What are some great short stories with a twist ending

by H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young l
ady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."
Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly flatter
the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. P
rivately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession o
f total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supp
osed to be undergoing
"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to
this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a livin
g soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give y
ou letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far
as I can remember, were quite nice."
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one
of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.
"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged th
at they had had sufficient silent communion.
"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you
know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of th
e people here."
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed yo
ung lady.
"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs.
Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about th
e room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would b
e since your sister's time."
"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies see
med out of place.
"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said
the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.
"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window
got anything to do with the tragedy?"
"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two youn
g brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing
the moor to their favorite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in
a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and
places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their b
odies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's
voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor aunt alwa
ys thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel th
at was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That

is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear au
nt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterpro
of coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do
you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves
. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a cree
py feeling that they will all walk in through that window--"
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bu
stled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appea
rance.
"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.
"She has been very interesting," said Framton.
"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husban
d and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this
way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine me
ss over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn't it?"
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the
prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made
a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less
ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment
of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open win
dow and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he sho
uld have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.
"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement
, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announc
ed Framton, who labored under the tolerably widespread delusion that total stran
gers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments
and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so mu
ch in agreement," he continued.
"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last mom
ent. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention--but not to what Framton
was saying.
"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look a
s if they were muddy up to the eyes!"
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to c
onvey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open wind
ow with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton sw
ung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the
window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionall
y burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept
close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse youn
g voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, an
d the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist comi
ng along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.
"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in throu
gh the window, "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out
as we came up?"

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk
about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you
arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."
"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horro
r of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Gang
es by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave wit
h the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make
anyone lose their nerve."
Romance at short notice was her speciality.
This is possibly the scariest tales illustrating the Time Paradox and possibly t
he most shocking endings I have seen.
It's a short story written by Robert A. Heinlein titled All You Zombies.
A baby girl is mysteriously dropped off at an orphanage in Cleveland in 1945. Jan
e grows up lonely and dejected, not knowing who her parents are, until one day in
1963 she is strangely attracted to a drifter. She falls in love with him, but j
ust when things are looking up for Jane a series of disasters strikes: First, sh
e becomes pregnant by the drifter, who then disappears. Second, during the compl
icated delivery doctors discover that Jane has both sets of sex organs, and to s
ave her life, they most surgically convert her to a him. Finally, a mysterious stran
ger kidnaps her baby from the delivery room.
Reeling from these disasters, rejected from society, scorned by fate, he becomes a
drunkard and a drifter. Not only has Jane lost her parents and her lover, but h
e has lost his only child as well. Years later, in 1970, he stumbles into a lone
ly bar, called Pop s Place, and spills out his pathetic story to an elderly barten
der. The sympathetic bartender offers the drifter the chance to avenge the stran
ger who left her pregnant and abandoned, on the condition that he join the time t
raveller corps. Both of them enter a time machine and the bartender drops the dri
fter off in 1963. The drifter is strangely attracted to a young orphan girl, who
subsequently becomes pregnant.
The bartender then goes forward 9 months, kidnaps the baby girl from the hospita
l, and drops the baby off in an orphanage back in 1945. Then the bartender drops
off the thoroughly confused drifter in 1985, to enlist in the time traveller co
rps. The drifter eventually gets his life together and becomes respected and eld
erly member of the time traveller corps, and then disguises himself as a bartend
er and has his most difficult mission: a date with destiny, meeting a certain dr
ifter at Pop s Place in 1970.
Thanks for the A2A.Cheers
Circle of Friends by David Eagleman
When you die, you feel as though there were some subtle change, but everything l
ooks approximately the same. You get up and brush your teeth. You kiss your spou
se and kids and leave for the office. There is less traffic than normal. The res
t of your building seems less full, as though it s a holiday. But everyone in your
office is here, and they greet you kindly. You feel strangely popular. Everyone
you run into is
someone you know. At some point, it dawns on you that this is the afterlife: the
world is only made up of people you ve met before.
It s a small fraction of the world population
plenty to you.

about 0.00002 percent but it seems like

It turns out that only the people you remember are here. So the woman with whom
you shared a glance in the elevator may or may not be included. Your second-grad
e teacher is here, with most of the class. Your parents, your cousins, and your
spectrum of friends through the years. All your old lovers. Your boss, your gran
dmothers, and the waitress who served your food each day at lunch. Those you dat
ed, those you almost dated, those you longed for. It is a blissful opportunity t
o spend quality time with your one thousand connections, to renew fading ties, to catch up with those you let slip away.
It is only after several weeks of this that you begin to feel forlorn.
You wonder what s different as you saunter through the vast quiet parks with a fri
end or two. No strangers grace the empty park benches. No family unknown to you
throws bread crumbs for the ducks and makes you smile because of their laughter.
As you step into the street, you note there are no crowds, no buildings teeming
with workers, no distant cities bustling, no hospitals running with patients dy
ing and staff rushing, no trains howling into the night with sardined passengers
on their way home. Very few foreigners.
You begin to consider all the things unfamiliar to you. You ve never known, you re
alize, how to vulcanize rubber to make a tire. And now those factories stand emp
ty. You ve never known how to fashion a silicon chip from beach sand, how to launc
h rockets out of the atmosphere, how to pit olives or lay railroad tracks. And n
ow those industries are shutdown.
The missing crowds make you lonely. You begin to complain about all the people y
ou could be meeting. But no one listens or sympathizes with you, because this is
precisely what you chose when you were alive.
Such is Life!
Jack decided to go skiing with his buddy, Bob. So they loaded up Jack's mini van
and headed north. After driving for a few hours, they got caught in a terrible
blizzard. So they pulled into a nearby farm and asked the attractive lady who an
swered the door if they could spend the night.
"I realize it's terrible weather out there and I have this huge house all to mys
elf, but I'm recently widowed," she explained. "I'm afraid the neighbors will ta
lk if I let you stay in my house."
"Don't worry," Jack said. "We'll be happy to sleep in the barn. And if
er breaks, we'll be gone at first light." The lady agreed, and the two
their way to the barn and settled in for the night. Come morning, the
ad cleared, and they got on their way. They enjoyed a great weekend of

the weath
men found
weather h
skiing.

But about nine months later, Jack got an unexpected letter from an attorney.
It took him a few minutes to figure it out, but he finally determined that it wa
s from the attorney of that attractive widow he had met on the ski weekend.
He dropped in on his friend Bob and asked, "Bob, do you remember that good-looki
ng widow from the farm we stayed at on our ski holiday up North about 9 months a
go?"
"Yes, I do." said Bob
"Did you, er, happen to get up in the middle of the night, go up to the house an
d pay her a visit?"

"Well, um, yes," Bob said, a little embarrassed about being found out. "I have t
o admit that I did."
"And did you happen to use my name instead of telling her your name?"
Bob's face turned beet red and he said, "Yeah, look, I'm sorry, buddy. I'm afrai
d I did." "Why do you ask?"
"She just died and left me everything."
For me it is " The Eyes Have It " by Ruskin Bond.
I had the compartment to myself up to Rohana, then a girl got in. The couple who
saw her off were probably her parents. They seemed very anxious about her comfo
rt and the woman gave the girl detailed instructions as to where to keep her thi
ngs, when not to lean out of windows, and how to avoid speaking to strangers.
They called their goodbyes and the train pulled out of the station. As I was tot
ally blind at the time, my eyes sensitive only to light and darkness, I was unab
le to tell what the girl looked like. But I knew she wore slippers from the way
they slapped against her heels.
It would take me some time to discover something about her looks and perhaps I n
ever would. But I liked the sound of her voice and even the sound of her slipper
s.
'Are you going all the way to Dehra? I asked.
I must have been sitting in a dark corner because my voice startled her. She gav
e a little exclamation and said, I didn't know anyone else was here.'
Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right
in front of them. They have too much to take in, I suppose. Whereas people who c
annot see (or see very little) have to take in only the essentials, whatever reg
isters tellingly on their remaining senses.
I didn't see you either,' I said. 'But I heard you come in.'
I wondered if I would be able to prevent her from discovering that I was blind.
Provided I keep to my seat, I thought, it shouldn't be too difficult. The girl s
aid, I am getting off at Saharanpur. My aunt is meeting me there.'
"Then I had better not get too familiar/ I replied. 'Aunts are usually formidabl
e creatures.'
'Where are you going?' she asked. 'To Dehra and then to Mussoorie.'
'Oh, how lucky you are. I wish I were going to Mussoorie. I love the hills. Espe
cially in October.'
'Yes, this is the best time,' I said, calling on my memories. "The hills are cov
ered with wild dahlias, the sun is delicious, and at night you can sit in front
of a log fire and drink a little brandy. Most of the tourists have gone and the
roads are quiet and almost deserted. Yes, October is the best time.'
She was silent. I wondered if my words had touched her or whether she thought me
a romantic fool. Then I made a mistake.
'What is it like outside?' I asked.
She seemed to find nothing strange in the question. Had she noticed already that
I could not see? But her next question removed my doubts.

'Why don't you look out of the window?' she asked.

I moved easily along the berth and felt for the window ledge. The window was ope
n and I faced it, making a pretence of studying the landscape. I heard the panti
ng of the engine, the rumble of the wheels, and, in my mind's eye I could see te
legraph posts flashing by.
'Have you noticed,' I ventured, 'that the trees seem to be moving while we seem
to be standing still?'
"That always happens,' she said. 'Do you see any animals?'
'No,' I answered quite confidently. I knew that there were hardly any animals le
ft in the forests near Dehra.
I turned from the window and faced the girl and for a while we sat in silence.
'You have an interesting face,' I remarked. I was becoming quite daring but it w
as a safe remark. Few girls can resist flattery. She laughed pleasantly a clear, r
inging laugh.
'It's nice to be told I have an interesting face. I'm tired of people telling me
I have a pretty face.'
Oh, so you do have a pretty face, thought I. And aloud I said: 'Well, an interes
ting face can also be pretty.'
'You are a very gallant young man/ she said. 'But why are you so serious?'
I thought, then, that I would try to laugh for her, but the thought of laughter
only made me feel troubled and lonely.
'We'll soon be at your station/ I said.
'Thank goodness it's a short journey. I can't bear to sit in a train for more th
an two or three hours.'
Yet I was prepared to sit there for almost any length of time, just to listen to
her talking. Her voice had the sparkle of a mountain stream. As soon as she lef
t the train she would forget our brief encounter. But it would stay with me for
the rest of the journey and for some time after.
The engine's whistle shrieked, the carriage wheels changed their sound and rhyth
m, the girl got up and began to collect her things. I wondered if she wore her h
air in a bun or if it was plaited. Perhaps it was hanging loose over her shoulde
rs. Or was it cut very short?
The train drew slowly into the station. Outside, there was the shouting of porte
rs and vendors and a high-pitched female voice near the carriage door. That voic
e must have belonged to the girl's aunt.
'Goodbye/ the girl said.
She was standing very close to me. So close that the perfume from her hair was t
antalizing. I wanted to raise my hand and touch her hair but she moved away. Onl
y the scent of perfume still lingered where she had stood.
There was some confusion in the doorway. A man, getting into the compartment, st
ammered an apology. Then the door banged and the world was shut out again. I ret
urned to my berth. The guard blew his whistle and we moved off. Once again I had
a game to play and a new fellow traveller.

The train gathered speed, the wheels took up their song, the carriage groaned an
d shook. I found the window and sat in front of it, staring into the daylight th
at was darkness for me.
So many things were happening outside the window. It could be a fascinating game
guessing what went on out there.
The man who had entered the compartment broke into my reverie.
'You must be disappointed/ he said. 'I'm not nearly as attractive a traveling co
mpanion as the one who just left.' 'She was an interesting girl/ I said. 'Can yo
u tell me did she keep her hair long or short?'
'I don't remember/ he said sounding puzzled. 'It was her eyes I noticed, not her
hair. She had beautiful eyes but they were of no use to her. She was completely
blind. Didn't you notice?
The Dead of the Night
The rain was falling harder than ever, beating against the clattering window
es with a vengeance. Cyrine walked along the unfamiliar corridors of the new
se, wishing more than ever that she had gone along with her parents to Uncle
ert s place. Staying alone for the first night in a strange new house didn t
ite a good idea somehow.

pan
hou
Rob
seem qu

A huge bolt of lightning flashed above, splitting the sky in two. She waited for
the roar of thunder to follow, but all she heard was a deafening silence, durin
g which the shadows of the room grew noticeably deeper. A chill ran up her spine
. Brushing off the uncanny pause as completely natural, Cyrine walked ahead towa
rds the safety of her room. Her shadow trailed long and black behind her, skippi
ng, dancing in the flickering light of the candles on the walls.
She pushed the wooden double doors open and walked towards the promised warmth o
f her four-poster bed. On her way, she glanced at the huge pendulum clock by the
door. The hour hands stood resolutely still, and she counted two more hours bef
ore she would have company. Sighing, she flopped down on the bed and tried to sl
eep.
A tap on her shoulder, a sudden gust of wind across her face, and Cyrine jumped
up, her eyes ablaze with fear. There was no one around; the empty walls of the r
oom stared blankly at her. She shivered, hoping against hope that the hours woul
d trudge on faster.
Just as she was about to sit down once more, she felt the tap on her shoulder ag
ain and turned round violently, her heart beating faster than ever. Who s there? she
called out. The gushing gale outside answered her call with a disembodied wail.
Hugging herself in fear, Cyrine stood helplessly rooted to her spot. The room se
emed to be completely empty, except for herself. As she looked down, she suddenl
y noticed that her shadow was stretched out long on the floor behind her, its ar
ms outstretched, as if getting ready for an attack.
Gulping, she realized her own hands were folded tightly across her chest.
A Face in the Dark by Ruskin Bond:
Mr. Oliver, an Anglo-Indian teacher, was returning to his school late one night
on the outskirts of the hill station of Shimla. The school was conducted on Engl

ish public school lines and the boys - most of them from well-to-do Indian famil
ies - wore blazers, caps and ties. "Life" magazine, in a feature on India, had o
nce called this school the Eton of the East.
Mr. Oliver had been teaching in this school for several years. He's no longer th
ere. The Shimla Bazaar, with its cinemas and restaurants, was about two miles fr
om the school; and Mr. Oliver, a bachelor, usually strolled into the town in the
evening returning after dark, when he would take short cut through a pine fores
t.
When there was a strong wind, the pine trees made sad, eerie sounds that kept mo
st people to the main road. But Mr. Oliver was not a nervous or imaginative man.
He carried a torch - and on the night I write of, its pale gleam, the batteries
were running down - moved fitfully over the narrow forest path. When its flicke
ring light fell on the figure of a boy, who was sitting alone on a rock, Mr. Oli
ver stopped.
Boys were not supposed to be out of school after seven P.M. and it was now well
past nine.
What are you doing out here, boy, asked Mr. Oliver sharply, moving closer so tha
t he could recognize the miscreant.
But even as he approached the boy, Mr. Oliver sensed that something was wrong. T
he boy appeared to be crying. His head hung down, he held his face in his hands,
and his body shook convulsively. It was a strange, soundless weeping, and Mr. O
liver felt distinctly uneasy.
Well, what's the matter, he asked, his anger giving way to concern. What are you
crying for? The boy would not answer or look up. His body continued to be wrack
ed with silent sobbing.
Oh, come on, boy. You shouldn't be out here at this hour. Tell me the trouble. L
ook up.
The boy looked up. He took his hands from his face and looked up at his teacher.
The light from Mr. Oliver's torch fell on the boy's face, if you could call it
a face. He had no eyes, ears, nose or mouth. It was just a round smooth head wit
h a school cap on top of it.
And that's where the story should end, as indeed it has for several people who h
ave had similar experiences and dropped dead of inexplicable heart attacks. But
for Mr. Oliver, it did not end there. The torch fell from his trembling hand. He
turned and scrambled down the path, running blindly through the trees and calli
ng for help. He was still running towards the school buildings when he saw a lan
tern swinging in the middle of the path. Mr. Oliver had never before been so ple
ased to see the night watchman. He stumbled up to the watchman, gasping for brea
th and speaking incoherently.
What is it, Sahib? Asked the watchman, has there been an accident? Why are you r
unning?
I saw something, something horrible, a boy weeping in the forest and he had no f
ace.
No face, Sahib?
No eyes, no nose, mouth, nothing.
Do you mean it was like this, Sahib? asked the watchman, and raised the lamp to
his own face. The watchman had no eyes, no ears, no features at all, not even an
eyebrow. The wind blew the lamp out and Mr. Oliver had his heart attack.
THE SECRET TO A HAPPY MARRIED LIFE
Once a friend asked me: "What is the secret behind your happily married life?"
I said: "You should share responsibilities with due love and respect. Then absol
utely there will be no problems."
He asked: "Can you explain?"
I said: "In my house, I take decisions on bigger issues whereas my wife decides
on smaller issues. We do not interfere in each other's decisions."

Still not convinced, he asked me: "Give me some more examples".

I said: "Smaller issues like, what to buy for the kids, which car we should buy,
how much money to save, when to visit the super market, when & where to go onva
cation, which sofa, air conditioner, refrigerator to buy, monthly expenses, whet
her to keep a maid or not etc. are all decided by my with yT?fe. I just agree to
it "
He again asked: "Then, what is your Role?"
I said: "My decisions are only for very big issues. Like whether America should
attack Iraq, whether Britain should lift sanctions over Zimbabwe, whether Vidhar
bha should be formed or not, whether Dhoni should retire from Cricket, whom shou
ld Salman Khan marry etc., etc. and do you know, my wife NEVER, objects to any o
f these decisions"...
P.S. The friend did not ever get married but gifted me a MontBlanc Pen
Rakesh was worried that his wife was having hearing problem and he thought she m
ight need a hearing aid.
Not quite sure how to approach her, he called the family Doctor to discuss the p
roblem.
The Doctor told him there is a simple informal test the husband could perform to
give the Doctor a better idea about her hearing loss.
"Here's what you do,"
said the Doctor,
"stand about 40 feet away from her, and in a normal conversational speaking tone
see if she hears you.
If not, go to 30 feet,
then 20 feet,
and so on until you get a response.."
That evening,
his wife was in the kitchen cooking dinner,
and Rakesh thought of testing the same.
He says to himself,
"I'm about 40 feet away, let's see what happens.?"
Then in a normal tone he asks,
"Honey, what's for dinner?"
No response....
So he moves closer to the kitchen,
about 30 feet from his wife and repeats,
"Honey, what's for dinner?"
Still No response...

Next he moves to the dining room where he is about 20 feet from his Wife and ask
s,
"Honey, what's for dinner?"
Again he gets No response...
So, he walks up to the kitchen door,
about 10 feet away.
"Honey, what's for dinner?"
Again there is No response....
So he walks right up behind her,
"Honey, what's for dinner?
"For God's sake Rakesh,
its the FIFTH time I am telling you,
its 'AALOO PARATHA'.!"
The Final Say:
As a newly crowned college chess champion, I was quite amused to see the old man
alone on the park bench, a fully arranged chess board at the table on his front
. His gaze was fixed on the board, and he was lightly touched the pieces one-byone, as if stroking them.
Why not have some fun, I thought, and asked him if he wanted to play a game. He
merely nodded in approval, his gaze never leaving the board. Full of confidence,
I played the knight in the first move, hoping to end the game quickly. The old
man extended his hand to touch the knight at its new position, waited for the br
iefest of moments and made his move.
In the next half hour, I was thoroughly schooled in the art of chess. It appeare
d as if the old man had already anticipated all my moves and prepared a counter
for them. And he seemed to have developed this strange addiction of suddenly swo
oping his hand and stroking the pieces, sometimes his and sometimes mine. The so
re loser in me was already getting exasperated by this harmless act, but I gritt
ed my teeth and carried on.
Finally, with an inevitable checkmate, my agony was over. Desperately hoping to
hide my frustration, I decided to have the final say. Thus came out the words:"
Great game sir, although I must add sometimes you took too much time caressing t
hose precious pieces of yours".
The old man just smiled at this, gingerly got up and took out his white walking
stick. Somehow, the smile extended to his white, visionless eyes.
Read it somewhere.
A woman and a man are involved in a car accident; it's a bad one. Both of their
cars are totally demolished but amazingly neither of them are hurt. After they
crawl out of their cars, the woman says, "So you're a man, that's interesting.
I'm a woman. Wow, just look at our cars! There's nothing left, but fortunately w
e are unhurt. This must be a sign from God that we should meet and be friends an
d live together in peace for the rest of our days." The man replied, "I agree wi
th you completely." "This must be a sign from God!" The woman continued, "And lo
ok at this, here's another miracle. My car is completely demolished but this bot
tle of wine didn't break.

Surely God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune." Then she
hands the bottle to the man, The man nods his head in agreement, opens it and d
rinks half the bottle and then hands it back to the woman. The woman takes the
bottle, immediately puts the cork back in and hands it back to the man. The man
asks, "Aren't you having any?"
The woman replies, "No. I think I'll just wait for the police. :D
This is paraphrased and shortened from a story published in a local student nati
on magazine. I don't know the name of the writer.
He was dancing alone in the club when she suddenly beamed at him, threw her arms
around him, and shouted "Mns! Hi, so great to see you!" He had never seen her be
fore in his life.
They danced and talked all night, and he was surprised that she didn't figure ou
t that she was mistaken. He felt a bit guilty, but they got along so well, that
night and several others that followed.
When she came to visit him he had to make sure his friends weren't around so the
y wouldn't call him by his real name, and after a while the sneaking and dishone
sty wore him down.
Finally, he invited her to his place for dinner. He cooked her favorite meal, li
t candles, poured a wine she liked. After they had eaten he gathered his courage
.
"There's something I have to tell you." He paused, then pushed on. "My name isn'
t Mns."
She looked blank for a moment, then swirled the wine she had left in her glass,
drank it, and smiled.
"I've never known anyone called Mns."
Mrs. Johnson picked up her favorite novel from the bookshelf and rested on the c
ouch in the living just like any other night. A chill went through her spine as
she engrossingly started to visualize the drama of a lonely woman stuck in the b
asement with a mysterious serial killer behind her back. A whisper like sound br
ought her back to the sofa in her drawing room.
"Did you hear that . She asked her husband who was sitting not far away at the tab
le and who hated to be disturbed in mid of his Sudoku
He replied without lifting his head "I cannot understand the joy you derive by r
eading a horror novel and getting scared to death. It has puzzled me all these y
ears more than any of the toughest Sudoku I have ever solved".
Yes. The excessive obsession to crime and horror novels of the made her paranoid
but she could have swore by her life that she heard the whisper. She could swea
r no less about the sound of the snore she often heard at night from the corner
room.
They rarely used the corner room but for dumping all the used and spares. Moreov
er he was allergic to dust which made them distant from that room in the corner.
There were a few other incidents which she had never mentioned to him lest he th
inks she needs help. The other day in the last week, she strongly felt the prese
nce of someone standing just behind her. She could almost feel a breath but for
her relief, she sighted no one when she turned.
She had started experiencing these only since a month though they have been stay
ing in this house for years now.

May be we should sleep. It shall be dawn in another few hours He announced while s
tanding up with a sense of satisfaction that he had completely solved the Sudoku
for the on the day s paper. They both retired to the other room
Mr. And Mrs. Johnson never called it a day without he solving the day s Sudoku in
the newspaper and she not lazing on the couch and reading a few pages from a nov
el.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The next morning as soon as the woman woke up, she started walking from the corn
er room to have a glass of water, the first thing she did every morning.
As she passed by the living, she screamed aloud waking up her husband who came a
round running.
She was staring constantly at the previous day s newspaper lying on the table. He
could not comprehend the reason for her reaction until he observed. The Sudoku f
rom that newspaper had been completed. Again!!!!
He looked around and saw the novel was found lying on the couch which he had rem
embered stacked in the bookshelf. Again!!!
I whispered to you at night that I was hearing noises at the drawing room. I coul
d again hear the pages of a book flip. You never took my words seriously She mumb
led still caught in fear.
He stood rooted to the ground without uttering a word.
His fear gathered strength realizing that all the incidents his wife was mention
ing about, the footsteps at night, the voices heard from the other bedroom were
all true.
Mysterious of all, solved Sudoku puzzle solved by itself in the previous days pap
er and the novel moved from the shelf to the couch every morning really gave him
a chill.
The words of his neighbor were constantly running in his mind now.
The house has been vacant since a long time. The house was owned by a Sudoku cham
pion previously. Both he and wife were killed in a road accident.
The first thing Mr and Mrs Smith saw when they occupied the house last month was
the corner room which was almost isolated from the house. They instantly decide
d to make it their bedroom as they found it very dark and cozy. Mr. and Mrs. Smi
th had to put in lot of hard work cleaning the corner room up as the previous ow
ners had used it as storeroom for their junk!!!