Till Human Voices Wake Us: Last Part: Page 175 - Page 12

Disclaimer: I haven't proof read this yet.

Chapter 6:

"Are you a magnet that attracts psychologically damaged people?" Satya asked Geet with raised eyebrows.

"Is this important for this case?" Geet asked.

"I don't know. But it may be at one point. Instead of going back and forth lets finish this completely, okay?" Maan asked. She nodded.

"When did it start?" Satya asked.

"About 11 years ago when I was studying in Engineering I had my first encounter. It was also when I met Mal for the first time." Geet said rubbing her forehead. Maan fathomed that it was one of the most difficult phases of her life.

"Mal, you think you talk about it? Just thinking about it drains my energy", Geet said walking out of the room. Maan looked at her in surprise. "I need a break", she said not looking at him but looking at the door and walked out without waiting for a response. The men turned their eyes on the only other woman in the room ' Mal. She sighed and sat down on the chair vacated by Geet.

"We were in third year engineering. I was an architecture student while she was from computer science department. I had never met Geet personally before that day. I knew who she was but that's about it. It was a lovely afternoon and I had bunked theory classes to work on my project. I was in in drawing hall when I heard a girl scream. It was Geet. She was scared to death and hiding under staircase. It took me an hour to convince her that there wasn't a lunatic killer prowling or following her. I took her back to hostel and dropped her off at her room. She refused to let go of my hands and looked at me helplessly. It was the first time in my life I was looked up to offer some sort of security. Sort of a mother, you know?" Maan and Satya nodded. Mal took out a cigarette and looked at Maan questioningly and offering him at the same time. He and Satya picked one and lit. It was going to be a long story and everyone needed it.

"Mind you, Geet is really a strong girl. But that day I saw a raw fear in her eyes. The one that hunts people for years and make them live in perpetual fear ' they are not scared of death but of the things that will be done on them if they are captured. She sat in her room for two hours without talking. And you know what the first thing she said was?"

"What?" Satya asked.

"Who are you? That's what she asked me. I was taken aback with that, of course. But I couldn't blame her for her behavior. She had been getting these little love notes in mail. During college days most pretty girls get these love notes right? Geet thought that it was some loser guy who lacked the guts to face her directly was sending her these little love letters. It had started in second year and the frequency of mails had increased with time. She started getting them once a fortnight or so and that got changed to once a week. And by mid of third year it was three to four a week." Mal stopped and took a sip of tea the inspector had brought in.

"Did she report to anyone?" Maan asked.

"Yes she did. She reported to hostel warden. And get this; hostel warden kind of accused her for leading a poor guy to go to this length. Poor girl was devastated at this accusation. She was facing a threat from a lunatic and that loser woman called her a tease. Geet consulted few friends and decided to go to police. The police were really kind and told her that they would look into it. They didn't register it as a case as it could potentially pull Geet to police station on a regular but kept it off the books. And when they started poking around the college, things really started to change ' for the worse." Mal heaved a sigh of breath of bitterness. Maan could see that the woman truly cared of Geet. But there was this nagging feeling about her. He didn't say anything at the moment though.

"I know what you are thinking officer. Those cops thought the same thing too", Mal gave him a bitter smile. Satya looked on as Maan held her eyes.

"What?" Satya asked looking at both of them.

"I was the primary suspect in this case." Mal said taking a drag.

"Why did you lie to us in the morning by calling yourself Geet's childhood friend?" Maan asked.

"We have known each other for over a decade and have been constantly in touch. We know everything about one another. The information isn't something we exchange for fun Maan. After dealing with that psycho, it became inevitable for us to know where we were and what we were doing constantly. That kind of paranoia got instilled in both of us during those times." Mal answered. Maan noted that she never really answered that question. He didn't probe it further as he knew that her explanation will never be enough for him.

"Okay, continue. What happened when police started sniffing around the campus?"

"Geet started losing things. Small items like hair clips, erasers, her favorite fountain pen, a page full of doodles et al. In the beginning she didn't notice it. And when she started to lose things she used on a daily basis, like shampoo, she flipped. I convinced our warden to change her room and my roommate was more than ready to move out from my room. Geet shifted to my room four months after I met her."

"But the day you met her, what really happened?" Satya asked. He remembered that Mal never really answered it.

"Geet was in library that afternoon, as usual. It was her practice to be in library till five in evening when she didn't have afternoon classes and finish all her assignments there. She was standing in an aisle reading from a book when she felt that there was someone nearby. It was the scent of cologne. It was a scent that would haunt both of us for the years to come. She walked away from the aisle to more lighted reading area when she remembered that she had left her scarf on one of the shelves. As she turned around to get it, she saw a hand gnawing its way from other side of the aisle over the books and slowly picking it up. The hands stilled when the owner realized that she wasn't walking anymore. There was a soft chuckle that sounded like rustle of paper amidst those books. And he said to her ' you will be mine forever one day and after that no one can separate us. After listening to that she ran from there." Mal finished telling a rather disturbing story. Maan and Satya didn't say anything. Mal lit up another one along with Satya. Maan shook his head when Mal offered.

"We went back to cops saying that things were slowly getting out of our hand. They couldn't do much because there wasn't anything tangible in the entire scenario. And by that time letters had stopped coming and her things had started missing. And the things she lost weren't even expensive. Who in their right mind would take a report on missing shampoo or bar of soap?"

"In this case, they should, given the history. Did you ladies ever realize how dangerous Geet's stalker really was?" Maan asked incredulously.

"I am not finished, no sir. The bad days for her were just about to begin. Her losing things syndrome dragged into mid of fourth year and she knew that there was someone watching her. I was always with her when she went to library or even to bathroom during classes. She ensured that she was never alone when she walked back from library or classes back to the hostel. I spoke to some of her classmates about this knowing that they could be potentially the very guy she was running away from but we had to try. Couple of guys agreed and escorted her on a daily basis."

"I take it that didn't go well with our boy?" Maan asked wryly.

"It went down the toilet. One of the guys received a photo of him and Geet walking down the corridor and his face totally scratched out with a blunt instrument. He freaked out and showed it to the other guys. Everyone bailed out within less than a week and we were back to square one. Geet was secretively happy that the psycho didn't hurt anyone physically. So she was sticking always in a group of people and never truly being alone. And the first time I left her alone, things went horribly bad." Mal rubbed her eyes vigorously as if she had just woken up after watching a bad dream. Neither Maan nor Satya said anything.

"I had to attend my cousin's wedding over a weekend and my parents were visiting the city. Geet persuaded me to stay off the campus for that weekend with my parents and have a good time. Geet had decided to stick to hostel premises during the weekend and not step outside at all. On Saturday night it was all fine but come Sunday morning the hostel girls heard Geet screaming continuously for minutes. When they went to my room, they saw that room was unlocked and Geet was standing in front of the mirror still screaming." Mal took a sip of water from the bottle. Maan and Satya looked on.

"On the mirror the creep had a pasted photos of him and Geet sleeping next to each other. The mirror was filled with Polaroid shots of him going through Geet's stuff ' her wardrobe, her books, him smelling her body lotion etc. Of course he had cleverly obscured himself from the pictures making him impossible to identify. Actually the photos weren't even telling us if the person was a man or a woman. It was then the college and hostel warden realized the seriousness of the issue. The entire room reeked of the cologne and that's why we always assumed that it was a man, actually. The police came in and took statements from everyone. But their investigation didn't give any results. Only that the creep seemed to be on a break and was leaving Geet alone. Thankfully, we graduated from the damn college couple of months later."

"And then everything stopped." Satya concluded.

"Wrong." Mal smiled cynically. Maan and Satya exchanged glances.

"It started again after eight months. We were working here in this city we had ensured that we lived in a secured building. It was way out of our budget but it didn't matter. Can I get another glass of tea?" Mal asked. Satya nodded and walked out to arrange tea for all of them. He wished he could drink something strong but he was unfortunately still on duty. Back in the interview room, Maan continued.

"Why did you stick with her? You must have realized that you could be a potential target right?" Maan asked.

"I always knew it. But I couldn't leave her alone. Believe me I tried. Back in college I tried distancing myself once and Geet noticed it. But she never commented about it. After a couple of times refusing to go with her to library, she stopped asking me. She never gave me an opportunity to deny her request leaving me guiltless. A fortnight or so later I came to a conclusion that there was no other pathetic creature on this planet other than me. I mean really, she is such a stupid little idiot that she didn't question my friendship with her or asked me the reason for my uneasiness in her company. She still spoke to me the way she always spoke; only that she stopped telling me about how scared she was when she had to walk back alone from classes or library to hostel. One late evening she came back to room out of breath and tears in her eyes. When I asked her what was wrong, she said that she saw a cockroach and was scared. So she ran from hallway back to the room. As if! After that she talked about job interviews, a prank her classmate played on lecturer and bad cafeteria food. I knew the truth of course and she was trying very hard not to involve me in her mess. I cried through the night and my eyes were the size of balloons next morning. And that morning I told her that I will be her friend for the rest of her life whether she liked it or not. Well it was more of a declaration rather than apologizing. She had simply smiled at my declaration without making much drama out of it. Since then I haven't left her side." Mal rubbed her eyes and Maan sighed.

Both were immersed in their thoughts when Satya came in with three glasses off tea.

"Geet is in your room reading newspaper", Satya said. "Should I ask her to come back?" He added.

"No", both Maan and Mal said at the same time.

"Continue please", Maan said. Mal took a sip of hot tea and started where she left off.

"We weren't prepared for the creep to come back into our lives again. But eight months out of college, Geet received a letter at our residence. It was from him. He had gone back to his initial days of sending little love notes. Only that now the letters involved his imaginary future with Geet. This time we consulted the police when the first letter came as we were new in this city and didn't want to risk anything. Her parents weren't involved in this mess as she didn't want him to hurt her family in anyway. She had decided to deal this crap on her own."

"What did police say? Did you report it this time?" Maan asked.

"This time, yes. We reported it and asked the inspector in charge to talk to our college staff, warden and the police to get an idea. They started building up a case when the letters suddenly stopped coming. We were happy that it had stopped but both Geet and I knew that he wasn't finished."

"He came back again?" Satya asked.

"You know there was this patch of the road near our building which lacked street lights or human populace during late evenings. So obviously we had this bunch of losers who teased everyone who passed by that road. When it came to young women, their language turned really filthy and vulgar. Neither Geet nor I cared much about it as we pretty much ignored their existence. However their taunts escalated to following us till there were people around or till our building premises. Once Geet lost her temper and slapped a man as in her stressful state she had really had it. The guy had caught her hand and promised to come after her next evening. We both ran back to our buildings."

"Didn't you guys complain to police?" Satya interjected.

"Everyone in that area had complained. But nothing came out of it. It used to stop for a while but the teasing came back tenfold and worse than before. People stopped complaining and just gritted their teeth and bore it."

"Did the guy come after you two again?" Maan asked. He had a bad feeling about it. Not for Mal or Geet but for the guy who teased them. Stalkers are extremely possessive and protective of their targets. And Geet's stalker wasn't an obsessive one who was planning a future with Geet.

"In the morning, I came out to buy milk. I saw that teasing guy lying dead with his hands missing. It was a nightmare after that. We were asked to leave from building and we did so immediately. The police said that they found a picture of Geet in the dead man's front pocket and on the back of the picture it was written ' no man touches her and gets away with it. Police became really serious then and started tailing Geet. Our new apartment was good to us, I think. For almost a year there was no news from the psycho and things were almost normal. But Geet felt that she was always being watched. Police denied the fact that there was someone else tailing her as their man reported that the stalker was off her back. Police removed their protection as there were no further incidents and Geet was fine with it. About a month after this, he actually confronted her." Mal looked at Maan. Maan was little taken aback.

"What did he say?"

"One evening Geet was waiting for bus near her work place. The bus stop was a covered one you know the ones that look like a giant box? She felt that there was someone standing on the other side of the partition. She knew it was him. The smell of cologne always gave him away yet he always wore it. Geet thought that it was to remind her that he was always there. It was creepy how she could always feel him and sense him. Anyway this time she decided that she would talk to him. She asked him why he was doing all this. And naturally he replied that he wanted them to be together forever. And she said that it was fine with her."

"What?" Satya and Maan both interrupted.

"She is one strong woman officer. She wanted to confront him once and for all and get over with the shit she was dealing with almost four years now. She had expected him to come in front of her so that she can finally see what she was dealing with. She knew that he would probably kill her but an insane courage had taken over her. He couldn't respond to her. His longest dream was coming true and he didn't know how to react."

"He hadn't planned for it. He couldn't control it because he didn't expect it. Stalkers never really get rationalized by their targets and that's what feed their obsession even further. Once the target starts becoming a part of fantasy in real, the stalker loses the absolute control he has on his world." Maan said.

"So the stalker wants his target but in the end realizes that he can never have her in the way he wants so'" Satya trailed off.

"Yes. They generally go after their object of obsession; kill the target and kill themselves next. Maan sighed.

"Geet had put herself out there risking her own life. The guy finally answered saying that they weren't destined in this life and this isn't the way he wanted her ' all submissive and sounding like a sacrificial lamb. He would meet her in his next life and have her all for himself. And perhaps then she would see him exactly as he sees her. And then he left." "

"He just left?" Satya asked. Mal nodded.

"A month later we got a call from the police. They had found a man dead in an apartment quite close to where we lived. In his apartment they found every item that Geet had lost since college days. There was thousands of her pictures everywhere in the apartment and also had photos of people she hung around with. They even found her hair neatly preserved. Geet and I saw the apartment pictures. It was creepy as hell", Mal shuddered involuntarily.

"Did either of you recognize the guy?" Maan asked.

"That's the thing. We didn't. The guy turned out to be our senior from college as police uncovered marks cards, identity card and college certificate pointing towards the same at his apartment. It made sense since Geet's classroom was right across where this psycho's classroom would have been and he could easily see her daily." Mal said with venom in her voice.

"How did he die?" Satya asked.

"He shot himself in the head", Mal said.

"That doesn't make sense", Maan said immediately.

"I know. I don't believe it either." Mal agreed. Maan looked at her surprised.

"Come on officer, let's not be nave. The creep did everything he could to be near Geet. He even entered our hostel spent almost a night right next to her without waking her up. Would he so easily give up just because she spooked him in his game? I don't think so. He isn't dead. I know it." Mal said clearly adding on to Maan's surprise.

"I think the same. This isn't over yet. The worse is actually yet to come." Maan said grimly.

Mal looked tired and Satya looked on.

To be continued.

RES...Me a Stalker now...

Damnation to hell...I shudder in my chair...and turn more often to check my back who just passed by. The creep has creeped me big time its creepy.

I feel something crawling up in my spine...Sookie...it took me ever to read it again...I'm at work. My concentration is lacking today...yet I'm keeping my sanity, god help those people today who calls for help in their pays.

The plot is thickening with each tick...the characters are well set...I didn't like Maan smoking...but thats me...may be there is something the smoke will keep him on his toes. I wonder, if for a slight fraction of thought passed by in his mind after seeing Geet and her beauty? Mal even mentioned about her beauty, I didn't get the hint any where close to Maan...or he is too good of a professional. May be i'm trying to distract my mind from the chilliness that has crawled inside me to keep the thought of the Stalker. 😆

I should stop here, i feel like I'm blabbering with no sense.

Need I have to say...what a great work Sookie?
👏

In every work of art the subject is primordial, whether the artist knows it or not. The measure of the formal qualities is only a sign of the measure of the artist's obsession with his subject; the form is always in proportion to the obsession.

awesome ... superb ...

OMG...dat was really creepy...🤢...i am freaked man...u r one hell of a thriller story writer...it sounds really wierd...he wanted geet but he actually ended up killing himself......however,...this is going more and more captivating...seriously...thought its so very intense...dat i can actually imagine myself in geets place...creepy & wow...wat guts that girl had ...really...😲...plz continue...i am ready & hungry for more...😳😳😳...ok hey sookie, cant u not strike a cord between maan & geet in sum way...plzzz 😳...that way it will b a little lighter ...d story is so intense man...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!😲...hey plz do answerma comment...plzzz😳😳😳😳

It's getting creepier day by day...gosh then it all makes sense, the stalker was never really related to Anjali and sadly she had to die due to that insane stalker...it scared the daylight out of me reading this part...I'm pitying her you know 11 god damn years...but then too after reading so much about Mal's and Geets friendship...I still have my doubts you just can't come to conclusions anyway or trust someone so damn easily...

part 6
OMG its really really scary...
not just a thriller but a psycho is involved...
mal is very brave and a true friend...
poor Geet indeed...
hope Maan solves this damn case in this lifetime...
the time Maan solves this case, he sure will fall in love with Geet and hope he doesnt get hurt...
wanna read more...
cont soon dear...

Originally posted by: spvd

part 6
OMG its really really scary...
not just a thriller but a psycho is involved...
mal is very brave and a true friend...
poor Geet indeed...
hope Maan solves this damn case in this lifetime...
the time Maan solves this case, he sure will fall in love with Geet and hope he doesnt get hurt...
wanna read more...
cont soon dear...

hey i too want him 2 fall in luv wid her...But how????she has a boyfriend doesnt she???😕😕😕plz sookie...put sum twist dat geet & maan strike a cord wid each other...😳😳😳

The story just gets spookier and creepier which, considering the genre, means better and better ... can't wait for more 😊

This gets more complicated and intriguing after every update! Eleven years?! Mal and Geet's friendship is still a mystery. The thought of that stalker creeps me.

Thanks for the update!