“Rudra, you are the luckiest bitch alive.” Marshall said this every time he came to Rudra’s place. According to him the reason was Rudra worked from home and didn’t have to travel at all. He added, “Travel can wane you in every inch of your body especially when you are pushing fifty.” Rudra strongly disagreed but never said anything, only smiled and looked at the ambulance door being opened. It was Vikas, stepping out from the driver’s side. Rudra watched him with a blank look while earnestly wishing if only Marshall knew how to drive and hoped if bringing the contents of the ambulance safely here could have been just a one-man job. Vikas slammed the door shut and started to walk towards the back of the ambulance while Rudra kept watching him, standing only a few steps away from the ambulance. A speeding car passed by the gate startling Vikas who instinctively hid by the side of the ambulance which royally occupied the whole of the small courtyard of Rudra’s house and had its front reaching out to the road. Rudra’s lips curled somewhere between a smirk and exasperation. Though to be fair, it wasn’t completely Vikas’s fault. It was imperative for their business that they remained anonymous from the world. But it was impossible to shut the rusty gate as the ambulance stood blocking it. And, it would be nice to emphasize here that the gate which was hinged to a faded white color wall that ran around the small house (although not so small—it was a 400 sq ft one BHK along with a big garage/workshop) was fully capable of keeping the outside world at bay if the ambulance wasn’t in its way.

There was ample space on road for another car to pass by, although the intensity of traffic has always been almost nil on that road. But if by any chance brats of Delhi and Haryana ever decided that instead of the newly constructed bypass this secluded road near the border of both states is more thrilling, for ravaging their fancy cars in full throttle that their parents have bought by selling their ancestral farms to some MNC, Marshall and his team will be in a lot trouble. The government in the past few years had become very stern about traffic rules and also a dead body in unregistered ambulance could lead to mandatory fine or a jail term of seven years to life imprisonment.

“Got some veggies and rice for you,” Marshall said to Rudra. “Get the food out later, first get the body out. We don’t have much time and wash your hands before you get the veggies later,” Marshall said to Vikas and his reply was “okay” as he never argued with Marshall just like Rudra. “You going to help me?” Vikas responded in a cynical way he always talks to Rudra. “Go and help him, would you?” Marshall requested. Rudra acknowledged with a nod and smile and ambled towards the entry door of his house next to garage shutter. He opened the steel mesh door and then he tried to budge the thick wooden door which was there to protect something valuable and something rare in the house from the one who is knocking. Rudra never really had any visitors here because he wasn’t supposed to have any. Whenever they get the job, Rudra gets one ping on his not so smart cell phone. It would be some dirty joke and always from a different phone number (although there was some repetition in jokes and phone numbers), this was the cue for him to be ready for the ambulance that will be coming that day with a corpse. There was no confusion as nobody had Rudra’s number except Marshall. Other times he is supposed to shut the doors, drop the blinds on small the window with steel mesh next to entry and finish everything needed to be done in daylight, so there was no need to click on the switch that will lead the glass bulb to emit a bright yellow light, which might act as a navigation center for the people who took a wrong turn for the bypass. He came out with green portable stretcher. It was Marshall’s idea to keep something which can endure the dead weight of bodies specially when it was above 60kg. He plodded towards Vikas who was balancing on one leg with the support of the other resting on the ambulance loading door, both arms crossed on his chest and eyeballs following Rudra, like a high school rascal who is about to beat some nerd, for scoring higher marks. Rudra rested the stretcher on the floor near the ambulance’s rear tyre and asked Vikas, “Male or female?” Vikas with tight face muscles replied, “Fuck you! You fucking waste, I wish Marshall can come to his senses and kick you out.” To which Rudra simply replied, “Ok.”
“Or I can kill you too, if you like,” Vikas said.

Rudra never paid heed to any of Vikas’s warnings, for first he wasn’t aware what was the reason and second he knew that he didn’t have the balls to do any of it, he was just a driver, an exasperated and underpaid one. Marshall was out of earshot as he was standing on other the end of the courtyard, gazing at the incessant road with his hand locked behind and his chest thrusted out in pride of his discovery—this arcane location, and when you are in the business of melting a corpse, and dumping their liquefied remains in a drain, so that no politician, gangster, businessmen, angry husband, angry wife, pimp or the government people get incarcerated, one will need the place where a recluse dwells.
“Hurry before another car passes by, he is like maximum 80kg. You got the stretcher?” Marshall spoke over his shoulder and turned, scanning the scenario said, “Well let's do it.” Now it was time to start the job, for which they follow the same procedure they have been following over the period of four years.

Crickets chirped monotonously in the dark as Marshall got the garage shutter key out from his khaki pants and prised the garage shutter upside. A rusty metallic bang echoed for a few seconds, Marshall turned back, Rudra and Vikas were still waiting by ambulance. Marshall looked around to make sure nobody was lurking in the wild bushes that surrounded the house or behind some prickly pear across road, then he took a small torch out. This was the signal for Rudra and Vikas to open the ambulance’s loading door. Rudra got inside, Vikas handed him the stretcher and got in. They put the body wrapped in white cloth on the stretcher. Rudra got the head and Vikas bent down near the feet (Vikas hated it, he said he wanted the head but Marshall decided to give it to Rudra because of his strong upper body). First Rudra got out holding the stretcher followed by Vikas; Marshall standing at the edge of garage, switched on the torch to give them eye in pitch dark. The moment they entered the garage, they placed the stretcher on the floor which was conspicuous due to the moonlight. Vikas got out of the garage to keep an eye on the road and Marshall slowly pulled the shutter down and locked it from inside. Rudra knew that Marshall had made this process unnecessarily complicated, and always thought that it was silly to follow Marshall’s alleged guidelines. But Marshall has his own way of doing things and till now they had optimum success.

Standing in the dark room, with the help of his torch Marshall switched on a small bulb, and the room was flooded with yellow light, revealing grey cemented walls, two living beings, one dead and a contraption. Rudra was standing near the stretcher as Marshall kept staring at his prized possession—a machine called the ALKALINE HYDROLYSIS. Alkaline hydrolysis is a green process for disposal of a dead body, and lay in the middle of the room was its apparatus. It was a long heavy metal cylinder erected on thick metal base, parallel to the dusty floor and hanging to the level of Rudra’s waist. Two red pipes came out from the midsection of its body and a water pressure pump plugged next to the pipes. A touch screen surrounded by a bunch of buttons installed near its opening which looked like a small round vault door. Buttons and the screen were responsible for the water pressure and the amount of chemical required for a particular body depending on its weight. Rudra and Marshall shifted the body from the stretcher to an old industrial weight machine which was rusted next to the thick wooden door in the other end of the garage.

“87kg,” Marshall muttered. “Ok, put it inside.”

Rudra opened the vault door and slid a metal mesh bed out, like one they have in morgue storages to keep dead bodies till the autopsy is done and police gets enough clues to solve the case. But in this scenario police won’t find anything, no case will be registered but only a missing report which will remain unsolved, because in a few hours the body will disappear from this contraption. As Marshall groaned while placing the naked corpse in it, Rudra made sure that’s its feet are towards the inside cylinder and its head towards the opening. Marshall sometimes asked why the head has to be outside and Rudra always said, “It seems the correct way to do it,” although it wasn’t imperative. Rudra pushed the bed inside the cylinder and closed it, and a sound resonated across the room which clearly said anything inside will be doomed. “Where is the bag?” Marshall asked with wandering eyes. Rudra went to the corner and picked a black bag with white dust floating all over it. Marshall opened the shutter as Rudra switched the light off and they got out. “Before putting in the ambulance, dust it and clean it off as much as possible,” Marshall said as Rudra passed the bag to Vikas. Marshall pulled the shutter down, locked it and placed the keys inside his pocket.
 

“You ok?” Marshall asked Rudra. “Looking little deranged, not sleeping properly or what?”
“No, I am good, just a little bored out of my mind,” Rudra said.
“Yes, I get it. Anyway business is booming, so be ready, we might get more than 2-3 a month, it will get difficult but I know you can do it,” Marshall replied.
Vikas sat on the driver’s seat and Marshall sat next to him as the ambulance backed up leaving the courtyard and revealing a small trestle table in the corner, then Rudra was able to shut the rusty gate and saw them go back to real world as he stayed back alone in the middle of nowhere. He turned and saw the courtyard floor, there was no shadow. He was alone in the dark.
He didn’t finish the task that night, as per Marshall he was supposed to finish it in the dark, but Rudra never did it. He always thought that this is the maximum rebellious he can be, and nobody is coming to check what he did in the night or even in the day, neither Marshall, nor the cops and or this corpse’s family. He went to bed to get away from this nightmare, and to relive some unpleasant memories from the past.
Why ambulance you ask? It was a perfect setup. Nobody is going to ask why an ambulance was carrying a dead body especially one which has some mantra in Sanskrit written on it about life after death, and with the word “charitable trust” written just below. Along with that, Marshall used to keep thickening the pockets of some traffic and patrols cops with green, and if anybody questioned, they always said that they were on their way to the cremation center which was just few km ahead of Rudra’s place. Marshall sat next to the corpse as he a family relation and Vikas in his white dress was a perfect act as the driver of ambulance. Although this kind of scenario never occurred.

Next morning, Rudra made a cup of black tea because there was no milk. He went to the courtyard and sat on the rickety trestle table and started to feel the sun. Sipping tea with his eyes closed, he thought of his friend, he remembered his father who was a very good friend of Marshall and some choices he made. There was no worry, but little guilt for the dead body in that metal structure that he had in the garage. Rudra was enjoying his tea as the air around him was mild, the sky was soft with milky shades of blue. But then…he abruptly opened his eyes and got down on feet with a jolt as he heard someone say, “Hi, how you doing.” Usually whenever he is sitting on that table he would lay back and hide himself from a car or any vehicle passing by, but he had never experienced a pedestrian.
“I am Kanika. I’m surprised to see someone here. I thought this place was abandoned.” A female form standing nearby, and the only thing that was keeping her at a distance from the alkaline hydrolysis machine was old rusty gate and small white walls, really put Rudra out of countenance.
“Oh, I am sorry I didn’t mean...”
“No, its ok, I don’t live here, my name is...” For a second Rudra ceased his breath and started to recollect set of guidelines from Marshall for this kind of situation, but he remembered nothing. “Rudra,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Kanika. Can I help you with something?”
“Oh no I was just surprised to see someone here, me and my friends are just here for a few days.”
“Oh... Where?” Rudra asked, and then she raised her index finger of her right hand and pointed towards a big house with a fancy hut-shaped elevation, situated only half a kilometer away which looked spooky due to lack of preservation—the only neighbour Rudra had. It was deserted around three years ago when the last resident of Thakur Villa accidentally fell from the first-floor stairs. She was a widow and when Marshall found this place for his operations four years ago, was aware of a lady who does not want to leave her house which was near her farm, on which her husband worked day and night till it was fecund, from which their family was able to build a 5-bedroom and 4-bathroom house, and because of which they were able to send their only son to Australia for his higher studies who later decided not to return, as India’s weather was too hot and water was not clean for him anymore.
“Ok,” Rudra was shocked and amused at the same time. “Actually, I am also here for a few days, I was doing some research,” Rudra said.
“Oh, what kind? I am also doing something like that. I am actually a journalist, on a sabbatical as of now but let’s see.” Kanika replied with a smile.
Rudra thought that she was closer to the truth than he was. He had a sudden urge to drop his eyes from her steady brown one, but he held her gaze.
“Wow,” he replied.

“I guess I should not disturb you anymore,” she said.
“Oh, it’s not like that.”
“Oh no I understand, anyway me and my friends got a lot of unpacking to do, I’ll see you around. Bye.”
Rudra with a smile and his palm waving bye, watched her go and saw her enter into that spooky house. Rudra stood stupefied as his nostrils were enjoying some rare fragrance in air, left by the lady. With his lip pursed he rushed back inside to pick his phone and message an SOS to Marshall. MAYBE SHE IS A GHOST OR SOME SPIRIT Rudra thought, and soon realized it was just a wishful thinking. SOS message will be forwarding the same bad joke he received yesterday. But he didn’t, because the job was pending and it will take around two hours for Marshall to reach here, and it will take four hours to finish the task. He closed the doors, dropped blinds and started to stare at his small house. He looked around and realized it was like a pig sty. Stained sheet on the sofa-cum-bed which was placed in the middle of room, thin plastic table conveniently positioned next to it and an old wooden chair laying upside down in the corner, which Rudra hurled on the wall few days ago in anger. Across the table there was a small kitchen platform flooded with dirty utensils, open jar of jam and God knows what, rolling on floor. Then he shook himself from the thought of hospitality, and surged toward a tall metal cabinet erected opposite his sofa-cum-bed. He placed both his hands on the side panel of the cabinet which was positioned next to the stinky open kitchen, and with his full strength thrusted it across the room and placed it blocking the main entry, and a door behind the cabinet was disclosed. He opened the door and barged into the garage.

He slid the metal bed out of the machine and looked at the dead body. Over the period of time he has seen all kinds of dead bodies—decapitated, rotten, throat slit, strangled, poisoned, chopped into pieces and many others, and all of his illness and puking due to the dead bodies were now behind him. But this was a treat, there was not a single mark on the body.
He looked at the dead face and said, “How you doing? Not so good I guess.”
“Well you are about to melt my body so that no one can find out who killed me, so I guess you are right,” the dead body replied. Dead bodies always replied whatever Rudra wanted. He usually did this because this is the only conversation, he can have face to face with anyone in the morning, but today was different and he was in a hurry so the chat with his dead friend didn’t last long.
“What’s up with the black patch on the neck?” Rudra asked to which the dead body didn’t reply anything. Then he closed and tilted the cylinder with the help of a small wheel located underneath its opening. Now the alkaline hydrolysis machine with the body was erected diagonal in the garage and in a position as it is about to be launched on the enemy. This was done so that the chemical can reach everywhere and do its job firmly. He tapped the screen and adjusted the time as per the body weight, and the process started. He placed a big plastic bucket beneath an L-shaped pipe coming out from the other end of the machine. Within an hour the bucket started to fill with rustic red color liquid, which he would dispose into a self-plowed drain in the back of the house that meets the nearby sewage treatment plant.

After the job was finished, he messaged Marshall and they arrived in evening. They had an intense discussion in Rudra’s bedroom. “What was she wearing?” Marshall asked. “T-shirt, pajama and shawl around her neck,” Rudra replied. He told them everything he had observed in that brief meeting with Kanika—her height, hair, face but he left out details about her beautiful brown eyes. He did exactly what Marshall had asked him to do in this kind of situation—that he is here to do some research and will be gone in a few days. He also told them that there was no vehicle on the road at that time and he saw her enter in that house, also that she was alone and a little scared when she saw him.
“She asked for your name?” Vikas asked.
“Yes,” Rudra replied.
“And you told her! Great... What are we going to do now?”
“Nothing,” Marshall’s voice was loud.
“Marshall, we always knew that someone will come there. Nobody is going to leave that big house just like that. Its invaluable,” Rudra replied.
“Yes, I agree but same here, Rudra. This place is also invaluable to us, especially now when business is booming. We are not going do anything as of now. But you have to be careful, Rudra, be extra cautious.”
Marshall and Vikas left. On his way back Marshall noticed a cup of tea on the trestle table in the courtyard and asked Rudra to keep it in. DAMM IT! Rudra thought. He was aware how Marshall is good at deduction. Somehow from this he will figure out that he met Kanika in the morning not the evening, but Marshall didn’t say anything and left with Vikas on his motorbike.
After two days Rudra got a bad joke message on his phone in morning. The ambulance arrived at night, Marshall asked is his new neighbor bothered him again to which Rudra replied “No”. Marshall was happy and he and Vikas left.
In the morning when Rudra was in the garage, he looked at another dead face and said, “How you doing.”
“Good... Why don’t you go and talk to her, she is just a few yards away, no one is coming to check, not at least today. Oh, please don’t worry, you are in the middle of nowhere,” the dead body replied.
‘Shut the fuck up!” Rudra replied and started the process.

Weight of the bucket filled with the liquid remains of the dead body always surprised Rudra and while dumping his today’s dead friend, he thought that he was right. And decided to go and meet Kanika.

While putting on his slippers he looked at his shabby t-shirt that he had not changed from last week or month, who remembers! He saw another shabby t-shirt lying on his bed which was relatively neat, and picked it up. Then he looked down to his jeans, it had rustic red color blotches all over it and Rudra was very well aware of what it was. With the t-shirt in his hand he sat on the bed with a thud. He wasn’t even sure if he even has any more jeans or anything that can cover his body waist below. Then his wandering eyes settled on an old trunk lying in the corner of the room behind upside down chair. He went there, opened it, got a jungle camouflaged pattern pant out. And then he started to walk on the `asphalt road with fatigue cracking.

It’s been years since Rudra had taken a walk on this road. Walking here never intrigued him because there was nothing around, nothing as in nothing. Just some wild plants followed from his house till the end of horizon, and on other side some prickly pears to which no one can dare to go nearby. As he crossed the road to reach his only neighboring house, he felt a sudden terrible pang. He thought he is having some kind of stroke but soon realized it was anxiety. After all these years living alone and facing the same two living people again and again, meeting a new person seemed like a daunting task. He looked at a big black gate of the house, hinged on the wall as tall as the gate.
“Hello.”
Rudra shifted his gaze from the gate to the terrace of the house and saw Kanika standing.
“Wait, I will come down.” She said and left.
By the time she came Rudra thought of some flimsy pretext which can be the reason for him standing in front of her house. He moved toward the gate when he saw someone was trying to budge it from inside. Kanika came out, Rudra saw that she had the same shawl around her neck she had the day they met first, although she was wearing a jeans and different t-shirt this time. Rudra held his hand out and said, “Hello Kanika, we met a few days ago…”
“I remember you. How are you?” Kanika said.
“Oh, I am good, just taking a walk. You know vitamin D,” Rudra said.
“Oh... Really,” Kanika replied with a smile.

The mid-afternoon sun was falling on Rudra’s neck making him sweat, and on Kanika’s eye making her squint. So, they decided to go inside her house and have tea.

A few hours later Rudra came back to his place and stowed his pant back into the trunk. He was happy. It’s been so long that he had a conversation with someone which was not about body, bones or blood. He enjoyed tea with her, he enjoyed sitting on the patio chair in her rain porch, he enjoyed looking at dead plants in that neglected small garden, on which she is now planning to plant some new flowers. After the excitement of meeting a new living being was over Rudra came back to his senses. He pondered for a hours about consequences of going to her house. He didn’t tell her anything about his work, obviously. But he was worried that someday she might come here and he has to invite her in. Which he can’t do. Even if she enters the garage, she won’t find a single drop of blood anywhere, but she will find the alkaline hydrolysis machine and then she can take a picture with her smartphone, and send it to the police. Police will come here and they will find a big machine which is used to melt murdered bodies, one 9mm auto pistol in the trunk and also one electric hacksaw with his damn fingerprints on it. The hacksaw use was a rare occurrence, only when a body was bigger and taller than the provided space in the alkaline hydrolysis machine. He, Marshall and Vikas will all go to prison. Then Marshall will pull his political strings and will make sure that Rudra will be in same prison as him. And then he will find Rudra and stab him to death.

Rudra laid in bed awake whole night, like sleep is for some other people.

Next morning when he got out of bed, he realized that he was just being over analytical. It’s not like that he was planning to rule the world with her, she is just a neighbor. And he was very much aware of Marshall’s prudent nature. He won’t do anything to her as of now as business was booming. Nobody wants uninvited attention. If Marshall did something, people will eventually come to know that she is missing. Her relatives, friends, parents will visit. Police and media will come. Imagine a headline: ‘GIRL GONE MISSING FROM MIDDLE OF NOWHERE’. How it sounds? Bad. Bad for business, maybe? And there was another trait of Marshall that was supporting Rudra’s thought—greed. And greed never ends.

Rudra decided to take a daily walk on that incessant road. But he was restricted due to the surge in work. Still he was able find time to get out of his confined space. Whenever he passed by her house, he glanced down on the only window visible from the road. Sometimes he saw a curtain moving behind the window but usually it was hard to tell due to the sun’s reflection. He got lucky again, after a few weeks when she saw him again from the terrace. It was a fruitful meeting over tea but after lot of spadework. On the other end of Rudra’s life, he was surprised and tired due to heavy workload. He wondered what kind of marketing strategy Marshall had adapted. He could have never imagined that without being in battle one can see these many dead faces every day. Although he was happy for himself as he didn’t feel need to talk to any of these dead bodies as he got Kanika now, but felt sad for the society, as it needed all these people dead. But there was something else which wasn’t adding up. Few weeks ago, when Rudra noticed a black patch on one of the body’s neck, he thought it must be a birthmark. But how was it possible that all people he has been disposing lately for good had the same birthmark in the exact same place? One night under bright moonlight when Marshall was getting back to the ambulance, Rudra asked him, to which he replied, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh, never mind,” Rudra replied and went inside. DO I HAVE TO TURN INTO A DETECTIVE TO FIGURE THIS OUT? He thought. In this detective role it’s not like he can get anyone to answer questions, he is forced to rely on observation, which only creates more questions.

A middle-aged dead woman lay on the metal mesh bed in Rudra’s garage. He turned her head towards the left and touched the black patch on her neck. He thought some kind of ink will come off, but it didn’t. It felt like nothing, as it was a part of her skin. Then Rudra conjectured, “Marshall is marking dead bodies,” he said it to himself. But how he was doing it and with what? And most importantly, for what? BUT DO I REALLY NEED TO KNOW? He thought. He realized that he had a house to live, a steady job, he works from home and got an acquaintance living few yards away with whom he can have pleasant conversations over tea. He doesn’t need to investigate anything about these so-called birthmarks.
 

“Hi, you own a white van, right?” Kanika asked Rudra when he was sipping tea sitting in her porch. “I saw one yesterday. If you go to the city would you mind bringing something for me? I hope its ok,” she said.
“Oh no, it’s not mine, it’s my uncle’s. He visits me once in a while, and brings me whatever I need.” Rudra replied.
EXCEPT DEAD BODIES…I DON’T NEED THEM, OR ATLEAST NOT ANYMORE. He thought.
“Oh, ok ok. Never mind.”
DAMM IT, SHOULDN’T HAVE TOLD HER ABOUT MY “UNCLE”. THIS CAN BE BAD. He thought and then looked at her, she smiled and he smiled back. And somehow his tension about revealing the hush-hush identity of his uncle was defused. SHE IS HARMLESS, AND DOES MARSHALL DESERVE TO BE CALLED MY UNCLE?
‘You know, Rudra, people don’t respect life like they used too. They take it for granted. You know what we need now in this world—a terminal disease,” Kanika said.
Rudra didn’t react, he was silent, staring in the sky.
“I am kidding,” Kanika said. “Don’t be so serious, dude. It’s a joke. I mean look at your uncle for example.”
NO PLEASE DON’T TALK ABOUT MY UNCLE, Rudra thought.
Kanika continued. “He comes here all the way from the city to give you things, whatever you need because he cares for you.”
HE USUALLY FORGETS MILK, Rudra thought.
“That’s what we need,” she said. Rudra wasn’t interested to talk about life or death, he had seen his fair share of life and also death. But it got Rudra thinking about Marshall. Although Rudra wasn’t related to Marshall, but Marshall treated him like he was one. His father and Marshall were business partners for a long time. Rudra’s father used to work at a cremation center and it is understood what kind of business partnership they had. In the early days when you needed to get rid of dead bodies the only solution was to burn them to ashes, and what can be a better place than a cremation center. Its legal, in a way. Rudra saw Marshall almost every other week during his childhood. And when his father passed away after his long illness, Marshall was the only one who stood by Rudra’s side. His few relatives came and gave him perfunctory “there there” and left a 16-year-old kid on his own. But Marshall helped him finish school and when he decided that he didn’t want to follow his father’s footsteps and wanted to serve his nation, Marshall never tried to deter his decision. And after few years when Rudra was on the run, completely defenseless and vulnerable, Marshall again came to his rescue. But his rescue led Rudra where he is right now. Rudra still remembers how he was coaxed into doing Marshall’s dirty work and how he ended up here. Completely alone with no future and no past.

Months passed by and Rudra’s life had been in accord with him. His job was going fine. Marshall and Vikas were coming at his place almost four times a week and he was doing what he was told to. He never considered himself as a criminal but a soldier, just following orders. Although he hadn’t not spent any night with Kanika, he had spent lot of afternoons sitting in her rain porch.

It was another sunny day with bright blue sky as Rudra finished his tea, got in his house, pushed his cabinet blocking main door and got in to garage. He slid the metal bed out from alkaline hydrolysis machine and looked at another dead face. He was young, good looking, with thick brown hair. IT’S A SHAME HE WON’T ABLE TO CHARM ANYONE, ANYMORE, Rudra thought. He turned around to pick the red bucket. “Rud..” a sound resembling his name came from somewhere. He turned around with a jolt and looked at the dead face with uneasiness. He hasn’t spoken to any of his dead friends in months because he didn’t have to. “Rudr…” again it was there but this time he was able to comprehend that it was coming from little far. “Rudra...” he heard clearly this time, and got little close to the garage shutter, and again he heard “Rudra”. He was aware that living in the middle of nowhere can lead to an empty space in one, and then that empty space had to be filled by someone else, and for Kanika the only available option was Rudra. He closed the machine, placed the cabinet in its place, picked his pants from the trunk and wrestled them up on his way to the door. He saw Kanika standing near his rusty gate as he closed the door behind him.
“Hi, I am so sorry to come like this unannounced but I need your help. It’s kind of getting out of hand and I can’t take it anymore.”
Rudra standing in the small garden in front of Kanika’s rain porch was listening to the constant buzzing coming from the bee nest built in the corner of the porch. He looked around and saw new flowers blossoming in the garden.
“Here take it,” Kanika came and handed him a can of pesticide.
“My brother said I can just throw some petrol and burn it but that seemed a little aggressive, so I got this, it will do the same but... It will not be hard to watch. I couldn’t do it. I am sorry. It’s scary you know, they are constantly buzzing and now they’ve started to get inside the house. One them stung me few days ago.’ She gave him the spray can and a face mask. She went and stood next to the patio chairs, in front of the main door of her house.
‘Bee spray: professional freeze 500gm’ read the label on the spray can. Rudra took a step ahead, aimed at the hive and pressed the button on top. It came out in a thin liquid jet, splashing and spattering the bee hive and wall alike. He caught some of the troops in mid-flight and they went in a death spiral, trying to keep it together but now they had no control. Other came scrambling out of the nest and tumbled straight down. The overall buzzing built with heightened new intensity. He doesn’t speak their language BUT IT IS EVEN NECESSARY TO TRANSLATE he thought. THEY ARE JUST PROBABLY CHOKING AND COUGHING IN THERE AND SAYING—‘WHATS WRONG WITH YOU MONSTER? HAVEN’T YOU DONE ENOUGH HARM TO SOCIETY’. When the struggle was growing more feeble, Rudra saw one especially tough victim dragging itself in slow circle and still buzzing. NOW WHAT HE IS TRYING TO SAY—‘HI MONSTER, GOOD JOB YOU KILLED US ALL, NOW PUT OUR DEAD BODIES IN YOUR MACHINE AND MELT US ALL, SO THAT NO ONE CAN FIND OUT WHO DID THIS. AND DON’T GIVE THAT SOLDIER FOLLOWING ORDER CRAP. YOU ARE DOING THIS BECAUSE YOU ARE A COWARD, NOT A PAIR BETWEEN YOUR LEGS. AND ALSO—YOU ARE A MONSTER’.

“Ok that’s enough. Come inside,” Kanika said and beckoned him, and Rudra roused from his reverie. He saw Kanika entering inside, and then he glanced down on the dead bee, one with which he was having a conversation. Rudra took his mask off and with huge guilt of genocide walked toward the door and crossed the threshold. The first thing that came to his mind while looking around was that she is a minimalist or miser. Just one couch, TV set hinged on the wall and few photo frames hanging in that colossal living room. Set of stairs going up in front of the main door and the kitchen next to it. Kanika came out of the kitchen with a water bottle and handed to Rudra. “Come on, let’s sit, might not be safe to go out now,” she said.
They both sat on the red velvet couch and she switched the TV on.
“What do you watch usually on TV?”
“Oh I don’t own a TV set,” Rudra replied.
“Oh my God…you don’t have a mobile phone, you don’t own a TV set. Dude, what you work all the time? You are the most diligent person I have meet in my entire life,” she replied.
It was true. Rudra was diligent and there was no red numeral on his calendar. He will work all the time if he is asked to do, but he was very well aware that is not the reason he doesn’t have phone number and or a TV set.
“Your pants, you wear them all the time. It looks authentic, were you in the army?” Kanika asked.
To Kanika it was an innocuous question, but for Rudra it was obnoxious. Rudra just kept staring at the TV with no response.
“Hey, you ok? Didn’t mean to stress you. I mean I get it, I like this shawl so it’s around my neck almost all the time,” Kanika said. Rudra turned his head toward her and with composure he replied, “No, its ok, it’s just a past and little painful. And yes, I was in the army but left around four years ago.”
“Oh ok, I am sorry. Were you hurt during?’
“No,” Rudra replied with a smirk. And then he sighed deeply, “I left because they wanted me to be a part of some procedure and I said no.”
“Are you trying to say some they wanted to do some experiment on you, like in Hollywood movies.”
“Hey it’s up to your imagination,” Rudra replied
“Well ok,” and Kanika started surfing channels on her TV set. “Hey you watch this show?” she practically yelled in excitement.
“Hey this guy, I have seen him.” he replied instantaneously with his finger pointing at the TV screen.
“One with brown hair? You must have seen him in Mumbai, they shoot it there only.”
“Oh ok,” Rudra said as his peculiar eyes were glued to the TV. It was a weird experience for Rudra, few minutes ago he saw this man lying dead in his house and now he is seeing him alive on this TV show which they must have recorded weeks ago. With this new revelation he thought, ‘WOW MARSHALL GOING GLOBAL.’ He was aware that near New Delhi, people getting killed is a common occurrence. But now Marshall was getting dead bodies from Mumbai. MAYBE HE CAME HERE AND WAS KILLED IN NEW DELHI, DON’T OVERTHINK THIS RUDRA, he thought.

The sky was almost dark streaked with red when Rudra was walking back to his house. A lot of questions hovered on his lips that he wanted to ask Marshall. There was enough light to be seen by. Rudra turned his head to look back and saw Kanika standing near the opened gate. She waved him bye. He did the same and beamed.

He opened the trunk and placed his camouflage pants back and donned his filthy jeans. He looked at the wooden chair, lying upside down. He grabbed and placed it upright next to plastic table, where it was supposed to be.
The next night when he was standing inside the ambulance he decided to pass on this celebrity gossip to Vikas. Although Rudra wasn’t the one who liked to engage in gossip like this, but he thought it will be great to have one conversation with Vikas in which his eyes are not glowing with malevolence. “Hey you know the last body you got here, he was an actor. I have seen him in a TV show,” Rudra said.
“No way! Really that’s awesome,” Vikas replied with dumb smile that Rudra had never seen.
“How can you be sure?”
“Told you man, I have seen him on TV.”
Rudra knew that Vikas was dumb enough to not even ask where he got the TV from. That’s why he decided to not to share it with Marshall.
“What’s the hold-up?” Marshall asked. “Are you cracking jokes in there? Do it later, get the body first for the fuck’s sake.”

They brought the body in and placed it inside the alkaline hydrolysis machine. Marshall and Vikas left, and Rudra for the first time in four years surprisingly fell into a deep and comfortable sleep.

Next day after his morning rituals Rudra as always pulled out the dead body from the alkaline hydrolysis to see who it was. But he backed away with a jolt, his eyes went wide and he stood there like a statue. His whole life flashed in front of his eyes—some things he saw were pleasant and some embarrassed him. In fact, revulsion and guilt took away any good feeling, making him sorry for certain things he had said and done. He took a step ahead to get back to his original position. Then he again glanced down at the body’s neck and an expression of horror dawned on his face. It simply took a few moments to process the presence of what he was seeing. “This can’t be happening,” Rudra mumbled to himself with heavy breath and ran out from the garage.

When Rudra said yes to this job that was because he wanted to get away from his past, his painful past—both emotionally and physically. What startled Rudra was a round red brown colour mark with three perforations in it and charred skin around its border. And this wasn’t the first time Rudra was seeing it. With panic in his eyes and sweat running from his forehead he messaged SOS to Marshall and realized why Marshall didn’t have an answer when he asked him about the marks on the dead bodies, because he wasn’t marking them.

Vikas and Marshall arrived in the afternoon on the motorbike. Rudra heard them but didn’t budge from the floor where he was sitting next to the trunk. His knees clutched to chest and his hands on his head due to a monster migraine. They knocked on the door, he stood and realized how long this small room has become as he wasn’t eager to get on the other end. He pushed the cabinet just a little back, so that he could open the door. Marshall and Vikas came in and they closed the door shut behind them. “So, what is it?” Marshall asked. “And why is the garage door open?” He gestured Vikas to close it and place cabinet back. Vikas took a step ahead.
Rudra spoke instantaneously. “Leave it like this only.”
“Why?” Vikas asked.
“What’s going on, Rudra?” Marshall asked and Rudra sat on the bed.
“Hey you fuck face, answer the question,” Vikas said.
Rudra stood and walked past Marshall and Vikas into the garage. Vikas followed and saw him standing near the alkaline hydrolysis machine with a dead body laid in the metal mesh bed.
“Why that thing is still there, you have not done it yet?” Vikas said. Marshall entered in garage.
“What is this? Ok, Rudra now I need to know what’s going on right now,” Marshall said.
“Where did you get this body, Marshall? And from whom? Please be specific,” Rudra replied.
“You bastard, we don’t need to tell you anything. Tell us why you have not done your fucking job,” Vikas said.
“Please stay out it, Vikas. I am talking to Marshall,” Rudra replied.
Vikas took a step ahead towards Rudra and said, “What you going to do about it?” Rudra was able to feel Vikas’s breath on his face and then Vikas rested his right hand on Rudra’s shoulder and said, “So?”
Rudra looked him in the eyes and pushed him hard. Vikas fell on the floor hitting the back of his head on the garage shutter. Pent up anger and fear were clearly visible in Rudra’s eyes. Vikas stood and pressed his hand on the back of his head to examine if there was any blood, there wasn’t. He charged towards Rudra with clenched fist but Marshall came in between and stopped him. Rudra was motionless. “Vikas, you go out and keep an eye. I will handle this,” Marshall said
“This is about that girl, isn’t it? I told you, Marshall he will do something stupid like this for sure,” Vikas said and left the garage. And like always, now there were two living beings, one dead being and a contraption in the room.
“Is it? Is it about that girl? I know Rudra you have been to her house a couple of times, or may be more.” Rudra looked up, tried to keep his eye line on Marshall but he couldn’t. He was embarrassed because of what he had done and also for lying to Marshall about meeting Kanika.
“It was Vikas’s idea to keep an eye on you. I was against it but it turns out I was wrong. But this is not about that girl this is something else. So, tell me what is it?” Marshall said with great composure standing right across Rudra with the contraption in between them.
“Can you see this and tell me what is it?” Rudra replied with his finger pointing on body’s neck.
“Don’t know and I don’t give a fuck. This could be the reason he is dead may be electrocuted or something.”
“No, it is not,” Rudra replied.
“Hey look at me, you know you lied to me, met that girl, you went to her house but I never said a word, because I trust you. More than anyone. But this has nothing to do with it, this is something else, something in your head, that’s it. I know you been through a lot and living here in the middle of nowhere can be big pain in ass, I can understand it. But you got to hold yourself just for a few more weeks. I will get you out of here.”
“What do you mean?” Rudra asked. Marshall walked around to him and rested his hand of assurance on Rudra’s shoulder and said, “Just trust me on this. Now you going to do your job?”

Rudra thought what a big ungrateful fuck he is, maybe Marshall is right this can be nothing or maybe it can be, he is not sure but why should Marshall suffer? He replied, “Ok I will,” in his soldier voice. His face was calm but terror was still lingering all over his eyes. He knew it wasn’t a soldier’s job to think, because if a soldier started to think they will not be in the army. And Rudra had no one and no other place to go.
Later that night Rudra looked at himself in the bathroom mirror under the glow of the dim white light. There was no one around, no living being or dead, he was alone. He pulled his t-shirt down and turned around to look at his back in the mirror. He touched those healed wounds that left scars. His terrified hand tried to touch those scars of perforation and burnt skin around them but he couldn’t. Scars were painless but still water started to stream from his eyes on is expressionless face.

The reason Rudra was horror stricken after seeing that wound on the dead body’s neck was because he knew how it felt.
Next morning Rudra heard a ping on the phone, he didn’t even bother to look. The ambulance arrived in the night and as it was backing in his porch Vikas yelled from the driver’s seat. He wanted him to open the loading door. Rudra was taken aback by Vikas’s loud voice and thought, WAIT AND LET MARSHALL COME OUT THEN WE WILL TALK. But he opened the loading door anyway as he felt a little grimness in Vikas’s voice. He saw Marshall lying down next to the body wrapped in white cloth. “It’s nothing, get the body out first. Hurry…” Marshall spoke. Rudra took a tentative step and saw that his pants were ripped over his left thigh exposing a bad gash.
“Are you out of your mind? What happened?” Rudra said. Vikas and Rudra supported Marshall between them, got him into the garage and laid him near the weighing machine. “The shutter is wide open,” Marshall said and after a long pause his voice rose with sharp pitch. “Have you guys lost your fucking minds?”

Rudra and Vikas both ran towards the ambulance and without the help of the stretcher got the body inside the garage, and rested it on the floor near the alkaline hydrolysis machine. Vikas pulled the shutter down, walked towards Rudra, who was on his knees trying to bandage Marshall’s wound with a white handkerchief, which probably belonged to Marshall.

‘We don’t have first aid or anything like it. Do you want to check the ambulance, there might be a kit or something,” Rudra spoke over his shoulder.
“No there is not, I have checked. What should we do now?” Vikas replied.
“Nothing, just do your job that has been assigned to you, Vikas help Rudra to get that body in and then go out to keep an eye. This is not that big an injury I can go to hospital tomorro...” Marshall stopped with his mouth ajar and then he finished his sentence with “Motherfucker”. He sounded frozen with terror. Vikas turned around and Rudra rose to his feet. A tall, bald, naked human figure was standing in the corner facing the wall with his hand to the side. Rudra looked down at the white sheet, which laid spread on floor. The terror Rudra felt had infused the atmosphere all around him, this is the first time a fourth living being was standing in that garage. Marshall and Vikas exchanged looks. Vikas grabbed the electric hacksaw from under the alkaline hydrolysis machine and jabbed it into spine of Rudra’s new dead friend, who was very much alive or not?

There was no motion in the garage, all four people were standing still under the cautions yellow light. Then Rudra’s new dead friend pulled that hacksaw out and flung it to the other corner and turned around. He had the most depilated body than anybody else, no eyebrows, no hair anywhere on him. He looked like a 6-feet tall infant who was just out of her mother’s womb. Vikas darted towards him to strike him down with his fist, but the dead man evaded the punch due to his quick footwork and grabbed Vikas’s wrist. Vikas tried to yank himself out but he couldn’t. He twisted Vikas’s arm so easily as if it was his car key and ivory cane of bone snapped out through a tear in Vikas’s forearm. Vikas sank to his knees as pain exploded in his arm. He wailed in such agony, had there been any windows with glass, that sound would have shattered it.
Marshall erected slowly as his feet were wobbly and Rudra’s feet started to back away. Marshall took a pistol out from his waistband. The sight of Marshall’s gun came with much relief for Rudra after he had seen what happened to Vikas. ONCE AGAIN MARHSALL CAME TO MY RESCUE, Rudra thought. That freak turned toward Marshall as he raised his gun and targeted his chest. Marshall open fired and the garage for few seconds was filled with crackling thunder. Bullets teared in the freak’s stomach, chest, thigh and even his face. Bullets jerked him, staggering him slightly but he kept moving. The silence in the garage after the pistol was emptied was petrifying. Rudra saw Marshall standing there dumbfounded looking at his pistol and he looked back to see Vikas, who had crawled into the corner and curled into a ball, weeping loudly. And before Rudra could even say a word, he saw that freak was standing an inch away from Marshall, staring into his eyes with a blank expression. He clenched his fist and in a split second with thud sound, he punched Marshall’s stomach, ripped past the stomach, epidermis, fat, organs and spine, and like a spear his hand emerged from Marshall’s back. Marshall let loose a guttural, chocked roar. He spat blood on the freak’s face, it dripped from his eyes, nose and cheek and he didn’t even blink once. With squelching sound, he yanked his hand out from Marshall’s stomach, and he fell on the floor, lifeless.

He came towards Rudra who was cold and lifeless too. Rudra was able to inhale foul breath of that thing standing in front of him. It took an extra heartbeat for Rudra to look him in the eye, his jaw trembling and all he saw was death in those blood clotted eyes. He could have asked—­what are you?—but somewhere Rudra knew the answer. He thought, THIS IS IT, and then Rudra realized that the freak was doing something with his nostrils, trying to draw air audibly through his nose, he was trying to sniff Rudra as is he was trying to figure out his breed. Once he stopped he glanced on other corner of the garage, where Vikas was lying, still weeping loudly. And then that freak walked past Rudra, sparing his life. Rudra could have asked that freak why, but he knew the reason.

Still trembling, Rudra turned around and saw the shutter wasn’t locked. He started to edge towards the exit. EXIT FROM THIS LIFE, EXIT FROM THIS WORLD, EXIT FROM THESE PEOPLE, he thought. He slowly pulled the shutter up, just enough for him to roll out. He saw that freak was pulling Vikas up from his hair. But Rudra snubbed his selfless emotions. He slowly pulled the shutter down and slid the bolt, locking it from outside.
Rudra looked at the ambulance, he looked at that incessant road and realized that the road goes somewhere. Somewhere no one knew about his past, somewhere he can start a new life, may be with Kanika. OH YES, KANIKA.

He could have run but he didn’t because once a soldier, always a soldier. And soldiers leave no man behind. He pulled the door of his house open and dashed towards the trunk. Tossing that wooden chair out of his way, he opened that trunk and got the 9mm automatic pistol out. He pulled the metal cabinet down that stood blocking the garage door and it fell with a thump. He climbed over it and kicked the door open. He saw that freak was strangling Vikas with one hand. Veins of darkness seeped in at the edge of Vikas’s eyes and he was thrashing weakly. Rudra pulled his gun up and took a shot. Although Marshall had already tried shooting that freak but nothing happened, there was nothing wrong with Marshall’s gun or bullet but with the target, and Rudra knew where to aim. The bullet hit the freak right where it’s supposed to be, on the side of his neck, making forth the perforation. He froze, leaving Vikas’s neck and fell back with thud as a plank, as if he had run out of battery. Rudra stepped ahead with caution, he looked at Vikas who had fainted, then he fired another shot in that freaks’ head, just to be sure. There were 8 bullets fired at him but not a single drop of blood oozed from his body, and Rudra wasn’t surprised. He looked closely at that freak—his eyes closed and he was at peace. Rudra looked around and studied the havoc, he saw Marshall lying in a pool of blood, Vikas passed out in the corner and a dead monster, only thing that was unharmed in that room was that alkaline hydrolysis machine. Rudra was hurt, he was hurt deeply.

Rudra shifted the body of the freak in the alkaline hydrolysis machine, finished the job that had been assigned to him by Marshall. Then he drove Vikas in the ambulance to the hospital. When Vikas came back to his senses Rudra asked him for the contact information from whom they were getting all these bodies. “Why? You don’t have to do this Rudra,” Vikas said with genuine concern.
“No I have to end this,” Rudra replied.

Then next night he took Marshall’s body to the cremation center. Standing in front of the pyre when the priest asked what was the relation between Rudra and Mahavir Prasad aka Marshall, he replied, “Son.”

He drove the ambulance back and parked outside his house. He cleaned himself and took a walk to Kanika’s house. She invited him in and he told her that his uncle passed away. “Oh my God, I am so sorry, Rudra. Is there anything I can do? Please let me know,” she said. Rudra knew that was perfunctory condolence but it was nice to hear that someone is there for him, since Marshall wasn’t. They spoke for hours, she asked him about his uncle’s family and Rudra lied about it.

“Hey by the way I will be going to the city,” Kanika said.
“‘Oh ok, when will you be back?” Rudra asked.
“What, are you going to miss me?” she said with a simper. “I will be back in a week. It’s just a medical procedure.”
“Medical procedure? What kind?” Rudra asked.
“Oh nothing big, it’s very common these days.”

Rudra looked into her eyes and then he looked at her slender neck sheltering inside the shawl.