'The Mine', written by popular blogger Arnab Ray of http://greatbong.net is a horror-psychological-thriller published by Westland. It will hit the stores on January 15, 2012.
Here is an excerpt from the book:
The Mine: Prologue
Mother had always warned him of the dark.
What she had forgotten was to tell him about the light.
There was something about the light in this place that never ceased to unnerve Asgar. It illuminated every recess of his mind, some of which he had realized in the course of his life, are better kept in shadow.
The summer sun too was unforgiving in its stark relentlessness. But at least it was real. The industrial light here was not. It could not be. Because Asgar was deep inside the earth, in a place where not even nature could enter unless it came with a company badge.
Perhaps it was not so much the brightness that made him uneasy but the icy blue detachment of the ambient light, whose cold touch felt like that of a wet cotton shirt on a blustery, winter evening.
He had felt this way only in one other place before.
The morgue.
Battered, mangled what-had-once-drawn-breath lying still on cold slabs of aluminum. Hushed whispers of the living trying to make sense of the dead. The stench of formaldehyde, grief and despair.
For the past day or so, Asgar had been unable to shake off the feeling that he was back in a house of corpses. It was irrational, he reasoned, this fear, even more so after all the real horrors he had seen in his fifty two years in the world above.
He tried to stop thinking.
Turning his attention back to the control panel, Asgar glanced across at the dials as they glowed and flickered in a steady rhythm of their own. He could not slack off, he told himself. All alone in Level 3 Sector 5, a football-field-sized room with two-storey-high ceilings, he was conscious of the cameras that watched his every movement, and of the automated loggers recording each action at the console.
Right now, one of the sensors showed a reading that was 'off' the charts. That meant only one thing - one of the moving parts in Purifying Chamber 6 had come off, with the sensors picking up the resultant vibration. This necessitated, according to Standard Operation Procedure, a shutdown of Chamber 6 and an immediate manual inspection.
Shit. All such fuck-ups just had to happen on his shift.
He looked at the waveform intently. Then he flipped a switch, the one that the engineers called the 'Ear', its purpose being to 'listen-in' to the area where an anomaly has been detected.
'Help…Please …no'
Asgar jerked back as if he had touched a hot stove.
What in the name of heaven was that?
His rational mind knew it was impossible. Yet there was no denying he had heard it. A voice, choked with tears, coming out from Chamber 6.
Asgar stood still. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead and rested precariously on his brow. Building up in his bowels was a sudden pressure, a reaction to intense fear that had embarrassed him since early childhood.
Of course he must be hearing things. The room was yanking the strings of his mind. The Doctor-lady, that know-it-all with the pierced nose, would possibly look at him now and say 'It is the forced isolation from your wife and daughter that is affecting you psychologically.'
The thing was that he knew the doctor was wrong. He was really happy to be away from his wife. Fat, complaining and moody - she had ceased to be of any interest to him years ago; just another creaking machine with interminable periods of bilious downtime that he was duty-bound to monitor. Making conversation according to the Standard Operating Procedures that marriage prescribed, and conducting periodic 'Are you doing all right?' status updates, was all that was left of that miserable social compact. With the isolation and communication blackout that working in this mine had forced on him by contract, he was free of this distasteful duty for many months now, and for that he was most thankful.
Sexual tension? No, not not even that. He had been a bad boy. As usual. A week ago, he had met Tanya in one of the rec-rooms. Tanya from the medical division. Twenty-two years old. The face of an angel. The body of a model. The mind of a whore. The energy of a tightly wound spring. Their sex had been animalistic, devoid of love, tenderness and the sappy strawberry-colored mush that decades of reading romance novels had brainwashed women into believing was reality. Tanya , refreshingly, did not suffer from such delusions. Unlike his wife she had never complained or cried. 'Is that the worst you can do?' she had taunted Asgar, throwing her head back mockingly, every time he thought he had crossed her boundaries.
Yes, it had been marvelous. And best of all, she had hardly seen the worst of him.
Yet.
The blood rush triggered by memories of Tanya subsided quickly as he unsuccessfully tried to clear his mind of what he had just heard. Had someone actually cried out for help? Impossible. There was no one here.
Only one way of knowing for sure. He flipped the switch again.
'I want to go home … please let me go home …'
Asgar's blue shirt, framed by the large red and black company logo, now clung to his back, drenched with warm sweat. Was it happening to him? Like it had to the rest? No. He would not allow it.
'Get a grip on yourself, you old geezer. It's all in your mind'.
The panel now showed a yellow warning blip on Chamber 6. Action had to be taken immediately or a report of negligence would automatically be filed against him. That he could not allow, considering the amount of money at stake.
Closing his eyes, he paused for a few seconds, time enough for his beating heart to slow down. Practiced fingers flying over the panel, he initiated a power-down. The hatch was now unlocked for a manual inspection. Grabbing his instruments he descended the stairs that ran from the monitoring station into the machinery area. Chamber 6 was halfway down the massive hallway. He walked slowly towards it, fighting the strong urge to turn back.
Asgar was now at the service entrance to the offending chamber, a hatch large enough for a full-sized man to crawl through. He turned the lever. The door opened noiselessly. His face was illuminated by the red emergency light from inside, the one that came on whenever manual inspection mode was initiated. Only one thing left to do. Get into the machine.
And then on a sudden impulse he paused. Raising his head, he took a long look at everything around him. The high ceiling. The room. The unobtrusive cameras that he knew were there. The high-powered industrial lamps washing everything with their unearthly, soulless rays.
He sighed. At least the red emergency light inside would not be so cold.
At least now, there would be some darkness.
Tanya sat in Rec Room 2 with a beer in front of her. Having just got out from the infirmary where she worked as a nurse, she had had barely enough time to take a quick shower, put on a bit of makeup and change into clothes that she could only describe as half-decent. Only a few more months, and then she would have the money to buy the kind of threads she wanted. No more hand-me-downs from her elder sisters and no more tremulous-with-tears "We don't have money" excuses from her moronic lame-ass father, who carried the fact that he had no money to get his daughters married around like some bizarre badge of honor.
For now however the tight white shirt and the knee-length skirt would have to do. Not that she needed anything more to turn necks here. After all, this was a mining colony teeming with hormonally ionized men, separated from their families for months. Their standards were pretty low.
Sipping her drink, she noted, with more than a bit of amused arrogance, how most of these men hanging about Rec Room 2 had been eyeing her. That young kid from engineering pretending to inquire about her increased workload at sick bay, but talking to her tits, that louse pretending to read a book, peering over it at every opportunity, the myriad men passing her to get coffee, trying to glance down her shirt-front as they walked by.
'Men', she thought contemptuously. 'They think with their cocks. And fuck with their brains.'
Asgar had been different. For one, he was in a very senior position at the mine, which meant of course that he jingled like a piggy bank. Even better, he seemed to know his way around a woman's body, unlike most guys her age who fumbled with a bra clasp like it was a live bomb they were disarming. He was also married. Perfect.
She had also liked his style. Direct, confident and sure of what he wanted and how to get it, his eyes had been firmly fixed on hers as he talked. Within ten minutes of the conversation, he had calmly made it clear he was not interested in her brain.A few months ago, a guy had told her 'You complete me' and she had laughed in his face before walking away. This man knew better. Best of all, he did not once pull the 'My wife does not love me. Can I get a sympathy screw? ' trick that married men try without fail to get girls into the sack, a trick that Tanya felt not only betrayed tremendous dishonesty but also a spectacular lack of imagination.
Tanya knew that most women would be put off by this 'coming straight to the point' but she noted, with some pride, that she was not most women.
They had gone straight to her room. Buttons flew. Fabric ripped. Skin was broken. Asgar was the rough kind, making no apologies for not being caring and tender. Exactly as she liked. He had tied her to the bed and rammed into her, with no more regard than a child would give to a rag doll.
What had really driven Tanya over the edge had been this supreme confidence in his prowess and technique. She had not let on to how much she had lost herself in the intensity of her own submission. Instead she had teased Asgar for his 'non-performance' hoping that his hurt masculinity would further stoke the fire that raged inside.
It had the desired effect. Asgar had hinted that he wanted to take her in one of the machinery rooms. It would be one heck of a 'show', in front of the cameras, the type that at least the guys in security would not forget in a hurry. Even thinking of it made Tanya cross her legs, bite her lips and turn red near her ears.
Suddenly her personal communicator beeped. Every employee had these devices to communicate among themselves, their only source of sanity since any form of contact with the world outside was rendered impossible.
There was a short text message.
Meet me in Level 3 Sector 5. Now.
Tanya smiled. The urgency of the "Now" seemed to scream out from the digital display. Oh my God. No kidding. He actually wants to do it in front of the cameras. Her knees wobbled for a second with insane lust. She left her unfinished beer on the table and nearly ran out. Elevator 2 was nearby. Inside the elevator were two men from the Security Division who, true to form, eyed her when they thought she was not looking. Tanya glanced at them with amusement.
Today is your lucky day boys. You just might get to see the show of your life.
Tanya held the wall of the elevator to calm herself. The door slid open. Sliding her access card, she stepped inside the machine room. Asgar must be upstairs.
Climbing up, she found him not there. She looked once again at her communicator. Yes, this was where he had asked her to be. No mistake about that. It was also highly irregular for a control console to be left un-manned. She looked around with more than a bit of impatience. No one.
Damn. This message must be some hours old then. Such things happened with these bloody com devices.
Still, Tanya descended the stairs. Was Asgar lurking behind one of the machines as part of some kinky cat-and-mouse game?
Yes, that was it.
She smiled to herself, her breath progressively coming faster and shorter.
All right. Two can play this.
Scream bitch. That is what he had said again and again while pounding her.
Now let's see who cries for mercy, you horny bastard.
Tanya moved her fingers to her shirt, removing it with a practiced flourish. Yes, the cameras would see this but she didn't care. Asgar was testing her limits, just as he had done in bed. And she was damned if she was going to blink. She walked through the passageway between two machines. Her hand moved to the side of her skirt.
It slid noiselessly off.
Tanya felt proud. Proud of her body. Her youth. Her power.
She spread her hands wide and then, as if to challenge the heavens, looked up.
There right above, halfway to the ceiling, balanced between two gigantic rotors, framed perfectly by one of the floodlights was Asgar.
Even from there, he was still making direct eye contact with Tanya. Just like the day they had first met.
Except today those eyes were unblinkingly dead. Stone cold dead.
She kept looking, rooted to the spot.
Asgar had been broken; arms twisted as if caught in the blades of a gigantic blender, neck snapped forward like a dried twig.
Tanya opened her mouth to scream. No sound came. The communicator she had been holding clattered to the ground. The screen flickered to life. A new message came up.
Scream. Bitch.
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