Voicemail from the Dead

Voicemail from the Dead

It started on a Thursday.

James Hartley was late for work, rushing through his morning routine when his phone buzzed. One new voicemail. No missed call. Curious, he tapped play.

"Hey, sweetheart. Just calling to say I love you. I hope you’re having a good day at work. Come home soon, okay?"

He stopped mid-step. The voice was unmistakable.

Emily.

His wife.

But Emily had been dead for three years.

He played the message again, this time slower, dissecting every syllable. It was her voice. Not just the tone, but the little breath she took before speaking, the subtle lilt at the end—those tiny imperfections he used to find beautiful.

James stared at the wall. The same wall he'd painted after the accident. After the blood. After everything.

He sat down and didn’t move for an hour.

The next day, another voicemail. Again, no call log.

"James? It's Emily again. I'm... I’m not sure where I am. It’s cold. Have you been getting my messages?"

Her voice cracked slightly. She sounded confused, maybe scared.

He didn’t tell anyone. What could he say? That his dead wife was calling him from beyond the grave?

He dug through old voicemails, recordings, anything she might’ve left behind. Maybe some rogue AI was replicating her voice. Maybe it was a cruel scam. But there were no matching files. No cloud backups. Nothing.

The number? Untraceable. Just six zeroes: 000000.

By the fifth message, she was crying.

“James, please. Something’s wrong. It’s so dark here. I can’t see. I hear... things. Whispers. I think someone’s following me.”

He listened to that one in the middle of the night. His living room lights flickered halfway through, the power dipping for just a moment—long enough for his reflection in the dark TV screen to seem not quite his.

James finally tried calling the number back. Nothing. Just static.

The next day, the message came at 3:14 a.m. He didn’t notice until morning. He pressed play.

"Why won’t you answer? Why don’t you love me anymore?"

The voice was different. It had layers to it. Emily’s voice was still there—but distorted, like it was coming through underwater... or buried in something thicker.

Something colder.

Then came the message with the scream.

It was short. Only five seconds.

“He’s coming. Don’t listen to him. Don’t—”

The rest was an agonized, guttural shriek that made James drop the phone. It bounced under the couch, buzzing against the hardwood like it was trying to crawl away.

He didn’t sleep that night. He sat in the hallway with the lights on, gripping a bat, listening to every creak and whisper the house made. He kept checking the phone. No new messages. Just that one, on repeat, like it wanted to be heard again.

The following evening, he received two messages. The first was different.

“James. It's me. I’m okay. I think I’m getting closer to you. I can see light now. Just... just stay where you are, okay?”

There was silence after that. Just breathing. The same breath she used to take when she curled up beside him in bed.

But the second message that night came from the same number, and it chilled him to the core.

“That wasn’t me.”

Nothing more.

He dropped the phone. He wanted to smash it, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

The next few days, messages came faster. Every night. Then every few hours. Then every hour on the hour.

Some were pleading. Some furious. Some sounded almost... joyful.

"I'm so close now."

"Why did you let me die?"

"Come with me, James."

"He said your name. He has your voice now."

On the seventh day, the message wasn’t a voice at all. It was a recording.

Of his living room.

The screen showed nothing—just the couch, coffee table, and the dim light from a corner lamp. But in the final seconds, the lamp flickered... and the shape of a woman passed behind the frame. Barefoot. Hair hanging wet across her face.

She stopped. Turned toward the screen. And smiled.

James hasn’t answered his phone in days.

But the voicemails haven’t stopped.

Last night, I checked in on him. The house was quiet, too quiet. His phone lay on the floor, buzzing every few minutes.

I picked it up.

One new voicemail.

“Hi, this is James. I’m not here right now, but if you’re hearing this… I finally found her.”

Then silence.

But the message kept playing.

In the background, I could hear a whisper.

And it sounded like my name.