sobbing and saying things like:

"You didn’t let me stay. I liked this village. I needed more dead bodies… uhh uhh uhh… I'm leaving this village tonight… uhh uhh uhh…”

At that moment, my mother remembered the warning and rituals and ran back inside, frightened.

But that wasn't the end.

My mother was the head of a local village committee. The next morning, a neighbor who worked on a boat came to pay his loan installment and casually mentioned that something scary had happened the night before. My mother asked what had happened.

He said their boat had run out of fuel two villages away, so out of the 13 laborers, nine stayed in the nearby village while he (the boat owner) and three others pushed the boat back home using long bamboo poles.

As they reached the edge of the village, they saw someone sitting by the riverbank, calling out to them. They thought it was a woman in trouble and brought the boat to shore to help. As soon as they did, the rotten stench hit their noses. They assumed a dead animal had washed up nearby, so they ignored it.

The woman asked if they could ferry her across the river. They agreed, and she got into the boat. But once they were in the middle of the river, the smell became overwhelming, and they realized it was coming from the woman herself. When they tried to glance at her, she warned them:

"Don’t look at me. If anyone looks at me, I’ll harm you."

Frightened, they kept their heads down. After they dropped her off on the other side, the woman said:

"You helped me, so I didn’t harm you."

And with that, she walked away.

After that night, no one in the village got cholera again.

The incident ends here.

However, four days later—on Saturday—the kabiraj who performed all the rituals passed away.

I hope you liked the story.