Phone Call
---1---
I could feel
the ‘night mode’ turning on in my body as I laid myself on the sofa, with a
bowl of fish & chips and the T.V. remote in both of my hands. You really
deserved that leave Eva, I said to myself, as I switched on the telly and
flicked to the news channel. As I munched on the grilled fish, I heard what the
news reporter was saying:
‘…the
conditions are still very bad, but rapidly improving. In other news, New York
has yet another tragedy: Jonna Stone, a 21-year old nurse, was found dead in
the early hours of today’s evening. Her body was found in the driver’s seat of
her. She had been apparently strangled to death, making people again remember
that the serial killer had not yet gone. Jonna is the twelfth female –among the
now 19 - to be murdered by New York’s latest wild beast, ’’The Multi-Purposer’’…’
I switched
off the telly after flicking a few channels – nothing special was going on - and
gave off a sigh. The same news of a madman who had been hunting down random people for its prey for a
month now. Now it was unsafe to even go out for night parties and stuff. You
didn’t know when this guy would strike, and if it did, who would it pick up –
no one knew, and this was such a ruddy problem for us young girls, for the
goddamn serial killer’s favourite target was – well, as a matter-of-fact –
us! Well, a voice in my head said, you better rest now. You took a leave girl.
You should not think of such stuff for heaven’s sake!
I entered my
bedroom, undressed, put on my pink unicorn-themed sleep suit, closed the door,
and made myself fall down on my bed – like a graceful ballerina. Then, opening
my night lamp, I opened up an H.G.Wells novel ‘The Time Machine’ and began
reading it. I am a voracious reader. My momma told me that I had completed five
scores of books when I was 15 years old!
My eyes
drooped after sometime, which was the signal for me to fall asleep. Switching
off my bed-light, I was just about to hit my warm and snuggly pillow, when
suddenly I saw my phone ringing loudly, placed on my dressing table. ‘Who is it
now?’ I said, showing a look of disgust and irritation – who wouldn’t show it
if one was just about to enter into a good night’s sleep and then roused aloud
by the sound of their damn phones? Anyways, I walked over to my dressing table,
picked up the phone, and received the call. The number was +1 727 9182799. The
dial of the clock showed that it was ten minutes to eleven o’clock in the
night.
‘Hello? Who
is it?’
At first, no
sound came out from the other side. Then I heard it: a faint, feminine voice…
‘Hello,
hello! Is it, is it, is it…’
‘Eva Brooks,
yes. Who are you?’
‘Listen, I
am Eva. Eva Brooks.’
I stopped
for a few moments. Was this some sort of practical joke? If it was so, then I
would not leave the caller. Gotta do the same thing I had done with plenty of pranksters so far...
‘Look, I
don’t know who you are, but you should…’
‘Listen, I-I
don’t have to time to explain. You should not get out today, tonight. Please
listen to me, if you do so you will be dead… dead! I know because…b-because…I
am you only! ONLY 40 MINUTES OLDER TO YOU! Please promise me…promise me you’ll
not...not…AHH!!’
‘Alright,
woman, enough with your jokes! Listen to me, you idiot, I hate it when someone
calls me up from my sleep, and plays… Hello? Hello?’
The phone
suddenly stopped. The caller had hung down. Good, I said to myself, as I once
again trudged back to my sheets. Now no more of those ruddy phone calls…
‘Cri-i-n-ngg!
Cring Cring!!’
I jolted up
from my reverie. Damn it, I muttered. Not again! I checked my clock. It was
11.00 p.m. – just ten minutes only had passed since…
‘Hello?’ I
grumbled. A woman can’t be so sweet and gentle after she is repeatedly disturbed
by stupid phone calls...
‘Hello Eva?
It’s me Shanks.’
I
immediately recognized that this was no pranker. It was Shanks, or Dr. Sawyer.
He was the E.N.T specialist back at the hospital where I worked as a nurse. Tall,
sharp and smart, he was so much kind and close to me, there were rumours now
that he had started dating me! Rubbish, I say!
‘Oh yeah.
Wassup? Why are you…?’
‘I’m sorry Eves, but seems like you have to
come down over here. I’ve got a case over here. Nose-bleeds, but it isn’t
stopping. Looks like we need to have some blood donation. In the meantime, can
you…
‘…take care
of him? Yeah, sure Shanks. Anything.’ I said automatically. I didn’t take
patients jokingly.
‘Good. I’ll
pick you up in ten minutes. Stay dressed. Ok? Goodbye.’
He put down
the call. Keeping down the phone, and giving my bed one look – the thought of a
‘good night sleep’ came again, but I had to shake it off reluctantly – I
approached my closet. Another one to save today.
***
---2---
‘So, what’s
up?’ I asked Shanks, after getting up in his electric-blue car. I think he had
bought it only a few days ago. The colour of his car – as far as I remember –
was a midway between orange and green. Or maybe he had painted it – why do I
care by the way? I was already feeling so lethargic, that I decided to doze off
once I reached…
‘Severe
case, Mr. Reginald Tomkins. Perhaps an Anglo-Indian, he came to the hospital
just as I was about to depart. He was having nose-bleeds and those ruddy things
seemed to do not stop. After a few moments though I managed it, the old man relaxed
a bit, but then the whole damn thing started once again – I didn’t know what to
do…
‘That’s
alright.’ I replied, smiling. ‘I get the wind of it.’
‘Weird
things, old people are, right? So vulnerable…Ha!’
I didn’t
know why, but his last words made my stomach lurch a bit. I shook off that
feeling aside – after all, they are like that. Death-counters…
Then
suddenly, a voice came to me:
‘It was
your entire fault.’
I turned
back but there was no one…No one except me and Shanks.
‘What’s
wrong?’ Shanks asked me. ‘Is something bothering you?’
‘N-Nope. I’m
fine bro. Fine.’
‘Yeah, you
do get goose bumps when you drive along this path. Am I right Miss Brooks? And
especially, when a serial killer is regularly stalking the path?’
The feeling
of uneasiness again began inside me. Something was wrong over here. I never
ever heard Shanks referring me as ‘Miss Brooks’. Whoa, I thought to myself, I
must have had two instead of one peg of martini at the pub, and now I’m over
here, wondering god-forsaken fantasies…
‘Yeah, sure.
Ever since that…’
I stopped. I
just saw Shanks’ face in the dim moonlight, and it froze me.
It was not
Shanks who was driving over there in that seat! The face was deep-red scar,
running diagonally across – from his right ear to the top of the forehead – and
he had eyes with a yellowish tint to them. It looked like they were burning
from the sockets.
I
momentarily got mute. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. The guy who
called me up half an hour was Shanks, and this….no no, the calculations didn’t
seem to match. Maybe Shanks was alright after all…this was some staff maybe…I
gasped out a breath of relief. Phew!
‘They say
that the serial killer has a very specific reason to pick out his victims, and
when I say ’em victims, I mean young gals.’
‘W-why is
t-that s-so?’ I asked, even though my voice was quivering. (Come on man, It’s
literally hard to talk with a man you had just met for about like 20 damn
minutes!)
Shanks – or
whoever it was – just gave a light laugh – a very eerie one. Though it was a
bit cold outside, I started to sweat. Who was this guy?
‘Well, you
see, this guy had a very troubled life. When he was, erm, 5 years old, his
parents divorced each other, and the kid began to live with his single mother.
Now the mother – I heard all of this from many people – was off his rocker. She
thought that women were only destined to inhabit this Earth, and men should bow
down and respect them (equal status, heigh-ho!), and so, she kind of tortured
him for being of the ‘male’ gender. She would dress him up in girl clothes, and
he would be humiliated by it all. Not only her, but also others – especially
young girls – would mock, tease or beat him. However, one day everything
changed. The 31-year old woman was found in her bed, her stomach completely
slashed open, with a note: ‘You deserved it.’ No one knows what happened
to that troubled 11-year old child. I think he is now doing this all to payback – to avenge for the brutal events he had experienced twenty years
ago…
The car suddenly
stopped. I gave a glance to the outside. It was already very uneasy to sit over
there, listening to this person talking about the serial killer so freely. I
had made up my mind to flee from here, to just run down the path and to my
house – it would take less than 20 mins – and just shut up my door and cover
myself till dawn. Next day, I will go and may report about tonight’s encounter…a staff behaving like this...also, how did he know so much about New York's new terror?
‘Damn
Jesus!’ the driver said with a tone of disgust. ‘This only happens during
emergencies! Now where’s the problem?’ he continued, as he came out. A thin fog
had started to form all of a sudden – nowadays it occurred over here – making
the surroundings even more mysterious…
The man was
at the front of the car, fiddling away with the parts of the machine. I sat
there, quite motionless, carefully observing the guy’s movements. Just give me
one chance, one…and then it came.
‘Um, Miss
Brooks, can you just excuse me for a few moments? I have this bolt right here,
it rolled off to the left side. I’ll just go and retrieve it. You stay here
miss, condition kinda not okay over here and its cold as hell…’ Having said
that, he ran off and disappeared into the fog. I thanked my stars, and very
carefully, unlocked the car door, and stepped outside. I could not find him
anywhere, and the fog had also begun to grow dense…
Just as I
was about to turn about to my left, a thought suddenly flashed by my mind.
The phone
call. The phone call I received from that woman. 35 minutes older…
I checked my
watch. It was 11.30 p.m. The phone call I received was at 10.50 p.m. A cold
shiver came all over me. The woman was truly a fraud…she might have got my name
from the hospital registry…
But the
voice? I can surely tell you that…
It was my
own voice. My own sweet voice!
Just then,
something hit my right leg so hard that I nearly tripped over. It was a
medium-sized stone, with a paper wrapped on top it. I picked up the sheet. What
I saw froze me.
There were
four red words written in paper:
‘IT’S YOUR ENTIRE FAULT.’
Before I
could do anything, I suddenly felt a stab of pain in my right shoulder. It was
as if I was lashed with a belt. Before I could turn around, another lash, and I
fell down with an agonizing shriek. Three more lashes followed that, and in
immediate succession, a high, cold-blooded laugh.
‘You know, I
was waiting for a suitable person as my last victim….I d-didn’t really want to
pick you up…but you know, I take chances for every damn thing in this world.
Your Shanks is ok, just slumbering away in his…AHH!’
I lunged
forward into the man, and hit him with the heavy Rolex I had. The man stumbled
back and fell down. I revved up and hit him one more time, and started fleeing
from there, when suddenly I felt my feet slip, and then, I fell face to face
down to the ground and hit something cold – very cold. It was a box, crammed
with ice chunks, and it was shaped like a coffin!
Before I
could react, a pair of strong hands gripped hard my shoulders. I screamed out,
I tossed from side to side – the screams pierced the dead of the night – but for
what use? There was no one over there…no one to help me out…except the pair of
blood-stained yellow eyes which now were looking at me.
‘W-why did
ya d-did that? I didn’t ask you to do that thi-thin-thing. What’s wrong with
you folk? You think...you think...j-just because you are smart you have every
right over us? Y-you b-b-beat us up, tor-torture us for what? I kn-know, I
know, for FUN. Well, n-now you’ll get a taste of your own medicine, M-Missy
Brooksy! For months I have been hunting down, hunting down for a girl who
understands me…I thought you were the one, but I was wrong. I WAS DAMN WRONG!’
He slap-slapped and spat on my face. ‘Well then! I hope I have to search for
other places. Another twenty, I guess. As for you miss, you are just a naughty
one, right? Naughty children ought to be punished…ruddy, disrespectful…’
‘NO! PLEASE
DON’T! PLEASE N-N-NO!!’ I screamed aloud, but too late! The lid of the box fell
down shut, and only nothing but icy winds covered my body. I felt my breath
fall short; my heart was pumping madly, when I heard a whistle – the guy! It
was now…no longer a mystery…that he was the serial killer…he continued
whistling, and then I heard a ‘thup’ and blood-curdling laughter, saying, ‘Another
one tastes the blood! HA HA! What fun! But I’m…’
My eyes
started to drop. I couldn’t keep up anymore. I felt myself freezing…slowly
freezing into my dead self…
The phone! I
felt my hands – numb and a little frosted by this sudden ice-grave – in both of
my pockets. With a lot of effort, I wrenched open my phone, and dialed the only
number I could remember…
+1 727 9182799
It ringed
for 4 times, before it was picked up by someone. I immediately burst out: My
name, where I was, in what condition….before I let out a shriek and dropped the
phone.
I just warned
the receiver of the murderer, but that was not it…the number.
The dialed number
was that of my own and the voice which I just heard was of a person fairly well
known by me…
Eva Brooks!
Who was
about to get a goodnight’s s-s-sleep…and was woken up by the same…
I couldn’t
take it anymore. I got knocked out unconscious by the ever increasing iciness.
Only a thought flashed by me…
If only had
I listened to my damned future self!
***
-----3-----
The man
slowly emerged out from the bushes. His chin was cut, and his eyes still had
some blood in them – the power of a Rolex hit, after all. – But this didn’t
seem to affect the man. A murderous, and at the same time, an angry smile came
up on his face. He hoped to make her a bride, but she didn’t listen…also, she
knew way too much.
He slowly
walked up towards west. There was a small cornfield over there. Earlier in the
night, he had abducted and knocked unconscious a man called Sean Sawyer – an E.N.T.
specialist who was practiced at a practiced at a hospital – just 10 minutes
away from the spot. He had been – all day – carefully following the activities
of a young nurse by the name Eva Brooks. He realized that he had got his
partner after so many days…
As the night
set, he waited patiently till Dr. Sawyer emerged out from the hospital – his direction
homeward. He jumped upon him once he entered into a dark alley, and knocked him
out using a soda bottle. Next, he drove the red car to this spot and hid it
over there, along with the still-alive Sawyer. Still, nothing, absolutely
nothing bore fruit. Damn it!
He slowly –
with a heavy heart – dragged the box with both of his hands, and upon reaching
the spot where the car was parked, he opened the box. There she lay, with half
of the nurse’s body frozen. The man then took out a knife, and stabbed quite minutely
three times at the young girl’s neck – particularly the yet-to-be-frozen
carotid artery. Then, he placed the knife in the hands if the young doctor, and
hauled the box inside the car – in the backseat – and closed the door. Then,
giving one last look, and a heavy sigh – along with a short, maniacal laugh –
he stepped down the road, got up in his own car – and then the path fell silent
again… the only sounds were that of the gentle wind blowing through the trees…
***
-----4-----
‘I’m sorry
son, but all the evidences point towards you. The fingerprints also match.’
‘But sir, I
swear! It was that murderer! The serial killer…’’
‘Kid, lemme
tell you something. The serial killer’s fingerprints don’t match yours. We have
checked it thoroughly. Now look, you
have to come with us whether you like it or not...’
Sean couldn’t
say anything. It was impossible. He just saw Eva last night at 8 p.m.,
departing from the hospital – homeward – when he caught up with her. He told
her that he would give her a surprise 2 days later…everything, everything broke
into pieces…Eva…She was no more!
‘But sir,
what about the blue car? What about the phone…’
‘Now listen.’
replied the officer, who was now beginning to grow impatient. ‘We have searched
the entire path but there was no trace of any such blue car and as for the
phone, we have only got the call from you at 11…’
Sean could
do nothing, but just bury his face in his hands and moan the name of his lover.
At the
trial, it was truly found out that there was no trace of the electric-blue car,
nor was there any phone call done to Miss Brooks at 9.50 p.m. last night…
***
M.Macabre
01.10.2020
Dedicated
to: The Quill of Writers
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