It was around 2am on my digital clock. I was once again scrolling through my message feed, looking at messages I had received a couple of days ago. Yes, I wasn’t the most popular college student and my friends (if you can call them that) consisted only of Henry, a guy who attended Professor McChaffil’s lectures no more than once a week and asked me to share my notes, and our classmate Harper, who was somewhat similar to me since she also chose the farthest table in the cafeteria and ate alone. Most of the time, we could see each other from opposite ends of the large cafeteria hall. Nevertheless, she talked to me and shared interesting observations about the other kids. Why me? I have no idea…
Their messages were the first ones in my feed. The rest were received by me a week earlier or even more. Yes, I wasn’t the most popular college student, which is why the events of that night really shook me up.
I had just finished scrolling through my feed, telling myself once again that there wouldn’t be any new messages. I needed to change something in my life, I couldn’t always be on the sidelines of all the parties and cool groups. But no matter how hard I tried, it never seemed to fit my lifestyle.
I put my phone aside. It was foolish to hope that the time spent on it would somehow make me fall asleep. Lying down on my pillow, I closed my eyes, but the strange feeling in my head wouldn’t let me completely relax and delve into the vastness of dreams. I was too tense to fall asleep. I turned over onto my right side and stared at the wall of the dorm room. The schedule attached above my bed indicated a pretty relaxed day. Next to it was a spot from the sauce that nuggets, not very accurately thrown by my neighbor Paul, left behind. This idiot thought that the best way to get my attention for another stupid question was to shoot me in the head.
The silence was broken by the ringtone of my cellphone behind me. The persistent melody made me turn around. Paul was tossing and turning on the opposite end. I picked up the phone from the bed and noticed that the number was not recognized. Was it an intrusive ad in the middle of the night? Who could be calling me at this time? For what?
For some reason, I wanted to quickly end the playing melody, but I didn’t reject the call, and instead answered the phone.
“Hello,” I whispered, covering the microphone with my hand.
There was silence on the other end of the line. Yeah, damn, it’s very funny! Aren’t there enough idiots left who wet themselves from pestering someone with their phone pranks?
“I’m hanging up!” I said and hung up the phone.
What a bunch of creeps. And now, not only could I not sleep, but an unexpected call sent a little adrenaline rushing through my veins. What am I supposed to do now? I sighed and turned back to the wall. I just need to occupy my brain with thoughts, then I won’t even notice when I fall asleep. For example, I could think about how to get to work tomorrow. The bike I usually use to get there had a punctured front wheel, so I had to drag it to the bike parking lot about a mile away.
The phone rang again with its melody. What the hell? Who would want to play such a stupid joke in the middle of the night? They were either a small child hiding under the covers and playing with their mom’s phone or a fat pervert jerking off to the sound of my voice.
“What the hell are you calling me for?” I answered quickly. Normally, I would have just let this situation pass, simply turned off my phone, and tried to fall asleep again. Maybe the last few days, during which my communication was so limited that the phrases I exchanged with those around me could be counted on one hand, had affected my behavior at the moment, causing me to just want to clutch onto any chance to use my unused stock of words.
“I think you hung up too early last time, Kyle” he said.
I was silent for what seemed like half a minute. Even if I had known what to say, my brain had lost all connection to my mouth, leaving it just open and my heart racing in my ears.
“The signal’s bad from here,” the voice continued. “But now you can hear me clearly.” He did come in clearly, as if he had put his mouth right up to my ear.
“Who is this?” I managed to ask. Though I wasn’t really expecting an answer to that question, as it wouldn’t have done much to calm me down. This person already knew my name and had called me in the middle of the damn night. What could he possibly want if not to creep me out?
“Why don’t you remember me, Kyle? Or are you not completely awake yet?” The voice was scratchy, like someone was walking on creaky floorboards in an old house. But I had to admit, the guy had a silver tongue. He spoke with obvious pleasure at the shock he was causing me. And it seemed like he wasn’t going to stop.
“You disappointed me, but let’s not dwell on that. I’m not calling for no reason! I’m calling to say that we need to stop our future meetings while I’m busy with something, but don’t worry, when I come back, I’ll prepare a gift for you. I’m sure it’ll make things better.”
“What?” That was all I could say at the moment. My chest was tight, my breathing erratic, and I was swallowing air in big gulps.
“Fuck, man! Why are you whispering to yourself? Turn off your phone, you’re disrupting my sleep.”
Paul turned over on his bed, away from me, hiding his eyes from the light of my phone’s screen.
With trembling fingers, I ended the call. What else was I supposed to do? My mind was elsewhere and I was acting on autopilot more than anything. For some reason, I looked out the window. The area surrounding the dormitory was illuminated by several street lamps. In their light, I could see the white paths leading to the building. There was nothing else to see, so I turned away.
When I looked back into the room, I saw that Paul was facing me, as if he was looking at me. He probably thought I was an idiot wondering why I was breathing so hard. Or maybe he wasn’t looking at me, because there wasn’t enough light in the room to see anything but his own bed.
“Fuck!” The phone still in my hand rang again. All I wanted right now was to never have a phone or any other means of communication again. I wanted to scream, and my eyes quickly became moist from the rising panic.
“Whoever you are, this… this isn’t cool!” I stumbled on my words. “And if you don’t stop bothering me right now, then…”
“Kyle, I thought you were interested in talking to me… Was I wrong?” The voice cut me off, but I wasn’t too angry at this point. I’d rather just stay quiet, since I had no words in my head.
“Where did you get my number… Is this someone from Green Garden?”
I worked at Green Garden in the evenings, delivering bouquets after school. There were a few other couriers there with me, and I even gave my number to one of them, I think, to switch shifts. Now, I wish my number had vanished from all phone books forever.
“Don’t talk nonsense! That’s not important right now,” the voice said, and again the tone was self-satisfied, as if causing night terrors was his favorite hobby.
“Don’t you think Paul was too rough with you? Aren’t you tired of his bullying? I always thought it would be nice to give that bastard a taste of his own medicine. What do you think?”
Paul kept looking at me. It seemed like he was thinking, “Why is this guy such an idiot and why is he breathing so hard?” Or maybe he wasn’t looking at me, because there wasn’t enough light in the room to see anything but his own bed.
“Shine the light on him…” the voice echoed in the phone. The voice was still scratchy, but there was no longer a hint of malicious glee. Now it was just pure evil. All the evil that he could put into this phrase. And then coldness completely enveloped my body.
I realized that Paul had been lying completely still and staring straight at me this whole time. It seemed like he wasn’t breathing at all, and the blanket over him wasn’t moving.
My hand with the phone display turned by itself towards my neighbor’s body. And over the edge of the blanket, I could see a bloody gash on his neck. Blood was glass on his bed, staining the bedclothes in a scarlet color, a small trickle had already crawled down the mattress and began to fall on the floor, strewn with crumbs from food. His wound was ugly and you can see the larynx tube from around the corners. Skin color turned deathly pale…
Suddenly Paul began to slump onto his stomach. His blanket slid off onto the floor, followed by my neighbor’s body.
“Fuck!” I exclaimed, and my phone, slipping from my hand, followed them down.
Later, I managed to compose myself, after first emptying the contents of my stomach over the wall of my bed. The police were called and spent a long time investigating the death of my neighbor and me. They gave me another room for the time being, and I decided to give my phone to the police and leave it, so that whoever called me that night could not find my contact.
For several days, college students threw glances in my direction, then turned away and discussed something with their friends. Yes, it seems that now I have become slightly more popular in college, but I’m not sure if it was what I needed.
I had no one to discuss what I had gone through with. And what could I say? Everyone knew only that in one room with me, my neighbor mysteriously bled to death from a wound on his neck. I have to say thank you to the police for not holding me as the main suspect for a long time because of my reputation in the eyes of everyone who knew me.
But this whole story, which happened to me that night, filled my thoughts during classes, haunted me on my way to work, appeared in nightmares, making me wake up in a cold sweat. And I wanted to get rid of it…
“Are you okay, Kyle?” Henry sat down at my table in the cafeteria. At that moment, I was sitting with a sandwich in my hand, frozen on the way to my mouth. It seemed like I really fell out of reality for a moment.
“I’m fine,” I said, putting the sandwich on the tray. The appetite, which was not the best in the last few days, left me at the moment.
“They say you can hardly be guilty of anything if you’re upset about it. There are a lot of rumors about how Paul kicked the bucket. But it’s strange, isn’t it? I don’t think it’s worth asking you anything about it, you’re not calm. I just thought, well, we’re friends, and… I thought it would be…”
“Yes, thank you,” I looked away. Where I was looking, at the opposite end of the cafeteria, where Harper usually sat, it was empty. Apparently, she had already had lunch. Or, like me, didn’t really want to eat. Yes, we were similar in something.
“Actually,” I turned back to Henry, because no matter how unpleasant memories visited me when I remembered that night, I felt like I wanted to discuss it - “Actually, it’s still stranger than it may seem at first glance. Someone called me from an unknown number. And they started saying strange things… As if someone knew me and just made fun of me at night. And then, what happened, happened… I don’t know if the person who called me that night is somehow connected, or how to explain it…”
“That’s shit, Kyle… It sounds like the beginning of some horror movie where the killer slowly approaches the victim and… Oh, fuck… Well… I didn’t mean anything! I mean… Fuck!” - and realizing that Henry said something stupid, he turned away for a moment to hide from my bewildered look, and then decided to change the subject. “This phone call must have woken you up, you were clearly preparing for the upcoming day, for old man McChaffil’s test?”
“I was ready for the test, and that night sleep eluded me. I scrolled through my phone, checking messages from you, from Harper, and others…”
“Harper? Your girlfriend?”
“No, not my girlfriend… Our classmate. We crossed paths a couple of times, and she found it interesting to talk with me, and I listened. She told me all sorts of things about many people.”
“Classmate? Is she new? I haven’t been to classes in a while.”
“New? Actually, she’s been studying with us all along.”
“Then I should definitely know her. You know I kissed every girl in our group except for Lizzie. Sorry, but she’s just not my type! You’ve seen her…”
“Wait, maybe you just forgot her? She’s just as unremarkable… as I am. She didn’t talk to many people.”
“Kyle, but we don’t have a Harper in our group. Even if we count by the list - Liam, Benjamin, Roxy, Julia, Sam, Jack, Oliver, Bella… I counted a total of 23 people. Harper would be the 24th person. But that’s impossible! During chemistry labs, we were divided into pairs, and as a very successful student, the professor left me alone. Harper also worked at her desk, but Mr. Crookshanks didn’t acknowledge this fact, and would he leave us separately if everyone else worked in pairs?”
“And finally, you, Kyle - 23 people! Yes, I counted myself too, until I was expelled!”
“Kyle, I thought you were interested in talking to me… Was I mistaken?” I was really interested in listening to Harper to some extent, although now I’m not sure how I can even call the person who called me that night, because it was definitely not her voice. This voice was as if from another world. The person on the other end of the line was clearly involved in Net’s death, but how, holy shit, did he cut his throat?
During my studies, I was interested in listening to some of the peculiarities of other students, digging into their secrets, which Harper somehow managed to find out.
“Andrew may seem like the perfect guy at first glance, everyone thinks Belle lucked out with him. But what this guy did with Tiffany from the English group last night, I would start to doubt… And Chris? Did you know…” I couldn’t even imagine such details about the lives of those around me. At that moment, a thought occurred to me. Conversations about these people would start, but there would be no further news about them. They weren’t seen anywhere, somehow they disappeared from college life. I think someone said that Andrew’s parents moved to another state and that he wouldn’t be attending classes anymore. But driving past Duncan Street with another bouquet that needed to be delivered to the farthest house on the street, I noticed Miss Poulson, Andrew’s mother, on the sidewalk. She didn’t look exactly depressed, rather she didn’t express absolutely anything - emptiness. All of this made me think that…
“No…” I said, after a long pause, and Henry was already looking at a couple of blondes at the next table, but then turned to me.
“What? Did you finally come up with a girl from the back row?” Henry had a smile on his face, but when he realized that I was completely lost, it gradually slipped - “Buddy, you’re not yourself!”
“I’ll step away, Henry” - and I got up from the table and headed to the bathroom.
I sat in the stall with my knees pressed to my chest. A terrible panic overtook me, as if metal spikes were piercing through my entire body. My lips trembled and if someone were to look at me now, they would recoil at the sight of my crazed expression.
I’m sitting in a college restroom stall, and instead of a door, my phone’s display is staring back at me with an incoming call from an unknown number. A chill ran through my entire body. I wanted to blame it all on the stress that came with loneliness and hard work. I just wanted to forget everything, to erase it from my memory.
But one phrase, uttered that night, wouldn’t leave me alone: “I’m calling to say that we’ll have to stop our future meetings for a while because I’m busy with something, but don’t worry, when I come back, I’ll have a gift for you.”