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Monday, October 01, 2007

Tele


This is the other ghostly event that I experienced while living in that haunted bookstore. After that one time, I never heard the footsteps again, and after several months, I had pretty much forgotten about it and the initial fright and drama had long faded away.

One Saturday night, despite my roommate's persistent attempts to get me to join him and a few of the guys for drinks, I elected to stay home and study for an upcoming test. I had already gone out the night before and I had lots of studying left to do.

So I sat in the apartment alone, studying for my test, when the phone rang. (It looked just like the one in the picture up top. Being a poor college student, I only had a corded phone. Cordless phones were the "in" thing, but out of my price range, and cell phones were the size of desktop computers back then.)

I went and answered the phone, but there was only silence.

Me: Hello?

[silence]

Me: [Thinking this is my friends pulling a prank on me] John, is that you?

[Nothing. Not even breathing noises.]

Me: Hey man, seriously, I've got to study. Leave me alone.

As I was about to hang up, I heard the voice of a small child whispering into the phone in a halting, staccato rhythm:

Voice: Can... you... come... out... and play?

I didn't expect to hear that, so it came as a surprise, especially considering that it was near midnight. What child is up this late? But then it was obvious that my friends were probably nice and drunk by now and were messing with me. So I just hung up.

As I was trying to figure out which one of my friends could disguise his voice so perfectly to sound just like a little child, the phone rang again.

This time, when I picked it up, I didn't say anything. I decided to play this one out and see if they would start talking first.

The phone was silent for what felt like an eternity, although it was probably only about 30 seconds or so. Then as I was about to hang up the phone, the child like voice whispered into the phone again:

Voice: Can... you... come... out... and play?

I remained quiet.

Voice: Come... out... and play.

I didn't even breath into the phone. I decided to ride this one out and see when my friend was going to start cracking up.

Voice: Can... you... play... with... me?

I just held the phone to my ear and started looking over the chapter questions that I was working on before this whole thing started.

Voice: Come... out... and... play.

[pause]

Voice: Can... you come... out... and play?

It was starting to get eerie. Whoever was on the other end of that call never changed their voice, whispered the whole time, and spoke in that strange halting and pause rhythm that was starting to give me the creeps. After several minutes of not hearing a peep out of me, I figured the prankster would either hang up out of frustration, or start laughing at me, but none of that happened. Instead, the owner of that childlike voice kept asking me to come out and play.

I had been on the phone for over 5 minutes and I decided I had enough. It didn't look like the prankster was going to reveal himself anytime soon, and I needed to get back to studying, so I just hung up the phone. Immediately, it rang again.

I hesitated a second, but then I picked it up. And I could hear coming from the earpiece before I even got it up to my head:

Voice: COME OUT AND PLAY! COME OUT AND PLAY! COME OUT AND PLAY!

All the hairs on my neck just stood up. And I slammed the phone down. I sat there for a minute trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Well whatever it was, and whoever was prank calling me, I had enough of this for one night. So I went and unplugged the phone line from the wall, sat back down on my chair, and looked at the phone confused and a bit frazzled.

Then the phone rang.

Yes. The phone that was completely disconnected from the wall rang. The one with no phone line connecting it to anything. It rang. And rang. And rang.

I couldn't even move out of my chair, and I sat petrified as that phone kept ringing. I was freaked out of my mind and I felt like throwing up.

Then it stopped. And it was deathly quiet.

I waited and stared at the phone, wide-eyed, frozen in fear, and not sure of what was going to happen next. I must have sat motionless for 15 minutes or so, not sure what to do, not sure what to expect.

I realized I had to get out of there, so I grabbed a few things and went over to my cousin's apartment for the night.

When I questioned my friends the next day, none of them admitted to the prank, or of any knowledge of a prank. And from the looks of puzzlement on their faces, I could see that they too were mystified by the events that took place and that this was not a prank they set up.

I ended up just throwing that phone away and buying a different one. And I never heard from that voice again. And for the rest of the 2 years that my roommate and I lived in that bookstore, we never experienced another event.

But I will never forget how that voice sounded, and these two crazy events that took place in that haunted bookstore, as long as I live.