The Guy on the Other End

This happened when I was 15 years old. 

My best friend, Anthony, invited me over for the night since his parents were out of town. I rode my bike over and parked it in the backyard before letting myself in through the back.

    We played basically every video game he had, from Fifa all the way to Call of Duty. Popcorn and other junk food were spilled all over the floor. As it got late, we went from video games to watching half of a movie till we got bored, and then we started prank calling people. By then, it was close to 10:00 pm. 

Anthony made a few calls to different pizza places. When it was my turn, I dialed random numbers, hoping someone would pick up. On my fourth attempt, I finally reached someone. A guy with a rough, deep voice picked up, answering with a ¨yeah¨ instead of a ¨hello.¨ Anthony laughing in the background made me stumble over my words, as I tried hard not to laugh with him. I had not done any prank calls before, so I sucked at it. The guy on the other end was silent the whole time. 

I finally regained a straight face and tried to continue with the call, “Uh, sir, would it be all right if I borrowed the wheels of your car?”

“What’s your name, kid?” the deep voice said on the other end.

“My name is Bob,” I struggled to say without laughing.

“Really? Are you sure it isn’t Anthony?”

It hit me like a brick. I looked up at Anthony, and he was just as confused and scared as I was. I quickly hung up, not wanting to be on the line with the man for another second. 

“Anthony? Who was that?¨ I asked, confused.

“I-I don’t know,” he told me with fear in his eyes.

“Does your caller ID say your name or something?”

“No, it shows my dad’s name.”

We spent an hour trying to figure out how the guy knew Anthony’s name. It didn’t make sense. How could he get Anthony’s name so quickly? Anthony was too young to be on personal information sharing websites. We ended up asking a question on Yahoo! questions, but we didn’t get any results. I suggested he call his dad, but he said he wasn’t supposed to have anyone over. We planned on sleeping in the living room and resumed playing the movie we had on before. 

Almost immediately after the phone call had left my mind, Anthony and I looked at each other as we heard the doorknob to the front door begin to turn. Anthony turned off the TV, and I went over the window to see who it was. I spread the blinds open to get a view outside. There was a tall guy standing on the doorstep. He heard the blinds move and turned to look at me. I threw the blinds back into place, and grabbed Anthony to go hide in the kitchen. We sat there in silence and listened for any more noises. We heard the squeaking of the back gate opening.

“Dang it! I forgot to lock the back door,” I said, ashamed.

Anthony urged me to quickly go lock it. I made it to the hallway leading to the back door and froze. There was a black figure standing outside the door. I don’t think he noticed me, but he was surely looking into the house. He opened the door and stepped inside. I tiptoed to the kitchen and motioned Anthony to go upstairs. We made it to his room as quietly as possible. I pulled the door shut, trying to avoid making any noise. We crawled under his bed, letting his sheets hang off his bed to cover our faces.

The doors downstairs opened one at a time, each one getting closer to the stairs. Thumps finally came up the stairs, and I could see the shadow of his feet outside the door. The door to the room opened. I could hear Anthony’s breathing, and it was too loud. Footsteps moved over to the closet, then the closet opened. You could hear the hangers being roughly moved around. Footsteps moved over to the bed and stopped. It felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. Anthony’s breathing got louder, so I had to cover his mouth with my hand. There was nothing but silence in the room now. We laid still for so long I almost thought he was gone.

“Do you think we could make a run for it?” I whispered to Anthony. 

He was about to answer, but then the most disturbing, memory-haunting scream I had ever heard filled my ears. As Anthony was dragged out from under the bed, I crawled out and saw him struggling with the man. I looked around the room, desperately looking for something to use as a weapon. I settled for the screwdriver sitting on his bedside table, and hurried over to the man and drove it into his back. He let go of Anthony, letting out a scream of pain, which gave us time to get the heck out of the house.

Running out on the road would give away our position, and the neighbor's house was too far away. So we ran into the woods and took cover behind a bush, watching the house. The back door opened and the man stepped out, looking around the backyard. Then he looked out into the woods. I felt his eyes pass me as he scanned through the woods. It seemed like it was too dark for him to see us. Then he turned his head back to our direction, and we ducked behind the bush.

“Chris, he’s coming!” Anthony warned me.

“What?” I replied.

“Dude, get up! We have to run!” He shouted at me.

He was right. The man was approaching us. We got up and ran with the leaves crunching under us, giving away where we were. Anthony tripped over something and I crouched down with him. Hoping we had run far enough, not even 20 seconds later, there were oncoming footsteps in the direction we came from. They slowed down only two trees away from us as we lay down in the leaves. Moments later the footsteps took off in another direction. We waited until we couldn’t hear them anymore, then took off in the direction of the house. While we were running, over the crushing of leaves and my heavy breathing I swore I could hear leaves crunching behind us. We ran inside the house, this time remembering to lock the door. 

We were now able to call the police. Anthony stayed on the line with them as I patrolled the back door, making sure the man wasn’t coming. It was so dark, I could hardly see anything, so I did something that seems stupid in hindsight - I turned on the backyard lights. In the distance, over by the woods, I saw him standing in front of the trees. He turned back into the woods and disappeared. 

That was the last time Anthony and I saw the man. I would be lying if I said I heard occasional knocks at our window or something cliche like that. But no, that was it. Five years have passed and thankfully nothing else has happened.