The man perched himself on a tree that branched near to the house. He sat there in the darkness, wrapped up in a heavy black shawl looking over the movements of the people in the house. The upper floor seemed empty and dark. In the ground floor below, the landlord and lady were intently watching something on the television. It was the news. The man tried to look closely at what was being aired. A wry smile spread across his face.
“Another murder in the streets! The count goes up to twelve in three months. Another girl cut to death; this time in the outskirts of the city…..the victim, her age was 26…….
……..what are the police doing! Are women safe at all in this city especially at night! And the bigger question that still stands how close is our law and enforcement agencies in catching this serial killer. Every week goes by and we see a new corpse entering the morgue. Three months have passed by since the first murder and yet the police have not revealed any updates on this case……………..women are afraid, their families hopeless, the city is in terror while a monster is roaming through our lanes freely every night looking for its next victim. It could be anyone amongst us…..”
The anchor and the panelists elevated the tension in the newsroom and in each of those hearts that saw it live. The man saw it through the window, pretty amused at his own feats. Fame was certainly not in his purpose. Suddenly, a small square of light glowed up in the upper room. It was dark but the man sensed someone was there.
Must be the daughter, aahh!! His visit to the house today won’t go in vain. He waited on the tree for another hour. Meanwhile, there was some sort of disturbance in the ground floor. The landlord and the lady, seemingly alarmed by a phone call, ran into frenzy and within a few minutes both of them rushed out of the house. The pet dog barked quite a few times amidst all this, and then ceded back to its kennel beside the main gate.
The coast was clear. The man’s eyes glistened from within his shrouded face. A helpless and lonely target, much easier than he had thought it to be. He perched higher onto the tree and somehow climbed onto the roof. Taking out a hairpin from within his pocket he unlocked the door with experienced hands. A dark and gloomy staircase led into the house. Why these people never turned on the lights here? He slowly tried to make his way to the daughter’s room. The stairs took him to an equally ominous looking passage.
Thoughts filled the man’s head.
All of these had started in necessity. Poverty and misfortune had taken away everything from his life save his daughter. So when she developed an incurable disease, he descended to madness. There weren’t much medical resources back at his village and he thought going to an urban doctor would be futile. So he turned to help from the tantric who had healed many in his village. There wasn’t a problem he couldn’t solve, a disease he couldn’t cure; people from three neighboring villages came for his guidance and blessings. He was believed to have struck a deal with the devil himself by using his black magic. The tantric relayed to him one of the toughest forms of tantra that fulfills any wish of its practitioner but it required a sacrifice.
The tantric told him that the sacrifice of nine virgin girls on nine consecutive Saturdays, starting from the month of Shrabon, would be required. Their severed heads would be offered to the devil and their holy blood would be required to complete the sacrifice. He agreed. Nothing seemed more important than this daughter’s life, nothing was. So when the man killed the first of those nine girls he felt no remorse, no pain. Neither fear nor guilt tore up his soul. He carried an axe in his bag. With one fine swoop he severed off the head and drained out the victim’s blood in a container. As the tantric performed the rituals in front of a blazing fire, he sat there, his eyes affixed on the severed head. When told to offer it, he flung it into the fire. The gushing flames reflected in his bloodshot eyes. A soul for his daughter’s life. That was it. Eight more and she would be alive as ever. The chants of the tantric echoed through the night forest and faded out into the darkness. He peeped into the man’s stone-dead face. The cold blooded ferociousness of the killer worried even him.
Soon this became a weekly habit. He would choose a random target every week, keep a track of their movements for two-three days and go for the kill on the Saturday nights. The man began realizing that with each kill he was starting to enjoy the process, so much so that when the ninth murder was done, he didn’t stop. The terror in the eyes of the prey gave his heart a weird sense of satisfaction; their desperate cries for help seemed to extinguish a fire within him. He tortured them, abused them and saw them beg for mercy, revering every moment as he slowly pulled the life out of their bodies. Once he started pounding the naked body of his victim with his axe and smeared the blood on his face as prize of the kill. The stone-cold face burst out into a noisy laughter. He began dancing around the headless corpse. The fame that came suddenly was a cherry on the cake. He was trending everywhere but as a threat and for some reason, unknown to him, he was loving all of it.
The tantric’s magic bore fruits. His daughter got better and now she could walk and play like before. Occasionally she would call from her village and chat with her father. The peril of the serial killer haunted her as well, although she was far away from the city. Her father, in a reassuring tone would say there was nothing to worry about since he was always there to protect her.
The man made it to the room where he had seen the light. A small red night lamp was lit in the right corner. He saw the daughter was sleeping on the bed. A broad smile lit across his face. She was a fresh lass of sixteen waiting to be devoured. The man took out a handkerchief dipped in chloroform and bent to press it against her face when suddenly a phone kept on the bedside table started ringing. He jumped few steps back in horror and fell down. He scrambled through the floor and searched for a place to hide. What ill luck was he carrying today! Of all the murders he had done this one was proving to be the most jinxed.
Surprisingly, the girl didn’t wake up. The phone kept ringing and after sometime it stopped. He peeped from under the bed where he had hid. The room felt oddly silent and suffocating. The crickets which were chirping outside seemed to be inaudible here, even the leaves of the trees which were dancing in the wind now seemed to be at a standstill. The red hue of the night lamp fell on the sweet face of the girl. The man brushed off his thoughts and took a second attempt. This time the phone blared out with a louder noise. What the hell was happening! This time it continued and the man got frightened that the girl might wake up. He hid behind the large cupboard beside the door. The girl was still asleep.
Suddenly, something dropped from above and fell on his nose. It was a piece of paper. He picked it up and read. A chill went down his spine. It was a message. It read “PICKUP THE PHONE”. The man peeped at the bed in disbelief. Was he hallucinating? Was this some sort of wicked drama? He went beside the bed again. The girl was still asleep peacefully. The phone rang again. He picked it up this time. A video started playing. It showed a one-storeyed house. From a distance a figure was approaching it. The man looked at it with wide eyes. He knew this place. It was his house. The figure was now properly visible. It was a man covered in a thick black shawl. He held something in his hand. It was an axe. The man felt for the one in his bag. It was still there. Yet this sinister apparition was advancing swiftly towards his house carrying a weapon like his own. The man watched in dazed horror as the video progressed. A little girl came out of the house with a pile of dishes to wash at the pond nearby. The figure seemingly changed his direction to hers.
“What the hell is this!” the man screamed and raised his head. What he saw sent shivers down his spine. The girl, who was asleep, had now sat up on her knees, with her head hung forward menacingly and all her hair covering her face.
“Does this seem all familiar to you?” she asked in a shrill voice. Her laugh was haunting.
“Who are you? Are you doing all this? Why?”
“Why? Why did you do all that you did?”
The man checked himself and said in a broken voice “Please stop this. Don’t kill her.” The girl laughed more at this.
“Do you even recognize these words you’re speaking? I don’t think your dictionary tells people to stop at such pleads.”
The man ran to the door and opened it and disappeared. He returned few seconds later with a face that was mixed with fear, anxiety and rage.
“What sort of mirage is this? What is happening here? Stop this man!” the voice gradually turned from a pleading tone to a growl. The girl laughed more at this.
“You should have understood, foolish man, the sacrifice was never meant to be of those nine girls. You were just a means to some greater designs. The sacrifice will be now.”
“Stay away from my daughter!!” the man took out his axe and swooped it wildly at the girl’s face. She dodged it and in no time was at the other end of the room. The man jumped and again brought down the axe on her. It missed her and broke the wall instead. The girl was besides the cupboard now. The man was raging in anger. With each step the unknown assassin took towards his daughter, he grew wilder and angrier and desperate. His eyes grew red. He followed the girl all around the room slashing his axe upon the cupboard, the walls, the bed and everywhere else. He broke the furniture, cracked the mirrors and the windows. As death advanced upon the little girl, unaware of the impending doom, back at the village, the man chased the apparition of the girl wildly around the house. A mad chase of the prey and the hunter was going on. The man’s rage had made him aimless. He forgot if this carnage was more to kill the apparition or to save his daughter. At all the times he had murdered before, it was soothing to him but this time it felt like a burning splinter on his skin, the targets were never personal but this time it was more than ever, previously it was a part of a process, this time killing that apparition seemed to be his only goal. He raised his axe another time to kill but suddenly he felt someone took it out of his hand from behind and….
The landlord and the lady returned to their house next dawn. They had suffered the irreparable loss of their daughter last night. Imagine their plight when upon entering their house with their daughter’s body, they found it was completely plundered. Yet more horrifying was the sight of a headless body hanging from the ceiling of their daughter’s room. A bloody axe was stuck on his chest.