The Noise Sounded like an Earthquake

D for Disaster, please read here

In five minutes, Anand found the shrubs dwindling, and the marshy ground was taken up by a type of tall, pliable water grass easy to pass through.  He noticed footsteps on the ground, suggesting someone had taken that root before him.  He approached a tree rooted in the valley, sprawling around, with the stem pressing against the gorge's wall and sensed a movement on the other side of the tree. 

To explain the car's position on the inclined strip of the land across the valley, one needs to sweat through the equations of Newton and the momentum, Anand thought.  Since he was not an expert in that field, Anand didn't take on that challenge.  The car's boot suffered heavy damage, and the bonnet rammed into the gorge.  The likelihood of someone escaping unharmed from it was slim.

The driver's door remained flung open.  A briefcase and an ASUS laptop were on the floor at random positions, thrown off from the back seat in the collision.  Dev searched around the car using the torch and found blood on the driver's side and the ground. 

The landscape beyond the gorge's edge had progressed into a slow climb and curved up after fifty meters to a higher level of steady landmass where a cluster of tiny homes was distributed.    

"We heard a woman calling out for help, which was after a huge crashing noise that shook us all from sleep." An elderly man, a member of the cluster dwelling, approached Anand.

"I have explained that the noise sounded like an earthquake," the man who accompanied Arjun added his statement. 

Arjun considered the possibility that the woman mentioned was the one who alerted him.   Dev and two others got busy searching the surrounding area. 

The elderly guy corroborated the man's account that young men in the Mahindra were running around searching for something.

It was all dark.  The drizzling took a break.  The sky turned gentle with the mild clouds lining in between the dark offensive ones.  Anand made thorough observations of the surrounding area.  From where he took position near the Blue Honda City, the elevation of the gorge increased towards the place the Mahindra had plunged.  Matted with heavy undergrowth and the shrubs jutting out randomly in close range made that part not welcome, and a measure of green pockets offered a hideout for someone to stay undetected. 

The gorge in the opposite direction steadied downwards, diverging away from the road.  The undergrowth on its sides was equally virulent and growing tall.  They planned to do an intense search in the area.  Arjun proceeded towards the lower part of the gorge using his phone flash and the torch, and Dev in the area fudged between the valley and the cluster homes.  The rest moved along the gorge towards the Mahindra spot. 

In five minutes, Anand found the shrubs dwindling, and the marshy ground was taken up by a tall, pliable water grass, easy to pass through.  He noticed footsteps on the ground, suggesting someone had taken that root before him.  He approached a tree rooted in the valley for another five minutes, sprawling around, with the stem pressing against the gorge's wall.  He sensed a movement on the other side of the tree. 

He adjusted the revolver on his belt and ducked under a tree's branch crossed to the other side.  Before making out anything, he felt a warm body slumping onto his chest.  In an overwhelming puzzlement, he pushed the body away- there stood an equally or more bewildered person--a young woman, he made out in the torchlight.  He sensed a stench of fresh blood in the air.  She went into sobbing, her hands and body shaking and shivering.  In a reflexive action, he hugged her and felt a warm relief rolling up her chest.  In the police protocol, hugging or touching a victim is not allowed, and his action's strangeness and unfamiliarity dropped a chill of uneasiness in him. 

Who was she?

"Sir, I sent you the message." She said in a quivering voice, pulling herself away from him.

"Sir, they found two men hiding near the Mahindra spot in the gorge," Anand heard Dev shouting out nearby.

**  

This post is part of the #BlogchatterA2Z challenge hosted by Blog Chatter

You can read all my posts for Blog Chatter A2Z here.