I might feel stupid tomorrow for posting this, but right now I’m losing sleep over it. My name is Clint, and I work in downtown Cincinnati at a health insurance company. I’m a business analyst, a low-level management position where my co-workers and I examine sales trends, product competitiveness, and the like…pure white collar work. I’ve been here almost a year, and I’m the most junior associate in my particular division.
Anyway, I work with this guy, Marty. He’s a strange one. Reclusive and as unsocial as anyone I’ve ever met. He’s one of those guys that makes most people visibly uncomfortable any time you might have to speak with him. It’s hard for me to imagine how he ever got hired for a job at all. His black hair is greasy but neat, he smells terrible, and he can’t seem to look anyone in the eye when he speaks, which is rare. When he does talk, it’s typically a mumble, unless he gets excited. Then it turns into a yell. I tell you, he has zero redeeming qualities.
After a few months of working at the company, I began to feel really bad for the guy. He never spoke to anyone else, and no one ever tried to speak to him. He always ate alone, and whenever the office decided to go out for lunch together, he was rarely invited. I actually felt empathy for him, since I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. I know how it is to feel like an outsider. I asked some of the folks who had been around a while how he was even hired, and no one but Jill, our manager, had been around long enough to really remember. She said he used to be a lot less…”repulsive” (her word, not mine). But something happened to him a few years back that caused him to withdraw, and he became more and more, well, revolting.
So over the last four or five months I’ve attempted to reach out to Marty. One day, as he noisily ate his lunch in a corner of the breakroom, I pulled up a chair, asked if I could join him, and sat before he could answer. It was the most awkward lunch in history.
“I know this is kind of out of nowhere,” I said. “But I’ve been here a while and never really gotten to know you.” He stared at me like I just asked him to marry my dog. I was determined, though, to show him some kindness. So I asked him where he was from, how long he’d been working for the company…the usual office banter. After a period of absolute silence, he stammered his way through very short, and sometimes bizarre, answers to my questions. What really stood out was how often he brought up his sister. And that’s what he called her. “Sister.” When I asked him if he had any hobbies, he set down his sandwich and grew quiet again. “I care for sister,” he replied. “That’s all I do.” I couldn’t get any more out of him about her. I was curious though, and asked around here and there. No one knew anything about her, except that Jill knew her name was Caroline.
“I think she’s his only family,” Jill had said. His mother passed away shortly before I joined the company. According to her, Marty never asked for time off for mourning or the funeral. He just kept working, albeit more withdrawn than ever.
Thus began a miserable, going-on six months now relationship. I felt committed, and forced myself to stop by his desk and talk to him a couple of times per week. At times he seemed to actually brighten up a bit when I came by, but more often he glowered, like I was violating some kind of rule only he knew.
Well, about two weeks ago – the Friday before Labor Day – my coworkers and I planned a group lunch before taking off early for the long weekend (white collar work can be pretty sweet at times). It was almost ten o’clock when I heard Marty’s voice rising angrily from his cubicle (I had the pleasure of being seated in the cube just on the opposite side of him). As I said before, his usual voice was either a mumble or a shout, but this was a hissing sound, like he was having a hard time controlling his anger.
“No!” he almost shouted, then got quiet again. I couldn’t help it, but I stopped what I was doing and did my best to listen in. Marty never had phone calls, business or otherwise. The only exception, I learned a while back, was calls from his sister. I had never met or spoken with her (no one in the office had), but once when I was trying to talk to him, his phone rang. He immediately said “sister” under his breath, picked up the phone without saying “Hello” or anything, and then stared at me until I got the hint and left.
This time, I heard him muttering and arguing for about a minute. Then all of a sudden I heard him ask, like he was on the verge of tears, “But why?”
I was tense, and listened intently, as though I might be able to hear whoever he was speaking with answer. And then, I did. I heard the most terrifying screech of a voice shout through the phone: “BECAUSE MOTHER SAID TO!”
I jerked back and almost fell out of my chair. My commotion didn’t go unnoticed. As I stood up, I saw Marty standing as well, glaring at me. His eyes were moist and he looked furious. I couldn’t think of anything at first, but then finally squeaked out “um, is everything okay?” He promptly turned from me and walked to the breakroom. I saw through the glass doors as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out the plain brown bag with his lunch in it.
I was still shaking a little, thanks to that voice over the phone. It was so angry, and thanks to the distorted sound from the phone speaker, it hardly sounded human. I know it was my imagination, but I shuddered when I realized that everyone else was gone (out to the lunch I now so desperately wanted to join). It was then that I noticed a wheezing sound coming from Marty’s desk. I shuddered again, realizing that Marty didn’t actually hang up. He must have left the phone just lying on his desk, with his sister still on the other end. The semi-rhythmic sound was impossibly loud, and it was really creeping me out. With Marty nowhere in sight, I darted over to his cubical and grabbed the phone to hang it up.
This is where it really gets weird. Just as the receiver slammed into the cradle, I SWEAR I heard that voice cackle “Clint.” You would have thought that phone was a snake, considering how I yelped and jumped back from it in a panic. There was no way I heard that right, but at that point I wasn’t going to let reason get in my way. Just as I was about to swing back to my desk to pack up, a picture caught my eye. I never noticed it before, even though Marty’s desk was almost completely bare. It was of a boy and a girl, about the same age. The boy was obviously Marty, and considering the resemblance I assumed the girl was Caroline. She was skinny, and not very healthy looking. The photo had to have been taken at least 10 years ago.
That’s when I noticed the paper pinned below the photo. It was an obituary, clipped from the Cincinnati Enquirer. It was for Caroline, born July 30th 1981, died August 5th, 2015.
I have no idea who was on that other end of that phone, and by that point I didn’t care. I grabbed my laptop from my desk and raced for the elevator. As I sped by the breakroom, I saw Marty. He was seated, voraciously devouring something. My stomach turned. I couldn’t see what he was holding, but the scene was disgusting. I couldn’t wait for an elevator. I almost ran down the stairs, exited the building, and went straight home.
It’s been about a week and a half since then, and I haven’t spoken to Marty since. Part of that is because, for the first time since I’ve worked there, Marty called in sick for a few days. When he came back in, he looked horrible…gaunt, sickly. I tried to ignore him. The experience that past Friday really freaked me out. I’ve caught Marty looking at me here and there, but he hasn’t tried talking to me. But just yesterday, I received a phone call. As soon as I picked it up, I heard that wheezing sound, then distinctly, “Clint.”
I hung up right away. This is nuts. I think I’m going to have to confront Marty. Find out what that’s about. But honestly, I’m terrified to do it.
Submitted September 16, 2015 at 03:52AM by ElucidatedBrethren http://ift.tt/1Y9Vm0s nosleep
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