STORY

A fictional series based on real events that happened in Iran known as the "Spider Killings". [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]

PART 19
Roxanne was smoking her fifth cigarette of the night, leaning against one of the side doors at the police station, which opened into a narrow side street. With Majid’s whereabouts unknown, she did not feel safe enough at her hotel and had asked Ramin to allow her to hang out with him.

The memory of Majid holding her daughter’s photograph threateningly would not have allowed her to go to sleep anyway. Thank god she had been able to reach Manou to take the necessary precautions. He had taken Setareh with him to shomaal, to the popular seaside resort that lay to the north of Tehran, where nobody would know they were.

As she stood there smoking furiously, thinking of the million ways she would like to pulverize Majid, Ramin joined her. Roxanne offered him a cigarette, which he declined.

-- “Well, I asked Asghar to page Majid again. But he is not answering his phone either his cell or at home.”

-- “I wonder where he took Azadeh.” Roxanne sighed.

Ramin nodded politely but truthfully, his mind was on the red-headed woman inside the walls of the station, still engrossed in examining the voluminous photo books of men with past criminal record who could perhaps be identified as the Spider Killer.

Meanwhile, his men were working on gathering the photo identity certificates of the drivers who either worked for local taxi agencies or had leased a cab independently and who could fit within the parameters of the woman’s description of the serial killer. Azadeh and Majid were far from his mind right now.

-- “What I worry about most is her son.” Roxanne continued.

-- “She has a son?” Ramin asked, genuinely surprised.

-- “Yes, he is five years old and his name is Babak.”

The look Ramin gave Roxanne as she said those last words made her pause.

-- “Is something wrong?”

-- “Nnn… No, nothing. Forget it, stupid coincidence…”

-- “Funny, I don’t believe in coincidences, just fate.” Roxanne said smilingly.

Though she had meant it light-heartedly, Ramin was touched by those words, he could not himself understand why. Although he had threatened Hossein to charge him with the murder of Babak, that innocent orphan who had been in his and his wife’s care, and then mysteriously vanished, Hossein had vehemently denied the accusation.

Deep inside, Ramin believed him. Fate could not be that cruel. It had already taken away Babak’s parents, not to mention his would-be sibling, the little being still cocooned inside his mother’s womb when the Spider Killer had suddenly cut off both their two lives in one instant.

A whole family could not be wiped out from the face of this earth and the monster responsible free to roam about, looking for his next victim. No, fate could not be that cruel. He wished even more fervently that this night would bring an end to the search for the elusive Spider Killer.

* * *

Something had compelled Azadeh to open the door of the main floor bedroom from which two muffled voices emerged. She peeked inside, and though there was no light on, her eyes had by now adapted themselves to the obscurity so that she could clearly distinguish the spectacle in front of her.

Majid was standing with his back to Azadeh, leaning forward on the bed in front of him. His pants were halfway down his knees. With one hand, he had pinned the naked child down on the bed, while with the other, he was gripping his own penis and rubbing it back and forth on the child’ soft stomach. The child was Babak.

Majid had successfully paralyzed the little boy by pressing down on his throat so that the child would risk suffocating if he moved about. Visibly frightened but understanding that he should not move, Babak would let out a pitiful whimper from time to time. He sounded exactly like the little lamb Azadeh’s mother in law had sacrificed on the day she had joined her husband’s household, shortly before it had had its throat slashed, spraying the audience, including Azadeh, in the face with its blood.

Majid, totally focused on his pleasure, had not noticed Azadeh intruding in the room. He kept going, back and forth, grunting from time to time as if in answer to the child’s whimpers of terror and disgust.

As she watched this scene, Azadeh felt the delicious light-headedness that she had several times felt in the past upon getting drunk. A tingling started at the tip of her toes, like thousands of bubbles from a soda bottle traveling from her feet up to the top of her head. She felt so light, so light, like she weighed no more than a bubble herself.

Slowly, she found herself standing on the tip of her toes, and then, to her ravishment, her toes left the floor altogether. She was levitating in the air, like a feather carried on the sleeve of a cool breeze. Azadeh kept floating until eventually, the ceiling stopped her ascent.

No matter how hard she tried to push with her back, to push past the ceiling, break it open and fly away into the sky, she couldn’t. So she resigned herself and, her back to the ceiling, which felt as soft as a mattress and made her sleepy, she looked down at the scene below her.

She was shocked to see herself, still standing on that same spot she had occupied before she had drifted off in the air. Yes, it was definitely her. Another Azadeh. One who was earth-bound while she was able to look down on her from above, like a guardian angel watching over her human charge.

With increasing curiosity, she watched the other Azadeh, the one down below, surreptitiously approach Majid from the back. She continued watching as her earthly double took out the pair of scissors that she had carried with her and brandished them in the air, just above Majid’s nape.

She watched with fascination as her other self brought down the sharp tip of the scissors in one violent, deep, plunge on the back of Majid’s neck. The blow was majestic. Immediately, the blood came squirting up to the ceiling, a crimson eruption that hungrily licked Azadeh’s face.

Ecstasy. That was the only way to call it. Finally, finally, she knew what it felt like. She had done it. She had broken through the skin, she had seen, heard and tasted the blood, and it was as sweet as she had imagined it that evening long ago when she stood above her sleeping husband with a knife in her hand, watching his throat rise and fall, rise and fall and call out for her blade. She had been too cowardly then but now she had made amends.

She had killed them all with that fatal blow: Her ex-husband Mohammad, who had killed the happy, pure child that Azadeh had been once; Those filthy men who had grunted and groaned atop her body and then rolled off only to casually speed dial their wives or girlfriends: “Salam azizam, Salam khoshkelam”, while she still lay there, soiled with the stain of their sin; The Spider Killer, that nameless man who had killed her best friend Yassi and probably scores of other zan-e badbakht o bichare, poor, helpless women; And this bastard who went by the name Majid. This venomous snake who had rightly made her skin crawl from the start despite his deceiving appearance. This duplicitous creature from Jahanam, from hell.

Majid had jerked back in total shock as the twin metal blades pierced his spine. He turned around and for the first time saw his killer. Staggering back, his hand finally off the child’s throat, he tried to reach back behind his neck in a desperate attempt to pull out the instrument of his death. Unsuccessful, he opened his mouth to call for help, but only blood came gushing out.

Although he had been rendered speechless, his eyes kept on speaking. They were speaking volumes as they looked at the young woman standing in front of him, pleaded with her, begged her, those icy blue eyes who were now filling with blood, looking like they were on fire, and then… finally… the fire was extinguished.

With that, Azadeh abruptly fell off the ceiling, landing on her face with a hard thud, which knocked her unconscious. When she came to some time later, she realized there were no longer two Azadehs. She and her earthly twin had reunited. Had they ever really split apart? What had happened to her?

It took her a few minutes to comprehend the enormity of what she had done. She had killed, yes, killed a man. No, she had slaughtered him. And she did not feel an ounce of regret. With anxiety, she looked around for Babak and realized finally that he had crawled at her feet, lying down in a fetal position, still naked, his thumb in his mouth. Majid’s body lay near them, soaking the carpet with his blood.

* * *

-- “I am sorry…” The red-headed woman sniffled. “I did look at all your photos twice, but he isn’t there. He isn’t there, I tell you.”

Roxanne and Ramin looked at each other, despair returning to their eyes. Now what? The Spider Killer was still out there and this, their only credible lead, had proved fruitless.

* * *

In the cold night, in the deserted city, Azadeh stumbled rather than she walked, carrying Babak in her arms, as well as a dragging a canvas bag where she had hastily thrown all the food she could find in the kitchen cupboards along with a few pieces of clothing. She was glad they had been able to make it out of there without waking up the others but time was ticking and it would be a matter of hours before they found Majid. She did not have the time to dwell on the repercussions of her act.

Killing a police officer, the nephew of Ayatollah Kazemi no less! Azadeh and Babak had to leave this city immediately, somehow before the authorities caught and killed her and they hauled Babak off to some orphanage. If only she could make it to the highway outside the city, she could probably flag down a truck driver to get a ride to Tehran before the police put out a radio and television alert.

It was an immense relief when she saw a taxicab driving by. Dropping the bag, she ran towards it, Babak in her arms, and waved at the driver frantically.

* * *

-- “No need to get excited, my sweet.” Sharif sneered to himself behind the wheel as he approached the young girl. “This is not the lucky coincidence you think it is. This is fate.”>>> Part 20

PARTS [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]