The Voicemail

My grandmother died on a Tuesday. On Thursday, my phone buzzed with a voicemail from her number.

I stared at it for a full minute. Her phone had been sold with the rest of the estate, and I had watched the buyer drive away with it myself. I pressed play anyway.

"Hi, sweetheart. Just checking you got home okay. Leave the porch light on tonight. Don't answer the door, no matter who knocks."

It was thirty seconds long and ended with a soft click. Her voice was warm and unhurried, exactly how she used to leave messages, always too long, always ending with "I love you more than pie."

This one didn't.

I told myself it was a glitch, a delayed message stuck in some server for weeks. But the timestamp read 9:14 p.m., tonight's date. I walked to the front door and checked the porch light. It was already on. I hadn't turned it on.

I spent the evening pretending to be normal. I made tea I didn't drink. I scrolled through photos of her at the lake, laughing, her hair blown sideways. At 11:40, someone knocked.

Three slow raps.

I didn't move. The knocks came again, patient, rhythmic. I crept to the door and looked through the peephole.

Mr. Hale stood on my porch, smiling, holding a casserole dish wrapped in foil. He was my grandmother's neighbor, a gentle man who used to wave from his garden. He looked kind. He looked completely normal.

"I know you're home," he called through the wood. "Your grandma asked me to check on you. Poor thing, you shouldn't be alone tonight."

My hands were shaking. I could smell the casserole, which should have been impossible through a closed door. It smelled like her kitchen, like butter and thyme.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Another voicemail, 11:41 p.m. I pressed it to my ear with the volume turned all the way down.

"That isn't Mr. Hale, sweetheart," my grandmother whispered. "Mr. Hale passed away last month. Don't open the door."

My blood went cold. I remembered the funeral card on her fridge, the one with his name on it. I had read it only days ago.

I looked through the peephole again.

The porch was empty. The light was still on, the street silent, not a single footprint in the dew on the grass. But the casserole dish sat on the doormat, and steam was still curling up from beneath the foil.

I stayed against that door until sunrise. When the light finally turned gray, I opened it just a crack. The dish was gone. In its place was a single wet handprint on the glass of the door, from the outside, at the height of my face.

I haven't opened the door after dark since. The voicemails stopped, but every night at 9:14, my phone lights up just once with her name. I never answer.

Last night, I finally checked my voicemail history. There was a new message, unplayed. The timestamp read tomorrow's date.