Ransom

Note: there is brief mentions of suicide and a potential kidnapping.

The obnoxious ring of a cell phone disturbs the silent dark room. There’s a groan and a deep brown hand with a slight hint of aging slowly reaches for the phone to quickly shut off the offending sound. Realizing that it’s a call, Janice Weaver hits the blurry green button and holds the phone to her ear. Silence rings out on the other side of the phone as she moves to sit up.

“Hello?” she calls out groggily, “Who is this?”

Janice’s body stiffens as she hears a familiar voice in utter distress.

“Mom, please!” a voice calls out between broken sobs, “These people are upset with dad and their asking for money dad stole, I don’t know what they’re talking about mom call the po—” the phone is ripped from her daughter’s hand and a deep inhuman voice fills the speaker. “You have 48 hours to give us back the $30 Million dollars that was stolen from us or we will kill your daughter”

Panic erupts from the woman’s body and without a moment of hesitation and shouts “I’m going to call the police!” The voice breaks out in a distorted laugh and the call ends.

Still shaken the woman rushes to turn on the bedroom lights. Her mind is racing just as much as her heart; she must contact her husband.

“Ava, call Johnathan” she commands.

The phone rings for what feels like an eternity, and she hears his voice.

“Hello?” he calls out

“Honey, it's me we have —” her frantic voice is cut off as he continues speaking.

“You have reached the personal phone number of Johnathan Weaver, please leave a message after the beep.”

The woman waits impatiently for the phone to beep, and she leaves a message anger rising at his refusal to answer.

“You need to pick up the phone now! This odd man has our daughter, and they claim you stole $30 million from them. Please, if you did something wrong, fix it now! Our daughter is in danger!” She clicks the red button on her phone at almost lightning speed.

Just as Janice is about to command her phone to call 911, she receives a video call.

“They have our daughter” she utters before waiting for the screen to load up the face of the caller.

“Mom it’s me!” a voice says with just as much panic as Janice feels, “I just got a call saying you were kidnapped, and they were asking for money and I—” Her daughter breaks down in sobs, “what did dad do?”

“We’re okay sweetie” she reassures her daughter, and her heart begins to soften from its relentless pounding as she begins to relax, “I almost called the police thinking you were kidnapped, I would text your father that you’re okay, but I can’t find my reading glasses.”

Janice squints at her phone screen at the blurred movements her daughter makes as she reaches for her face, her hands looking abnormal as she wipes away the tears. The phone blinks as it begins to lose connection.

With a sigh of relief Janice says “well I’ll let you go, if you have time tomorrow, can you please help me enlarge the words on my phone?”

“Sure mom, and don’t answer any more calls from that number, it was probably some random hacker using AI trying to steal, I'll help you block it later.”

“Okay Bye sweetie”

“Bye mom”

Before her daughter can hang up, Janice remembers that her daughter is supposed to either be at trip in California or going next week.

“Hey sweetie when was that trip of yours again?” she asks.

But her daughter never answers instead the last thing Janice sees is her blank stare as she quickly hangs up the phone. Janice yawns and gets ready to get back into bed when she calls her husband again. His voicemail responds, annoyed, she decides to leave a message again.

“Honey, ignore my last call. It seems like someone was trying to steal our information and I panicked,” she pauses for a moment and then softly says “if it's possible, can you please come home early? This entire situation has left me on edge, and I don’t want to be alone.”

She hangs up the phone and as she’s about to place it on the nightstand, it rings again.

“Honey is that you?” She answers.

“Mom please give them their money so I can go home, I don’t have much time before they come back but please call the police and call dad!” the frantic familiar voice comes back again. This time the voice sounds choppier than the first. Janice rolls her eyes before responding.

“I know this is a fake call! You’re sick for even using my daughter’s voice for something like this. Do not call this number again!”

“Mom! No, No, N—”

Janice hangs up the phone and throws it on her husband’s empty bedside. She angrily turns around and goes back to sleep. There’s only a couple of hours left before the morning, and sky is starting to turn into various pinks and oranges.

Janice’s alarm rings and she groans at the small amount of sleep she has gotten. She hits the volume button on the side of her phone, a trick her daughter taught her, and decides to sleep in for a little while longer.

Ping! Ping! Ping!

Janice’s constantly pinging with hundreds of messages. Hopefully her daughter hasn’t gone on the trip just yet, because she needs help seeing the words on her phone. Ignoring the messages, Janice gets ready to start her day. As she’s about to head out she recieves a phone call. “Hello? Who is this?” She calls out to the person on the other line.

“Janice it’s me, Tanya,” her friend responds, “You haven’t been answering my texts, and I just wanted to see if you needed anything.”

“I’m fine Tanya, I just had a little scare last night. But what’s the matter? And why are you blowing up my phone?” Janice questions.

“Oh Janice, you don’t know?”

Janice heart begins to quicken again as worry begins to form in her gut.

“Know what?” she asks in a trembling voice.

“It’s Johnathan” Tanya says with a voice teeming with emotion, “They found him dead this morning, the news says its suicide, I’m surprised the police didn’t call you”

At first, she stands in her kitchen in a state of shock. But when reality kicks in, Janice’s heart drops and she falls to her knees on the ground breaking out into gut wrenching sobs.

“I’m so sorry Janice, they said he did it because he stole millions from a company and—” not wanting to hear anymore, she hangs up the phone. She tries to collect herself as much as she can before she breaks the news to her daughter.

“Ava please call sweetie” she commands in a broken voice.

“Calling sweetie”

The phone rings and rings and rings until her daughter's voicemail message reaches her ear. Tears pour down her face as she hangs up.

“Ava, call sweetie” she cries.

“Calling sweetie”

She waits for her daughter to pick up the phone, but instead she’s sent to voicemail again. Janice continues to hang up and call her again and again, each time she cries harder and until her words are so incoherent, Ava stops answering her requests.

Janice lay on the floor for hours not wanting to move and to just dissolve into a pool of nothing. She stayed there for hours ignoring the knocks on her door. She stares blankly at the sunset from her kitchen window ignoring the soft click of her front door and the shuffling of feet moving closer to her.

The only thing that Janice cared about was why? Why was this happening to her? Why would her husband steal? Why isn’t her daughter answering the phone? And why would he so selfishly ruin the life they had spent years building?

Janice took a deep breath and closed her eyes as the footsteps stopped, not caring who they belonged to. She wasn’t going to put up a fight or break down and cry. She said a silent prayer for her daughter and herself and let the numbing of her body consume her. No matter what happens, she hopes she'll be able to rest.