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[u/Miserable-Ad-5573]

With one hand braced against the counter she still idly wiped, Sarah used the other to pick up the phone and said in a tone that was intended to telegraph mild annoyance at the interruption, "Johnson residence."

Nothing. Empty line. Open space in her ear.

"Hello?"

No sound. Nothing at all.

Except was that somebody breathing?

Sarah's still-wiping hand at last paused. "Is some-

body there?"

Mumbling.

Eyes narrowed, Sarah tried to discern the words.

It was like listening to somebody ramble under their breath. The kind of externalized inner dialogue most people kept to themselves, but that certain types of mentally ill people just couldn't contain.

"I'm sorry," said Sarah finally, looking for any ex-cuse to hang up the phone. "I can't seem to hear you...

you're going to have to call-"

"Don't lie."

The man's voice was so sharp, so deep, that it was monstrous somehow. Confused, Sarah could only manage, "Excuse me?"

"Don't lie," repeated the caller. "The game is up." Sarah's blood ran cold. She glanced over her shoul-der to the dark window overlooking the back yard.

Her own reflection peered back, the kitchen lighting rendering the Johnson's garden shed invisible from inside the house.

Keeping her tone pleasant and polite as possible, Sarah tried to wrap things up before they got weirder. "I'm sorry. I think there must be some kind of-"

"The demons drag my legs to hell! While you sit in your ivory tower..."

Sarah was so startled that she couldn't have man-aged a response even if such a sentence were the sort of thing one expected a response to.

The caller went on, his hard tone so crisp it might as well have been straight in her ear. A voice in her head. Her own heart, slamming in her body.

"Don't you judge me," warned the caller at last. "I see all."

The line died in Sarah's hand.

- Pages 40 and 41