Chapter 20 The First Confrontation

• When Arunava slowed down his car and took a U-turn around the divider, he noticed flashes of lightening in the sky. A pitter-patter of raindrops followed suite. SH 6 was still thirteen kilometers away from here following the long drive of thirty seven kilometres according to the location showing on Google map. He remembered the night he had taken a U-turn towards Dunlop more .. while on his way back home . He had seen her off at her sister's flat in Saltlec about an hour before that. She was driving alone. He was driven merely by intuition then. And it had been a next to impossible task of saving her. But this time he was aware of her danger. Though he had very less time in hand. And it was what was making him restless. Arunava increased his pressure on the accelerator. The wiper was cleaning the windscreen continually and as it did the road leapt up before his eyes illuminated by the fog lights of his car. Darkness, which had descended like ghosts on either side was being dissipated as Arunava's car sped along the rain drenched highway. Having a gut feeling that something bad is going to happen is one thing and being well aware of the danger is another. It makes a person nervous. Too nervous. Particularly when the enemy is incomprehensible. The battle goes on in his head an umpteen number of times, before it takes place in reality.. It lends him wings. Like it lended Arunava. It made him cut away a journey time of two hours to half. When he found out the house at the end of the third row at last after taking a series of turns through narrow alleys following the route around Laxmigunje bazar; the hands of the clock had already turned to twenty minutes past two. It was raining in cats and dogs with visibility very poor.
• The house stood deserted in the dark as if no one inhabited it. There was no light coming out from other houses too. Loadshedding, Arunava muttered to himself. A big tree had been uprooted and it lay felled blocking the path. Now he knew the reason for the electricity board to blacken out this area. He couldn't envisage the intensity of wind from inside his car. It seemed a heavy storm had passed by the place. He hadn't turned on the radio on purpose. He hated being distracted by anything other than his purpose now. As he crossed the tree, something seemed to get entangled in his legs. For a moment it appeared a pair of human hands .. cold from the rain. They were trying to pull him back. He flashed his torch behind. Only branches of the dead tree and it's leaves lay spread on the ground. Arunava strained his ears for any sound coming out of the Shivangi's house. But the chirping of crickets and the falling and rising of his car's wiper were the only sounds in the whole universe. No .. there was still another sound. The beating of his heart.
• He tapped on the rings first, then the panel. No response. He called out Shivangi's name a couple of times. Still no response. He pulled the rings with the hope that perhaps the bolt was only pulled up .. wasn't turned at the other side. Then he pushed with his shoulder. The door didn't budge an inch. He tried again. The water had splashed on the wooden panel despite the sunshade - such was the intensity of rain. It jammed the door from inside, Arunava found. Time was running fast and he knew from experience that every moment was important. He could neither make haste without knowing the situation inside the house. After a number of attempts the two inches thick plyboard panel finally gave in. His eyes got blinded in darkness for sometime. Then he could make out the passage, stairway and the rooms. He purposefully didn't light his torch, but took out his colt 0.38 revolver instead and held the trigger before tiptoeing inside. There was no one in the living room. The next room was the store room. He looked all around. There was no one else in the room.