Predator (28 page)
All they wanted was your pride
,
But your memory survived
Yes, your memory survived
Hey little girl, go your way
We will see you some day
In a better place
You lived your life with grace
Yes, you lived your life with grace
—Paddy Padmanabhan @ Clearstrings
The End of Insanity
It was 4 a.m. when Joe looked around the cell he shared with five other inmates who were hardened criminals. It didn’t take him long to find out that they were homosexuals. Over the past few days, these hard-core sex offenders had sodomized him repeatedly, day in and day out. He was in excruciating pain, he hurt in places he didn’t know existed, and his legs felt like jelly. He could barely lift himself from the floor. He felt his spine had been broken. His arm was dangling at a weird angle and he had no feeling left in it.
Inspector Khan had visited him a couple of hours ago and had suggested a way to end the pain. He’d told him how Salmonella and Chris had met their gory ends. He’d brought along six bottles of Joe’s masterpiece, Silver Mountain, aged six years and placed it on a tall, narrow table.
The five inmates had polished off a bottle each and had taken turns to brutalize and violate him over and over again ever since the Inspector left. The bloodstains on the floor were horrendous and Joe couldn’t stop wondering which part of his body was haemorrhaging so badly, and how long he would last at the rate that he was bleeding out.
The noose that hung from the prison ceiling was his doorway to salvation. The gaoler watched from a distance as Joe struggled with injured back and broken arm to climb the tall table. He watched silently as Joe slid the noose around his neck and jumped off the table. He waited patiently for several minutes until Joe’s body had stopped twitching.
The inmates snored as the prison guard breezed into the corridor and unlocked their cell. He whistled tunelessly as he cleared away the empty bottles and moved the table out of the cell. He wiped the floor clean of the bloodstains, and lethargically locked the cell again.
He glanced back to see Joe’s lifeless body suspended from the ceiling. The tuneless whistling grew fainter as he wandered off down the dark passageway dragging the table behind him.
The TVs in the canteen flashed images of Ram Singh and Joe as the main accused in the rape. The newsperson was describing the crime in gruesome detail. The anger among the inmates was tangible as they saw the main accused in their midst.
Ram Singh lay in the prison hospital. One of the inmates had managed to sneak up behind Ram Singh and hit him on the head with an iron rod. Ram Singh’s chances of survival were negligible for want of proper medical attention in the prison.
The prison warden later claimed that it was a simple case of one-upmanship among the jailbirds and regretted the fact that there were no vehicles to spare to take him to the big hospital in the city.
Hound Comes Undone
It was almost 4 a.m. when Motormouth cruised the long winding road out of the small sleepy town. The moon kissed night nestled the sleepy town in a warm embrace of slumber. The fading stars shone silently and augured a new beginning. The cool night breeze seemed to cleanse the town of evil.
It had been a long journey as Hound looked out of the window one last time at the sleepy town that seemed to bid him a reproachful adieu. He had failed miserably as a brother and hadn’t been able to do anything to save his beloved little sister from the Predator. The spirit of Grace would live on and Hound would live in remorse for the rest of his life.
Derek’s heart was heavy with guilt. If only one could turn back the clock, there were so many things he would have done differently; but now it was too late. Derek stared at the fingers of dawn getting ready to erase the moonlit night and preparing a brand new canvas for the day. Perhaps this was the way it was meant to be, thought Derek. Life would go on, but happiness would always elude him.
Goose drove slowly. He realized that he was in no hurry to reach his next destination anymore. Grace would always remain in his heart, not as a burden, but as an inspiration.
Chief knew what he had to do. He would use the power of his pen to create a better world for women and children. To his mind, there was no point in looking back. One needed to learn from one’s experiences, both good and bad, and then forge ahead. This was his destiny.
The Predator Lives On
A lone owl sat watching the little girl inside a large, lonely townhouse, surrounded by trees. Barely a teenager, she was at the computer, unsupervised, and chatting online with a stranger in the wee hours of the morning. A stuffed Raggedy Ann doll was sitting by the computer. She’d liked his name instantly for he called himself ‘Cute_li’l_Bunny_Boy’.
She tiptoed to the door and peered out of her room to see if anyone else in the house was awake. She then locked her door from inside and returned to the computer. She sat in front of the computer and switched on the inbuilt web camera. The old man who came online almost immediately, seemed really nice to talk to.
He was patient and understanding, and really listened to her as she rambled on about her school, her imaginary friend, her toys and her dreams. It was something that her busy parents never seemed to have the time to do. The stranger was very nice and promised to meet her soon and bring her a gift.
He said that he’d been hurt in the past and was, therefore, a very sensitive person. He’d taken off his clothes and shown her the scars on his inner thigh and stomach. He’d asked her to show him her scars if she was comfortable with taking off her clothes.
He had asked her to get naked while he took pictures of her little muffin. It had taken a lot of coaxing and cajoling but she had relented in the end.
She wanted to please her new friend and wanted to be nice to him.
He had shown her his sausage and said he would teach her to play with it if she brought a gift for him.
She was very confused but had agreed to play along so he wouldn’t get cross with her. He’d told her that he liked to lick muffins of little girls.
She promised to give him her Raggedy Ann doll if he would be her friend and not hurt her.
The owl that sat by the window took flight when she said she would come to meet him at the old garage by the lake early in the morning, the very next day.
Recorded Statement of the Little Girl
‘I went there. I even took my Raggedy Ann doll with me. I wanted to gift it to him. He was there by the lake. He blindfolded me and told me that he wanted to give me a surprise. When I opened my eyes, I found myself inside a garage. I had never seen that place before.’
‘I was scared, but when he held my hand, I felt reassured. He offered me a glass of ice-cold lemonade. I drank it all. It was nice. I suddenly felt very sleepy and I felt a pair of rough hands moving all over my body. He wanted to hurt me.’
‘I must have slept. When I woke up, my stomach was hurting real bad. Everything hurt. I had no clothes on me. I was still inside the dark garage. He was nowhere to be seen. There was blood all over me. I cried a lot. I called for Mommy. I hurt all over.’
‘When I turned around, I saw my Raggedy Ann Doll had been ripped apart. He had hurt her too. I tried to walk but I couldn’t. I crawled and picked up my doll. I wanted to go home to Mommy and Papa. I was lonely. I was scared. He had hurt me real bad and I couldn’t stop crying.’
‘Now they tell me that the angels may come for me soon. I cannot walk anymore so the angels will give me wings to fly. I just wanted a friend. He had seemed so nice. But he hurt me real bad.’
‘I want to run but they say I cannot move anymore. Only my lips move. Maybe, I’m going to heaven soon. I hope my little sister will never meet that horrible man. I hate computers. Mine lied to me.’
The little girl died thirty-six hours after recording this statement. The man who did this to her was never found.
Owner of a Lonely Heart
Inspector Khan sat at Celina’s grave, watching the sunrise. He suddenly felt very old. Nikita who sat beside him, gently nudged him and handed him a bunch of beautiful red roses from her basket of bouquets.
Dr Screwalla silently prayed for the child’s soul to rest in peace. Dr Pinto cleared Celina’s grave of the imaginary dirt and then helped Dr Raman, Nikita and Inspector Khan decorate it with flowers. They sat in silence for a while at the graveside.
When the inspector and his A-team finally rose, their eyes were suspiciously bright. Nikita hugged the Inspector, who surreptitiously wiped his eyes. The dam was breaking finally. Celina had flagged up the existence of evil, and her soul would now rest in peace because her father had brought down the Predator and successfully put an end to his macabre mission.
Dawn seemed beautiful once again.
WORDS OF
CAUTION
By Ray Wang
As I see the blue sky, I wonder if there is heaven
All I can see is a vast desert, as flies above it a black raven
The garden was green, my world was florid
Before the claws of hell left it all morbid.
Was it my mistake, why was it saturnine?
The tech savvy men had a virtual world online
Let the digital footprint grow, move away from mundane
Who’d know then that it’s all so inane
Photographs and memories, I thought it was personal
At the same time knives were sharpened in the deadly arsenal.
A soul so tattered, the dream bubble burst
No matter how it oozes, it’ll never quench the Devil’s thirst
As tears gush down the wounds so sore
I bid goodbye, gone are the days of yore.
She had curled up in a corner, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. Everything had happened so fast. One second, she was buying the dress of her dreams, and then in a flash she had lost everything. The headlights of each passing car in the street rayed through the room briefly. It felt like hours but only a few minutes had passed since she became a privacy pauper.
She slowly picked herself up and her surface device – her cell phone. It was broken and cracks radiated out of the point of impact in a fine network of veins arranged like a cobweb. In the dimly lit room, she could see the splintered reflection of herself. She felt violated like a physically raped woman. She had been digitally raped. ‘Did she even have a future … or was it time to call it quits and just die?’ she wondered.
She still couldn’t figure out how it had happened. When she woke up this morning, Lindsay was one of the digerati. She was connected on every network and shared every check-in with her friends. She posted every picture on her phone. With a thousand followers on Twitter and seven hundred friends on Facebook, she lived the celebrity lifestyle. Companies would make her offers and seek her input on everything.
Among her classmates, only Sanjay had more friends on Facebook than she did, but that was only because he had an older brother who had set him up. He belonged to a very large family and his cousins linked everyone on their lists. Meanwhile, her childhood friend Chi-Pei had more Twitter followers but that was because she had a racy and almost borderline raunchy photo of herself as her avatar. Lindsay couldn’t convince her Victorian mom that this was appropriate.
