The Psychology of Fear

Unknown Caller

As the students awaited the next story they could feel a chill in the room and hear a storm brewing outside. Professor Henry knew they were scared, but insisted that they work through their fear and listen to the next story. My name is Bradley and recently I have started to fear an unknown caller.

A few weeks ago I started working as a late night radio host for a local station. When I first started everything was fine, but over the last week things took a turn for the worst.

A week ago I was taking late night calls and requests as I usually did when an unknown caller came up on the monitor. I decided to take the call and see if the person would identify themselves, but all I heard at the other end of the line was a man's breathing. I tried to get him to identify himself and speak to me, but he would not. After a few seconds of waiting I decided to hang up on him. A few minutes later he called back and said," You should not have hung up on me."

I quickly hung up on the man feeling threatened by his words. I called the police hoping that they would be able to trace the call. An hour later they called me back and what they told me made no sense. They said that there was no call made to the station at that time. I thought to myself, How could a call not show up? I did not know how to respond except to thank them for their time. As I got off of the phone with the police, I answered a call and in a menacing tone he said," You should not have called the police." 

I hung up and began to panic. How did this man know I had called the police? Was he psychic? I decided to stop answering calls for the night and get things straightened out in the morning after I explained the situation to my boss. After making my decision I thought I would be safe until morning, that is, until the lights in the office shut off. The phone began to ring and with hesitation I answered it. What do you want? Why are you doing this to me?

For a few seconds there was no response, but as I started to hang up on him he began to speak." I want you to bleed just like your girlfriend did." "You should have remembered to lock the door when you left the house."Bradley not stopping to think dropped the phone and ran out of the building. When he arrived at his house it was too late his girlfriend was already dead and police could not find anything to help them identify the murderer.

I would have quit my job, but I knew with how the unknown caller behaved it would do me no good to hide. A couple of nights ago he called me. He said he had one final message for me. "You won't see me coming." As Bradley finished his story he could not help but shake as he thought about the possibility of the unknown caller waiting outside for him. Suddenly, it seemed like a really good idea to continue telling their stories.