It was January 1, 2000, when Alfred Donner received a call from the number 555-000-0000. He picked up the phone, but heard nothing on the other end. Suddenly, a dial tone began to sound. Confused, he hung up.
The next day, Alfred received another call. This time, the number was 555-000-0001. He was a little more hesitant to answer the phone when he saw it, but for some strange reason, he answered it anyway. Once again, there was silence from the caller, followed by a dial tone. So once again, Alfred hung up.
The day after that, the number 555-000-0002 began calling. This time, Alfred was certain that he wasn't going to answer their call. Yet he did, for God knows what reason. This time, he heard sound on the other side of the phone. It was someone (most likely a middle-aged male, judging by the sound of it) breathing quite heavily. Alfred waited for the person on the other end of the line to say something, but all the man did was continue to breathe. And after two minutes of it, Alfred hung up once again.
On January 4th, Alfred received yet another call. This time, from 555-000-0003. And while he did his best to try to keep from answering the phone, he did anyway. And like the day prior, it was just heavy breathing. Only this time, Alfred realized that he didn't hang up until he'd listened to the breathing for a full four minutes. And for the next five days after this, he got one call daily from a new 555 number, each another digit higher than the last. And every time Alfred answered their call, he found that his inability to hang up became twice as long every day. On January 9th, he couldn't hang up for over two hours, which caused him to be late to dinner with his friends that evening.
Finally, after a week without anything but heavy breathing, he got a new call (this time from the number 555-000-0009) that was something other than breathing. It was speaking. The only strange part was that this speaking was in Spanish. Furthemore, Alfred attempted to tell the caller that he couldn't speak Spanish, but every time he tried to say something, no words could come out of his mouth. And since he couldn't hang up, all he could do was wait until the person on the other end stopped talking and hung up their phone. When they did about twenty minutes later, his words finally returned to him.
The following day, Alfred received yet another call. This time, he noted that there was more than one voice on the phone. It was now two voices, and both of them were speaking Spanish. Not only that, but they seemed to be speaking to one another. They didn't sound happy. In fact, they sounded startlingly angry. Surprisingly, Alfred was only forced to listen to this for about five minutes. However, for some reason, this call left an uneasy feeling in his head. That night, he contacted some of his friends and family and tried to tell them what was going on, only to get blown off by each of them, who each claimed that he was just being a baby and exaggerating things.
The day after that, Alfred got the next call from a 555 number, this time from 555-000-0011. It was the same two people again. This time, they definitely sounded mad at one another, now vehemently yelling at each other and, from the sound of it, knocking things over. Once again, Alfred only had to listen for five minutes. Though just before the line cut out again, he noted that he could hear what sounded like the beginning of a scream from one of the folks, accompanied by the sound of glass breaking. Now Alfred definitely had an uneasy feeling.
The next day, he got a call from 555-000-0012.
If none of the calls prior had made Alfred realize something horrible was going on, this call certainly did.
It began with the sound of a woman crying, muttering things to herself. Of course, Alfred noted right away that she happened to be speaking English, instead of the Spanish that the two people before had been talking in. So Alfred listened carefully to hear some of the things she said in her crying. He could hear her talking about her baby and how afraid she was for its life. He could also hear her saying things about her husband, though most of these came in speaking so low-pitched, that Alfred couldn't make out a word the lady was saying.
Then he heard a sound like a machine starting up. At that point, the woman had stopped speaking, as the machine began to produce loud whirring noises and a bit of screeching. There was a tense silence from the woman for a minute as the machine's noises became louder and louder. Finally, after the woman had been silent for what felt like a needlessly long time...she began to scream. She was screaming extremely loud, almost as loud as the machine's cranking and clanking was. Alfred wanted to put his hands up to his ears, or to just hang up, but he was still stuck, unable to stop listening.
Finally, he heard the horrible sound of splatting and cracking, followed by another silence from the woman. He didn't hear another noise from the woman this time. And it was here that the call ended.
Alfred was terrified. He quickly dialed 911 and began telling them about what he heard over the phone, and about the numbers that had been calling him the past few days. But he didn't tell them about the supernatural force that kept him glued to the phone every time. He knew they'd laugh him off like his family and friends had. The police agreed to look into the situation, and thanked him for the tip. And for the first time in over a week, Alfred felt peace.
For three days, Alfred didn't get another call. He was certain that the FBI had shut down whatever horrible operation was going on behind the scenes. Then, on January 16, 2000, he received a call from 555-000-0013. Once again, he was unable to pull the phone from his ear. He could hear the sounds of people being mangled, mutilated, and murdered. For an hour straight, he listened to the torment of the people on the other side of that line, with Alfred left wishing he could do anything to aid those tortured souls.
Suddenly, he heard someone begin speaking to him.
"You called the cops on us, didn't you? You thought you'd end our fun, didn't you? You're so stupid. Those cops were human, just like you. They were never a match for us. They'll meet their fate in due time. Now buckle up, because you still have 9,988,987 calls left to go!" And then the voice began laughing. With that, Alfred finally managed to work up just enough willpower to say something to the voice. "Why?" he said, "Why are you tormenting all those people? And why did you pick me to listen to this horror?"
There was a brief silence on the phone.
"..."
"Who said they were the ones being tormented?"
Written by Postuhenin
Content is available under CC BY-SA