3
Vishal tumbled to the ground, the flashlight slipping from his grip in the sheer shock of what he had seen.
The gale-force wind grew violent.
“Vanitha,” a man’s voice called out.
“What about our child?” a woman’s voice replied, her sobbing heard in fitful bursts.
“Just three more days, isn’t it? Let it go.”
As the man spoke, the woman’s weeping subsided. Gradually, the howling wind died down.
When things returned to normal a moment later, Vishal scrambled to his feet, trembling. Where is the flashlight? He groped the floor in the dark. On his third attempt, his hands struck the metal casing. He switched it on and swept the beam across the room. Shards of broken glass lay scattered everywhere.
Vishal was terrified. He had seen that figure in the flash of his light. Would it appear again?
As he slowly approached the entrance, he gasped. Food packets were strewn across the floor, and Veeraiya lay there, unconscious.
“Veeraiya!” Vishal called out, splashing water on his face. Veeraiya stirred. After a moment, his eyes cleared.
“What happened, Veeraiya?” Vishal asked.
“I don’t know, Thambi (younger brother). I was bringing the food—I just remember a massive gust of wind. Then, everything went black.”
Vishal understood. “Has a wind like this ever blown here before?”
“No, Thambi, this is the first time. It hit so hard; look, the windows are all shattered.”
“I see.”
Veeraiya gathered the fallen food packets and handed them to Vishal. “Thambi,” he called out softly.
“Tell me, Veeraiya.”
“I don’t know… this wind didn’t feel right. Please, be careful.”
“What are you saying?”
“Just telling you what my heart feels, Thambi.”
When Vishal entered the house with the food, Chandrasekhar was lost in deep thought.
“Pa,” Vishal called, startling him. He placed the food before him and studied his father’s face. Sensing the gaze, Chandrasekhar looked away to avoid eye contact.
“Pa.”
“Yes, Vishal?”
“Did you see that whirlwind just now?”
“Yes.”
“Pa… are you hiding something from me?”
Chandrasekhar looked up sharply. “Why would you ask that?”
“I don’t know. I just felt like it.”
“There’s nothing like that, son.”
“Pa, do you know anyone named Vanitha?”
“Vanitha?” Chandrasekhar pondered for a moment. “No, I don’t know anyone by that name.”
As Vishal watched his father’s face, he didn’t get the sense that he was lying. The complication lies elsewhere. I need to find out what it is, Vishal thought to himself.
“Alright, Pa. Let’s eat.”
Vishal turned on the tap at the washbasin, but only air hissed out. He checked the bathroom—still no water. The valve was on the terrace. Vishal hesitated for a second.
What is this? Am I finally starting to get scared? He steeled his resolve. “Pa, you start eating. I’ll go to the terrace and check the valve.”
Vishal opened the door cautiously. Veeraiya had already cleared the broken glass. He climbed the stairs, watching every step. On the terrace, his flashlight revealed that a valve had been shut. He turned it on. As he turned to head back down, his eyes caught Arthi at the opposite bungalow.
He could clearly see her smiling.
“Hello, Madam,” Vishal said.
“Just call me Arthi,” she replied. “Had dinner?”
“Not yet. You?”
“Finished. Just walking now.”
“Nice. Which school?” Vishal asked, and Arthi named her school.
After she bid him goodnight, Vishal went back downstairs. Seeing Chandrasekhar still sitting without eating, Vishal’s suspicion grew. He is definitely hiding something.
“Come, Pa, let’s eat.”
“Okay.”
They ate in silence. After Vishal spread the bed and set the pillows for his father, he said, “You go ahead and sleep, Pa. I’ll be up for a while.” Exhausted from the journey, Chandrasekhar fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.
Vishal retraced the events in his mind.
Before Dr. Ravichandran arrived, another doctor had visited. But that doctor hadn’t been captured on the CCTV camera. If so, that wasn’t a human. The figure he saw during the whirlwind looked like a woman.
Before the wind started, he heard a woman and a child. Before it stopped, he heard a man.
A man, a woman, and a child. Three people had died. Who were they? How did they die? Was it murder, suicide, or an accident?
Was that man a doctor? If so, an entire doctor’s family had perished.
He had to find out. Who were they? Where did they live? Was there a connection to his father or this house? He had to know. Especially since the man’s voice said, “Only three more days.”
That meant something catastrophic would happen in three days. To stop it, he had to identify them within the next two days. But how?
Vishal’s conscience nudged him: You have seen one of them. The one who came as a doctor.
Vishal felt a spark of excitement. Yes!
The image of that face is in your mind, isn’t it?
Definitely.
Go see all the doctors in this area. Someone might have a photo of him.
It wouldn’t be easy to visit every doctor, but he had to try. He decided that his first task in the morning would be to visit all the nearby clinics.
Unable to sleep, he took his novel, Kutram Pudhuvidham (A New Kind of Crime), from his bag and started reading. He had barely finished the first part when the transformer outside suddenly exploded.
The power went out, plunging the area into total darkness. Vishal switched on his phone’s flashlight.
Just then, he heard a sound right by the door.
His heart hammered against his ribs. He listened intently.
It was the sound of many children playing.
