On The Highway..!! - 3

Catch Part 1 here

Catch Part 2 here

An untidy man of 6 feet height, clad with dirty clothing and long messy hair motioned his hand on spotting a small green scooter approaching him, as in to ask for a drop further down the street. The person riding the scooter who looked equally dirty and messy obliged for the drop. “Thanks for the ride, Sir. I’m Ghani” the man announced. “I’m Rajesh” cutting across to the left trying to avoid a speed-breaker, he replied. They rode along at a steady pace.


Mr. Ashok put the polythene bag of ‘cut-off’ human fingers back into the fridge, patted on Syed’s and Vishal’s backs and said- “ Give me the torch.” They creeped by the walls into another room, which when illuminated revealed a name- “Geetha” written with blood on all four walls of the room. “Now this is getting real easy.” Mr. Ashok announced contemplating the writings on the wall. They then, found the back door and walked out through it, the path of which seemed like it was carpeted with blood. “ So. GEETHA…hmmm..” Mr. Ashok exhaled and continued- “ Okay, we should go to the village limit police station now.” As they were about to leave, a local police constable arrived and saluted, as Mr. Ashok ordered him- “Stay here. Lookout for anything suspicious, Okay?” The three headed back to their ‘Qualis’ to drive to the Police Station. What they dint realize was that the wooden sign and the metal barricade that had vanished was put back in its' original places.



The scooter puffing away smoke steadily moved along. Rajesh enquired- “Where do you have to go?” but he could hear nothing except Ghani’s audible breath. “ Where are you from?” he asked again, but still experienced no reply. With every passing second, Ghani’s breath only got louder and faster.

At the police station, Mr. Ashok learnt that Geetha had committed suicide a month ago. “Her post mortem said, she was raped before she died.” After a silent gap, the village inspector continued- “ though that was kept secret due to pressure from a higher authority.”
“Was there an investigation held to find those rapists?” Mr. Ashok asked looking a bit upset.
“No sir.” He dropped his head.
“Okay. Now about Geetha. Her personal life. Go on.”

The scooter came to a halt, when Rajesh saw the wooden “Dead End” sign and a metal barricade blocking the road. “The road is blocked” he said. Ghani stepped down, walked forward to face Rajesh.
“What shall we do now?” Rajesh enquired.
“I’ll tell you.” Ghani replied, pulled a sharp knife from behind and pushed it right into Rajesh’s abdomen.


“ She was reportedly in a love affair with a person called Ghani when she died, Sir.” The inspector informed. “ Ghani somehow knew the fact that she was raped.” He continued-“ Ghani came here everyday in the beginning pleading to take up the case.” He dropped his head again and continued- “ But we were helpless.”
“Okay. So it is Mr. Ghani, the killer.” He stared at the inspector and went on- “ A disgrace to be a policeman if some bloody higher up wants to play his cards on us. I want the name of the person who influenced you, but before that, we need to catch Ghani. Inform everyone. Make it fast.”


“You will now join your other two friends in hell. You bastards raped my darling, my life- Geetha.” He screamed pushing the knife further into his abdomen, cutting off nerves like wires. “Go to hell, you bastards.” He screamed as Rajesh, now a dead-body fell on to the ground. He grabbed Rajesh’s hair and pulled him along towards the house. “You fucking policemen.” He said to himself as he saw a constable at the door and pounced on him.

“Put the constable at the house on line, I want to speak to him” Mr. Ashok ordered the inspector. The phone rang, but it only rang. They repeated calling him twice, thrice but no reply. “If this is carelessness, I’ll see to it that this will be his last day at work. If it’s not- he is rather killed by now.” Mr. Ashok said with restlessness. “Lets move. Fast.” He said and everyone got back to the ‘Quailis’ and Syed hit the accelerator as they flew to the spot.

As he slit the throat to death of the constable, he continued to drag Rajesh’s body into the house, closed the door behind him and dragged him further into the small room. He dipped his hand into the flowing pool of blood and wrote- “GEETHA” on all four walls. Then, he sat next to the body, and drew out his knife again.




The crew arrived and Vishal alarmed- “ God! The wooden sign, the metal barricade, it’s back here.” Mr. Ashok heard him, but ignorantly jumped out, drew out his pistol and breezed towards the house followed by the rest. They observed that the dry, withered leaves on the ground were disturbed. “Somebody was dragged from here” Syed indicated. They began sprinting and as they reached the door, they found the body of the constable laid dead, flat across the door. As Syed dragged his body to the side, Mr. Ashok broke the door and hurried into the dark little house.
As he reached the room, he was shocked to witness a person cutting off a dead body’s fingers. Meanwhile, Ghani realized that the police had arrived. Mr. Ashok observed his face closely only to discover a freshly attained glow on his face instead of an expected fear. Cutting through one of the fingers, Ghani smiled and said to the police- “ Two minutes Sir. These bastards raped my darling. They killed her. With these bloody same hands. Wait for just 2 minutes sir. This bastard is the last.” He cut off the fingers, put them into the polythene bag and screamed as he surrendered- “ Geetha, I love you.”


2 Days later –

At the restaurant at the “CrossRoads Inn” Vishal and Vijay ordered two taps of beer as Vishal lived the moments all over again. As and when he finished and as they were about to leave, Vijay remarked- “ Sounds cinematic. But it’s proven- ‘Love rules the world’.”

The End…