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                                    The Caller

The phone was ringing off the hook when she walked back into the house, juggling groceries she'd bought after leaving Andrew.  It was a little after five.  Ryland's car was gone.  He was, probably, calling to tell her he'd be late.

"Where have you been?"

It was him.  The caller.  He'd caught her off guard.  She hadn't thought about him in a week, and it had been longer since he'd called.  "What in the hell do you want?"

He laughed, "To let you know I'm watching you."  A chill ran through her, as she fought to control the pattern of her breath.  Her heart was pounding now and she was breathing hard and fast.  He would hear it.  He would know.  But first, she had to stop the terror chopping at her mind.

Her instinct flashed a message.  You must open to it...to the penetrating knife, to the shrapnel of the bullet tearing through the tissue of your heart!  Go ahead and die!  Die, within your mind, for when you do, the cringing fear dies, too.

Her breathing slowed.  She felt strangely empty, like the blackness of the void that shrouded him.  Yes, the fear was leaving her.  She waited just a moment more, to be sure.  At last, a calmness came over her.  "That must be very boring for you."  She laughed lightly.  "Watching me has got to be a drag!"

There was silence, first.  But then he laughed again, a high-pitched laugh that curdled blood.  In parting, he, too, had a message to leave with her.  "Beware!  God will send his instrument of vengeance to the Infidel!  Soon, Mrs. Whitley!  Soon."  He laid his instrument of virulence in the cradle so softly, the silence became more ominous than the warning.  Nor was Jess even assured of his abrupt departure through unanswered epithets of retaliation.

She cried with rage and bitterness until the violence of her own act left her stupefied.