I Received the Coordinates of a Corpse Before the Police

I shouldn’t have opened that message.

It arrived at 3:17 AM.

No name.

No number I recognized.

Just a text.

“If you want to know where they buried the body, you have 20 minutes.”

For a moment, I didn’t move.

The room was completely silent.

Too silent.

Like the world had paused just to wait for my reaction.

Then my phone vibrated again.

A photo appeared.

A forest.

Dark. Wet. Empty.

GPS coordinates attached.

And something pale half-buried in the soil.

I told myself it was fake.

A prank.

A virus.

Anything but real.

But three days earlier, a girl had disappeared in my city.

22 years old.

University student.

Black hair.

Her face was everywhere online.

And I had made a comment I shouldn’t have.

I said the police were searching in the wrong place.

I stared at the coordinates again.

They were real.

A location about twenty minutes away.

A place I knew.

We used to go there as teenagers.

Bonfires. Drinking. Noise.

Now it was abandoned.

And wrong.

My phone vibrated again.

“Go alone.”

That was when I felt it.

The shift.

Like someone had just stepped closer to me in the dark.

Even though I was alone.

I should have called the police.

I didn’t.

I grabbed my keys instead.

And I left.

The roads were empty.

Rain hitting the windshield like static.

Every car behind me felt too close.

Every reflection looked like it was watching me.

The closer I got, the worse it became.

My phone stayed silent.

No more messages.

That was somehow worse.

Then I arrived.

The forest entrance.

Black trees. Wet ground. No sound.

Just rain.

And wind that didn’t feel natural.

My phone vibrated one last time.

“You are almost there.”

I followed the coordinates on foot.

Mud under my shoes.

Branches scratching my arms.

My breath getting heavier with every step.

Then I saw it.

The exact spot from the photo.

Same trees.

Same slope.

Same ground.

The soil was disturbed.

Fresh.

Too fresh.

Something was sticking out of it.

At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing.

Then it moved in the wind.

Pale.

Human.

A hand.

I stepped back immediately.

Slipped in the mud.

Fell hard.

My phone almost flew from my hand.

It rang.

Unknown number.

I answered without thinking.

Only silence at first.

Then breathing.

Close.

Too close.

And finally, a voice:

“Now you know where she is.”

The call ended.

Behind me, a branch snapped.

I turned around.

Nothing.

Only darkness.

But I knew something was there.

Watching.

Waiting.

I ran.

I didn’t stop.

I didn’t look back.

Not once.

The police found the body that night.

It matched the missing girl.

Exactly where the coordinates said.

But I never told them everything.

Because the message I received…

came from a phone that didn’t exist anymore.

And the number…

had been disconnected for years.

It belonged to someone who was already dead.