Into The Shadows by Aayush Borulkar (smart ebook reader txt) 📗

branches and tree leaves to hide the car in the best possible way he could. Richa was slowly gaining her consciousness. He swung her arm around his neck, and they started walking slowly out of the jungle. On reaching the bypass, Abhimanyu saw a car coming in from a distance. He kept Richa down and stood in the line of the car, aiming the gun towards the car. The car halted with a screeching noise. He threatened the driver with his gun and put Richa in the back seat.

“Drive till I tell you to stop!” he ordered her, pointing the gun to her head.

The woman was petrified and drove as Abhimanyu instructed. After reaching close to the villa, he asked her to stop the car around half a kilometre away. He got out of the car with Richa and walked towards the mansion. The woman was shell shocked as she saw them walk away.

It was 4:30 in the morning as they entered through the gates. By the time they walked in, all the lights were off, and everybody had already dozed off. Abhimanyu limped his way up the stairs, completely exhausted. He put Richa on the bed in his room and covered her with a blanket. He then walked into the bathroom and sat under the cold shower with a thud.

Every muscle in his body was throbbing in pain, blood gushed out from his wounds, painting the bathroom floor red. He just sat under the shower with closed eyes, the horrific incidents of the whole night repeatedly flashing in front of his eyes. He opened his eyes wide, not being able to bear the agony any longer, as the worst nightmare of his life haunted him.

As he sat under the shower, he thought about the night, and then he thought about the dead body in the refrigerator. He felt that if no one is convicted in this matter, then the case would be open for a long time, and that would mean that it could somehow be tracked down to Vivek and then eventually trickle down to the six of them and finally onto him. So he got up from the shower. He cleaned up the wounds. He then ran to the hall and dialled a number on the landline.

“Ram Lal?” he asked. “Could you come up to the villa? Idhar kaanch toot gayi hai” he said.

“Jii sab ji 10 minut mein aaya” replied Ram Lal hanging up the call.

Abhimanyu went into the bathroom and put on a pair of first aid gloves. He then went into the kitchen, picked up two bowls, filled them up with little leftover food, and threw them on the ground. Ram Lal came in after ten minutes and saw the mess in the kitchen.

“I just wanted to reheat some food. And it just fell while taking it out from the refrigerator,” said Abhimanyu.

“No problem. I will clean this up,” he replied.

Ram Lal took a cloth and started to clean the floor. Abhimanyu bent down to help. Ram Lal was amazed at this gesture but continued with his work.

“Apne gloves kyu pehene hai?” Ram Lal asked.

“It’s just as a precaution for picking up the glass pieces on the floor,” Abimanyu replied.

Ram Lal was a little confused with the answer but chose to ignore it. Just then, a piece of glass pierced Ram Lal’s forearm while he was picking up the broken pieces.

“Oh shit! Sorry!” apologized Abhimanyu as Ram Lal tried to stop the bleeding.

Abhimanyu helped him clean up the cut and washed it thoroughly. Ram Lal was in a lot of pain. While Ram Lal was busy cleaning the wound, Abhimanyu thought it to be the best time and swiftly plucked two strands of hair from Ram Lal’s forearm, which went unnoticed by Ram Lal, as he was already in a lot of pain.

“I will check the refrigerator for some more food for you,” said Ram Lal after cleaning the wound.

“NO NO!! I ... am not hungry anymore. You go back to sleep, I will manage,” Abhimanyu exclaimed.

“I mean, okay Sirji,” said Ram Lal leaving.

The clock was striking half past five. Abhimanyu slowly opened the fridge, and in there, he saw the woman’s body all curled up. The face was totally damaged to an extent where the identification was impossible. He then inserted the two strands of hair in her finger nails of her clenched fist, and closed the door.

Back To Present

“And this is how Ram Lal was framed,” said Abhimanyu as everyone in the living room gazed at him in disgust. Richa sat on the floor rocking to and fro, indifferent to what was happening around her.

“Is this the reason you insisted on putting Richa in an asylum?” Vibha asked.

“She had seen me kill Vivek that night in the forest. She just wasn’t sure about it as she was barely conscious that night” said Abhimanyu sitting on the couch. “But suddenly, five years back, she started threatening me, saying that she had seen me commit the murder and could remember everything. She even claimed that she had summoned Vivek’s soul, and he had asked her to bring justice to him.”

“So I used the black magic against her and made everyone of you believe that she was ratting us all out,” continued Abhimanyu. Everyone’s faces had now dropped in disgust except those of the officers.

“I got her admitted to the asylum on the basis that she had tried to do black magic on me and bribed the doctors in charge to give her electric shocks periodically, so that she actually loses her sanity eventually. Because no one is going to believe an insane woman,” said Abhimanyu looking at Richa, who looked back at him and gave him a wide smile, clueless as to what was happening.

“And then what about the soil in the garden? How did that mess up?” asked Erika curiously.

“This villa has been closed for the past 15 years. Dad tried to sell it, but he couldn’t because of the rumour that this