Firebug

By Vasudev Patel

"There will be two more" the voice on the tape recorder said. Inspector Vikram was listening to the tape found on the crime scene. The crime was committed barely over an hour ago. The voice on the tape was distorted, it sounded like the person was using something to cover his mouth. Vikram replayed the tape to see that if he could find something that could help the police in the investigation. But he couldn't find anything. He decided to go back to the crime scene. He looked at his watch, it was 2 a.m., all he wanted to do was go home and go back to sleep. But the nature of this investigation stopped him from doing so.

Siddhant, a school teacher, went out for a stroll to clear his mind around 12:30 in the night. He was about a few meters away from his front gate when he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and then nothing. Siddhant woke up in darkness. The room around him was pitch dark. He couldn't see anything until he realized that it was not the room that was dark. He could see little dots of light piercing through the piece of cloth tied around his eyes. Panic set into him along with this realization. He tried to bring his hands to his face to pull the cloth away only to realize that they were tied. That was when he felt the small pieces of cloth wrapped around his body. "I wouldn't move if I were you", a muffled voice said. Siddhant wanted to ask the voice where he was but he couldn't. There was no opening except for the ones around his nostrils. The voice, the man behind it, didn’t want him dead just yet. "My concoction may rip your skin if you move too much", the voice continued "Although that would not matter soon". Siddhant wondered what he was talking about, what concoction. That was when he realized that he was not merely wrapped in clothes but the clothes were sticking to his naked body, everywhere except for the nostrils. A shiver ran down Siddhant’s spine. "Shut up, or you may burn", the voice said. As soon as he heard it a new realization set into Siddhant. He knew why that man was doing this, he knew who this man was. He remembered how this man had begged him to not burn his house down. How he has run in to save his family. He wiggled as much as he could in his bound state. It felt like a chair, he was bound to but there was no clattering as he wiggled nor did he feel the chair even move. "Oh, you want to talk, let me open your mouth", the voice said as calmly as it has been all this time. Siddhant thought that he could negotiate his way out. He could feel the hands of the man just over the cloth on his mouth. It was grabbing at the cloth to unwrap his mouth. Then it pulled.

Vikram reached the scene around 2:15. The constables were there and the guys from forensic. It was at the Jawahar stadium's locker room. Vilaspur was a small town but it did have a stadium. Vikram went into the locker room. He was greeted by the constables. The forensic guy was just telling them about the corpse they had found. The night watchman had been the one to find the corpse. Rupendra, was the name of the watchman. Rupendra was just doing his nightly rounds, when he saw the lights were turned on in the locker room. So, he decided to turn them of. He thought that someone must have forgotten to turn it off. So, he went into the locker room.

In the locker room Rupendra saw a man fallen on the floor. Rupendra would have helped him get up only he didn't seem to be breathing and the fallen man on the floor was missing his skin. "His skin was ripped off of him", the forensic guy was saying, "like we rip apart a piece of tape from a wall and a little bit of paint comes off with it, strips of clothes were glued to him like they do when waxing and", he made a gesture of ripping away something quickly. The forensic guy didn't seem too fazed by this discovery. The constables who were listening to him were covering their mouths with handkerchiefs but not to stop the smell from the skinless, unknown corpse in the middle of the room, but to stop themselves from vomiting their dinner. Vikram introduced himself to the forensic guy. "Ravi", the forensic guy introduced himself, “Your constables don't seem to be enjoying their night out", Ravi said with a chuckle. Vikram was now looking at the body, "What can you tell me about the body?", he asked ignoring Ravi's taunt. "We found this", Ravi started, and took out a plastic evidence bag from among the other evidence bags. It contained a wallet. A driving license covered the wallet. "Siddhant Mishra, is the name of our victim, he was suffering from opioid-induced hyperalgesia or OIH, it can happen when opium-based painkillers are taken for extended periods of time", said Ravi, " But in his case it was artificially induced", he said pointing to the body. Vikram looked at the body again and asked, "OIH?". "Oh, you don't know?", Ravi said smugly, "It means that Siddhant here was especially sensitive to pain when he was relieved of his skin".

"You mean he was alive when... when...", one of the constables was muttering. It didn't go unnoticed. “Yes, he was alive when the killer flayed him", said Ravi in a matter-of-fact voice as if he were stating that the sun rises in the east. "Notify the family", Vikram said to the constable who was muttering. The constable was glad to go out of the locker room. “Did you find anything that can point us in the right direction?", Vikram asked as soon as the constable was out of the room. “I could tell you more after the autopsy, but even if I start right now it won't be done till morning", said Ravi. Vikram took a deep breath as if preparing himself, “We might not have that long", he said. "Why?", asked Ravi. “It’s going to be a long night", was all Vikram could say.

Around 2:30 a.m. Jeetendra Rathore found himself in a graveyard. He recognized this graveyard, he had been to this graveyard, just not like this, not tied on to a cross. He couldn't remember how he got here. The last thing he remembered was kissing his daughter good night and going to sleep. Then he woke up here. He tried to scream for help. That was when he discovered that there was a pool of blood where his tongue should have been. The pool was dripping out of his mouth. He had not felt the pain until he discovered that his tongue has been cut off. "Stop struggling, we don't want to hurt you", a muffled voice said from behind him. Jeetendra tried to turn and see who it was. But he didn't have to. He knew what he had done to this man, how he and his friend had, in their stupidity had created this thing that has come back to haunt him. When he was struggling to get his hands free, he noticed somethings sticking out from different places on his body. First, he noticed his shoulder then his chest then the rest of his naked body. This was the first time he realized he was naked. There were sticking out from various places of his body. They were pushed deep into his muscles and wrapped with tape to keep them in place. The wires rose about half an inch from the spots they were rooted to, in different directions, but all of them eventually bent towards the direction the voice came from. As the sudden realization set in Jeetendra wanted to beg but he had no voice to beg with. Anytime now it will rip his body apart. In only he could somehow get the wires out, but the more he struggled the more apparent the truth became. That was when Jeetendra heard the click of a switch being turned on.

Two crime scenes in the same night, no within the same hour. Vikram was definitely not sleeping tonight and neither was anyone else in his division. Ravi was here examining the scene with the excitement of a boy playing with a new toy, with one or two little excited comments about the genius of the killer. How the killer had inserted the wires in the body of his victim and slowly increased the voltage as if he was cooking his victim. There was again a wallet left at the scene. The wallet belonged to the victim, Jeetendra Rathore, as it said on his license. There was a tape left this time too. "One more", the muffled voice had said. Ravi filled Vikram and the others in on the details of how this one was committed and how the person who flayed Siddhant and boiled Jeetendra, as he put it, could be the same person.

Vikram was more astonished than angry at how little they were able to find out anything about someone who had committed two murders right under their noses. Ravi couldn't tell him more until he had done the autopsy on the victims. There was nothing left to find on the crime scenes. They had gone through every inch of the locker room and his constables were going through the stadium right now as some of them were going through the graveyard where the second murder took place. So far, nothing.

"I am going back to the station", he told his constables as Ravi was wrapping up the corpse in a body bag. There was nothing more he could do here, or at the stadium. He had already cleaned both the places last night. He has left nothing behind except for the tapes of course. The tapes were important. The numbers on the tapes however weren't.

By Vasudev Patel