Club You to Death by Anuja Chauhan (books to improve english .TXT) 📕

a giant, fantastic bird. The erstwhile pretty, peaceful garden appears disembowelled – spilling entrails of trailing roots, squelchy, dark dirt, snails, and muddy vegetables. There is a rich, overripe smell of dankness in the air. An earthworm wriggles by Ganga’s foot and she steps back with a gasp of horror.

‘Chhotu, let’s go back.’

But the excited child shakes his head, wriggles out of her grasp and ducks through the cordon. Ganga curses and follows him determinedly.

Inside the wounded garden, a crew of stubbly, sunburnt workmen, all wearing orange helmets and neon green jackets stand at the lip of a dark hole, talking and gesticulating over the sound of the earth mover. They all seem to be working under the supervision of the tall, handsome policeman who had come into Ganga’s store the other day – but today, he looks more intimidating, with his moustache very clipped and his dark sunglasses glinting in the sun.

Ganga grabs the collar of Chhotu’s shirt and yanks him backwards, out of the sight of the police crew. They both land with a thump on a lichen-covered rock at the edge of the garden, half obscured by the tulsi leaves they had come to pluck.

Chhotu squirms angrily. ‘I want to watch!’ he hisses.

Ganga finds she has lost the will to fight him. A peculiar paralysis has gripped her limbs and all she can do is stare, with a thumping heart and a sick, horrid sort of fascination as the slender neck of the mighty machine dips gracefully into the ground and the clawed head emerges, loaded with a mouthful of dark earth. The necks swivels, groaning a little, and the head dribbles out its gritty load. Then the neck swivels back to its original position, and the head bends again to take another voracious bite out of the ground.

Ganga and Chhotu are not the only audience. The plump grey-and-brown gauraiyas are watching as well, their heads cocked to one side, their eyes bright and inquisitive as they hop about in the wake of the digger, pecking for worms and insects in the huge upended mound of rich, brown earth.

Above and behind them, in the branches of the ancient neems, several yellow-eyed, hook-nosed cheels swoop down too to observe the proceedings with haughty, soundless interest.

The digger gives a low keening groan and dribbles out what look like the swollen mishappen limbs of hastily buried corpses onto the muddy ground.

Ganga gasps in horror.

‘Didi, it’s just mooli!’

And indeed it is nothing but a load of muddied white radishes.

‘Oh,’ she says faintly.

Chhotu shakes his head in disgust at her squeamishness.

The neck swivels back into the hole in the ground, and suddenly, the workmen begin to shout hoarsely. The neck freezes mid-air, hovering, as the crew discusses something animatedly, until the tall, fair policeman blows a whistle and the claw descends slowly, almost tentatively into the darkness.

Her nerves electrified by some sudden instinct, Ganga covers Chhotu’s eyes with her hand.

‘I want to see!’ he cries, struggling.

‘Shh!’ She places a hand lightly over his mouth.

And then has to bite down on her lower lip to strangle the scream of revulsion rising from her own throat.

Because the giant claw has just risen from the hole in the ground again. And this time something is dangling from it. A macabre, mocking thing, with stick-like white limbs, a semi-dismembered pelvic girdle, and what are clearly ribs. A thing with a gleaming bald pate, two hollow, staring eye sockets, a dark hole where a nose should be and two rows of yellowed teeth bared in a wide, grisly grin.

11

A Gun in the Mud

Roshni is staring down at Cookie’s messages on her phone blankly, when Aryaman walks into the room. He looks heavy-eyed with sleep – and in dire need of a shave, a haircut and a purpose in life.

‘Ma, can I get some dosh?’ he says dully. ‘I want to order a new router. The one I’ve got is too slow.’

‘Maybe you’re too slow.’ Her words come out with so much suppressed violence that he blinks, vaguely surprised.

‘What’d I do now?’

Roshni stares at him mutely for almost a minute, then says, ‘The police have dug up the DTC kitchen garden and found a dead body buried there.’

‘Huh?’ Aryaman looks at her blankly. ‘No way!’

‘Yes way.’ She copies the teenage lingo ironically. ‘Has your brain processed that information yet? Or should I wait half an hour for it to reach?’

He looks injured. ‘You’re using language that demeans me. The therapist said you should use language that builds me up.’

She takes a deep, calming breath. ‘Arya, did you hear what I said? A body has been found. Dead. In the kitchen garden. By the police.’

‘But who told them to go digging there?’ he asks, puzzled. ‘Were they looking for vegetables and dug too deep?’

She throws out her arms. ‘How the hell do I know, Arya!’

He draws back. ‘Why’re you looking at me like that, Ma? Do you think I—’

‘Shhush,’ she cuts him off fiercely. ‘Actually, don’t tell me anything. Don’t speak another word.’

They stare at each other in silence for a while. Then his eyes skitter away guiltily.

She draws a deep breath. ‘It’s my own fault! I was the one who had bete-ka-bukhaar, and kept hankering for a son in spite of having such lovely daughters! Your sisters are both so, so much better than you—’

He cuts in. ‘Yes, Ma, we all know how much you love your daughters and what a little shit I am! Are you going to give me the money for the new router or not?’

She stares at him in speechless fury for a moment, then lunges forward, moving with Zumba-honed speed, grabs him by the shoulders and shoves him against the bedroom wall.

‘What the hell, Ma!’

‘Back to your room,’ she says roughly. ‘No internet. No money. No wandering around. Just go back in there and let me handle it.’

‘Urvi?’

Urvashi Khurana is sipping a cup of chamomile tea, swinging