I'll give a little bit of background details first, so this story is more understandable. I work as a social media manager which means that I spend most of my work days at home, except for the occasional hour or two where I have to go into the office for a meeting with colleagues. This means that I get to wake up at around 10am every day. And I love it. But it also means I rarely leave the house, unless I have to go out to get some groceries. And on the particular day I found the phone I was doing just that
It was a Wednesday morning. I'd spent the night before with a friend and we had had a little too much to drink. So on this day I woke up a little later, at around 10:45am. I got out of bed in a daze, and with a slight hangover, and walked into the kitchen. I'd discovered that I had in fact got no milk left in the refrigerator and so I decided to go to the local grocery store and get some. So I put some clothes on and went out.
I live on the 16th Floor of a high-rise apartment building and the elevator in the building had not worked for around 3 weeks. So to my annoyance I had to walk down 16 flights of stairs multiple times a day. But I saw it as an opportunity to get some more exercise into my routine - after all, being a social media manager doesn't allow for much physical movement.
I walked down 5 flights of stairs before I saw it. It was perched on the edge of a window-frame. A pink iPhone 4S. I was debating in my head on whether or not to pick it up or just leave it there. But I had a look around and I know for sure that no one passed me on the staircase. In the end my curiosity got the best of me and I grabbed the phone and slipped into my coat pocket; my excuse being that maybe I'd find the owner or pass by them and they'd ask if I'd seen a phone they lost.
After I got back to my apartment with an ungodly amount of food, I sat back down on the couch and started logging into my laptop, to start working. All of a sudden I hear a loud ping- a text message- fill the room. I instinctively looked at my phone. But I had not gotten any message. I'm not going to lie, I sat there for a minute in a very confused state before I remembered the pink phone I had picked up. I took it out of my pocket and looked at the screen.
The notification was a text message from a contact called 'G8906'. Weird. And it read: "Clarissa, take my call in a minute". Now I started to panic slightly. I didn't want to talk to some random stranger on the phone. But it was also in my mind that I should answer and tell them that I have their friends phone and ask where I could meet her to give it back. So at that point I swiped right, excepting to try and guess the passcode to the phone. But to my surprise there was no passcode. I said out loud "Who the hell doesn't passcode protect their phone for gods sake!".
The home screen freaked me out instantly. The chosen background was a sheer block of black. And she had only default apps. There was absolutely zero insight into what she was like as a person. At that point I was considering putting the phone down and waiting for the call. After all, I didn't want her to think I'd gone through all of her personal photos and text messages.
Ten minutes went by and I had done no work at all. My curiosity had gotten the best of me. And I spent every second sitting on the couch, head in hands, trying my hardest not to pick up the phone. But G8906 had not yet called the phone. And another five minutes went by. And then another thirty minutes passed and there was still no call. So I picked up the phone and opened it to the home-screen.
I instantly opened the contacts to be shown a list of missed calls dating back to up to two weeks before. But that wasn't the weird part. All of the contacts were a variation of G8906 but with different numbers. I assumed she was the kind of person who remembered people through numbers, rather than by names. It's not exactly un-heard of. So I closed the app.
The next app I visited was the photos. On the phone there was only ten photos. And they dated back to August 17th 2015. The photos were an array of images of what looked to be a homeless person laying on a sidewalk next to a very bleak building. But parts of the photos were dark and they were taken at various angles that made me think the person in the photos was not aware they were being photographed. I scanned each photo for any clues as to why Clarissa would take them. But they were all particularly boring and pointless.
The phone started vibrating vigorously and I was at once deafened by the loudest and most annoying ringtone I've ever heard. It was just a series of static noise. I almost dropped the phone right then and there. After a moment of panicking I realised it was G8906 finally calling, so I pressed answer and put the phone to my then sweating ear. I was extremely anxious.
The voice that answered was of a middle-aged man with an indistinguishable accent
Me: Hello
G8906: Clarissa, take it to...
Me: Oh, I'm not Clarissa. I found this phone. Do you know where I could give it back to her?
Ten seconds of silence
Me: Hello... are you there? Hello?
G8906: Get rid of it
And suddenly the call was ended by him.
At that moment the room was eerily quiet, as I struggled to comprehend what had just happened. Get rid of what? The phone? Why would he want me to do that? Wouldn't Clarissa want it back?
That night I went to bed early. I was way too creeped out to be awake too late at night. I'm not a big fan of the dark at all. So I went to sleep with the bed side lamp lighting up the whole room. And I fell asleep listening to my favourite podcast.
At around 3:30am I was awoke by such a loud bang that I convulsed out of bed in a fraction of a second from a deep sleep to being so awake I thought I would have a heart attack right then and there. I stood rigid and scared at the end of my bed. For a fraction of a second I thought maybe it came from the headphones I had left in my ears. But then I heard it. A rattling. And it was coming from my living room.
I wasn't about to be assaulted or stabbed by some scared drug addict looking for valuables to sell. And so I turned the bed- side lamp off and grabbed my phone. I called the police and whispered that I was in trouble and gave my address. I then got under the bed and stayed there, leaving the police on the phone so they could hear, hoping the person in my living room wasn't coming in here looking for valaubles
But a minute later the door swung open so fast that it created a dent in the back wall. I held my breath and tried to scan his feet and any parts of him i could make out in the dark. I figured the more details I gathered, the more useful I could be when the police arrived. The man had large, brown work boots on, that appeared to have steel-caps on the end. But I could not make out his pants in the dark and so I assumed they were a shade of black.
The man just stood there in the doorway. I think he was trying to make out whether or not there was any figure in the bed, that had not woken up at his arrival. A minute went by before he turned around and walked back into the living room. From his movements and actions he was clearly looking for something in particular. He hadn't even touched my TV in my room.
Another minute later and I could hear sirens coming from the window. And I'm assuming the man did too because he stopped his search and ran out the front door, leaving it wide open. At the point I got out from under the bed and ran as fast as I could to close the front door and lock it quickly. My breaths were very rapid and I dropped to the floor, sliding my back down the door in relief and sheer panic.
When the police arrived they questioned me about the suspect and I told them what I knew and had gathered. I told them that if they hadn't gone past him on the stair case then he had gone up. So a few of the policemen went up to search for him. But no one could be found. After about an hour of questioning and a general search of the apartment they concluded that nothing had been stolen or damaged, except for my now dented bedroom wall. They advised me to go to a hotel for the night, just in case the person came back. But I wasn't about to let the person do it again and so I decided to stay the night. I held a knife in my hand for several hours after.
Obviously, I did not sleep again that night. I stayed up and watched a few episodes of a tv programme, littered with quick flicks to the news channel to stay updated. The person didn't come back to the apartment.
It was only in the morning, after several hours of recollecting what happened, that I remembered the phone. I ran into the bedroom and grabbed it from the draw in my side table. I opened it and checked for any missed calls or text messages. None.
Later that morning I had to go into the office for a meeting with a colleague. And so I took the pink phone with me and I left it on the window frame I had found it on the previous day. I decided to take the mans advice and get rid of it. A few hours later I came home and as I was walking up the stairs I noticed the phone was gone. Someone had picked it up and taken it.
Submitted July 08, 2017 at 03:45AM by SweetPea_Magee http://ift.tt/2tqR38N nosleep
No comments:
Post a Comment