Alex Barclay - The Caller

An ice cold trickle of sweat ran down David’s side as he contemplated his answer. He chose silence.

The Caller stared at him. ‘I want you to reveal the rotten, twisted shit scraped out from the cracks of your fractured mind.’

‘There’s nothing there.’

‘There are a lot of dead bodies there.’

David’s heart pounded, heavy and irregular.

The Caller, again, stared. This time something indefinable came to life in his eyes, a dark flame behind the whites. And he smiled.

‘Come with me. Open your closet.’ He gestured towards the bedroom and pressed his face close to David’s. ‘Show me the space under your bed. What do you hide there? What toys do you take out to play with in the dark when no-one’s around?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said David. ‘This is what you do to people? Humiliate them. I don’t know where you’re going with this but-’ David released a breath. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Please. Try me.’

‘Why?’

‘I could help you this time.’

‘Believe me. You are helping me. You helped me into your home. You helped me into your soul.’

He raised his head and stared at the ceiling. ‘You helped me affirm my beliefs. You helped me, David. You can take that with you.’ He wiped a hand down the black fabric of the mask. ‘And you will go on helping me.’

Joe and Danny walked in through the open door of the apartment building. There was no doorman at the desk.

‘Hello?’ said Joe.

‘These people pay all this money to feel safe in their apartments and this guy just goes out, takes a walk,’ said Danny. ‘Come on.’

David lay on his back on the hardwood floor, his head inches from the front door. The Caller was on top of him, pinning him down, his knees on either side of his chest.

‘If you remain silent through this, trust me that I will stop at a point,’ said The Caller. ‘And you will survive.’

The sudden urgent siren of a fire truck made David turn his head towards the window. The glass shone with silent rain and reflected lights. Nine floors down, people walked the wet pavement. Cars drove past. And no-one knew what was happening inside his apartment.

Joe and Danny took the elevator to the ninth floor and rang the doorbell. There was no answer. Danny rang again. Still no answer.

‘Do you have his number?’ said Danny.

‘Yeah,’ said Joe, scrolling through his phone. He dialled and waited. ‘Nothing.’

‘Let’s go eat, come back in a little while,’ said Danny. ‘He could be at the gym or something.’

The chime of the doorbell seemed a distant memory as David Burig felt the metal of the gun barrel pressed hard into his eye socket. It pushed his head back against the floor, his chin high in the air. And then it was gone. Instead, he watched the swift descent of a hammer towards his face. A surge of strength rushed through him, his body still wired to fight attack in whatever small, useless way. He closed his eyes. He lifted his head a fraction from the ground, pitching it frantically from side to side, crazed and desperate thrashing. At his temples, veins bulged. His jaw clamped shut. Every muscle in his face and neck strained. His legs bucked, the only part of him free, but not free. His bare feet scrambled for grip on the floor, their damp heat stopping them, sticking them to the varnished floorboards, burning up his heels. Laid open, bare, exposed, bucking and writhing for his life. He waited, still rolling his head from side to side, dizzy and sick with the movement. For a tired second, he stopped. His breath exploded outwards, saliva spraying into the air. Seconds followed in the quiet, eerie expectation of pain.

Nothing happened. Then he could feel it. Slowly at first. Muscular thighs on either side of his ribcage. Squeezing. The pounding in his head was dull and steady. His eyes still closed, his breathing faltered, shaken by the first sensations of constriction. He took the pressure off his neck, resting his head back on the floor, his entire focus switched to his lungs. He imagined them filled with air, maximum expansion, charging his body with oxygen, rushing it to his cells, keeping him here. He coughed, choking against the constriction.

Crushing tighter against his chest, the muscles in The Caller’s legs began to tremble, then shake violently, each spasm and rise in temperature transferred to the body beneath him. He rose briefly on his knees and the air flared with ammonia and spices, a stale steam-room smell.

David could feel the moisture on his chest. A thin stream of sweat rolled down it. His head was light, tingling all over. His scalp was cold and damp. Just as his breath was leaving him, the pressure was released. His mouth shot open, followed by his eyes, faulty reflexes; the exact position The Caller wanted him to be in as the hammer crashed down on his teeth.

The blows came over and over, splitting, breaking and cracking, splintering and shattering bones, flesh, teeth. The sounds the hammer made, through the air, against his face, caught in torn flesh, were like another wound in the silence. He was secure in his achievement; David had created a vacuum where he stored up every scream that wanted to rip up his throat and take on the pain. Then it stopped. Tears streamed down his face, sobs choked in his throat, his stomach heaved. His whole body shook. He slowly opened his eyes, smearing the droplets of blood caught in his eyelashes.

The Caller reached across for his bag and took out two dental impression trays. He placed them on the floor beside him. He filled the top tray with a thick blue liquid.

‘Open wide,’ he said. David’s mouth shook. The Caller paused. ‘Stop.’

David nodded, closed his eyes and opened his mouth. The Caller slipped in the tray and pressed it hard against the bloodied roof of David’s mouth, coating every surface and filling every space with the cool silicone. A chill seeped into his damaged bones, shooting pain through his head.

‘Four minutes to set,’ said The Caller.

David’s eyes shot wide. He started to swallow uncontrollably. The Caller bent low, staring into his eyes, trying to force calm into him. He stayed that way, then grabbed the tray and pulled it free, pausing to look into it before he laid it beside him. He wiped David’s mouth with a folded paper towel.

‘Please,’ said David, spitting blood and saliva. ‘I have to look after my sister. You can’t-’

The Caller pretended to consider his plea. ‘OK, now the bottom teeth,’ he said. ‘Same again.’

David closed his eyes and tilted back his head. He wanted to hear another siren, louder than the first, one that was bringing police officers and battering rams to his door. He was restrained well, tightly bound, his wrists and hands now numb. And the blows started again, hard, fast and brutal.

David slowly opened his eyes and through the blood leaking into them, he caught flashes of The Caller and how – from somewhere closed and locked inside him, unleashed only now – he raged. As The Caller’s thighs locked on, unyielding, his upper body rocked from side to side, the hammer – a relentless onslaught of strikes. Without slowing, The Caller’s free hand tore at his mask, wrenching it over his head, throwing it to the ground. His face, flooded with anger, his eyes, closed and sucked into their sockets, his jaw moving, his mouth wide, his lips forming every word he wanted to roar. But no sound escaped. The message was silence.

All David could do now was take himself away. His spacious hallway became the smallest place he had ever been, but also as high and wide and deep as his greatest fear.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Rufo. He stood with his hands linked at the back of his head, staring out David Burig’s window. His back was to the battered body by the door. ‘What the hell is going on?’