Scary Out There

by Jonathan Maberry

  She turned back to her desk, eyes firmly glued to the ground. Every inch of exposed skin burned so hot she was sure those around her could feel the heat of her. For the rest of class she strained, trying to find words in the whispers. Trying to discern the tone of laughter. Feeling eyes on her, their judgment an iron casket closing tight.

  That afternoon she hovered in the hallway, tucked between two banks of lockers, and waited for Mr. Banks to step out of his room. When he did, she darted in, yanked open his desk drawer, and fumbled for her phone. It was tangled among a nest of paper clips and old rubber bands. Capless pens and staples that had broken ranks from their glued brethren.

  Sweat beaded on her neck. Though there was nothing personal in the desk, it still felt like a violation to dig through it. An inviolate rule broken. But she couldn’t face him. Couldn’t risk him asking about the message. Phone in hand, she ran-walked to the door, the relief of near success practically choking her.

  Mr. Banks was halfway down the hallway, headed her way. There was no way he missed her hasty retreat. But he said nothing as she scuttled past him with arms crossed and shoulders hunched. Eyes to the ground at all costs.

  In her car she let the heat-soaked interior flush over her as she cupped the phone in hands shaky with adrenaline.

  HEY BEAUTIFUL.

  She didn’t have the sender’s number in her contacts, but that wasn’t surprising. She had only three contacts beyond those of her family: a friend from camp, the owner of a local gaming shop, and a popular boy she’d overheard giving out his number at lunch one day. The area code was local, but running a reverse phone lookup yielded nothing.

  She allowed a moment of unrestrained imagination. What it would be like if she had been the intended recipient. If she perhaps had some secret admirer. At first she pictured the boys in her class at school, but they all felt too familiar—too childish and immature.

  They didn’t feel enough for her.

  No, she wanted someone sophisticated. Someone worldly who could pull her from her dull existence and introduce her to bolder and brighter worlds. He’d be older, much older, with the beginning edges of salt threading otherwise pepper hair. His skin would be dark, his lips lush, and his accent lilting as his tongue curled around poetry in her ear.

  He’d be like the heroes in books and movies. The kind who could offer forever and not just right now.

  Her problem was that she wanted it so much that even the fantasy of it turned her stomach sour. With a tight shake of her head, she wiped the screen and dropped the phone onto the passenger seat. Her car started with a coughing wheeze, and she drove home with every sense trained on her phone, willing it to buzz again.

  It did, later that night.

  The screen blazed bright in her bedroom, illuminating her desk. She fumbled from the sheets, reaching for it. Keenly aware of how her heart tripped over itself with surprise and anticipation.

  YOU AWAKE?

  She tucked one leg beneath her and sat. “Yes,” she whispered. Because she’d never have the guts to actually write back. After a while the screen dimmed before going dark. But Cynthia just sat there in her empty room, thinking about how somewhere out there someone else stared at his phone, waiting for a response. For now, they shared this moment.

  There was something a little beautiful and tragic in that, she thought.

  • • •

  The next day Cynthia checked her phone between every class, but there was nothing. The same that night and every other day that week. She guessed whoever was on the other end had realized his mistake and rectified it. She wondered if he now stayed up late texting with some other girl.

  A girl nothing like Cynthia. Someone fun. Pretty. Interesting. Graceful.

  She went back to tucking her phone in her back pocket again. No reason not to. So when it buzzed again during math that Friday, she jolted, knocking her book to the floor. It landed with a loud thwap that elicited several giggles. Mr. Banks raised his eyebrows in her direction, but she used the distraction of scrambling for her book to pull her phone free and slip it between her thighs, pressing them tight together to muffle any additional texts.

  He continued lecturing about the difference between parabolas and hyperbolas but Cynthia no longer paid any attention. Every molecule of her being focused on the plastic case between her knees. Her breath shallower as she tried to figure out which she wanted more: another text or for the phone to remain silent.

  At the end of class her thumb slid over the sweat dampened screen.

  ARE YOU MAD AT ME?

  She almost laughed. Had even begun to shake her head in an answer. Before she remembered that the text wasn’t meant for her.

  The brief moment of elation crumbled. She turned the phone off and shoved it in her purse.

  • • •

  The next text came after Saturday night had tipped well into Sunday. She lay in the darkness, waiting. Trying to keep her courage up.

  Because tonight she intended to respond.

  YOU DIDN’T RESPOND.

  She pushed herself up, tucking her hair behind her ears. Her fingers actually trembled as she clutched the phone. There was so much she’d imagined saying, so much she wanted to know about the person at the other end of the line.

  Most important, she wanted to know what he expected. What he wanted. Who he wanted her to be.

  But instead of asking any of that, she carefully typed out: I’m sorry, I’m not who you’re looking for.

  Then she reconsidered, deleted the last bit, and replaced it with: you have the wrong number.

  She pressed send with a sigh.

  Bubbles appeared on the screen, indicating that the sender was typing. Cynthia bit her lip, waiting, running the likely responses through her mind. So sorry. My bad. D’oh.

  What she didn’t expect was: NO I DON’T.

  Her eyes widened. I’m not who you’re looking for.

  HOW DO YOU KNOW?

  It was a valid question when she thought about it. The answer was remarkably easy: because no one was looking for her. No one even knew her number. But she wasn’t about to tell him that.

  He didn’t have to know she was a loser. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him if he hadn’t figured it out already.

  I don’t know who you are, she sent him.

  His answer took a while to type, Cynthia’s heart pounding harder with each flash of the bubble on her screen. Until finally: IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHO I AM THEN YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY KNOW WHO I’M LOOKING FOR.

  She actually let out a laugh at that, though it was a little more high pitched than usual. For a moment she wondered if this was what flirting felt like. Curling her toes against the mattress she leaned back, smiling. Who is this?

  Those bubbles again, seeming to last forever. THAT WOULD GIVE AWAY THE PUNCH LINE.

  She stared at the response, the tip of her thumb running across the edge of her phone case. Snapping it off and back on again. What if this was a joke. Or a trick. What if out there a group of guys from school—from her math class, perhaps—were sitting around laughing at her?

  Making her want just to expose how pathetic she was.

  And why was it pathetic to want, anyway? Wasn’t that what life was about? Every action humans take is born of want: wanting to eat, wanting money, wanting friends and love and warmth and meaning.

  To just not be alone. Or invisible.

  Or other.

  HEY, YOU OKAY?

  Her thumbs hovered. The problem was, she didn’t know the answer.

  Ten minutes later, the screen an uninterrupted dark, she set the phone on her bedside table and lay down, staring at it. Her mind played an endless loop of all the ways the conversation could have gone, but there were too many possibilities and so many of them ended wrong.

  Better to be safe, she figured, than wrong.

  • • •

  She spent the week with her eyes up, watching those around her. Wondering which of her fellow students was the one who’d been t
exting her. She hovered by lockers and half-filled lunch tables whenever she saw the flash of a phone, hoping to catch a glimpse of its screen.

  Even though she knew it was ridiculous.

  But she’d heard nothing more, a fact that had caused her mouth to turn dry with a sort of desperate regret twined through with longing.

  Her imagination concocted more and more elaborate fantasies that sprouted like weeds in her mind. No matter how hard she tried to yank them out, they only spread wider, growing wilder.

  So that when Thursday morning’s chapel service rolled around, she was ready to try something more forceful. In the quiet of Communion, as students shuffled up the aisle toward the altar, Cynthia slipped her phone free and thumbed a text.

  You still there?

  Perched on the edge of her seat, she pressed send and scanned the auditorium. Waiting for a head to shift, a shoulder to drop as someone reached for their pocket. She held her breath, straining for the vibration in the silence.

  But there was nothing.

  Until.

  YES.

  Her heart quickened. She whipped her eyes across the other students. Of course several had phones hidden in their laps, but they all appeared bored. None of them with that sense of anticipation or expectation.

  Just to be sure she thumbed out Good and pressed send.

  None of them reacted.

  She turned back in her chair. A smile began threatening her face, but then she noticed the priest frowning at her and she forced her expression into something more neutral.

  But that didn’t stop her pulse from singing.

  • • •

  That night she waited. Expecting that since she’d reestablished contact, she’d hear from him at any moment. But the evening passed. Then the early night. Then the late night. Then the first of the morning. She considered texting him first, but that somehow felt too desperate.

  He’d been the one pursuing her, after all. What did it mean if he’d given up? Perhaps he’d moved on to other prey. She’d known it would only be a matter of time.

  Or maybe he’d realized she was the wrong number after all.

  Either way, when she fell asleep just before sunrise, something inside of her felt newly hollow and fragile, and she didn’t know how to handle it without breaking it.

  • • •

  It was early Sunday and of course Cynthia was awake. She didn’t sleep. Couldn’t sleep because of the waiting.

  The waiting and the dreaming.

  DON’T BE MAD AT ME.

  The text lit up her room. The corner of her lip twitched with satisfaction. He recognized she had a right to be upset.

  It made her feel a bit powerful. And so she flexed it, waiting before responding.

  It worked. He bit first.

  ARE YOU AWAKE?

  She smiled and leaned back against her headboard. So if you won’t tell me your name, then tell me something else about you.

  There was a part of her that couldn’t believe what she was doing. Pushing. Engaging. Asking.

  Flirting.

  I LIKE MUSIC.

  Music wasn’t really her thing. But it could be. What kind.

  OLDER STUFF. CLASSIC ROCK KIND OF STUFF. DYLAN. KING.

  She frowned, a soft alarm buzzing in the back of her head. How old are you?

  The answer came fast. YOUR AGE.

  Cynthia picked at the corner of her phone case with her thumb. What school do you go to?

  There was a long pause. The bubbles of him typing didn’t even appear for several minutes. Enough so that Cynthia had already swung her legs off the side of the bed and begun to pace.

  IS THAT REALLY WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW?

  She let out a breath and sank into her desk chair.

  ASK ME WHAT YOU REALLY WANT.

  Heat washed over her. The problem was that there were so many things she wanted to know, but she couldn’t decide which were more important. She wanted to know how he found her number. How he knew who she was. Why he’d texted her. If he liked her. Who he was. What he wanted.

  It all came so fast in her mind it made her dizzy.

  But there was the one question that had been the drumbeat underlying everything from the beginning. Is this a joke?

  NO.

  Of course he would say that. Even if it was an elaborate prank, he’d never admit it. How can I trust you?

  BECAUSE I’M A FRIEND.

  This gave her pause. She thought back to the students at the chapel service she’d seen with their phones out. Do I know you?

  YOU DO NOW.

  That wasn’t an answer at all. If anything, it made this all feel like even more of a trick. But before now. Have we met?

  A pause. Then bubbles. Then: YES.

  It was as though the air around her had come alive. When?

  Minutes passed. So many that Cynthia almost panicked that she’d somehow driven him away. A half-dozen times she typed out some sort of apology and then deleted it. Afraid to press send because then he’d never answer.

  WHY DOES THIS MATTER TO YOU?

  Inside, she warred, because it didn’t actually matter to her if they’d met. What mattered was the assurance this wasn’t all a practical joke. But his refusal to answer—to tell her his name, to explain how they knew each other—that’s what scared her.

  I just . . . don’t know if I should be talking to you.

  WHY NOT?

  Frustration buzzed along her arms. It was so obvious, she felt stupid having to type it out. Because. What if you’re not who you say you are?

  A FRIEND?

  She rolled her eyes. Heat flushed her cheeks, the back of her neck, dampening the nightgown at the base of her spine. You could be someone from school playing a joke. A serial killer. A pervert. A monster. Insane.

  OR A FRIEND, LIKE I SAID.

  But the reality was, she didn’t believe that. Because she didn’t have any friends. So, why would one suddenly appear? So out of the blue? There had to be a reason. Some sort of ulterior motive. She shook her head, trying to find the words to explain.

  He responded before she could even type her reply. WHY DO YOU BELIEVE THE WORST ABOUT PEOPLE?

  She didn’t know how this had turned around on her, but she felt judged. As though he found her somehow lacking. Not good enough. She wanted to prove herself to him. I don’t believe the worst about people.

  YOU BELIEVE THE WORST ABOUT YOURSELF.

  At this she choked on a laugh born of outrage and leaped to her feet. She quivered with anger, knuckles white from gripping the phone. She started her response a dozen times and a dozen times she deleted it.

  Because maybe he was right.

  It was so much easier to blame her loneliness on herself. That she wasn’t interesting or smart or pretty or fun or cool enough to attract friends. Because, somehow it would be worse if she was all of those things—brilliant and beautiful and witty and vivacious—and folks still rejected her.

  She didn’t believe that it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Loss meant you somehow failed. That you couldn’t hold on tight enough.

  Defeated, she stood in front of the window, shoulders slumped. The phone buzzed in her hand.

  WHY CAN’T I JUST BE SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?

  Her first thought was: What if I want something more? But she shook it loose before it could sink hooks into her mind. She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of a loser took a string of texts from an anonymous stranger and spun them into such a far-fetched fantasy.

  It was absurd. And yet . . . she couldn’t stop.

  She didn’t know how to answer his questions. She couldn’t just tell him that it was an empirical fact that no one wanted to be her friend. Then the real question came. The one thing she’d really wanted to know. But how can I know for sure?

  LIFE DOESN’T COME WITH GUARANTEES.

  Her answer was simple and raw and honest. It would be so much easier if it did.

  There
was a long break, enough so that Cynthia had settled back into bed and allowed her eyes to start drifting shut. The familiar hum lit the room.

  SWEET DREAMS.

  She wanted to feel disappointed, and, to be fair, she did. But that didn’t stop the smile from spreading in the darkness.

  • • •

  The next morning Cynthia downloaded every Bob Dylan song she could find, playing them on an endless repeat. She wore earbuds to school so she could listen between classes. It made the waiting between texts easier.

  Because, even given their lengthy conversation over the weekend, the texts were as sporadic as ever. Cynthia began to wonder about his life. When he texted her in math class on Wednesday that he was thinking of her, had he also been in school? Perhaps snuck away to the bathroom so he wouldn’t get caught with his phone?

  And late at night, when her eyes burned with the need for sleep, was he maybe just getting off work somewhere? Did he race home, thinking of her? Slip into bed, a smile on his face, and pull up her number?

  Or maybe she was just one of a dozen. A hundred or a thousand girls, and maybe even boys, he rotated through.

  All of these questions and doubts would crush into the silence. They’d fill the empty screen as she waited for him.

  It became too much. The edge she sat on too razor sharp. So that when her phone buzzed late on Friday, she didn’t even stop to think. She flicked the button to call him. Holding her breath during the long pause before it began to ring.

  Panic ran through her, sending her heart thundering. Her brain screamed at her to hang up hang up hang up, but she pushed the phone tighter to her ear. He’d just texted. Which meant he’d been holding his phone.

  Which meant there was no way he didn’t see her call coming through.

  Yet he wasn’t answering.

  She wanted to picture him sitting somewhere, staring at her name on his screen. But she couldn’t, because in her mind he was only a shadow.

  She closed her eyes. Not wanting to accept what was obvious.

  It rolled over to his voice mail, and for a moment she thought that at least she’d be able to construct an image of him from the scaffolding of his voice. But she was met with only the robotic recitation of his number and the offer to leave a message.