The phone rang shrilly from the table. The very same table, as it happened, that Daria had her booted feet resting upon, crossed casually at the ankles whilst deep in the no-man's land of Robert MacCammon's Swan Song. Her frown was small, one of inconvenience rather than annoyance, and with a sigh, she grabbed the cordless and thumbed it to life.
"Hello?"
"What's your favorite scary movie?"
Daria's tiny frown contorted into a snarl, eyes contracted to glittering slits.
"Dammit, Upchuck! I told you, it's not funny!"
She angrily thumbed the phone off and slammed it down on the coffee table, raised her book and just as she found her place, the ringing came again. Warily this time, "Hello?"
"Why did you hang up on me, Daria? I don't like when people hang up on me."
"I should think you'd be used to it by now."
Again, click. And again, it rang.
"You didn't answer my question, Daria."
"You didn't get the message, Upchuck."
Quickly, before she could hang up again, "I'm not Upchuck."
Daria's expression soured further; she lay Swan Song on the couch beside her, forgotten.
"Well, then, it's been real nice talking to you Grama, but--"
"You hang up on me again, bitch, your boyfriend dies!"
A loud, pained wail rose up from somewhere behind the house. Daria's eyes grew wide and darted to the picture window that made up the front wall. She found only darkness there; on Glen Oaks Drive, all was night.
Throat suddenly dry, Daria licked her lips and tried to give all the appearance of bravado.
"Y-yeah, right. It doesn't exactly take a criminal mastermind to stand in someone's backyard with a boombox and a cell phone."
The distorted voice on the other line positively brimmed with satisfaction as again it asked,
"What's your favorite scary movie?"
Anger rose through the uncertainty and burned it away.
"God damn it, what the hell is wrong with you?! Are you that pathetic, that you have nothing better to do on a Thursday night than make unimaginative prank calls to people who you know have the propensity to kick your Howdy Doody looking ass?!"
A cold, very un-Upchuck like chuckle drifted into the livingroom, and ice limned Daria's heart. Her eyes traced a slow path back to the window and she noticed the porch light was out. When had that happened?
"Dariaaa," the voice crooned and she became aware of the sudden, frightening certainty that this was definitely not Upchuck. "If you want your little rich boy back in one piece, you should answer my question."
Daria swallowed, and her throat clicked.
"What question?"
No humor in the voice, now.
"What's your favorite scary movie."
After what seemed like an eternity of indecision, Daria's voice slipped from her throat in a near-whisper. "Bambi."
"I warned you, didn't I?" Came the furious shout. Daria jumped from her seat; the roar had come from the far corner of the yard as well from the handset. Long auburn hair flew behind her as her head snapped in the direction of the kitchen. "I WARNED YOU! Now, because of you, your little boyfriend's gonna DIE!"
"No, wait--"
A loud scream tore through the night, and Daria flew to the kitchen in panic. Through the phone plastered to her ear, she heard as the scream degenerated into a low gurgle, followed shortly by a wet splat. Then, nothing.
The light over the patio doors flicked to life and, duct taped to a plastic patio chair was a very bloody, very disemboweled and very dead Charles Ruttheimer III. After an intense moment of shocked unreality, Daria cleared her throat.
"Um... that's not my boyfriend."
Beat.
"What?"
"Upchuck. He's not my boyfriend."
"...Dammit!" In the shadow created by the porch light, Daria could barely see a dark figured stomping angrily around the corner of the yard as a flood of curses trickled through the earpiece. "Well, who the hell is it, then?!"
Daria almost, almost, spoke Tom's name -but a millisecond later, a plan had formed itself in her mind and she found herself saying something she never would have expected to say this side of a lobotomy.
"Actually, my boyfriend's Kevin Thompson, Quarter Back of the Lawndale Lions."
A black-shrouded figure darted across the yard and was gone. The line was dead in her ear. A slow, evil smile spread across her lips as Daria dialed a number long committed to memory.
"Hey, Jane. Anyone in Lawndale you want taken care of?"
La la LA la la.