Call Waiting
Written By: Carson Fredriksen
Susan groaned as she felt the phone vibrate in her ear.
It figured that while her only son was in the middle of a story, someone else had to interrupt it. She allowed her eyes to lazily glance at the phone screen before she felt her annoyance turn to confusion.
“DYLAN”
Susan stared at the name, her son’s name, until the call went to voicemail. She placed the phone back against her ear and tried to pretend everything was normal.
“Sorry honey, I just got distracted. What were you saying?”
For a brief moment, there was silence on the other line.
“Distracted, by what?” Dylan asked.
Susan bit her lower lip, quietly contemplating whether she wanted to tell her son the truth or just pretend everything was fine. She ultimately picked the former.
“Oh another call came in but...it was your name. Or at least the caller had your name.”
“Are you sure it was me though mom? What if it was just a wrong number?”
It was a reasonable explanation. Susan felt her tired, sore shoulder muscles relax slightly before she thought of something that caused them to tighten up again. If it had been a wrong number, it would have just been a random stream of numbers instead of an actual name.
The phone vibrated again. Against her better judgement, Susan glanced at the screen and saw the name ‘DYLAN’ at the top of the screen. Susan could feel a slight chill tickle her back as
she ran her tongue across her chapped lips.
“Uh...honey I’ll call you back my brain’s...in a weird place right now. Love you, bye!”
Susan thought she heard her son ask her something when she pulled the phone away, but at that moment it might as well have been white noise. She pressed the green call button and put the phone to her ear. She barely had time to utter a syllable before the frantic voice called out:
“Mom don’t hang up! For the love of God don’t hang up!”
It was her son, or at least it sounded like her son, but now his voice was frantic, scared and of a much higher pitch. Susan hadn’t heard her son sound so distressed since the time he fell off the monkey-bars and skinned his knee.
“Look,” Susan began, “I don’t know how you got this number or my son’s name but please stop calling.”
“Mom you gotta listen to me, I’m your real son!”
Susan paused. She was only into her third day of dry January but now the urge to drink was almost overwhelming. “But I was just talking to my son-”
“That...thing isn’t your son mom! It’s...something that looks like me, sounds like me but it’s not me! That...thing ambushed me, stole my ID and kept me locked up...somewhere.”
Susan could feel every muscle in her body stiffen with fear as she tried to process everything her son, or whoever it was, was saying. But all it seemed to do was give her brain the seed that would soon bloom into a migraine.
“So how are you calling me right now?” Susan asked, even though she had begun to regret ever answering the call.
“I managed to escape last week. It’s been a long trek through various tunnels and catacombs, but I managed to make it back to the surface and stole my phone back from that...other me.”
Susan felt a spark of remembrance flash in her mind. Her son had purchased a new phone last week, and had sent a text asking for her contact details. But when she asked him about his purchase he simply said his old one had died.
“New technology isn’t built like it used to be mom,” she remembered her son saying. “Plus how else am I going to contact you?”
Another shrill beep erupted in her ear. Susan instinctively glanced at her phone, hoping it was just another notification from her health group to join another expensive exercise program.
But the name at the top made her stomach twist into knots.
“DYLAN”
Susan hovered her thumb over the green button out of instinct but she simply tapped the red button and returned to the call.
“Mom? Mom?! Are you there?”
“Yes I’m here honey,” Susan said, though she silently cursed herself for doing so. Not only was this whole story completely bonkers but she had no proof that the person on the other end of the phone, whoever they were, was actually her son.
In the age of AI who’s to say this whole thing wasn’t just some sort of scheme to get her Social Security number or give away her bank account details.
“Mom...was it the other me calling?”
Susan sighed. “The name at the top said Dylan, my son, my only son.”
“I know this whole thing sounds crazy mom but it’s the truth! I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t seen that other me’s true form!”
“And what proof do you have that you’re my son?” Susan asked as she placed a hand against the kitchen counter in the hope she wouldn’t pass out from fear.
“I’ll come by your house in ten minutes. Just sit tight and whatever you do, don’t answer anymore calls that come from me.”
The phone beeped twice, officially signalling that the call had ended.
Susan threw the phone against the counter and dug out a bottle of Pinot Noir from under the sink. She had placed the bottle next to the compost as a sort of psychological trick to not drink at all during Dry January. If she smelt the unmistakable odour of rotting bananas and coffee filters, grabbing a bottle that smelt just like it would have turned her off.
But her mind was in such a state of disarray that she would drink straight out of the garbage if it meant giving a break from her thoughts.
Susan frantically twisted off the top and chugged a good third of the dark liquid as she gazed out the kitchen window. The person’s eyes were wide, their mouth hung open and it seemed as if their chest was barely rising and falling. Yet she gave her reflection some slack, it seemed appropriate considering her world had just unravelled.
As she raised the bottle to her lips again, the unmistakable sound of a vibrating phone echoed throughout the kitchen.
Susan slowly placed the bottle back on the counter and stared down at the black rectangle as if it were calling to her. She reached out her hand, feeling each of her fingers trembling with a nervous energy, as she turned it over.
“DYLAN”
The photo that accompanied the name was the same as it always was. It showed a six-year old boy riding the zebra carousal at the carnival. His smile, with two front teeth missing, was wide as he waved at the camera.
Susan stared at the photo for so long she had forgotten about the call until the image darkened and the voicemail notification appeared in the center of the screen. She had received enough spam calls to know when someone bothered to take the time to leave a message and when they decided to try their luck with someone else.
Every hair on her arm stood at attention as she pressed the button to dial the voicemail.
Her finger practically mashed the ‘1’ button after the monotone voice suggested more options.
Howling winds flowed in her ear, as if whoever was one the other line was caught in a wind tunnel. Then the voice came through and it sounded even more shrill and desperate than the last one.
“Mom please pick up! I should’ve brought it up sooner but I just remembered it when you brought up that call with my name attached. Someone’s been impersonating me online. They stole all of my photos and posted them on their account. They’ve been calling me non-stop! They keep asking about every detail of my life! For God’s Sake I think I even saw...this other me follow me home last night!”
A brief pause, it was long enough for Susan to hear her own heart racing.
“And just last night...I accidentally answered the other me’s message and he...he said there couldn’t be room for two sons. That...other me probably told you some crazy shit about being held in a dungeon or down in some catacombs, but it’s all lies. I-I-I don’t know who or what he is...but he’s dangerous Mom and I think he’s coming after you next. I’m on my way over right now. I’ll text you when I’m right outside and then-”
The call cut off. Susan glanced at her phone and saw the low battery logo. She cursed herself as she dug out the charging cord from the kitchen drawer and plugged in her phone. Her device was already less than 10% full when she got home, but she figured she could make a quick call to her son before the phone died. Now it was dead and her sense of reality was even deader.
The doorbell rang. Susan practically jumped to the roof as she clamped a hand over her mouth as her phone emitted a new kind of sound. With as much courage as she could muster, Susan looked at the screen and saw a notification from her doorbell camera app.
“YOU HAVE A VISITOR”
Susan slowly tapped the notification, finding it fascinating how much a simple sentence could install so much dread.
A man stood on the porch that she instantly recognized as her son.
His eyebrows were creased downward, his mouth was askew with a frown and he was dressed in a hoodie despite it being well below freezing outside. Otherwise, he looked exactly as she would expect him to, no horns, no slimy tentacles coming out of his back or any other kind of Lovecraftian weirdness her brain had begun to conjure.
She slowly walked out of the kitchen and into the small hallway that led to the front door.
Even though a circular glass window was present, the wreath outside made it impossible for Susan to see anybody on the front step.
The doorbell rang again, this time from the backdoor. Susan didn’t jump nearly as high this time, yet her heart still skipped a beat.
As she slowly made her way back to the kitchen, Susan’s eyes, now wide and fleeting, watched the front door as if it were about to attack her. She only moved them away when she felt her back collide with the kitchen counter. She looked down at her phone and saw her six year old son smiling up at her while his name claimed the top of the digital space. She barely had enough time to read the message, and reach for the bottle of wine, before the call ended and a text message appeared.
“Mom, I’m at the back door. Please let me in, it’s freezing out here!”
A photo soon accompanied the message. Susan quickly yanked the charging cord out of the device and pulled up the photo. Her son’s hair was dishevelled. His facial hair, in all its patchy glory, had clearly been growing for over a week and his clothes were tattered and looked to be barely hanging onto his frame.
Susan couldn’t help but raise a hand to her mouth, her eyes beginning to sting with tears.
The blinds had been pulled at the back door so she could only see a silhouette outside courtesy of the porch lights. But it was enough to confirm that the figure on the other side was a tall male with messy hair. She was almost halfway to the door when a voice called out behind her:
“MOM! That guy at the back door is not me! I’m your son!”
A series of bangs hit the back door so hard that Susan almost wondered if the glass window was about to shatter. Another voice called out, this time from behind the front door.
“No I’m your real son!”
The world began to spin. Susan felt every muscle in her body twitch as she began to back her way towards the pantry. When she felt her back collide with the door, she quickly threw herself into the small space and slammed the door shut. She had no logical reason for doing such a thing, it was almost as if her body was running on autopilot, and it simply wanted to hide.
The chorus of bangs continued. Susan could hear her phone light up with dings, buzzes and rings. When she heard the glass shatter, Susan felt as if her heart was about to give out from fear. It beat so loud in her ears that she barely heard the gentle click of the unlatching locks and the sound of both doors opening.
Susan placed a hand over her mouth as she felt her eyes begin to blur with tears. She heard rapid footsteps running towards the kitchen before she heard the back door slam shut.
The pantry door’s glass thin glass window was covered in a thin film that the contractor said would give her kitchen that elegant touch. But all it did now was show two dark, blurry shapes entering the kitchen at the same time and pointing at one another.
The figures disappeared from view. More glass shattered as the cupboard doors rattled.
Susan could see several bags of flour and sugars in the pantry begin to sway from the force of the hits. The scream that followed caused her heart to freeze before it fell into her stomach and shattered into pieces.
Susan backed away from the window until she felt her back collide with the lower rack which was full of bags of rice. She tried to force as much air into her lungs as possible as she listened for any more sounds.
The kitchen was still until the piercing cries of her phone disrupted the stillness.
Susan lowered her hands and silently cursed herself for not bringing her phone with her into the pantry. At least with her device she could’ve called the police and let them sort this whole mess out.
The phone rang a total of three times before it was suddenly cut off. Slow, tepid footsteps made their way towards the pantry door. The dark shape entered her field of vision again. Susan couldn’t tell but it looked like the man was wearing a dark hoodie. He carried her phone in his hand with a loose grip and appeared to be smiling.
“You can come out now mom. Everything’s taken care of.”
Susan wasn’t sure if the person on the other end of the glass could see her, but she stayed perfectly still regardless. She only hoped her rapid heartbeat wouldn’t give her away.
“Oh I get it,” her son, or whoever it was now, said, “just like hide and seek. You always were able to find me. Now I guess it’s my turn to find you! Pity you don’t have your phone on you otherwise I could’ve just tracked you easily. But that’s okay it’ll be just like the old days! One, two, I’m gonna find you!”
The footsteps slowly made their way out of the kitchen and sounded as if they were heading towards the living room. Susan could still hear the young man singing a tune but by now she could barely make out what he was saying.
It was only when she heard the heavy footsteps climb the stairs did Susan slowly open the pantry door. She began to make her way towards the back door which by now was slightly ajar and swaying with the frigid wind outside.
She only made it a few steps before she stepped into a pool of blood and heard rapid footsteps coming rapidly down the stairs.
Susan whipped her head around just in time to see her son make it to the bottom of the stairs. His lips were locked tight into a grin while the light above cast his inhuman shadow on the hardwood floor.
Carson Fredriksen is an neurodivergent writer from Calgary, Alberta who often enjoys rummaging through his dark, albeit unique, imagination to enhance his everyday life. His previous works have appeared in the anthologies 'Dark Canadiana' & 'Weird Tales to Haunt Your Reptilian Brain' alongside such online publications as: Macabre Magazine, Moonday Mag, Sometimes Hilarious Horror and Flash Phantoms. He can be found at: https://www.carsonfredriksen.com/