Caller Unknown

Arin sat straight up in bed, gasping for air, his sheets and pajamas soaked in blood. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, forcing the nightmarish images from his mind. His chest heaved in and out methodically, struggling to slow his breathing and regain some margin of control over his body. When he opened his eyes again, there was no blood. The sticky substance that covered his bed was only sweat.

A relieved sigh escaped his lips. He made a mental note to call his doctor later. These nightmares didn’t seem to be letting up, and he was beginning to worry that he had developed a case of night terrors. Ever since childhood, he had rarely had bad dreams. If he dreamed at all, they were very mundane. Sometimes simple situations related to events taking place in his life, or allegorical representations of subconscious thoughts he had. Although he’d had nightmares before, they were rarely frequent. And they were never this visceral.

Arin shuddered beneath his sticky bed sheets, involuntarily shaking off his bizarre dream world. He put a hand to his arm, activating his wrist implant. A small holographic display popped up in the air. It had a screen with multiple icons, displaying text messages, emails, and new social media notifications. He swiped his unread texts away, fingers moving deftly through the virtual menus, and began pawing through social media to distract himself from the night’s terrors.

When he had scrolled through social media long enough to let his nightmares fade and dilute, he closed the app and checked his text messages.

Nineteen unread texts, he marveled. She really won’t take no for an answer. He shook his head, turned off his HoloChip, and climbed out of bed.

Thirty minutes later he was showered, shaved, and dressed for the day. He was just finishing a cup of coffee when his HoloChip let out a continuous shrilling. He glanced down at his wrist. The caller was unknown.

Puzzled, he answered the call. The fuzzy shape of a human being sprang to life above his wrist. The image was more pixelated than usual, flickering and buzzing with a white static that obscured the features of the caller.

“Hello?” Arin asked.

The strange caller did not respond.

“Can I help you?”

The static continued.

Arin’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed in confusion. “Who is this?” He said, a little more forceful now.

The buzzing from the hologram grew louder, and the static became more erratic. From somewhere within the aural depths of the white noise came a whispered susurration. Arin drew the wrist implant closer to his face, straining to make out the garbled language coming over the airwaves. The buzzing grew louder still, and became more like a hissing sound. The deep voice grew along with it, and he was almost able to catch a few words of the strange utterances, but the noise had quickly become too loud. He put one hand over his right ear, grinding his teeth against the sound but fighting to keep his eyes on the figure. It seemed mesmerizing, and he found that even when he wanted to close his eyes, he was unable to.

As he became more and more transfixed, the rest of the room seemed to grow dimmer, the holographic image simultaneously becoming larger in his eyes. He started to panic, fear rising in his throat like bile. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. It was as though the caller had him in an unbreakable grip, a virtual chokehold that transcended the laws of holo-calls and digital communication and instead reached through space itself. Arin had the alarming feeling that the caller had him right where it wanted him.

Then everything stopped. The lights returned to normal, the hissing cut off, and the mysterious caller disappeared from his HoloChip. The only sensation that remained of the bizarre encounter was an odd metallic taste in his mouth. He swirled his tongue around behind his teeth, but couldn’t detect any blood or gashes. The taste of blood, like the rest of his experience, was an anomaly.

His fear faded as quickly as the call had. In its place there was only confusion and curiosity. He pulled up the call log on the HoloChip, and looked at his recent calls. The call at the top of the digital readout said the caller was unknown, but there was a Holo number beneath it. The number read 0001.

That doesn’t make any sense, he thought. There’s only four numbers there. There should be nine.

He stared at the screen as though he was once again mesmerized by the flickering figure, but the answer to this puzzle remained just out of reach. No matter how long he stared, the solution did not present itself. Still, he continued to look wistfully at those four numbers, turning them over and over in his mind, wondering what they could mean, wondering who that person was, what they wanted, and why him? His mind was a tumble of thoughts and questions, bouncing around the inside of his skull like evil children on pogo sticks, jumping up and down and left and right until he thought he would go completely insane. Finally, he was startled out of his daze by a buzzing from his HoloChip. He shook himself and closed the call log.

Shit. It’s 8:00 a.m.!

He had been staring at the numbers for nearly thirty minutes, unmoving. How did that happen? It seemed like only a few moments. Now he was late for work.

Twenty minutes later Arin sat at his desk, drinking a tall cup of coffee in a “Best Boss” mug. He was reading a report of last month’s earnings. The numbers swam before his eyes, and he had to reread parts of the document multiple times. His mind was elsewhere this morning. The digital specter on his HoloChip kept passing through his thoughts, always either moving through the front of his mind, or haunting the back corners like a ghostly apparition that had been unleashed when he answered the call.

His thoughts were interrupted by a buzzing that suddenly sounded from his HoloChip. His heart leapt into his throat and his stomach dropped at the same time, as though his organs conspired to rip him in half from the inside out. He swallowed hard, attempting to drive his breakfast back down into his gut. He gingerly turned his head towards the wrist implant and exhaled the biggest sigh of relief he’d ever breathed. Stef.

His fear was replaced by annoyance, but along with the frustration there was a strange sense of calm. Although he didn’t want to speak to her, he was glad that it was Stef and not some dark apparition that lived in his watch. Maybe it was that relief that pushed him to answer her call. Maybe he just wanted to hear the voice of someone familiar instead of that terrifying hissing; he wasn’t sure either way. Whatever the case may be, he tapped the “Answer” button on the holo, and Stefany’s face popped up above his wrist.

“Stef.”

“Hi Arin,” she said. Her tone was breathy, quiet, and apprehensive. She sounded like she thought he would break if she said the wrong thing. He didn’t blame her. He’d been avoiding her for weeks.

“What do you want?” He asked, trying to sound more frustrated than he was.

“I want to talk,” she replied. “That’s all. I just want you to talk to me.”

“What is there to talk about?”

She averted her eyes from his. “I know you don’t want anything to do with me after what happened, but please, at least try to understand. I think we can work this out.”

Although Arin’s countenance remained severe, his eyes softened ever so slightly. He had been with Stefany a long time before they broke up, and it did still hurt him to see her so crushed. A twinge of sympathy stole through him, and he found himself moved more than he’d care to admit.

He sighed. “Listen, Stefany, now’s just not the time. I’m at work, and things are…” He glanced at the computer screen, still only halfway through the document. “Swamped right now.”

“Let’s meet and talk in person then,” she said quickly, desperation evident in her voice.

He knew that severe look in her eyes all too well. She didn’t intend to take no for an answer, and he figured the sooner he could get her off the call, the sooner he could get back to not working.

“Alright,” he conceded. “I’ll check my schedule and give you a call.”

He watched her face drop. She knew what that meant. If he hung up and changed his mind, she wouldn’t hear from him again until the next time he happened to answer his HoloChip. If, that was, he ever answered her again.

Arin watched Stef resign herself to his dismissal. She looked down again, clearly not wanting him to see the water rising in her eyelids.

“Okay,” she said. The hurt in her voice was palpable. “Just get back with me soon please.”

He gave a weak smile in response. “Good to see you Stef. Talk to you soon.”

She nodded, gave him one last lingering look, and ended the call. Arin sat back in his leather desk chair, his body relaxing into the soft black material as though he could escape into an endless void between its creases and wrinkles.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Arin made it through work, and although he got very little done, he still felt exhausted by the time five o’clock rolled around. He contemplated calling Stef back on the way home, but thought better of it. The morning’s odd events might have left him unsettled, but he wasn’t so terrified that he was willing to entertain her appeals. No, he decided all he needed was to relax and put the phantom caller out of his mind.

Arin was often the first one through the front door of his office suite, and the last to leave in the evening, but tonight he was in his car at five past five. He had waved off each of his employee’s concerned expressions on his way through the office, stopping only long enough to grant Cole a day off for the next work week. Honestly he would’ve given him a month off if it meant he could get away faster.

On the drive home, he contemplated what movie he should watch. Much deliberation had brought him to the conclusion that mindless television was the way to forget about his day, so now the only choice left had become which movie would be his chosen route of escape tonight.

And what type of booze to drink, he thought glumly.

At home, Arin ordered a pizza. He wasn’t interested in leaving the sanctity of his house at any point in the evening, so ordering in was the only option. Once the pizza had been ordered, he made a bowl of popcorn and sat down on the couch to watch an ancient movie about four guys who got drunk at their friend’s bachelor party and woke up the next morning with no memory of what occurred the night before. It was a hilarious movie, and one of Arin’s personal favorites.

The movie was playing across one entire wall of his house. Like many others, he had holo panels installed over the entire surface area of one of the walls in his living room, all of them connected in one massive floor-to-ceiling television screen. When watching three dimensional movies, the wall’s hologram features engaged, projecting the film forward into the room, creating the sense that the audience was actually witnessing the movie’s events firsthand.

Arin munched on popcorn and nursed a tall glass of whiskey while he watched the zany antics of the movie’s main characters. He tried to focus on the plot, even though he had seen it played out dozens of times, but his mind kept straying. However, it was Stef that he was thinking about rather than the phantom caller. Things were just so complicated with her. She had called before, in recent weeks, claiming that they could work things out and move forward together. He was starting to think that she really believed it too. He would’ve liked to tell her that he felt the same, that he still loved her and that through the power of their love they could defeat any roadblock in their path.

Yeah right, he scoffed, taking another sip of whiskey. We’d be lucky to navigate a pothole, much less any roadblocks.

A quarter of a bottle later, a high pitched electronic tone sounded throughout his house. The pizza delivery boy must have arrived. Arin rose from his chair, albeit a little unsteadily, and walked to the front door.

The delivery boy was nice enough. He looked to be about sixteen, and he smiled a little too much. Arin wondered if the teenager (whose name tag read Dennis) was laughing at him, having realized that he was drunk. Whatever Dennis’s thoughts were, he kept them to himself, and within two minutes he was retreating back to his car with a very generous tip.

Arin, in his inebriated state, was intent on devouring the meal hidden inside the warm cardboard box. As he walked back to his living room, the delicious smell of cheese and Italian sausage berated him, sending his stomach into an orchestral array of noises. The pizza beckoned to him, and he couldn’t wait to get back to his comfy chair and enjoy the sweet embrace of food. He rounded the corner into the living area and felt every nerve in his body seize up.

Standing in the middle of the living room, illuminated by hazy blue light from the television wall, was the phantom caller. Although its entire appearance was still comprised solely of snowy static, he now stood at full height. The figure on the holo-call from his wrist implant had been smaller, figurine sized, as all HoloChip calls were, but this man stood at least six-foot-five, with broad shoulders and abnormally long, bony fingers.

The whiskey-laden haze that surrounded Arin’s thoughts evaporated, adrenaline chasing the alcohol from his bloodstream. The cacophony of noises from his empty stomach had ceased. Instead, his organs twisted in painful knots, and his tongue felt suddenly cold and stiff, as though it had died in his mouth. More than anything he wanted to turn and run, but he was rooted to the spot, stuck holding the pizza box and staring open-mouthed at the physical embodiment of white noise that stood in his living room.

The figure appeared to be projecting from the HoloWall. The massive television screen cracked and shimmered in time with the stranger’s own erratic bursts. The light splayed out across the dark living room and cast eerie shadows over all the walls and furniture. Arin tried to scream, but no words came out. All the air had been ripped from his chest. Even if he had been able to scream, he didn’t know what he would say if anyone came to his aid. The creature before him was merely a hologram.

Arin’s mind was running so quickly that he nearly jumped backwards into the hall when the hologram took a step towards him. He dropped the pizza box on the floor, suddenly aware that he had been smashing the cardboard and was burning his fingers on the pizza inside. As the box hit the ground, the digital phantom lifted one bony hand and reached its long fingers towards him.

From the white static where his face should have been, a gaping hole opened up. It looked like a mouth opening, its pixelated lips moving as though it was trying to tell him something, but all that came out was a strangled gargling sound. The noise set Arin’s teeth on edge, yet as before, he found himself leaning forward, straining to hear what the phantom was trying to say.

It inclined its head for a moment, its hand wavering slightly in midair. Arin could have sworn it was collecting itself, preparing for another attempt at communication. A moment later it raised its head and opened that gaping hole in its face once more.

“Dooonnn…” it stammered. ”Dooonnn’t…phone.” The stranger’s voice, like its physical appearance, was shrouded in static. It sounded like it was speaking to him over one of those radios that truck drivers used to communicate nearly a hundred years ago.

“Don’t what?” Arin was surprised to hear himself speaking. Was he actually responding to this digital mirage? It was certainly nothing more than a malfunction in his wireless connection service somewhere.

“Don’t…phone,” it repeated, more emphatically this time, as though saying the same thing again with more urgency would get its point across.

Arin shook his head apologetically. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

The phantom balled its hand into a fist and let out a high-pitched shriek that reverberated through Arin’s skull, nearly causing him to bite his tongue off. Then the phantom caller lurched forward. It limped towards him at an impossible speed, and in a single breath it was mere inches from his face. Arin’s body temperature felt like it dropped thirty degrees, and he shook violently from the shocking cold.

The hologram leaned slowly forward. A sharp copper tang rose in Arin’s mouth, the metallic bite reminiscent of the taste of blood he’d experienced earlier that morning. The intruder was so close that Arin could see the individual pixels jumping and shaking in its face, all white noise and that terrible, gaping black hole. That sinister void moved again, and the phantom caller whispered in Arin’s face, the words still riddled with static, but now more coherent.

“Don’t…answer…the phone,” it said.

Then the hologram disappeared. Darkness engulfed the room in an instant. The HoloWall was playing the movie again, but the light that it emanated wasn’t sufficient to pierce the black veil that had fallen over Arin. The caller’s words had driven icicles through his heart, and he was both hot and cold at the same time, aware that he was shivering while blistering sweat poured down his face. That dark veil crept further and further across his field of vision, until finally he felt his body falling, dropping towards the floor, plummeting through the bottom of his house and into an eternal sinkhole, the blackness broken only by the crushed pizza box. Before he blacked out completely, the last thought he had was that he should have tipped the delivery boy more money.

When Arin awoke, he at first thought that he’d had another terrifying nightmare. He groaned and put a hand to his head, where a whiskey-related storm was brewing. He opened his eyes slowly, hoping to abate the effects of his headache. When he realized he wasn’t in his bed, he sat up much too quickly.

“Ouch,” he said to the empty room. “Bad idea.”

Arin clambered to his feet, one hand massaging his temple. The living room was empty. There was a documentary playing on the HoloWall, but that wasn’t what he had been watching. He was watching one of his…

The memory came back in a rush, a sudden raging flood of emotions and sensations washing over his throbbing head. It wasn’t a nightmare. What he had experienced was terrifyingly real. The memory of that holographic abomination standing in his house and speaking to him was almost enough to make him blackout again.

Arin walked into the room and sat down hard on the couch. That vile creature had invaded his home, his safe space, beckoning to him with that disgusting hand, and for what? To give him some cryptic, nonsensical message? Arin couldn’t even remember exactly what the phantom had said. The pounding in his head was louder and more demanding than his short-term memory.

This was all entirely too much. It was supposed to be a normal day, just like any other, but here he was, trembling on the couch, his mind an utter mess of swirling confusion. Fear and anxiety mixed with the pain behind his eyes, creating a cocktail of hysteria that was much more potent than any glass of whiskey. Sitting there in the dark, the room only half illuminated by the HoloWall, he knew he had to do something to escape and calm down. He had to go someplace where he could breathe, and work through what was happening with some semblance of lucidity.

“Hello?”

“Hey Stef,” he said. He was doing his best to avoid looking scared and disheveled. HoloCalls were usually very clear, and Stefany knew him well. She’d be able to pick up if something was wrong pretty fast.

“What’s wrong?” She asked. Apparently he wasn’t a very convincing actor.

“Can I come over?” He said anxiously, barely able to get the words out of his mouth in time.

“Well, sure, but what’s go-“

“I need to see you,” he continued. “Something’s wrong, and I don’t understand any of it.”

“Arin, what are you talking about?” Her eyebrows knit together in concern. “What’s happening?”

“There was a man in my house,” he stammered. “Well, not really in my house, he was just a projection, but he was here, and I think he means to do me harm, and I don’t know why or what he wants or how to stop him.”

“Woah,” she said, shaking her head. “Slow down. Is there someone in your house?”

Arin was becoming exasperated with her. He didn’t have time for any of this. “Look, I’ll explain when I’m out of this damn house. Can I come over, or not?”

“Of course,” she said.

Before she could ask any more questions, Arin responded with a simple great, see you soon and hung up, already halfway in his coat and headed out the door. Stefany’s house was only a few blocks away, but he was looking forward to the short drive. Driving felt safer than sitting around waiting to be murdered.

He broke several traffic laws on his way to Stef’s place. Tickets and fines were the least of his worries at the moment. Smooth jazz played over his car’s stereo system, calming his tattered nerves. Stef was probably going to think he was crazy. If he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he could tell her otherwise. But crazy or not, she’d let him stay over as long as he wanted.

I suppose she’ll just be happy to see me, he mused. She might not even care if I’m insane or not.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a multi-tonal trilling that drowned out the saxophone medley and flooded the inside of his car and his thoughts. The car veered, nearly slamming into a truck parked at the curb. Arin barely had time to correct his course. With a quick jerk, he got the car back on the road. His side-view mirror clipped the truck’s tailgate as he brushed past it, snapping clean off and smashing in the road behind him.

This was the second time today that a HoloCall from Stef nearly gave Arin a heart attack. The trilling continued from his stereo, which connected automatically with his HoloChip to broadcast calls through the car’s computer.

Why is she calling? He wondered, already frustrated with her and he wasn’t even there yet. Although he was more frustrated with himself for being so jumpy.

He reached for the Answer Call button on his dashboard. Whatever she wanted was less important to him than that he let her know exactly what he thought of all her incessant calls. It was past time that he give her a piece of his mind.

Just as he was about to answer, he stopped short. His finger hovered over the button, a hair’s breadth away from the dash. She’d been kind enough to let him come over when he needed her, despite how he had avoided her for weeks. He had been merciless towards her, and tonight she returned it only with kindness. She didn’t deserve to be yelled at. At least, not tonight.

Arin let his hand drop away from the dashboard. There was no sense in pissing her off before he even got to her house. He let the call go to voicemail and finished the short drive to Stef’s.

Stefany lived in a two-story house at the end of a long residential street. The sprawling white building sat by itself, farther apart from her neighbors than most other houses on the row. Arin had often asked her why she liked to live alone in such a large house, but she had always just laughed him off. “It doesn’t feel as lonely as you think,” she’d say, giving him a cryptic wink for good measure. Now he was grateful she had kept the house, not just because it gave her a place to go back to after he kicked her out. The house’s enormity made him feel somewhat safer, as though its very size was a better defense against unexplainable holo monsters.

Stef opened the door while Arin was still halfway to the front porch. He paused on the sidewalk and looked at the woman he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with. She returned his gaze, her lips slightly parted as though the sight of him was enough to peel the very air from her lungs.

“Hey Stef,” Arin said after a moment, walking the last few steps up to the porch.

“Hi, Arin,” she replied. A lock of blood red hair fell across one eye. Arin resisted the urge to brush it away from her face. Her fair skin was every bit as smooth and flawless as he remembered.

She stepped aside deftly, making room for him to enter.

“Come in,” she said. Her eyes never left his own.

“Thanks,” was all Arin trusted himself to say. He brushed past her and stepped into the house before he could say anything else.

Stefany’s living room hadn’t changed much. In fact, it was exactly as he remembered it. He sat down on the couch, feeling a sudden sense of longing that threatened to rip out his still-beating heart. The familiarity of the room made him yearn for the life that he used to have. He had been happy then, and why not? He was engaged to his best friend, both hopelessly in love and blissfully ignorant of the real woman that slept in his bed. He almost wished he could forget.

“Would you like some tea?”

Stef’s voice startled him out of his thoughts. She took the seat across from him and gestured to two cups on the coffee table between them.

“I made jasmine. It’s your favorite, isn’t it?” She looked at him earnestly. She was eager to make him feel comfortable, probably hoping that he would remember how it felt when they were together.

Arin reached out and grabbed the porcelain cup. He didn’t bother answering her; she knew jasmine was his favorite. The tea was hot, but he didn’t mind. The heat was a comfort to the chill in his bones.

“Thank you,” he said, sipping the tea lightly.

“Of course,” Stef answered. She lowered her eyes for a moment, as though contemplating her next words, carefully tasting them on her tongue before speaking again.

When she looked back up at him, she asked the question she had no doubt been mulling over ever since his frantic call.

“Arin,” she said softly. “Tell me what happened.”

Arin took another leisurely sip of tea, clenching his jaw against the steaming liquid.

“I’m not entirely sure myself,” he admitted.

“Come on Arin,” she replied knowingly. “I think you know exactly what happened.”

“No,” he argued. “I don’t. I have no idea what happened. I only know what I saw.” He took another hasty sip, lapping greedily in an attempt to stave off a fresh chill deep in his gut.

“Okay,” Stefany said slowly. “Then why don’t you just tell me what you saw?”

Arin gulped painfully. He wasn’t excited to recount the day’s events to her. She had never been a skeptic. If anything, Arin was the more cynical of the two. Stef was always the one who enjoyed reading old stories of voodoo and witchcraft, things Arin found fundamentally absurd. Still, consuming fanciful ghost stories and being told that they were real were entirely different matters.

“I think somebody wants to hurt me,” Arin said. He wasn’t quite ready to bring up the possibility that supernatural forces were involved.

Stef eyed him suspiciously. Her eyes drilled into him, searching for the secrets buried beneath his vague assertion. His mind was as familiar to Stef as her own, but she didn’t press him. She simply remained quiet, offering him the opportunity to continue.

Arin recounted his day in its entirety to her, starting with the bizarre HoloCall before work and the mesmerizing effect it had on him, and ending with the hologram projecting from his television wall less than two hours ago. To her credit, Stef remained silent throughout his manic discourse. She sat and sipped her tea thoughtfully, giving him her undivided attention.

When he was finished, she sat her cup down on the table and folded her slender hands in her lap. “I see,” was all she said.

Arin stared at her in bewilderment. “Is that all you have to say?” He demanded.

“Arin,” she started, sitting forward in her chair. He hated it when she began with his name. It usually meant he wouldn’t like what she had to say next.

“It sounds like there’s just a malfunction with your Holo account. Maybe they hacked into your profile, so they have access to your chip implant and your HoloWall. Or, maybe somebody is just pranking you.”

Arin’s mouth hung open, disbelief written all over his face. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She didn’t believe that somebody wanted him dead.

“Are you kidding me?” he seethed. “This isn’t a prank! Or a malfunction in the system. Something is out to get me!”

Stef raised a single red eyebrow. “Something?”

Shit, Arin groaned inwardly. That was a mistake.

“Forget it,” he said, placing his head in his hands. “It’s just been a long day.”

Stefany stood quickly and crossed to the couch, settling herself down next to him.

“Hey. Whatever’s going on here, we will figure it out.”

Arin raised his head and met her beautiful green eyes. She looked even more breathtaking than he remembered.

“We will figure it out, and we’ll do it together,” she finished. As she said the last words, her hand moved across his arm, her long fingers lacing through his own.

Looking at Stef in the low light of her living room, he found it harder and harder to remember why he left her in the first place. He used to think that nothing could stand against their love, and that they would get through everything together. What happened to the guy who believed that?

“Stef,” he choked. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

“You’re going to be okay,” she replied. Her free hand gently wiped a tear from his cheek, and he couldn’t help but lean into her hand. The soft skin felt impossibly gentle against his face.

He reached up and grasped her wrist, their eyes locking onto one another. She had a sincere look on her face, her features soft and sweet.

“You don’t have to go back to that house,” she whispered. “You can stay with me tonight.”

Her words sent shivers down his spine. Without another word, he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and drew her towards him. He closed his eyes and kissed her, his lips brushing delicately over hers. She kissed him back, every bit as eager as he was. All of his fears seemed to melt away, erased by the soft touch of her lips and the gentle prod of her tongue. Arin must have kissed her a thousand times, but he was sure that this was the best kiss they’d ever had. Better than the first time, even. The taste of her was invigorating. He hadn’t realized how much he missed it. She tasted like jasmine tea, and her favorite scarlet lipstick. But there was also a third taste that he couldn’t quite place. It was sharp, and almost salty.

Shock tore through Arin’s nerves like a lightning bolt cleaving a tree in half. He tried to pull away from Stef, but his body wouldn’t move. Stefany’s hand on his cheek suddenly felt deathly cold, as though her skin had turned to ice in an instant. The taste of blood became even more prevalent, overwhelming him. The awful taste poured out from his mouth and infected his other senses as well. He could smell blood as though it was rocketing into his nostrils. His vision became red behind his eyelids, a lake of blood washing over him.

Arin panicked, wrenching his eyes open and trying to tear himself away from her, but the more he fought, the less he could move. Stefany’s mouth began to shudder against him. Her lips pressed roughly into his, their edges pulling into a wide smile. For a moment Arin was confused, and then he realized what was happening. She was actually laughing. Stef was laughing, a deep, raspy cackle from low in her throat. She peeled herself away from him, her laugh growing deeper and more emphatic.

“Oh my word,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “You almost had me there, you bastard. For a second I actually believed that you wanted me back.”

All Arin could do was stare at her, his mouth still hanging open from their kiss. A kiss that betrayed him. A kiss that paralyzed him. He gaped on in horror at the woman he once loved. Whatever was left of her was gone now, lost to the same dark hell that the phantasmal caller had crawled out of.

“But this is so much more satisfying,” she continued. “This way I get to watch you die.” The smile died on her lips like roadkill, her expression souring to one of pure contempt.

As if on command, Arin’s HoloChip started chirping. Arin managed to move his eyes ever so slightly, catching the display in his peripheral. It read Caller Unknown.

“Right on time,” said Stef. Her tone was smug, self-righteous. She was enjoying herself immensely.

Arin couldn’t understand what was happening. How was it even possible that Stef was behind this nightmare? His mind turned lazily in his skull, his thoughts floating around like lethargic swimmers in a pool of incoherent babble.

Stef sidled lustfully over to him, draping one long leg over his lap. Sinister laughter oozed out of her throat, deeper and quieter this time as she snaked one hand towards his wrist.

No. The word screamed in Arin’s head, but his vocal cords still wouldn’t work.

Her slender fingers seemed to be moving through a viscous ocean of blood, each second ticking by with excruciating slowness.

No! Arin screamed again. The phantom’s words finally rang out from his subconscious with piercing clarity, mixing furiously with the incessant trilling from his wrist implant: Don’t answer the phone.

”Now, baby,” Stef purred in his ear, her tongue neatly slipping out and flicking his lobe. Arin was almost certain he felt her tongue split into two forks around his ear. “You’ll learn why it’s rude not to call a girl back.”

In one smooth motion, Stef pressed the Answer button on his HoloChip and stood up quickly from the couch, putting distance between herself and her paralyzed ex-fiancé. Hot bile rose up into Arin’s throat, but he couldn’t summon the strength to choke it back down. The only muscle that worked in his body was a single twitching strand in his hand, making one of his fingers dance wildly. That constant spasm was a devastating sense of hope, a reminder of the simple luxury of movement that he had taken for granted his entire life. Now that it was gone, he wasn’t sure he’d ever have the chance to truly appreciate it.

His HoloChip responded to the answered call, projecting a wide blue-white beam into the center of the living room. The bright light pierced the gloom of the living room, shadows jumping in every corner with the dancing of the pixels in the hologram.

The figure stood on the other side of the table, its back facing Arin. It was tall, and lean, but with wide-set shoulders that heaved as though the creature hadn’t tasted fresh air in centuries. Atop the shoulders sat a head that was bowed towards the ground. Every time a muscle flexed in the monster’s body, the pixels shifted, alternating between white static and oily black skin.

A low growl began emanating from the creature as it turned slowly around. The dim lamps in the room flickered in time with the static pulsing of the monster’s body, forcing the dancing shadows to quicken their already maddening display. Arin’s clothes were soaked through with sweat, and his heart felt like it was fighting to break out of its bone cage. Stef cackled in the corner, watching Arin’s horror with glee. In the flickering lights, her fingernails looked like sharp talons, and her skin resembled that of a mottled toad.

The monster’s countenance was constantly shifting. Its midnight-colored face spun slowly, like a disgusting whirlpool of tar. The only parts of its face that didn’t coil aberrantly was its gaping maw and smoldering red eyes. Arin felt his soul churn with the weight of the beast’s awful gaze. They seemed to give off a light of their own as it stalked towards him. Its gait was laborious, as though it was unaccustomed to freedom from its digital prison.

The phantom caller shimmered as it passed incorporeally through the coffee table. For a crazy second, Arin thought the specter might disappear entirely, but it simply reformed on the other side of the table, now only inches away from him.

“Arin.”

The sound of his name drew his attention away from the monster in front of him. Stef was looking at him, her stature different somehow. She looked smaller, her demeanor now demure.

“I’ll miss you,” she said quietly. The words sounded almost reverent. Arin pleaded at her with his eyes, desperately trying to convey a message of repentance to her, but in the next instant the old Stef was gone again. Her posture became rigid and that evil smile crept back onto her face.

That vile grin broke into a crazed laugh as the monster plunged its pixelated hand into Arin’s gut. Stef’s laugh nearly drowned out the nauseating squelch that split the room. Shock was a blessed mercy for a few seconds, allowing Arin just enough time to understand that he was being eviscerated before the pain slammed into him with the force of a hurricane.

Arin traced the arm sticking out of his abdomen back to its source, staring his killer dead in the eye. The monster glared back at him, its horrible mouth pulled back in a leering smile. Up close, those red eyes seemed more like glowering pits in its head, bottomless caverns that lead into a hellish eternity.

White noise shimmered back over the creature for a split second as it shoved its fist further into Arin’s torso. He felt his organs twist and tear against barbed fingers, each sensation sending his body into a cascade of torment. The monster pulled its hand out lackadaisically, savoring every moment of agony from its victim.

As darkness overtook Arin’s vision, he spared one final glance at his ex-lover. Stef stood in the center of the room, watching him from over the monster’s shoulder. She was no longer laughing. The expression on her face was not one of amusement, but rather profound pleasure as she watched the life drain out of him. The last thing he saw was her eyes. They stood out as tiny pinpricks in the dark room, as though they were two orbs of light floating in a black ocean. Or two drops of crimson blood.