Has she, hasn't she? - part 2

now to the meat of the matter...i've left the ending a lil unclear, open to interpretation...hope u guys like it...jus leave a comment abt how u liked it, or atleast write that you were here, so i know who's visited..

Vineet could not believe what had just transpired. He took out his hand from under her head and saw a redness spread all over it. Her body was still warm, and there was feeling of life about her. She could not have died! For a moment there was confusion in his mind, 'has she, hasn't she?' But the faraway, dead look in her eyes convinced him.

In just a second's outburst, he had killed his wife, the mother of his child. What was he going to do now? After a couple of minutes, the thought that he would go to jail for murder struck him, and he sunk lower. For about ten minutes, he just leaned against the wall, not crying, not panicking. Just staring out in front of him, breathing but not alive, hearing but not listening. Then he got up and walked to the bedroom. He brought out the sleeping bag that they had bought last year for a camping excursion. He slowly stuffed her body in the bag and making sure that there was no more blood dripping, he dragged the bag out into the living room. Then he went back and cleaned the kitchen floor with a mop, making sure nothing looked amiss, and then threw the mop away.

He quietly took the bag with him, huffing and puffing as he coped with the dead weight. All the while his insides were twisting about, thinking about what would happen if someone caught him now. When he reached his car, and put the bag in the boot, he heaved a huge sigh of relief. He went back up and changed his shirt, wet with perspiration. It was fortunate that Sunil was staying at his grandmother's today and wasn't here right now. Vineet decided he would drive all the way to the place they had gone to camp. It was about six hours away by drive, and he distinctly remembered seeing swamp patches amidst the jungle. It was nine in the night now and he could be back by morning.

He got into the car and drove away, trying to hide under the night's dark cloak. The drive to the place had been the longest of his life. It was cloudy and there were no stars in the sky, whose absence increased the intense loneliness Vineet was feeling. The moon was trying valiantly to shine through now and then. It was silent as the grave and the halo of the street lights threw disturbing shadows on the road. Vineet zipped across the empty roads and made it to the swamp on time. He cruised by some of the forest land slowly, looking for a good spot. He found one, and slowed the car to a halt. He got out, looking around to see if anyone was there. Satisfied, he took the bag out of the car, started lugging the load over his back and entered the foliage. Everything was wet and sticky, and the creatures of the night were making all sorts of noises, as if it were a concerted effort to unnerve him. Let him know that they knew...

Vineet snapped back to the present, and noticed that he was an hour's drive from home. He shook his head, trying to get rid of that sound that rang softly in his ears, then the deafening silence that followed. Familiar sights started to pass by as he got nearer and nearer to where he lived. His mind was brimming with confusion, guilt, fear, sorrow, but mostly uncertainty.

What would he tell his son when he got home? He would come soon, and he was bound to ask. How long could Vineet hold up his lie? What would happen if Sunil knew? Why did this happen? How could it?

He tried to stop thinking, knowing it would lead nowhere. He looked at the blurring roadside, trying to distract his attention. That was when his eyes fell upon a single figure and every cell in his body decided to turn itself off.

There was his wife! Right under a banyan tree on the left side. She was standing right by the road, dressed as she was when she had died. Her hair was blowing in the cool morning breeze and her eyes were wide-open and staring, at him. There was accusation and all the anger in hell in those eyes. Her mouth was open in a big 'O', noiselessly screaming, and she was pointing at him. For a moment every sense of his went limp and he was unable to tear his gaze away from the apparition. Unbidden, his car veered to the left towards a large clump of trees. Still looking at the place he had last seen her, he crashed hard into a particularly thick bark and hit the dashboard hard. In a daze, he tried desperately to clutch on to the last threads of his consciousness, and in doing so, triggered the final bit of memory imprinted on his mind...

He had reached the perfect spot. There was a bubbling pool of green-brown slime in front of him. He laid the bag onto the ground and took a breather. He then lifted it and proceeded to lower it into the pool. He hesitated, and at that exact moment, an eerie sound pervaded the hush air.

It was low, muffled moaning coming from somewhere nearby. After a moment, Vineet looked down in horror to see that the bag was moving and it was the source of the sound. He had laid her body in the bag and had zipped it right up to her face, covering everything except the eyes.

Eyes that were now staring up at him wide and angry, but also full of fear. Eyes that were pleading and running with tears a moment later. She was begging him not to do it. She tried to move her hands, but there wasn't enough room. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Vineet yelped in fear and shock and before he knew it, he had dropped the bag with his alive wife in it, into the pool. She had not died, but had merely been knocked out.

He tried to get to the bag and pull it out, but the surface of the pool was a good five feet below him and the bag was descending in it pretty fast. He could only lie over the edge and look into those eyes as they sank into the murky depths, and listen to the constant, helpless moaning. He ran from the place. He now realized what was chasing him. Not an animal, not a thing, and not judgement. It was merely that haunting moan that was ringing in his ears, and would continue to do so for the rest of his life...

Back in the wrecked car, Vineet was teetering on the edge of consciousness and his last thought before he blacked out had been that no matter what; whether he was to die now or survive, whether he'd do a thousand good deeds in his life, or even if he confessed it all...Vineet was no longer going to ever be happy in his life, never smile again or feel unburdened. He was doomed...

A small crowd rushed to the spot to check on the injured and seriously bleeding driver. No one could tell if he could make it through. Within the crowd was a small boy of five, confused and agitated by the bustle. He looked around and his eyes fell upon a woman dressed in a white gown, standing under a banyan tree and looking at him. She was slowly turning around and walking away.

He tugged at his mother's dress to draw her attention, but she only admonished him for disturbing her when there was something more interesting happening here...