Calling Mr. Nelson Pugh

by Christopher Opyr

  “It’s for you.” Again, that childish quality slipped into his tone, so filled with glee at his little game.

  “nelson…?” Her voice barely held above a whisper, yet its soft quiver screamed of pain. Any moment I would break completely. Elly was my world and hearing that quake of fear and agony in her every word threw my very being off axis. The sky was falling.

  “It’s me, Elly,” I said, doing my best to keep the tears back. I needed to be strong now. Worse, I needed Elly to be strong.

  “…why…”

  “Don’t,” I interrupted. I stopped forcing back a lump that had returned to my throat. I coughed clearing the obstruction, and sputtering through my bloody lip, and then continued. “Help is on the way.”

  “…please…” She couldn’t finish. If the knife had hit her stomach, then her digestive acids would likely be seeping out by now, working their corrosive magic on her own internal organs. Of course, that is if I could trust what I was being told by the maniac torturing me and my family, and his was not the most trustworthy of characters.

  “I’m so sorry, Elly.” This time the tears came through and I could not restrain them. With no other choice, I plowed on. “I’m so sorry but I have to know… this man, he stabbed you where? Just below the ribs? Lower? Higher?”

  I hated myself for having this conversation, but it mattered. If it was lower, then he had likely hit the intestines, in which case she might survive. Higher, and perhaps the bone had minimized the damage. Just below the ribs, however, and chances were stronger that he had hit the stomach and all the worst-case scenarios were in play.

  “yes…” she said.

  Yes, what? Higher? Lower? Did it even matter? If she had a chance, then I had to ask this man to leave her alone. Of course, if I did that, the man could move on to Erica or Marie. The only choice left was to keep the man focused on myself and Eleanor until help arrived, but that meant keeping Elly in pain. I still shake thinking about that choice. No man should ever be forced to choose such a fate, but wasn’t that the point of it?

  “Elly, I know you’re in pain, but can you bear with me until help arrives?”

  I could hear her trying to speak, only to be shushed by her tormentor.

  “Quiet now,” he whispered in a soothing tone. “Time to go.”

  Any moment he would take away the phone. I knew it. Yet in all that time with my wife I had done nothing to comfort her, and now this bastard was taking away that chance.

  “I love you, Elly,” I screamed. “Can you hear me? I love you!” What was I doing? What comfort would that be faced with the violence that confronted her?

  The man’s voice responded, interrupting my thoughts. “I need your answer.”

  “My answer?”

  “Yes.” That childish glee waned, choked off by a rising tone of impatience. “A mercy death, or I leave her in pain.”

  No good response existed. I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t choose.

  “Don’t do this,” I began. “I’ll do anything.”

  “No,” he said. He had already heard this refrain and would not tolerate it any further. “That is not the game!”

  Eleanor screamed and I heard the suction of the knife being plunged and pulled from her body once more.

  BREATHE OUT

  “Stop! Leave her alone!” I knew it was useless. I would have to change my approach, but I couldn’t land on any clear course forward.

  “Are you sure?” The wonder and merriment returned to his voice.

  “Yes, leave her alone.”

  “Just know that what comes next is on you.”

  What had I done? My chest spasmed and I gasped, swallowing down blood. I pressed my shirt to my lips trying to staunch the flow, but another spasm wracked my body and this time the blood went down the wrong pipe. I bent over coughing and retching.

  Even then, I could feel the urge for sleep stealing in as the drugs regained their upper hand. I yanked myself back slamming my head once more against the wall. I had to stay awake. I had to fight for my family.

  “Don’t,” I began, forcing back another choking fit. “Whatever you have planned, don’t.”

  No response. From the other end of the line, I heard the pained moans of my wife bleeding out. Beneath those moans I could make out a shuffling, and, in the distance, I could hear Lilo barking.

  There in the hotel, so far from the drama playing out in my home, someone pounded on the wall sounding for me to be quiet. My smashing of the furniture and of myself had finally caught someone’s attention, but I didn’t care. I let the pounding continue, focused entirely on the call.

  Something ripped on the other end of the line. A gasp of breath followed, and then the man returned.

  “Say hello to your father, sweetie.”

  “Dad?” Erica asked. My dear, clever Erica. She had never had a chance to tell me about her softball game and she had been so excited. “Are you there?” she continued.

  “I’m here, Erica.” I needed to say more, but the man gave me no time. He broke in, cutting the two of us off.

  “Say goodbye to your dad, sweetie.”

  “Dad,” she pleaded. “He has a knife.”

  I spoke with the only words that I could muster. I didn’t know why I chose those words in particular, but they offered the only peace of which I could think to provide to her. “Close your eyes, angel.”

  I heeded my own advice, shutting my eyes as if in doing so I could block out the whole nightmarish night, and all the horror to come. Only…

  Erica did not scream. The man picked up the line again.

  “This is your last chance,” he said. “The choice is yours.” Of course, by now, I knew that was a lie. There was no choice. This man would kill my family no matter what I said. The only difference would lie in the details of how it transpired. For the first time, I knew that this was not my fault. I was not a bad man. I was, in fact, a good man. This revelation, however, provided no comfort.

  “You didn’t choose me,” I said; and as I did, I felt a second wave forming. I thought that I might have just enough energy to get through this disaster. I went on. “This isn’t about me.”

  “You’re supposed to ask what choice. It doesn’t work unless you ask your choice.”

  “How about your choice? Why did you choose my family? It had nothing to do with them.”

  “Choose. You choose which one. Which daughter do I kill?”

  The wave had returned. This man needed an answer, and something inside of me told me that denying him that answer gave me the power. This sadist’s weakness resided in his petulance. Underneath his calm joy, there boiled an impatience bordering on a tantrum. I boarded the wave, ready to ride it in. I chose not to choose.

  “You got Eleanor’s phone from the restaurant.” For this man, she would be Eleanor, not Elly. Elly was for just the two of us, and this man would not take that away from me.

  “Perhaps you stole it while she wasn’t looking; perhaps she really did forget it and you simply saw an opportunity. I don’t care which, but you took the phone there, yes? And then you followed her home.”

  “You’re not listening to me.” Anger crowded all else from that voice. I had to hope that this did not end badly. I had to have faith that prolonging this man’s game, refusing to play by his rules, would buy my family time. That’s when I heard it. Beyond Erica’s sobs, beyond Elly’s moans, I heard sirens. My 911 call had been routed and help was almost there.

  “No,” I replied, holding on to that wave. “I’m not listening. And neither are you.” Being decisive came easy when you knew that there was no right answer, nor a right approach. This man had no intention of letting anyone live, so stretching out the conversation by any means became my only choice. Simple.

  I remembered the first message from Elly, and suddenly the whole scenario snapped into focus. “That’s okay. I know your answer. You took the phone at the restaurant and followed them from there, because that is where you first saw them.”


  And it was, it really was. This man didn’t know me. He didn’t know my family. He had chosen us at complete random. I couldn’t dwell on that then, however, so I pushed forward instead.

  “My youngest knocked over a plate while having her own tantrum and that’s when you spotted them. My only question is why? Why did you follow them?”

  His reply came slow and deliberate, his anger tempered, but still there. “Because of you.”

  “We know that’s not true.” My voice rose with each word. Keep him going. We’re locked in, but shore’s in view, I thought. I could hear the sirens more clearly now, my anticipation and anxiety building to a crescendo. One thought nagged at me, however; the man must have heard the sirens and yet he made no indication of leaving.

  “What you know is of no concern to me.” His anger had completely left now, and his calm reasserted itself. He was making a play to regain control. “I targeted them because you were not there. I chose them at random, sure, but I chose them to test you. I needed to know about the man that was missing from their scene – the father, the husband, the man on the phone. I found you easily enough, and then I rang to see if daddy really cared.”

  “You chose them because you wanted to play.” I knew I was right. My family, these calls, they meant nothing more to this man than his own sadistic game night.

  “But the kicker, Nelson, is that I wanted to play the game with you. It’s not fun if you don’t choose.”

  “Well, I’m not choosing, so enjoy that.”

  “You already did, Nelson.” My name again, always with my name. He relished calling me out. That was part of whatever this was, making that personal connection. I didn’t have time to dwell. The man continued. “You chose when you answered my call. You chose, when you called me back.”

  My renewed energy finally failed me. I slid back against the wall, and it wasn’t until that moment that I even realized that I had risen to my feet in the fevered pitch of the conversation. The pounding still continued, now from my hotel room door. I must have been yelling. None of that mattered. A great sense of fear had built within me, and I only had attention enough to spare for that voice on the end of the line as it continued to torment me.

  “I was leaving, Nelson,” it said. “When you answered, I was by the door and ready to abandon my game, but then you accepted my invitation. You brought this on your family.”

  “I won’t choose one of my daughters,” I told him. Sleep bore down upon me even as the sirens grew on the other end of the line. My chest burned and the knocking intensified. “I won’t choose!”

  It made no difference. The man would not stop, climaxing in his sadistic delight. “Had you never answered, none of this would be happening, now. That was your choice, Nelson.”

  I heard one of my daughters scream, but I did not know which one. Before I could find out, all sounds cut off.

  The line was dead.

  ***

  Blackness came. I could fight no more. I slid to the floor as the hotel room door burst open. I paid no attention as the hotel personnel barged in. What they thought when they saw me collapsed on the floor, hand broken, lip nearly severed, a phone clenched to my ear, I cannot say.

  In that instant I could imagine only one thing: the scene unfolding nearly two hundred miles away. The hotel room was no more. In my mind, my home had become absolute, my complete focus. I could hear the sirens descending upon the house, fading to shrill bursts as an army of emergency vehicles flooded into the yard. Inside I knew that a madman knelt over my family, delighting in the end of a game made just for him. I saw his lips part in a smile, an innocent childlike smile. Then he left, slipping away under the cover of darkness.

  That same darkness enveloped me as I lost consciousness. Yet that smile never left. I see it even now, every time I close my eyes, and on every stranger’s face. That smile will never leave me, imagined though it may be. I cannot forget it, those shining teeth, nor the delight in that voice. They, the smile and the calm, pleased whisperings of a madman, a psychotic stranger, have become a part of me, wed to me until death…

  REPEAT

  Even now, ten years later, I see that smile; I hear those whispers. I try to tune them out. I try to breathe in and out and count back from ten - all the usual tricks - but the whispers only diminish and the smile only dims; they never vanish. When I think back upon that night, upon the man that I was then, and the man that I have become since, I wonder what Dr. Smith would say about my current life.

  The good doctor is a thing of the past, now, some half a dozen therapists, and a good deal more psychiatrists behind me. I’ve been on so many drug cocktails that I’ve lost count; and not just me.

  That night haunts my daughters as well. Yes, they survived. In one thing, I succeeded. I bought them time after all, something that I had been unable to grant Elly. Of course, even the girls didn’t come out completely unscathed before that stranger slipped off into the darkness.

  They have been in and out of my life ever since that night, however, depending upon the most recent whims of the court. My mental state took a drastic decline after the death of Elly, and remissions have not been uncommon.

  Now, however, now I’m as good as I can be. My anxiety still runs hot, and I have a penchant for losing myself in the past, but the delusions seem at bay; the nightmares of that night remain ever-present, but manageable. Stan and I are even on speaking terms, though we rarely visit one another. He attended Elly’s funeral and he was there for me with the girls when I needed someone for them.

  I can’t ask him to be there for me, though - not me. Still, baby steps are at least steps, much like mediocre talent is still some modicum of talent.

  I can hear Marie now, as I sit at my desk, recalling that night; or rather, I hear Lilo barking as they play together in the backyard. I rise from my desk, pausing from the work upon my manuscript, a task asked of me by my most recent therapist. Chronicling those events has provided a new outlet to release the horrors of that night, but now I’m more interested in the joys of the present. I try to soak them in, though they rarely sink deep.

  Out the window, I see Marie throwing sticks for Lilo. The dog has a thin streak of grey in her muzzle now, and as she bounds after each stick, I can see the slight wobble in her gait. She’s grown old with Marie; and Marie herself has almost left childhood behind. She’ll be fifteen next month, and ready to start driver’s ed. I don’t think I’m ready for that.

  She still has night terrors, but they are vague; she barely remembers her mother, for which I am pained, but she also barely remembers that man or that night, for which I am thankful. Lilo has been her rock; her constant. I’ve been here, when the courts will allow, but her autistic, anxiety-ridden father is probably less comforting than the boundless love of her dog.

  Still we manage. She’s been in my care for three years unbroken now, and a few more months will make our longest stint without interruption.

  As I watch, she spots me and waves at me as Lilo takes advantage of the distraction and plops down for a much-deserved nap in the grass.

  I could watch her all day. This perhaps, is the most calm for which I can ever hope now - the tenuous peace of seeing her happy and playing, even as the anxiety plucks at my nerves telling me that the peace can never last.

  And, of course, it can’t. It never does.

  The phone rings, and my heart does jump, and maybe even skips a beat. The expression doesn’t seem so absurd, anymore. I gave up cell phones years ago, and only have the one cordless phone in the house; that by necessity more than desire.

  I cast Marie a quick wave, and step out into the open living room, glancing reluctantly at the phone in its cradle. The caller ID lets me know that it’s Erica calling. I want to pick up, I really do, but I can’t.

  Every ring of that phone sends shivers through me. Random calls aren’t so bad - telemarketers and the like - but calls from Erica, they fill me with dread. Each time I answer, on the rare occasions that I can, I expect that ch
ildlike whisper, so full of demonic glee, to sound off on the other end of the line rather than Erica’s sweet voice.

  I watch the phone ring, knowing that I should answer, but unable to do so. After a moment the ringing stops, and I settle onto the couch.

  As I do, the backdoor opens and Lilo bounds in, bouncing off my lap and toward the front door, barking.

  “Lilo, quiet,” I yell, knowing the request will go unmet.

  Marie rounds the bend and glances my way. “Who was on the phone?”

  I shake my head. “No one, honey.”

  She doesn’t ask if I answered it, but I think she knows that I didn’t. Is she disappointed in her father, or does she understand my psychological torment in a way a child her age should never have the misfortune to understand such anguish? Part of me hopes that she is disappointed. That would be better than the fate that befell her sister.

  Erica survived that night, but as I’ve said, it was not without her own scars - both physical and mental. I don’t think that she blamed me for what happened, but nor did she ever forgive me. She still emails from time-to-time and every month or so she’ll stop by for a visit. I’m expecting her now, in fact.

  All the more reason that I should have answered the phone.

  So, when it begins to ring a second time, I rise fully intending to answer her call. It’s definitely her again. The Caller ID makes that clear.

  She’s just running late, I think. That’s all.

  Yet, still I hesitate to answer.

  As I stand there, my hand hovering over the phone, a knock sounds from the door and Lilo resumes her barking.

  “I got it,” Marie shouts.

  Between the barking and the knocking and the ringing, the noise is too much. I can feel the anxiety rising. I need to get out of this room. I need to find some quiet, some peace. But more, I need to answer the phone.