With shaking determined fingers she scooped the device back up, "I, m-my name isn't Francis, it's Stefanie Mills. I live at 865 High Creek Road. I-I thought this was my phone but it must be his phone.. please.. please.. please you need to hurry. He's going to come back, why would he leave his phone behind, please, please, please, you need to come" Her voice shook as she quietly begged. Her body shook harder.
"Stefanie, I've corrected the address with dispatch, it will be twenty minutes though before they can get to you. I need you to get up Stefanie, you need to buy them time to get to you." The operator urged in her calm tone.
Pulling the towel closer to her chest with one hand, and bracing the phone against her shoulder with the other, she swung her legs around. They shook with the effort.
One foot on the floor, then the next. Wobbly, unsteady legs braced themselves as she used her night table to push herself out of bed. Quick, shallow breaths. Light footsteps that shook like a newborn kitten.
The house was silent, but it had been silent last night. Darting across the hall, she slipped into her bathroom, locked the door and wedged a chair underneath the handle for good measure.
"Are you still there Stefanie? Where are you now?" Asked the operator.
"I locked myself in the bathroom" Stef whispered back. Fear coursing through her like the thrum of her pulse. Like it was the only thing that would sustain her, keep her upright, keep her alive. Stef clung to it like an addict seeking a fix.
"How much longer" Stef whispered.
"Less than 15 minutes, you can do this" The operator answered quickly.
Something cold, red and sticky clung to her toes. A metallic smell. Still gripping the cell phone with her right hand, Stef nudged the shower curtain with her foot and bit back a scream. A swollen, lifeless carcass stared back at her with blank unseeing eyes.
"There's a body in my shower, he's going to kill me too I just know it, you need to hurry, please, you need to get here, please" whispered Stef crying and pleading and praying to whatever god would listen that she got out of this alive.
But no answer came from the phone. Stef glanced down and she was nearly undone. The battery had died.
###
When the police pulled up to 865 High Creek Road at precisely 5:34 PM the front door was open and Stefanie was gone.
There were no signs of a struggle, but the latch to her attic door had been snapped off. A case of tea leaves overturned into her sink, the water left running, pooling, spilling over the lip of the sink and a knife sharpener was sitting out on her counter next to her cell phone.
After going through her phone, the police found evidence of the conversation with an online delivery driver and then used the geolocation tags to locate his car while trying to put together a timeline for her disappearance. The delivery driver, Francis, was discovered alive but badly beaten and dehydrated in his trunk.
Francis explained from his hospital bed when he regained consciousness that he'd gone to make a delivery the night in question at the abandoned house just up the road. Francis had made runs a few times in the past for the odd party-goer at the ruins of the burnt cabin so he hadn't thought anything of the delivery address at the time, but when he got out of the car someone slugged him. He blacked out and woke up at some point in the trunk of his car, his whole body throbbed. His left shoulder was dislocated and his right arm was broken in three places.
When he was conscious Francis remembered hearing men joke and laugh from the trunk but he couldn't hear about what, the sound was muffled. He could feel them driving for a time. He couldn't give a description of the men because he'd never seen their faces. Eventually the car stopped, he heard them get out and then it was quiet for a long time.
Later he heard a woman's voice calling out his name but he was gagged and couldn't answer. He tried kicking out his tail light to get her attention but the movement sent jarring pain up his arms and he passed out again.
For three days police conducted a massive search throughout the woods, the lake and the surrounding areas near Stefanie's home to no avail. With no leads, eventually her case was set aside.
If only she had called the police about the candle like she had so many times before. If only she had locked her door before going out to retrieve her pizza. If only she had called animal control when she heard the noise. If only she hadn't drank the tea that was out on her counter instead of hidden away in the drawer where it usually sat. If only the police hadn't been sent to the wrong address. If only her neighbours had been there to hear her screams, to intervene, to help. If only she'd gotten out of that house instead of trapping herself in the bathroom. If only, if only, if only.
If only the proof that remained of Stefanie's existence, of her once vibrant life, weren't just the missing posters of her face that still litter the notice board at truck stop near the overpass and her local police station.