The Meat in the Wardrobe

I never believed in ghosts. Not really. Not until my cousin Arjun’s wedding took me to the sprawling city of Pune, where I was to stay in my great-aunt’s flat on the eighth floor of a crumbling tower. The building was called Vishranti, which meant ‘rest’, but there was nothing restful about it. The elevator groaned like a dying animal, and the stairwell smelled of damp concrete and old spices.

The flat itself was modest: two bedrooms, a narrow kitchen, and a balcony that overlooked a maze of other towers. My great-aunt, whom I called Aunty Lata, was a frail woman in her seventies with sharp eyes that seemed to weigh everything I said. She had insisted I stay with her rather than at a hotel, and I accepted, unaware of the unease that clung to the walls like a second layer of paint.

The first strange occurrence happened on my second night. I woke to a soft thud from the wardrobe in my room. Half-asleep, I opened the door and found a lump of raw goat meat on the floor, slick with blood. I blinked, certain it wasn’t there before. My aunt, when I asked, dismissed it with a wave. ‘Rats,’ she said, but there was a tremor in her voice. Rats can’t open doors, I thought, and my room’s wardrobe was bolted shut from the outside.

The next morning, I noticed a dark stain spreading across the bathroom tiles, like dried blood, though I had scrubbed the floor clean the night before. I ignored it, blaming my imagination.

The third day, Arjun came to visit. He was a jovial man, but his smile faltered when he saw the stain. ‘It’s back,’ he muttered. He told me the truth: the flat had a history. A previous tenant, a woman in her thirties, had died here under mysterious circumstances. Her husband had been arrested, but the case was never solved. Since then, residents reported odd occurrences: meat appearing in unlikely places, bloodstains that reappeared no matter how often they were cleaned.

I should have left, but the wedding was in two days, and my family would have thought me mad. So I stayed, locking my door at night and sleeping with the lights on.

On the fourth night, I woke to the sound of a latch clicking. The wardrobe door swung open on its own, and from it tumbled a cascade of raw liver and kidneys, splattering onto the floor. I screamed, and my aunt rushed in. She stood frozen, her face pale. ‘She’s restless,’ she whispered. ‘She wants justice.’

That night, I dreamt of a woman with long black hair and a torn sari. She stood in the corner of my room, pointing to the wardrobe. When I looked, I saw a man—her husband, I assumed—dragging her body across the floor. I woke drenched in sweat.

The next day, I did something foolish. I searched the flat, looking for the source of the meat and blood. In the kitchen, I found a hidden compartment behind a loose tile, containing a rusted knife and a lock of hair tied with a red thread. I also found a diary belonging to the dead woman, Meera. Pages of it described her husband’s abuse and her fear that he would one day kill her. The last entry was dated the day she died.

As I read, I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I spun around, but there was no one. The diary fell from my hands, and the pages fluttered as if caught in a breeze. I looked up to see the ghost of Meera standing in the doorway. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. She pointed to the knife, then to the ceiling.

I understood. She wanted me to reveal the truth. I took the diary and the knife to the police. They reopened the case, and a forensics team found traces of Meera’s blood in the cracks of the concrete floor. The husband was extradited from Dubai and eventually confessed.

After that, the occurrences stopped. The meat disappeared, the stains faded, and the flat felt lighter, as if a weight had been lifted. I attended the wedding, but I couldn’t shake the image of Meera’s grateful ghost, slowly fading into the morning light.

I still don’t know what to believe, but I know one thing: some places hold onto their secrets, and sometimes they find a way to let them out.