The Voicemail

The voicemail was timestamped three hours after she died. Of course, I didn’t know that when I listened to it the first time. I didn’t recognize the number, so I didn’t answer, and now I’m haunted by what ifs. The timestamp has to be wrong. Dead people don’t use cell phones, right? What if I had answered and she was already dying? What would she have said? What if I had answered and the man who killed had seen she was on the phone and decided the risk wasn't worth it? It’s ridiculous, I know. But I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m also haunted by the possibility that maybe the timestamp was right. Maybe that’s why she didn’t say anything. I guess I’ll never know for sure.

I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on her. It was an area-wide youth event that my church was a part of. For the past hour, teens had taken turns sharing their talents on stage in front of three hundred or so other teens. Most of them were awful, some of them were funny, all but one was completely forgettable. She was on stage with her sister singing that ridiculous, Christianized rendition of “My Guy” that was in Sister Act. It didn’t matter that I hated the song, one look at her tall, slender figure, her short dark hair that somehow accentuated her natural beauty, her voice that would make a siren jealous, and I was stricken. I spent the rest of that weekend just trying to find out who she was.

That weekend came and went but I never forgot the way she made me feel. I chalked it up as just another hopeless crush. After all, what chance did I, an overweight, shy, teenager with no self-esteem have to get the attention of a gorgeous, popular girl like her? I would never have guessed that she would have taken an interest in me. Maybe that’s why I felt like I must have been dreaming when the following summer she started talking to me.

I was the head lifeguard at the Church Camp I attended growing up. It was during the older teen camp that I noticed that she was at the pool every time it was open. It was probably just a coincidence, or at least I thought so. But still, there were so many fun things to do with free time at camp. There was swimming, of course, but there was also hiking, fishing, a ropes course, a basketball court, and yet there she was, every free time at the pool. Her mother wouldn’t let her even bring a bathing suit for fear that she would swim with the boys, but that didn’t stop her. She was content to swim in shorts, a bra and a tank top.

It wasn’t until one day, maybe halfway through the week-long camp, that she talked to me for the first time. The pool was closed because of the rainy weather. I was enjoying the break from the blistering Missouri heat, sitting on a metal bench swing under a tree with a friend when she walked up and just sat down next to me. She introduced herself and I sat there like an idiot trying to remember my own name, although I’m sure she knew who I was.

That was the beginning of an unlikely teenage romance that I could only have dreamed of. It turned out that I had got her attention at the same youth conference that night when I sang on stage as well. I had no idea. We were practically inseparable for the rest of that week, which seemed to go by supernaturally fast. Those were the days before smart phones. Internet was still in its infancy. Before she got on the bus to go home, she gave me a little slip of paper with her phone number and email address on it. It was the sole reason I signed up for my first email account.

She had warned me that her mother was the quintessential helicopter mom. Overprotective. Strict. Domineering. I was given strict instructions on when I could call and when I absolutely should not. Most of the time we had to settle for emailing back and forth, or, if we were lucky, finding a chat site to link up on. It was trying, but I didn’t care. I was so enamored with her, just reading her emails made my soul burn with desire.

Later that summer, before school started back up, we went to Six Flags together. I still don’t know how she convinced her mom to let her go. She probably told her it was an all-girls event or something. It didn’t matter to me. What mattered is that we got to spend an entire day together with minimal supervision. We behaved ourselves. For the most part anyway. I would kiss her for the first time that day. I still remember the sweet taste of her lips, the electricity that ran down my spine, the way my heart raced like it was going to escape my chest. It wasn’t my first kiss, but it was my favorite by far.

As night fell and we knew we would soon have to say goodbye, we found the longest ride we could to try to steal a few more precious minutes. It was a Ferris wheel, the kind that stops at the top for every car so everyone can have a good view. When it was our turn at the top, it seemed like it wasn’t just the car that stopped, but time itself. She sat almost on my lap with my arm over her shoulder, snuggling warmly into my chest. I don’t think I ever felt so alive as I did in that moment. It would be the last moment we would have to share alone for several months.

The day after we got home from Six Flags she sent me a short email that crushed me. She wasn’t breaking up with me, but her mother had found out about us. Apparently, her sister had snitched, not only telling her mom she had a boyfriend, but that we had also been kissing. It was enough for her mother to forbid her from even talking to me. Now I had to deal not only with school starting back up, but also with the emotional distress of not being able to talk to her in any way.

I tried to keep my mind occupied. It shouldn’t have been hard. Between schoolwork, football practice, church activities and the like, I should have been able to keep my mind on other things, but I couldn’t. It didn’t matter what I was doing, she was there with me. My thoughts drifted to her constantly and the longer I went without talking to her, the more I wanted her. Eventually, the distance became too much. I wasn’t exactly surprised when I got an email from her saying she was moving on. I couldn’t blame her, really, but it still broke my heart in a way it had never been broken before.

It wasn’t the end of our relationship though. We still had a strong attraction and it seemed like every time we were together at a church youth event (there was at least one every month, it seemed,) we found ourselves trying to make it work again. It never lasted very long. Eventually we drifted apart and lost contact with each other until a couple years later when she unexpectedly showed up at the Christian Bookstore where I worked.

I was manning the music section. In those days, we didn’t have smart phones with access to every song ever written or performed by mankind. We still had CD’s that we had to put into music players to listen to. Hard to imagine, I know, but that’s just how it was. I was helping a teenage kid try to find some new “Christian Metal” to listen to when I felt a touch on my shoulder. I turned around and there she was, even more beautiful in her final teen years than she had been when we were just love sick kids. “Rachel?” I said, not really believing it was her. She didn’t say anything at first, she just threw her arms around my neck and hugged me the same way she used to, the way that made my heart melt.

I was engaged to another girl at the time, but if she had wanted to rekindle what we had before, now that we were adults and not bound by her overprotective mother, I would have jumped at the chance. But that wasn’t why she was there. She was in town because she was getting married and wanted to see me. It was bittersweet for me. I loved the girl I was with, I really did. But there was something about Rachel that made me want to leave everything behind and run away with her.

Her wedding day would be the last time I would ever see her. I congratulated her and her new husband. I wished them well as they got in the car after the reception and drove off for whatever honeymoon they had planned. My heart ached for her, longing for what I could not have as hearts are wont to do. But life goes on. I married my fiancé a few months later, and while I never forgot about Rachel, I gave myself fully to my new family.

It was about nine years later that I heard from her for the last time. Everyone was on Facebook by then. I was sitting in my den one night browsing on my laptop when I heard the “ping” that signaled a new message in my messenger inbox. I never would have expected to hear from her again after so long. I wish I hadn’t said what I did.

She had found me on Facebook and wanted to catch up. How was life? What are you doing now? I felt that burning ember in my heart, the one that still smoldered for her, threatening burst into flame and I feared for my marriage. I was polite when I told her I didn’t think I could talk to her anymore. I told her about my career, where I was living, how life was going. I told her about my wife and my three kids. But then I told her something that I couldn’t have known then that I would regret. I told her that I loved her once and that part of me still did. I told her that I didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to keep talking to her if I wanted to stay faithful to my wife. She understood completely.

It was about a month later that I found out that I was more committed to my wife and family than she was to me. I was at work one day when my brother-in-law called me and confessed that he had been in an affair with my wife and that he wasn’t the only one. I immediately went home and confronted my wife about it. I was able to drag out of her that she had cheated on me with not just one man but with nearly a dozen over the last year. That was when my life fell apart.

The next year was pure hell. I did everything I could to save my marriage. I forgave her, we went to counseling together, and for a little while I thought we might work it out. I gave up my career to try to save my marriage, moved back to her home town and left everything else behind. All of it was for naught. We had only lived there for a few months when I was served with divorce papers. Apparently, she wasn’t ever going to be satisfied with having only one man to have sex with. She was going to have her fun, our family be damned.

I wish I had thought to look Rachel up then, but I think I was just too broken. I felt like everything had been stripped away from me and the depression I felt was all consuming. It devoured my soul and took months to climb out of. It wasn’t until I met the woman I’m married to now that I began to heal. It took time. It took work. It took commitment, but eventually things got better.

The years passed by until when, just a few days ago, my phone rang. It was the middle of the night and when I looked at the screen, I didn’t recognize the number, so I let it go to voicemail and promptly fell back to sleep. The next morning when I checked the message, I almost deleted it because there was no voice. I thought perhaps someone had pocket dialed me or something. I listened to the background noise, trying to discern anything at all but the only thing I could pick up was a faint rustling, like a cell phone rubbing against the inside of a pocket.

I wanted to delete it, I probably should have deleted it, but something warned me against it. I can’t explain what it was, exactly, but over the years I’ve learned to trust my intuition and as my finger hovered over the “delete” icon on the screen, my intuition was screaming at me to leave it alone. So I did.

I didn’t really think that much about it until this morning I got another notification from Facebook messenger. This time it was from a friend I’ve known since Jr. High. “Just thought you would want to know.” The message said, followed by a link to a local newspaper article from South Carolina. I clicked the link and for the first time in over ten years I was looking at Rachel’s face again. She was older now, like me, but no less beautiful. My blood grew cold when I read the headline: "Woman murdered in her bed by estranged husband.”

What I read still haunts me. The man who killed her wasn’t the man she married the last time I saw her. It seemed that, like me, she had a failed marriage too, and like me, she had remarried. Something went wrong somewhere though because she had filed a restraining order against him a few months before and was pursuing a divorce. I guess he just couldn’t handle the idea of living without her. He bought a gun, broke into her house and murdered her in her own bed right next to her 10 year old daughter.

I must have read the article a dozen times. I nearly memorized every word. I hadn’t seen her in so long and yet my heart was broken as if we were still close. I guess when you love someone, your heart never really lets go. Rachel had a piece of my heart for all these years and didn’t even know it. Now it was gone, lost forever; a wound in my soul that will never completely heal.

I spent most of the day today in a fog. I found myself driving around town aimlessly just to have some time to myself to think things through. Eventually, I found myself sitting on a park bench, lost in thought. Lost in regret. The more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt. I put the dates together. She had contacted me on Facebook some time between when she divorced her first husband and when she met the man who would eventually take her life. I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t so hastily shut her out.

What if, after I found out my first wife was a slut, I had continued talking to Rachel? Would we have found the embers still burning for each other? What would have happened if we had got back together? I can’t say for sure, but I know one thing; the man who killed her would likely never have been a part of her life to begin with. She would almost certainly still be alive, which, in my overthinking mind means that her death, at least in part, was my fault.

As the realization dawned on me, I was overwhelmed with emotion. Sorrow. Regret. Loss. Guilt. I leaned my head back on the bench and wiped the tears from my face. I breathed deep of the cool autumn air and just as I opened my eyes, a brilliant orange leaf drifted down from the tree above and landed on my leg. My memory was forced back to that night on the Ferris wheel, my arm around her shoulders, her body tucked into mine and her hand on my leg, precisely where the leaf had landed. I looked up at the tree and again my mind raced back through the years to that first time she sat next to me on that swinging bench at camp. It was exactly the same kind of tree above us then as the one that was above me at that moment.

I looked at my phone and touched the icon for recent calls. A quick google search confirmed that the call had come from a number with a South Carolina area code. I looked at the time stamp. 4:57. My skin went cold and goosebumps raised up from the top of my head all the way to my feet as I remembered the article I had read so many times earlier. Her approximate time of death was just before 2:00 AM. I opened my voicemail and listened to it again, this time desperate to make out anything at all, but try as I might, there was nothing there to hear save for the weird rustling sound of cloth over a microphone.

~

When a light, cold, fall rain begins to patter down, I get back in my car and drive home. My wife knows there’s something wrong right away. Maybe it’s the haunted look on my face, maybe it’s just because she knows me so intimately that she can tell when something is wrong even when I’m trying to hide it. “You okay?” she says to me as I take off my jacket and hang it on the coat hook next to the door.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I lie.

“No. I don’t think so,” she says, her intuition really is annoying sometimes. “Something’s up. What’s going on?” She pulls me in and holds me tightly in her arms. I reciprocate for a moment before pulling away gently.

“It’s nothing. Really, don’t worry about it.” I say. She gives me that look that she always gives me when she knows I’m not being completely honest.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, its okay. But don’t tell me you’re okay when you clearly aren’t.” She turns to walk back toward the kitchen. “Dinner is almost ready.” She says.

It isn’t until after dinner and the kids are in bed that I level with her. “I got a message from an old friend today.”

“Yeah?” she says

“Yeah. One of my good friends from when I was a teenager was murdered a few days ago. Kind of shook me up a bit.”

“I’m sorry.” She says. “Was it someone I would know?”

“No. It was a long time ago. Someone I haven’t talked to since before we met.”

She takes a sip of her coffee and raises her eyes as if to say, “go on.”

“Her name was… Rachel—but don’t get any ideas, like I said, I haven’t heard from her in years.”

“An old flame of yours?” She teases.

“You could say that.” I reply. “We had an on again, off again relationship when we were teens.”

“It wasn’t that casual for you, was it?” She says, her intuition showing off again.

I take a deep breath and exhale. “No. Not for me. She was the first girl I think I ever really loved. I think that’s maybe why things didn’t work out between us, other than the distance. I think she could see how real I was, how real what we had was, and it scared her.”

“That’s a lot for a teenage girl to handle.”

“I know that now. But you know how I am. I’ve never been all that good at hiding what I’m feeling.”

“So what happened?”

I tell her. I damn near recite the entire article to her verbatim. She must see the pain in my eyes because she says, “There’s something more, isn’t there?” I tell her everything. How I shut her out before I found out my ex was cheating. How I forgot about her. How guilty I felt. I can see the hurt in her eyes now. I hadn’t realized how she might take what I was saying.

“I still wouldn’t trade you for anyone.” I tell my wife.

“Not even Rachel, if she were still alive?” She asks.

“When I was with you, I forgot that she even existed.” I assure her. “I don't regret meeting you, you're the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love the life we have together, and I love you more than I have the words to express. I guess I just can’t help but wonder if I had stayed in contact with her, even for a little while, if she wouldn’t have met the man who killed her.”

~

That night I lay awake, mind racing. It had to be a coincidence, right? That phone call? I look over at my sleeping wife and wonder if I would have reacted with such grace if it had been the other way around. I doubt it, but then she’s always been the more levelheaded of the two of us. Still, I know if I don’t put this to rest in my mind, it won’t be good for our marriage.

I creep out of bed, careful not to wake her. I don my robe and make my way downstairs to my home office. Maybe there is another way to analyze the voicemail. I plug my phone into my PC and transfer the audio file to my desktop. I open my web browser. It takes a while to find what I’m looking for. Eventually I find a free digital audio workstation with some light AI features. I transfer the voicemail to the program and open it.

Three YouTube tutorials later I finally figure out how to isolate the sounds in the recording while eliminating the noise. When I still can’t make out anything intelligible, I ask the AI to try to detect any words or noises that sound like language. It comes back with a result almost immediately. I can’t believe what I’m reading so I ask it to do it again. And then a third time. With a few minor inconsistencies, the message is the same every time. “I should have been with you.” Or “I could have been with you.” Or “I should have stayed with you.”

“Oh, Rachel,” I whisper. “I’m so, so sorry this happened to you.” I whisper to myself. Almost as if in response, I feel a draft across the back of my neck. I spin my desk chair around so fast I almost throw myself off it, but there’s no one there. I rub my hand over my neck where I felt the breeze and it is ice cold. “Rachel?” I ask. There’s no reply.

~

The next few days aren’t any better for me. I can’t focus on anything. My brain seems to be in a constant fog. My sleep, what little I get, is restless and filled with dreams of Rachel, and not pleasant ones either. In one, I watch as she begs for mercy only for the killer to pull the trigger anyway. In another, she is already dead and the killer is pacing the room trying to plan his next move. In still another, I find myself trying to get to her bedroom before it is too late, but I can never make it on time. I’m halfway up the stairs when I hear two gunshots and I wake up in a cold sweat.

On the third morning I decide I have to do something. I kiss my wife goodbye as she heads out to work before retreating to my study. There has to be some way to figure out what Rachel wants from me. I just have to figure out what. I open my browser and put “How to get rid of a ghost” in the search bar. The results are so varied that I can’t make sense of them. One says one thing, another says something different. I could spend all day reading all of these articles and never get anywhere. I need someone who knows what they’re talking about.

An idea comes to me. Not a great one, mind you, but it could work. Maybe. I click over to my Facebook tab and find the group I’m looking for. It’s a public, word-of-mouth group for my area. I’ve seen all kinds of crazy things on this page, maybe there’s someone here in town who can help. I quickly make an anonymous post about what’s going on and ask if anyone has any experience in this sort of thing. It doesn’t take long for the replies to flood in. Some are helpful. Most are insulting and childish. But one catches my eye. It simply reads, “Message me. I can help.”

~

Later that afternoon, I find myself walking into the local Starbucks. The smell is always so much better here than the actual flavor of the coffee. It doesn’t take more than a quick glance around the small seating area to find her. “Are you Jessie?” I ask a black-haired woman who is sitting alone at a small, two-person table sipping a latte.

“You made it,” she says and smiles warmly. “Sit. Please.” She motions to the chair opposite her. I sit. She isn’t quite what I expected a self-proclaimed witch to look like. In fact, if she hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have guessed it at all. I was expecting tattoos and piercings, maybe a pentagram or something. Instead, she looks perfectly average. Shoulder length hair, modest clothing and wire rimmed glasses that remind me of a school teacher I had growing up.

“Tell me everything in detail," she says, "leave nothing out."

A half hour later I sit patiently waiting for her to speak. She sits with her eyes closed, as if in deep meditation. Her hands rest palm up on the table and her fingertips kiss her thumbs. She’s been like this for a good five minutes before her eyes snap open, causing me to jump slightly.

“So?” I ask.

“She’s with you. I can sense her spirit next to you, but she won’t speak to me. She is troubled. Something is holding her back, but it seems the only person she will speak with is you.”

“Great.” I say. “And how do I do that?”

“It’s not hard,” she says. “Let me show you what to do.”

~

I wait until my wife is completely asleep. I’m no stranger to spending time in the bathroom, something she teases me relentlessly about, but I don’t want to have to explain why I seem to be talking to myself. I move as quietly as I can, turning the knob on the handle before I close the door to make sure it shuts silently. The upstairs bathroom is too close to our bedroom for comfort, so I make my way to the bathroom on the main floor. There’s not as much room in here, it’s really more of a powder room, but according to Jessie it should do nicely.

I retrieve the small package I had stashed under the sink when I got home earlier. A single, short, fat candle, a lighter, the entire container of Morton’s table salt from the pantry, a small bowl, and a vial of incense containing who knows what. I also retrieve the napkin on which I had written Jessie’s instructions.

Step 1: Make a barrier of salt between me and the mirror.

Step 2: Recite Rachel’s full name three times and light the candle.

Step 3: Play the recording of the voicemail with speakerphone on so the spirits can hear it clearly.

Step 4: fill the bowl with the incense and recite the incantation three times: “Rachel, by this flame I seek, Through the veil, your voice to speak.” After the third recitation, light the incense and breathe in the fragrance.

Step 5: Stare into my reflection until Rachel appears.

I follow the instructions precisely and stare into my own reflection, waiting for something to happen. It’s awkward at first, staring into my own eyes. I try not to break my focus, which isn’t easy for my neurodivergent brain. The flickering of the candle reflected on seemingly every wall in the otherwise pitch-dark room threatens to pull my gaze away. I stand there for what seems to be forever and just as I am about to give up and go back to bed, I see her.

Her form is faint at first. Just a mist-like reflection in the mirror behind me. Wisps of white vapor swirl slowly and begin to form into the figure of a woman. Everything inside me wants to run. My heart begins to race, cold sweat dampens my brow, but I stay where I am. I remember Jessie’s warning. “No matter what happens, do not leave without closing the ritual.”

I watch, fascinated, as the vapor shifts from a semi-formless mass into a perfect, though pale and ethereal reflection of Rachel as she was in the picture from the article. “Rachel?” I whisper.

“It’s me.” She says sadly.

There’s a moment of silence. “I don’t now what to say.” I tell her. When she only smiles faintly and looks down, I continue, “I’m so sorry for what happened to you.”

“I know.” She replies. There’s no anger or malice in her response, only a kind of regret. "Me too."

“I feel like it’s my fault.” I say, fighting the tears that threaten to fill my eyes. “If I hadn’t been so quick to shut you out, maybe things would have been different.”

“Maybe,” she says, “I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

“What do you want from me, Rachel? Why are you here?”

There’s silence for a long moment before she answers. “You don’t want me here?” She asks.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Are you going to shut me out again? Afraid you’re going to have an affair with a ghost?” For the first time, I see her smile ever so slightly. It’s the same smile she would give me when she flirted with me so many years ago.

“Is that an option?” I ask.

“I think we both know the answer to that.”

“I never stopped loving you, you know.” I tell her. “Even after you broke up with me so many times. You’ve always had a part of me with you.”

“You didn’t know it, but you always had a piece of me too. That’s why I was able to call you after… after…”

“He killed you?” I suggested.

“Yeah.”

“So where do we go from here, Rachel? You can move on. You don’t have to stay here with me.”

“Is that what you want?”

I thought for a moment. Obviously, I wanted her to be at peace. But there was also a part of me that selfishly wanted her to stay. “It’s not my choice to make.” I say, finally, “That’s up to you.”

“Thank you.” She says and puts her hand on my shoulder. I feel the same cold sensation I did the other night on my neck.

Suddenly my phone chirps to life. It’s a text from my wife. “Where did you go? Are you okay?”

“I have to go.” I tell her.

“I know.” She replies.

“Will I see you again?” I ask. She only shrugs sadly. I watch as her form begins to fade away, the vaporous mist swirling and vanishing one strand at a time. It doesn’t take very long before she is gone completely. I wipe the tears that had finally broken through from my eyes and pick up my phone. “I’m okay.” I reply. “I just needed a drink.”

I turn on the light and blow out the candle. I have to clean this mess up before my wife comes looking for me. I use a damp paper towel to wipe up the salt and rinse the incense from the bowl in the sink. I need to get to the kitchen and pour myself a shot or something to clear my mind, but when I try the door handle, it won’t turn.

The light flickers once, twice, and then the bulb burns out with an audible pop. Instinctively try to turn the light back on but the switch is completely useless now. I turn back to the mirror to find that the candle has somehow caught flame, sending a dancing shadow on every surface. The air grows cold, so cold I can see my breath.

I turn back to the door and try in vain to get the handle to turn. I give the door a shove, but it might as well be made of stone. From behind me I hear a voice whisper, “You're mine now.” It wasn’t Rachel’s voice. It was dark and menacing and masculine. I turn back to the mirror and I’m horrified by what I see. A hulking, shadowy form emerges from behind me, growing like billowing storm clouds. I want to look away, but I can’t. The form rises up behind me, hesitates for just a moment and then engulfs me completely. The last thing I remember is watching my reflection change from the one I recognize to something completely different, something inhuman.

~

I was hoping you would make that mistake. I played my part brilliantly, if I do say so myself. I watch as you blow out the candle and wash away the salt, stupidly leaving the veil open for me to come through. When you turn to leave, I hold the door shut. When you begin to panic, and I burn out the light bulb. Finally, you turn back to the mirror. There’s no need for me to hide my true form any longer. There’s nothing you can do to stop me now. I take just a moment to savor your terror, its taste is sweet like honey, and then I pour myself into you, right through the door you so kindly left open.

You try so hard to keep me out. It really is a valiant attempt. If I were a lesser being, you might have even succeeded. Unfortunately for you, this isn’t my first time and stronger men than you have succumbed to my will. I drag your consciousness, kicking and screaming, into the darkest recesses of your own mind and bind you there where you can’t give me any trouble. Your body belongs to me now.

It takes me a moment to get used to having a body again. So strange, so limited. To think that you humans live your whole lives with this kind of restriction, its hard to imagine. I pick up your phone, well, my phone now, and it unlocks as it registers my face. I open the voicemail app and hold my finger over the icon to delete the message I sent over a week ago now. Such a perfect plan. I delete the message.

I hear footsteps coming down the stairs. Probably your wife coming to look for you. I open the door and meet her in the kitchen.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asks me.

“Never better.” I say.