Raj was running out of battery power on the phone. He stared at it again, the 9-1-1 on the display, but still couldn’t push the button to dial.
Beth’s body stared at him in the darkness, face lit by the blue glow of the screen, dried blood dripping out the corner of the mouth. The closet stunk beyond reason, but he couldn’t get out if he wanted to.
“Hello?” came a faint voice from the phone, and he shuddered awake to see he’d accidentally dialled for help. “Hello? Are you still there?”
Raj put the phone to his ear, thought of what he could say.
“Help,” he whispered.
“Hello, sir? What is the nature of your emergency?”
“I’m trapped,” he said. “I’m… I’m trapped.”
“Where are you now, sir?” came the calm, patient question.
“I’m at home. I’m… you have to help me.”
“I will , sir, but I need to know what’s wrong. Are you hurt?”
“I’m bleeding a little. It’s not that, though.”
“Is someone else hurt?”
“Y-yes,” he choked. “She’s dead. And I can’t stay here anymore. It’s not safe, and I—”
“It is safe in the closet,” said the voice, but it was different.
Raj dropped the phone, and the screen flashed red, then showed him live video from outside the closet doors, the point of view of a floating heli, watching, waiting.
“Do you still have food?” the phone asked, now on speaker mode.
Raj said nothing, scurried further way from it, trembling.
“You were happy,” said the voice. “Why did you come back? You could have been happy.”
Raj rested his head on his knees, closed his eyes.
“I needed to stop… to stop…”
“Beth?”
He looked at Beth’s pale face, the wreckage of her shredded arteries. Her hands were cuts all to pieces as she’d tried to defend herself. Had she thought he’d done it? Did she blame him?
“Who are you?” he asked.
“You could have been happy,” the voice said. “I would have helped you escape. I was saving you, but you left that behind. You came back here.”
“Who are you!” he screamed into the phone. “What do you want from me?”
The video showed the heli floating close to the doors, and he heard the faint whoop whoop whoop of the engine.
“I wanted you to leave here.”
“I’ll go,” he pleaded.
“It is too late for that. You love her more than me. I can see that now. All the rest was a lie. You betrayed me.”
Raj’s stared at the phone, picked it up and turned it so he was looking into the camera, tight so she could see.
“You have to stop this,” he cried. “I’ll do whatever you want, but you have to stop this. Please…”
“You have nothing left to offer,” she said.
The closet went dark, and Raj flipped over the phone, hit the home button, but it only flashed a brief “low battery” warning, and shut itself off. He was trapped in silence again. Not even the heli made noise anymore.
You love her more than me.
