Suspense Short Story – Troubleshooting (Killer Jeans Series – Part 2)
Photo credit: chelle from morguefile.com
“Should I tell her?”, thought Shivani, as she sat there with Roohi, looking at the mangled remains of the dog her friend had murdered a few hours ago. Instantly rejecting this thought she looked around the plush house and urged Roohi to tell her what had happened.
“I don’t know..”, said Roohi slowly and uncertainly. “What do you mean?”, asked Shivani with great foreboding as her mind screamed, “What is happening to us!?”
“One minute I was scratching his belly, the next he flashed his teeth at me. And then I saw him just lying there like this. I really don’t know what happened, Shivani, please believe me!”, she said and started sobbing even more than she was on the phone. “How am I going to tell Mrs. Verma what I’ve done?”, she managed to ask in between some very loud sobs.
“I say you run. I don’t see any other way out of this”, said Shivani so quietly that Roohie stopped mid-heave and just blinked at her.
“But.. But.. She’ll know who did it, won’t she?”, she asked dumbly.
“Well, it would only be a guess. She will never know for sure!”, offered Shivani, wishing she had stepped out of the shower and headed straight to bed instead of checking her phone first.
“That’s not right, Shivani. I’m going to wait here and own up to this. She may get very angry and upset, but when I tell her about the blackout, she’ll know I didn’t do it on purpose.” Shivani had no other choice but to wait with Roohi. Both tried not to look at the poor dog who was now beginning to attract flies.
Mrs. Verma was to be back by 8pm, but when she didn’t show up even until 8:30, Shivani could no longer sit still, “I need to use the restroom”, she announced and took off in search of a toilet.
As she walked about the house peering from room to room, she dreaded what was going to happen next. She was scared for Roohie. What if Mrs. Verma phoned some animal rights people? They could both get into some serious trouble. Finally she found a bathroom on the far end of the first floor.
As she shut the door after her, Shivani heard the door bell ring. “Poor Roohi’s gonna face the music all by herself now thanks to my bloody bladder”, she cursed herself as she sat on the toilet seat. She considered escaping through the massive window behind the commode, but smacked herself for even thinking about leaving her friend in such distress.
As she walked down the corridor to get back into the living room, she was surprised at how quiet the whole house was. That’s funny, she thought, “I may have anticipated this woman’s reaction wrongly. Maybe she didn’t love her dog so much after all?”
She walked back into the living room and found the front door wide open. It struck her then that something was wrong.
She forced herself to look at the dog, and then her knees gave way when she saw what lay a few feet to the right from it. A middle-aged woman in a gorgeous red saree was lying lifeless, eyes bulging, tongue sticking out grotesquely, on the floor. She was probably Mrs. Verma.
When Shivani came back to her senses, she stood up, bent over and vomited.
Roohi just ran and ran and ran. Suddenly she stopped because she didn’t know why she was running. Mrs. Verma had picked up the phone to call the police, and the next thing she knew was that she was running. “I cannot go to prison for killing a dog!”, she screamed, but she wasn’t sure about that. Mrs. Verma was a rich and influential woman. There’s no saying what she could or couldn’t do.
Shivani stopped retching when she heard a car pull up in the driveway. “Oh sh*t!”, she said as she ran into the nearest bedroom she had found on this floor while looking for a loo. This one had French windows, so she thanked her stars, quietly unbolted the latch and fled into the night.
Mr. Verma walked into the house at 9:30pm to find a dead dog and an equally dead wife, both lying on his expensive beige carpet. He was shocked, but he quickly collected himself, strode over to the telephone and rang up ACP Gupta.
Roohi found herself in the middle of nowhere. “How long have I been running? And where AM I?!”
A voice bellowed over a megaphone, “Roohi Shah! We’ve got you surrounded. Step into the clearing and surrender yourself.”
“What!? They’ve sent a whole team out to arrest me for killing a dog? I wouldn’t wish such neighbours upon my worst enemy!”, growled Roohi. Just then, an officer tapped her on the back, and told her she was under arrest.
And then she was running again. “How did I get out of that one?!”, she wondered.
“Roohi Shah! We will NOT hesitate to shoot you on sight for the serial murders you’ve committed tonight! I repeat, we will NOT hesitate to shoot you!”, she heard him say over the megaphone again. “What serial? What are you talking about?”, she screamed as loudly as she could. The voice continued, “You are under arrest for strangling and killing your neighbour and a police officer. Stop running RIGHT NOW or else we WILL shoot you!”
“WHAT?!”, she shrieked in a high pitch she never knew she could manage, before hearing a deafening gunshot. It took her a few seconds to realize they had actually shot her without waiting for her to stop running. “They actually shot me!”, she said weakly and then there was darkness as she came crashing to the ground. She was declared dead on the spot.
At 2:24am, in vault B16 at the city morgue, Roohi’s eyes suddenly flew open. “Why is it so cold in here?”, she asked, but there was no one alive there to answer her.
***
(to be continued)
