My husband and I were driving home from a concert one night. He asked me to check our ETA on his phone, and I knew it had to be wrong as soon as I saw it.
“Did you add a stop?” I asked.
“No, why?”
“It’s telling us it’ll take six hours to get home.” It had only taken us two hours to reach the concert, stops and all. “There’s a random stop here, no name on it.”
“Can you fix it?” He asked. Normally he would have stopped and checked it himself, but he was trying to merge onto the highway, and we were both tired and wanted to get home soon.
“Sure, hang on.” I deleted the random stop and sure enough, we made it home just under two hours later.
A few weeks later, the same thing happened on our way home from Church. We wanted to stop at a new restaurant no more than 20 minutes away, and the phone’s ETA said we’d be there in 5 hours. “It must be a problem with the screen,” my husband said, after some pondering. His screen had shattered a while ago, and he’d been putting off buying a new one. “Remind me to get a case next time.”
I wasn’t there the third time it happened, but I figured it had, because I saw my husband searching online for a new phone (and a case) that evening.
Several weeks after the new phone arrived, it happened again. He was driving me to a book club meeting downtown, definitely not 3 hours away. We chalked it up to an issue with the app itself, so he uninstalled and re-downloaded Maps. “15 minutes, that’s more like it.” When I left the meeting, he told me he’d reported a bug in the app, but couldn’t find anyone else with a similar issue.
It almost got us the next time we drove; we were going to his sister’s house an hour south of us, and we added a stop for Chick-fil-a. We took an exit off the highway and followed signs for Chick-fil-a, but the map wanted us to keep going down a random road, seemingly forever. I was positive I’d selected Chick-fil-a as a stop, but it was gone now, replaced by the mysterious stop. I didn’t tell my husband. I let him think this was the place I’d found to begin with.
My sister in law’s place was lovely, as usual. She has a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl, and their smiles and hugs were enough to take my mind off things. We had dinner with them, and the kids left to play with their toys while my husband and I sipped wine with my sister-in-law. My seat at the table was close to the door to the kids’ room, which was open. At some point I zoned out and caught myself staring at my niece, playing with one of those old bulky educational toys that would sound out letters and numbers for the kid to press. My niece took her time pressing the correct buttons, focused yet serene. I turned back to the conversation at the table, but I could still hear the toy belting out stuff like …LET’S COUNT! 10… 9… 8… 7… 6…
Then it clicked. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, hoping it was just dinner that hadn’t sat well with me. But the penny had dropped, and I just wanted to find it and hurl it back into the darkness.
The random stops weren’t random at all. They’d been getting closer.
I hadn’t been paying attention to the stops themselves; they were always just a set of coordinates with no noticeable landmarks nearby. I was pretty sure I would have noticed the same set of coordinates appearing more than once, or at least a neighborhood name. But I remembered the ETAs.
Here’s the thing: I don’t retain information very well, even if it’s important, like names and appointments and chores. Random info, then, is highly unlikely to register with me. So the fact that I could remember the ETAs in order troubled me. Some dormant instinct took note of those ETAs, sensed a pattern, and was trying to warn me of what was coming.
I want to say that I listened. I’m sure some of you think you would have listened if you were in my shoes. But the truth is, you just can’t know what you’d do in any scenario until you’ve gone through it and lived to tell the tale. Besides, who would believe me? Again, some of you might think you would have, or that my husband should have, but that’s not how it goes.
Nothing happened for a while. I can’t say for how long, but I was still on edge. I avoided going out, especially to new places. I ran out of excuses, and ended up admitting what I felt to my husband. He didn’t react badly, he just didn’t believe me, which I don’t blame him for. He did the best he could as a loving husband… and I wish I could say the same.
Pretty soon after that, a movie we really wanted to see came out in theaters, so we gathered some friends and made plans to go as a group. The original idea was to go to the same theater we always went to downtown, but scheduling issues made us decide to go to a different theater a bit further away.
My husband opened his phone to search for the address, but I insisted on using mine instead. He gave me a look but let me do it. I put in the address. ETA: 30 min. everything looked normal. I double-checked the final stop, and it was clearly the right movie theater.
“We good?” asked my husband.
I smiled. “Yeah, we’re good.”
He smiled back, and kissed me.
The theater was right next to a strip mall. We met our friends in the theater parking lot ad walked over to a pizza place for dinner. We had loads of fun, and I could tell my husband was happy to see me in a better mood.
We walked back to the theater, and while we got our tickets, I pulled out my phone to silence it. The Maps app was still open and on navigation mode. While I turned off the navigation, I caught a glimpse of the destination marker before it disappeared. It wasn’t in the same spot as the theater’s marker. Which isn’t that strange; sometimes Google tells you that your destination is several yards away from the actual building entrance. But the point the navigation tried to lead us to was to an empty lot right next to the theater, between it and the strip mall.
The movie was great, I think. I don’t recall much of it anymore. The point is, when we left the theater, I glanced at the spot between the theater and the strip mall. It was covered in dense foliage. I know now that there was something there, watching us. Following us.
We fell back into routine. Sort of. I called in sick to work one day, hoping some rest would get my mind off things, but quickly realized that being home alone felt so much worse. I was back at work the next day. My husband was more distracted by work than usual that week, so when he asked me how I was doing and I said “alright”, he believed me.
I left work early on Friday and stopped at a coffee shop on the way home. I was too distracted to focus on work, but I didn’t want to be home alone again, so I waited until I was sure my husband would be home before heading there myself.
He wasn’t home.
The sun was only just beginning to set, but I turned on all the lights in our apartment anyway, and closed the shutters. I opened my phone to text him, and saw a few messages already there.
Hey hun
Some coworkers wanted to take us out for dinner
Is that ok
?
I’m going
I’ll stay safe, I promise
<3
My heart sank. I replied:
Its ok, but could u maybe come home soon?
Not feeling great.
Luv u too
I tossed my phone on the couch and went on my computer for a while, trying to get my mind off things, failing terribly. I started writing down everything going on, hoping that once it was all down, I’d see how ridiculous it all sounded.
I had about 1400 words down before I decided to check my phone again.
Sorry to hear that
I’ll be home soon
Stopping by walmart for some stuff
Need anything?
I was about to respond when I got a call from him. I picked up, but couldn’t hear anything. I said “hello?” many times before the sound finally came through. Static, I thought. But it came irregularly, and had a different quality to it.
Dragging. Not static, I realized. A body, dragging across the floor.
I screamed into the phone, begging to know who was there, what was going on, and most of all, begging for my husband’s life.
When I finally stopped for air (and to cry) I heard something. Breathing. The shrill whistle of air through bared teeth. And scratching. Like something pawing at the phone.
Then a voice. God, the voice. An inhuman mouth struggling to form human words.
Well, one word.
“Co…ming.”
The line went dead.
I don’t know which Walmart my husband was at, or if he even made it there, or else I would have sent every police officer in town after him. I did ask for a cop to come by my house, but judging by the tone of the person who responded, they’re going to take their sweet time coming over here.
At least someone will find my body. I just hope they find my husband’s, too.