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Blake Crouch

*69

At nine-thirty on a Thursday evening, as he lounged in bed grading the pop quizzes he’d sprung on his 11th grade honors English class, Tim West heard footsteps ascend the staircase and pad down the hallway toward the bedroom.

His wife, Laura, appeared in the open doorway.

“Tim, come here. ”

He set the papers aside and climbed out of bed.

Following her down the squeaky stairs into the living room, he found immense pleasure in the architecture of her long legs and the grace with which she carried herself. Coupled with that yellow satin teddy he loved and the floral tang of skin lotion, Tim foresaw a night of marital bliss. Historically, Thursdays were their night.

Laura sat him down in the oversize leather chair across from the fireplace, and as she took a seat on its matching ottoman, it struck him-this fleeting premonition that she was on the verge of revealing she was pregnant with their first child, a project they’d been working on since last Christmas. Instead, she reached over to the end table beside the chair and pressed the blinking play button on the answering machine:

Ten seconds of the static hiss of wind.

A woman’s voice breaks through, severely muffled, and mostly unintelligible except for, “…didn’t mean anything!”

A man’s voice, louder and distorted by static: “…making me do this. ”

“ I can explain!”

“… late for that. ”

A thud, a sucking sound.

“… in my eyes. ” The man’s voice. “Look in them!. . you can’t speak… but…listen the last minute…whore-life…be disrespected. You lie there and think about that while…”

Thirty seconds of that horrible sucking sound, occasionally cut by the wind.

The man weeps deeply and from his core.

An electronic voice ended the message with, “Thursday, nine-sixteen, p. m. ”

Tim looked at his wife.

When it finished, Laura said, “There’s no way that’s what it sounds like, right?”

“There any way to know for certain?”

“Let’s just call nine-one-”

“And tell them what? What information do we have?”

Laura rubbed her bare arms. Tim went to the hearth and turned up the gas logs. She came over, sat beside him on the cool brick.

“Maybe it’s just some stupid joke,” she said.

“Maybe. ”

“What? You don’t think so?”

“Remember Gene Malack? Phys ed teacher?”

“Tall, geeky-looking guy. Sure. ”

“We hung out some last year while he was going through his divorce. Grabbed beers, went bowling. Nice guy, but a little quirky. There was this one time when our phone rang, and I picked it up, said, ‘Hello?’, but no one answered. The strange thing was that I could hear someone talking, only it was muffled, just like that message. But I recognized Gene’s voice. I should’ve hung up, but human nature, I stayed on, listened to him order a meal from the Wendy’s drive-through. Apparently, he’d had our number on speed-dial in his cell. It had gotten joggled, accidentally called our house. ”

One of the straps had fallen down on Laura’s teddy.

As Tim fixed it, she said, “You just trying to scare me? Let’s call your brother-”