Chapter 61: The Theater (5)
Everly handed Misha’s phone to Old John so her grandfather could also understand the current situation. She then took out her own phone and, through the grate, snapped a few photos of the scene below, focusing on the mound of corpses and the inverted pentagram magic circle that made her feel deeply uneasy.
After taking the photos, she turned off the camera and was just about to call Rebecca to check in when her phone suddenly lit up with an incoming call. Fortunately, Everly remembered Rule 25 of horror movie survival: keep all devices that can make noise on silent when hiding your location. She had already reminded the three of them to turn off call alerts and vibrations on their phones. Otherwise, even a single ringtone could attract the attention of the attackers below.
The call came from an unknown number. Everly hadn’t planned to answer, but considering she had very few friends—her phone hardly ever rang in a week or two—she thought that a sudden call in this situation might be important.
After a moment’s hesitation, she picked up and held the phone to her ear.
To her surprise, the caller was a Micano police officer. He gave his badge number and could clearly name the detective who had helped Everly with the Megan Clinic dental case four years ago, confirming his identity was genuine.
The officer had contacted Everly through a volunteer service platform. After suppressing any resistance, the masked figures had confiscated and destroyed all the hostages’ phones, and with the theater’s defenses—three layers inside, three layers outside—tightly secured, the police had no idea how many kidnappers there were, what firearms they possessed, or the condition of the hostages.
Before Everly, the police had already made hundreds of calls, trying to communicate with hostages inside to gather intelligence. This even included calls to Old John, who had made the initial emergency call—but none of the calls were answered.
So when Everly quietly spoke to the officer, he initially thought he must be imagining it.
“I’m Everly Minas. When the danger started, my companions and I found a way to hide, which is how we managed to survive…” Everly didn’t speak too clearly, worried there might be a mole among the police—after all, in many horror films, the good cops are often eliminated within the first five minutes, and nine out of ten cops who survive to the end turn out to be villains. She simply described what she had seen in the auditorium, reported the approximate number of black-clad figures inside, and mentioned that they were armed with pistols and submachine guns.