Chapter 12: Chain Letter by Stephen Simpson
Carl can see Susan is nearing hysterics, so he puts up his
hand to quiet her. He calls down the passage, “Amy?”
Susan says again, her voice starting to pitch, “Amy is not
in yet.”
“Phone her and tell her not to come in, and then you go home as well. With Sean dying, it would be the right thing to do anyway, to close the office for today,” Carl says calmly.
Susan pulls her chair closer. Sitting down she picks up the
receiver of the telephone and dials Amy's number.
Carl watches her, leaning across the desk, as she holds on,
biting her lip nervously.
After a while, Susan looks up at him through those Bambi
lashes. “She is not answering her phone.”
“Send her a text message and tell her not to come in and
then you go home.”
Without waiting for her to reply, he walks down the short
passage to his office. Shaking his head, he considers that now he would have to
work on the graphics as well, if Sean did not finish them.
He sits down behind his desk and unpacks his laptop. He
switches it on and then opens the document he was working on last night.
After a while, he hears Susan call from the front office
that she is leaving, and he calls back in agreement.
The office is quiet, too quiet for a weekday and soon after,
he decides he would rather work from home, so he starts to pack up his things.
Sitting in his car in traffic, he realizes he never phoned Adèle
to tell her about Sean. He dials her number.
She answers the phone almost immediately.
“Hello, Adèle.”
“Hi, Carl.”
“Have you picked up your family from the airport yet?”
“We have just arrived back. How far is the proposal? You are
supposed to email it to me by lunchtime. You know we do not have a lot of time
to work on this. I received Sean's graphics in my in-box last night.”
“Yes, about that. I heard this morning from Susan that Sean
died last night from a massive heart attack.”
Adèle gasps and says loudly, “No. How is that possible? That
is the fourth person I know, personally.”
“Just coincidence. Do not tell me you are also now going to
start believing something strange is going on.”
“I have to go; you have me spooked now.” Adèle ends the
call.
He notices he had not been paying attention to his
surroundings, moving forward only a few centimetres at a time in the traffic
build-up, while he was speaking to Adèle. He needs to take the next exit, only
a few meters away so he starts to push in between the other vehicles, trying to
get from the fast lane to the exit lane, without upsetting too many other
motorists.
Not long after, he turns off from the main road. From there,
it takes him ten minutes to get home.
He sighs with relief when he walks into the coolness of his
luxury home. He puts his bag on the kitchen counter and then pours himself a
soda, where after he walks to his bedroom to change into something more
comfortable.
Feeling at ease, a soda in his hand, he sits down in his
study. He opens the laptop and then starts working on the proposal, realizing
he has at the most another hour left before Adèle will be phoning him again to
remind him how important it is.
He has difficulty focusing because he keeps looking up and
behind him, turning all the way around in his chair. It feels as if someone is
standing behind him, watching him.
He sees movements from the corner of his eyes, but when he
looks, there is nothing, the hairs at the back of his neck raised.
At first, he thinks it is his cat playing games with his
mind, but the cat is fast asleep on the couch.
He imagines he feels something touch his right shoulder, a
cold tremble runs down his back, but when he looks there is nothing.
An hour later and deep in thought, his phone starts ringing,
and he curses loudly. He is doing well under the circumstances and he needs, at
the most, another fifteen minutes then he will be able to leave the study and
this project. He is feeling extremely uncomfortable.
Ignoring the phone, he lets it go to voicemail, while he
quickly types a few more words.
When his phone starts ringing again, he answers it and gets
up off the chair frustrated. He walks out of the study towards the kitchen,
planning to make himself a cup of coffee, while he speaks to her.
Adèle is hysterical about all these people dying, going on
about emails being the cause and she insists she is on her way to his house.
After she ends the call, Carl puts his phone down on the
counter, smiling at Adèle’s over-reaction. Honestly, she is always so
theatrical and melodramatic.
Yes, he feels spooked for some reason and he felt a nervous
tension while he was working in his study, but now the call from Adèle makes it
even worse.
He stops making the coffee and pours himself a drink
instead, feeling anxious and reprimanding himself for allowing Adèle to
influence his emotional state.
He hears a noise coming from his study - something fell.
Quickly he rushes through the house to the study to investigate. As soon as he
walks through the study doorway, he notices his laptop lying on the floor.
“How did that happen?” He exclaims.
He runs forward, praying it is not broken. Suddenly as if
from the laptop, a woman is standing in front of him.
Towering over him, her long dark hair is hanging down to her
waist and her eyes are rolled back in their sockets. She opens her mouth and a
soft chanting noise fills the room. She comes towards him.
Carl grabs his chest, as a sharp, piercing pain punches him
in the chest. He falls onto his knees as this woman folds over him.
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