Followed

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The phone rings for a few more moments while my thoughts wrestle each other within my brain.

Do I pick it up?

Or do I let it go to the answering machine?

Should I tell my parents?

Or should I keep this a secret?

However, it is curiosity that fights harder than them all.

Slowly, I lift up the phone and put it up to my right ear. It's cold and I can hear deep breathing on the other end of the line.

Thinking of what to say and how to say it, I remain voiceless until a rough male voice cuts the silence.

"Thanks for finally answering." He says.

Immediately I recognize the voice. It's the man that was in the forest.

"Who are you and what do you want." I say harshly.

After a slight pause, the man answers, "Now Rielly. Do you really think that I'm going to tell you who I am? Well, I'm not, but as for what I want? I want you and your family dead."

I swallow to try and hold back a scared shriek.

Forcing myself to not expose my fear, I dig out my most stable voice, "What did we ever do to you?"

"Seriously? You don't know?" He says clearly agitated.

Understanding my silence to be a no, he continues.

"Your family ruined my life. It was your grandparents that destroyed my family's lifeline. There's only two of us left because of the Cabletons. I'm determined to kill your family before my family dies off."

"I actually did have grandparents?" I quietly mumble in astonishment.

Unfortunately he hears what I say and responds, "Of course you had grandparents you idiot. Your parents had to be born from someone."

I bite my lip, trying to withstand the urge to fire words back at him. All that would do is piss him off even more. I'm sure getting an enemy mad is a bad idea, especially when this enemy is aiming to have me killed.

I imagine the sly smirk on the face of the man on the other end of the line. He knows that I'm not going to say anything rude back, so he can say whatever he wants. I try to remain collected despite all of my fear. Calmly, I respond "Okay. What did my grandparents do to your family?"

I expect another 'smart' remark, but instead, the man begins to tell the story.

Rummaging through a pile of supplies on the desk beside me, I search for a tape recorder. Before I find one however, the mans voice booms through the phone,

"You better not be trying to record this! If you are, believe me I will know and you will be dead in less than an hour!"

My throat sinks into my stomach and fear takes over my thoughts. I remove my hand from the mess of objects and take a seat in the black leather desk chair behind me. Leaning back in the chair, I stare up at the popcorn ceiling, trying to focus on what he's saying and commit it to memory.

"43 years ago, your father Sam, was 4. I was 12. Sam's parents were surgeons, and horrible ones at that. My sister, Beth, needed an appendectomy. Unfortunately, your incompetent grandparents performed the procedure. During the surgery something 'accidental' and 'uncontrollable' went wrong. Well at least that's what they pleaded when my family took them to court. She died that day. My sister. It was no accident! It was a routine procedure. They were trained surgeons. Nothing should have gone wrong. Something more should have been done to save her! She shouldn't have died that day!"

At this point the man was nearly screaming through the phone. With a slightly calmer and quieter voice, yet just as disturbing, he continued.

" Your grandparents pleaded that they did everything in their power to save her. The case was closed with the decision that your grandparents were not guilty. A wrong decision it was."

I use all my effort to not argue with what he's saying. That would just make matters worse, so I decide to keep quiet and just listen.

"My sister's death devastated my family. My mother sank into a deep depression, and ended up committing suicide. My father was determined to get his revenge. For months, my dad followed your grandparents, getting to know their daily routines. One night, he went to their house to kill all three of them. After he killed your grandparents, he went looking for your Dad. He couldn't find him anywhere. Checking outside, he ran onto the street, without thinking. He got hit by a car and was rushed to the hospital. On his death bed the last words that he said to me were "I want that boy dead." Your dad ended up in an orphanage. We spent our entire life tracking him down. Turns out he never got adopted. At age 18, he was permitted to leave the orphanage and live on his own, so he did."

What scares me is that this stalker knows more about my own father than I do. Every minute of hearing this story, is another minute I'm growing to despise the story teller on the end of the line. His father killed my grandparents because of a paranoid theory he brainwashed his 12 year old son with. Clearly this entire family was and is psychotic, which frightens me that much more.

The man continues with this seemingly endless story.

"15 years after he left the orphanage, we found him. Your Dad. He had a family. Now, we will kill all of you. First you, then your mother, then your father and last, your brother. Just like how my sister died, then my mother, then my father."

Who is this 'we'? Who is the other person that wants us killed. There's too much to take in.

I don't understand. Why didn't he just kill me in the forest and be done with it. Why is he dragging it out?

I work up the nerves to ask this,

"You had me defenseless in the forest. I know you had a gun. Why didn't you just kill me then?"

For a while there was no response. Quietly, in an almost embarrassed voice, the man answers, "My gun had no ammunition." Then yelling at me he shouts "You got lucky!"

I snicker and mumble "Ha, quite the assassin you are. What kind of killer doesn't have ammo?"

He replies with a threatening "What did you say?"

I bite my tongue and remain silent, praying that he didn't make out what I said, and wouldn't make me repeat it.

He continued on, " We noticed your family was close friends with the Belners. Too close. We attempted to get them out of the picture a long time ago. Fortunately for them, they cooperated and left you alone...to die."

Could they know that we encountered the Belners again? Hopefully not, because clearly they will stop at nothing to get revenge. Even if it means killing anyone that gets in the way.

Curiously I ask, "For 15 years you followed us, aiming to kill us. Why wait that long? If you think it's so easy to murder us, why haven't you done it already?

He menacingly chuckles under his breath and says "Take a look at your watch and you will soon see that time will tell."

My thoughts run wild thinking about what he could mean. The only sound present is the same deep breathing that I heard when I picked up the phone. A few moments later, I'm left alone in a room that seems so foreign to me at the moment, with only a dial tone for comfort.