'Murderer' He Whispered

3

"Must be a sadist" the younger man added nonchalantly.

"Why would he be a sadist?" the older, posher man asked.

"Well, you remember what the news articles said. There was nothing wrong or suspicious about him before he did it"

"Oh, you never know that. I'm sure there's other nonsense about him that's being hidden" the older man drawled and Megan could imagine him swatting his hand dismissively at the younger man.

"It wasn't just the news, though, was it? Even his wife said that he seemed fine before he did it"

Megan's mouth turned dry as she listened. Please, don't be talking about what I think you're talking about. Please be about someone else...

"Yes, that poor woman. I'm sure she was devastated when she found out what he did. Imagine having the police knocking on your door and telling you that the man you've been married to for years had just slaughtered an entire innocent family" he sighed as he spoke.

No...

"Imagine if she was in on it!" the younger man suddenly blurted out as a stunned silence on the channel followed. Meanwhile, Megan held her breath as she waited for the older man to reply.

"What makes you say that?" the older man asked after the deafening silence loomed through the radio channel for what felt like a decade, causing sweat to form on Megan's brow.

"I don't know. Let's ask her"

Megan's mouth dropped open in shock as she peered over at her mobile phone, waiting for it to ring. It wouldn't be the first time this had happened, even though she'd changed her number a dozen times already. But as she waited, the phone remained silent beside her.

"Hey, Megan" the younger man's voice whispered through the radio speakers, causing chills to run down Megan's spine. She slowly turned her head from her phone and back towards the radio in her hands, eyeing it with wide, fearful eyes.

"Did you know what your husband was going to do?" he asked, his voice growing sterner by the second as the older male remained silent, as though he was simply listening in, or had left the conversation entirely.

"No, of course I didn't" Megan whispered back to the radio even though she knew she couldn't be heard by anyone.

"Are you sure?"

With a loud gasp, Megan tossed the tiny radio away from her as it landed at the bottom of her bed, facing her. She curled up into a tiny ball as she scooted as far back from it as the wall behind her would allow her to.

How can he hear me? How can he hear me?!

"Are you sure you didn't know that your husband was a disgusting murderer?"

"Yes, I'm sure" Megan whimpered back.

"I don't believe you"

"Stop it"

"I believe you knew his true colours from the very beginning"

"Stop it!"

"Maybe you even liked it" the man sneered through the speakers, sounding as though he was enjoying this.

"No...please, stop it"

"And I bet you knew what he was going to that night. You knew he was sneaking in through their back door that their little girl had forgotten to lock behind her when coming in from playing on the garden. You knew he grabbed their largest kitchen knife and crept up the stairs and into their rooms" the younger man recounted the tale of what happened in a low, sinister voice.

"No! No I didn't! Stop lying!" Megan cried, her voice rising as her entire body began to shake from fear and how cold her room had become, as though she'd just landed inside a walk-in refrigerator.

"And how he started with the parents first, slicing them piece by piece, starting with their ankles so they couldn't protect their eldest daughter before plunging the blade into her" he spat as bursts of static filled his voice, turning it more distorted as he spoke.

"Stop it!!" Megan pleaded as she pressed her fingers into her ears to try and drown out his voice.

"And finishing with that little girl, so pure and innocent, but he didn't care about her innocence and purity, did he, Megan? Not when he placed the edge of the blade against her throat and-"

"NO!!" Megan screeched before crawling as fast as she could across her bedsheets, grabbing the radio and forcing the batteries out from the back as the man's voice was cut off.

Panting breathlessly as though she'd been running a marathon, Megan sobbed quietly as the words of what that man had said rang through her ears along with the crime scene photos she'd been shown flashing through her mind endlessly. She thumped her hands against her head repeatedly to try and force her brain to stop.

"Megan"

The woman gasped as she followed the voice that called her name, only to squeal in fear when she saw a tall, dark shadow looming in the far corner of the room with neon green eyes that were peering directly at her through the darkness.

Not wasting another second, Megan quickly reached over to her lamp and punched the switch with her trembling finger, but when she snapped her head back towards the corner where that shadow had been, it was gone.

With the slight comfort of the soft glow from her lamp, Megan curled up into a tight ball with her knees up to her chest as tears flowed past her cheeks. She tried desperately to focus on her breathing, before staring down at the radio again. With shaking hands, she placed the batteries back into their slots before switching the radio back on.

Even though the knob was still pointed towards the same channel as before, all she could hear was classical music, ringing out in a gentle symphony that only made the fear in her chest worsen. It was as though the men she heard earlier had never even existed, as though she had imagined every second of it.

Switching the radio back off, Megan dumped the device back into her drawer and remained glued in her tight ball for hours, not wanting to leave its safety until she saw the brinks of sunlight bleeding in through her thin curtains.

I'm not going mad. I'm not going mad. I'm just stressed. I'm just stressed, Megan whispered to herself over and over again until her entire mouth turned so dry that she thought her tongue would turn to stone and break off. But no matter how many times she told herself that she was fine, she began to believe it less and less. She wasn't fine. She was nowhere near fine.

Why did you kill that poor family, Charlie? Why did you do this to us?...