The Antique

The phone rings...
It was the fifth time today. When answered, all Tarun could hear was a girl screaming loud, after which a ghostly female voice says "Give it back. Give back what you took from me".

Accompanied with Tarun was Richard. They both shared their flat for the time being as Tarun was searching for a job.
All they could remember is where they had seen the number making this crank call.
It was written in an old abandoned house, an advertisement for a job opening in web design.
They found this house when Richard, Neha, Auraya and Tarun had gone to an hill station for vacation.
Since Tarun was unemployed and a techy, he noted down the number.
Even though everyone was against it, conveying the fact that a web designing job offer in an abandoned house inside a forest in a remote hill station was awkward, Tarun was assertive that he did make a note of it.
He tried calling it, but all he could get was 'not reachable' message.
After that, the girls wanted to take a tour of the house, since they had the entire day with them.
Whilst touring, Auraya found an antique vase. She is an antique collector and wanted it so badly. Richard and Neha, being superstitious, were against it.
But Auraya, adamant in nature, took it with her.
Then having toured and explored the entire house, they left.

After a great vacation, they all returned home.
A few weeks later, Tarun started getting missed calls from the same advertisement number.

Today, Tarun lost his patience. When called back it only said 'not reachable'.
So instead, Tarun messaged the number asking who she was and what was taken from her.
After some 10 messages came a reply.
Sender being "Unknown Number" it said,
"Give back what you took. Give it back or thy shall pay".

Tarun could not believe what he just saw, so he called the rest and showed them the message.
Richard and Neha were convinced that it was a spirit and it needed the vase, that Auraya took from that house. But Auraya said she did not have the vase with her as she gave it to the caretaker who worked in the cottage they had stayed, as he was in deep financial trouble, living alone and having no relatives or friends to help him, he said the money he could get selling that vase, could settle his loans.

So Auraya was sure that, it may not be the case.

This freaked out Richard and Neha more.
But Tarun, sitting at the corner of the room thinking deep, being practical and a non believer, was against the perception of Richard and Neha.
He wanted to investigate further about the sender.
Being quite familiar with technology and programming, he was able to crack his phone and reveal the number that sent the message.
He found out that it was the same number.
Having a few friends in the mobile company, he was able to trace to the owner of the number.
He then came to know that the number was registered to a guy called Muthu Kumar. Tarun then realized that it was the caretaker of the cottage they had stayed during their vacation.
Tarun then called the cottage landline and reached the caretaker. He found out that he had borrowed Muthu Kumar's scarf during the vacation and had forgot to give it back. He said he tried calling Tarun, but every time he heard a girl saying something. Believing it to be a cross talk he messaged Tarun saying he wanted his scarf back as he could not afford a new one. So he requested Tarun to courier it.
Tarun still had it with him in his room, so he said he will send it.

Time passed. An year later, everyone planned another vacation and they decided to go to the same place as they still had a few places to visit.
When they reached there, Tarun enquired about the caretaker and was shocked.
It seemed the caretaker was found hanging in his room with his cell phone in his hand. The manager also said, Muthu Kumar kept telling about a girl who called to his number everyday, screams and says something that he could not understand.
On further enquiry, Tarun found that the caretaker had used the same scarf that Tarun had sent, and hung himself 2 days after Tarun had sent it.
And he also came to know that, the police had found a message in his cell phone which read -
"Return what you took from me, or thy shall pay" from the same number that Tarun had got a call from.

Word Count - 786 or 787 (lazy to count from first again :P)