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 15
Babak had not dreamt of his mother Fati in a long time. He still missed her a lot but he was glad he was not having his nightmares anymore where a creature resembling his mother but smelling of damp earth and with two gaping black holes where its eyes should have been would fool him into thinking she was still alive, waiting for him at Kuh Sangi Park.

Accepting the harsh reality that his mother was gone forever and would never come back to pick him up from Mahin Khanoom’s house had been a traumatic ordeal for the five year old. And, as soon as he had become somewhat resigned to his fate, even warming up to his new brother of sorts, Ali, another big change had shaken his young life. It was on a rainy afternoon in Kuh Sangi Park, which Babak had insisted Mahin take him and Ali, that it had happened. Seeing a young woman clad in a black chador in the distance, Babak’s heart had leapt, thinking it was true, this time it was no dream, Fati was alive. He had not even noticed, in his excitement, how his hand had slipped from Mahin’s grip, and he had started running in the direction of the woman he thought must be his real mother. But at that moment where he thought he was so close, a lightning in the sky had made him involuntarily stop and look up.

When he looked back down, he had lost sight of his mother, or the woman that he thought may be his mother. Only then did he realize his situation. Alone in the park, with rain now coming down hard, and he had lost Mahin and Ali. He turned around to look for them and thought he saw them in the distance, moving fast in the opposite direction from which he had been running. He did his best to scream for them to stop, stop, wait for me, but they were too far already, and then out of sight.

Babak lost all his will. He did not sit so much as crumple down on the now muddy ground of the park. He put his head on his knees, his hands on his face, and began sobbing. He would be left here to die, hungry and cold, with no one to give him a loving caress. In between hiccups, he would mutter “Maman” feebly trying to call out to Fati, even though he knew in his heart she would not come. So imagine his surprise when a hand did finally touch his shoulder. He looked up, shocked, to see the pretty girl that he would soon come to call Maman Yassi.

After an initial resistance on his part, the warmth and affection heaped upon him by the two young girls he was now calling Maman Yassi and Maman Azi had won him over. How different they were from Mahin Khanoom, whose very shadow would be enough to make Babak shiver in fright and wet his pants.

It had been one month now and Babak had become the center of his two new maman’s lives. While Maman Yassi was the one who spent the most time with him, feeding him his meals, bathing him, playing with him, he also had a deep love for Maman Azi. He knew from their conversation in front of him, which they did not think he was old enough to understand, that there was a great weight now upon Maman Azi’s shoulders to go out and work so she could bring food to put on the table.

-- “See what you got me into Yassi?” Azadeh would tease her friend “A new mouth to feed and the workforce in this little household of ours reduced by half.”

-- “Well what do you want, do you want me to bring Babak along with me, like that … that monster Behchat, who does so with her little girl?” Yassi would reply defensively.

-- “Aaaaaahhh, shoukhi mikonam, I am joking Yassi, baba…” Azadeh would shrug her shoulders.

But Babak could see the look of concern in his Maman Azi’s eyes. It was the same anxiety combined with weariness that he had so often observed in his mother Fati’s eyes, the nights that she would bid him goodbye to go work also. He was so afraid that Maman Azi would go out that door and just like Fati, not come back. The world had taken on a menacing shade ever since his mother had vanished and Babak would sob quite hysterically every time Azadeh stepped out the door. He would go hide her shoes in the hope that she would be helpless to go out. When she came back, often in the middle of the night, he would wake up and crawl into her bed, nuzzling his face to her neck and she would hug him tight. They both lay there quietly and although Azadeh did not make a sound, he knew she was weeping.

* * *

Roxanne lit a cigarette, sitting on the windowsill of her office in Tehran but after a couple of puffs, she stubbed it out with repulsion. She was worried and not even her favorite bad habit could soothe her. It had been one month that she was back in Tehran from Mashad. On and off, she had been able to exchange a few quick emails and phone calls with Peyman but now, nothing for seven days. A whole week and she had not heard from her friend. In other circumstances, she would not have given it a second thought. But with what she knew, with the sensitive material that he had entrusted to her, with the worries he had shared with her, the silence on his part was sinister. She went through her wallet and fished out a card, with which she began toying. Should she trust him? What was the alternative? With a deep breath, she dialed the number on the card.

* * *

In Mashad, Ramin answered his cell phone and was pleased to hear Roxanne’s voice on the other end. However, the subject matter of her inquiry soon put a shadow on his initially happy face.

-- “No, we have not had any missing person report about him. Yes, I understand he has no family but someone from his work would have… Oh, he works freelance. Then maybe you are right. I will look into this matter, I promise you. I am sure your friend Mr. Hashemzadeh is just on a trip somewhere and has not mentioned it to you. After all, he is a free man, isn’t he?”

Ramin bit his lower lip. He shouldn’t have said this last thing. What possessed him to express his thinly disguised jealousy over this woman, who was inquiring about her missing friend out of genuine concern. And here he was, digging himself a deeper hole with her. Well, he was attracted to her. There was no denying it. He had not stopped thinking about Roxanne since their initial meeting. But thinking is where it would end. Anything beyond was unthinkable.

* * *

Ever since that debacle when Sharif had fled, leaving his would-be victim alive, he had lived in a state of constant anxiety. Waking up several times in the night in a cold sweat. Always imagining a police car following him in his rearview window. Even the neighbor’s frown in the morning would shatter him and make him retreat back into his house, thinking the end was near. Whenever he saw the prostitutes wandering in their usual neighborhoods, he would turn the car away, prompting protests from his passengers that he was trying to go through a longer route so as to inflate his cab fare.

But time passed by, days, then weeks, and nothing. He combed through the newspaper every day, as meticulous as if he was a governmental agent looking for an excuse to shut down the paper. There had been no report, as far as he could tell, of an assaulted or murdered woman that matched the description of that red-headed whore he had followed home on that ill- fated evening. Maybe she had indeed suffocated to death, unable to reach help in time. Or, if she had survived, she was likely too ashamed and weary of reprisals by law enforcement if she were bold enough to make a complaint.

Little by little, the old feelings of arrogance, impunity, a feeling of invincibility, came back to Sharif. They had grown larger with each victim, until he had become too self-confident. Hubris. That had been the cause of his mishap. But never more. It had been a good wake-up call. He would show no more flexibility, no more understanding, or compassion. For, how could you feel compassion for these nothings, they were not even human, they were… things.

Looking at the young girl laying lifeless before his feet, sprawled out on the Persian carpet of his living room, he felt all the rage, anger and frustration as well as anxiety and stress that had been built up in him over the past month until he felt his whole body poisoned by the darkest bile. His fingertips began to tingle, then his hands and his whole arms started to shake with anger. It was not enough that he had killed the demon with his usual method of rolling the girl’s own hejab into a deadly weapon and suffocating it to death. He needed more now. He needed to feel, smell and see her inside out, to explore and then rip to shreds and destroy every piece of skin, every strand of hair, every nail. He would dig through every orifice, dig hard and deep until she could hold no more secrets for him. He looked at his hands and felt an electric force go through them like the power of a hundred light bulbs. He went to the kitchen and grabbed the longest, largest knife he could find and began methodically to sharpen it. The excitement he felt with every sound of metal hitting metal filled him up with a bloodthirsty lust.

Sharif bent down on his knees, jubilantly wondering where he could start. The girl lay barefoot, her long legs clad in a pair of tight blue jeans that had not been visible under her long chador. Her breasts were popping out of her red T-Shirt, which had some American logo on it. Her nipples were still visible, erect, under the thin material of the T-Shirt, just as they had been when she first entered his home and threw off her chador.

He brought the sharp tip of the knife down on the plant of her right foot and the feeling of the blade breaking the skin, and of the blood gushing out, made him delightedly dizzy. This must be what it’s like to be drunk, he thought to himself. He had become hard, as hard and ruthless as the knife in his hand. Slowly, delicately, trying to control his movements so he would not go too fast, and he would enjoy every second of it, he traced the knife from her toes to her ankle, and began ripping a long, straight line on the seam of her pants, until her bare leg was exposed up to her thigh. That’s when he saw it. He bent down to take a closer look. Yes, it was a tattoo on the girl’s ankle, going round and round in an elegant calligraphy:

Your deceiving eyes have killed me.

Sharif grinned. It was a perfect place to begin>>> Part 16
PARTS [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]