One Bullet Is All That It Takes..!!

Room No. 301

He flash opened his eyes, as he heard a distant silencer of an idle motorbike. Turning over on his bed, he craned his head to catch a glimpse through the little window of his dim lit room. Pitch darkness, a far away and the only illuminated street light was all that his eyes could gather. His wrist-watch reminded him that the sun would rise in just about two hours. The sound of the motorbike diminished into silence: a scary silence. Charlie could hear his shaky, heavy breath. He could feel his heart pacing up and down. He closed his eyes to calm himself but in vain, as he heard human movements outside his door in the corridor. He locked his lips tight in trying to mute his breath. He browsed through his pockets for his revolver, with leaking hopes. The revolver was lost the day before, he knew it. Three… two…one…. “Knock knock” his door was knocked. Charlie said to himself, pressing his eyes- “They are here…Help me God…. They are here..”




Room No. 302 >

‘Deal Agreement, Mr. Vinod, VV & Co.’ Mr. Vinod couldn’t believe his eyes scanning through those words in the ‘Agreement papers’. He couldn’t help smiling. As if talking to the dark sky outside his window, he said- “ The sun has already risen in my life. You still have two hours of darkness.” He realised that the sun would be setting back home in India at that point of time, grabbed his cell phone, hit the numbers on them as his lovely wife greeted him on the other side- “Congrats dear. Got the news. I’m preparing sweets.”

“Love you dear. What’s a sweet if it’s not you Ani?” his smile almost touched his ears.

“ Oh come on ya. Waiting for you. Another 8 hours and you will be here. Just can’t wait baby.”

“Yeah. And hey, what’s my kitty doing?”

“She’s watching cartoon on tv. Hey can’t you reach here faster than 8 long hours?”

“Awee.. Love you baby. I’ll run even in the flight and reach soon. Don’t worry.” He joked as they cut the call.

Vinod, stood by the window, the soft carpet beneath him, the sky clearing, as a weak moon showed itself between the rolling red clouds. The silence was broken with a sudden thud on his door. It took him a long ten seconds to realise the sound and then hurried to the door, peeped through the view-finder but found no one. As though his brain was resting, he motioned his hands, reached the latch to open the door not realising that he was about to commit the biggest mistake of his life.


Room No. 301

Charlie, who didn’t respond to the door knocks, freezed to discover that the locks were being jimmied using foreign substances. He literally felt his blood rush inside him as he found his head go blank. It took two minutes for the door to be flung opened, thereby exposing two white men wearing black caps, holding a revolver each. They were revolvers fitted with silencers, making them appear longer than normal. Charlie, as a last resort, leapt out of his bed and tried to speed out into the corridor and it took no time for those huge men to grab him and let out a shot. The bullet pierced through his palms as it began colouring the carpet red. Charlie, acting entirely on his reflexes, stood and dragged himself as he covered some distance in trying to break away. Within no time he received another shot, on his shoulder this time, ripping off the upper part of his shirt along with a lump of skin. The uncontrolled running doubled with the gun shot led him crashing straight into another door : Door No. 302.

Vinod drew the latch and the door gave way, exposing him straight to the back of a wounded man (Charlie). Standing face-to-face to Charlie were two hugely built white men, with revolvers and sprinkled blood stains on their faces. One of them, with a forceful voice whispered, as he pointed his revolver into Charlie’s chest- “ You think you can get away?? Go to hell” and bhoom. The relatively silent bullet hit Charlie straight on his chest thrusting his body right into Vinod’s arms. Vinod, who, in a state of shock withdrew his hand allowing the body to drop vertically down over the soft carpet.



Mr. Vinod, the Founder of VV & Co., there he was facing straight into two gunmen, fresh murderers. His worst fears came alive as the hand with the revolver raised once again, this time Vinod’s chest the target. “No Evidence, no bullshit please. Sorry” said a voice, as the bullet sped and ripped apart a pure chest. The thud lifted his legs above the ground, dropped identically beside the dead Charlie. The air gushed out of him, the heart stopped as he breathed his last.

Certainly the sun was setting back home in India as the sun rose over Vinod’s dead body.

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…

On The Highway..!! -2

Catch the previous part here

His friend, Vijay arrived at the “The CrossRoads Inn” and walked briskly through the parking lot. He tried to spot Vishal’s car, but he didn’t. “Bad sign” he said to himself and continued breezing through. He pushed through the front doors of the in-built multi cuisine restaurant. The restaurant was less than half filled and it dint take long for Vijay to realize that his friend wasn’t here. Pushing through the doors once again he walked into the reception area and waited for the elevator. The elevator arrived and he entered as it rode to the third floor. Searching for room number 305, he brisked up. Finally, as he found the room, he knocked at the door for which silence was the only reply he got. He slipped out his cell phone and dialed Vishal, but it wasn’t reachable. He ran back to the elevator, descended into the reception area and asked the Receptionist- “ Where is the person in room number 305?”

“Sorry Sir. Our shifts changed and I’m on duty only since 5 minutes. I’ll check the records.” She turned some pages and said- “ The room got vacated 15 minutes ago, Sir.”

Asking too many questions wasn’t going to help his case, so he walked out into the parking lot, approached the watchman, counted out two 50 rupee notes and asked- “What happened to a silver coloured Ford that was here? KA-05 MB 4248.” Trying to get the watchman out of his ambivalence, he slid the money into the watchman’s pocket and gently patted on his back- “Please.”

“Police.”

“Shit…..” Vijay let out a frustrated kick on the hotel gates.

==

==

At Perambadur Police Station

Inspector, Mr. Ashok (Crime Branch, TN) crossed his legs, sipped his tea and said in his crisp voice- “ Why should I believe you?”

Vishal, with dignity replied- “ All I can do is tell you what I know, Sir. Incidentally that is what the truth is. And I believe that’ll be very scarcely helpful to you.” He wiped his sweat and continued- “ I offer to be helpful, now that you’ve spotted me anyway.” He smiled.

Mr. Ashok played in his hands, with the toll receipt paper through which he could discover Vishal’s whereabouts and fixed a long stare towards him. It took him a long minute to change his stare into an almost invisible smile and then stood up, clapped his table and announced- “ Okay. Vishal, you’ll be accompanying me and my assistant Mr. Syed to the spot. You’ll show us the house that the victim pointed towards before he died.” Trying not to sound too nice, he continued- “ Until then, remember you are under custody, your cell phone and your car will be here.” He finished his last sip of tea and warned- “ No tricks. No funny business. Okay? Lets move”

An hour later—

“This is the petrol bunk where I refilled petrol last night,” pointing towards the bunk, Vishal informed Mr. Ashok and Syed as they almost reached the point where the body was found. In a couple of minutes, Syed applied brakes to halt the Qualis, as they had arrived at the spot. The place wasn’t dense with people as Vishal had expected it to be, but it was empty as the post murder procedures were done with and only a constable remained at the spot. It was almost noon, but with the surrounding heavy woods, the sun hardly penetrated and that made the atmoshpere cool.

Vishal scanned around the place and was startled to find that the wooden- “Dead End” sign wasn’t there anymore. He further glanced along the road, gasped when he dint find the metal barricade that had blocked the road that night. On learning this, Mr. Ashok informed Syed to enquire with the highway Patrol Police and the local village police if the two sign-boards were detracted by them.



“That’s the house there, that the victim pointed towards before he fell dead, Sir.” Vishal informed as he pointed towards the old, tile-roofed, modest house. It was about a hundred metres from the road, with no particular pathway. They walked through the trees, the path layered with withered dry leaves towards the house.
“There doesn’t seem to have been any recent human activity here.” He said to Syed, looked at Vishal, turned back to Syed and continued- “ But with these winds, it’s hard to conclude.”

‘knock..knock’ Syed knocked at the door, as Mr. Ashok held his right hand on his pistol. Without wasting any more time, Syed broke opened the weak door and the three entered in. The house was dark and empty. With the help of torches they moved in slowly by the walls, alert to any human retaliation. The room smelt filthy and a bit different from most unused houses. “Sir, bloodstains.” Syed pointed out to Mr. Ashok. The blood stains continued along as a path into the back door. “Somebody was dragged out of here.” Vishal said astonishingly with his heart beating in a hurry.
“Don’t talk. Shut up.” Syed replied with an irritated whisper. “A refrigerator.” Syed illuminated it with his torch.
In a deserted house of a supposed killer having nothing, not even bulbs, spotting a refrigerator, Mr. Ashok knew it was never going to be an auspicious discovery. He could almost paint the picture now. Syed hesitantly stepped forward, clasped his hand on the fridge door handle, looked around and pulled it open gently and the three were exposed to a horrifying scene. Vishal, held his throat, ran to the window, pushed it open, coughed hard and vomited. Cut-off human fingers in a polythene bag.

To be Continued......

On The Highway..!!

(Hey guys, fed up of humour, I tried a different genre. Talk about experimenting..!! Okay, brace yourself and get ready for a thrilling drive.)

Refilling petrol into his Ford, Vishal swung into a small, silent, lifeless lane. He turned on his music player and threw a glance at the dashboard clock, which said- 8pm. It was starkly dark as he drove steadily ahead in search of an entry point to get back into the highway. The road became narrower and darker as the surrounding woods got denser. He could have touched the highway by just retracing the route by which he had come from, but somewhere in his adventurous mind, he thought- “Lets explore.” But now, as he passed well through the village limits, he wondered- “ Do I need this?” He noticed a hitch in his voice and repeated loudly to himself- “ Do I need this crap? No right?”



Suddenly the head beams illuminated a large wooden sign attached to a tree, and Vishal stopped the car. He stared out of the windshield into the old, dirty, bedraggled wooden board and noticed a familiar word STOP. The rest of the sign was incomprehensive, but he could notice another similar word- DEAD END.” He observed his head beams illuminate a small metal barricade about 50 metres in front of him, which blocked the road. The road looked perfectly fine ahead, which made him contemplate as to why such a board was put up. He surveyed the glove box on the dashboard, in search of his torch. He dug out a small piece of paper, which was in it and read it with the help of the torch. It said-“ Toll fee- Rs.35.” He entwined and crushed it, threw it outside and stepped out with the torch in his hand though he had kept the car’s head lights on.

He walked tardily as the dry leaves on the road made crisp sounds as he stepped over them. He reached the barricade, scanned around the place with his torch and found nothing to apprehend the wooden sign to. ”Somethin’ fishy” he said in his mind. With feelings of ambivalence, he started his walk back to his car, covering his eyes from the glare of the car’s powerful head beams. With silence surrounding him, he could literally hear his breath and the crisp sounds of the dry leaves as the wind blew. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked- an unfriendly bark, he decided. He got closer to the car with just ten strides away from it- one… two…three…. four…five..and he froze. A human hand rested on his shoulders with blood dripping through it and a struggling male voice cried- “ Hey….Hey….”

--

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His dashboard clock read 8:30 pm and his speedometer read 110 kms/hr. He was back on the highway, he screamed at himself- “fuckin speed-breakers” and jumped over one. He was sweating profusely, though the car’s air conditioning was switched on. He noticed his music player was still playing, and turned it off in a flash. A milestone read- “Chennai – 98kms.” He found another, the third ‘toll-booth’ on the highway so far and stopped to pay and then proceeded. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket, luckily it could catch the network signal and he dialed his close buddy Vijay, whom he was supposed to meet in Chennai. Moreover, he had to confide in someone close to him, preferably a good crony.

Vijay- “ Hey bro..!! You are late. I’m waiting. What’s up?”

Vishal- “ Hey Vijay.” He cleared his throat and continued- “ Listen, I need to tell you something. Something dangerously important.”

Vijay- “Buddy, you sound tense. What’s wrong?”

Vishal- “ Yeah. On the way, I had to enter a small village to refill petrol after which, I headed along through the village road in search of the highway entry point, where I found a ‘dead-end’ sign. I got down to check out and man… shit” He pulled out the small water bottle from his glove box, emptied it in one go and continued- “ A person, a middle aged person, with blood stains all over his body came to me and tried to say something. All he managed to say was- “ Hey.. Hey…” and directed his hand towards a house at a distance and fell dead right in front of me. I think someone stabbed him with a knife. Oh man, in trying to be stupidly inquisitive, I fucked up everything.”

Vijay- “Holy shit. What else?”

Vishal- “ Nothing. I dint know how to react? So, just hurried out of that place. Now, I fear the police would put me into hardships regarding all this. All unnecessary bullshit I got into. Don’t know what the fuck made me go there.”

Vijay- “Okay, cool down.” He paused and continued- “ Okay, do as I say. Reach Chennai, and ‘check-in’ into “The CrossRoads Inn” Leave your luggage in the room and walk out into the public, maybe a restaurant. I’ll meet you there.”He paused and continued again- “ Remember, you are not the culprit. So head held high. Okay? We shall take the bull by the horns. See ya.”

Vishal- “Yeah. Thanks” they cut the call.




He continued driving at a constant 90kms/hr as the road was wide and smooth. He glanced through the rear-view mirror and his heart stopped for a second. A police ‘Qualis’ was following behind him. He hit the accelerator, as the speedometer needle rose to 110kms/hr. His heart raced along. The police car behind him, was no less, it too maintained good speeds if not it was faster than Vishal’s Ford. The Qualis swung to the right, pushed ahead and was now head on parallel to the Ford. Vishal threw a hesitant, nervous glance towards the driver, a policeman but realized that he wasn’t returning the look. Vishal released the accelerator trying to abate and the Police-Qualis moved on without cooking up any kind of a storm. Vishal exhaled deeply relieving himself. He turned ‘on’ his music player in an attempt to vanquish his fears.

In an hour, he entered the familiar, Chennai and drove with no confusion to the hotel- “The CrossRoads Inn.” He parked his car in the parking space, checked in into room number- 305. He tipped the helper who showed him to his room and locked the doors. He went in, had a shower, ate some fruits that he had carried and noticed the wall clock, which showed- 10:30 pm. He messaged Vijay over his phone to inform the room number and typed- “ Meet you at the restaurant.” As he was putting on his shoes to leave to the restaurant, he heard the ring of his ‘door-bell’ and two hard knocks on the door. He swung to the ‘switch-board’, switched off the lights and headed to the ‘peep-hole’ of the door. He peeped optimistically, but to his shock his worst fears came true. He saw three men in khakis, waiting at the door. The Policemen had arrived.

To be Continued....