Chris Carter - The Caller

She folded her arms in front of her, as if all of a sudden the temperature inside the room had dropped a few degrees. That was the first time that Detective Webb saw Dr. Barnes display fear. Real fear.

‘Someone was in my room, Detective. I’m telling you. Someone was in there, by my bed, watching me while I slept.’

As the screen on his cellphone faded to black, Mr. J felt his whole world collapse around him. His legs buckled under his weight and he had to hold on to the wall so as not to fall down. His fingers lost their grip and his phone slipped from his hand, bouncing off the bed and on to the floor. Nothing made sense. He felt as if his entire existence had just been devoured by a black hole, leaving behind nothing but an empty human shell.

‘What just happened?’ he whispered under his breath, his crazed eyes searching for refuge in every corner of his hotel room. They found none. Instead, the walls seemed to be closing in on him. ‘I must be losing my mind. This can’t be real. It just can’t be.’

Mr. J brought two shaking hands to his face and rubbed it as vigorously as he could.

The walls were still closing in on him.

He turned around and quickly made his way back into the bathroom, where he splashed more cold water on to his face.

‘Cassandra,’ he said, as he found his own eyes in the mirror, ‘this isn’t real.’ He tried to convince his reflection. ‘It isn’t. And I will prove it to you. None of it was real.’

Mr. J rushed back into the bedroom, fetched his cellphone from the floor, returned to the bathroom, and paused before the mirror again.

‘You’ll see. I’ll prove it to you right now,’ he said, shaking a finger at his reflection, before speed-dialing his wife’s number. ‘I don’t know what the hell this was, but it wasn’t real. None of it was. You’ll see.’

At the other end, instead of ringing, the call went straight into voicemail.

‘Hello, you’ve reached the phone of Cassandra Jenkinson. Unfortunately, I can’t—’

Mr. J disconnected and quickly redialed.

The reflection in the mirror waited.

‘Hello, you’ve reached the phone of Cass—’

Disconnected. Redialed.

‘Hello, you’ve reached—’

Disconnected.

Mr. J’s eyes reverted back to the mirror. His reflection was still waiting.

The house, a voice inside his head whispered. Call the house.

Mr. J speed-dialed his home number.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. The call finally connected.

‘Hello...’

Mr. J immediately recognized the voice at the other end of the line and it was as if his life had just been sucked out of him. It was his own. The answering machine had picked it up.

‘... you’ve reached the house of...’ He waited for the beep at the end of the message.

‘Cassandra, honey, it’s me. If you’re there, please pick it up. Please.’ His voice wavered. ‘I need to talk to you, hon. I need to hear your voice. Please answer the phone. Please.’

There was no answer.

‘FUUUUUUUUUUCK!’ His agony-filled scream echoed throughout the entire room.

Five minutes later, Mr. J was still sitting at the edge of the bathtub, his face buried in his palms, his cellphone on the tiled floor by his feet. His reflection in the mirror had grown tired of waiting.

Another five minutes went by before Mr. J finally moved his hands away from his face. His arms dropped by the side of his body aimlessly. He felt totally drained of energy. His eyelids flapped a couple of times, his pupils contracted, filtering away the excessive lighting as it reflected off the white tiles. It took him another minute to crash through the blur of confusion and regain focus, and as he did, everything seemed and felt different — the room, the air, his entire world. His blood had gone cold in his veins, his lungs breathed hate instead of oxygen, and he couldn’t feel his heart beating in his chest anymore. Everything inside of him had died with his wife. Everything except his brain. He needed to keep it alive. He needed to think. And think he did. A few minutes later, he reached for his phone and made the first of three calls.

As Hunter’s attention moved to the person standing before him he frowned, but the uncertainty in his stare lasted just a fraction of a second before it was substituted by a look of total surprise — a look that the woman standing there failed to recognize.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said, unable to hide her embarrassment. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ There was a touch of disappointment in her tone.

‘Of course I do,’ Hunter said, returning his drink to his table. ‘The twenty-four-hour reading room at UCLA.’ He searched his memory for her name. ‘Tracy, right? Tracy Adams.’

Her disappointment gave way to a coy smile.

‘Your hair looks a little different,’ Hunter added. ‘That’s why it took me a second.’

Tracy’s wavy red hair was pegged back over her ears by two small hairclips, revealing a pair of dainty skull earrings, with tiny black rocks for eyes. The rest of her hair fell loose past her shoulders, framing a very attractive heart-shaped face, where expressive green eyes sat behind old-fashioned, cat-eye glasses, but the real difference was in her fringe. This time, instead of looping above her forehead to form a pin-up-style victory roll, it simply fell naturally over her face, partially covering her left eye.

‘Sorry about the intrusion,’ Tracy said, her demeanor still showing a little embarrassment. ‘I was sitting at the bar when I saw the hostess showing you to your table.’ Her shoulders moved up in a delicate shrug. ‘I thought I would come and say, “Hi.” ’

‘No intrusion at all.’ Hunter’s gaze gravitated towards the bar for a quick second. ‘I’m glad you did.’

Not wanting to sound too forward, he quickly accessed the scene. At the bar sitting area, no one was expectantly looking their way. Tracy also had her drink in her hand, which suggested that she hadn’t left anyone waiting for her back at the bar or at a table. Hunter indicated the empty seat across the table from him.

‘Would you like to have a seat?’

She hesitated for a moment before reinforcing her point. ‘Are you sure? I really wouldn’t like to intrude.’

‘You’re not,’ Hunter reassured her. ‘It would be a pleasure.’

The coy smile returned to Tracy’s lips and she finally nodded in acceptance. ‘In that case, sure. Thank you.’

She took the seat, placed her drink down on the table and nodded at Hunter’s glass, making a reference to when they first met by the coffee vending machine.

‘I must say, that looks a lot more appealing than a Caramel Frappuccino Deluxe.’

Hunter smiled. ‘I agree. Probably healthier too.’

‘So, what are you having?’ she asked. ‘The choice in here is overwhelming.’

‘Yes, that’s for sure,’ Hunter replied as his eyes settled on his glass. ‘Scotch. Kilchoman... Caramel Barley Deluxe.’

Tracy laughed. ‘Year?’

The question surprised Hunter.

‘Twenty-ten.’

She made a face, impressed. ‘Great choice. They’re a very traditional distillery. If I’m not mistaken, I think that they are the only ones that complete all parts of their whisky-making process on site. Nothing gets outsourced.’

Hunter tried not to frown at her again, but he was sincerely intrigued. Women in general weren’t very fond of Scotch whisky, which wasn’t at all surprising. Whisky was undoubtedly an acquired taste, one that at first would certainly overpower anyone’s palate and knock the air out of their lungs in the process. Hunter knew that only too well. The trick was to persist, to keep trying, to keep sipping it until one day it finally made sense. Women usually weren’t that patient with drinks. They either liked it at first sip or they didn’t.