Chapter 4 - THE DEVIL
The spicy headlines had the couch potatoes glued to Dee News; their posture alert and attentive, contrary to the usual. As they listened in rapt attention, the pin-drop silence was only broken by their occasional munching of fries.
Elsewhere in the city: Sound of claps
"Amazing, splendid!! That’s what I call the perfect initiation," said the masked man to the female captive as he switched off the television. Then, as if mocking her plight, he enquired, “Do you know three ways to catch a tiger?
“No! And I don’t want to know either,” replied the woman.
“Look in the camera, I will teach you.”
The woman looked around in total consternation. "This wretched man is filming me?" she thought in her head. She noticed a square box sitting atop the cable set-top box. A small lens peeping through a hole in it. She realizes only now that the camera has been there all this time.
The few seconds of silence is interrupted as the masked man continues, “One: Newton says allow the tiger to catch you and you catch the tiger. Two: Einstein says chase the tiger until it becomes tired, and then catch it. Three: Our police say catch a cat and beat it until it accepts it’s a Tiger." And then he bursts into a devilish laughter.
"It is not funny!!!" squeals the woman.
“Do they create the devil or the law is there because of the devil? Some say Devil is the shadow of Angel and some say Devil was once an Angel. But do you know what Devil keeps on telling the Angel, MA’AM?” asked the man with a sinister chuckle.
“Shut the fuck up you bastard and untie me!!” said the fair, good-looking female captive in her mid-twenties.
She was tied to a chair kept adjacent to and facing the sofa.
“You didn’t answer my question, ma’am?” enquired the masked man; his tone forceful and angry.
“How does it concern me you asshole?” replied the woman; the air of arrogance apparent in her demeanor.
“It does ma’am. You will see it. Soon."
He stood up, approached the woman and whispered in her ear, “For your information ma’am, the Devil says- I creaaaaaated you!!!” He sneered.
She asked nervously, “W-W-Wh-What do you mean?”
He walked around the chair in which she was tied and settled down comfortably in the sofa, which he had previously occupied.
“Yes, it is exactly what you are thinking! Let me put it this way, we live in a world where Good and Bad overlap each other. We cannot judge a person accurately on the basis of our self-created likert scales. So the face we see, is merely a deceitful mask, hiding filth and unpunished sins under it. Even a helpless person is an opportunistic wolf now-a-days. All because - we haven’t cleansed ourselves!”
She looked at him, somewhat convinced with his words but uncomfortable with the situation she was in.
He carried on with his monologic talk, “This happened as our society has lost the skills to gauge heinous deeds. The likert scales got rigged and the ancient codes were tampered with as the number of sinners grew."
“Stop puzzling me. I don’t understand a word of your bullshit,” she replied.
"Ma’am, at times I feel that we have to summon all the evil inside us and inflict it on the so called hapless citizens. Perhaps then, their true God might just emerge out of nowhere to protect and bring the change!" bellowed the kidnapper.
"But again, we don’t know who is bad exactly - the justice, which enjoys the thrill of punishment or the sinner, who became such out of misfortunes," said the kidnapper in a more grave tone.
“You know that reminds me of when I was a naughty little boy. My dad was a punishment junkie. He locked me in the basement for years. On top of that, he would beat me with a cricket bat whenever I cried. So, I read books that were mindlessly thrown into that dingy basement."
He paused. And then, as if correcting himself, he said, "No. I devoured them. All the books, with the help of the faint light that streamed in through a little crack in that dark room. They were all kinds of religious books which my mom had left behind. All they glorified was God. As I read them, I cried for His help. But all I got were those rodents to cure my hunger pangs. But Ma’am, tell me, what about those poor rodents? Who do you think enjoys the thrill of blood - God or the Devil?”
His words were starting to send creepy crawlies under her plush skin. Even so, she blurted with nervousness underlying her tone, “I am also a God fearing person. Please, let me go”.
“Hahahahahahaha!"
"God?! You've got to be kidding me, ma'am!!" he said, with ire building in his voice. "Your sins remind me that your God has a wicked sense of humor. There is the Deuteromonic code in Christianity for infidelity, flogging or stoning in Quran for Zina, and rhinotomy was used as punishment by the ancient Hindus. I have read it. All of it. And interestingly, I've also read, that you people find it true,” a mysterious smile stretched across every mimetic muscle on his face.
“Please! I have nothing to do with that. My father and husband won’t spare you if anything happens to me”, she tried to threaten this time.
“You still don’t get it ma’am, THEY ARE THE REASON WHY YOU ARE HERE!!!” he shouted. His eyes moved from her eyes, down to her lips and followed a straight line downwards until they were audaciously transfixed on her plush cleavage.
“Do you remember the time when you took the first step towards adolescence?”
She was flabbergasted by that comment. Tongue-tied, she tried to block his vision by abducting her shoulders. Her fleshy assets were partially visible through the placket in her shirt.
“You've been a naughty girl. Eh, madame?" he said with a vicious snigger. "You always left the top few buttons of your shirt open since school.” He kept his hand around his ear and said further, “Daddy can still heeeear youuu. Moaning! In that isolated lane behind the school.”
Hi!!! thanks for taking out time and reading. This is a small chapter of my novelette which revolves around a Psychopath killer suffering from "Multiple Personality Disorder". He derives gratification by executing his victims in absolutely horrendous manner.
Do provide me with a feedback or constructive criticism.