Andrew woke to the sound of his phone ringing on the nightstand beside him. How many hours had he been asleep? The dark bedroom was temporarily illuminated by the shining light of the phone's incoming call screen. He reached a numb hand to the small table and, fumbling, thumbed the thin, rectangular button on the side of the phone.
The ringing ceased and Andrew returned to sleep for a moment.
The second call startled him awake once again. This time, annoyed, Andrew sat up, retrieved the phone, and squinted at the bright screen which projected a spotlight onto his face in the unlit room. The phone number was one he didn't recognize. He rejected the call once again, letting out an irritated sigh.
Andrew had been enjoying his first sleep in over 24 hours. His drive from Orlando, Florida to his new home in Norman, Oklahoma had taken him over 20 of those hours. Regardless, he loved long car trips, alone with his thoughts, Deep Purple blasting through the speakers of his Jeep.
His foster mother always told him that one day, he'd fall asleep at the wheel and wake up in a ditch. He would be a tangled mess of snapped bones and have a mouth full of warm, metallic blood.
"You're going to crash and die if you don't stop at a hotel," she'd say. "But don't stop at one of those MO-tels with the doors on the outside. You'll get murdered. And then where will you be?"
His foster mom had always had a way with words.
Andrew had driven straight through the night and had not even stopped for food, unless you count the bagfuls of gas station snacks. He didn't want to spend a night in an unfamiliar hotel room while his new apartment was sitting vacant, ready to receive him.
Andrew had arrived in the apartment just before midnight. To his pleasant surprise, the previous tenant had left behind a couch, bed, nightstand, dresser, and a small, circular dining room table with four matching, wooden chairs. Being completely broke and owning very few pieces of furniture, Andrew welcomed these free offerings. He felt a temporary burst of celebratory energy and it wasn't until he explored each room of the unit, that he finally collapsed onto his new bed, tossing his phone and keys onto the nightstand. He was asleep immediately.
It was when the phone rang for the third time that Andrew began to get angry. He sat up, retrieved the phone and looked at the same number once again displayed on the flat, glowing surface.
The bastard will probably keep calling if I don't answer, he thought. He pressed the small green circle on the phone's screen.
"Hello?"
Silence.
"HELLO?"
Andrew was prepared to hear an automated, prerecorded voice selling insurance or offering a survey. What he heard instead sent a cold chill down his spine. He heard a slow exhale. Breathing alone would rarely scare Andrew, and he prided himself in not being easily frightened. This breathing, however, was raspy and extremely labored. A person who breathed like this was almost certainly close to death.
"Hello? Who is this?" Andrew whispered.
Silence. Andrew was about to end the call when the breathing continued, accompanied once again by the high pitched tonality of wheezing.
"You have the wrong number, pal," Andrew said while moving to hang up the call.
That was when Andrew heard the voice.
"You-" was all the weak voice said.
"I'm sorry, you've got the wrong number," Andrew said again.
The voice replied and, this time, Andrew could make it out. The voice on the other end of the call could easily be described as androgynous. To Andrew, it sounded like a man, albeit a man with an extremely high-pitched, feminine voice. It sounded sad, however. To Andrew, the voice had a quality of hopelessness.
