The exceptional

“Mass murderer at large!” screamed the headlines of every news channel that mattered, and even in those that didn’t. It is always easy to get terrified, and easier to terrify the rest. The dark, halo around the unknown killer was magnified a thousand times by the media. But why all the furor over a couple of killings (five, to be precise) in a country where thousands die daily due to starvation? The reason was simple. The murderer was not merely satisfied by killing. The dead bodies were found decapitated, swollen, with maggots feasting over the abdomen. It seemed as if the victims didn’t die an easy death. The manner of their death, or rather the hypothesis of the same, chilled the media and the audience alike. “Darling,” drawled Shekhar over the phone, “I am missing you!” On the other end was Rani, his girlfriend for the last five years. “I miss you too, sweetheart!” Rani replied coyly. “When was the last time we made love?” Shekhar asked, a clear hunger sounding in his voice. “Ummm, last month. It’s been so long now! My teddy doesn’t love me anymore!” Rani sobbed in a falsetto voice that only a girl can summon. “Today, 4 PM, my place,” Shekhar cut the phone with the words that mattered. He was missing his girlfriend too much to think about his pending projects, which had, in the first place, caused so much gap between their meetings. “One afternoon,” he said to himself, “is nothing. I deserve the break. And Rani needs it too.” For those who don’t know about him, Shekhar is a brilliant, often eccentric scientist at ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization). A Doctorate in Rocket sciences, his work in designing India’s premier satellites has been appreciated at the highest levels. Currently he is working on one of the most ambitious projects- a “spy satellite”. He refuses to divulge any further details regarding his project, and so Rani, his girlfriend thinks he is ignoring her. Shekhar was going through the newspapers when he stumbled upon the headlines of the mass murderer. Normally it wouldn’t have interested him much, but the journalist fancied himself as a neo-Sherlock and had carried out his own interpretations. They made a fun read, nonetheless. “…………and one hypothesis over the identity of the murderer is that it is a woman. Yes. An interesting lead that has come up points towards this direction. All the victims so far, have been men. All young, and upon searching their data, drawing a high salary. It could be possible that a woman trapped them with her looks and used their money. When they were no longer needed, she disposed them off in a manner that nobody would recognize the victims. Again, people don’t relate women to such heinous crimes......” Shekhar pondered over the lines. His researcher’s mind was already churning facts and spewing out solutions. The writer was not all that wrong after all, he thought. Women usually don’t commit such crimes and it is easy to camouflage if you are a woman. Shekhar wondered whether he knew the murderer. It would be an interesting juxtaposition of fate, he thought, if the murderer were his girlfriend. Hypothesizing further, he wondered what would be his reaction if Rani were to attempt to kill him. Perhaps he would hit her, he decided. But the very thought made him shudder. Hitting Rani seemed impossible for someone as gentle as Shekhar. Perhaps he would gladly accept death at the hands of the one he loved more than his own life. “But why would she kill me?” he thought next. He was right. Most crimes need a motive. Here, there was none. But then the newspaper article’s lines came to his mind, “It could be possible that a woman trapped them with her looks and used their money. When they were no longer needed, she disposed them off in a manner that nobody would recognize the victims…” He looked at the clock. It would be still three hours before Rani would come to his place. Too much time to bear the uncertainty, he thought. He picked the phone and asked Rani to come to his place immediately, as he had another appointment in the evening. He had to find out the truth, lay his doubts to rest. A bell rang. Shekhar jumped up all of a sudden. It was almost as if his trepidation was true. Rani walked into his house. Shekhar stepped back nervously. Rani gently passed her arms into Shekhar’s and hugged him. Sensing her stiff, she whispered, “What’s the matter darling? Too much work? Let me relax you in the way only I can!” Shekhar smiled. Rani thought it was because of her cooing the sweet words in his ear. She was partially right. It was because of her. But Shekhar was thinking how funny it would seem to an invisible observer that a girl first makes love with her boyfriend and then murders him in cold blood. Lost in ruminations, he never noticed when Rani had removed his shirt and was now removing her own clothes. Nor did he notice when she (or was it him?) removed his pants and then proceeded to remove hers. He never felt the passionate kisses that his girlfriend placed upon his lips, his cheeks, his neck and his chest. He didn’t hear the soft moans of Rani as he made love to her, almost absent mindedly. He never felt the nails digging into his back out of sheer pleasure that only a peak of delight during making love can bring. “Rani, can I ask you something?” Shekhar asked, caressing her hairs as her naked body lay on him. “Ask me anything, my love. But tell me, why are you looking so tired?” “My answer lies in my question.” Rani looked at him, dazed. She often had to put up with the idiosyncrasies of Shekhar, including his habit of speaking in complicated, roundabout sentences. “Tell me, will you murder me?” “What?” Rani was genuinely shocked. She had all the reason to believe that she had just slept with a lunatic. “Just say yes or no.” “Shekhar, are you fucking crazy? You must work lesser these days. All this work is getting into your head!” “JUST SAY YES OR NO!” Shekhar yelled. “If you ask me that question once again, I think I will definitely murder you!” “I knew it! So my suspicion was right all along. You are the one who has killed those five innocent men, haven’t you?” Rani slapped him once. And then one more time. “Its over between us! I bore your hectic schedules, your stupid habits and flights of fantasies only because I thought you loved me. It seems you don’t love me anymore. Our relation is dead today, and the murderer is you!” Saying this, she started dressing up. It was then that she heard her own voice playing over a recorder, “I think I will definitely murder you” over and over again. She turned around to see Shekhar smiling mischievously, with a mad glint in his eyes, something she had never seen before. “Walk one more step and I shall release this tape outside to the media,” he said threateningly. “Shekhar,” Rani pleaded with folded hands, “please understand. I am not the killer. I am in a relationship with you over the last five years, remember? Then how can I kill five men in a month and you would not know about it?” “We shall see about it once I bring my sodium pentothal. One shot and you would spill ut the truth.” “Shekhar, please don’t…” Rani pleaded, hopelessly, and to little avail. Shekhar seemed adamant in his delusion. “Now, I have to make sure you don’t escape,” saying this, he held her hands and dragged her to his closet. He opened it and pushed Rani inside it, saying, “Now you won’t think of escaping anytime soon. Wait for my truth serum baby!” Shekhar left with a mad, delusional glint in his eyes. It was dark inside. And suffocating. Rani was afraid of both. What was supposed to be a romantic evening between two lovers had turned out to be a grisly affair for her. One thing was sure- she was going to press charges against Shekhar. He might be mentally delinquent but she didn’t have to suffer for that. But for that to happen, she had to walk out of here, alive. And the suffocation and darkness was making it difficult for her. It was then that she noticed something strange. A rancid, odour coming from somewhere nearby. It was so strong that it shut out her brains for a moment. Groping in darkness, her hands finally found something. It seemed to be the source of the odour. As she passed her fingers over it, she felt two empty sockets, an elevation in the middle, and something fuzzy on top. In a shock she dropped the object. It was a human head she had held! And then the realization dawned unto her. Her boyfriend was not crazy. Not only crazy, actually. He was a demented, delusional murderer. She screamed aloud at the realization. There was no response. She kept on screaming till her throat started hurting, in the futile hope that it would attract the attention of someone who would eventually rescue her. It was of no use. And then something rolled on to her and hit her head softly. It was another head. Her eyes, having adjusted to the dark, saw two blank sockets staring at her. She could perhaps make out a thin outline of a smile on the decapitated head, as if it were inviting her to its home. Rani screamed again and threw the head away. She started banging the door of the closet. Shekhar was pacing across the room. It was then that he heard Rani’s shouts. “Serves her right”, he muttered. After all, each of those five men he killed, each locked in his closet till the last breath escaped their lungs and they would be suffocated by their own carbon dioxide, had confessed to having an affair with Rani. She had cheated him not once, but five times. And she was cheating him even before they were in a relationship. The first to die, Anil, had confessed that he liked Rani in school. School! So promiscuous was his girlfriend! Though nobody said that Rani loved them too, but for five men to fall in love with her, she must be sending them some sort of a signal to entice them into her honey trap! She deserved the worst kind of death. Soon enough, the bangs silenced, replaced only by a sobbing voice. Soon that would be silenced too, thought Shekhar, as he switched on the news channel and smirked at the theories of the identity of the serial killer. Usually, he never touched a woman. But Rani, she was an exception, and her murder, was exceptional.