My mother died about three hours ago. She was on her way home from work when she was struck by a car in a hit and run.
My father was friends with the local police chief, who called him as soon as he had a visual confirmation my mother was dead. My father decided it’d be best if I was left here at the house while he went to confirm what had happened.
Let me say, sitting alone at home, waiting for my mother to come home, knowing she never would again? Probably not the best way to leave your child. Grief does work in mysterious ways, and my father was likely attempting to protect me from seeing what would likely have fed my nightmares.
Sitting in the living room, I decided that sitting in silence wasn’t going to be doing me any favors. I turned on the TV and started watching one of those generic superhero movies. You know the ones, filled with unnecesary jokes, overly drawn out action sequences, those types of films. The perfect distraction, I thought. Something to take my mind off…
I heard a chime on my phone. Opening it up, I saw a text sent from an unknown number. Assuming my father had just left his phone at home (he was prone to do that), I opened it up expecting to see a text letting me know he’d be home soon with news. However, instead, I was greeted with a picture message.
Puzzled, I downloaded the picture and was greeted with a picture of my mom. She was facing away from the camera, standing on the sidewalk, seemingly walking towards the neighboring parking garage from her work. The image was zoomed in on her, but I could just make out the edges of a vehicle’s inspection tags in one of the upper corners.
I was confused, thinking that maybe it was my dad texting me to let me know my mother was okay and he was just pulling up to pick her up when I received another picture from the same number.
This time, I nearly passed out in fear.
On the ground lay my mother, her arm bent at a weird angle, with red blood pouring from a gash in her skull. Her hair was matted and sticky with the liquid. Her shirt was torn. If she wasn’t dead when it was taken, she would have been soon.
I had received confirmation that my mother was dead in the worst way possible: by seeing her from the killer’s point of view.
I immediately went to dial 911 when a third text chimed. On the screen, I saw it was an actual text. All it said was…“Hello Henry.”
A moment later, my door opened and my father returned home, his face gaunt.
I told him what I had received, nearly yelling in anger and fright, questioning him why he had sent me the pictures. He replied that he had his phone the entire time, proving it by pulling it out and showing it to me.
I responded by showing him the pictures sent to me. He took my phone and immediately called his friend, the Police Chief, to send an officer out to us.
I was in histerics and decided to retire to my room, having had quite enough of the pain the emotions brought.
Laying there in bed, crying, I heard a voice say…“Hello Henry…is your mama home?”
Frightened, I looked around my room and couldn’t find the source of the voice. Thinking back on it, the voice had sounded a little bit garbly, almost like it was a phone on speaker or playing through a bluetooth speaker. I turned to look at my radio.
Sure enough, the light was green. It was connected to something. I quickly stood and went to turn it off but then…
“If you turn off the speaker, I will break into your house and kill you.”
I was frozen in place. Fear welled up in my chest as I waited, unsure how to proceed. The voice returned.
“Good. Sit back down on your bed.”
I did as I was told. I looked at the door to my room, hoping to god my father would hear what was happening. No such luck.
“Do you want to play a game?”
“No,” I replied. “Leave me alone.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Henry. We’re going to play a game of Hide and Seek! In about three minutes, I’m going to find you and kill you. If you aren’t hiding in a safe spot, then I will kill you and your father. Time’s wasting! Better hurry!”
The bluetooth speaker began counting down. I ran from my room and went looking for my father. I couldn’t find him anywhere. Knowing I was running out of time, I quickly grabbed a knife and went into the bathroom upstairs. I hid in the shower, having locked the door.
I heard the chime of my bluetooth speaker going off. For two minutes it played repeatedly. I heard my father walk into my bedroom to turn it off…but I also heard the telling creak of the hardwood floor just outside my bathroom. Someone else was in the house with me and my dad.
My dad called out my name, but by then, the door to the bathroom had swung open, and standing in the silhouette was a tall man in a dark outfit, mask and all.
“Hello, Henry” he said. He walked into the bathroom and smiled. I was too scared to make a noise. He had me trapped. I knew I could have called out for my Dad for help, but the only sound out of my lips was a frightened gasp as the man walked forward still. He was a foot away from me, a knife in his hand, and was savoring the moment.
My dad walked up and saw him standing there. He lunged for the man and knocked the knife from his hands, struggling with him on the bathroom floor. I quickly grabbed the knife and watched in absolute horror as my father struggled with the man before he fell unconcious.
My father helped me out of the shower and immediately called the cops.
Within minutes, an officer ran up the stairs and handcuffed the man before he regained conciousness.
A short time later, the Police Chief arrived with several more officers, all there to take the man into custody.
On the man, they found my mother’s ID and phone, as well as another phone which he had used to send me the pictures.
During the investigation, it came out that the man was the widowed father of a young boy my mother had failed to save during a cardiac arrest the year prior. The man, who had spent the last year plotting his revenge, had seen my mother walking away from the hospital she’d worked at and had run her down. Having realized killing her wasn’t enough, he wanted my father to feel the same pain he had gone through, having lost both a wife and a son.
The man was taken away and jailed. To this day, two words still haunt my every nightmare…
Hello, Henry.