The Midnight Caller

Sarah could almost think over the din of the city at this hour. The heavens had opened, and the rain literally thundered against her apartment window. The streetlamp flicked on and off outside, and the play of lights and darks in her room gave it an unreal atmosphere. For two weeks, she had been receiving calls—again at midnight—from the very same voice.

Sarah…

The first time it had happened, she had thought it a joke. She had laughed it off, even though she felt a shiver run down her spine at the whispering voice on the other end. But as the nights wore on, the calls became more insistent, more personal. He—it—knew things: details about her life no one should know.

And there was the night the clock ticked midnight, just as she so expected, and her phone suddenly began to whir. The caller ID, as always, showed nothing. Empty number. She gripped the phone with a shaking hand.

"Who are you?" she demanded, though the whisper of her voice was so low.

Silence.

Then the voice came again, low and chilling. "Sarah, I am much closer than you think."

She hung up, pressing the palm to her chest. She had tried tracing the calls, blocking numbers, and even changed her phone, but nothing worked. The calls kept coming, unrelenting, untraceable. Desperation clawed at her; she couldn't stand one more sleepless night.

She dared herself to call the police, even though she knew they'd just cast it off as a prank. As she was typing in 9-1-1, a knock sounded at her front door. Startled, she dropped her phone and simultaneously clutched at her chest in surprise. At the sudden clatter, it fell to the floor, and she stared at the door with a racing heart.

Nobody ever knocked on her door this late.

There was another knock, louder. She took a step back, her mind racing. Should she answer that? What if it was him? Or what if it was finally the caller? Gritting her teeth, she grabbed a knife from the kitchen, holding it tightly as she made her way to the door. She took a look through the peephole; nothing outside, only darkness. No movement, no one waiting.

"Who's there?" she screamed, her voice quivering. Silence.

She hesitated once more; each fibre of her being said to keep back, but something pulled on her to crack open the door. With a sudden twist, the wind bashed it open, and there was nothing except an empty corridor.

Relief swept through her. It was short-lived, though. Just when she turned to close the door once again, the phone rang. Sharp and sudden, the sound echoed in the apartment. She almost dropped the knife in her panic.

Scampering back to the phone, hands trembling, she picked it up. "What do you want from me?" she cried into the receiver.

The voice on the other end chuckled with an eerie tone, a tone which sent icy tendrils of fear down her spine.

"I'm closer than you think, Sarah. Much closer."

Suddenly, the power went out, plunging her apartment into darkness. The only light came from her phone, its screen casting an eerie glow. Her breath caught in her throat as she heard the faint creak of a floorboard behind her.

She turned, knife raised, but the room was empty. The sound of her own breathing filled her ears, going loud and panicked. She couldn't see anything, but she felt it, feeling like someone was standing there watching her.

"Who are you?" she asked in a small voice.

The voice on the other end of the line just replied, "Turn around."

She froze. Fear lodged in her heart. She inched around, and there, standing in the shadows, was a figure. She couldn't see anything clearly, but she felt the ill will coming from it.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, a whisper in her voice.

The figure moved closer, and in that nearly perceptible glint of shimmer, she saw an edge of something sharp—metallic.

"Because, Sarah," the voice whispered, "you answered the call."

Her breath caught in her throat before she could react as the figure pounced on her, a searing pain in her side. Gasping, she dropped the phone as her hand flew to her side. The room spun around her as she fell to the floor, her vision fading.

As blackness closed in around her, the last thing she heard was the voice on the phone, repeating over and over, "I'm closer than you think."

It was lying next to her with the call still in activation. The following morning, Sarah was found dead in her house, and the last words on the voicemail were saying that "I'm closer than you think."

But when they traced the call, it led to a disconnected number—one that hadn't been in service for years.

And thus it was that Sarah became another of the mysterious victims claimed by the Midnight Caller: the city's scare, a horror story that nobody had an explanation for. But one thing was clear: The Midnight Caller was still out there, waiting for the next midnight, the next victim, the next answer.