They started just before midnight this last Sunday. A call from an unrecognized number, waiting for me to answer. I woke from my sleep and stared at the phone while it lit up the room. Who is this? I thought to myself. I waited for the call to stop so I could try reverse searching the number. It’s fairly local, so I worry it may be a friend or family member trying to reach out. The search comes back empty. Something doesn’t sit right with me, but I try to ignore it. Before I can even set my phone down, a voicemail appears. I decide to listen to it. It’s just… shuffling. Pocket dial? Weird. Especially from a number that has never called me before, and this late at night? Whatever… it’s late. I place my phone down and roll back over.
Bzzzzzzt… bzzzzt…. Bzzzzzzzzzt…
My phone is ringing again. It’s the same number. The phone continues to ring, and ring, until I’m assuming it gets to voicemail. This isn’t normal. This isn’t an accident. This feels intentional and targeted, and I can’t shake the feeling that answering this phone is going to hurt me. I’m wide awake now, waking my husband. He grumbles a little and tells me it’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a wrong number, or a butt dial, or something stupid. Let’s go back to sleep. Not even 5 minutes later…
Bzzzzzzt… bzzzzt…. Bzzzzzzt….
They’re calling again. The phone rings and rings, just as it did a few minutes before. Finally, it’s quiet again.
“What is going on?” I asked my husband. “Someone is trying to scare me.” He laughs a little and pulls me closer. “Just block the number and don’t worry about it.” That’s a great idea. Except… I can’t. They’re calling again. I don’t want to touch my phone. The seconds feel like hours. My mind races with a thousand thoughts on who or what could be on the other end of that call. Why is this so scary? What does this feel so wrong? Why does this feel so dangerous?
Once again, and for the last time, the phone goes quiet. I block the number as quickly as I can, afraid they’ll call again and I’ll somehow accidentally answer, but luckily that didn’t happen. Shaken, I wrap myself in my husbands arm, and eventually I fall back asleep.
The next morning, I’m still uneasy. I’m sure whatever that call had for me was bad news, and I can’t shake the feeling. I go through my day with my normal ignored calls of appointment reminders, an occasional debt collector or two, and then I get another unfamiliar local call. I’ve never seen this number. There’s no reason for anyone from here to be calling me. I watch as my phone rings and rings, and I feel the same way I did about the calls the night before. Is this them? Did they get a new number? Why are they calling me? Who is this? The phone stops ringing, and I search again. Google seems to pull back nothing for me, so I try to convince myself it’s a weird coincidence, and I’m just overreacting because of the weird call from last night, accidents happen, this is probably just a wrong number. It’s fine. Things are fine. Blocked.
You’d think I’d have made it 24 hours without a call, and you’d be right. Just hours over a day later, another call tried to come through. The number is local, closer still than the last. Everything about this is wrong. The call goes on and on, as I stare at my phone teetering on the side of my desk, bzzzzt bzzing away. I let my phone sit. There’s a voicemail this time. I’ve listened to it more times than I can count at this point, but the quality of the message is so poor, it’s almost impossible to hear past the word “dad,” spoken by what sounded like a young adult male. While I can’t explain it, something about this still didn’t sit right with me. Creepy. Blocked. Three days in a row with a weird local number calling without any information? And… why are they getting closer?
The next two days I couldn’t stop thinking about those calls. They felt connected somehow. Why did they all start now? I’ve had this number for years, and nothing like this has ever happened. Hell, even spam calls don’t call at midnight like that. And why couldn’t I look up any of these three calls? Even spam calls come up with something! I finally found a decent reverse phone site, and looked up the numbers. None of them existed. “Wow! Searching billions of phones we did not return a valid result for this number.” Not for any of them. Was this site just shit? I looked up all the other unknown numbers in my missed calls. They all came back as valid numbers. Why not these ones? I couldn’t figure any of it out.
This morning was the closest yet. The number called from my hometown. 9am, my phone begins to ring. This isn’t a number I recognize. This number is dangerous. We don’t have a voicemail this time, but it shows no results, the same as the other three. The phone book website says the number isn’t even valid. Blocked.
I feel like I’m going crazy. Maybe I am. But how can you explain the calls? Why don’t the numbers exist? Why just these four, and why are they making me so uneasy? Why did they all start with this weird midnight ritual call thing? And WHY are they getting closer? I’m hoping it’s just a scam, or maybe I’m just crazy? I certainly hope I’m just crazy. Otherwise, it looks like they’re about to find me. I hope they can’t hear my phone buzzing.