Chris Carter - The Caller

Several more silent seconds went by while Captain Blake and Garcia chewed on Hunter’s words.

‘But you said that both questions the killer asked her,’ Captain Blake said, ‘were directly linked to her.’

‘That’s right,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘He first asked her for the correct number of friends she had on Facebook then for Karen Ward’s cellphone number. Very simple questions, designed to make the game seem fair.’ Hunter paused, lifting a finger. ‘Actually, more than fair. Designed to make the game seem easy, winnable, but most of all, to inflict a tremendous sense of guilt.’ He looked at his partner. ‘Carlos, how many times in this morning’s interview did Tanya bury her face in her hands, crying and saying that it was all her fault, that she should’ve known Karen’s number by heart?’

Garcia made a face. ‘Pff, countless.’

‘Exactly. And that’s the clever part. The illusion. A simple, easy question, but one he knew for sure she wouldn’t get right.’

‘How could the killer have known that, Robert?’ Captain Blake asked.

Hunter reached for his cellphone. ‘Because he asked her before.’

Once Hunter and Garcia left her apartment, Tanya Kaitlin returned to the sofa in her living room. As she sat down, she once again pulled her bathrobe tightly around her, crossing her arms over her stomach. Her eyes aimlessly circled the room a couple of times before, for no specific reason, focusing on the tip of her toes. Right then nothing made sense and something inside her head was telling her that it probably never would.

‘Why couldn’t I know her number?’ she whispered softly to herself. Her body began rocking back and forth ever so slightly, but her eyes never left her toes. ‘I should’ve known her number.’

There was a long, shivering pause before her voice was reduced to a whispering breath.

‘Three, two, three, nine, five... no. That’s not it.’

The body-rocking stepped up a notch.

‘Three, two, three, five, five... no. That’s not it either.’

Tanya had thought that she had cried all the tears she had to cry, but she was wrong. Without even noticing them, new tears glassed over her eyes and began zigzagging their way down her cheeks.

‘Three, two, three, five, nine, four... no. That’s wrong too.’ The rocking, the shivering, her breathing, all of it were becoming a lot more emphatic.

‘I...’ Her voice caught on her throat. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. I should remember, but I can’t.’ Her quivering hands jetted to her face and she began sobbing again. ‘Karen... It’s all my fault. I’m so, so sorry.’

Tanya had no idea how long she kept her face buried in her hands for, but by the time she lifted her head up again, her fingertips were starting to prune up. Her eyes found the empty pack of cigarettes on the coffee table and reflexes made her reach for them.

‘Fuck,’ she said, full of disappointment.

She had, understandably, forgotten that she had run out of cigarettes.

‘I need a smoke. I need a cigarette.’ The fact that she had given up a few years back didn’t seem to bother her anymore. She dropped the pack back on the coffee table and got to her feet. ‘I really need a smoke.’

Tanya began searching the living room, the words ‘I need a cigarette’ spilling out of her lips every time she opened a new drawer. A new cupboard. A new box.

Nothing.

‘Goddamn it.’ She slammed another drawer shut. ‘I need to go get some more cigarettes.’ She looked around for her purse. Found it on top of the dining table.

In normal circumstances, Tanya would never leave her apartment without having put on at least a touch of foundation, a little eyeliner, and some lipstick; after all, makeup was what she did for a living. She would also never dream of stepping outside her front door in her bathrobe, or with her hair in the state it was in, but these were far from normal circumstances.

If people can go to Walmart in bikinis and underwear, she thought. I can run across the road to the nearest grocery store in my bathrobe.

Maybe people around her neighborhood were more used to Walmart oddities than what she thought, because no one, not even the cashier, gave her a second look.

By the time she made it back to her apartment, Tanya was already lighting up her second cigarette. Her tears had ceased and the shivering had subsided considerably. She returned to the sofa and this time she was even able to lie down. It didn’t matter that she felt so exhausted, or that she hadn’t slept a wink overnight, because she was sure that she still wouldn’t be able to fall asleep then, not without the help of some sleeping pills.

Tanya considered that thought.

She knew that she still had a box of Aventyl at the bottom of her medicine drawer, but she had already gone back to one bad habit in the last few hours, she didn’t really want to go back to a second one.

Tanya dismissed the idea and rested her head against a couple of cushions. Seconds later, her eyelids fluttered heavily and she found it impossible to keep them open.

The calming effect of her menthol cigarettes was a lot stronger than what she had anticipated, because almost as soon as she shut out the light, she was transported into a half-awake, half-asleep world. Dream and reality danced in front of her in a carnival of images that caressed and slapped her face at the same time, but what really bothered her was the noise. Piercing. Disturbing. Irritating. And it was getting louder.

What the hell was it?

It sounded like an electric knife.

Louder still.

No. A chainsaw.

Where is it coming from?

Too loud.

Finally, Tanya opened her eyes.

The room was silent.

‘What a fucking crazy dream,’ she said in a half-chuckle, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands.

Then she heard it again. Or at least she thought she did.

‘What?’ She pulled herself up into a sitting position quick enough to cause blood to rush to her head too fast. The effort made the room spin around her.

Tanya took a deep breath and grabbed on to the sofa to steady herself. She still wasn’t sure if her mind was playing tricks on her or not.

Slowly the room stopped spinning, but the noise didn’t go away.

Tanya looked left then right, but with the curtains shut, the low light, and the stupor of sleep, she could make sense of very little.

The noise came at her again, but not nearly as loud as moments ago. It had somehow lost its strength as it moved from dream into reality.

Then a memory came to her and it petrified her soul.

‘Oh, my God.’ Tanya cupped her mouth with her hands as she twisted her neck around to look behind her. Her front door was unlocked. The security chain undone. She had forgotten to lock it after she came back from the grocery store.

Her body stiffened with fear.

‘Someone is in here. Someone is in my apartment.’

Tanya’s breathing went from resting to ‘marathon finishing line’ in a fraction of a second. The lethargy of sleep was now completely gone, but then, just like that, so was the noise.

‘What the hell. Am I going crazy?’

She focused on listening and waited.

Nothing.

She concentrated harder and waited some more.

Still nothing.

‘Damn! I probably am going crazy,’ she whispered, laughing at herself before finally getting to her feet and walking over to her front door to lock it. Just to be certain, she stood there for a moment, ears pricked like an animal’s.

Silence.

Tanya coughed to clear her throat and that made her realize how thirsty she was. She walked over to the fridge and poured herself a large glass of cold water, but as she brought the glass to her lips, the noise echoed throughout her living room one more time, sending fear cascading down her spine and the glass plummeting from her hand. As it smashed against the kitchen floor, Tanya heard it again — muffled, subdued, but very real — and it had come from somewhere to her right. Immediately her body swung in that direction. This time it took her eyes less than two seconds to finally zoom in on the source of the noise.