May 16th, Morning Caller

     Today’s prompt was to write in second person.  I have to admit, this one was a bit harder for me because I wasn’t sure how to do that.  I am a visual learner and so I needed to see what this looked like in order to figure out how I could do this.  Thank you, Sandra, for your help with that.  It was suggested we use the material from yesterday and retell the story in second person, but I chose this.  I could easily rewrite this in first person though, and could use this piece for the other voices we will get to this week.  When I saw what second person looked like, my first thought was Twilight Zone.  I think you’ll agree this story fits.

     It’s nine-thirty in the morning.  You stretch, then reach out and turn off the alarm that is blaring on the nightstand beside your bed.  Still, you still hear an insistent ringing.  You throw the covers back and climb out of bed, reaching for the robe that’s draped over the chair near the door.  Slipping into the robe, you belt it as you make your way through the house in search of the ringing noise that you are still hearing.

     As you walk toward the kitchen, a vision of a man’s silhouette standing with a knife in his hand ready to swing down on you comes to mind as you hear the music played in the Psycho scene where Norman Bates stabbed the woman in the shower.  You shake your head and smile, telling yourself not to be so silly.

     You step into the kitchen and your smile grows as you realize the ringing that you’ve been hearing is coming from the old fashioned rotary phone hanging on the wall.  Lifting the receiver, you say, “Hello?”

     You frown as you hear a low gravelly voice saying, “They’re coming for you.”

     You look around the room, pulling the neck of your robe closer to you as you ask, “Who’s coming for me?  Who is this?”

     You hear a low sinister laugh on the other end and then the dial-tone.  A knock on the back door has you jumping as one hand goes to your heart.  You debate with yourself whether to answer the door or pretend you don’t hear it.  The call has unsettled you.

     When the knock sounds again, you take a deep breath and tell yourself not to be silly.  If you hadn’t stayed up late the night before watching horror movies, you wouldn’t be this jumpy this morning.  Straightening to your full height, you stride purposefully toward the door, stopping with your hand on the knob so that you can call out, “Who’s there?”

     As you wait for a response, you lean forward and peer through the curtains to see if you can see who is standing outside the door.  Your eyes widen as you feel something sharp pierce your abdomen.  Looking down, you see a long rusted rod that’s sticking out of your body.  You look up and see a smiling face in the window of the door, and the same gravelly voice that was on the phone says, “I told you they were coming for you.  They’ve found you.” 

     You fall to the floor as your eyes close.  As you lay there, the strident ringing of an alarm reaches you.  You struggle to open your eyes to see where the alarm is coming from, but you have trouble opening your eyes.  Your hand comes up to cover where the rod is sticking out of you but there is no trace of it there for you to find.  Your eyes open wide and you realize you are lying in your bed under the covers and the ringing you hear is coming from the alarm beside the bed.

     You reach over and turn off the alarm before throwing the covers back and slipping out of bed.  As you head for the bathroom to start your morning routine, you tell yourself no more horror movies.