The Caller

Thirty-Nine

As the screen on his cellphone faded to black, Mr. J felt his whole world collapse around him. His legs buckled under his weight and he had to hold on to the wall so as not to fall down. His fingers lost their grip and his phone slipped from his hand, bouncing off the bed and on to the floor. Nothing made sense. He felt as if his entire existence had just been devoured by a black hole, leaving behind nothing but an empty human shell.

‘What just happened?’ he whispered under his breath, his crazed eyes searching for refuge in every corner of his hotel room. They found none. Instead, the walls seemed to be closing in on him. ‘I must be losing my mind. This can’t be real. It just can’t be.’

Mr. J brought two shaking hands to his face and rubbed it as vigorously as he could.

The walls were still closing in on him.

He turned around and quickly made his way back into the bathroom, where he splashed more cold water on to his face.

‘Cassandra,’ he said, as he found his own eyes in the mirror, ‘this isn’t real.’ He tried to convince his reflection. ‘It isn’t. And I will prove it to you. None of it was real.’

Mr. J rushed back into the bedroom, fetched his cellphone from the floor, returned to the bathroom, and paused before the mirror again.

‘You’ll see. I’ll prove it to you right now,’ he said, shaking a finger at his reflection, before speed-dialing his wife’s number. ‘I don’t know what the hell this was, but it wasn’t real. None of it was. You’ll see.’

At the other end, instead of ringing, the call went straight into voicemail.

‘Hello, you’ve reached the phone of Cassandra Jenkinson. Unfortunately, I can’t—’

Mr. J disconnected and quickly redialed.

The reflection in the mirror waited.

‘Hello, you’ve reached the phone of Cass—’

Disconnected. Redialed.

‘Hello, you’ve reached—’

Disconnected.

Mr. J’s eyes reverted back to the mirror. His reflection was still waiting.

The house, a voice inside his head whispered. Call the house.

Mr. J speed-dialed his home number.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. The call finally connected.

‘Hello...’

Mr. J immediately recognized the voice at the other end of the line and it was as if his life had just been sucked out of him. It was his own. The answering machine had picked it up.

‘... you’ve reached the house of...’ He waited for the beep at the end of the message.

‘Cassandra, honey, it’s me. If you’re there, please pick it up. Please.’ His voice wavered. ‘I need to talk to you, hon. I need to hear your voice. Please answer the phone. Please.’

There was no answer.

‘FUUUUUUUUUUCK!’ His agony-filled scream echoed throughout the entire room.

Five minutes later, Mr. J was still sitting at the edge of the bathtub, his face buried in his palms, his cellphone on the tiled floor by his feet. His reflection in the mirror had grown tired of waiting.

Another five minutes went by before Mr. J finally moved his hands away from his face. His arms dropped by the side of his body aimlessly. He felt totally drained of energy. His eyelids flapped a couple of times, his pupils contracted, filtering away the excessive lighting as it reflected off the white tiles. It took him another minute to crash through the blur of confusion and regain focus, and as he did, everything seemed and felt different — the room, the air, his entire world. His blood had gone cold in his veins, his lungs breathed hate instead of oxygen, and he couldn’t feel his heart beating in his chest anymore. Everything inside of him had died with his wife. Everything except his brain. He needed to keep it alive. He needed to think. And think he did. A few minutes later, he reached for his phone and made the first of three calls.