The daylight trickled amongst the blades of the grass. The wind was in a gentle mood. The sound of bank mynas could be heard from a nearby tree. Two pairs of small feet walked towards themselves. In their little hands were flowers. The feet stopped near each other.
The girl looked in the hands of the boy.
“I can see you did find some flowers. But not as many as I did,” said the girl
“I don’t think plucking so many flowers is good,” said the boy innocently
“If grandma wants, I will pluck all the flowers in the world, because it will make her happy and she will love me more,” smiled the girl
“I think she loves us both the same way,” said the boy
The smile faded from the girl’s face for a moment but it returned as she asked, “Do you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“Grandma’s footsteps”
The boy looked around and saw their grandmother coming towards them with a smile.
“How did you hear her? How did you know it was her?” asked the boy surprised
“I can always hear her footsteps and I always know its her,” smiled the girl as she began to walk towards her grandmother
Many years passed good and bad, and now in the present…
Prisha and her friends Banjeet and Fiyaz stood among the crowd of people in a metro train. It was morning time.
“That screaming woman from the video is in the news, her name is Gayathri,” said Fiyaz scrolling through a news app on phone
“She is in news?” said Prisha
“Of course she is, everything is part of news nowadays, even viral videos,” replied Fiyaz
“So, what reasons have they come up with in the news for her psychotic behaviour?” asked Banjeet
“Association with delusion, impulsive tendencies of violence, abusive childhood, substance abuse etc etc, it’s all guess work at this point… well the police are on it now,” said Fiyaz
“Of course, the police are on it, the way she attacked that car. She is a threat,” said Prisha
“Apparently there is a ghost involved too,” said Banjeet
“There is no such thing mentioned in the news,” said Fiyaz
“They might have avoided the topic. A social media content creator made a video on it, he went to the area and asked the people around, some people looked scared to be involved, some said that Gayathri visited that other woman… Darika, Darika’s house looking for the ghost of her grandmother,” said Banjeet
“A ghost?” said Prisha with a scoff, “sounds like a lie a social media content creator desperate for views would create”
The metro train came to a stop at the station and the three of them got out and moved away with the crowd.
In the evening, Inspector Dikshit stopped his police car in front of the Jaitly residence and got out. He looked around and met the gaze of a few concerned passersby and neighbours around.
It had been a month since the incident of Darika coming across Gayathri and since then Gayathri was nowhere to be found.
Darika’s uncle opened the door while Darika and the rest of her family stood waiting.
Mr Dikshit walked inside and looked at Darika and her father, “I would like to speak to both of you alone.”
The other family members left.
“Have you found her?” asked Mr Jaitly
“Not yet,” replied Mr Dikshit, “but things have become a little more complex.”
“How?” asked Darika
“As you know by now, someone has posted videos and photos of Gayathri attacking you online and it has spread around. A young man Harshil Gupta came to the police station claiming he knew where Gayathri was. She was living with Mr Rao, a retired bank manager. Mr Rao’s wife passed away six years back. Gayathri had introduced herself as Mr Rao’s niece who was living in his apartment while he had gone abroad for a year or two. But when Harshil saw the video, he became concerned and approached us.
The police went over and found Mr Rao’s apartment locked, we contacted Mr Rao’s son who was working in another state. He was not in talking terms with his father after his father refused to accept his marriage with a girl he liked. But Mr Rao’s son was sure of his father not going abroad for any form of work. With his permission we broke the door and found the apartment in a mess, money and valuables were stolen and neither Gayathri and Mr Rao were to be found.
We are still looking for both of them. It is possible that she has harmed or influenced Mr Rao in some manner and it is also possible that Mr Rao and Gayathri were on good terms with each other and Mr Rao was aware of Gayathri’s… mental condition.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Darika asked,
“Who is Gayathri? Where is she from? Have you found her relative or family?”
“Surprisingly no we have not, despite having her fingerprint, sample of hair and even her photos and videos. We couldn’t find anything.”
“I just hope she gets caught soon. No one knows what she could be capable of,” said Mr Jaitly
“We hope the same,” said Mr Dikshit getting up, “some of my men will be around if she returns here, rest if anything else comes up, I will let you know.”
Although Gayathri was not seen around, life was not peaceful for Darika. The sound of footsteps, she could hear them almost every night now. They always came from the same place, from the terrace. It was always as if someone was walking on the terrace in the middle of the night and the sound gradually became louder.
No one else in the house could hear the sound, Darika tried recording the sound but nothing was recorded. Every morning Mr Jaitly would go on the terrace to check for anything unusual but did not find anything except that the potted plants on the terrace had started dying.
Cameras had been installed after Gayathri’s appearance around the ground floor of the house, another was installed on the terrace but still nothing could be found. Darika’s mother started sleeping in the same room beside Darika, but the sound did not stop and still Darika was the only one to hear it, the cameras did not capture anything, they went blank at the moment when Darika heard the sound of footsteps.
One day Darika returned home from the office and noticed her mother worried as she opened the door for Darika.
“What happened?” Darika asked as she entered the room, she saw her aunt sitting with a similar expression.
“The gardener, Praveen,” said Darika’s aunt, “I had called him to look at the dying plants on the terrace. Your father and uncle had not returned home from work yet. We heard a sound of something falling hard on the ground in front and rushed out to find him lying on the ground.”
“He fell down the terrace?” asked Darika in an elevated tone, “How?”
“We don’t know” said Darika’s mother sitting down and closing her eyes with a long breath
Praveen had been admitted to a nearby hospital, he had a concussion, his left arm had broken along with two left ribs, he had sustained minor fractures on his legs and also had an injured hip. Darika offered to pay for his treatment meanwhile Mr Jaitly offered some money to his family every month till he got better.
The terrace was kept locked after the incident. Darika’s aunt later called a priest to perform some rituals in an attempt to get rid of the unseen, yet the terrace was kept locked and no one went there unless necessary. The potted plants were brought to the ground floor to be looked after.
Darika requested for night shift at her office for a while, and it worked, she didn’t hear footsteps in the morning. However little did Darika know that things were not going to get easier. One morning when she returned home, her father opened the door, walked out and closed the door behind him.
“I need to talk to you,” said Mr Jaitly and they both walked near to the park.
Darika had become scared of asking ‘what happened’ at home so she waited for her father to speak by himself.
“Mr Dikshit had called yesterday,” said Mr Jaitly with creases appearing on his head from stress, “They found Mr Rao. Dead, in the trunk of his own car. He had been stabbed to death. She didn’t even care to pull out the knife and dispose of it. Her fingerprints were over the handle of the knife”
Darika rested herself against the boundary wall of the park, “Why… I mean what is happening.. why is she doing this.. our life here is becoming something I never thought it would become”
“Calm down.. we have to stay strong. She will be caught any day now. This will all be over. It’s just that we have never faced something like this otherwise these things do happen,” said Mr Jaitly, “let’s go home, you need to rest.”
“How is Praveen? Did he say anything about what happened?” asked Darika
“He is conscious and no he couldn’t properly recall what happened, but his wife said that he felt someone had pushed him,” replied Mr Jaitly
The police had asked their personnel to stay stationed outside the Jaitly household at all time, but the days coming started a frenzy of events with multiple murders taking place with evidence tying them to Gayathri. Gayathri was on news channels, newspapers, social media with her only videos and photos from her last interaction with Darika. She was now a serial killer who was apparently well adept at hiding herself.
News reporters and social media content creators had appeared near the Jaitly residence, trying to interact with Darika and her family. There were more police around to keep the family secure. It seemed that smiles and laughter had left the neighbourhood, some people even left home and shifted for some time till the killer got caught.
Gayathri had indiscriminately committed the murders and no one had any idea what she wanted to achieve, what she was planning to do next and the main being where she was.
Darika’s office gave her a few days of paid holiday for her to rest and be together with her family at this time. She had switched off her phone and was only using her social media account to communicate with others. Her phone number was now in the smartphones of many people she would rather not interact with. Peace was a long-forgotten word. Darika had started sleeping on the couch in the drawing room, from where the sounds of footsteps were afar.
One morning as Darika picked the newspaper from the porch and sat on a chair to read it, a slip of paper fell out of the newspaper. On the slip of paper was written ‘I think I can help you out of this situation’ and an email address was provided for contact. Prisha was the name written below.
To be continued..
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 