Anonymous call (standard:horror, 1653 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Mar 17 2007	Views/Reads: 3700/2303	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
What would you do for money? How far would you go? Some callers are welcome, whilst some, most certainly, are not.

Everybody has a price. I learned that recently. A price in which anybody
will do anything for money. The premise is simple. If I said I would 
pay you one hundred pounds to walk into a supermarket and steal one 
item, it being of no concern what it was you stole, would you do it? Of 
course you would. What if I gave you 200 or 400 pounds? The more money 
I give you, the more likely you are to do it, to break the law. If I 
gave you one thousand pounds to smash somebody's window, well, I know 
the answer to that. Being a poor student, I was given these incentives 
by a person I've never met. He rang me up and offered me money to 
perform tasks that have no real relevance to anybody. Thing is, though, 
he paid up. He knew my bank details, and paid the cash he said he'd 
give me when the tasks had been performed. How he knew I'd done them I 
do not know. I assume that he'd been watching me. I suppose it was a 
lesson in greed. The more money a person has, the more they want, and 
their only pleasure gained from it is in its attainment. They never 
spend it. It's the same with me. I'm rich, but I cannot earn any more. 
The phone calls have stopped, and I cannot access my bank account. I 
came to understand the true power of money, and the stranglehold it has 
over society. Imagine suddenly waking up in a field, and you have 
absolutely no idea as to where you are. You discover you have no money 
whatsoever, or the means to attain it. What do you do? What about when 
you get pangs of hunger? Do you beg? Or do you steal? Do you break the 
law in order to eat? Would you, if you had to? Of course you would. The 
structure of towns and cities is geared to the pound, the dollar, the 
rouble, and if you haven't got it, you suffer. Everything must be paid 
for. A ride on a bus, a ride on a rollercoaster, a place to park your 
expensive car, in which you put your expensive petrol. The privelige to 
watch a new film on a big screen, and the food that goes with it. The 
staff that help out in your entertainment are not doing it for the fun 
of it, because they want to help you enjoy yourself. Their incentive 
for their painted smiles is money, is pay day, so they can go spending. 
How many people do you know who work a mundane job would do it for 
nothing? would work a forty hour week for no pay? I don't think there's 
anybody. The incentive is the wage, the oil that keeps the vast 
economic machine running, society's lifeblood, and it can turn friend 
against friend. Friends who have known each other for many years can 
fall out over money. It can destroy marriages, cause deaths, and 
generally create vast amounts of misery. Yet, by turn, it can cause 
vast amount of happiness. I thought it would make me happy. It did, I 
suppose in its attainment. I would receive a call on my mobile. It 
would always say: ‘Anonymous call', and whoever it was, was making me 
rich. Burn down a derelict house for six thousand pounds he had asked. 
An empty house, just burn it down. Of course I did, and the next day, I 
checked my account, and found I was considerably richer. Find somebody 
who owns a cat, kill it, then break into their house and hang it from 
the light in the living room. For that, I was to receive half a million 
pounds. Half a million. I found the task rather easy. The next 
assignment I didn't think twice about. Such was my desire for money 
that I was entranced by its lure, and was hooked like a shark scenting 
blood in the water. Sever your bonds, said the voice, sever everything 
you know. Leave home, leave your friends, don't even say goodbye. Move 
down south to this address. He gave an address, and it's from there 
where I speak now. On the journey to a London suburb, he rang again, 
and told me that before I was to reach the address, I was to bring the 
head of a tramp. For that, he would give me one million pounds. Would 
you kill a tramp for a million pounds? I would, and did. It took a 
while. I bought an axe, and searched the back streets. A tired old man 
was half asleep in a back doorway to a restaurant, presumably hoping 
for scraps. I thought this doesn't happen very often, does it? Me, a 
rich student, standing before one of the poorest members of society. I 
axed him without hestitation, taking care not to harm the head, which 
took four strikes to come free. I put it in a new bag I had bought, and 
headed for the house, which, to my disappointment, wasn't a lavish 
affair, but a derelict abode along a side street with a ‘for sale' sign 
outside, attached to which was a ‘sold' notice. Well, it didn't matter, 
it wasn't my place, and I could buy whatever house I liked. The door 
was open and I stepped inside. It was then that the phone rang again, 
and I saw that it was a text message. ‘Go up into the attic' it said. 
So up the creaking stairs I went, and saw that there was a step ladder 
leading up. I clambered up and found that the light had been switched 
on. I also discovered that the money I was to earn this time would not 
be going in the bank, as it was here, scattered around. The place was 
literally carpeted in money, and I could roll in it. As I did that, 
another text message disappointingly informed me that the money was not 
mine, yet. It could be if I did one more thing. There was a million 


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