whisper

    Thomas Hall was quiet. At four in the morning, a resident could almost hear their neighbors breathing heavily. If one was awake. Most residents were sleeping the deep dreamless sleep of the dead due to the exhaustion of college life. Jessica was no exception. A ringing phone at the stairwell end of the fourth floor hallway woke her. She groaned as she looked at the alarm clock, damning the university for not offering quieter phones or better sound insulation. The ringing slowly echoed down the hallway as it creeped from room to room, until her phone rang. Her roomate, Daisy, lay comatose on her bed at the far end of the room. Since Jessica was already awake, she decided to answer the phone, against her better judgment.

     "Hello?"

     At first, there was nothing. She repeated herself, "hello?"

     "Are you awake?" Whispered the person at the other end of the line.

     "I am now." Jessica whispered back, annoyed at being awakened by this creep again. The whispered calls were a frequent occurrence that had upset many of her friends. It was always the same, the phones ringing in succession down the hallway, to her room and then continuing down the hallway, where the ringing would stop. Sometimes she turned the ringer off so she wouldn't have to deal with this weird freak. But, tonight she decided it might be interesting to figure out what was wrong with him. This would be fun.

     "Why aren't you asleep?" She whispered into the cold receiver.

     "Why are you whispering?" Returned a distinctly male voice, barely above a whisper.

     "Because you are. Why aren't you asleep?"

     "I'm cold. I'm tired." Whispered the creepy man. Jessica thought this was an odd response but continued anyway.

     "You know, you should try to go to sleep. You'd probably feel better."

      "I'm cold and tired."

      "Look, you need sleep just like everybody else. Just try."

      "I'm cold. I'm tired."

      "If you're tired, you should go to sleep."

      "I'm cold. I'm tired."

      "I really think you should try to get to sleep."

      "Ok, I'll try. Good bye." He hung up. It was the first time he'd ever hung up on anybody. The ringing did not continue down the hallway that evening. Jessica and her north wing hallmates would never hear the early morning rings echoing down the hallway again.

     The next morning, Daisy was in a cheerful mood. "So, who called last night?"

     "It was that creepy whispering guy. I decided to talk to him. He was weird, kept saying he was cold and tired. He actually hung up on me." Jessica giggled. "Seems he didn't feel like calling anyone else after that."

     Daisy looked at Jessica with concern. "That's weird. Eeew." She shivered lightly as if she was in the path of a cold draft. "Let's go to breakfast." Jessica nodded and they headed out to Burger Hall, the cafeteria. It was chilly outside, with brisk winds that deeply penetrated any uncovered skin, chilling it to the bones.

     At the dining hall, Jessica and Daisy ran into their friends, Kim, Nicki and Krista. Daisy quickly described what had happened last night. Nicki admonished Jessica for her actions, saying it could have been dangerous. After some thought, Jessica began to think that Nicki might be right.

     Kim snorted lightly in amusement over the story. Kim was fortunate to be living in the south wing of the fourth floor and hadn't experienced the calls of the psycho whisperer. Nicki's roomate Krista hadn't been so lucky. The whisperer had once convinced her that he was her boyfriend Tom.   Krista had talked to him for 20 minutes one night, before realizing it wasn't her boyfriend on the other end of the line. She'd hung up quickly and cried for 2 hours as Nicki tried to console her. Krista had listened intently to Daisy's rendition of the call and congratulated Jessica on freaking the guy out.

     "He deserved it you know. If he never calls again, I'll have to thank you." Krista said from across the table. Krista picked up her books and left, giving the excuse of homework. Shortly after Krista took off, Jessica decided it was time to go back to the hall to pick up her own books. Classes would begin shortly.

      Jessica walked slowly along the brick walkway of the Student Union building. She heard movement behind her and felt an icy stare on her back. Turning around, she saw a crumpled piece of newspaper scraping across the bricks, drifting slowly toward her. She quickly looked around, seeing no one. She kept walking.

       Kim and Nicki followed Jessica back to the dormitory a few minutes later. Kim sensed flitting movement from the corner of her eye and looked to her right. A short distance away, a man in dark clothing was watching them from behind a tree. When he noticed her looking at him, he quickly ran out from behind the tree and down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Kim dismissed him as just another strange person and kept walking. She never mentioned the man to Nicki or Jessica.

                                                              * * *

      A few hours later, a loose ball of paper was found by a groundskeeper, stuck to some discarded gum on the union sidewalk. He carefully detatched the paper from the gum and straightened it out a little to see what it was. It was a piece of newspaper, with an article about two missing college girls. The pictures had been circled and crossed out in red ink by a previous reader. The article read that both girls had been receiving obscene phone calls for several weeks prior to their disappearances. Police asked for any information that could aid in the investigation. The groundskeeper shook his head. What was this world coming to, he wondered. He tossed the paper into the nearest trash can.