TelleHell

A call center technician begins getting disturbing calls from the afterlife

 

"Thank you for calling TellaSpell, the leading phone company for today’s people. How May I help you tonight?" the voice on the other end belongs to an elderly woman needing help texting her grand-daughter. I mute my mic and sigh to myself, knowing this would be a long call. I un-mute in resignation and talk the lady through the process of texting. More and more we get these calls. The elderly needing to know how to keep up with today’s communication styles. Most of our younger clients have moved on to greener pastures, phone carriers with the latest smart phones. Most of our clientele are the people who had been with us for over twenty years, since back when we were a landline company. Even they were beginning to realize that there were carriers out there with lower prices. Customer devotion is getting harder to come by. It’s gotten so bad that I’m sure I will be out of a job soon. My co-workers, few though they may be now, felt the same. We all felt the looming axe of unemployment poised over our necks. Shaking off the gloomy thoughts I go back to my caller.

As I’m shutting down my station, I feel a shadow over my shoulder. I crane my neck around to see Steve Sorenson leaning against my cubical. He has his keys in his left hand and is absently jangling them. When he sees he has my attention he leans forward a bit. “hey Barry, you want to come out to the Train Stop with us?" the train stop was a local bar. I don’t know who named it the Train Stop, or why. No trains had ever come anywhere near it, and it had absolutely nothing to do with train stops in its style. I stand out of my chair and shake my head. “I’m sorry Steve. I’m gonna just call it a night. I have to be back up here early tomorrow and I don’t want to do it with another hangover." Steve frowns slightly. "You gotta live more Barry. We’re gonna think you don’t like them if you keep avoiding us." “I’m not avoiding anyone. Last time I went drinking with you guys was murder. I didn’t recover for days. I’m not as young as I used to be." Finally he relents and shoots me a quick smile before turning to walk away. Over his shoulder he calls out. “Maybe next week, then. See you later, Man."

 

It takes me a half hour to get home. Home is a dingy little apartment over a donut shop. There are better apartments, but on my pay I can barely afford this one. Thankfully the bug problems had been taken care of, but it was by no means a high end apartment. As I Slam my shoulder into the door to un-jam it, I hear the high yipping of my dog Prince. He’s yipping at something and already it’s giving me a headache. The damn dog wasn’t even mine. Not really. When my mother had to be put into a home, she couldn’t take the damn thing. Nobody else would take him, so I did. The little thing has been the bane of my existence since. He’s eaten my dress shoes, pissed on my computer tower and even ripped up the carpet in my living room. I wouldn’t be getting my security deposit back by any means. The only thing keeping me from kicking the b*****d to the curb is how much he meant to my mother. Even with how much I hated him I took good care of him. In the midst of his yipping and whining I fill his food bowl and plop down on the couch. I flick on the TV and drift in and out as some characters that are meant to be nerds talk about something to do with superheroes. After a few minutes I nod off.

My phone alarm going off. That the main reason I wake up. The second is the warm wet breath of Prince. He’s perched on my chest panting. I sit up, the motion tossing Prince to the floor. He looks up at me with a reproachful look. Getting up I brush his shed fur off my clothes. Quickly I toss on a fresh shirt and head for the door. As I am about to open the door I see that Prince had torn a hole through the side of my trash can. Trash is strewn all over. With a murderous look at Prince, Who is already cowering under the couch, I quickly sweep the garbage up and re bag it. I place it on the counter and then leave. I’m already going to be late.

The drive in was not as bad as some days. I see what was a large roadblock clearing out as I pull out of the apartment complex parking lot. Up ahead I see an ambulance driving off with its lights off. The passenger, it seems, did not make it. Merely ten minutes later I’m sitting at my desk again, my earpiece in and the sound of rings going off all over the center. Natalie, the women sitting across the cubicle jungle from me sits up and smiles at me. Natalie has two kids and three ex husbands. She also has a crush on me. I feel bad because I can’t reciprocate the feelings, so I try to be nice to her. Unfortunately this merely exacerbates the situation. Before I can try some small talk, my headset rings. At first all I hear is a crackling static. In the distance I hear what sounds like the wind moaning. I hated these calls. People in a tunnel or standing outside. They don’t seem to understand I can hear every- "Hello?... hello.. can.... can you hear me? Hello? Please... help me." The sound in the background sharpens. Now it sounds like people in pain. A bolt of fear shoots up my spine. Somebody is in trouble. “Sir, where are you? Can you tell me where you are? Do you need an ambulance?" there is a pause; the static is louder, the moans deeper. "It’s so dark. I.... I’m not supposed to be here. Where am I? Why do I hurt? Oh god..... Please help me. I’m innocent..." With that the call goes dead. Hurriedly I flag down a supervisor.

"What is it Barry? Are you okay?" I quickly tell him what I heard. He rushes to the back to have the call pulled. Soon after, he comes back to me with a frown.

"Barry, are you sure your okay today? We're not showing any calls coming to your cubicle today." I feel a cold lump form in my stomach. I know what I heard. How could there not be a record? All calls are recorded.

"I’m o-okay." The stress causes me to stutter slightly. "I don’t know what happened. Maybe-be I nodded off for a moment. I’m sorry."

He looks at me out of the corner of his eye, Sizing me up. "Well, don’t do it again Barry. You’re only holding on to this job with your fingernails. I won’t put this in your report, but it won’t happen again. Understood?"

I hastily nod. "Yes sir. Thank you."

The rest of my shift is normal, but I know I didn’t imagine the call. I know I didn’t Nod off. The call sits like a weight at the back of my mind.

Thankfully I got to leave early today. The weird call is still weighing on me when I get home. The damned dog has left me a nice soggy gift right on the mat in front of the door. Of course I step in it. Again, he is under the couch shaking. That guilty look he throws never ceases to piss me off. I’m already in a foul mood, so I grab him by his scruff and toss him into the bathroom. I don’t have a proper kennel for him, so as a result my bathroom is in serious disrepair. My shower curtain has holes in it, the door is clawed all to hell and the toilet plunger is in chunks. I close the door and immediately hear his whining and clawing. I turn on the TV and turn it up to drown him out. It’s still early, so I actually watch this time. It’s hard to follow what’s going on though. My mind keeps drifting back to that call. The sound in the background.... that crackling sound. I don’t know why but it won’t stop playing in my head. It sounded so familiar, yet it fills me with more fear than I can explain. The cast of the show on TV all laugh at the antics of one of the children. I shake myself out of the dark feelings and focus on the show. I still don’t know what's going on, but soon it’s doing its job of taking my mind off of work. A few hours later I order some Chinese takeout. The restaurant is right around the corner, so I jog down and pick it up. By the time I get back home I’ve almost completely forgotten about the call. I eat the greasy food and go to bed early. The dog eventually quits howling and I drift off to sleep.

I wake up screaming. I can’t remember the dream I was having, but I am drenched in sweat. Looking at my clock I see I shouldn’t be waking up for another two hours. Knowing I won’t be falling back asleep I shakily get up and head for the bathroom. As soon as I open the door Logan bolts out. I barely notice. I turn on the faucet in the shower and let the water heat up. The pouring water sounds familiar, something in my dream. Something I can’t quite remember. A vague memory surfaces of screams and blood. The memory fades swiftly as dreams tend to do. I hop into the shower and let the hot water cascade down my back, releasing the tension I had built up in my sleep. I keep the shower short and get out to make breakfast. This time it consists of Leftover Chinese. Logan looks at me with that guilty look again, and I soon see his poop. I clean it up after I eat and throw him back into the bathroom. Some slight cleaning and a change of clothes later I’m once more heading to work. My car gives three sputters, a grind and a bang and then it starts. The damned thing has been breaking down for a while, but I don’t have the money to fix it, and I certainly don’t have the money to replace it. Today is a little worse than normal on account of the humidity, but after a while I’m at work again without incident.

"Thank you for calling TelleSpell, the leading phone company for today’s people. How May I help you tonight?" the person on the other end, this time a young woman, sounds like a valley girl. Every other word is "like". Throw in a few LOLs and OMGs and it was a very grating call. She had some extra charges on her phone bill due to calling, a lot, while in Canada for spring break. She couldn’t understand, no matter how I explained it, why these charges were there. After almost an hour of explaining she slams the phone down in a huff. Well, whether she understood or not, she was going to pay it. Likely with her daddy’s money. A few more calls and it’s time for my lunch. I go to the break room and begin heating up some cup-a-noodles. As I turn around to sit, Natalie comes in. We exchange few polite words.

"How’s that sweet little dog, Barry?" She doesn’t know I hate the little b*****d, so I stay polite.

"He’s okay. He’s losing a lot of weight now that my mom isn’t cooking dinner for him. He doesn’t seem too happy about it though." I avoid eye contact as she responds.

"I know what you mean! My cats are such butterballs! My kids are always feeding them from the table. Just the other day......" her words fade away as I lose interest. Eventually I nod a few times, smile and laugh. She doesn’t notice my disinterest and leaves a few minutes later smiling. I finish eating my noodles and go back to taking calls.

My calls are more or less normal the rest of the night. Thinking that the weird call was just a fluke I begin to relax. Until now I hadn’t realized how tense I had been. As I relax I can feel a knot in my back start to ache. Thinking I’ll take a nice hot shower when I get home I begin to shut my station down. Just seconds before I shut my phone down my headset beeps with a call. Stifling the curses, I open the line.

"Thank you for calling TelleSpell, the leading phone company for today’s people. How May I help you tonight?" on the other end I hear nothing. Then, ever so softly, there is the soft popping static sound. A cold sweat breaks out across my body.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” I silently pray that there is nobody on the other end.  “Hello, caller. Are you there?” as my finger reaches for the call drop button I hear a low moaning.

“Hello? Are you okay?” The moaning grows louder until its almost screaming in my ears. The sound seems to vibrate my mind. Suddenly the moaning stops. The crackling pop continues.

“H… help me. I…. I don’t know where I am. It hurts. I’m not supposed to be here. Please help me. They’re hurting me. Please help me.”

“What’s your name sir? Can you tell me where you are?”  For a while there is only that infuriatingly familiar noise in the background. Then,

“I…. can’t remember my name. Its dark here, so dark. The pain….. The burning. Oh god I’m burning up. Please make it stop,”

The call drops. My hands are shaking. My heart is racing and I’m sweating like I had run a marathon. I don’t bother flagging down my Sup this time. I shut down my station and rush for the door. I don’t notice the concerned looks I get or the voices asking if I’m okay. I need to get out of there. I rush home, speeding through stop signs and dodging through traffic.  I get home and rush to the bathroom. As soon as I get there I vomit all that I had eaten. After I am done, I throw the dog out the door and turn the shower on. As I get under the hot water my mind drifts to the call. Suddenly I realize what the background noise is. That noise I could not place, but was so familiar. The Sound was fire.

I wake up on the floor of my shower with cold water pouring down on me. My head hurts on the left side. I can see the shower curtain torn off its rings and realize I must have passed out. No more than an hour has passed. I get up and turn the shower off. As I’m toweling off I avoid thinking about the calls. I throw on some clean clothes and sit down in front of the TV. I’ve heard that is not good to fall asleep right after a head injury, but I can’t help nodding off. Every time my head starts to drop, I snap back awake with flashes of a nightmare just on the other side of slumber. The flashes are all of screaming people covered in filth and wounds. The sound of flames licking and popping at flesh ever present. After the fifth time I snap awake I begin slapping my face, pacing, anything to stay awake. As I put a pot of coffee on, my house phone rings. Thinking it might be the Rest home calling about my mother I pick it up. There’s silence at first, but then with a small pop the sound comes in. The sickening crackle of fire against flesh.

" Who IS this!!? Why are you calling me??" i shout into the receiver. The background noise fills with moans of pain. Then, the voice.

" please help me Barry. Please. I can’t take it anymore. It hurts so badly. It never stops. You have to help me. Please h..."

"WHO ARE YOU? How do you know my name? How did you get this number?" there is silence on the other end, aside from that maddening static of flames.

"I don’t know my name anymore. But I know you can help me Barry. You have to free me from here."

I scream into the phone “I’m calling the Cops you b*****d! Don’t call me again" I slam the phone into its cradle and immediately pick it up again and dial 911. The phone rings a few times and picks up. On the other end is silence. Then, The fire.

I disconnected all the phones in my apartment. I pulled the battery out of my cell and even unplugged my computer. Now I’m in the bathroom, crouched down in the tub with my hands over my ears. The ringing won’t stop. The land line is ringing, the cell phone is ringing, and even my old cell phone that had been smashed to pieces is ringing in my sock drawer. Prince is out there still. He’s barking like mad and, from the sound of it, tearing the apartment up. I don’t care anymore. As soon as the ringing stops ill leave this apartment. Don’t know where I’ll go, but I won’t be coming back here. The ringing seems to be coming from all directions now. Echoing in my head. My head is beginning to droop, my thoughts getting muddy....

George Matheson was the first on the crime scene. The inside of the apartment is trashed, the walls carved up with strange symbols and splashes of blood everywhere. The furniture is all shoved against one wall and in the center of the room is the victim. The body is laid out flat, his head pointing north, his feet south, and each arm pointing east and west. His throat is slit from ear to ear and the instrument of his death is in his left hand. The kitchen knife was obviously too dull to do the job as there are signs of the victim slowly and certainly painfully sawing into his own throat. His body is laid in the middle of a large symbol drawn again in blood. It’s not until later that it’s found to be the blood of the victim’s dog. The entire apartment is infused with the smell of Charred flesh and Sulpher. In the victims right hand is a cell phone, the screen now cracked and crusted with more blood. George, being a year from retirement, lost his nerve and ran out. Later he can’t explain why he did this; just that he had a feeling of utter dread. One thing he never told, something he tried his hardest to block from his memory, was the charred footsteps leading away from the body. The inhuman footsteps leading to the door. The footsteps that faded from view as he looked on. He took that secret to his grave. Nobody would have believed him anyway. Just like they wouldn’t have believed him if he had told them right before he died that he had seen those same footsteps appearing, one by one, as he lay in his death bed. He didn’t even cry out as, on the brink of death, he saw what had come for him.

 

EPILOGUE...

Steve Sorenson was shutting his station down when another call slipped through. Thinking nothing of it, he answered. On the other end is a staticy popping sound. After a few moments he can hear a voice coming in and out. "Steve.... its Barry.......... Help me.....

 

 

 

Author's Note

its still rough, but it will be improved upon