I met Mohit when I stopped at that dingy gas station, half a kilometer south of the last town. He was a jolly fellow, in his late twenties. The next town was nearly 50 miles away and he was in dire need of a lift, and offered to pay half of my gas bill. He looked like a decent guy, and I was short on cash. So, I thought why not!
He immediately struck up a conversation with me. He told me that he worked at a firm a couple of towns away, and he traveled about once a month to meet his girlfriend. Soon, the conversation was in full flow, twisting and turning around various topics, just like the bends on the road. He was an avid reader, a die hard cricket fan, and madly passionate about movies, just like me.
Suddenly, with another sharp twist in the road, my headlight fell on a shabbily dressed man, standing about a hundred meters down the road, waving wildly for a lift. I had almost applied the brakes, when Mohit said, in a very serious tone, "Dude, what are you doing!!! Didn't you hear the news? Keep going. Do not stop."
Something in his voice made me hit the gas pedal instead of brakes. I saw the silhoutte of the hitchhiker whirring past us, as I sped full throttle. Soon, he was nothing but a distant shadow in the rear view mirror.
My grip on the steering relaxed a bit. I turned towards Mohit. His face was still white, his expression ghastly.
"Dude relax, and what fucking news are you talking about?" I shot at him, uneasily.
There was still a tinge of fear in his tone when he replied - "Dude, I just read it today. This 30 km stretch that we are on right now is very infamous for a serial killer who lurks here after dark. There have been 3 murders in past couple of months. The reports say that he pretends to be a hitchhiker and signals passing cars for lift. If they are stupid enough to stop and let him in, ..." he let his words hang.
Then, he pulled out his cell, googled something, and then shoved it in my face.
What I saw sent chills up and down my spine. A few pics, one of a girl, her head smashed in with what could only have been a crowbar, her neck bent at a very strange angle, another one of a couple, both stabbed multiple times in the heart and again, their necks broken, blood splattered everywhere, the corpses still left in the car to rot.
As I scrolled through the pictures, the realization now hit me with full force. I already had a hitchhiker in the car!
I looked up from the phone.
Mohit was staring at me. His expression had changed. Gone was the ghastly expression. There was a sudden gleam in his eyes, a gleam that only comes from knowledge of how the future is about to unfold.
This is it. This is how it's going to end. Maybe, I should stall?
I uttered, slowly - "But why hasn't police been able to catch him, this killer? Apparently, he's been doing it for a couple of months now. He has a pretty obvious modus operandi. Pretending to be a hitchhiker, flagging down cars, and gutting their owners. He must live somewhere close."
Mohit replied - "Dunno". His tone was neutral, dangerously so.
I had to act confident. I looked directly into his eyes - "I have a theory. Would you like to hear it?"
He stared back at me. By now, we both knew that this was just wordplay. Soon it would end and then, the real horror would begin. We both realized that there was no escape from it. And we both had made peace with it. I knew I had.
"Sure, go ahead ", he smiled.
"Maybe the reason police haven't been able to catch this serial killer is because they have got it all wrong. Maybe, the killer is not the hitchhiker. Maybe he is the driver!!! The killer steals a car and drives along this road. When he sees anyone stranded on the roadside, he offers them lift. And once they get into the car, ..." .
In one swift motion, I took out the dagger hidden carefully besides my seat and plunged it right into his heart. He gasped, his eyes wide in shock. Then slowly, I twisted the dagger. I felt life draining from his body, which was still convulsing violently. Once again, I felt that power, surging through my veins. The same power I had felt, when I had mutilated the half dead bodies of that girl, and that married couple. The power that made me God, the destroyer.
I smiled in satisfaction. This one was not like the others. When I saw that change in his expression earlier, the gleam in his eyes, I knew he had understood who I was. Pretty intuitive, eh! But somehow, that made it even more fun - to play with him, before gutting him. Poor Mohit. Trapped like a rat who knows the cat is just playing with it before going for the kill!
I slowed down the car and parked it on the roadside. It was pitch black. I got out and carefully shifted Mohit's, now lifeless body to the driver's side. Then I wrapped my ice cold fingers around his limp neck. As my hand jerked, I heard a crunching sound.
It was the sound of a neck snapping.
And that sound was music...
It was symphony...
It was the trumpet of the Gods..