Fruitcake - Volume 1: The Chapter 40 Prologue: The Call

It has been 2 years since the unfortunate incident. I still regret not able to protect the family. On that day all it mattered to us was to save Abhinu’s life, but we never realized that there were 3 other lives that were at stake. That person manipulated everyone. 9 of the smartest persons in the state never realized his true intentions until the incident actually happened.

After we broke open the door of the Banerjee residence, the gruesome scene that was in front of my eyes, gave me nightmares for the next few days. Even though during my days with the underground, I have seen a lot of deaths. I might have the blood of a lot of people in my hands too. Once a whole village was wiped out in a single night and just like a cold-blooded killer, that I had become, I never did react to it, but I was not sure why I was reacting this way today.

I wonder what that 13-year-old girl who was with us, when we entered the Banerjee residence, must be feeling. The sight in front of my eyes shook my very spirit. The bodies of Darika and Garima were lying lifelessly on the floor with their faces down.

Mrs. Banerjee was taking the support of the pillar and was bleeding profusely. Her face and clothes were soaked in blood. It felt like she was trying her level best to hold on to dear life. Her wrist was slit, the severed blood vessels were sticking like corrugated pipes through the clotted blood. By the looks of her wounds, it felt like she was also tortured but somehow, she was trying her level best to hold on to dear life. She was lying like a butchered animal in a waste of blood.

The Banerjee’s 9-year-old and 11-year-old daughters, Darika and Garima had their hands tied up together behind their back and were lying with their faces down, their mouth gagged and a dark piece of cloth blindfolding them. The killer must not have wanted then to see their death. Someone had shot them on their thighs first and then in the middle of the forehead.

Joe’s friend pulled up the lifeless body of Garima on his lap. Her hair was red-blond stained and discolored when he picked her up. Her face was bruised, covered with huge blotches.

I could see that Commander Christopher had picked up Darika on his lap too and then he spoke the dreadful words, “I cannot feel any pulse on her. She is gone.” He tried to remove the blood ridden hair off her face and then he shrieked “WAIT A MINUTE… I think that bastard had shot her on the face.”

I looked carefully and figured out that Garima had also been shot on her head too. Nishi Babu touched her chest to check if he could feel a heartbeat, and then he shrieked “Her Rib cage has been fractured” There was a gunshot wound on her thighs and I saw that Vikash was trying to remove her hair off her face and shouted, “She has also been shot in the face.”

I looked around and saw that Darika was also lying in a pool of blood, a great mat of blood had spread like a bib all over her. Some brain matter had exploded from the back of her skull too and splattered on the Persian carpet. The lifeless body of Darika on Commander Christopher’s lap made me feel as if some ungainly life-sized doll was in his arms.

At first glance, we felt that their eldest daughter Aamaya was responsible for the death of the 3 of them, as she and Joe have been missing for the past 6 hours and we had no clue of their whereabouts. However, when I stepped on to help Mrs. Banerjee and tried to stop the blood loss she kept on moving my hands away and mumbled, “Please protect Geeta and Aamaya from that monster.”

I tried to ask her “Monster? Whom are you talking about?”

The only word that came from her mouth was “So… Soam… soam…”

And with those words, there was a deafening silence that filled the room as Mrs. Banerjee’s struggling breathing sounds came to a halt and she took her last breath.

What is worse was that when Mr. Banerjee reached the residence, the investigating team concluded that the 3 of them were murdered by their eldest daughter in a fit of rage and has run away.

Further, when Mr. Banerjee asked them about his whereabouts of his youngest daughter Geeta, they had no clue. They went to the hospital were Geeta was admitted and the doctors outrightly denied that any patient by the name of Geeta Banerjee was ever admitted in their hospital. The Officer in Charge of the investigation even asked Mr. Banerjee if he could give him a photograph of Geeta so that they could try to locate her. The irony in all this was Mr. Banerjee had no picture of Geeta with him. The cops searched the house for a picture and there was not a single photograph of Geeta in that house too. The family photo that was present in the hall had Mr. and Mrs. Banerjee, Aamaya, Darika, and Garima but there was no Geeta.

What exactly happened there what was strange in all this was it had been 2 years now and the cops had not attempted to even try to locate the whereabouts of Aamaya. She is still missing. Geeta is also nowhere to be found.

The question here was did Geeta really exist or was it a character Mr. Banerjee created to protect his eldest daughter Aamaya.

I guess you might be wondering who I am and what was this incident all about. I guess it’s time to go back and start from the beginning. How the whole thing started.