We moved a lot when I was growing up. Financial burdens and bigger opportunities kept my family migrating every few years, five times, in fact, within a fifty mile radius. The third house, the one we started renting in the Spring of 2004, never sat right with any of us. The house itself was quite large for the rental price, with an extra room none of us would be using, a lush backyard and a concrete patio round the front. The first thing we noticed was how cold it was. I should say that I live in San Diego, and that the Spring, even the Fall, was always just Summer wearing a different name tag. We asked the landlords the usual things, who lived here before, and, are the neighbors okay, but only after we first asked, did anyone die here? A lot of people learn from television that realtors are obligated by law to disclose a death on the property, but what they don't say on T.V. is that this is at the bank's discretion, and that after three years, the banks don't have to say anything.
The first night of moving in, after hauling mattresses and televisions, fridges and couches, my brother in-law, Tito, and his friend Bogey decided to sleep in the new place. They're heavy drinkers. There is no electricity in the house. They set up a small camp of leather couches in front of the fire place, drinking Lagunitas, listening to gangster-rap on a boombox, and trading funny stories. They fall asleep.
The next morning, while lifting boxes to the front door, I overhear my brother in-law tell my sister—
Bogey left at 8, 7 this morning. He was scared real scared. I mean, me, I was just like, '… ok....'
That's really weird, my sister says.
Yeah, we were drinking, though. But I swear I thought you guys were home.
It turns out they woke separately throughout the night. Tito woke first because Bogey was flashing a light around in circles—he thought he saw faces looking down at him. Bogey used to be a druggie so he's a little weird sometimes, and Tito thinks of it as Bogey still shaking off the meth-bugs. But the second time Tito wakes up, he's in that half-dream, half-awake daze that sleepy minds, like old cars on cold mornings, need warming up from. After a while, he's sure that someone's looking down at him from the side of the couch. Then three people. He grunts a raspy, hey, and the black mass figures in the dark back away, slow. When he gets up, snatching Bogey's flashlight, he's wide awake and ready to fight. Tito, if you haven't guessed, is an old gangster. He's built like a bulldog, all top heavy with big teeth. He's been in life or death situations before. He's never felt like this. The house is empty.
Yeah, I got up and looked around. All the doors locked, windows closed. Ha-ha, it was some creepy shit, Tito says.
The rest of the night is the same story. A few hours of drunken shut-eye, then the feeling of being watched, human shapes darker than the lightless air, watching them, then fading away. By morning, Bogey's gone and, when Tito wakes up, he has another beer and chuckles about it.
Should be fine, he says.
Later that year, in the full summer heat, I'm home alone. It's almost 6pm. I know this because I was waiting for the Simpsons to start on Fox. I'm in my parent's bedroom, on the second-story. I'm locked inside. I do this on purpose; I'm fourteen and afraid of being alone in this house. Ever since overhearing what happened to Tito and Bogey, ever since I felt the icy atmosphere of this place, I've been uneasy. My parents room has a double-door entry way with both a knob lock and a latch to secure the left door to the right; both are engaged.
The dreamy clouds and yellow lettering of the Simpson's intro has just begun to play when I receive the first call. I pick up the receiver.
Hello?... Hello?...
The phone is almost dead on the other side but for the faintest hint of breathing.
Okay, great job, I say, hanging up.
Some of you might not know this, but in 2004, adolescents seldom had cell-phones. Every home had a house phone, a land-line, which, itself, was its own social nuisance. We'd do those secret listener three-way calls, the kind where you call your buddy's crush with your buddy silent on the line, while you ask the crush if they like your buddy. In those dark days before caller-ID, we'd prank call food places with big orders in big voices, or ask if refrigerators were running. We'd prank call each other's house phones. That's what I assumed this was. I thought, okay, my buddies are just trying to get me.
Because of this, I had more patience for the second call. It was 6:16, a commercial break, when the phone rang and I happily answered.
Yeah? I say. The voice on the line was breathing heavier now but I'm confident.
Listen, I say with a laugh in my voice, you're really bad at this. And maybe you have asthma.
I wasn't ready for the response.
Why do you lock yourself in your parent's bedroom, the voice says.
Have you ever tried to mask your voice in that cheesy way, where you drop as many octaves as possible, trying to sound rough and muscled and raspy? This voice was something close to that. Close, but not quite human.
I— what?
I said, rakes the voice, why are you locked upstairs in your parent's room like a little bitch?
At this point I think the prank's gone a little far. Sure, we're in middle school, and my friends and I call each other things like gay, and bitch, and faggot, and dumbass the way young boys do when trying to find their place in the hierarchy—but this person knows I'm home, and in a locked bedroom? I check the blinds and they're closed. I'm both stunned and stumbling over my words now.
Okay, what... who is this? Kuya, is this you?
… I'm not Kuya, the voice says.
I hang up.
Here's something to know: I'm Filipino-American. In Filipino culture there are titles of respect given to those older than you, as well as those younger. In Tagalog, kuya means big-brother, and, again, it is a title, not a name. You should also know that I grew up in a predominantly Filipino community, and my high-school was two-thirds Filipino. Everyone who is close to me at this point of my life is Filipino. If this voice were a Filipino-prankster, the most likely kind of person to be calling me, they would have reflexively said, I'm not your Kuya. Yet this voice mistook Kuya for a name.
I start calling my family now, certain that either someone in my family is messing with me, or I am in trouble. First my older brother, the one I thought was on the line. He's stationed in Vegas, and his visits are routinely announced with a couple phone calls. He does have a mean streak with me, and would pull this kind of prank, but when I ask him if he's doing this, I hear the chime and ding of casinos behind his voice when he says no. Then I call my parents, my mom specifically, whose voice on the line is hushed and hurried.
Son, we're at our meeting in Corona, I'll call you back, she says, hanging up before I can say anything.
My sister and brother in-law, Tito, are living with us, as well as my older cousin. I call all three. My sister and Tito are in Anaheim for a birthday party. My cousin is at work in Poway, almost an hour's drive away. This voice calling my house phone, calling me bitch, calling me out on being locked behind double-doors in an upstairs room of my creepy house, this voice has chosen the perfect moment to find me alone, with help at least two hours away.
In each phone call I describe what is happening to me. In each phone call I beg a little for the person to come home. I'm more than spooked that the voice knows where I am. I'm more than spooked that the voice doesn't sound right. Each person on each phone assures me that I am fine. Nothing can happen to me. Maybe my cousin can get off work early, if I'm that afraid. I say that I am. She says she'll try.
It's 6:27, the credits are rolling on the Simpsons.
The third phone call comes. I hesitate for a few seconds on how to approach this, but the voice breaks the silence.
… Why don't you open the door for me?
At the last word, someone, something, begins banging on my parent's door, hard. The door that is in the house, up the stairs, and twice locked. Each bang is urgent and explosive and all I can do is jump from bed to ground, screaming profanity and prayer.
OH MY GOD! LEAVE! LEAVE ME ALONE!
It knocks with such force that an inch-wide gap appears between the left and right doors with each impact—I'm sure they will split at any moment. I go for the phone—it's dead.
NO! NO! GO AWAY!
If you've ever been in a life or death situation you know how the adrenaline can have you flailing in weird, panicked motions, can have you screaming far passed hoarse in words but sometimes gutteral impulses. When you're in adrenaline mode there is no staying still. There is only fire on your nerves and the instinct to survive.
Or cry. Like a little bitch. Locked in his parents bedroom.
I should tell you that, at this point of my life, 14 and a freshman, I am the strongest in my Christian faith. I'm president of the Bible Club in school. I tell my friends to come to Bible Study when they invite me to parties. I love the Lord at this point in my life, and I am praying hard that whatever is knocking for me will fear the name of Jesus.
IN JESUS NAME! LEAVE! LEAVE! I scream.
The banging stops and the voice just laughs. A unique, and singularly strange laugh. A laugh mechanic but alive, tin-like and scintillating but also so very deep. I freeze at the sound of it. I'm listening so hard I don't notice how much time has passed since the call. Looking at the bedside clock, I see that it's 6:35pm. It's been silent, now, for what feels like forever.
I'm praying now, and rocking back and forth, house phone receiver in hand, breathing hard, tears snaking down my face. In my hand a dial tone comes to life and I call everyone I can. My family, who can't believe me in my hysteric description, who can't get anything out of me but, come home! Please! Something is here! They don't believe me. Probably you were dreaming, my mom says.
On the phone with her I begin to hear a few small knocks on the door again. These are polite, knowing, as if saying, we're both rational adults and we both know that you're in there. Just come out. I start crying again, screaming, praying, and my mom concedes to call my cousin. To do so she must hang up. Before she does, the knocking stops.
It's almost 7:20pm and it's been quiet for twenty minutes. No one is answering my calls anymore. I am a nervous wreck, but somehow that tight-wound energy starts feeling like fire in my chest. I'm pacing in front the door now. Back and forth. Back and forth. And waiting. I can't tell you how my thought process came to this, but I decided that if I was going to die here, I would die a hero.
I used to keep a switchblade stashed in my bedroom closet. It's in the joining room. Armed with scissors open in a V-shape and kept between my fingers like brass knuckles, I open the door and immediately begin punching thin air, screaming like a mad man. Seeing that my path is clear, I make for my room, poking scissor ends blindly in the dark of my room until I reach the closet, find the blade, and click it open.
I can't tell you what made me do it, but I checked every room in the house. First the upstairs, each room, each closet, looking for a hiding body, shouting and stabbing wildly at empty space. There is nothing upstairs with me. Before going downstairs, I take a look at the double-door, sure I'd see dents in the wood, but instead I see small and dirty black streaks.
I clear the downstairs in much the same way, swinging my switchblade inside closets, between coats. I'm sure I ruined a lot of jackets. All the doors are locked, all the windows shut. As I walk to the front door to check it a second time the handle begins to jiggle. This is it, I think, bracing myself. The knob turns fully and I'm about to start stabbing when I scream and the person on the other side screams, too. It's my cousin. I almost knifed her.
I fall to floor, crying my eyes out, and, after she calms me down, we scour the house again. And again we find nothing. No way for someone to have gotten in the house. No way for someone to have left while locking everything behind them. There was no way anyone had attacked me.
As with most situations like this, the kind where you can't think straight and make quick decisions, my cousin points out obvious things I should have done. First, I should have called the police. Second, did I *69 the number? Without feeling old, let me tell you that *69 was the prototype for things like callerID. Dialing it would allow you to call back the last number that called you.
I can tell you how weird it was that the *69 lead us to my pastor's cell-phone. He hadn't called at all that day. He'd called yesterday. I asked if he were sure, and almost hoped he would shoot back his reply in that strange voice I'd heard before, but he just says, *kindly tell your Mom that sister Myrna won't need a ride this Sunday. *
I can tell you how frustrating it was that my cousin, and then my family, assured themselves that I had dreamed this attack up. That somewhere between the first and second time I had called them, I must have fallen asleep. I must have vividly dreamt that something was after me and, waking up next to the phone, must have just shot for it instantly. They can't explain how I was lucid when I called them the first time but somehow post-dream the second. They think it's because I have a strong imagination. But here's the thing—I know this happened. I know I wasn't asleep. This is my strongest memory, this brush with something close to death.
I can tell you, also, why I think this happened. I'm sure I was attacked because of my faith. I happen to believe that the closer you are to God, the more evil things want you. I have other stories to prove it, and I'll happily tell them to you, if you'd like. But I can also tell you that this incident is probably why, a year later, I became atheist.
It's a weird jump, maybe, to be a “hardcore Christian” one year, then an atheist the next. I just think that whatever called me did it's job. Scared me away. From God. Because now I'm more than happy to not pray. I'm more than happy to swear Jesus Christ when I'm frustrated. I'm gone from the church. If it means I never have to hear that voice again, I'm happy to rot in hell. All after one phone call.
