Hello?

I still couldn’t believe my mom was gone. It was a few days after her funeral and as the only child, it was up to me to go through her belongings and decide what to keep and what to get rid of.

Her prized possessions were her books. She loved to read and she had a wall of Sci-Fi and Horror novels that I had to sort through. She had always been a bit of a conspiracy theorist, and often said she believed that some of the things in those books might be true.

Besides her things, there were my things. Objects from my childhood and teenage years, that had not seen the light of day in decades. They were packed away in the closet in my childhood room, which was still decorated with posters of Pearl Jam, Lenny Kravitz, and other rock stars who were my world, as a teenager in the 90s.

There were puzzles, Hot Wheels cars, and a broken See 'n Say. So many things that I’d forgotten existed, like my favorite toy phone.

I picked up the old Fisher-Price Chatter Phone. I had always loved this happy little rotary phone with wheels and smile on its face. It had a string attached to it and you could pull it like a dog on leash, and the eyes bobbed up and down as it rolled.

Seeing it brought back memories of me scurrying through the house, holding on to the string, as I pulled the phone behind me.

During my journeys, various spaces in the house transformed into magical places in my imagination. The cozy spot near the closet in my grandparents’ bedroom was the forest. The small side table by the mantle in the living room was The Queen's house. There were so many.

I’d “travel” to various locations in my made-up world, pulling the phone behind me, and when I got to my location, I’d sit down on the floor, pick up the receiver, and put it to my ear.

“He-wo?” I had to call one of my imaginary friends to come join me.

At 3, I was too young to pronounce “Hello” correctly. My mom always remembered this fondly, and she would imitate my “He-wo?” whenever we reminisced about my childhood.

For a split second, I felt like that small child again as I held the phone, then reality hit and tears started flowing down my cheeks. I wiped my eyes and once more for old times' sake, I put the receiver to my ear.

“He-wo?” I then heard a response.

“Hello?”

I dropped the phone in shock, sure that I’d had just imagined my mother’s voice on the other end in a bout of grief. I was terrified, but at the same time, I wanted it to be real. I just stared at the phone that was on the floor beneath my feet for a moment, then sat down on the olive-green carpet just as I had done as a child.

My hands trembled as I picked up the phone. I was certain that it had just been my imagination, but just for the hell of it, I put the receiver to my ear again.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Sweetie.” The voice sounded distant, but I knew it was her.

“Mama?”

“I haven’t talked to you in a while. Just checking to see how you’re doing?”

“This can’t be happening! You’re…”

“I know, Honey. I didn’t even want to go. All the food we bought for 4th of July that I didn’t get to cook. The new TV I had just got. I didn’t even get to finish watching the baseball game.”

Our home team had been playing on the day she was rushed to the hospital one final time.

Before passing, my mom had been asleep for almost week. The doctors said this sometimes happens to people with kidney failure. They just fall sleep and never wake up.

I’d had one last conversation with my mom, letting her know that I’d come to visit her the next day, as they transferred her from the hospital to a hospice house.

“That’s great!” mom said. The next day she was permanently asleep and I never heard her voice again...until now.

“How is this possible?” I asked, but there was no response. “Mama?”

Still nothing. “Mama? Hello?"

I sat there on the floor with the phone in my hands and just sobbed.

I have no idea how long I stayed on the floor, but I finally pulled myself together. It had just been my imagination. Delirium in a fit of grief. I was too overwhelmed and decided to go home and come back another day.  

When I got home, I just wanted to rest. After going through the old dusty things in the closet, I needed a shower. After I finished showering, I began putting on my bath robe then I heard my phone ringing in the other room.

I gasped. It was the iPhone “Chimes” ringtone that I had assigned to my mom. No one else had that ringtone. With wet feet, I ran across the bathroom, almost slipping, but by the time I got to my bedroom, the phone had stopped ringing.

A moment later, there were two beeps, letting me know that I had just gotten a voicemail. I wiped my damp hands on my robe before picking up.

“Hi, Sweetie. Just wanted to tell you to be careful. There are people out there, who look human, but they’re not. Pay attention to the eyes, the way they walk, the way they speak, even the way they eat.

"They can’t digest human food the way that we do. Always watch out. I’ll do whatever I can to make you see. They have humanity under a spell. They look like normal humans until you're unaware they exist. They...”

The message ended abruptly, and there was a high-pitched tone, that seemed like it was going to burst my eardrum.

I dropped the phone on the bed and sat frozen for a moment. Which was more disturbing? Calls from my deceased mother or what I had just been told? I looked at the missed call log and recent calls, but there was no phone number.

This was not happening. I still refused to believe it. Grief can do crazy things to people’s minds. I checked my phone again. No recent calls, no missed calls, but the voicemail was still there. I sat on the bed for a while, wondering if she would call again, but after an hour, nothing.

I decided to go to the liquor store a few blocks away, because vodka sounded about right at that moment. When I got there, the old man, who was usually at the counter, greeted me, but something seemed off. I made my way to the vodka section, grabbed a bottle of Reyka, and stood in line.

There were 4 people in front of me and I glanced at the old man as he rang them up. For a split second, his pupils seemed to become slits, like something reptilian, then they went back to normal. I looked around and no one else seemed to notice.

The store was packed and there was the usual chatter, then a man with long blond hair looked at me and said something. It sounded like gibberish.

“I’m sorry?” I said.

“I said ‘pardon me’. I accidentally bumped your arm as I walked past.

“Oh! No worries. I hadn’t even noticed.”

The man got in line behind me then another tall guy joined him. I heard them talking, but I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. It almost sounded like English, but it wasn’t. Like one of those videos, you see on YouTube about what English sounds like to people who don’t speak English.

I was a language nerd and I’d studied several foreign languages just for fun, while learning about many others, but this was no language that was familiar to me. The man who had bumped me then tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned back, he spoke this unintelligible language to me.

“What?”

He spoke again and I still didn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth. I just looked at him. As he was speaking, he pointed towards the front of the store. I turned towards the front and saw that I was my turn to be rung up.

“Oh, thank you.” I hurried to the counter.

The old man smiled at me. “How are you?”

“Um…ok.” I wasn’t in the mood for the usual pleasantries.

He rang me up and I tapped my card on the card reader, then put it back in my wallet as the reader beeped, letting me know that the transaction was complete.

“Thank you,” the old man said, as I stashed the vodka in my backpack.

“Have a good…” I looked at him and his face was distorted, as if he were part of a Van Gogh painting that had come to life. I was terrified and just ran out of the store as fast as I could.

It was only about a 7-minute walk back to my house, but on this day, it seemed like an eternity. It was like walking in a dream, where everything is in slow motion, and you walk and walk, but get nowhere.

I walked past several restaurants with outdoor seating and many of the patrons looked like something out of an early AI video, where they were going through the motions of eating, but not actually putting any food in their mouths. Some had mouths that were distorted when they chewed, and some didn’t even seem to know where to aim their forks.

The servers and the people near them, who looked normal, didn’t notice anything. I started running, almost entering the intersection before a loud horn stopped me. I stopped short at the curb as a red truck flew by, and the heavy traffic didn’t allow me to jaywalk.

I felt like I was hyperventilating. The light couldn’t turn green fast enough. I looked to my left then to my right, but there was no gap in the traffic for me to run through. Finally, the light changed and I continued running. I just wanted to get home, where I felt safe.

Although, I was in a hurry, I still looked around me, not sure what strangeness I would experience next. There was a couple at the other end of the sidewalk walking towards me. I slowed down, terrified of being close to anyone at that moment. Crossing the street wouldn't have been any better, because there was a group of people heading in my direction on that side as well.

I averted my eyes as I passed the couple, but something told me to look back at them. They had seemed to be walking normally at first, but now behind me, they walked like zombies. They moved slowly, as their legs moved side to side, instead of front to back. My apartment was at the end of the block and when I got there, I hurried inside as fast as I could and shut the door.

There was no time for a shot glass. I took the vodka bottle from my backpack, yanked off the plastic safety seal, twisted off the top, then took a swig from the bottle. I then heard my mom’s ringtone again.

The phone was right there in my pocket and I answered it immediately as I sat the bottle down on the coffee table.

“Mama, what’s happening?” Tears started flowing down my face.

“Sweetie, don’t cry. I know you’re scared. Here on the other side, you can see things you couldn’t see before. I just wanted you to know the truth.”

“But, those…creatures. What are they?”

“They’re demons that have escaped from the underworld. They're here to harvest human energy.

"Every time they do, people get sicker. Look at all the new diseases that have popped up over the years, Ebola, COVID…it’s them! Every time they find new substances to extract from human DNA, a new disease is born. Human are drained of their life force and they get stronger.”

“So, what am I supposed to do now?”

“Destroy them! Tell others and find people who will help you fight."

“But, they’ll think I’m crazy! Maybe I am crazy. Maybe this conversation isn’t really happening…”

“It’s real. Tell everybody you can, whether they believe you or not. Not everyone will awaken, but some will. Destroy them before they take over the Earth.

“But how do we destroy them?”

“You have to research. Like I told you, they put truth in books they call fiction. Don’t throw away my books! Read them for clues. You will figure it out. You've always been so smart.

"I haven’t been here long, so the veil between the worlds is thin now, but I don’t think I’ll be able to contact you for much longer. Listen..."

She continued speaking, but her voice became more and more faint, until I could no longer hear her.

“Mama?...Mama!...Hello?”