Unknown Number
“JESUS!!” I cried.
Being jolted from a half dose at a quarter to midnight by my new ‘Halloween theme’ ringtone didn’t do wonders for my heart-rate, especially since I’d momentarily forgot I’d changed the tone at all that day.
Took me a while to find my phone stuck down the side of the armchair I was sitting in, not helped by the fact that the only light in the sitting room was the static on the widescreen TV.
“Unknown Number.”
I answered it, there was no-one there.
To be honest I was expecting heavy breathing on the other end as I was still a little freaked out, but there was no noise at all.
I hung up, took a deep breath and frowned- Maybe I just pocket dialed myself.
My old iPhone could make a fake ‘self call’ designed to create a diversion, so if I was having a boring conversation with someone I could pretend mom was ringing or something , although I wasn’t familiar at all with this ‘new’ piece of crap.
Dad bought it from a gas station for twenty bucks a few days ago, as I’d lost my iPhone on a trip to the city last week.
I flicked through the features on the menu screen trying to find the fake call option, but didn’t have much luck, for one thing the screen was about half the size of a credit card.
I cursed and decided to watch T.V. instead to take my mind off things.
I tried using the light of my cell to find the remote with little success.
Groaning out of laziness, I hauled myself out of the chair to get to the light switch.
Stopping halfway, I registered the fact that I had the T.V. on the satellite channels when I fell asleep yet now: static from the analogue Ariel.
I ran the rest of the way to the switch and basically punched it.
Light flooded the room and my darting eyes saw nothing.
After another deep breath, my moment of fear passed, guess I was a little unused to having the whole house to myself.
Mom and Dad were only gone for the night, but it was quite a treat for me since they rarely went anywhere, even during the day.
Nowhere to go but fields around this part of the country, so them going to a friend’s wedding meant I finally had some solitude.
I still couldn’t see the remote so I decided to recheck the sides of the armchair.
I threw my phone on the seat and reached deep down either side.
The Phone rang again at full creepy blast with my ear pressed right up against it.
I angrily grabbed it- “Dammit WHAT!??”
Again, there was dead silence.
Cursing, I threw the phone back on the seat hard.
POP!!
At that moment the lightbulb blew out violently and the power went out, thrusting me into total darkness.
With a shriek, I scrambled to grab the phone again and found it after an instant of blind terror.
Using the tiny screen light to see, I panicked and bolted down to my room as fast as I could, jumped into bed and pulled the covers. I curled into a fetal position.
I was panting hard, from both the run and the fear. I couldn’t form any thought for about 5 breaths, until I decided to call dad.
Looking at the screen, I saw I forgot to hang up the last call.
My breath caught in my throat as I saw that this time, it wasn’t an “unknown number”- It was mine.
My old number from the phone I’d lost.
As I hit the red button my terrified mind began to race through a thousand horrible implications until I realised something else.
My bed was already warm.
BEEP BEEP. The message tone nearly gave me a heart attack.
“It’s under your pillow”
Ever so slowly, my trembling hand slid underneath the pillow- and found the T.V. remote.
From under the covers I heard my bedroom door close, then lock.
Credit To: Beefnuts
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Honestly, the beginning of this story gave me low-hopes for the ending. My suspicion was false, as this is probably one of the more well-written short-stories on the entire website. Very very VERY well done. Took me off guard, and the ending gave such a spooky-satisfaction that i just HAD to give it an 8/10. (only reason i decided against a 9/10 or 10/10 was due to the poor beginning, and lack of an interesting intro.)
Beginning was no offence but really boring. Couldn’t really get into it.
I’m sorry but I absolutely have to say this:
But then who was phone?!
I usually hate and will not even read a short pasta but this one gave me chills good job its kinda reminded me of the urban ledgen of the baby sitter where she calls the police they trace the call and its coming from inside the house very nicely done!
Not short but I have to say reading long ones isn’t my favorite thing to do. I liked this one though!
Whoa omg so scurry
Gave me a good laugh. Thanks for that.
I found the review more entertaining…
Although this pasta was incredibly delicious and creepy, I would have liked a bigger serving size still 10/10 ( phone rings) Uh-oh…
Wow did not expect that! I love the cliff hanger!!!!
Niiice. I’m in the house on my own reading this and there’s a storm so the lights are flickering. THANK YOU FOR SCARING ME!
Ya see I wouldn’t lose my iPhone considering I read this on mine
It’s “analogue aerial” not “analogue Ariel”, damn it. I had no idea what the hell you were talking about, because you replaced a kind of TV antenna with a girl’s name.
That and dose instead of doze threw me out of the story briefly but overall it was really well done. A little proofing and polishing would help but I enjoyed this one a great deal.
But yeah, in short, a little {effort} and {proof-reading} goes a long, long way. Good luck with your future projects
Some sentences could have been phrased a bit better, you could have written, for example:
“Letting out a drowned-out groan, I hauled my lazy self out of the chair to flip the light switch on.”
You also gotta check your punctuation in some places, as well as (like I mentioned before) overall sentence/paragraph structure.
For example, you could have written this part a little differently…
“I stopped halfway, registering the fact that I’d left the TV set to the satellite channels before I fell asleep. Yet now, there was only static from the analogue Ariel. So, I darted through the remaining distance and basically punched the switch. Light filled the room, [but] my eyes saw nothing.”
Dunno who taught you grade 5 English, but they must have been a horrible teacher! :P You must get those “ifs, ands and buts” correct! It’s very important. Another thing I should add is that you really don’t need to press the return key so many times. Doing so causes a lot of disruption to the reader.
PS: “No-one” is incorrect. You should write it as “no one” or “nobody”. You wouldn’t write “Nowhere” as “no-where”, right? ^^
I feel you are picking on stylistic choice rather than genuine mistakes. That’s fine if you can come up with something better, but “Letting out a drowned-out groan”? A much poorer phrasing with the double ‘out’- kills the flow.
The rest of that example is just an arbitrary rephrasing.
As for everything else, I assure you it was deliberate- I am fan of “show don’t tell” in horror. One of the ways to achieve this is to leave out all the “If’s, but’s & so’s” where possible so as to avoid bland exposition (a la your rewrite).
Then, almost as a consequence, the more ‘painterly’ sentencing must be given more prominence to be easily absorbed by the reader, i.e. line by line (Not to mention I’m also a fan of that ‘flat’ style in horror anyways).
All of this is subjective however, There is no definite algorithm for creative writing- Therefore YOU CAN’T PICK APART THE SYNTAX as long as it’s legible (& sometimes not even then, see “Finnigan’s Wake”).
And as for my 5th grade teacher, I admit that English class didn’t help me very much- mainly because it was so constrictive.
I might hazard a guess that you maybe are still in an English class and enjoy it, but it doesn’t make you an infallible authority I’m afraid- just because something might be marked down by a teacher in a classroom doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong in the real world, just different.
Lol good pasta also was it a parodypasta?
Because bed was warm because he pissed himself evil monster hid the remote which is truly evil and locked the door so the protagonist can’t watch tv and that is the ultimate evil
THEN WHO WAS TEH PHONE?
This was a really good read. The ending made my heart skip a beat. I could not even imagine that amount of horror.
I love the twist ending! Very well written compadre
Excellent work. It reminds me of a movie I once watched.