Birthday Surprise

The night before my 19th birthday, my sister and I were at home in her large house; her husband was away on a business trip, and the nephews were at their father’s house. It had been a quiet night; my sister was reading in her room, and I was texting my friends, a little excited for my upcoming birthday.

At 11:55 p.m., my phone rang. It was my boyfriend, calling to be the first to wish me a happy birthday. We started to talk about our days, and he was in the middle of a sentence when the call dropped. I pulled the phone away from my ear and saw that it was midnight. There was still no service when I tried to call him back, so I went downstairs to use the land line.

I dialed his number, and the call went through right away. “Hey, baby, sorry, my phone cut out. Are you having fun?”

I almost dropped the phone in terror. It wasn’t my boyfriend’s sweet voice — it was a deep, demonic rumble on the other end.

“Who is this?” I asked shakily.

“You know who this is.”

I slammed the phone back on the wall and sprinted to my sister’s room, so terrified that I jumped into bed beside her. When she asked me what had happened, I babbled my explanation. To my relief, she didn’t laugh in my face; instead, she rubbed her bare arms and shivered.

“I’ve had a weird feeling since about midnight,” she said in a quiet voice.

I nodded. Since the dropped call, I’d been feeling tingly, unsettled. We flipped on the TV for background noise and watched for a while.

The bathroom light flickered on and off by itself. I was too sleepy to move, and too scared to go to my own room, so I drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep for a while.

About an hour later, the feeling disappeared. I could breathe more easily, and I felt relieved, with no explanation. I crawled back to my own bed and fell asleep right away.

The next morning, the first thing I did was call my boyfriend. He answered with a slightly worried tone, but told me I’d never called him back.

When my sister got the phone bill, there was no record of me sending a call out to his number.

I still don’t know who I spoke to that night.

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