dish tv
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TEXT ME
By: Jason Michael Hiaeshutter
It was that typical dank, musky smell. That’s what Clayton first noticed as he opened the door to the seedy no-tell motel. Stacey walked in behind him. At least that was what she called herself. Clayton knew these types of women never used their real names but he was willing to go with it. She was dressed in the usual uniform of her trade. Red tank-top, black leather mini-skirt with the fishnet stockings, and a black pair of leather thigh-high boots. Boots with the zipper running up the sides that Clayton couldn’t wait to pull down with his all too eager pearly whites.
His imagination wasn’t about to stop at the boots, but the all business tone from his lady of the evening quickly snapped the young junior college student back to reality. “So what did you have in mind, hun?” She asked. Her tone was less than romantic. Not that Clayton really noticed. He was so nervous that the simple act of keeping his hands from shaking took up most of his conscious thought.
So what was on his mind? He hadn’t really given it much thought. He was still shocked from the realization that he’d made it this far. Sure, there was the vision of her boots and other things limited only by his imagination but this was different. Purchased fantasy. Most girls in his life he could fantasize about all day but never have the physical opportunity to act them out. But this girl, this girl was going to let him do whatever he wanted to her.
That simple thought alone made him extremely nervous. Anything he wanted to do to her. He could feel his face heat up just thinking about it. Trying to keep his cool, he searched around the room for something to focus his eyes on; something to stare at while he collected himself. Soon enough, his eyes fell on a set of small, marble figurines sitting on the night stand near where he was standing. An elephant, and a mouse. His first thought was the striking beauty of the carvings. Slowly, he reached out his hand, and began stroking the mouse. As he did, Stacey spoke again.
“Are we gonna do something sweetie, or do you and that thing want to be alone?”
With a new found confidence, Clayton opened his mouth with the intention of making his first suggestion. A suggestion that involved binding her arms together with those stockings, when his cell phone chimed in and interrupted. It was a straight ring, not his usual ringtone of My Chemical Romance singing House of Wolves, meaning he had a text message waiting. Of course, a regular call he would have sent directly to voice mail. There wasn’t enough blood in his head at the moment for a full on conversation. But a text? Fine, he’d sacrifice some time to check his text. What was another second anyway?
He sighed an irritated sigh as he held up an index finger, signaling Stacey to hold on a sec. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and hit the receive button on the keypad. As the message popped up, the words immediately sent that aforementioned blood back to his head. The one he actually thinks with that is.
“Sorry,” he said in a nervous and shaky voice. “I have to go.” And without giving Stacey a chance to protest, Clayton turned and walked out the door.
He was off the motel’s property and back on the city sidewalk in record time. He opened his phone and read the message again. Get out of there, NOW! He had no idea who sent it. He didn’t recognize the number and when he tried to call it, he received that old style wailing sound that used to take place when you’d leave a corded phone off the receiver for too long.
As he walked, he couldn’t really understand why he chose to heed the warning of this mystery texter. If he would have simply ignored it, he’d be in the middle of his three minutes of heaven right now. He contemplated turning back but was pretty sure she was gone by now. And as far as finding a different girl, hell, it was hard enough building up the courage for Stacey, let alone starting again now. Instead, he thought it best to stop off at the trusty ole skin flick house, and then head home.
A year had passed, and over time, so did Clayton’s thoughts of that night with his would be purchased fantasy. He had graduated from junior college and landed a nice cushy job doing data entry for a small research company. Not the most glamorous job in the world but it paid the bills.
One late afternoon after a day at the office, Clayton came home to his usual routine. He grabbed his mail, entered his apartment, and set down his keys and phone on the lamp stand next to his front door. As he stood in the doorway sorting through his mail, his cell rang. Once again not his normal ringtone, Seether’s Breakdown these days, but the normal ring indicating a text. Turn on Channel 5, the message said.
A brisk chill went up Clayton’s spine as he recalled his phantom text buddy. Puzzled and certainly a bit spooked, he did what the text requested. It was one of those cop reality shows which, at first, Clayton couldn’t understand why he’d be told to watch it. He wasn’t much of a reality show fan. But then he noticed what it was he was obviously meant to see. It was the old no-tell motel where his would be tryst had occurred. And Stacey. By god it was Stacey, hauling in some Jon with his hands cuffed behind his back. “She was a damn cop,” he said out loud in a shocked, yet mildly amused tone.
What a stroke of luck, Clayton thought. He thought about how embarrassed he would have been if he’d gotten busted for soliciting prostitution. Not to mention the fact that he most likely wouldn’t have made it passed the background check of his current employer with an arrest like that on his record.
As he contemplated this revelation of good fortune, his cell rang again with another text. You owe us, it said.
True as that may be, it gave Clayton an extremely uneasy feeling. Uneasy hell, he was getting severely freaked out. He hit the reply button on his phone and attempted to respond. Owe who? Who is this? He hit send but his phone simply beeped loudly and the screen flashed the message, invalid number. He tried again, several times, with the same results. With his freaked out feeling rapidly evolving into all out fear, Clayton began yelling into his phone.
“WHO DO I OWE?” he screamed. “WHO ARE YOU?” He stared at the phone for a moment actually expecting it to answer back. But in the end, nothing. In complete frustration and fear, Clayton cocked his arm back and threw his phone against the wall, deep down hoping to shatter the damned thing in the process. It didn’t break. Instead, it simply bounced off the wall and landed on the floor with a thud leaving nothing but a small dent in the dry wall. And on the floor it lay, quietly.
Over the next several days, Clayton tried to go about his business. He even went to his service provider and bought a new phone. The old one, still lying silently on the floor. Many times he thought about throwing it out. Not just in the trash either, but really getting rid of it. Somewhere as far from him as possible. But every time he thought of the idea, fear kept him from going near it, so there it stayed. But ignoring the thing only made matters worse. Eventually, the phone stopped allowing him to ignore it.
“We watch you, Clayton,” he could hear the phone say. “Watch you every day.” It was taunting him, making him live in complete fear. He’d come home every day wishing the phone would stay quiet, but of course it never did. It just kept repeating its haunting words. “Watch you every day.”
Those words repeated day after day. Maybe the words were actually ringing in his head, but to him they were in his ears. Actual audio. Sometimes he was able to drown them out of short periods of time, but eventually they would burn through again. Until one day, the words changed “It’s time,” the phone said, and it rang the dreaded ring Clayton had feared since his first warning. The tone that told him he had a text.
He’d been drinking heavily by this point; the taunting drove him to it. At first he thought the ringing was in his own drunken head. In the kitchen he tried to ignore the sound as he poured himself a stiff double of bourbon whiskey. But the ring just got louder, maddeningly louder. And it was continuous. By god, it was so continuous. No break between rings anymore. Just one constant ring. Finally he couldn’t take it anymore. “ALRIGHT!” he screamed.
He stumbled to the phone and picked it up. Go to your car and start driving, the text said. “And go where?” Clayton asked out loud.
“Just drive,” the phone said, again skipping the formality of a text and instead voicing aloud.
Clayton did as he was told. He started his car and just started driving. It was approaching 2 AM and as he drove by the local bar, he could see the female bartender through the window. To Clayton it looked as though she was getting ready to close up for the night, wiping down the bar and straightening the glasses.
“Stop here,” the phone ordered.
Clayton stopped and got out of the car. “But this place is closing,” he protested.
“She’s in trouble. Go in and save her.”
He did what he was told. He entered the bar and saw the young woman inside. A pretty girl, early 20s. Blonde hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a tight black t-shirt and stone washed jeans. She seemed to be arguing with a few late night patrons that, apparently, weren’t ready for the party to end.
“Is there a problem here?” Clayton asked. Trying to sound official through his obvious drunkenness.
The girl sighed, expressing obvious irritation. “For god’s sake. We are closing, you have to leave.”
One of the guys turned to Clayton and put an arm on his shoulder and spoke patronizingly. “It’s alright, cowboy. We have everything under control here so just go on home. You wanna call a cab?”
Clayton was about to answer when his phone chimed up again. “These guys are gonna hurt the girl,” the phone said. “You have to protect her.”
“The lady says she’s closed. You guys have to leave,” Clayton ordered. As he spoke, he noticed the guys looking at each other and laughing.
“They won’t listen, Clayton,” the phone told him. “Kill them.”
Clayton felt his stomach drop. “What? I…I can’t,” he said. The men all exchanged glances, obviously confused as to who he was talking to.
“Do it, Clayton. You owe us. KILL THEM!”
At this, Clayton looked into the bartender’s eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes. She screams. An ear piercingly loud scream.
Clayton moved toward the men, moved as if in slow motion. Everything seemed in slow motion now. As he moved, the scream seemed louder and louder.
Moments later, Clayton was back in his vehicle. His hands and clothes were covered with blood. A large screwdriver was on his lap, also covered in blood. Clayton looked at the screwdriver, confused as to where it came from. He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember leaving the bar for that matter. He looked up and all at once realized his car was in motion. Realizing he was about to drive into the ditch, he slammed on his breaks.
“Why did you stop?” a voice said. But it was no longer the voice from the phone. It was a body. A dead body sitting in the passenger seat, a large puncture wound in the bodies neck. “Why did you stop?” the body asked again.
Confused, Clayton looked around. Besides his new friend in the passenger seat, there were two more bodies in the back. “You’d better get moving,” the body directly behind him said.
As Clayton turned back to look at the newest contributor to the conversation, he noticed the red and blue lights pull up behind his car. “Too late,” passenger seat boy piped in. Then his phone rang again. Kill him. The text said.
“What? No! No, I can’t do it!” Clayton protested.
“You have no choice,” passenger seat boy said.
“He’ll see you’re covered in blood,” said the body directly behind him. “You should have never stopped.”
“Now you have to kill him,” chimed in his cell.
Clayton looked down at the screwdriver in his lap.
“Do it,” all the voices started yelling. The voices echoed over and over in Clayton’s head. “DO IT!” Then the phone started ringing again, the continuous ring. Clayton closed his eyes as tight as he could as the voices surrounded him. “DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!”
“Why did you do it?” came a new voice. Surprised, Clayton opened his eyes and saw he was no longer in his vehicle, but in an enclosed room. The room had no windows but one wall was covered by a mirror. He was sitting at a long table in the middle of the room across from a large, bald black man. “Why did you do it?” the black man asked again.
Clayton felt disoriented. Seconds ago he was in his car with…with, oh god! All at once Clayton recognized where he was. It was interrogation room, and the black man across from him was a detective. Looking down at the table, Clayton saw pictures of dead people scattered across it. A closer look revealed Clayton’s worst fear, he recognized them all. First he saw pictures of the three men from the bar. He had flashes of memory, visions of himself running the screwdriver through one of them. But..the bartender. He was protecting her, right? No, not right. He saw the picture of her. She was mutilated, badly mutilated. Those men were not giving her trouble, they were protecting her. Protecting her from…from him. From Clayton himself.
Oh, god, Clayton thought. What’s happened to me? He looked at the table again. There was more, another picture. A picture that overwhelmed Clayton with extreme nausea. “Stacey?” Clayton uttered. It was the prostitute from the motel…that cop. It was a year ago, right? “That cop, she—”
“Cop?” the detective chuckled. “This girl was certainly not a cop. But she was a victim. Your first victim as far as we can tell.”
“No!” Clayton argued. “No, I didn’t do…I mean…I didn’t—” and suddenly another memory hit him. It wasn’t a reality show he was watching, it was a news cast. And Stacey wasn’t arresting anybody; she was being carried out on a stretcher. What is going on with me? He thought. “My phone,” he finally said. “My phone was—”
The detective raised an eyebrow, “your phone? What about your phone?”
Clayton patted his body, desperately searching for the cursed thing.
“We didn’t find a phone on you, son,” the detective explained.
“No!” Clayton screamed. “No, it was my phone. She was a cop, my phone told me to leave before I got busted. I DIDN’T DO THIS!”
And all at once the memories flashed. The real memories. The things he’d done. Brutal things. Unspeakable and brutal things. Unzipping her boots with his teeth, yes there was that. But things went out of control. Horrible, awful things. And the bartender, her too. Horrible, unspeakable things. “But…it was my phone,” Clayton pleaded under his breath. “My phone.”
“We didn’t find a phone on you, Clayton. Only this,” the detective explained as he held up a small marble mouse.
Clayton stared at the little statue, his eyes fixated on it. “Kill him,” the statue said. “Kill him, we watch you every day. Kill him.” And as Clayton leaped out of his chair he wondered, why didn’t I take the elephant instead.
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