CSI Bell Ringer
Part 1
As I called the number, the dog whined at me, and I looked down at it, and said, "You had better be grateful." He looked up at me, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth and his head cocked to one side. I sighed, and my attentions came to a female voice on the other end of the line. She had a heavy Russian accent, and almost all of her words were indiscernible to my ears, which didn't have much practice with deciphering foreign accents. Plus, she talked so fast, and somewhat loudly, I couldn't get a word in edgewise.
"Excuse me… ma'am… I'm sorry, but…" I finally gave up. She wasn't going to let me talk any time soon. I sighed again and pressed "End" on my phone. The dog pawed at my leg, whining again. His tongue flicked out, as if he wanted me to tell him the news myself.
"Looks like your owner is so worried about you, that she won't let anyone talk besides herself." He looked up at me with begging eyes, as though to say 'Please say it isn't so!' Then, I saw Catharine Willows come up on the screen, talking to Warrick, and I wandered back over to my chair, and listened in about these two teens killed this deaf guy just to get his beer. As soon as I sat down though, the phone rang again.
On the caller ID, it was the same number that I had called about the dog, so did I answer? Of course not. I bit my lip a little when the answering machine came up. But this time it was a man's voice, with very good English, so I understood him clearly.
"I know you're here, little missy. And I know that you've got my dog." I started to nip at the tip of my thumbnail. It's just something that I do when I'm really nervous or scared, and it absolutely drives my dad nuts. But it's a habit- what can you do? Then he spoke again,
"Now, didn't your parents ever tell you not to bite your nails?" My heart stopped cold in my chest, and I looked at the receiver in horror. My head whipped around the room, and I jumped up and ran around my dad's little ranch, locking all the doors and windows, drawing the blinds, and turning out all the lights. Then, I found the coat and linens closet, and hid there. I took a deep breath to ease my sky-rocketing blood pressure, only to have it shoot up again when I heard heavy bootsteps across the tile flooring of the kitchen, accompanied by nails clicking in time with the boots, and a light switch flicked on. I tried to ease my fear, saying stuff like this only happens in the movies. This is just another one of Aarek's pranks to try and freak you out. Well, this one was working like a charm.
The booted person stopped, and he said something to the dog. After that, I verified that the booted guy was the same one as the one that had freaked me out on the receiver. A couple of seconds later, I saw the shadows of two big boots and four little paws, and two curt barks.
"So, this is where she's hiding, eh? Not very original. Good boy." He sounded so much scarier in person. He seemed to stoop down to praise the dog, because the shadow of his feet got longer, darker, and wider. My hands were shaking, and my palms were clammy with sweat, along with my forehead. My pupils were probably huge, and my eyes were drying out from being exposed to the air for so long without blinking. I slowly began scooting back into the hanging shroud of coats. As I did that, he gave a harsh laugh.
"Do you really think that hiding yourself in coats will save you from me? You're dumber than I thought! Maybe we should leave her alone, Tobi. This might not be any fun." My breath hitched hopefully in my throat 'Please,' I thought, 'please just leave me alone. Just go back to where you came from, and never come back.' He gave another coarse cackle.
"She actually thought…." He laughed again. "Alright, Tobi, let's take her back. See what we can get." I balled my hands into fists, preparing to defend myself when he came into the closet. Maybe I could land a couple of good hits to the head or chest. But, to my surprise, he didn't open the door. I heard him fish around for something, and then heard a dripping noise. The longest seconds of my life ensued, each drip echoing around my brain like it was a damp, abandoned prison. The sudden burst of light blinded me, and he shoved a moist Kleenex into my face and over my mouth. The sharp smell of chemicals cut through my head, and I was out cold before I had the chance to scream. For, well, I don't know how long, things got fuzzy. The only things I somewhat remember are the rusty creaks of an old, rickety truck, the constant hum of the highway, and the jolting one finds while traveling on a dirt road. Also, I think I fell off of something, because of some unexplained bruising in my sides, and they both hurt like friggin hell.
But I definitely remember waking up in the basement of a probably abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere. The whole place smelled of disinfectants- mainly bleach. And, to me, when something smells like cleaners, it should be clean. That's the only logical way to think. But, in this case, I was dead wrong.
The basement was -in a word- gross. There's just no other way to put it. A politician couldn't have said it any different. It was just plain gross. Though the floor was picked up, there were cobwebs in the ceiling, mold was starting to grow around the practically ancient water pipes, and little puddles of something and stains from whatever else were everywhere. In addition to it being in a severe need of spring cleaning, it was dark. The only light that filtered in was from a little window in the ceiling on the far end that it revealed that it was morning on the surface.
Straight across from me was a door, left slightly ajar, that gleamed pure white and in complete contrast to the dump that I was sitting in. I didn't really think about whether that door was purposefully opened or not; I just went in, and what I saw, almost made me retch.
Part 2
It was like the old coroner's room on CSI. There were four stainless steel tables, each with its own water spigot to wash off the bodies. The tools, polished and arranged, gleamed menacingly on the little platforms that were off to the side of the table. There was a light board where the X-rays and other stuff were put up in order to determine cause of death. What was worse, this room was complete with a morgue- and corpses.
There were two bodies on the back two tables, one was a middle-aged female, and the other a boy, not much older than ten or eleven. I could tell that they were both naked, even though they were covered by the thin white body sheets. The woman was closest to me, and I could see that she had already been opened up, because of the Y-shaped stitching across her chest and down her abdomen. She was fair-skinned and blonde and would have looked young, if not for every wrinkle and crease in her face. She had a small mole on the upper left corner of her lips. If she were alive, she probably would have been drop-dead gorgeous for her age, but death had paled her and made her a sickly yellowish color that reminded me of cat vomit. Her ice-blue eyes were still open and her lips were parted a little, dirt had matted her hair. Beneath the examination table, there was a big Rubbermaid tub. I carefully pulled it out, and picked through the contents: a bloody scarf, an old woolen sweater, and what looked to be a Russian printing of the New Testament. Maybe this was the woman that had answered the phone yesterday evening.
The boy next to her was practically her spitting image in a male child's form- her son, perhaps? His body was pale as well, but not the sickly yellow of his poor mother's. He was more white, suggesting that he hadn't been dead as long. He had a small frame, and his ribcage protruded cruelly out from his chest. His eyes were open as well, the same icy blue as the woman. He was definitely her son. I felt tears welling up beneath my eyelids and my stomach began to tie itself into sailor's knots.
"Good morning, Princess." I screamed, and fell into blackness. Then I noticed that I was sprawled out on the ginormic leather La-Z-Boy with my legs draped over one arm o f the chair and my head pressed into the other. My head was dripping with sweat, which formed a nasty little salty sweat-pool that had run down the arm of the chair and soaked any hair near the puddle. My head wasn't the only thing drenched- my whole body was. And I could smell it, too. Before I could dwell on the fact that I smelled like I had run a marathon a week ago and not bothered to take a shower, my dad, God bless his soul, came running down the stairs, hardly awake enough to keep himself from keeling over. His Brooklyn accent calmed me like it never had before,
"Luchesa? Lucy, baby, are you alright?" I yawned inside my mouth, and asked,
"Huh? What happened? How long have I been sleeping?"
"I'm not sure, baby. I found you out cold when I came home. I thought it best just to leave you there. But you started screamin' a couple a minutes ago, and just about scared me out of my mind." I looked at the wall clock, and watched the pendulum swing for a few seconds. I eventually pulled my eyes up to the clock face, and saw that it was three in the morning. Thank God it was Friday night, and I, surprisingly, had no obligations tomorrow. I gave him a tired grunt, and said,
"G'night, daddy." He smiled that warmly exasperated smile, and his eyes twinkled.
"G'night, baby. I love you." I only barely heard the last part of the sentence. Despite my terrifying round with the phone stalker, I fell asleep again. But this time, thankfully, Mr. Stalker did not haunt my dreams.