Answer The Call

"Ugh… hello?” I answered the phone with that tinge of annoyance. The incessant ringing had managed to wake me up as it echoed through my bedroom walls, the screen lighting up the entire room multiple times over the last half hour. It was well past midnight, an ungodly hour for anyone to be calling me outside of a medical emergency. The caller ID had been blocked- ‘unknown caller’ was there, front and center, with no phone number to be displayed. Against my better judgment, I decided that answering this unexpected call was a good idea. “Hello? Who is this?”

“De… vin… … Devin...” The voice was barely above a whisper. It had struggled to say my name, but it certainly knew who I was. 

“Yeah, this is Devin. Who is this?” My question was met with more silence, and then the voice stretched out through the silence again as it called out to me.

“De… vin… … De…. vin…” It seemed to stretch out through darkness more and more as it repeated my name. I was starting to get as annoyed as I was terrified of this person whispering my name over and over and over. Was this just someone I knew pulling a prank on me? It was a good one if so, albeit, again, rather annoying. 

“Yes, I’m Devin, we’ve established that. Who is this and what do you want?” I asked the question with a bit of intimidation, trying to let this person know that I was over whatever game they were playing. A few seconds passed before the voice on the other end responded with a few slow, crackling, throaty laughs. 

“Heh… Heh… Heh…”

Then the call dropped. I pulled the phone away from my face once more to look at the info on the dashboard- no number, no name, no information at all about who had just ruined my night’s sleep. Something about that voice, that laugh, was almost familiar, but at the same time scared me more than I am willing to admit. I placed the phone on my nightstand and tossed myself back onto my pillow, hoping that I would be able to get back to sleep. Unfortunately, sleep wasn’t going to happen after that- the whole thing was just mildly unsettling. 

After a few hours, my phone started to chime notifying me that the night had ended and it was time for me to start a new day. The ringing made me jump slightly, making me think that they were calling back. I sat up, canceled the alarm, and sat up in my bed. My head started pounding as the lack of sleep started very swiftly catching up to me. I got up, drank several glasses of water and started my day off with two naproxen in hopes to give the day some semblance of normalcy. For whatever reason, that call was messing with my head; maybe it was just the eerie message, maybe it was the familiarity of the voice, maybe I was just losing my mind.

After getting through my normal morning routine, I jumped in my car and started heading into the office. About halfway there a beeping sound started coming through my car’s speakers. I glanced down to the radio screen which indicated an incoming call; the only thing it said was “unknown caller”. I reached for the answer button thinking that it was probably a scammer calling me to ask if I was receiving all my government healthcare benefits, but then my finger hesitated as the memory of the previous night’s call flooded my brain. I stared at the screen for longer than I should have, long enough for the light I was waiting to go from red to green, and for the car behind me to hit their horn. I looked up, waved to apologize to the person that I’d inconvenienced, and continued on down the road. The ringing stopped as the call got pushed to voicemail, and I just shrugged it off as a non-event. 

As soon as I pulled into the parking lot of my office, the beeping started again- ‘unknown caller’. I stared and waited, once again hesitating, but decided to just take the bull by the horns and face the caller. I pressed the call button, and said “Hello?” The other end was silent, there was no one there responding to me. “Hello?!” I said again, this time a bit more agitated. 

“De… vin…” The crackling voice was surrounded by static as it said my name again. “I… see you…” This time the words made the hair stand up on my arms and my neck. 

“Who is this?” I found myself nearly yelling at the voice on the other end.

“I… see… you…” I could feel the air escaping my lungs and the color draining from my face. The muscles in my neck started to tense, my heart started racing, and I struggled to breathe for several moments. I could feel the panic attack starting to drag me into that anxiousness that I struggled to claw my way out of. I had to focus on something, I had to try to get a hold of reality and not let myself fall into the panic I was heading for. I closed my eyes, pulled in air as deep as I could, and counted to five.

“I see you… Don’t… worry…” The voice clawed at my brain and made me choke for a moment- I opened my eyes and quickly hit the button to end the call. I had control of the situation, I could end it at any moment, and that was enough to slowly bring me back to the real world. I took another deep breath, shook my head, opened my door and headed into the office. I sat at my desk and placed all of my items down, glancing at my phone for a moment. I decided that the best way to handle this was to just turn off my cell phone, no one was going to call me while I was at the office; I rarely got text messages anyways, and the truth was that no one would be looking to talk to me during the day. I pressed the button to turn the phone off, watched the phone go through the shut down motions, tossed it in the drawer and got on with my day. 

It wasn’t more than an hour later that I was sitting at my system and working on my boss's schedule, typing away and setting up the meetings that he needed to get through that week, when I heard a familiar sound- a light vibration coming from my top drawer. I focused on it for a few seconds before thinking that I had to be crazy; I had definitely turned the phone off before putting it down. I assumed I was hearing a vibration from another desk nearby, and kept on doing my work. The few seconds of silence after the vibration were broken by a chiming sound- my ringtone. I quickly opened the drawer and grabbed the phone without looking, saying hello as quietly as I could. 

“De… vin…” I knew who it was going to be before they even replied. “Don’t… worry…” The chill ran down my spine again as I listened to the voice. “I see… you…” I quickly pulled my phone away and pressed the end call button, then powered the phone off again, this time placing it on my desk face up to make sure I could see if it powered back on. The screen went black, and I pressed the buttons to make sure it didn’t light back up; it didn’t. I let out a sigh of relief and tried once more to focus on my day’s work. 

Less than five minutes after this, my desk phone started ringing. I picked it up as I always did - “Office of Martin Van Amstel, This is Devin speaking, how can I help you?”. There was no response. “Office of Martin Van Amstel, this is Devin speaking.” I repeated my greeting once more, thinking maybe the line didn’t connect properly; it happens on occasion, the problem with modern VOIP devices. Once again, I was met with silence. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

“You… can’t… run…” My face went pale as those words, that voice, pierced my ear drum. “I see… you… De… vin.” I could feel my lower lip quivering as I started to shake slightly in my seat. “I… See you…” I slammed my phone down on the base and just stared at it, feeling the sweat drip down my face and my stomach starting to churn, my lunch finding its way to my throat. I leaned over the trash can and threw up, feeling the fear ripping through my mind and sending me into a violent reaction. My boss quickly stepped out of his office to see me expelling the contents of my stomach into my small trash can, he stood there watching me wretch multiple times before he placed a hand on my shoulder. 

“Hey, you ok, Devin?” He stood over me and waited for my response. I tried to talk to him but each time I opened my mouth I would dry heave again. “Why don’t you go ahead and take the day off, bud. I think we’ll be alright if you head home. Don’t need you getting everyone sick, you know?” I nodded slightly at his recommendation, he stepped away from my desk and went back to his office, leaving me hunched over in my seat, staring at the floor and trying to get myself out of this state of mind. I kept nodding, if only to confirm to myself that I needed to take the day off, that I needed to get some air and maybe just go back to bed to start the day over. I grabbed my keys then reached for my phone, then paused, thinking about the best course of action. I scowled at the device, grabbed it and tossed it into the trash bag before tying it off and walking away from my desk. On the way out the door, I tossed the bag into the dumpster and then it occurred to me that I had just tossed a several hundred dollar device into the trash. Part of me wanted to jump in and grab it, but then I thought about the contents of that bag and shook my head. There was no turning back at this point, but honestly it was better that I just didn’t have my cell phone anymore, I would go up and get a new number and new phone over the weekend, that way I wouldn’t have to deal with the prank calls anymore. 

The drive home was actually nice, there was a slight breeze that was blowing through my window that was enough to bring me back down to Earth. The traffic was light for the middle of the day, the sky was overcast and a light rain was starting to fall down causing the air to fill with a light foggy mist. Not having my phone, not having anything filling the silence, was a rather welcomed change of pace- maybe all I needed was a day off. Even with the weirdness of the phone calls, a calm few moments to myself and enjoying a nice day was enough to allow my body and mind to settle. 

I parked in my driveway and walked up to my house, but paused about halfway up the path. As I lifted my gaze up to the window, I noticed what looked like motion inside my home. I couldn’t tell if it was a person, but it was large enough to be someone walking through my home; I didn’t have a roommate, I didn’t have any pets, so motion didn’t make any sense. I thought about whether or not I should continue, whether or not I should go inside and face it. Then I straightened up and realized that it was likely just the anxiety from before that was causing me to feel so terrified. I pushed forward, put my key in the door, and shoved it open, quickly stepping into the living room to confront whoever may have been in my house. As the door opened I saw what looked like a shadow standing in the doorway, but only for a split second. I was certain I saw it, but it was gone within a moment, almost as if it never was there. I froze and watched the emptiness of the room, looking back and forth for any sort of motion, movement, or indication that there was someone in my house and I wasn’t just losing my mind. 

As I looked from right to left throughout the room, my attention was ripped away to a familiar sound- a light chime playing from the left corner of my living room. I quickly snapped my head in the direction from which it was coming, locking my eyes on what looked like my phone, sitting on the end table, and lighting up as a call was coming through. Right there was the same phone that I had thrown in the dumpster at work, several miles away from my home. It vibrated as the tone played out, the device was as clean as the day I bought it, there was no indication that I had thrown it in a bag full of vomit, that I had thrown it in the dumpster. I stepped toward it, standing over the device with my heart racing. I snatched it up and pressed the button to answer the call. 

“Who the hell are you? What do you want from me?!” I yelled at a volume I wasn’t comfortable with, but I just wasn’t comfortable in general. I eagerly awaited the voice to come back with its usual responses; telling me to not worry, that it could see me, to call my name out of the silence, but after a few moments there was no response. “Uh… hello?” I was met once again with silence. I pulled the phone away from my face to make sure it was still connected, and it was, but there was no response from the mysterious caller. I pushed it to my face again and whispered another hello, almost in a timid manner. Then the call dropped, leaving me with the silence of my empty house. 

I placed the phone down on the end table and turned back to my living room; the empty home almost held a threatening aura as I stood in the silence. I sat down on my couch and leaned my head back, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the horrible day this had been, and the fact that it was only early afternoon was the opposite of promising. I slowly closed my eyes, just focusing on the back of my eyelids, just languishing in the darkness as I tried to calm down. I slowly drifted off to a light sleep as the tension of my body released. 

My calmness was disturbed once again by that dreadful sound of the light chime as my phone rang out. My eyes flew open, and I immediately turned to look at where I had placed my phone back on the end table. To my surprise, the phone wasn’t there. I listened and it occurred to me that the ringing was coming from further away, somewhere in front of me. I stood up slowly and looked over toward the kitchen- the light of the screen was glowing in the now dark room. The phone was sitting there vibrating and ringing on the kitchen table, nowhere near where I had left it. The ‘how’ of the situation was enough to confuse me, the phone was directly to my left when I had dozed off, but now it was in a different room- but the why was eating at me. Why was the phone still ringing, why were they still calling me, why was this happening to me…  

I took the few steps toward the table and grabbed the phone, pressing the button once more to answer the call. “Hello?” I could hear my resolve wavering as my voice shook. “Hello, who is this?”

“De…vin…” The voice cracked again as it whispered my name. “I see… you…” I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. “Answer…” 

“I did answer, dammit. I’m talking to you right now!” I started yelling again “What the hell do you want? You’ve called me… how many times today? I’ve been answering you all day, and you just keep saying the same nonsense. What do you want from me?!”

“An…swer….” It whispered the same statement to me again. I was starting to get infuriated, I yelled a few unsavory statements to the voice on the other end, but my rant was cut short by the sound of three knocks on my front door. Once again, I could feel the blood drain from my face as my heart skipped a beat. “Answer… the door…” Then three more knocks. 

I stared at my door, my phone slowly slipping out of my hand and smacking the floor with a loud clunk. I felt myself shaking where I stood, I felt my veins filling with ice, I felt my mind racing and my mouth drying out. 

Three more knocks… 

I didn’t move, I stood in the same spot and watched the door of the dimly lit living room. I watched as the lock on the knob slowly turned to the left until it clicked. Then I watched as the deadbolt slowly turned from the locked to the unlocked position, followed by three more soft knocks. The door knob slowly turned and the door creaked as it hesitantly pushed from closed to completely open. What confused me more than the event playing out in front of me was the fact that, after the door was fully opened, I could see that there was nothing there but the darkness of the night. It was almost unnaturally dark, like there was something there blocking the light from entering the door, but I could very well see that there was no one and nothing there. 

I reached down and grabbed my now cracked phone, placing it to my ear- the call hadn’t ended in the time it took for the door to open. 

“Hello?” I quietly asked to see if the person was still there. 

“See…” It whispered one more word to me before it hung up and the line went dead. I tossed the phone back onto my kitchen table, and slowly stepped through my living room, toward my front door. When I reached the threshold, I wanted to slam it shut and lock it again, but I also wanted to see who had opened it. I stepped to the entryway, leaned forward to see if I could see someone standing outside, but from what I could tell, there was no one there. I blinked several times as I stared out into the night, my eyes adjusting and focusing on the dark, proving to my mind that there was nobody standing outside of my house. 

The fear that had been gripping me, the terror that had been clawing at my brain had left me defenseless. I very slowly turned around to walk back into my house, and I didn’t even notice the hand as it reached out of the darkness of my home, and grabbed my throat. I didn’t see the shadows surrounding me as my body struggled to pull in oxygen, as my consciousness started to fade, and as my mind raced trying to put together what was happening. I fell into the darkness as I went unconscious, the grips of the darkness pulling me in deeper and deeper. 

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The police walked up toward the open door of the house, slowly peeking into the room. “Police department!” One of the men shouted into the empty room. “A neighbor called and asked us to check on you. Is there anyone home?” The officer was met with silence. The two men pulled their firearms and stepped into the living room as they looked around. “Hello? Police Department! If there’s anyone here, please make yourself known!” They stepped into the living room, glancing down the hallways and into the rooms. One of the men stepped toward the kitchen, shining his light into the room only to find an empty room. “It’s clear.”

“Yeah, we’re clear down this way too.” The other officer stepped back into the living room. “Are we thinking it could be a robbery while the owner is out? Any word on the homeowner?”

“Neighbor said they heard screaming last night, but didn’t think anything of it, but they decided to call when they saw the door open.” The officer looked around the kitchen again, nodding toward the dirty dishes in the sink. “Someone was here recently, there’s a cereal bowl in the sink so I’m guessing they were at least here for breakfast.” They both started walking toward the front door, until they were interrupted by a cell phone ringing. They both turned to see the phone sitting on the end table next to the couch. One of the officers stepped over to look at the screen, “Unknown caller? Could be someone that knows the homeowner. Should we answer it?”

“It may help, I say go for it.” The first officer reached over and pressed the button to answer the phone on speaker. “Hello?” He was met with silence for a few more seconds. “Hello, is anyone there? We’re looking for the owner of this phone, can you help us with that?” 

After a few more seconds of silence, a soft voice responded from the other end. At first the words were unintelligible, but as they came into focus the officers could hear what they were trying to say. 

“Dev…in… answered… the call…”