The Phone Call

I’m Priyanka Mehra, a fourteen year old girl, studying in the ninth grade. I have a sister Sakshi, who is four years elder to me. We both are very close to each other. An incident, which happened about a month back, has brought us closer. This was an incident which none of us can forget.

One winter evening my mother was telling us, yet again, not to open the door for anybody while our father and she were out. They were going for a wedding of a close relative and had to attend the entire function as the relation was very close. But as Sakshi was having her exams, we couldn’t go. “Keep the doors locked at all times, and keep the curtains drawn. And close the rear window.” my mother was saying. “Yes mum, we heard you the first time. Relax; it’s not the first time we are staying alone at night.” Sakshi said.

After our parents left, Sakshi went to study and I went to watch the television. My sister, after only ten minutes, came to sit with me as she was taking a ‘break’.
The phone in our drawing room rang with a shrill noise and Sakshi went to pick it up.
“Hello?” No answer. “Hello?” No answer again.
I heard the receiver being put down and after a moment it rang again.
“Hello?” Sakshi said quite firmly this time. “Yes, this is Mehra residence. May I know who is on the line?”
I came outside where Sakshi was talking on the phone. She was listening for a while and then her facial expression changed from irritation to confusion to fear. “Who is this? How can you say that we are alone? We are not alone. My entire family is here.” She was now trembling. She banged the phone down. “What’s the matter? Who was it? Why are so scared?” I asked.
“There was this weird man on the phone who said that our electricity will get cut in a minute.”
“What? Who was it?”
“I have no idea.”
Suddenly there was a scratching sound on the door. Both of us jumped and held each other’s hand. Then as suddenly, the scratching stopped. Sakshi and I looked at each other?
“What was that?”
“How do I know?”
“Priya we should call mom and dad.”
“Sakshi, did you close the rear window?”
She looked at me, terrified. We both ran to the back of the house and closed the window. We both ran up to our parents room and took out the emergency lights. We went to call them but the phone was dead. Just as Sakshi was dialing dad’s number from her mobile, the land-line phone rang.
It started working so soon?
“Hello?” I mumbled into the mouthpiece. “Are you ready? Taken all the lights? The countdown begins now. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3--” he put the phone down. Exactly after two seconds the lights went out.
We both screamed. We ran into our room and locked it. Sakshi turned to face me and screamed, pointing behind me. I looked behind me and saw a man standing on the ledge waving at us in a way a maniac would. He had long hair and his face was covered with a black mask. And he had a knife in his hand. He was looking down and when I looked down too, I saw that the latch was open. Just as he moved to open the window, Sakshi and I ran out of the room. While closing the door I saw the man running towards us. We locked the door from outside and ran downstairs. We both were crying and my whole body was shaking. “I think we should call the police” Sakshi said between sobs. “The phone is dead and the candles are blown out. We are stranded in complete darkness now.” I said. “The cell! Where’s the cell Sakshi?”
“It was on the phone table.” I was trying to find it in total darkness when my hand rested on it. I lit the lights of the phone. There was someone in front of me. In the light I saw a man standing right in front of me, like nose to nose. Well actually it was more like chest to nose.
I screamed and dropped the phone. I pushed him back but as he was way bigger and stronger than me, I could manage to push him back only a few centimeters. He grabbed my shirt and pulled me. I screamed loudly and heard Sakshi’s running footsteps. “NO! Sakshi don’t come here. He is here. Run. Hide.”
The psycho tried to shut my mouth. But he didn’t know that I was too good in this department. I bit his hand, gathered all my strength and punched him hard in the face. My hand collided with his nose and he roared loudly. I ran to Sakshi and we both rushed to open the main entrance. But it was of no use as the door was locked from outside. We ran to the back of the house but before we could open the window there, the man pulled us back by our hair.
Sakshi picked up a vase from a nearby table and hit him hard on the head. He staggered back and we both ran. Sakshi went up into our parents’ room and was picked up the cell phone. I fumbled with digits of the phone.
As you can make out I had forgotten that we can use the speed dial option. But in such dire situation people tend to forget everything.
“Hello Papa? There is someone in the house who is trying to kill us. Papa come soon we can’t hold him for---”
But before I could finish speaking, the man came and snatched the phone. I ran in the opposite direction shouting “Sakshi, don’t come out. He is here only. Keep yourself locked. Don’t come out.”

I ran into the living room and hid behind a sofa. The man came running into the room. He tore and upturned every sofa in the room. He upturned the chair behind which I was hiding and raised his knife to strike. I picked up a brass plate from the side table and it collided with his knife. The knife fell and as he moved to pick it up, I moved to run away. But he was too fast for me and bruised my arm with his knife. He turned me and slapped me (it was more like a punch really). I could taste blood in my mouth. As he raised his knife, I closed my eyes, ready this time to embrace death. But it never came.
I opened my eyes and saw the man staggering and holding his head. Sakshi was there with my cricket bat raised in her hands. She hit him again with the bat. She kept hitting him until he fell and lay there unconscious. She hugged me and we both began crying. I told her I had called dad and he was on his way. We went into our parents’ room and got some of our mother’s dupattas. We tied them around the man. Then Sakshi called our parents again. They told us that they would soon be here and had called the police already.

After fifteen minutes both, the police and our parents came. Mom hugged us both and burst into tears. The officer told my father that the man was mad and a serial killer. He did a complete research on anyone before killing them. They had been looking for him for the past three days. They asked Sakshi and me to give our statements about the night’s incident. At about three in the morning they left and we went to bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. Today we both had taken on a full fledged murderer.

That night we had nothing to save ourselves with except each other and were an inch away from death but we managed to escape it. Because of my sister I am still alive and have been able to tell you about the night we got the phone call.