Young Blood: Ten Terrifying College Tales

By Chandrima Das

Bored roommates use a planchette to contact a legendary ghost that haunts Pune University. Will she answer?

Is the abandoned Khairatabad Science College in Hyderabad really haunted? A gang of students break inside to investigate.

Nirav and Pavi love each other . . . most of the time. Will exploring a forbidden place inside IIT Kharagpur bring them closer?

From strange sightings to urban legends, from haunted buildings to not-so-friendly ghosts, colleges in India have their fair share of spine-tingling tales, be it Kasturba Medical College in Manipal, St. Bede's College in Shimla or Delhi University. Young Blood is a collection of ten tales that reimagine college urban legends and true first-person accounts, that promises to terrify even die-hard fans of horror.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9789354228049

Chandrima Das

Chandrima Das has a B.Tech in Computer Science from NIT Durgapur and an MBA from IIM Calcutta. After a decade-long career in management consulting, she followed her passion for writing. Her digital debut The Talking Dead was a bestseller in the horror category. She's performed live at storytelling events with Tall Tales and Kommune, and was published in The Best Of Tall Tales. 

Book preview

Introduction

‘If being a kid is about learning how to live, then being a grown-up is about learning how to die.’ —STEPHEN KING

College is where we first learn to be grown-ups, and, by King’s insinuation, where we first learn how to die. I wish I had known this when I went to college.

After six months of surviving campus life, a slow-growing loathing had entered my system. By the end of four years, I hated my time in that government engineering college. But over the years, my opinion was infused with nostalgia and mellowed into a more palatable version. When asked about my time there, I now say, ‘We all disliked some aspects of college. You can’t like everything.’ But truth is, in the broad band of emotions that take the stage at the mention of college, a sense of dread is most definitely playing the bass guitar.

Many of you will relate to this confession—in degrees at least. The few who like to look at the past through rose-tinted glasses may ask, ‘What are you saying? College was awesome. Wasn’t it a period of self-discovery, coming-of-age adventures, and making lifelong friends?’

I agree—college was an age of discovery. We were young, and we were at our most alive. We found ourselves given a level of independence we had never experienced before. We explored the outside world, stepping out of our families’ safety net and our schools’ regimented structure. We discovered greater depths to our inner world—full of new beliefs and desires. 

We also discovered new kinds of fear.

And it didn’t come knocking on our hostel room doors when we were strong. It waited for our most vulnerable moments before taking hold.

I want you to take a deep breath, and remember. Take that hyper-unrealistic Karan Johar model of the Indian college experience and throw it out of your mind. Scratch underneath that thin film of giddy nostalgia and then … peer into the darkest corners of your museum of memories. 

Perhaps you’ll spot your first heartbreak—the sour regret of an unspoken crush, or the festering wound of a brutal rejection. If you were the type to drop into a classroom twice a month, you might hear an echo of the standard put-down from an Indian professor: ‘You’ll never amount to anything, you waste fellow. Get out.’ Maybe there’s a raucous gang of seniors ragging you somewhere in there, demanding that you pull off that uncomfortable or dangerous dare. Or maybe, your memories harbour the violence of a bully, and your body and mind still carry those scars. Maybe college was where you first met that trio of addiction, anxiety and depression. And, if you’re like me, then you’ve even had a passing acquaintanceship with the most final of final exams … Death itself.

Whew! How do India’s college students deal with all the fear and anxiety floating around campus like an endless cloud of existential doom?

Well, we deal with it by developing coping mechanisms. One among these particularly captivated the horror writer in me. 

In June 2020, Ridhima Kumar from HarperCollins India approached me with an intriguing proposal—writing a collection of scary short stories set in Indian colleges. But there was a catch. The inspiration for these stories was to come from college lore. I exhaled a loud sigh, then began hunting for ideas. I didn’t expect to find much. After all, aren’t India’s ‘scary story’ roots supposed to lie in folktales, mythology and superstition? Urban, English-speaking college campuses were so far removed from these roots that I mentally prepared myself to find nothing.

I was in for a surprise. 

After weeks of internet research and several conversations with alumni from some of the most prestigious colleges in India, I hit pay-dirt. Some stories explored sordid pasts, such as IIT Kharagpur’s history as a detention camp. Some legends concerned historical ghosts, such as Alice Richman, who allegedly haunts the Pune University campus more than a century after her death. I also came upon first-person accounts revolving around haunted hostels and student suicides. Underneath the placid surface of normalcy, India’s campuses were teeming with ghost stories and urban legends. The volume and variety of these stories matched the size and diversity of our country. They ranged from relatively harmless rumours of disembodied voices heard in classrooms, to alarming accounts of students tipping over the edge into insanity, suicide or murder.

I began to notice a pattern. These stories were not all fun and games. They had a psychological purpose. Batch after batch of students had passed down the same myths that touched upon their peers’ deepest fears. These myths provided an outlet through which students could express themselves without having to be completely vulnerable. Telling these stories during late-night addas was part college ritual, part entertainment and part life lesson. Many of these tales warned against hostile roommates, caving to academic pressures, or staying out late in unsafe parts of the campus. They fulfilled the role of ‘cautionary tales’, containing nuggets of advice for students on what to do, but more often, on what not to do. 

These urban legends and first-person accounts form the soul of Young Blood. Like Dr Victor Frankenstein, I have cut out the thematic heart of darkness beating inside ten such college myths/narratives, and showcased them in a new body—in a fresh, farm-to-table horror short story. I chose not to replicate the urban legends and first-person accounts of the paranormal word for word, as this would make my job redundant. If you’re curious about the specific myths and accounts that inspired this collection, turn to the Notes section at the end of the book. I have listed the genesis of all the stories there.

I hope this collection is a relatable read for college students. You may discover lessons of responsibility, independence, and empathy, cloaked in thrilling tales of the supernatural. And suppose you’ve already crossed over the threshold to adulthood, careers and marriages? In that case, I hope the stories serve as a trip down nostalgia-tinged lanes. Beware, however, as a chudail or pishach might just be lurking in the shadows.

So tiptoe into the silent, heavy darkness of that hostel corridor. Take a peek inside that empty lecture hall, where vague echoes from the past endlessly bounce from wall to wall. If you feel as if someone is holding your hand and leading you forward, it might just be me. More likely, it’s that forgotten bogeyman from your college days that has ripped and clawed its way out of your memories and returned through the pages of this book just to say—

‘Want to bunk class today? Let’s listen to a story, na.’

Challenge Accepted

Khairatabad Science College, Hyderabad (abandoned)

Sometime in the mid-2010s

The prize ceremony for the annual college debate had just ended. I had barely got down from the stage with my gold medal when a tall guy with steroid-inflated muscles rippling under his shirt accosted me. He looked at me with such hatred that I wondered if I had somehow offended his religious beliefs in the course of the debate.

‘You may have won the first prize, but Veda is smarter than you,’ he declared.

I didn’t reply. I had never seen this lunkhead before, and he sounded too dumb to be from my college. I brushed past him.

But the idiot grabbed my arm. I resisted a powerful urge to punch him in the face. Instead, I gave him a hard stare.

I’m no coward. So what if the lunkhead was bigger? If we got into a fight, I would still win. After all, we were in my college, surrounded by my friends. But jousting with angry strangers wasn’t my style—I preferred debating on stage and using my mind.

‘Arjun Chennuri, I challenge you to spend the evening in a haunted building. I will prove to you that science cannot explain everything in this world—as Veda has rightly argued just now. Do you have the balls to accept this challenge?’

A small crowd had gathered around us—most of them were my friends coming to congratulate me. But the person who drew my attention was a petite, quiet girl with the kindest eyes I had ever seen. She was the woman whose honour this idiot was defending—Veda Srinivasa Rao.

I jerked my thumb towards her. ‘Will she be there? She’s the one who debated against the motion, not you.’

‘Yes,’ said the lunkhead.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Veda’s face light up in surprise.

‘Then, challenge accepted.’

This is how it started. This is how we planned the evening that turned our lives upside down. As anyone who followed the ensuing circus in the local media knows, the consequences of that night left many lives in disarray. Looking back on that day, I wish I’d had the sense to reject the challenge. But I didn’t—and so I must accept partial responsibility for the mess we found ourselves in. I just want everyone to know that the person who’s name the media dragged through the mud was entirely innocent. For the wolves in the media, a beautiful young girl is perfect prey. It is to clear her name, not mine, that I tell this story. I know this will dredge up old wounds. You may even find this account hard to believe. So I ask you—please keep an open mind. I certainly didn’t, and that almost cost me my life.

Now, let me not get ahead of myself. Let me tell you the story as it happened.

The lunkhead’s name turned out to be Surya. Since he would bring Veda along on this ‘haunted house mission’, he allowed me to get someone along too. I picked my best friend Zain Sulaiman—not just for his quiet, practical nature, but also for his Bawa’s vintage white Ambassador car.

Zain and I picked up Veda and Surya from Banjara Hills that evening around six—they were both from wealthy families and were neighbours. We followed Surya’s directions until we arrived at an isolated, overgrown plot of land under the flyover in the middle of bustling Khairatabad. We parked the car a short walk away from the property, and the four of us stepped out.

The heavy slamming of the Ambassador’s doors announced our arrival at the abandoned building that was once the Khairatabad Science College. As far as haunted houses go, this one definitely looked the part.

The building was a strange mix: from some angles, it could pass off for an eighteenth century English castle, but from others, it looked like a set taken out of a Ramsay Brothers’ production. It reeked of neglect. Large, craggy holes marked its blackened face—they hinted at unpleasant stories in an unfortunate history. The signs of decay in the building worried me more than ghosts did. After all, collapsing walls and caving floors presented greater dangers than imaginary evils from the spirit world.

The crumbling stone and brick structure glared at us like a stern principal as we approached the building. The windows on the upper floors resembled hollowed-out eyes. There was no clear pathway that led inside the building. The grounds were covered with shrubs, long grass, and creepers. We would quickly amass multiple scratches on our legs if we were careless. The grounds also buzzed with insects. These creatures had merrily nested around the building, and certainly didn’t seem to fear any ghosts.

I looked up and found that the setting sun had painted the sky orange and purple, providing just enough light for the abandoned college to cast its long shadow on us as we drew closer.

‘Excited, dude?’ asked Surya. He hopped and skipped every few steps as if we were headed to Rambo Circus and not a supposedly haunted college. I was beginning to get the impression that he was just an overgrown child.

I gave him a cursory nod to convey precisely how excited I was about his precious haunted college. If he had asked me about Veda, though, my answer would have been different.

I had only glimpsed at her at a surface level so far—a pretty, petite girl with a gravelly voice, who moved with grace and enunciated her words carefully. But beneath the surface, there was something magnetic about her that drew me. Much to Zain’s annoyance, I had used the rear-view mirror to steal glances at her throughout the car ride. Zain kept muttering how the mirror’s incorrect angle hampered his driving and put us all in danger.

I wondered if Veda had noticed me. She had hardly spoken during the car ride. Even now, she remained silent as we approach the haunted college. Surya consistently positioned himself between Veda and me, so it was difficult to get a good read of her.

What was his relationship with Veda, anyway? Was he her friend, boyfriend, cousin? I couldn’t figure it out. I could see that he adored her, and she tolerated him. He was like an aggressive but stupid mother hen who kept hovering over Veda—his so-called helpless chick. He put forth a constant stream of ‘Do you need water? Do you want some chips? Do you need a torch? Do you want to explore the building? I’ll come with you.’ Veda would smile at every question and shake her head. How could Surya perceive Veda, who was far more intelligent and accomplished than him, as helpless? Veda Srinivasa Rao didn’t need a carpet to walk on and wipe her feet. She needed an equal, a challenge.

She needed me.

Zain interrupted my thoughts, ticking off a list of his anxieties. ‘We must take care of the car, okay? I can’t get a scratch on it. Bawa thinks I’ve gone to INOX to watch a movie with all of you. So if we leave before nine, you need to hang back with me till ten, and then I’ll go—’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll stick around with you,’ I cut in.

Zain didn’t need a haunted college to terrify him. His Bawa had already done an excellent job over the years.

‘Ugh, this is such a broken dump of a building. Is there even a proper entrance here?’ he asked.

‘I’ll find it,’ Surya replied. I didn’t realize he had been listening to our conversation.

Surya left us and dashed towards the building. Zain gave me a meaningful look, and his eyes flicked to Veda. He then bounded forward after Surya.

I grabbed the moment and turned to Veda. The light of the setting sun escaped the shadows and cast her in an angelic glow. She stood amid the tall grass in her pristine white salwar kameez, examining the old building with curiosity. Her gaze moved across its craggy face, absorbing the view inch by inch. Then she turned away and walked briskly towards Surya.

Had she sensed me staring at her? I wished she had continued to gaze at the building just a bit longer.

‘Here’s a broken window!’ Surya called from the left wing of the building.

Veda and I reached him together, and in silence. She didn’t mind my company, but she didn’t want to talk to me. Not yet.

Surya had already squeezed himself through the window—an unnecessarily dramatic entry. A few feet from the broken window stood a heavy wooden door. There were no signs of locks or bolts on it.

‘This way. There’s no chance of cutting yourself on broken glass.’

Zain and Veda followed me. I gave the door a light push, and it slowly but loudly creaked open. Very Ramsay Brothers indeed.

I stepped through the open doorway, and my body froze for a second. Either this was a trick pulled off by the building’s design, or its creepy appearance had triggered my overactive imagination.

‘What the—’ Zain yelped as he followed me. So it wasn’t just me. The cold spot really was there. Crossing that threshold was like walking past an open fridge—you felt a jolt of icy air. Once inside the abandoned college, though, the temperature evened out.

Veda was next. As soon as she crossed the threshold, her expression changed. She wrapped her arms around herself to restrain a shiver. ‘I don’t have a good feeling about this place.’

I addressed her for the first time, outside the college debate earlier in the day. ‘Don’t be afraid. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.’

Veda gave me a glance that left nothing to the imagination. It was filled to the brim with pure scorn.

The fading sunlight couldn’t make it in through the gaping windows. So we switched on our torches and found ourselves in a large hall with a high ceiling—probably some kind of lobby. They had painted the walls that familiar crème colour popular with old government offices. Directly in front of the door was a staircase leading to the upper floors. On the wall to the right hung an old wooden board bearing letters in faded white paint. It was a directory that had told students of another era where different lecture halls, laboratories and departments were in this four-storeyed building. Below it sat the only piece of furniture in the lobby: a broken wooden bench.

Even with all that open space, a mild sense of claustrophobia caught hold of me. The air was heavy, like it had been trapped inside without circulation for decades and grown thick with fungal spores. A ripe smell of decay hung about the area. Underneath that a sour note lay waiting—it reminded me faintly of acid burning through organic matter.

I wasn’t the only one affected. Zain burst into a coughing fit.

‘Dust allergy,’ I explained, rubbing his back. Zain doubled over wheezing.

Much to my annoyance, Surya seemed unaffected. He ambled across and swiped his finger on the wooden bench that leaned on the wall. ‘There’s no dust here.’

And he was right. Incredibly, despite the sickening odour, there wasn’t a speck of dust in that place.

Veda took off the dupatta around her neck and offered it to Zain. ‘Wrap it around your nose and mouth,’ she said. ‘It should help filter out whatever is bothering you.’

Zain thanked her. I couldn’t help but steal a glance at her long, bronzed neck, which now lay bare. Her beautiful dark skin glowed against the straight white neckline of her kameez, unblemished and pure.

Surya sauntered a few steps up the staircase and looked gleeful as he sniffed the air. ‘I can smell all the dead bodies kept in the biology labs.’

I rolled my eyes. Veda caught my expression but said nothing.

‘This place has been abandoned for a while. If there were bodies here, they would’ve decayed completely by now. Decayed bodies don’t smell years later,’ I said. ‘Maybe a small animal or bird recently sneaked in and died—that’s what’s causing the smell.’

Surya opened his mouth to argue, but Veda said, ‘It’s possible’, and that effectively closed the topic.

Surya and I locked eyes across the hall. Then we understood—Veda had the same power over both of us because both of us had the same feelings for her.

Surya climbed down the stairs and joined us in the centre of the lobby. ‘So, what’s the plan now?’

‘We can spread a sheet on the floor and wait for a few hours.’

‘Sit and wait?’ He was clearly disappointed. ‘But that will settle nothing. What if no ghost shows up and nothing happens?’

‘Then I’ll be proved correct,’ I said.

‘That’s not why we came—’ he began.

‘There’s no need to take unnecessary risks,’ said Veda in her usual gentle cadence. ‘If the rumours you told me are true, whatever is here will show itself soon enough.’

She had sided with me for the second time in a row. It took me a lot of effort to not break into a victory dance.

‘Veda, listen to me,’ Surya protested. ‘If nothing happens, then you’ll lose the debate.’

‘I’ve already lost the college debate to Arjun earlier today. This evening isn’t about winning or losing. It’s more than that. This is about determining the truth.’ She turned to me. ‘Isn’t that so, Arjun?’

‘Of course.’

I did agree, but not in the way she meant. True, my reason for accepting Surya’s challenge hadn’t been about winning or losing. My motivation had been her—the only girl who had ever made me so warm and unfocussed just with the power of her presence.

‘Listen, I’m getting bored,’ chirped Zain. ‘My phone isn’t working.’

We all pulled out our phones—no signal. Veda again wore that worried expression I had seen when we entered the building.

‘Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. Bawa says we shouldn’t be so addicted to our phones,’ Zain offered.

All of us glared at him.

‘Don’t look at me. I didn’t mess with the network.’

‘You know, we could play a game to pass the time? How about truth or dare?’ Veda looked faintly amused.

‘We shall do whatever you want,’ said Surya.

Night arrived and brought with it complete darkness outside. We laid out a single bedsheet in the middle of the lobby area and sat down cross-legged. Zain, who was more scared of the dark than the rest of us, fixed and lit four candles, surrounding us with a circle of light. It didn’t help. A little light is worse than none. The flickering candles cast moving shadows all around the hall. They danced and reflected grim shapes on the broken glass of the windows.

Soon after sunset, a gust of wind stirred outside. This served up enough pain for the building’s aching wooden floorboards, decayed pillars and perforated walls to complain. The abandoned college creaked and groaned loudly around us. Surya had definitely picked a building with the right atmosphere.

I shot him a glance. Once again, he had strategically placed himself next to Veda, blocking my view.

‘So, truth or dare?’ Veda asked.

We began the game with a spate of ‘truths’. We learned that Veda was in her first year, BA Psychology, but what she really wanted to do was be a singer. We also got to know that Surya had once gone hunting with his cousins and had fired an actual gun. We heard all about Zain’s ‘most embarrassing incident’ when he had wet his shorts in front of his siblings at the age of nine after a harsh scolding from his Bawa. But it all got too benign too soon, especially for Surya.

When Zain chose ‘truth’ for the third time in a row, Surya bargained. ‘Choose a dare now. It’s getting very boring.’

‘But I don’t like dares,’ whined Zain.

Surya glowered at him. ‘Be a fucking man. Chose a dare.’

‘Fine.’

‘I dare you to go upstairs to the biology lab.’ He smirked. ‘Rumour says that’s where all the dead bodies were kept. They were not disposed properly. That’s how this college became haunted and had to be abandoned.’

Zain looked at me and vigorously shook his head. His eyes pleaded for me to intercede.

‘Arjun, looks like the guy you brought with you is a coward,’ Surya dug in.

I opened my mouth to reply when—

‘You don’t have to go alone. I’ll come along with you.’ Surya, Zain, and I turned to Veda. She gave Zain a reassuring smile.

‘And I’ll go with you,’ said Surya.

Naturally, I volunteered to go along as well.

Surya immediately sprang to his feet and bounded up the old staircase, like a dog that’s caught a scent. He used the flashlight on his mobile phone to light up the steps. Careful not to waste the limited charge on our phones, Veda and I took the time to grab the torches we had brought with us and followed him. The stairs were uneven and broken in places. Zain hid