Leeches

This village has something weird about it. All the people in it stay indoors in the evening, no matter what. It made me very curious. I had reached in the dusk just to find that even my host was hesitant to open his door to me. I asked him, but he just deferred the topic saying that the time was too dangerous to talk about it.

By the time I had my sumptuous meal, I was dead tired. It was a long journey I had made. But as soon as I was getting ready to sleep, I was reminded of the behaviour of the village in the evening, and curiosity got the better of me. I walked out into the living room to meet my friend.

I found him seated beside the fireplace, stoking the fire. "Welcome, my friend, I was just beginning to think when you're going to ask me again," he said, clearly knowing why I had come.

"It is the story of just a few months back. The highway as you know connects two large cities. A lot of vehicles ply over it throughout the day. One day, some men fishing in the swamp beside the road found a dead baby in the mud. 'It was dumped at night and died due to loss of blood,' said the doctor. 'Lot of leeches around this place,' said a learned man grimly.

"An incident as morbid as this takes time to be forgotten. But this one never was. Because a couple of days later, a man had arrived from the city in the evening. The next morning he was found dead beside his bed, face pale and eyes wide open as if in shock. What was shocking was the way he died. More than fifty leeches were found in his stomach!

"It happened again the next day - an old lady was the victim this time. And a young boy the next day. People of the village started dying in this mysterious way everyday, till we realized that the victims were always people who were out after dark. And since then people remain in their houses after dark. For fear of a horrible death.

"I guess that answers your question?"

I was left speechless. That was quite a story. As much as I found it heard to believe, I was horrified nonetheless. In spite of all the tiredness, I couldn't sleep. The story kept repeating itself in my head, and I started picturing the incidents.

I was sleepless, and it was almost midnight when it happened. I felt something in my stomach, like something sucking from the inside.