Jason Sibert  The Haunted Cell Phone

 

A smile graced my face as I squeezed her throat. Sarah let out a yell in the middle of the cornfield. However, no one was around to hear her, and I continued my dominance by placing my other hand over her mouth. Her face showed only the sight of fright as she grasped for breath. A huge burst of happiness filled my body as poor Sarah chocked and chocked some more. After a minute or so, I held nothing but a lifeless corpse.

I looked in her green eyes for a few seconds waiting for a second burst of life. Then I threw her  down and laughed as her skinny body hit the ground. She was out of my life for good! Our secret would be known by only one person.    

I guess it was unfortunate that a girl with so much to live for died just a week before her 23^rd birthday. However, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and knew too much. Therefore, I had just one course of action. I took my shovel and dug a six-foot grave. I could hear the occasional sound of a wolf howling or a bird chirping, as I continued to labor on her uncelebrated grave.

Of course, sweat covered my body because I was afraid that I would be caught, but an occasional look around the cornfield revealed only the corn. I kicked her dead body into the grave and spent the next half-hour covering it up. 

There was a huge feeling of relief when I placed the last of the dirt over Sarah’s resting place.

I took my shovel and headed back to my house. A few minutes into my journey I discovered that I forgot my cell phone. I checked my four pockets again to see if I had overlooked it and I still could not find it! Of course, a man feels naked without his phone!

I ran back to the burial site and it was just inches from where I buried her. So, I grabbed the phone and quickly walked away. When I returned to my country house, I placed the shovel in the garage and walked toward my house to begin my eight hours of sleep.  My life would return to normal now. I vowed to close this dark chapter in my life.

Sarah worked as a server in the restaurant I owned and managed, William’s Family Diner, located in Salem, a little town just five minutes from where I lived. My marriage had grown stale and I needed something new in life - so I had an affair with her. It gave my ego a boost to be able to sleep with a girl 10 years younger than me.

It was a wonderful affair, filled with passion and excitement. However, and unfortunately for Sarah, she stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. She overheard me talking to the hired torch I used to burn the unprofitable restaurant I owned in Fairview. Why did she have to listen to my conversation? I don’t know. However, being a do-gooder, Sarah threatened to go to the police. This led me to take the action that I did.

Entering my house made me feel like things were going back to normal. I was starting the first day of the rest of my life.

“I guess you had a late day at work?” my wife Marie said.

“Yes, we had a few customers that just wouldn’t leave at closing time,” I answered. Engaging in familiar conversation equaled a form of sweet music for me. I ate my supper with Marie, we watched a little television, and then went to bed. I put my cell phone by the alarm clock like I always did.

We both fell asleep quickly that night, but I woke up in the middle of the night as I do from time to time. When I looked over toward my alarm clock, my cell phone was gone! I was concerned because I remembered where I put it before going to sleep.

Then I looked on the ground right by the bed and there it was! I felt a bit of relief and figured it must have fallen down some way. I bent over and once again placed it by our alarm clock.

When I turned over to try and catch some sleep, I heard it hit the ground. 

I turned around and saw the cell phone sitting in about the same place it was. I looked for a second and wondered how something like that could happen. Then I reached down to pick the phone up and a conferencing application flipped on and lit up my half of the bed.

“Hello!” I heard Sarah’s voice come out of the cell phone and fear worked its way from one side of my body to the other. I looked up at the wall in front of me and there was Sarah, as her image projected onto the wall! I had nothing to say. “Thought you got rid of me, didn’t you?” She asked with an evil look in her eye. “You didn’t stop and think that I just might have a few tricks up my sleeve?” I sat up in bed and then worked up the courage to look her in the eye.     

"Go away, you’re not real.”

“Yes, I am. You buried my body, but my soul will be with you forever.”

“No, no this isn’t happening.” I turned over and looked at my wife who then woke up and looked at me.

“Marie,” I said.

“Yes.” Then I looked up at the wall and she was not there. Next, I looked down at the floor and my cell phone was not on the floor. It was by my alarm clock! “Is something wrong?” My wife asked as she leaned up in my face.

 “No, just a weird dream.”  

 “I’m going back to bed.” She quickly returned to her sleep, but I could not do the same. The experience kept me up all night long. When I faced Marie before going to work the next day, she told me how tired I looked. I experienced an atypical day at work because I looked at my cell phone again and again and wondered how it all happened and when and if it will happen again.  

I went home and waited for Marie to return after a day of work at the credit union. I only wanted a normal evening with my wife, so I took the initiative to make supper. Putting supper on the table  put a smile on Marie’s face, as she loved that I had saved her some work.  Marie and I discussed life at the credit union during super – her demanding boss, weird customers, and management changes that were making life different.

We spent the next few hours watching a boring movie on television. Despite experiencing a typical night, the thought of Sarah never crept far from my mind. I continued to look at my cell phone and expected her to appear in some way. Marie noticed and asked about the frequency in which I looked at my phone. I told her that I loved my new cell, purchased just four months ago, so much that it occupied my attention more than it should.  

Not long after the movie, it was time for us to go to bed - the most nerve-racking bedtime I had experienced. Marie and I had a short discussion and she fell asleep within 30-minutes after our talk. I tossed and turned and occasionally looked at my phone by the alarm clock. I watched the time pass from 11 p.m., to midnight, to 1 a.m., and to 2 am. Sometime after 2 a.m., I managed a small amount of sleep, but I soon woke up to the sound of Sarah calling out my name.

“Christopher!” she said. I hoped out of bed. Then I looked over at Marie and she was asleep. I quickly discovered that my cell phone was not by the alarm clock. For the next few seconds, I listened for the sound of her voice, but the room remained silent. Then I looked at the bedroom door and there was my phone!

I made the trip to the door to pick it up but just a few moments later the phone moved on its own to the living room!  “Christopher!” she called out again. I ran to the bedroom door, opened it, and then walked into the living room and saw my phone on the couch. Suddenly, the conferencing application switched on and her image shined on the wall behind the couch!  I stood there and wondered what my next move should be. She looked at me in a way that showed her authority.

“Here we are again, our paths were bound to cross again, I knew that,” Sarah said. You really thought you would get by with it, didn’t you? Wanted to make a little money off a struggling restaurant so you hired a torch to collect the insurance money. I would have squealed so then you killed me. You’ve been trying to put me out of your mind since it all happened?”

“Yes, and I will continue to do that,” I answered.

“But you can’t because I’m not going away. From the day I first met you, you were always the type that thought you were smarter than everyone else. You really thought that you wife would never find out about our affair.”

“I hid my affair with you, Sarah, and I covered my tracks on the torch I hired for the insurance money. Marie will never find out about any of this. When you make mistakes, you must cover them if you are to maintain the life you have.”

I thought that I could defeat whatever was in front of me. Nothing would come between me and the life I shared with my wife. “I’m not afraid of you. Look what I did to you out in the cornfield, you weren’t hard to take out of this world.”

“I’m now stronger than you could ever imagine.”  I placed a big grin on my face and walked toward the cell phone.

“You don’t know how strong that I am Sarah. It’ll be easier this time than it was the last time.”

 I was right up by the couch and she gave me a big taste of that evil grin. I stared at her a few more seconds to convey my point.

“Christopher,” Marie said. I looked back and there was my wife! Then I looked back at the couch, and Sarah was gone!

“Yes Marie,” I answered.

“You shouldn’t talk in your sleep,” my wife said with an evil grin on her face that resembled Sarah’s.

“I wasn’t asleep! There was this server that used to work for me! She’s haunting my phone!”

Then I looked back at the couch, and my phone and Sarah were both gone! “It was there just a second ago, it was there!” Marie spotted my cell phone just feet in front of her and then she grabbed it and quickly went through my texts.  

“There’s a nice little text from your girlfriend Sarah. I always suspected something was up there.” Then she went through my texts a few more seconds. “Here’s a text between you and the guy that burned down the second restaurant. I guess the check is in the mail on that one?”  I grew more frightened by the second as her anger grew. “What am I married to?”

“Marie, I can explain!” I ran toward her, and she went back into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. I tried and tried to open the door and then to bust it down, but I just could not accomplish the task. Within a few minutes, I heard police sirens outside and they were at my doorstep in no time.

I sat in the interrogation room with two detectives staring at me. I could tell they knew I was guilty.

“Let me guess, you’re innocent?” said the detective.

 “Yes, I am.”

“Then why do we have all of these texts between you and your hired torch on that restaurant that burned down in Fairview? The restaurant that you owned and had a nice little insurance policy on! We also saw the texts you sent to your former employee Sarah Lemanski, the employee that you were having an affair with! She has been reported as a missing person, but I don’t think she’s really missing, is she?”

I had no chance but to tell everything. I knew my fate was sealed. DSS

 

  Jason Sibert, of Maryville, IL., is executive director off a non-profit organization and a journalist. He was a staff writer for the Suburban Journals. 

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