The Wrong Number

54

"Pass me some of that oregano, will you?"

Ruhan leaned over and picked up a packet of oregano from the dresser and tossed it Alankrita, who was sitting on the bed with her slice of pizza. She nodded him a thanks and took a bite out of her seasoned slice. Ruhan stared at the cheesy slice in his hand. Pizza made everything so much better.

"Thanks," he murmured, and Alankrita looked up, still chewing. He gave her a small smile and said, "I know it's really late and you weren't expecting me and all... but you really made me feel better. It's really cool that your parents didn't mind me coming in this late. You're a great girlfriend." Alankrita smiled and swallowed before saying, "Don't mention it. My parents couldn't really argue with all the guests at home, besides they trust me not to get hanky-panky," Ruhan choked on his pizza and Alankrita continued as if nothing had happened, "As for me- I did what any decent person would do. What you should be thanking me for is letting you have some of my pizza."

They laughed and were silent for a while. Ruhan leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. It was getting late, but he didn't feel like leaving just yet. He swallowed a large mouthful of pizza and winced. His throat was still sore. Alankrita must have noticed because she asked, "Did you go to the doctor about that?"

"Uh, yeah," he lied, "He said it was nothing to worry about and some rest would help." Alankrita furrowed her eyebrows and said, "Are you sure it's nothing to worry about? I mean, no offense but you look terrible."
"Yeah, it's fine," he insisted, adding a nod for good measure.

Of course he hadn't seen a doctor. If he did he would have had to explain what happened, and he wasn't ready to do that. He didn't want to admit it, but he was still a little afraid of what would happen if he told people what his father had done, and he was ashamed of it. All he'd done was Google the recovery process for strangulation and the results that showed up had been pretty useless. All he was going on was a Yahoo answer that said 'rest your voice box and eat semi solid foods'. But there was no way he was going to let Alankrita know that.

"You're very different from the person I'd thought you'd be."

Ruhan raised an eyebrow at her questioningly, and she explained, "I think I just realised there are more layers to you than I thought."
"Ogres have layers," Ruhan said, faking a Scottish accent, making Alankrita giggle.

Pretty soon, all that was left of the pizza were an empty cardboard box and some torn packets of seasoning. Alankrita set the box on the floor beside the little litter bin in the corner of her room and went back to her spot on the bed. Ruhan had moved from the dresser chair to the relatively comfier sofa beside her bed. He lay back on the sofa cushions, feeling more at peace than he had when he first arrived there. Alankrita yawned from beside him and he gave her a sidelong glance. "I'll leave if you're sleepy," he said, "I don't want to keep you up."

Alankrita shook her head. "Are you kidding me? It's hardly seven pm on a Saturday night. If I go to sleep this early it would be pathetic. No, I'm fine," she said. He shrugged and stretched. The truth was, he didn't want to leave either.

The silence that followed was broken by the sound of something scratching the door. Alankrita got up from the bed and went to answer the door, explaining, "It's probably the cats. They don't like when doors are closed," and opened it. Three little furry bodies scurried in through the small gap and Alankrita shut the door behind them. Ruhan smiled. "They're so fluffy," he commented, as two of the cats eyed him with curiosity from a distance while the third happily trotted up to the sofa and jumped up beside him. "Hi Sumeet," he said, patting the grey cat on its head.

"He seems to like you," she said, sitting with her legs crossed on the bed. She made a noise that sounded like a baby wookie and the cats jumped to her side. "What was that?" Ruhan asked, bewildered. Alankrita smiled slyly, stroking her cats menacingly. "The call of my people, young human."

Ruhan rolled his eyes and she laughed, saying, "That's how you get cats to come to you. You try it. It's really glottal so-"
"Thanks, but no thanks."

Alankrita picked up a calico cat and pressed her face into its fur. "Do you want to watch a movie or something?" she said in a muffled tone. He nodded, and realizing she couldn't see him he said, "Yeah. What do you have in mind?"

She dropped the cat back on the bed, where it lazily staggered to the mountain of blankets at the end to join its two co-pets. "Anu's been nagging me to watch this horror movie. I think it was 'Nightmare Swamp'. Sounds lame," she said. Ruhan raised an eyebrow at her, making Alankrita explain, "I don't really like horror movies unless they're absolutely plausible. Like, 'Oh gosh, I'm never going to watch any more tapes because a little girl might crawl out of my T.V. screen'. Sure thing, bud," she gave him a thumbs up and a short sardonic laugh.

Ruhan pursed his lips. He'd watched Nightmare Swamp, and he'd hated it. The jump-scares were too loud, making them more annoying than scary, the plot was badly written and had attempted to be compensated for by casting actors with pretty faces and providing them with the skimpiest of clothes. The acting had been so bad, in fact, that by the end of the movie he'd found himself hoping the swamp monster (a humanoid mass of vines supposedly made conscious by rampant pollution) would kill everybody and get the movie over with. But he didn't want to tell her that.

"Cool, let's see what this is all about, then," he said, "If I'm not mistaken, I think it has something to do with a swamp."

She grinned and reached for her laptop, "Nothing gets past you, does it?" She turned the laptop on and patted next to her. "Come sit, da." Ruhan made to move but froze for a moment. 'On the bed? With Alankrita?' "Uhh.." Ruhan said, causing Alankrita to look up from the screen. "What?" she asked.

"Um, do you uh," he mumbled, "Can I have some water?" he asked, deciding not to make a big deal over it. It wasn't like he hadn't been on a bed with a girl before, and they weren't doing anything wrong, right?

She nodded and leaned over to pick up the water bottle on the table next to the bed. He swallowed and sat next to her, taking a sip of water from the bottle she handed to him. She closed a pop-up ad that came up on the laptop screen. "You don't own a copy of the movie?" he asked her as she typed in the name of the movie in the browser search box. She shook her head. "Why buy when you can watch it online for free," she said, wiggling her eyebrows. She found an online streaming site which Ruhan thought looked a bit shady (in his defense, it was called XXtremeStream and the homepage font was in comic sans), and soon the movie was playing on the screen.

There was silence as the camera panned all around what looked like a marsh. Suddenly, an ear piercing scream from the movie made the two of them jump. A couple, both filthy and dripping in swamp goo, were trying to get away from something chasing them. Ruhan discreetly rolled his eyes as the girl falls and yells for the boy to help her, only to watch him leave her to die. Typical.

When the swamp monster finally came into focus, Ruhan's eyes flitted to his left to see what Alankrita's reaction was. Despite the many shortcoming of the movie, he had to admit that the swamp monster was one of the most scary-looking supernatural creatures he'd ever seen. Alankrita had her knees folded so that her chin was resting on them. He waited for her to say something as the monster slowly decapitated and devoured its screaming victim on screen.

Without taking her eyes of the screen she deadpanned, "Is it just me or does that monster thing look like a really old Pete Burns?" Ruhan burst out laughing so hard that he almost rolled of the side of the bed. "I mean, don't get me wrong," Alankrita said, giggling, "it's still really scary."

*****