Real Supernatural Stories: Forbidden Island of Andaman, Part 1

Only four or five hours had passed since Sabbirji boarded the ship, and he was already shaken by a dream. He had seen a forbidden island, a jinn guard, a boatman’s lifeless body, and a middle-aged woman in a black sari. Who was she? This is the first part of one of the most unsettling real supernatural stories I know.

The Dream on the Ship

Sabbirji could only watch. Deep inside his belly, in some unfamiliar corner, it felt as if a knife was being turned. The pain was so sharp that even breathing was heavy. Every nerve in his body had frozen stiff. He did not have even a drop of strength to move.

On the far side, right at the border of the forbidden island, in front of the lair of the evil jinn, a gatekeeper stood. He was tall, with unnaturally broad shoulders, and his eyes were like burning pits. Suddenly he flung a boat down at Sabbirji’s feet. It struck the sand, spun around, and stopped with a harsh scrape. The boatman was still screaming. He had said it before, and he was still saying it, “Sir!” His voice shook, his throat was bone dry, and his eyes were wet with terror.

But Sabbirji was a man of flesh and blood. That day he had not only felt fear, he had seen it with his own eyes. That fear made his legs shake like a coward’s and then locked them completely. His feet felt numb, rooted in the ground. Running was unthinkable. There was nothing to do but watch.

The gatekeeper jinn looked once at the boatman. Then he made a strange gesture, as if saying something with his eyes. The boatman’s face went even paler. Then slowly the gatekeeper turned his neck and looked at Sabbirji. He twisted his lips into a distorted smile, and out of that smile came a broken but sharp voice. “Didn’t you say that if you had courage, you would come forward?” He paused and stepped closer. “Our chief, Alwar, does not need to come. I am enough for you. You have come here, haven’t you? How will you leave?” The words did not travel through the air. They pierced straight into Sabbirji’s chest.

As he spoke, the devil dragged the boatman up onto the sand. In a moment the scene turned into a nightmare. Sabbirji’s hands were shaking. He knew his prayer beads were in his pocket, but even the strength to reach for them seemed to have been taken from him. He could not take his eyes away and he could not move his body. He could do nothing but stare like a coward. He did not move even a little. He did not know himself what was going on in his head. He only saw the gatekeeper jinn grab the boatman’s throat with one hand. There was no scream, no cry. Suddenly there was a sound like a dry branch snapping. At the very same moment, in the nearby creek, the boat went under with a thud, as if some unseen whale had dragged it down. The water swelled once. Then it was still.

Again Sabbirji saw the boatman crumble like dry sand. His body, flesh and bones, slowly broke into dust and mixed with the sand. Within a few seconds there was no human being left there, only sand, silent sand. Sabbirji was stunned. Another life, another soul, had gone.

At that moment a strange feeling overwhelmed him. Suddenly it felt as if someone had thrown him into the water to save him. The same presence was dragging him up out of the deep. His body was cold and his head was spinning. He hung between the real and the unreal. Then an even more terrifying, unimaginable sight appeared before his eyes. A little way from the gatekeeper jinn, hidden in the shadows, someone was standing at that very moment. She was frightened, but her gaze was firm as she looked at Sabbirji. In her eyes there was deep anxiety, as if she wanted to warn him as much as she could. She was a middle-aged woman, in a black sari with a black hijab on her head. For a moment the end of her sari fluttered in the wind. Even in that mix of light and shadow, her face was clear. In Sabbirji’s mind, the name echoed on its own: Rabeya Bibi. And at that moment Sabbirji understood that he was not alone. But that gave him no reason to feel less afraid.

A Warning from Ziauddin Sahib

Just then a huge wave struck, and the gigantic ship seemed to wake up with a start. Its metal body shuddered, and the siren of Port Blair harbour and the ship’s own deafening siren joined into such a terrible noise that Sabbirji’s head began to ring in an instant. At the same time his stomach turned and twisted again, and he felt sick, with a bitter taste at the back of his throat. He did not wait. Instead of going to the bathroom, he almost ran out of the cabin and rushed to the balcony. Gripping the railing with both hands, he filled his chest with air. He tried with all his might not to be sick.

This was in fact Sabbirji’s first time on a ship in his life. Four or five hours after boarding at Khidirpur Dock, seasickness had set in. Over these three days at sea, he had been sick several times. The rocking of the ship, this unbroken rhythm of waves, was a feeling his body had never known before. He could easily have come by plane in comfort. But he had not wanted to miss the thrill of crossing by ship.

After a while, when the dizziness eased a little, Sabbirji looked ahead. The scene that unfolded before his eyes made him forget his own state for a moment. Ahead lay the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It was as if the Almighty had gently brushed a thick layer of green onto a huge blue canvas of nature, drawing dotted patterns with the touch of his brush. Blue water, green islands, a line of hills hanging in the distance like mist, all together made an unearthly beauty. But this beauty could not keep him distracted for long. Suddenly the memory of the dream he had seen in the cabin a little while earlier made Sabbirji shudder. Before his eyes appeared the forbidden island, the guard of the evil jinn, the boatman’s body crumbling away, and the middle-aged woman in a black sari and hijab. Without his noticing, lines of worry began to form on Sabbirji’s forehead.

He had understood one thing very clearly. As a human being, he too had his limits. Surviving danger again and again did not mean his luck was very good, or that he was extraordinarily brave. Life does not give everyone chances again and again. And when you get one, it is wrong to waste it. Because one day, that hard day will certainly come. This is fate, this is reality. This thought made his heart heavy. Without further delay he closed his eyes and called to mind Ziauddin Sahib.

A grave presence seemed to descend inside the sea breeze. Soon Ziauddin Sahib’s voice rose, deep and controlled, but full of unease. He told him plainly that going to the Andamans would be no ordinary trip. On this trip, Sabbirji was going to face something whose horror was beyond imagination. What was coming was not just terrifying, it was evil. He also explained the meaning of seeing Rabeya Bibi in the dream. In facing this terrible situation, his own presence alone might not be enough. Rabeya Bibi would be needed. Without her help it would be hard to face what was coming. But what exactly the danger was, and where it would come from, even Ziauddin Sahib could not yet sense. The sea was still rocking, and with that rocking, an unknown fear slowly kept turning in Sabbirji’s mind.

The Family on the Island

Three days had passed since he arrived in the Andamans. In these few days Sabbirji had seen some of the sights, and he had also seen things that had no reasonable explanation, even to him. The events were unimaginable and hair-raising. Every moment, it seemed that some unseen power was moving very close to him. But before I go into those events, I should make clear another important reason why Sabbirji had come to the Andamans.

The year was 2017, the month November. To tell the truth, Sabbirji had not come to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands only to travel. Besides a change of air, there was another big reason. He wanted to meet the family of a distant uncle. To say meet would be wrong. It would be better to say he wanted to try to solve some unnatural, supernatural problems that had descended on their lives. In other words, it was a case of killing two birds with one stone. Otherwise it would be hard to imagine a busy man like Sabbirji travelling so far just for a trip.

That distant uncle’s name was Humayun Ali Ahmed. Humayun Sahib was originally from Baharampur in West Bengal on the Indian mainland, but he moved to the Andamans in the 1970s to earn a living. First a small business, later it slowly grew. In the end, he settled permanently on a remote little island in the Andamans. On this island, ringed by sea and jungle, his home, family and the rest of his life passed. Despite the distance, the relationship between Humayun Sahib and Sabbirji’s family never loosened. They stayed close. Even after Humayun Sahib died in the 1980s, whenever someone from his family came to Kolkata on business or for any other need, they almost always stayed at Sabbirji’s house. Many nights in that house were spent in chatting and laughter. And sometimes things were said which seemed ordinary then, but feel different when you look back on them today.

Not long ago, Sabbirji heard about the strange problems that had come upon Humayun Sahib’s family. Even over the phone it was clear the problems were not ordinary. Between the words there was unknown dread, a stifled fear, and many things left unsaid. Since receiving that news, an unease had been working in Sabbirji’s mind. So he decided he had to go to the Andamans. On one side, a relative in trouble. On the other, the weariness of not having travelled anywhere for a long time. A chance to settle both at once.

Read more: [LINK: Ancient Black Magic Stories from Africa: Ninki Nanka, Part 1]

But one thing was strange from the start. Even after reaching the Andamans, Sabbirji did not go straight to Humayun Sahib’s house. Instead he stayed at a hotel in Port Blair. That decision was not only caution. It was his first silent preparation against the darkness that was about to come, though he himself had not fully understood it yet.

On the very day he reached Port Blair, Sabbirji phoned his cousin Gulam Nabi and told him he would come to their house within two days. At the other end Gulam Sahib spoke in a very normal voice. But behind that normality was hidden something that Sabbirji’s experienced eyes and ears caught at once. Still, he said nothing. He had long held the belief that many things cannot be said over the phone.

As planned, two days later he hired a small boat and set out for Humayun Sahib’s house. The sea was calm and the sky clear. Yet in his chest, a strange, quiet unease was taking shape. The boat slowly crossed the creek and moved toward that little island. From far away the island looked calm and beautiful, but as the boat came closer, the surroundings grew just as silent and heavy.

As soon as he stepped off the boat onto the white sand, Sabbirji’s chest suddenly shivered, even in the bright morning. It was as if someone was watching him from very close, from the unseen. The prayer beads in his pocket began to turn hot all of a sudden. So hot that he hesitated for a moment before putting his hand in. This feeling was not unfamiliar to him. In many places, before many dangers, he had received such warning signals. Even so, he did not give it much weight for now, and set off in the direction of the address Gulam Sahib had given.

The road inside the island was strange. Between green trees, tall coconut palms and thick jungle, a narrow black tarred road seemed to follow no rules. It did not go straight. It wound like a snake along the edge of the sea creek and disappeared into the jungle. Now and then a house or two appeared in the distance, but the whole island was deeply deserted. There were people here, but no life, that kind of feeling. There was no market on this island. The market was on a comparatively larger island next to it. And beyond that were scattered several more small islands, forbidden to people. Whenever Sabbirji looked toward those islands, he felt like looking away. It was as if something over there was staring back.

At last he arrived in front of Humayun Sahib’s house. Seeing the spacious house standing on green grass, his first thought was that this house speaks with time. Sunlight lay on the open yard, the scent of colourful flowers drifted in the air, there was the soft sound of wind through the rows of coconut palms, and a tiled roof. All together it looked like a calm village home in the South Indian style. Looking at it from outside, nobody would think anything unnatural was hidden inside the walls of this house. But to Sabbirji’s eyes, the shadow of unease behind that calm was clear.

When he reached the gate, he saw Gulam Sahib himself standing there to receive him. He had a smile on his face, but the smile had not reached his eyes. After a warm welcome, he led Sabbirji into the sitting room of the house. Tea came, and they made some ordinary conversation. But even as they talked, Sabbirji could not miss the marks of fear and dread on Gulam Sahib’s face.

Before entering the house, Ziauddin Sahib had warned him from the unseen, “Listen to everything, and stay prepared inside.” Remembering that warning, Sabbirji did not waste time on idle talk. In a grave voice he looked at Gulam Sahib and asked, “What exactly is the problem, Gulam? You didn’t explain anything clearly over the phone.”

This question seemed to break a dam that had been held back for many days. For a moment Gulam Sahib stayed silent. It seemed his throat had gone dry as he began to speak. His eyes were fixed on the floor. He twined the fingers of his two hands together and slowly began.

The Van in the Forest

“You know, Sabbir bhai, in the 1970s my father started business here permanently. First a fish business, honest hard work. Going out to sea before dawn, buying fish from fishermen, then sending it to different islands. Slowly my father’s name spread. Later, in the 1980s, he also went into property development. Houses, godowns, small shops. In this way, working with land, the business grew. But in the parts of the Andaman and Nicobar where our business was spreading, South Indian people were dominant. Because we were outsiders, many did not look at us kindly. They said nothing, but inside there was some small enmity. Nobody knew who would do what and when.

“At the beginning of the 1980s, I was six or seven then, we began living here permanently. Despite his standing, my father had one habit that never left him. Even though he had servants at home, he himself went to the neighbouring island every market day to shop. He used to say, if I don’t buy with my own hands, I don’t feel at peace.

“That day too was a market day. After lunch in the afternoon, my father set out for the market. The sun was out and the sea was calm. At the market, in the middle of shopping, time slipped by, and he did not realise it. When he turned back toward the boat with the groceries in his hands, the daylight was fading from afternoon toward evening. The colour of the sky had begun to change. It was gloomy all around. My father was walking along a quiet path toward the creek bank. He knew that path, he had walked it many times. But that day, as he walked, he began to notice something odd. At times it felt as if someone was walking right behind him, in step. The rustle of leaves, the snap of dry twigs, all seemed to come from very close. He stopped and looked back. Nobody was there. His chest trembled. Even so, he steadied himself and started walking again.

“A little further on, you have to enter the road through the jungle. It is about half a kilometre long, and in those days there were two houses on its two sides. After passing them, ahead was only jungle and thick, silent darkness. My father was alone then. He was walking. Just then from behind came the honk of a van horn, a continuous, harsh noise. He stopped and called out, ‘Who is it?’ From the darkness, a voice came back. ‘Get out of the way. Move to the side. I’m carrying a corpse.’

“Hearing this, my father’s body shivered. Still, he quietly stepped aside to the edge of the road. By then his eyes had adjusted to the dark. He saw that a man really was pulling a van along. Across the van lay a corpse, covered with cloth, still. The man’s face could not be made out clearly. It only seemed that his face was unnaturally long. My father froze, recited dua and durood, and blew on his chest. The van driver slowly moved ahead. There was a gap of a few arm-lengths between them. My father began to walk again. He gathered courage and called out from a distance, ‘Hey, brother, whose corpse is this?’ For a few seconds, silence. Then that strange voice came again. ‘Don’t talk too much, or your corpse will be on the van.’

“Hearing this answer, my father felt the ground slip from under his feet. Though he was afraid, he did not show it. Head down, he walked on with a stiff mind. In his heart he was reciting the Kalima. After a while he suddenly noticed that there was no sound of the van behind him. None at all. He looked back and was astonished. The road was empty. No van, no man. Only a rustling from the jungle, as if someone was walking over dry leaves. I do not know why, but my father’s feet moved toward that sound. Looking into the jungle to his left, he saw that the van had left the road and gone down into the jungle. With fear clamped down in his chest, he went toward it. Past dry leaves and thorn bushes, a little way in, what he saw before his eyes took his breath away.

“The van driver had not unloaded the corpse. He had left the van with the corpse inside the jungle and was himself climbing a tree. Not like a human, but unnaturally fast, on all fours. That was when my father understood that this was not a man. At that very moment, several shadows leapt down from above with a thud, from the branches, from the darkness, shapes like monsters. They fell on the corpse like hungry wolves. The sound of bones breaking, the horrible noise of flesh being torn, all at once. My father did not stand there another second. He dropped his groceries and, reciting the Kalima, ran with all his might. Jungle, darkness, fear, he left them all behind and ran toward the creek. Somehow he got into the boat and started it. His hands and feet were shaking, there were tears in his eyes. The scene was still alive in his chest.

“From that night, darkness came into our lives. As soon as he came into the house, my father could not control himself. His throat was dry, he was gasping. Breathlessly, in a broken voice, he began to tell everything he had seen and felt. At first nobody wanted to believe him. But seeing my father’s eyes, his sweat-soaked body and trembling hands, everyone understood that this was no made-up fear. Something really had happened.

“That very night, taking a few servants and two trusted staff members, my father went again to that place. And that was probably the biggest mistake of his life. In their hands were torches with three batteries. All around was an unnatural silence, as if the jungle itself was holding its breath. When they crossed the creek and arrived, the torchlight fell on that van. The van was still there, but it was no longer an ordinary vehicle. It was a moving slaughterhouse. On the body of the van were stains of dried dark blood, and near the wheels, sticky matter had collected. Under the van and all around lay human hair, severed fingers, toes, some half, some whole. As if someone had played with people like toys, torn them apart, eaten them, and left the leftover bones. Nobody said a word. The torchlight was shaking, or maybe their hands were, it was hard to tell.

“My father felt that someone was watching from behind the bushes. Just then, strange sounds came from the direction of the trees. Not an animal’s call, and not a human call either. The sounds held hunger, they held an invitation, as if someone was saying, ‘Come, come.’ Nobody had the courage to stand there one more moment. Nobody asked any question, nobody tried to see anything. They all came back in silence. Nobody could sleep that night.

“After that, for four or five months, my father did not use that road. It was not only my father. All the servants and staff who had seen the bloodstained van that day had gone silent. In those days there was a belief that if you spoke of such a thing, you would invite danger. If you speak of the man-eaters, they hear it, and if they hear it, they come looking. Time does its work. Five months passed. The human mind wants to forget fear, or pretends to forget. In daylight, the jungle is no longer frightening. My father slowly began to persuade himself that it was perhaps a murder, perhaps a madman’s work. One day he went down that road again with a few employees. Nothing happened. Another day, then regularly. In daylight there was no van, no blood, no sound. Still, as he walked through the jungle, my father sometimes felt that someone was watching. Not only watching, now they wanted to eat.

The Night of the Storm

“It was the month of Boishakh. The heat of day was rising out of the earth like fire. That day my father went to the market as usual. In the middle of shopping, the afternoon turned to dusk. On the way back, he was walking across the middle of the char, the open sandbar. All around lay open land, with bushes and low trees far apart. Just then my father noticed the colour of the sky changing. Dark clouds were gathering from the west, as if someone was drawing a black cloth across the sky. A Kalbaishakhi, one of those violent pre-monsoon storms, was rushing in fiercely. The hot air suddenly turned cold, but there was no comfort in that cold. It was an evil omen.

“A little further on, the wind began to blow hard. Dust and sand flew across the open char and hit his face. My father understood that he would have to cross the jungle road before the storm arrived. But exactly when he had stepped onto that narrow jungle road, he did not even notice. Suddenly the sounds around him changed. The open wind of the field was gone, replaced by the rushing of leaves. The tall trees overhead swayed in the wind, branches knocking against each other with a harsh noise. With the wind came the roar of thunder from far away. A faint light showed in one corner of the sky, but the sky he could see through the gaps in the leaves was unnaturally red and restless.

“My father went on. Suddenly he remembered the place. On the left was the bend where, a few months before, he had seen that van standing at night, the van full of corpses. His chest trembled lightly at the thought. But he told himself, nothing will happen. Just then a flash of lightning showed him that spot for a moment. A van was standing there. Black, filthy, distorted. In the next moment, darkness. My father looked back again. Nothing, the road was empty. Only the trees swayed. But the hair on his body stood on end. This was no illusion. Unknown dread gathered in his chest. This time he stopped walking and began to run.

“The wind had grown fierce. The first raindrops fell on him, then heavy rain. Running through the thick jungle, his clothes soaked and clung to his skin. His feet slipped in the mud and water. Still he did not stop, in fear for his life. Suddenly there was a sound. Someone was breaking through the bushes, running out. My father froze. A man ran out of the jungle and climbed onto the road. And right in front of my father’s eyes he fell headlong. The man was covered in mud, his face full of terror. He was trying to get up. But before he could, several human-like shapes came out from behind him. Like humans, but not human. In the lightning my father saw them dimly. Their eyes were unnaturally big, their bodies hunched, their arms unnaturally long, pitch black. Some held spears, some thick clubs. The man lying on the road was about to scream, but before the sound came out, the first blow fell. Then, one after another, the sound of clubs on flesh, the sound of bones breaking, the stifled groans coming from the man’s throat. My father, in fear for his life, hid in the bushes. His breath was stopping. In terror he tried to close his eyes, but could not. By the flashes of lightning he saw the shapes kill the man and then melt back into the darkness of the jungle, as if nothing had happened.

“The rain fell without stopping. My father’s body was drenched. But he could not move. A murder had happened in front of him. What if they were nearby, what if they came back at the sound? A thought kept going round in his head: monsters and demons do not live only in the pages of books, real monsters look just like human beings. Suddenly there was a loud ‘pa’ sound. The shriek of a van horn drifted over. Something seemed to burst in my father’s chest. He gasped and fell to the ground. His hands and feet began to shake in convulsions. He raised his eyes, and saw the van. The van had stopped right in front of him. The driver climbed down from the van. Tall, skeletal, with a smile smeared with eye-gunk, his eyes unnaturally bright. Looking at my father, he smiled and said, ‘Well, you’re here? How many days I have looked for you, but found no trace. Today I have found you.’

“As he spoke, he pushed the van over to the man lying on the road. In the lightning my father saw again that two bloodied corpses were already lying on the van. The van stopped. A few seconds of silence. Then my father heard clearly with his own ears that the man was still alive. The driver said in an irritated voice, ‘Ugh, he’s not dead! How will I eat him alive?’

“What happened after these words was no human’s work. The van driver climbed up and stood on the man’s chest. Then he began to jump. With heavy thuds the man’s chest caved in. Blood spurted from his mouth. After a few jumps the man’s body went still. The van driver stopped. He slowly came down and laid his head on the man’s chest, as if listening for a heartbeat. After a few seconds he looked at my father and said gleefully, ‘See, it’s over. There’s no life in the body.’ Then he stood up and said, ‘If I eat them alive, people will find out. So I killed him.’

“As he spoke, he put the man’s still body into a sack and lifted it onto his shoulder. A plop was heard. He threw the corpse onto the van. Then he slowly came toward my father. ‘Well, will you just lie there?’ His smile became even more twisted. ‘Come, I’ll take you too. But when I tell you to get down, get down.’

“Before he even finished, with a jerk he lifted my father onto his shoulder. My father could not scream, and no sound came out of his throat. After walking a few steps, he dropped my father onto the van beside the corpses. ‘Don’t move. If you fall off, it’s the end of you.

“In the rain the van began to move. The road was dark, all around was jungle. On the van lay three corpses and one living man, who still did not know whether he would return alive. My father was no longer a human being then. He was only a body, breathing in frozen fear. The raw, rotten, metallic stench coming from the bodies lying on the van was entering his nose and mouth. It felt as if the smell was not only going in with his breath, but sticking like glue to his brain. His throat was bone dry, he felt sick, but he did not even have the strength to be sick.