Scared yet?

At the gates of hell

The phone rang. It kind of startled me, as I had been sitting on the floor next to the fire, swaddled in a furry blanket, reading the book "Angels and Demons" for the past two and a half hours. Time had gotten away from me. As the high-pitched warbling of the landline rang in my ears from across the living room, I gazed around my surroundings with glassy eyes, breathing deeply in an effort to shake off the Dan Brown-induced trance I had been lost in.

A heavy sigh later, I was on my feet and trudging lazily over to the still-shrieking phone, the blanket wrapped securely around my shoulders. A glance at the clock on the microwave told me it was eleven o'clock. I looked at the small, glowing orange display on the phone stand at the number. 666-6666. What a strange number.... I didn't recognize it. I hesitantly reached for the phone and picked it up, pressing it against my ear.

"Hello...?" I said groggily. Who could be calling me at this hour? "Hello," a voice said through the phone. I didn't recognize it. The voice seemed to be clearer than usual, and it seemed to belong to a woman, but her voice was deep for a female. "I'm calling to inform you of something very important," she said. "I'm sorry, who is this?" I inquired, confused, as I rubbed my eyes and sat at the kitchen table. "You don't know me, she said, "but I know you." I could almost hear her smiling about god-knows-what through the phone.

I didn't know what to say. This had to be a joke. "W...what...? Who is this? What do you mean you know me?" I asked more sternly. "I know everything about you. More than you know about yourself." I sighed and face-palmed. "Whoever you are, this isn't funny," I grumbled, the irritation in my voice growing. "Miss Murray," she said slowly, " I'm afraid this is no joke." I could hear in her voice that she was dead serious. This definitely was not some sort of cruel prank, it couldn't be.

I stood up. "How.... Do you know my name?" I asked feebly. "Like I said, Miss Murray, I know everything about you." I don't know what possessed me to say this, but I mumbled, "Prove it." She began to laugh quietly. A moment of silence preceded a statement that shocked me to my core. "When you were little.... You were terrified of the dark. Every night.... After you were put to bed.... You would pull out your old night light from infancy. Even with that, you slept with the door open and the hall light on. Most nights, you couldn't even sleep. Nobody ever knew but you...." she said whimsically, ".... and me."

I slammed the phone down onto the stand. It was true. All of it. How could she possibly have known this? I never told anyone.... I felt my heart hammering inside my chest. I wrapped the blanket tighter around me before turning on the kitchen light and going over to sit by the fireplace. The book was still sitting there, and I turned it over and slid it across the floor.

I didn't even want to think about demons right now. "It's a joke," I said to myself; I tend to talk to myself when I am scared or lonely. "Or you're dreaming...." I felt the heat of the fire gracing my arm and decided that it felt all too real to be a dream. The fear was too real. My mind raced, but I was beginning to calm down.

The phone rang again. It once again startled me. I stared at it across the room as it screamed at me. The little orange display glared back at me, reading the numbers that I knew were on it. I let it ring a few times as the full magnitude of the situation impacted me, and I was filled with inexplicable rage. I threw the blanket from my shoulders and stormed over to the phone.

I swiped it off of the stand and immediately the voice said, "You didn't let me finish." I cut her off mid-sentence by yelling with (mostly) suppressed fury, "I don't know who you are, or what you want from me, but you'd better leave me the fuck alone, or I'm calling the cops!" She responded in a calm voice, "And what are they going to do about it? Hm? I'm just a voice through the phone." She started to laugh. Not chuckle, but laugh.