Corner Store (Part 2)

When Anala came to know about the murder, she didn’t know how to react. It was tough for her to decide whether it was a coincident that she had a vision of Mehak getting killed or she really had some kind of 6th sense. But who would believe that she had a vision of the girl getting killed? And for all she knew the girl she had seen might not have been Mehak in the first place. She might have just imagined some girl getting killed – effect of reading and watching lot of murder mysteries. Finally after a long argument against her other self Anala decided that it was just a coincidence.

March 1st.

Anala was again doing her favorite pass time at her favorite place – shopping/window shopping at Corner Store.

A lady was trying to decide on which knife to buy. As Anala passed by she saw the lady admiring a dragger. Their eye s made contact. She said “nice thing to hang on wall”

“nice thing to use on someone too.” Anala replied with an evil grin on her face, and then winked. Both smiled at each other.

“I am Neha. I have shifted to this place recently”. She introduced herself. Anala too introduced herself

After the shopping was done Neha said “Why don’t you come down for a cup of coffee. Not that I make very good coffee. I do not know anyone here and I feel lonely. It would be nice if you join me for the evening.”
“Sure. Anyways I do not have anything to do. But promise that you wont use the dragger on me.”

“Ok I wont use it this time.” Said Neha with an evil smile.

After spending the chatting all the evening with Neha, Anala decide to return back. She returned home, prepared a quick dinner, after dinner sat down with another murder mystery novel. Anala had lost track of time. She had dozed off within minutes after she started to read.

Anala was in a room. Very familiar but definitely not her s. She knew that she had been in this room before. But could not tell when. Then she heard a voice and soon Neha entered. Then she realized that she was at Neha s place. Neha was telling something and suddenly a hand slit open her throat with the same dragger that Neha had bought the previous day. Instantly Anala got up to find herself on her bed, in her room. The clock said 8. It was already morning. ‘Neha must be awake by now’ she thought. Finishing her ablutions Anala rushed to Neha s place to warn her. She told her about the recent vision she had and also narrated the whole of Mehak incident to her. Anala told Neha to be careful. Neha told she would, but that she did not believe in 6th sense.

That evening Anala paid another visit to Neha and was happy to find her still alive. Some days passed by and nothing eventful took place, for which Anala was very happy.

March 6th evening. Around 6
Anala and Neha had planned to go shopping. Anala had been waiting for Neha to call her. But finally she decided to call Neha and ask her where they would be going.

“tring tring”…. “tirng tring”. No one answered initially. Anala was about to hang up when a harsh voice answered the call. “Hello inspector Kashyap speaking. Could I know who I am speaking to?”

After a long silence….
“I am Anala, Neha s friend. I was waiting for her call, but she did not call me so I called her up. Is everything alright inspector?”

Neha s body was laying in a pool of blood. Her throat split open by a dragger. A cold blooded murder. Again the inspector was confused to see that there were no indications of any kind of forced entry. Also there was no sign of struggle. Everything looked to have happened in a flash and the murderer had not left any trail.

But every murderer leaves a trail. And Kashyap was bent on finding one such trace, a trail. And he found one very soon. Between neha s fingers kashyap found a piece of thread, the ones that people wear around their neck and hands. Kashyap also found something strange. The time piece in Neha s room had been stropped by someone. And the time it showed was 3. Strange he thought. Something more strange was the calendar in her room March 16st was marked as D DAY in thick black ink.

When Anala came to know about the murder she immediately rushed to Neha s place, met the inspector and told him about her dream or vision or what ever it was. She also mentioned about seeing the murder weapon in both the cases. Inspector did not believe her initially but when she mentioned about the murder weapon he was shocked as no outsider knew about the actual murder weapon. He was partly hoping that she would have seen the murderer. He asked her to come straight to him if she got any more such visions.

“could the 2 murders be interlinked? If so what is the link? Who might be behind them? What could be the reason behind these murders?” many more such questions haunted Kashyap s mind.

The calendar in Mehak s apartment was marked for March 6th, mehak s watch was stopped at 12 and Neha was murdered 12 in the noon on 6th of March. Was this a co-incidence? Or were the 2 murders done by the same killer? The victims were in no way related to each other. If the 2 murders were related could the indications be of a next murder? If so it should happen at 3 on March 16th.