Book excerpt: Daksh Sehgal, a corporate employee on a business tour meets Agastya Roy, a writer in the midst of penning a book, in a train coupe. Both are on their way to Kolkata from North East after their respective works and strike up a conversation. It’s a night journey but they aren’t sleepy anymore now so, they decide to kill time. Agastya begins telling Daksh six ghost stories… May 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic has spread around the world and Mumbai is the worst hit in India. Dr. Balagopal Reddy and his nurse, Mancy Varghese meet a peculiar man, Wridhesh Surve during a night shift in the hospital they work in. Every hundred years or so, a pattern is formed and there might just be more to it. Come, meet the beast! Izna Mehra gets arranged to Udarsh Sachdev and moves to the outskirts of Gurgaon. It’s an old secluded house away from the hustle and bustle where Izna discovers a fridge in one of the rooms which is always locked – a fridge full of meat. Udarsh has his own little secret which he might want to share with her that is, only if he gets an opportunity. Basant Agarwal becomes a businessman reluctantly but quite naturally and shifts base from Pune to Panchgani with his wife, Anaisha. It’s a wonderful house that he has bought and there is nobody around – just another house which is seemingly abandoned during the day but comes alive on one night every year. Their neighbour, Harini Srivastava wants to tell them something and invites for a party. Rushil Chatterjee travels from Vancouver to Kolkata after over three decades for some property-related work he can’t skip. His cousin, Laltu requests him to visit their ancestral home in Serampore where his father, an old man on his deathbed has to confess something. Karma always pays back! Tanay and Sushant, two close friends wake up one morning and realize things are different around them in the remote town of Himachal Pradesh. They meet The Transformer who tells them how they can go REVERSE – we all do! Know it. Hold That Breath once again as one of the stories connects the others and fear is unleashed from the mind of the master storyteller and bestselling author. Yours truly, Abhirup Dhar.