Chris Carter - The Caller

‘This...’ he said, ‘will hurt... a lot.’

‘Noooooooorghhhh.’ The scream that came out of her throat was gurgling in spit and tears.

Erica was watching everything semi-paralyzed. Even her breathing seemed to have stopped.

‘Let’s have fun, shall we?’ the demon said. His right hand reached for the Skull Crusher’s crank and he rotated it around — one full turn.

The iron jaws, which were already in contact with the sides of Dr. Barnes’ head, began closing in on each other. As they compressed her skull with five hundred pounds of pure pressure, the jagged-edged jaws ripped through her skin. Unimaginable pain caused her eyeballs to stop moving, but her eyes widened as if they were about to explode out of their sockets. The scream she had in her throat died suddenly, as the air was viciously sucked out of her lungs. Her mouth, still wide open, seemed to stutter, with her lower jaw trembling awkwardly in place. The rest of her body began wriggling like a sea snake trying to get away from danger.

With her head now completely immobile, held in place by the powerful iron jaws, the demon moved his palm away from her forehead.

‘Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd... we’re back to the game, Erica.’ If not for the digitally altered voice, he would’ve sounded like a game-show host.

Starved of oxygen, Erica’s brain forced her to breathe again. As she sucked in a lungful of air through her mouth and nose, she almost heaved.

‘Your mother’s death anniversary, Erica,’ he asked again, losing no more time. ‘When is it?’

Through her tears, Erica could barely see the small screen on her cellphone. She brought a hand to her face to try to wipe them away. It made no difference.

‘Five...’

‘I... don’t... know...’ A heart-melting sob strangled her throat between words.

‘Four...’

‘You... don’t... understand...’

‘Three...’

‘I... have... a condition...’

‘Two...’

‘It... hinders... my... memory...’

‘One...’

‘Oh, Gwen...’

‘Time’s up.’

On the screen, the demon’s hand reached for the crank one more time.

‘Nooooooo.’

Another full turn.

Once again, the jaws closed in on each other, but this time, as they started moving, Erica heard a ‘pop’. It was a very similar sound to the first ‘pop’ she heard coming from her microwave less than ten minutes earlier. The main difference was that this ‘pop’ was followed by a heavy crushing sound.

On the screen, all of a sudden, as tens of blood vessels ruptured beneath the tissue covering the white of Gwen’s eyes, they began hemorrhaging and changing color. Her face contorted out of shape — a consequence of both of her cheekbones fracturing.

Another muffled ‘pop’.

Gwen’s jaw dislocated out of place, distorting her mouth, which was now also filled with blood.

‘Oh... my God.’ Erica couldn’t look anymore. She closed her eyes and allowed her body to jolt forward violently before vomiting on to the coffee table.

On her small screen, Gwen’s body stopped wriggling. Her eyes, now completely bloodshot, twitched one last time before the final breath of life left them.

It was done. Dr. Barnes was no more.

‘Sorry, Erica. You lose. I win.’

Erica lifted her head again. Bile dripped from her chin on to the floor between her bare feet. Slowly, her eyes moved back to her cellphone screen. Her sister’s face was unrecognizable, crushed between the two large, serrated metal jaws.

‘Why?’ the question came midway through a sob.

The demon didn’t reply, but the camera began moving again. Then, suddenly, the ugliest face Erica had ever seen appeared on the screen. Her head jerked back in shock as she held her phone with both hands.

It wasn’t a face. It was a mask.

For some reason that Erica would probably never be able to explain, her brain went into automatic mode and she reacted in a way the demon could never have foreseen.

As soon as Mr. J got back into his car, he got on the phone to Brian Caldron.

‘Brian, I need you to check something for me.’

There was a labored pause from Brian’s side.

‘Who is this?’ he asked. ‘How did you get this number?’

Only then did Mr. J realize that he was still speaking with a heavy northern California accent, and his tone of voice was still half an octave higher than usual.

‘Brian, it’s me, Mr. J. No one else has this number, you know that.’

‘Umm... sorry, Mr. J. For a moment you sounded completely different there.’

Not wanting to lose any time, Mr. J told Brian about what he had found out in Michael Williams’ bedroom. He also sent him a digital picture of Mr. Williams, something he had snapped from a picture frame in Williams’ living room.

‘I need this ASAP, do you hear me, Brian?’

‘Yeah.’ Brian’s voice was full of hesitation. ‘I’ll do my best.’

Mr. J didn’t like that answer. ‘What does that mean, Brian?’

‘It means that obtaining information about this case might prove to be a problem.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Because the LAPD Homicide UVC Unit is running this investigation, and though I’ve never met them, there’s one thing everybody knows about them — those guys trust no one.’

‘And how is that my problem?’

‘Well,’ Brian replied, ‘I’m an IT geek. I deal in cyberspace. Yes, I can get you pretty much any information you need, as long as that information exists in cyberspace... and that’s where the problem lies with the Ultra Violent Crimes Unit — they don’t trust anyone . Until they close a case, they keep about ninety-five percent of their investigation off-line. Everything they find out, every lead, every interview, every deduction, all of it, is either kept on paper only, locked inside their office, or worst yet, kept nowhere but inside their own heads. Those guys aren’t like normal detectives, Mr. J. They aren’t even like normal people.’

Mr. J ran a hand over his mouth and chin a couple of times.

‘On an open UVC Unit investigation,’ Brian continued, ‘all the information that’s flying around in cyberspace is only there because it was uploaded by a different department — forensics lab, coroner’s, toxicology lab — you know what I’m talking about, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So,’ Brian carried on, ‘if they run any sort of search from their computers, or a result comes back from any lab, or a photo is sent to them... anything like that, I can easily grab it and send it your way. But whatever they deduce from the results, or the photos, or whatever it is that they get, that will be in UVC Unit-land only and there’s no way I can get to it.’

Despite the bad news, Mr. J smiled to himself. Detective Hunter was still surprising him.

‘So, do you have anything at all for me?’ he asked.

‘I do. The woman you asked me to find out about — Karen Ward — she was murdered on Wednesday night, four days ago.’

Another victim, Mr. J thought. That was why Detective Hunter asked me if I knew her — if Cassandra knew her. He was trying to establish a link between the killer’s victims. ‘How? What was the cause of death?’

‘Perforation of the temporal lobe, achieved through the left ocular globe cavity.’

‘What?’

‘She was stabbed through the left eye with a glass shank long enough to reach her brain,’ Brian explained. ‘Her face was completely mutilated by glass, as if she’d flown, face first, through several windows. I’ve just emailed you the official autopsy report and all the photographs, together with a file on Ms. Ward. A word of warning, the photographs are shocking.’