It was 10 PM. Hemant rushed to the empty parking lot cursing his boss for making him stop for so long on the last day of week. He accelerated his Maruti SX4 with a full blow and drove it out of the company building.
Working as a sincere PR manager in this only 2 year old company, with a 5 figure salary, 28 year old Hemant was surely the most eligible bachelor. "Beta, please come home if you are free tomorrow.” mom had already told him in morning. "It must be another girl they shortlisted for me, what if I don't go at all?” he thought. Hemant always avoided marriage as he thought it was time for him to work rather than to marry.
But he absolutely had no reason this time to skip this visit. His town, only 200 km away from the city was the frequent weekend resting place for him as it was calm town and it would take him only 4 hours with his car to get home. Usually he would travel back to home in night immediately after leaving his office, reaching home midnight which would give him next day free to talk with parents and meeting friends.
Only if he hadn't been stopped in the office up to 10PM for some presentations he had to work on.
"Damn, I would have covered half of the distance by now." He thought to himself.
Playing "Guns and Roses" on DVD, his personal favorite in a full blast, he drove his car out of the city and joined the highway. A sudden urge to pee made him stop the car to the corner of road.
Getting back in the car, he checked his hair in the side mirror and started to drive back.
Poww.... Poww-poww... Suddenly a big truck behind him started to blow horn loudly. It was a black tanker with a "Kal-Bhairava" between its headlights. Hemant gave a space to truck to over-take, but the truck didn't overtake him. Instead it started to come close to his car. In panic, Hemant raised the speed only to find that the truck was following him with a great speed. "Fuck Volvos", Hemant cursed. The truck was clearly seemed to follow him with a bad intention. Now it was flashing its lights in high-beam making driving the car difficult for Hemant.
"Maybe I should stop the car so that the truck will pass," Hemant thought... "no.. !it would surely hit me if I stop in the way..", another mind said.
Meanwhile, the truck has become more aggressive and was following Hemant with a very low space in between them. Suddenly truck hit the rear side of the car. Hemant was really horrified now, and instead of stopping, hit the accelerator with full strength.
"Damn, I should have listened to boss's advice to not drive in the night," he was thinking. He took out his mobile to call police only to find himself out of the coverage area.
The first place he knew would be safe was still on 8 kms, a Petrol Pump from where he always used to fill petrol as it was cheaper than the city and the only petrol pump to accept cards on the highway. With the maximum possible speed, he rushed to the petrol pump. He had leaved the truck behind for a couple of minutes in which he reached to petrol pump.
"Now there is no way for the trucker to hit me as I am out of car and it would be a difficult for him to hit it inside the short space in the pump-area.", Hemant thought. Getting out of car, he shouted to the old attendant, “thousand" and rushed to see the damage to the car. Checking his mobile once again out of coverage, he asked attendant if they had a land-line in the office. Smiling mysteriously, the old man said, "Yes, but you will have to come inside." As soon as he turned to go inside, "the truck" entered speedily in petrol station area. Panicked Hemant started to run towards the office but got surprised when the truck stopped at another end and a sardarji jumped out of it. "Ok, so now it's a fight time" thought the Hemant and clenched his fists. Sardarji ran toward him and instead of attacking him shouted, "Thank God, nothing has happened to you". Surprised Hemant was just in shock looking at the unexpected behavior of the driver. "I was trying to warn you with all those beams and mistakenly hit you in the process… Please tell me, who is that person with knife in your back-seat?” Sardarji asked.
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“So it was like this, when you stopped the car to pee that person must have entered inside without you noticing him. I was behind you and so I could see him every time he pulled the knife and tried to hurt you. With my high-beams, ram, he got scared for some time while you got time to get to petrol pump, Ha-ha”, Dara the sardarji said to Hemant. They were having a nice dinner on the dhaba beside the petrol pump. The person with knife was identified as a psycho road killer and was arrested by high-way police from petrol pump after a call by Hemant from phone in petrol pump leaving Hemant and Dara at dhaba to discuss about the life.
“So, What are you going to do now?” asked Dara.
“I think I am going to marry soon.” replied Hemant.
-----------------------------THE END-----------------------------
By: Vishwas
