Surprise

The phone rang. Phoebe looked at Heather confused, “Um, are you going to answer that?”

“Nah, don’t bother.” responded Heather, “It’s just going to be that annoying creep again.”

“Huh?” asked Phoebe, even more confused, “What creep?”

“Wait, I never told you about this guy?” She noticed the blank look on her friend’s face, which basically answered her question, “It’s just this guy who somehow got my number and has been leaving messages of him breathing heavily.”

“Oh my god!” exclaimed Phoebe, clearly startled, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. No need to worry about it, I’m sure he’ll stop calling eventually.”

Phoebe was about to continue the conversation, when the phone suddenly started ringing again. Heather’s only response was to sigh, but Phoebe grumpily began walking towards the phone.

“What are you doing?” yelled Heather, nervously.

“I’m going to stop this creep from calling you.”

“Don’t-“ started Heather, but Phoebe had already picked up the phone.

“What do you want?” she yelled into the phone.

“Who’s this?” a raspy voice responded from over the phone.

“I’m Heather’s friend and I want you to stop calling her!”

“Oh, you’re her friend,” said the voice, “then I’ll certainly stop calling then.” After that sentence was spoken, there was manic laughter over the phone. “Tell you what. If you open the front door, I’ll never call again.”

“Fine.” Phoebe stated as she slammed the phone down and she started walking toward the door.

Heather realized what Phoebe was doing and began to protest, “No please, don’t open the door!”

Phoebe rolled her eyes, “Chill, it’s not like he’s going to be there.” She opened the door and revealed the completely empty porch. “See. I told you that there would be no one here.” She closed the door and locked it. “Now that pervert won’t call-“

Before she could finish, a man leaped out from inside the closet beside the door and plunged a knife deep into her chest. Blood started flowing from where she had been stabbed; Heather started screaming and began running upstairs while she heard the sound of footsteps coming quickly behind her. Then everything went black.

Anne threw the remote over to the couch after pressing the power button and tried to ignore the glare that her best friend was giving her.

“Dude, why did you turn off the movie?” asked Chloe, “We were just getting to the best part.”

“Because these movies are so stupid.” Anne said as she rolled her eyes, “I mean, seriously, would you go and actually open the door?”

“Well, no.” Chloe admitted, “But if they didn’t do that, then this awesome movie would exist.”

“You and I have very different ideas of what’s awesome.” She started to get up to go to the kitchen when she realized that Chloe was still sitting on the couch, pouting. “Tell you what,” she sighed, “How about we get some snacks and then we can continue watching the rest of your silly movie.”

Chloe visibly perked up, “Alright, let’s see what we can get find.” She stood up and they both walked into the kitchen.

Anne decided to have what she insists as the ‘real movie experience’, grabbing a bag of popcorn and threw it in the microwave. As she waited for it to finish and for Chloe to finish scrounging around for something to eat, she decided to continue the conversation that they were having before.

“I honestly have no clue why you like these kinds of movie,” she said as she pointed at the cover of the movie that they were watching, “they’re either about some psycho stabbing teenagers or some demented doll forcing people to cut off their limbs.”

“Well, sure, some of these movies are total garbage, but that’s just like any genre.” Chloe responded, “If you dig enough, you’ll find those masterpieces that will scare the crap out of you.” Almost as if to prove her point, she grabbed a bag of pretzels that she had found in the back of the cupboards.

Anne shrugged, “I guess they just aren’t my cup of tea.” The microwave decided to pick that moment to beep, which made the both of them jump. Anne grabbed the bag out of the microwave and poured its contents into a bowl, contented with the smell of buttery popcorn, she began to head out of the kitchen along with Chloe.

Chloe continued to walk a few steps, but quickly realized that Anne was no longer beside her. She turned around to find Anne standing in the doorway of the now-darkened kitchen.

“Hey Anne, everything okay?” asked Chloe, worried about her friend.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She replied, “I just thought that I heard something.”

Chloe started laughing, “Wait a minute, Anne Douglass, are you trying to scare me?”

“No, I’m not.” She said gravelly, “I swear I heard something.”

“Must have been the wind,” Chloe shrugged, “or maybe that movie did actually scare you.”

“That movie scare me?” Anne said defiantly, trying to pretend that she didn’t see the smirk on her friend’s face, “No way something like that would ever scare me.”

“Well, let’s get back to the movie that totally isn’t scaring you.” She replied with a joking tone in her voice.

Chloe had started to turn back around toward the living room when she saw what looked like a black glove wrap around Anne’s ankle. Before she could yell to warn her, Anne was yanked backwards into the kitchen, making the bowl fly out of her hand and spill the popcorn everywhere.

Anne started screaming and tried to get a hold on something, but all that she ended up doing was leaving nail marks on the wooden floor. Chloe ran up the stairs and into her bedroom, locking the door behind her. She sat on her bed, terrified and unsure of what to do next.

Her cell was still downstairs and there was no phone upstairs, so she had no way to call the police. She was trying to keep her thoughts focused on surviving instead of panicking, when she heard the sound of footsteps slowly going up the stairs. She started to panic and grabbed the baseball bat that she kept under her bed for protection.

“Stay back!” she yelled, “I-I have a gun!”

She was hoping that this thing would take her bluff, when she heard a knock on the door. She tightened her grip on the bat, when she heard a familiar voice.

“Chloe? Are you okay?”

“Anne, is that you?” asked Chloe, unsure of what was going on.

“Yes, it’s me.” Anne responded, “I’m sorry, I was trying to scare you, I guess I went too far.”

“Y’think!” Chloe yelled angrily, she started to head toward the door when she thought of something, “Wait, what about the glove?”

“Huh? What glove?” asked Anne, sounding extremely confused.

“The glove that pulled you into the kitchen.” Chloe told her, moving the bat up against her shoulder again.

There was a brief pause before Anne responded, “There wasn’t any glove pulling me back. I was just pretending that I was being pulled, you must have imagined it.”

Chloe tried to think if she could have imagined the glove, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that her friend’s voice was coming from behind the door, sounding fine, if not a bit out of breath.

She dropped the bat and walked toward the door, pulling the chain through the lock. She opened the door and was shocked to see not Anne, but a tall man with a white shirt stained with red smudges.

Chloe was taken aback and tried to close the door, but he forced it open, pushing her down on the ground in the same motion. He moved one hand to the right pocket of his pants pulling out a knife that was still dripping with blood. In his other hand, he had a white box that he moved up to his lips and when he spoke into it, out came the voice of Anne.

“Surprise.”

Credit To – David M.