Phone Games
Jordan and I had been texting all night. My grandmother kept glaring at me every time the text tone made its trilling noise from under my arm; I couldn’t stop smiling, so she didn’t say anything.
I fell asleep around midnight, still too young to stay awake as the witching hour approach. It was my grandmother’s crashing entrance into my room that brought me awake.
“Did you ask Jordan what time he wanted you to wake him up?” she demanded.
I shook my head, sleep making the question even stranger than it was. Sleepily, I reached for my phone, but came wide awake when I realized it wasn’t there. Nor was it in the crack behind my bed, where it often fell. Nor was it anywhere in my room.
My grandmother’s phone was missing too, which we discovered when we went to use it to hunt down mine. The house phone didn’t seem to be working; we knew both phones were on, and I was sure my battery wasn’t dead, but both numbers got no response.
Then we heard a familiar tone outside. I had heard it so many times in the past twenty-four hours that I started to sing along until my grandmother shot me a dark look. We found a flashlight in the tool closet and went outside, scouring the grass for the phone.
It seemed that every time we neared the sound, it drifted farther away. Finally, when we reached the edge of the woods, we decided to give up.
My grandmother tucked me in lovingly, as if making up for her harsh looks earlier. Then she frowned and reached under the bed. Both cell phones were in her hands.
Suddenly, a dark cackle sounded all around us, coming from everywhere at once. My spine tingled, and I felt compelled to turn and look out the window. Something was hovering behind the curtains, staring at me. I closed my eyes and squeaked, and when I opened them again, whatever it was stood right in front of me, reaching for me…
We awoke in front of the TV, both certain it had not been a dream.
