Wrong Number

“Hello?”

“Helloooooo, is this the Krusty Krab?” I asked with the most annoyingly cheerful voice that I can muster. Come to think of it, I think I was trying to mimic Spongebob’s voice.

At this point, I was trying my best to stifle my laugh and I heard “Listen, I know it’s you, Sarah. So stop wasting both our time”. I recognized his voice.

It was Brandon and he sounded really exasperated. Like if you were to ask me on a scale of 1 to 10, how exasperated Brandon sounded, I’d say 11. So again I put on my best Spongebob voice “Bra, . Sorry. Bye!” and I hung up.

I turned to Janice, my best friend and started laughing. She heard everything as the phone was set to speaker.

This is what both of us do every Friday night. She’ll sleepover at my house and we will take turns doing prank calls before we sleep. It’s been our habit since we were 13 and we still haven’t changed after 4 years.

Sometimes we will succeed pranking somebody. And sometimes we don’t succeed when we call someone we know, for instance, Brandon. Nevertheless, it’s still very funny.

At school, both of us are known as the ‘Phone Clowns’ but we don’t get into trouble as the prank calls we make aren’t that bad or serious.

Essentially what we do is, we punch in a bunch of random numbers on our phone, put on a funny voice when anyone answers and make a funny conversation, for example, telling them the secret to a smooth and silky skin is to apply ketchup on it, trying to convince them of this and then proceed to teach them the procedure.

*****

This particular Friday, Janice couldn’t sleepover at my place as she had to help her mother with some chores.

I felt so bored without Janice which led me to start the prank calls earlier than our usual time. I picked up the phone and randomly pressed some numbers. After sometime, a man picked up the phone and shouted “Wrong number!”

I was caught off guard and I almost dropped the receiver. Yes, I actually use my landline for my prank calls. Holding it back to my ears, I heard him slam the phone down but he didn’t put the receiver back in its place properly.

This enabled me to hear what’s going on in the background of his home. I was about to hang up as I had no intention of eavesdropping when I heard a woman’s voice. “No Stanley, don’t. Please don’t kill me”, she begged. I was shocked by what I heard. This had to be a joke, right?

Stanley replied “I’m sorry my dear wife but you have to go as you know my secret” and the sound of a chainsaw could be heard. My eyes widened in horror. My heart was thumping so fast.

The lady was shouting “No, please, no!” and it ended. The phone clicked back into place and I couldn’t hear more. My mind was racing and frozen at the same time. Racing to think what I can do to help this poor woman and frozen in fear.

I couldn’t just go to sleep or let alone do anything when I knew that a guy by the name of Stanley was going to kill his wife with a chainsaw.

So, I called Janice and asked her to come by with her mother’s permission on the pretext that we had a project to work on. She was just glad to get away from doing chores.

After a long wait of 10 minutes, Janice finally appeared at my doorstep. I told her the whole incident. She seemed skeptical. She said I could have overheard a movie running in the background.

I did think of that too but I was afraid to make such assumptions especially when someone’s life is at stake. So, she suggested that we look up in the telephone directory to find out where Stanley lives in order to save that woman before it’s too late.

It didn’t take us too long to find where he lived because we went to the ‘S’ section, searched for the name ‘Stanley’ and confirmed that he’s the same person by looking at his telephone number. It was the closest to the bunch of random numbers that I punched in on the phone earlier.

I was so happy that we found where he lived and suggested to Janice to call the police. She said, “Call the police and say what?” ‘Hello, police station? I made a call to someone by the name of Stanley in Bellview Street and he is going to kill his wife’ “Do you think they’ll believe us?”

“Okay Miss-Know-It-All, why don’t you give me some ideas?” I regretted asking her that because she suggested that we should go there and stop Stanley. At first I hesitated but then I agreed in order to save that woman.

We used Janice’s car to get to Stanley’s house. Janice kind of messed up by taking a few wrong turns but eventually we reached his house.

Janice parked her car under a huge tree that was two houses away from Stanley’s. I know, bad move in case we needed a swift getaway but Janice’s logic was that it was for our protection. I didn’t want to argue with her so I just went along with it.

We walked towards the front door of his house. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The lights were on inside his house which could be seen through the windows and we didn’t hear any shouts or screams.

We knocked on the door several times but there was no answer. We even rang the doorbell but to no avail.

I turned the door handle and to my surprise, it was unlocked, so we entered. The living room was turned upside down. All the furniture and tables were the wrong side up.

The curtains had long slashes in them. Slashes that might have been made with a chainsaw.

Vases were broken and so were the glass cabinets. The aquarium looked like it was knocked over and several fishes lay dead among the broken pieces of the aquarium.

We slowly crept from room to room but we couldn’t find Stanley or his wife anywhere. Come to think of it, I didn’t even think to see if there was a car in the driveway.

“Let’s check upstairs and if they’re not there, we bolt home”, Janice suggested. We ran up the stairs and upon reaching the top, we were greeted by a puddle of blood on the landing.

“Ohhh, God”, I groaned. The walls had splatters of blood. We understood that Stanley had already killed his wife. There was no blood downstairs. That means the woman must have put up a fight with Stanley which resulted in the chaos in the living room. But he must have got her when she ran up the stairs.

Now we needed to get out from here before Stanley sees us. We have no idea if he wasn’t at home or if he was in the backyard or in some other part of the house that we’re yet to explore.

I quickly turned around and grabbed Janice’s hand to run down the stairs. We stopped dead in our tracks as we heard a car pulling into the driveway and its headlights washed over the windows. Stanley is back! My mind was racing again:

Stanley is back.

Back from where he buried his wife.

He killed his wife and buried her.

What if he cremated her?

Worse still, what if he burned her alive?

Or buried her alive?

Is she dead or alive?

Is he a murderer or not?

The sound of the front door slamming shut brought me back to my senses. How could we have been so stupid? We forgot to close the door! That in itself is a huge telltale that someone has broken into his house.

But on the bright side, he doesn’t know for sure whether we are still in his house or we have left. Now I understood why Janice didn’t want to park right outside his house.

We decided to use that to our advantage and find a place to hide. I pulled Janice into the nearest room and scanned the room for a good hiding spot.

I could hear Stanley rummaging around downstairs and suddenly, he called out, “Who’s there? Show yourselves!” His voice had so much of hatred and anger in it.

Janice was panicking, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, he’s going to kill us too Sarah”.

I spotted a closet in the second room that I dragged Janice into and quickly pulled her into the closet and both of us hid inside it. “Don’t worry, he won’t find us in here if we keep quiet” I whisper as I try to calm her down.

Now, only the sounds of our heavy breathing could be heard but soon it was accompanied by the sounds of footsteps coming up the stairs. We held our breath and waited in fear. After awhile, those sounds were gone and we were relieved.

All of a sudden, the closet door flung open and there stood Stanley with his chainsaw and a wide grin on his face. “Came to join the party, girls?” he asked. His yellowing teeth looked disgusting. There was the stench of sweat mixed with blood coming from him.

We were so scared and couldn’t think of what to do. I lifted my leg and kicked him in the stomach. It was as if my leg had a mind of its own. We quickly ran towards the room door but he managed blocked our way.

I remembered spotting a window when I entered the room. Quickly, I turned my head around to see behind me. There was a tree branch very close to the window. I thought of a plan.

We could run to the window, get it open, climb on the tree branch and climb down the tree. It may or may not work but it was the only way I could think of for us to escape from this psychopath. I whispered this plan to Janice.

Stanley broke the silence “Whisper all you want, girls, as this will be your last conversation”. I ignored him and said to Janice, “On the count of three. One, two, three!” and we ran towards the window.

It took Stanley a few seconds to realize what we were up to because when he reached the window, we were already halfway climbing the branch towards the trunk. That’s when I realized the flaw in my plan. Both Janice and I were afraid of heights.

So, we sat on the tree branch trying to think what to do next but our thoughts were disturbed by the sound of the chainsaw. From here, the wrinkles on Stanley’s face were clearly visible as he was grinning from ear to ear while cutting the tree. The smell from him was even fouler in this close proximity.

I thought we were going to die but Janice called the police from her cell phone and said that a guy had killed his wife and was now trying to kill us with a chainsaw and gave Stanley’s address.

After what seemed like an eternity, the police arrived and arrested Stanley. Then, we were brought down from the tree safely.

We told the police everything that had happened in detail. They were glad we’re okay but they weren’t too happy about the prank calls.

The police then offered to send us back home but Janice said she’s okay to drive. Just to be safe, the police followed us all the way back home in their car. And they also spoke to both my parents and Janice’s. Needless to say how furious our parents were. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say 11.

That same night, I called Janice. We made two promises. First was to forget this terrible incident. And second was to never make another prank call ever again.

On the news the next morning, it was reported that Stanley has confessed to killing his wife. It seems he cut through her neck and abdomen with the chainsaw.

Then he moved her into the trunk of his car and started driving around to find a place to dispose her body. She bled to death in the trunk. He then disemboweled her and threw her body into the river close by.

Her body has been recovered. Now investigations are going on regarding his motive to kill her which is the secret that she found out about him.

Apparently, he is not cooperating. The police are baffled as to why would he confess to the murder and admit that his motive was because she found out his secret but not want to reveal the secret.

*****

Two weeks later, when I was sleeping, the phone rang. I looked at the time and it was two in the morning. Wondering who was calling at this hour, I answered the phone groggily.

“I will return and you will get what you deserve,” a voice said and it was followed by maniacal laughter.