Chapter 4

ABOMINABLE MURDERER~

Part IV

The knife pressed against his throat, and he heard it make a coughing sound amidst the heavy breaths; he took that sound to be some sad attempt at laughter as it prepared to kill him. Oh my god…

He felt the knife move and he felt pain as the sharp edge cut into his skin and oh god he was already bleeding and he was going to die like this…

A burst of light flickered in front of his eyes and then exploded into streams of light, like a gymnast's ribbon, twirling and arching in the narrow space between him and the thing.

Rajat stared at it, wide-eyed. It felt like…for some reason, as he watched those ribbons of light moving in the air, he thought of a woman he had known a long time ago, a woman to whose senseless death he had been the only witness, the only ears to hear her last words…

The knife clattered to the floor as the monster stepped back, its face going from sickening gleefully to alarmed and confused in the time it took Rajat to let out a hoarse gasp of relief. Still being held to the floor by the hands that had come up from the floor to hold him, he watched as the white lights moved around that thing before they seemed to attack.

The monster, Urado, seemed to burst into pieces and vanish.

A second later, the hands gripping Rajat's ankle and wrist also vanished.

It took him a second to realize that he was once again mobile. But once he did, he surged to his feet and dashed towards the door where Tarika was still standing there stiffly as she watched in horror the slaughtering. He grabbed her hand to pull her along, but she was already moving beside him, matching his pace.

"What happened?" Vivek was at the foot of the stairs with his hand on the banister, like he had been preparing to climb the stairs. Tasha was standing right behind him, one of her hands on his shoulder; it seemed that she had been trying to stop him from going up there again.

For the third time in as many minutes, the single word was barked: "RUN!" This time it was definitely Rajat, who actually jumped over the railing to the ground level without ever breaking step. Vivek didn't need to be told twice, and the four tore back through the door, the maze, the room, the hallway, and out through the door.

The entire way, Rajat kept glancing back. In the shadows, he swore he saw Urado's face. He swore he heard that heavy breathing in his ears, smelled that horrific stench of blood and decomposition and death dancing in front of his nose as something thin and icy cold pressed to his throat…

They flung themselves through that door, scrambling back up onto the stairwell. For a lack of anything else to do, vivek kicked the door closed behind them before pushing away from it and continuing on their mad sprint down the stairs, as far away from it as they could possibly get.

None of them saw the glimmer of white light that moved across that door.

Nor did they hear the growl from beyond it, like the snarl of a beast that has just been caged.

-o-

It was some distance before they skidded to a stop. Vivek slumped over, putting his hands on his knees to support himself as he panted desperately for air; Tasha leaned on him. Tarika put one hand on a table in the hallway as she gasped. Rajat dropped to the floor and curled up, putting his hands on the back of his head with his fingers interlocked as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"Th-that was…" Tasha stammered, still white as a sheet. "Oh my god…that thing…"

Tarika actually looked like she was out of her wits, being a doctor and scientific in approach all this was pretty hard to digest. Her mind was clashing between her lifelong studies and belief with what she just saw. But whatever she was going to say faded into concern as she noticed that Rajat was still sitting in a modified fetal position, staring at the floor. "Rajat?"

One hand loosened itself from its grip on his head and waved. "Just…just give me a minute…" His voice was hoarse and harsh and strained, and he would not look at anyone. Still, a red stain was visibly forming on the neckline of his shirt.

"You're hurt!" Tarika dropped to her knees beside him, her hands already grappling at her pockets in search of a handkerchief or something she could use to wipe away the blood or press against the wound to try and stave off the bleeding. The location of this injury made it even more alarming—what if he was dying? They still hadn't found a door in this place! How would they get him help?

"I said give me a minute!" Rajat repeated his voice even more grating.

Tarika ignored him and reached down to move her head off to one side for a better examination of the cut on his neck. After a moment, she sighed. "I think he missed the major artery. Don't know how, but it's not bleeding enough for it to be the artery. But we have to get a medical help soon, it's pretty deep."

"yeah…" Rajat muttered. He was shaking now, visibly, from head to toe. But after a moment, he straightened his legs and stood hunched over with his hands braced against his thighs. Another minute passed before he rose to his full height and gave himself a shake. He looked pale and shaken. "Let's go. Please. Let's just…let's just get the hell out of this place…"

No one argued. They started walking, all four of them keeping close together both for support and for self-preservation. If anything else came out of the walls or attacked them…they needed to stick together. It felt a little silly to be fearful of things crawling out of the walls. That seemed more like something out of a child's nightmares, like the boogeyman in the closet.

But they had found the boogeyman. He lived in a house within a house, beyond a hedge maze that was drenched in the nauseating stench of blood. Given what had already happened, they did not want to take anything for granted or write anything off as impossible. This seemed a place where the impossible came to life and terrorized you, possibly at the expense of your life.

After several more moments of walking, Tasha stopped so suddenly that the other three ran into her. "This is not getting us anywhere!" she said. "We're not finding a door! Guys, let's come up with some sort of plan, please!" One hand tugged nervously at the hem of her shirt. "Something…anything, we need an idea. At the rate we're going, we'll never get out of here."

Tarika nodded "She's right. Let's…let's come up with a is awful."

Vivek glanced over at Rajat

"…Sir?" he said, noticing that Rajat was staring up at the ceiling, his face blank. It almost made Vivek wince; that particular pose made the bleeding cut on his neck impossible to miss. "You okay?"

"I'm just thinking. I feel like we're missing something," Rajat said in response, turning his head to look straight at Vivek. "What's bothering me is the why of all this. Why bring us here? Why go to all this trouble? Why not just, I don't know, shoot us in the head or something?"

Vivek glanced back over at him.

"It does seem weird. Also they even let us see them. We could identify them, no problem." He folded his arms. "I think it's pretty obvious that they don't think we'll ever get that chance. In other words—"

"They expect us to die, right?" Tarika completed the sentence as she eyed the others.

" I mean, that's the only way they can be one hundred percent certain that we won't talk," Vivek nodded.

"But why go to such lengths? I mean…" Tasha interrupted.

"Ghost Weapon! A ghost who kills people…" Vivek cocked his head to one side. "I must say, that's a new and quite unique one."

Rajat shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. "New or not, I don't care. Whatever is going on, I want to know. I was a split second away from being a murder victim myself. So I think I'm entitled to some answers."

Tasha tapped her chin thoughtfully for a moment, and then froze. "…say that again."

Startled, Rajat said, "…I'm entitled to some answers?"

"The part before that."

I was almost murdered?"

"Yeah, that."

"…why?"

"Sir,"Tasha gave them an odd look, "tell me something. What's the legal definition of murder?"

"Tasha , you're not making any sense." Tarika answered as she couldn't figure out what her friend was implying.

"Just answer the question."

Tarika sighed. "Legally, murder is the killing of one human by another…" she trailed off at the end of that statement as it clicked, and her eyes widened. "You're not actually suggesting…"

"One human kills another. Malicious intent. That's murder. So if Sir would have died in that room…who's the murderer?" Tasha asked. There was a certain speculative glimmer in her eyes that only appeared when she got the result what she had desired.

Rajat and Vivek, meanwhile, had apparently realized that something important was being unraveled and had come closer to listen.

"…does Urado count as a human?"

"Does a ghost count as a human? I wouldn't think so," Vivek shook his head. "I mean, no self-respecting officers would ever suggest that a ghost was the culprit in a murder. If they did, they'd probably be laughed off the investigation." He glanced at others. "Right?"

Tasha nodded. "None of the officers I know would suggest it."

"Let's go back to the beginning," Rajat waved a hand in the air before pressing it to his forehead, as though trying to stave off a headache. "We're kidnapped. They let us see them, which suggests that they don't care if we could identify them because they don't think we'll ever be able to. We wake up in this crazy house, and the next thing we know, we're face-to-face with a ghost intent on cutting our throats."

"…but a ghost isn't human" Tarika said.

"That thing was not human," Rajat said quickly, his voice crisp. One hand moved to his neck in an unconscious gesture. "So…Urado couldn't be the murderer in the legal sense. So then…"

"So then who murdered you?" Tasha finished.

As they listened to Tasha their eyes widened as a thought struck them.

"I'd rather ask what the murder weapon is. The knife? Or…?"

"…you're actually suggesting that they're using a ghost as a murder weapon?" Rajat said.

"It's the perfect weapon, isn't it?" Tarika interjected. "Completely untraceable."

.,

AN: how was this?