I wrote this for Milk & Honey’s Augtober week 2 challenge prompt. The goal was to focus on analog horror via a piece of found media. This one was fun!
Mom sold the house in March to retire to sunny Boca. She didn’t say it, but I think she might have a man friend there. She hasn’t admitted it, but I think she’s been talking to some old flame on Facebook.
Shockingly, she didn’t want to deal with the disaster zone in the attic, so she gave me puppy dog eyes, played the “I’m too old to deal with those rickety stairs” card, and asked me to pull out anything valuable before the junk haulers dragged it all away.
It was the kind of attic you had to climb into by pulling down a narrow wooden ladder with creaky steps that never felt safe, even when I was a kid. Of course, that just meant we went up and down every chance we got. Once up there, every square inch of the top floor was permeated by the lingering odors of insulation, moth balls and dust that had been there since before the Carter administration.
I dug through the miscellaneous mess, sorting things into three piles — keep, donate, and trash. It was going to take most of the day, and I swore under my breath because my brothers had once again managed to miss the actual work.
Most of the boxes were predictable: Christmas decorations, a rumpled stack of mouse-gnawed National Geographics from the ’80s, my old soccer trophies, and a milk crate full of VHS and cassette tapes from college. In one dark corner there was one of those old dress forms and a chest of old photo albums. And a ridiculous volume of mouse droppings.
By late afternoon, I thought I’d looked through pretty much everything, and I stood and stretched, getting ready to lug down the few items I’d tossed in the “keep” pile. But then I spotted one small nondescript box tucked behind a rolled-up family room rug I’d played on as a kid. Inside I found our old answering machine — the kind with little mini-cassettes that clicked when you hit play.
I almost tossed it into the “trash” pile, but there was a tape nestled in it. No label. Might be fun to see what kinds of messages we’d left one another in the ‘90s.
I stacked it atop the “keep” pile and brought it all downstairs to the kitchen, then plugged it into an outlet, wondering if it would even still work. It had probably been sitting there gathering dust for almost three decades.
It whirred awake like it had been waiting — a red light blinking to life immediately to tell me I had messages.
The blinking red light in the fading afternoon gloom made me realize it was sitting in the same spot where we’d always kept it, on the corner of the kitchen counter next to the old landline. The sight brought me back to my teen years for a happy moment.
Grinning to myself, I plopped down on the bar stool by the counter and hit play.
Beep.
The first message was boring enough to make me consider shutting it off and getting back to work:
“Hi, this is Linda from Dr. Atwood’s office calling to confirm Ethan’s appointment for Tuesday at 10 a.m. Please call us back if you need to reschedule.”
Click. Beep.
The second message was from my brother, Matt, probably around ’92 — you could hear that god-awful Achy Breaky Heart song in the background that he played on a loop that summer.
“Hey, uh, forgot to tell you, Mom. Gonna be home a little late tonight. Prolly miss dinner. Studying at Chip’s. Later.”
I rolled my eyes. There were probably a lot of messages like that on the tape. Matt and Chip had liked to get high behind Chip’s barn back in those days.
Click. Beep.
The third message was shorter, muffled. It almost sounded like it was recorded underwater. Maybe the tape had been recorded over something else? Just a man’s voice, low:
“…don’t go to work on Thursday.”
Click. Beep.
Then a normal request from Mr. Elkins asking about borrowing our hedge trimmer.
But between the next two messages — another message from Matt and a message for me from Jessica — there was another fragment, barely audible, but maybe a woman’s voice this time:
“…you’ll break your arm on the ice.”
Click.
The hairs on my arms rose. I’d broken my arm in the winter of 1992 skating on old Sumner’s pond. I remembered it clearly, because it’d been the first bone I’d ever broken.
I hit play and kept listening.
Beep.
The mix got stranger the further I went — some messages were crystal-clear family history that made me feel warm and nostalgic, like my dad calling from a business trip, or Aunt Shirley leaving a two-minute ramble about her insanely overweight cat. Others were these strange, half-swallowed phrases that almost sounded like… predictions:
“…be sure to leave the party by ten.”
“…don’t wear the red dress.”
“…you’ll lose the ring in the kitchen sink.”
Some were harmless. Some were… less so.
Click. Beep.
About halfway through, there was a message from me. My own voice, younger, sharper. I sounded upset. Maybe afraid. And I didn’t remember ever leaving it.
“Hey, it’s me. Call when you get this, okay? Don’t—”
It cut off into static.
Click.
That one gave me pause. When did I leave it?
Shrugging, I hit play again.
Beep.
The next message was from Mom. “Just calling to see if you made it home. It’s late. Call me back when you get this.”
And then…
Click. Beep.
“…stop listening now.”
Click.
I sat there in the kitchen, the machine still humming quietly on the counter, waiting for the next message.
Beep.
“…you shouldn’t be in the kitchen.”
Click.
A long pause. My heart sped up in my chest, and I swallowed a nervous laugh.
Beep.
“…don’t turn around.”
Click. I fought the urge to look behind me. It was just an old tape. Right?
Another pause.
Beep.
“…out of time.”
Click. No pause at all this time. Beep.
“…too late.”
That was the end of the tape. It came to a stop with a final click, the red light flashed one final time, then went out.
I sat there in the darkening kitchen, the machine still humming quietly on the counter. I could feel my heart racing and the hair on the back of my neck and arms standing at attention. This was silly. I knew it was silly.
Almost against my will, my eyes drifted to the doorway, where the hall light was off and the gloom of a Michigan spring night was spreading.
I glanced around the kitchen again, my eyes catching on the microwave where it sat on the counter near the sink. In the dim light, I could just see a reflection in the microwave door. In it, the hallway looked brighter.
And a shadowy shape was filling the doorway. It moved.
Click.
—
‼️ If you liked this, you may want read some of my other fiction.
💀 Enjoyed the chaos? Buy me a cup of existential dread and help keep the weirdness brewing.
Oooh this builds up the dread so nicely! Got my heart to beat a little faster, like the opening scene to a slasher film
I don’t know why each time I read your work, I’m surprised by how good it is. But I feel like you keep one upping yourself! These feel like an adult version of watching are you afraid of the dark (speaking of the 90s)