The Last Voicemail

I was folding laundry when my dead husband called.

The phone buzzed once. I almost didn’t check it—just another spam call, I figured. But when I glanced at the screen, my blood ran cold.

CALL FROM: JAMES MARSHALL.

I stared at the name. Frozen. My thumb trembled. There was no way. James had died in a car accident five years ago. I buried him myself. I kissed his cold forehead. I kept his ashes in an urn on the shelf in our bedroom.

I didn’t answer.

Instead, I played the voicemail.

"Emma... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you. I didn’t mean for it to end like this. Please... don’t trust the man who says he’s helping you."

That was it. No background noise. Just his voice. Raw. Scared.

I replayed it a dozen times. It wasn’t an old voicemail. It wasn’t static or a glitch. It was new. The timestamp was from three minutes earlier.

Two hours later, someone knocked on the door.

A man in a dark gray suit stood on the porch, smiling too widely. “Emma Marshall?”

I nodded, confused and still shaken.

“I’m Agent Dawson,” he said, flashing an ID too quickly for me to read. “I’m with a private security agency. We’ve been investigating a series of unusual cyber attacks. We believe your husband may have been a target before his... passing.”

His tone softened. “Do you mind if I come in?”

I hesitated.

James's words echoed in my head.

"Don’t trust the man who says he’s helping you."

My pulse quickened. “I—I’m sorry, I can’t right now.”

The smile on Agent Dawson’s face didn’t falter, but something shifted in his eyes. “This is time-sensitive, Mrs. Marshall. Waiting could put you at risk.”

“I’ll call my lawyer,” I lied.

That’s when his smile disappeared. “We’ll be in touch,” he said sharply, turning and walking down the driveway without another word.

I didn’t sleep that night. The voicemail haunted me.

Was James alive?

Was he murdered?

Or was I losing my mind?

I opened his old laptop—the one I hadn’t touched in years. It took forever to boot. Inside, I found a folder labeled "TRUTH." It had a password.

I tried everything. Our anniversary. My name. His birthday.

Nothing worked.

Then I remembered the voicemail.

"Don’t trust the man who says he’s helping you."

The password was “HELP”.

The folder opened.

Inside were dozens of audio files. Notes. Documents. A journal.

And then a video—shaky, filmed in a dark room. James looked tired. Gaunt.

“Emma,” he said, staring into the lens. “If you’re seeing this, they know you’re looking. I faked my death to protect you. But they’re watching you now. Get out. Don’t trust Dawson. Don’t trust anyone.”

The video glitched. Then stopped.

I sat there in the dark, hands trembling.

The next day, I packed a bag and left town. Burners phones. No social media. I became a ghost.

For months I moved place to place. Following clues James left in the files—coordinates, names, locations. Each breadcrumb revealed more about the shadowy organization James had uncovered: human experimentation, surveillance networks, people vanishing without a trace.

It was bigger than I ever imagined.

But the most shocking part?

I think James is still alive.

Last week, in a diner in New Mexico, I found a napkin on my table before I even ordered. Scrawled in familiar handwriting:

“You’re getting close. I love you.”

No one saw who left it.

So here I am, writing this story from a motel room under a name that isn’t mine.

I don’t know if Vocal Media will even publish it. But if you’re reading this—know that this isn’t fiction.

If anything happens to me, if I disappear, don’t believe what they say.

James didn’t die in an accident.

And I’m not crazy.

Look behind the headlines.

Look for the truth hiding in plain sight.

They’re watching.

And they don’t want you to know.