The Chain Text

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The lonely wind howled outside my window, like a lost, friendless soul wanting to get in. I gazed at my ceiling, full of sullen darkness—inky and black. I listened as the sounds of the night as they cascaded around me, nestled under a warm comforter. As I closed my eyes to take in the hours of sleep awaiting me, my phone beeped, an indicator that I had just received a text message.

I glanced blearily at the clock; now just who would be texting me at 10:20? I looked at the number and immediately knew that it wasn’t someone that I spoke to on a regular basis; after all, their number didn’t show up in my contacts.

The text read:

FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: Brake this chain u will c a lil dead BOY in ur room 2nite. In 53 secs someone will say they lov u.send 2. 10

What in the world? Now who would send a text like this at such a late hour? I remembered getting a chain letter in the mail once when I was a kid, promising that I’d be rich in a couple days if I copied the letter and sent it to ten other people; I also remembered not getting rich after doing so. However, this text was entirely different, I was being threatened with seeing dead people in my room if I didn’t send the text onward and curse 10 of my friends or family members with the same thing.

What was this, The Sixth Sense?

I waited for 53 seconds. Nobody said that they loved me…odd. Could the text have been wrong?

Well, I decided to find out who the mysterious culprit was who’d sent it, and dialed the return phone number.

The phone rang six times and then reverted over to the voicemail, which was a recording of the number I’d just dialed in the ‘telephone operator’ voice.

I hung up the phone and turned over to go to get back to sleep when my phone rang.

I answered.

“You called me?” came a vaguely familiar voice.

“That all depends,” I replied. “Just who is this?”

It turns out; it was a boy who was in my class two or three years ago. I’ll call him ‘Joey’ just for the sake of this post. It just so happens that he’d copied my number from his mom’s cell phone back when she was a volunteer in our classroom, and had added it to his own phone.

“Did you just send me a text telling me that a dead kid was going to visit me?”

His voice turned desperate, “I had to send it, Mr. Z!”

“Why?”

“Well, I didn’t want that dead kid to show up in my room so I sent it to ten people.”

“Ah, so you decided punish the rest of us with curses of dead people if we don’t do it?”

His voice was quiet. “Well, yeah…”

I thought for a moment then said, “I’ll tell you what; I’ll take the chance. I won’t send this text to ten people to see what happens…if the dead kid shows up, I’ll let you know, okay?”

“Actually, I don’t want to know if he does, Mr. Z.”

“Oh. Well, would you like me to deliver any messages to him for you?”

“NO!”

“Alright. Well, you have a great evening, sir.”

“You too, Mr. Z.” He said with a yawn. “And Mr. Z?”

“Yeah?”

“I miss being in your class.”

“Yeah, I miss having you there, too.”

I hung up the phone and waited for my ghostly visitor to arrive. I had a trove of questions I wanted to ask, messages I wanted delivered to loved ones who’d passed on, and I wanted to get to know this apparition. Look out Ghost Hunters!

After a few minutes…nothing.

I finally turned over and fell in to the warm pillow and cozy blankets as the wind continued to moan outside. I wondered, just to whom does one complain when these things don’t work out as advertised? I know that I felt like I was ripped off…