The Christmas Caller: A True Crime Thriller With a Chilling Twist

I was sixteen when the first call came.

It was Christmas Eve, and our small suburban home glowed with festive lights. Snow dusted the windowsills, and the scent of cinnamon cookies filled the air. My parents were laughing over an old holiday movie, but I had slipped away to my room, already growing out of the holiday magic.

The phone rang at 9:47 PM. An old landline we barely used anymore. The screen read “Unknown.”

Curious, I picked up.

Silence.

Then a whisper: “Soon.”

A chill ran down my spine. I said hello again, but the line went dead.

I told my parents, but they brushed it off as a prank. I believed them—until it happened again the next Christmas.

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9:47 PM. Same whisper: “Soon.”

By the third year, it became a twisted tradition. I moved to college, changed phones, but still—every Christmas Eve, 9:47 PM, my phone would ring. Always “Unknown.” Always the same word.

I started recording the calls, logging them, trying to figure out who it could be. A prank? A stalker? A glitch in the system?

But the voice never changed. It was male, aged, emotionless. And somehow… familiar.

In the sixth year, I finally heard something else. After the whisper, there was a humming sound. Low, haunting. It took me a moment to place it—a lullaby.

My mother used to sing that to my older brother, Jason.

The brother who vanished one Christmas when I was just five.

Jason was eleven. One day he was there, the next he was gone. No struggle, no clues. Just a missing boy and broken parents. The police searched. The neighbors whispered. But nothing ever came of it.

After that, my mother stopped singing. My father stopped smiling. And I, too young to understand, simply forgot.

Until the call.

The lullaby unlocked something in me. A forgotten memory—Jason holding my hand, whispering that he had a secret to show me. That he’d found a hidden door in the basement of our grandparents’ old farmhouse.

But we never went.

Because that night, he vanished.

I drove six hours to that farmhouse on Christmas Eve.

The place was abandoned now, draped in snow and silence. I used the spare key my father once gave me “just in case.” The inside was dust-covered and dark, but the basement door still creaked open like it remembered me.

I descended the stairs, heart pounding. There, in the far corner, behind broken shelves—I saw it.

A door. Small, wooden, with a strange symbol carved into the center.

I opened it.

A narrow tunnel, cold and stone-lined, stretched beyond the wall. I followed it, guided by instinct and flashlight, until it opened into a small room.

And in the room—photos.

Dozens of them. All of children. All marked with dates. My brother’s face was there, circled in red. Underneath it: “12/24/2006 – Chosen.”

Chosen?

For what?

Suddenly, my phone rang.

9:47 PM.

I picked up.

No whisper this time. Just breathing.

Then: “You remember.”

The call ended.

I turned, heart racing—and saw a man standing in the corner of the room.

He was old, hunched, eyes pale and empty. But I knew that face.

It was my grandfather.

Long presumed dead after a fire years ago.

“You should not be here,” he rasped.

“What happened to Jason?” I demanded.

He said nothing. Just pointed to a door behind him. Inside was an old tape recorder, still running. I pressed play.

Jason’s voice.

“He said he needed me to save the family. He said he was chosen, but I’m scared. I don’t want to go…”

The tape cut off.

My grandfather lunged, but he was weak. I shoved past him, took the recorder, and ran.

Back at home, I showed my parents. My mother collapsed in tears. My father stared into nothing.

The police investigated. They found the hidden room. The photos. My grandfather was arrested for suspected involvement in a series of child disappearances spanning decades. He’d built a cult-like belief that certain children were “chosen” to preserve innocence through sacrifice.

Jason had been his first.

The calls stopped after that.

Christmas felt different—quieter. We lit a candle for Jason every year. I started writing about it, telling his story.

And every December, people asked me why I always leave my phone on at 9:47 PM.

I just smile.

Because maybe… just maybe… one day, Jason will call back.