Written for the 1k Fun challenge by adventure (August 2017) - exceeded word count

Prompt details here: http://my.w.tt/UiNb/ZK3hX731PF 

"Bhenchod!"

The driver slammed the engine cover of the ageing Tata CityRide mini-bus, wiping the sweat from his brow. The ill-maintained rust bucket had been under repair for several hours at a petrol station along National Highway 11 between Phalodi and Jalsaimer. A pair of station attendants—neither one a trained mechanic—looked on blankly as Manav tried to figure out how to get it running again.

The bus was carrying a small group of archaeology students from the Department of Heritage Research at the Dr. Hedgewar Institute in Hyderabad.

Krittika specialized in ancient irrigation systems. She was going through her field notes about the aqueducts and rainwater tanks from their visit to Nagaur Fort when her concentration was interrupted by loud dubstep music blaring from a nearby laptop. She looked over to see Paramjit who was miming a DJ set for an imaginary crowd.

"Do you mind?" she asked, glowering at him. "In case you forgot, this is a study trip!"

"Tu rehne de!" he said. "How can anyone concentrate in a situation like this?"

"Shut up, both of you!" said Professor Thupalli. "Mr. Manav needs to focus if we want to reach the campground before dark."

Suddenly, the motor sputtered back on, whirring but functional. Manav raised his arms in celebration. The bus was ready to go on.

* * *

The weirdness began just after Pokhran. As the bus sputtered beyond city limits, houses and shops gave way to the vast Thar Desert. For long stretches, there seemed to be an endless horizon of dry sand in every direction. That's why nobody realized anything odd about the route.

Krittika felt like hours had passed since they left the petrol station. That's when she noticed that her watch had stopped. When she checked her mobile, it had also frozen at the same time: 6:05PM. Unsettled by this strange coincidence, she asked the others. Sure enough, all their timepieces read some variation of 18:05.

Professor Thupalli took stock of the situation. He asked the driver to check how far they were from the nearest village. Only then did Manav realize that the GPS had been guiding him through the exact same length of road, even if the odometer showed they had traveled much further—using up the corresponding amount of fuel too!

Manav pulled over, attempting to stay calm. Meanwhile, the Professor tried calling 112. No mobile service for any carriers. One student, Uday, started hyperventilating while another, Divya, broke down into tears.

"What is that?" asked Paramjit, pointing at a blurry structure in the distance.

"It's like it just appeared from nowhere," said Krittika.

"Or maybe we were all just too panicked to notice it before," said Paramjit.

"Jaffa! How can you not see a whole building in the middle of a desert? Think yaar!"

"Enough foolishness!" said Professor Thupalli. "We should investigate the building for we are stuck here otherwise."

Krittika and Paramjit volunteered to go ahead with the Professor, while Manav stayed with the rest in the bus.

* * *

From the outside, the building was squat but it appeared sturdy. Some kind of military facility, perhaps—maybe an underground bunker. All three scholars were generally aware of Pokhran's history in the last century, so they approached the entrance hatch with caution.

The Sanskrit words for 'Buddha Jayanti' were engraved on the hatch door. Beneath it was a rotating combination lock made up of four discs with Devanagari numerals. It looked about as simple as an ordinary luggage padlock; should be easy enough to crack open. But who knows what could happen if they entered the wrong code!

Krittika decided the most obvious combination would be the safest. She turned the dials to read 1-8-0-5. Bingo! With a hiss of air, the hatch slid open. The group covered their nose and mouth to keep away the cloud of dust it released.

"That was too easy," said Paramjit. "Feels like it might be a trap."

"Could be," said the Professor. "Whoever—whatever—is here, it wants us to look around."

The group walked in single file into the long dim corridor, with Krittika at the front. About halfway down, she stepped on what felt like a loose panel in the floor. This set off an ear-piercing alarm.

Suddenly, a thick metal blast door began to descend from the ceiling, just between Paramjit and Professor Thupalli. The older man stepped back instinctively to avoid being crushed as the door reached the ground. Both his students could hear him banging on the other side of the threshold, cursing in Telugu. After several minutes, the futile banging ended. The two pupils were debating how to proceed when they heard a muffled scream from across the door.

Freaking out, they ran forward until they reached a platform at the end of the hall. It appeared to be a dead end! That's when they felt the platform begin to drop gently towards the bowels of the complex.

There was no mistaking it now: this had to be a subterranean detonation shaft, different from the one used for India's previous nuclear tests. The elevator was spacious enough to transport a fully assembled nuclear device into place for detonation.

That's when Krittika and Paramjit realized they were not alone on the platform. There were joined by two humanoid figures wearing Cold War era radiation suits. Beneath the vintage protective gear, it was clear that they had sunken, mummified skin and narrow limbs; their bellies were monstrously distended and their mouths were reduced to tiny slits. Both students recognized that these were preta—undead beings from Hindu folk belief. Upon realizing this, Paramjit fainted, startling Krittika. The pretas were unfazed.

When they reached the bottom level, the pretas signaled to Krittika to abandon Paramjit and follow them. The entities lead her to a disused storage area.

* * *

The room looked like it had been hurriedly ransacked by the last person who entered. The floor was littered with documents scanned on microfiche and aperture cards. These analog formats were familiar to young Krittika only because of her archival research work.

With guidance from the pretas, she was able to piece together a basic outline of what happened. As far as she understood, they were former members of an engineering team from the Atomic Energy Establishment in Trombay. They were tasked to assemble the nuclear device for the Smiling Buddha test in 1974, then transport it to Pokhran Test Range in time for the detonation on May 15th that year. However, there was a miscommunication with the Defense Research and Development Organization team in Chandigarh, which resulted in a deadly mishap. The bomb went off too early, before the engineering teams were able to clear the area.

The explosion displaced them from spacetime, trapping them between their own timeline—when the Pokhran-1 test failed and was covered up—and the reality that Krittika came from. The blast warped their physical forms, leaving them as Ātma; disembodied souls, made up only of vapor and Akasha (dark matter or æther).

But if Krittika was there with them now, didn't that mean everyone from the bus was stuck too? She would not accept that!

If the bus ended up in this dimension, then there had to be points where the different realities overlap. All they had to do was find one and cross over. But how?!