Absolute Terror

Do you believe in ghosts and aliens?  Or terrible insane people who stalk outside of houses and try to lure you out to kill you (or worse)?

I have a story to recount.

Recently my lady-friend and I were staying the night at my mother's house.  I don't remember why we were staying there in Greeley, but we were.  My aunt was in town from Florida and she was sleeping downstairs.  Jera was to sleep on the couch.  I was sleeping on the floor.  Well, I was about to sleep, when some scary scary shit went down. (See Diagram Below)

As you can see from this rudimentary (or "shitty", if you will) drawing, Jera and I were laying almost directly next to each other.  My mother was in her room in bed, not even within earshot of us.  As I was settling in by squirming and wiggling around endlessly in some bizarre floor dance bringing me closer and closer to comfort, I was talking to Jera.  I told her I loved her and I said "good night" and laid there in the dark for a couple of minutes.  It had been a long day and I was ready for sleep.

Then I heard a masculine voice whisper from somewhere close, distinctly, "hey, can you hear me?"

The voice didn't sound like Jera's, but she was the only one there, so I figured that it had been her.  But immediately after I heard the voice, Jera asked me "what? What did you say?" 

She had almost been asleep but had, very clearly, heard what I had heard as well.  My blood ran cold.  I sat straight up and put my finger to my mouth to quiet her.

"Stop talking... I didn't say ANYTHING..." I whispered to her.  My eyes darted around my immediate area to see if anyone was in the living room with us.  The voice had sounded as though it had came from the windows labeled "A" on the diagram.  I could see Jera was freaked out that I hadn't been the one who said what we had both heard.

"I think there's someone outside..." I whispered.

"Oh god, what the fuck was that?" Jera said.

We sat quietly for another moment, peering out the window at our feet, waiting to hear another sound.  Another whisper.  Some sign of movement.  Anything.  I was already convinced though.  There was someone outside and they had whispered to me: "hey, can you hear me."

We were starting to calm down finally, and I thought that maybe we hadn't heard anything at all, when suddenly again came the whisper: "hey, can you hear me?"

"What the hell is that!?" Jera said.

"There's someone outside," I said, horrified.  I got up and walked to the back door and turned on the porch lights to illuminate the area outside around label "A" in the diagram.  I peeked my head outside and didn't see anyone.  I was shaking a little bit, and was entering a state of adrenaline induced confusion.  I don't like confrontation, and I don't like fucking indigent people who have blown their brains out with crack and inhalants coming around acting crazy when I am trying to sleep.  I was certain that there was some kind of dangerous nut outside.

I walked to the windows at point "B" and looked out into the back yard.  The dog was quiet.  I thought that odd, because if there was someone there, the dog would find it impossible to be quiet.  Max is not at all a good guard dog... but he is loud.

I saw no one outside, nor did Jera.  I decided to go to point "D" and look outside the window of my parent's office room.  On the way back to that room, at point "B", with Jera close at my heels, we heard it again.

"Hey, can you hear me?"

What the fuck?  We were freakin' out.  I looked out the window at "D" and tried to peak out the bathroom window, a small window above the shower across from my mother's bedroom.  My mother was still asleep, despite all of the lights being turned on now.  (Jera reminded me repeatedly, and reminds me each time we talk about this, that I was an idiot for turning the lights on.  I disagree though.  If the person outside psychologically tormenting us had ANY sanity, he would be able to clearly see that there were at least two able adults inside and that they were aware he was there. I thought that that would likely deter him from doing whatever he was going to do.)

Oh, I forgot to mention that at this point I was walking around with a steak knife in my hand.  I had grabbed the steak knife straight away and was ready to stab the next rapist or burglar I saw.  But by this point, we heard the voice again, the same words, and I had to wake my mom up. 

"There's someone outside." I told her.  She stirred and then got out of bed when she saw that the lights were on and that Jera was following me.

"What?" she asked.

"There's someone outside.  We heard someone talking outside."

Mom got up and Jera relayed to her what was happening.  Mom then told us that she had heard a weird voice earlier in the middle of the day while doing some filing.  She had thought for sure that the voice had been calling my aunt Mary.  Mary is a bit on the paranoid side when it comes to ghosts or anything creepy, frankly, and my mom had not pushed the issue for fear of upsetting aunt Mary.  We all went into the kitchen and heard the voice again.  "Hey, can you hear me?"

Now I am never the guy to think that there might be something paranormal happening.  I am not the kind of guy who goes for anything like that.  But at this point, after my mom had recounted the earlier event, I will admit that it crossed my mind.  If this makes me and idiot... I guess I'm an idiot.  

After hearing the voice again, I decided that it would be a good idea to get my father's gun.  I retrieved the gun and checked to see that it was loaded.  (See Artist's Rendition Below)  I kept the safety on, and really just thought that the gun would scare any insane rapists away, not that I would shoot anyone.  Jera had told me during the course of our frantic searching about that she had heard of people leaving tape recorders outside of people's homes in order to lure them out for murder and rape and terrible things.  This had spooked me even more, and my mom as well I think.  The gun was a precautionary measure.

"Should we call the cops?" I wondered allowed after we heard the voice again.

We grabbed a flashlight and searched the basement directly under where we were hearing the voice now.  It seemed certainly to be coming from the section in and around label "B" on the diagram.  I tried to go outside with the gun but my mother stopped me and forced me to put the gun down.  I thought this to be a bad move, as we might meet our demise soon.  We were all shaky and a bit panicked though, so I guess I understand her logic.

Finally, after we were totally certain that no one was about outside (having looked with the flashlight), I settled on the only rational conclusion: my father.

My father was in a hospital in Denver with complications of the abdomen, but I suddenly felt like he had something to do with this.  It had to be some kind of recording device or something.  Some kind of prank.  

We searched all over and listened very very quietly to try to identify the exact location where the voice was coming from.  I looked under the table to see if there was something taped to it.  Mom looked through the little cabinet the phone sits on (between "B" and "E").  We looked everywhere.  I noticed that there was a standard padded manilla envelope style shipping package on the counter over the stove and wondered if that could be it.  But that didn't make sense.  The package was addressed to my father from one of his co-workers.  

The panic was starting to subside, and I no longer felt like we were going to have to have any gun battles (part of me was dissapointed by that), but we still had to find whatever it was because it would certainly keep Jera and me up all night if we couldn't.  

Finally, my mom decided to open the package sitting on the counter.  She opened it and, lo-and-behold, there sat a few little prank items, including a little black speaker about the size and shape of a stack of four quarters.  We looked at it, and it said: "hey, can you hear me?" in a really sinister fuckin' voice.

Dad.  That bastard!  Had he planned this?  How could he have?  I had been the one to take him to the hospital a couple of days earlier, and I hadn't seen him try any shenanigans then.  He couldn't have planned it.  

I pushed the button on the device and it switched through to some other creepy noises.  One sounded like a little girls laughing in the distance.  One sounded like a door creaking open.  One sounded like a vicious animal try to claw its way through solid drywall.  They were all terrifying, but the worst one, I thought, was the "hey, can you hear me".

We took the battery out, had a good laugh, and returned the gun to its resting place.  It still took me a while to fall asleep, as my nerves were jangled and my paranoid sense was jacked through the roof.  But it was, in the end, probably the best prank ever pulled on me.  Perfectly timed and executed.

And the thing of it is, my dad didn't plan it at ALL.  They were his toys, but he had left them in Utah with his co-worker and the guy had sent them back to Greeley at dad's request.  The guy just happened to leave the battery in the noise maker when he packaged all that stuff up.  

He couldn't have done it better if he had planned the whole thing.  He almost died laughing the next day when we told him the story (literally... his abdomen was in rough shape... he shouldn't have been laughing).

It was a fear that I won't soon forget.  It was awesome to feel that kind of fear that I hadn't felt since I was a child.  Today, I fear things like the government tightening it's hand around the neck of the internet, stifling into death the last place where free speech is truly free speech, or maybe cancer.  But not ghosts or rapists or aliens.  The thrill was one in a million and I loved it.

What is the best prank ever pulled on you?  Did it make you nearly crap your pants like this one did me?