04 Aug Text Messages

Posted at 11:00h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 0 Comments

📅 Published on August 4, 2022

“Text Messages”

Written by Dale Thompson
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 13 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 2 votes.

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No other couple on the planet had a larger dragon to slay than Henry and Anne. Maybe it was no dragon at all. Nothing was as sinister as what the couple had allowed to crawl in between them and separate them. First, this succubus came to Henry and sucked dry his finances. The bank account was in both of their names, but the succubus invited her friend succubae, and together the ménage-à-trois had excluded Anne.

When Anne realized that Henry had lost all of their money because of his habitual gambling and over-expenditures, she refused to allow Henry to justify himself again.

Anne hid her betrayal well. She, too, had her own demon. Yes, her incubus visited her often with clothes, jewelry, shoes, and beauty aids, which mounted into the thousands.

If two people were ever more in love and more committed to one another, the record does not indicate such. Henry and Anne were faithful when it came to other people; they were unfaithful in their financial secrets, which would eventually drive an unmoveable wedge between them.

The night Anne threw a glass of wine in Henry’s direction was the same night after an embittered disagreement that turned into a war in which she tossed him to the curb. In two weeks, he was going to lose his Jaguar, so he did not care how he drove it out of the driveway.

Tires were screeching from the driveway and down the two-lane street to the traffic light, which was red when he blew through it. His nerves were on edge, and the edge was razor sharp. He was a man haunted by thoughts of what was and what should have been, but the reality was he had to face the now. He was, emphatically, damned; he had no money, no wife, and his will to live was nearly exhausted.

His car swerved in and out of the night’s traffic with near misses and expletives. Headlights were coming head-on as he dangerously played a game of chicken with a semi-truck. Henry was torn. He was hurt, bitter, angry, disappointed, and most of all, he believed all was futile, and his life was worthless.

He drove with blind fury until he recognized nothing ahead.

The car began to slow. Henry was lost. He had not driven that far; he swore he had only driven a few miles, and he knew every road within a 30-mile square. How did he not know this road?

He became uncomfortable and looked around in every direction in hopes of locating a familiar landmark. He knew without a doubt he had just been through town. Town should be south, and north should be the direction he was now traveling, but it should not be a two-lane highway. He never remembered getting off the freeway.

Giving up this endless driving which was taking him nowhere he wanted to go, he pulled to the side of the road. Nothing in any direction looked familiar to him. He lost all awareness and, in his malaise and disquiet, he sank in his seat with an uneasiness he had never been privy to before. This unexplainable situation needed resolution, and he needed it now.

His distress heightened considerably. A drive to blow off some steam and his aim to find a quiet hotel to drink himself to sleep seemed out of the question. Unbelievably, he was in the middle of nowhere.

Snatching his phone from the console, he emerged from the car practically in tears over how the events of the night had destroyed everything he loved. He thought, “I can fix this. I will call Anne, and we will work through this.” He attempted to make the call, but he had no signal. He always had a phone signal.

He again made an attempt to call Anne. The signal was offline. Henry paced around the car a few times in thought. No rationale could explain this situation. He looked to the left, then to the right. The road was inexplicably empty in both directions. His mind was heavy, laden with confusion. In his heart stirred a great moral disturbance that he could not rectify or elucidate.

He set off aimlessly walking, although his car was operating just fine. He was not making good decisions. The pressure was painful, penetrating as if someone was twisting his arteries together and cutting off his blood supply. He noticed his face was hot and his fingers were tingling. His tongue seemed to have swollen, and he became panicked for air. His initial worry was that he was possibly having a heart attack on this barren highway.

He stopped, knelt down on one knee and consciously forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. When this out-of-the-blue sensation had reached its maximum and he thought about giving up the ghost, a sudden breath of air whipped though him, and he was breathing normally again. Not able to justify why he was walking away from his ride, he turned around and returned to the car. He could not explain what had just happened other than some spiritual dissolution. Maybe a panic attack?

Regardless of the implications, he was still without direction. He could not ascertain what sort of symptoms he had just experienced, but he was determined to keep his heart rate down and hopefully find a clinic open somewhere to be checked out. He examined his phone again in hopes of seeing a signal. He had none, but strangely had a message from Anne’s number.

It was a text message. Anne never used text. Henry thought it strange, but at least he had proof of life.

For a while, he had worried that the whole world had gone somewhere and had left him isolated in his own self-pity. The message read, “My dear Henry, I am so sorry. I did not mean it. Love Anne.”

Henry thought, “That was unusual for Anne to use a text message…and to start off with Dear Henry?” He was conflicted with the message. He convinced himself that possibly the phone was not in range, but somehow, text messages were getting through. He pondered a bit on how to respond. They had been at one another’s throats before she had ordered him to leave the house or have the police come. He texted back, “Can I come home?”

While waiting for a response, he saw lights he had not noticed before. Remarkably, he knew where he was. How had he not known before? How could he have been so oblivious to his location? He knew exactly where he was. He did not like the feeling of being vulnerable. He thought it was unbecoming as a man.

His phone lit up with a message. There was a reply from Anne’s phone. “Yes, please come home. I miss you already.” As much as he wanted to return home, he could not help but think this sounded like a ridiculous response.

“Why would she write, ‘I miss you already?’” He did not want to be suspicious, but it sounded odd. “Maybe she has been drinking,” was his assumption. One thing he did not want to do was to go home to an intoxicated Anne. She never held her drink well, and usually alcohol only fueled the fires. He wrote her back, “Do you really want me to return? I will if we can make up.” Henry thought what he sent was stale and platitudinous and that she would read right through it, but he was pressed for the right words.

Immediately a response came. “Henry, my love. I want you. I do not know what I was thinking. Let me show you how much I love you.”

Henry scratched his head. He wondered what was going on. What were her intentions? Deep in his heart, he wanted to jump back in the car and race back to her. Something for him was out of sorts. His whole world crashed all at once, and now an olive branch had been extended from the very woman who attempted to put his eye out with a wine glass. This bridge she was building, was it a bridge of matches that she was going to light once he had driven to the center?

He texted her back, “What has changed?”

Another instant text almost quicker than he had sent it. “When you left, it was painfully apparent that I cannot live without you. You are my life. Come home to me, my darling.”

It was all he could do to read these responses. Anne called him darling? He was troubled yet optimistic, not wanting to throw away the opportunity to save his marriage, yet in his heart, reservations persisted. He was no longer comfortable with the shadowy vagueness of his current location, so he got back into his car, turned around and slowly drove in the direction of home. His mind kept seeing the grotesque, twisted face of his wife screaming til her face was blood red as he stormed out of the house. It was a horrid sight, how distorted her appearance had become; the veins in her neck had bulged unnaturally to the point that it literally appeared her head might explode. He could not reconcile how she could have calmed herself so much, so quickly.

Another text pinged his phone. He slowed down in order to read it. “I am waiting. You won’t be disappointed. We’ll go back to better days.”

Henry felt a painful clutch at his heart. He could not identify it as a real heart condition or anxiety mixed with dread. He certainly was not willing to go a second round with Anne tonight. This indescribable uneasiness was not reassuring at all.

Henry fumbled with the small buttons on his phone until he had typed and sent, “On my way. We should talk.”

In a flash, a response came practically quicker than it would take time to peck it out on the keys. “Talk? I have other ideas. Don’t you want some romance? Love will set things right. Don’t you think?”

Henry did not understand this new character he was chatting with. It was either the most remarkable act of forgiveness known to man, or she wanted something from him. She never bartered with her body. He did not like the rather vague and peculiar way she was responding; if only he could gauge her true tone before he arrived, then he would know what he was dealing with. He considered his options and had to agree that loving was better than fighting. He was driving safely but with more determination to make it home.

Another message pinged his phone. “We can work through this; just come home. I need you badly.” Henry glanced in his rear-view mirror to see the landscape behind him disappearing, becoming less distinct, like a place he had never been. Shadows were falling over the path he had just traveled, darkening his mind, causing him to be afraid for some haunting reason that he would never see it again. Mournfulness and depression ensued, and he could not help but be reminded of his downfall and how everything was lost. Loathing himself for his failures, he questioned himself as to why he was racing home to nothing. In miserable detestation, he debated with himself the advisability of returning at all. He was tempted to do one of three things. He looked ahead to a life where he would be alone. He would have to continue driving far away for that to happen. He could drive the car as fast as he could and aim toward a viaduct, ending it all, which, if he did not die, would be a long, painful recovery. Or he could follow the text messages from his wife and arrive home to face the consequences, good or bad.

Another buzz from his phone. “I hope you are close. I am ready for you. Are you coming?” Something macabre rose up in him, and he explained it away as no more than nervous tension. The way back home seemed more difficult and longer than the journey he had taken into the unknown. His concerns were building, yet he wanted his wife to truly want him. He wrestled with the reasons she might want him back. He honestly could not name one quality he had shown her worthy of forgiving and reconciling their marriage. When he had left the house earlier in the evening, any thought of saving their relationship was something he did not even consider. He simply believed it was tragically over.

As he approached their house, he garnered a sense of distinct relief. From his vantage point of sitting inside the car, he saw their bedroom light was on, but the light was dimmed. That was a reassuring sign that Anne was sincere. Henry’s dismal countenance came alive, believing that his wife was actually waiting for him. He texted her back, “I am on my way. Give me a few minutes.”

Once again, the return text was fast. He looked down at his phone. “Don’t be long. I long for you. I am aching to be held in your arms.”

This text did not rouse him at all. He was becoming more concerned than inspired. Was there any hope of repairing his marriage? Could it be possible he would be intimate with his wife tonight? He had come so far. He had turned around and returned home. He could not shake off the pessimism.

A mysterious tension choked him. What was he returning to? Was this the home he wanted? Was this the wife he wanted? All it had ever been was disastrous, with more contention than his ailing heart could take. He swore that she was going to be the death of him due to the stress alone.

He stopped.

What was he thinking? Shouldn’t he be more sympathetic, more optimistic? This was the woman he vowed to honor and love in sickness and in health. How could he back out of the vows he had made before God and man? He knew full well that he was not in any mood for intimacy. But he thought it was necessary for the two of them to clear the air. If his wife truly wanted him, he would be there for her.

His phone pinged again. He had been in such contemplation that the sound made him jump. “My one and only, my love, come to me; I am ready.”

With a text like that, Henry was not sure what mindset Anne was in or what had driven her to this sort of thing on such a forlorn night of trouble between them. Henry sat idle in the car; his mind was spinning. “How to approach her? What to say? How to reason and convince her there had to be change?” He wrestled with unseen spirits and forces of disorientation that pulled him from every side. He needed a miracle, a remarkable answer to this abominable situation which he took 50% of the blame for. Henry did not want to walk into some desolation that would leave him lower than he already was feeling. His head was not in a good place. He needed a drink, but he knew that would lead to more insanity, especially if Anne had already had too much consumption.

Henry gripped the steering wheel in his capable hands. He pushed on it as if he wished to remove it from the console. Nothing made sense in his world any longer. What a maddening night. He had not recognized his wife in a very long time. This revelation caused him to cry. He could not hold back the tears. He was unable to pinpoint that specific time when his appreciation of his spouse had waned to the point of withering into nothingness. He felt grossly sick. Swallowing hard in order not to empty the contents of his stomach, he gathered enough courage to exit his car.

Looking at the house, the home that he and Anne had made was something he never imagined having to give up. He wiped the last of the tears and took a deep breath of fortitude. Henry flipped the latch of the gate. There was no lock. And he convinced himself that the best thing for everyone involved was to venture up the walkway to the front door. His mind reflected back to the day he and Anne had picked out the front door for their new build. The house they shared was built from the ground up with their combined income and their collective imaginations straight out of college. There was no contention ever in the build of their forever home.

Henry walked toward the house he helped to build as a man sentenced to an unknown fate. A strange influence hung in the air like a hungry carrion wanting to swoop down to the blood and guts of something rotting. Henry paused as if warned by an angel of the Lord, yet he dismissed it as superstitious nonsense and continued until he reached the door of no contention. No contention, yet a debatable restraint tugged at him in a way that Henry brushed off as a child trying to get a parent’s attention. All at this point seemed nebulous, and instead of being motivated by encouragement, Henry was propelled by some primordial instinct. Henry felt numb, as though he was locked into a dream. He imagined what a man might feel like standing before the gallows from which he would soon swing. A dull ache in his heart of hearts gripped his chest as he reached for the doorknob. With hesitation, he drew back as if the door was electrified. A sense of solitary loneliness fell upon him as he took a glance over his shoulder at the gate into which he entered his own property. Straining to cope with the uncertainty, as one that would not place their hand up into the osculum infame, Henry withdrew his hand as one who wished not to be defiled.

Presently he looked up at the window, which was their bedroom, to see the elegant silhouette of a woman, his vivacious wife dancing slowly to the rhythm of music that he could not hear.

Another ping, buzzed Henry’s phone. He looked at the screen of his phone and read, “I know you are here. Do not hesitate; I will make your dreams come true.”

Henry’s earlier withered countenance, as nearly dead as a flower in the season of drought, thundered with a storm inside. His emotions had been stirred in a pot where the ingredients were nameless secrets gathered from a forbidden forest in a lost world unnamed.

The sky was heavy with a rain that had never fallen, bottled up and swelling as if angry enough to unleash the torrent any second upon the sleeping world. Henry sensed there were staggering consequences to be met, but at the same time, he wasn’t sure if the danger was coming from inside or outside of his house. A damp wind blew and Henry suddenly received a chill, a message, a warning, but was Henry sensitive to this phenomenon? Could Henry discern an omen? He did not know why he felt awkward at his own doorstep, a step he had entered hundreds of times. He was not able to justify his apprehension. The inconvenience that encapsulated him was as if he was intruding upon himself. A dark, ominous shudder shook him like the last leaf on a barren tree, broken and dying as winter took possession. He became sad and weary and his attraction turned threatening. Henry entered the house. The house seemed strangely bare and deserted. He went deeper in from the foyer into the dining room. The house was eerily quiet. His beating heart pushed him forward. He never heard the front door shut. But it was shut. Darkness revealed no clues of what he was facing. Presently he felt the center of something of malignant suspension. His blood tingled in a way that his veins burned.

His phone pinged. “I am upstairs, my lovely one. Come up and meet me. I will share paradise, and we can be one.”

Henry did not want to act quickly. If Anne truly wanted him, she could wait until he was ready. He was becoming neurotic and fought the sensation, desiring the companionship of his wife yet not wanting awkwardness, which might lead to another physical altercation. Henry knew he would never endure another fight. He took another look at the odd text his wife had sent him this evening. It was so odd, very strange, that she would write in such a way after their earlier angry eruption. Their fitful shouts and angry words still cried out in his ears. He tried to oppress the past. The commotion still rang as if the controversy was still engaged. He froze cautiously, listened, and heard faint music from upstairs. Henry wanted to make things right. He wanted life with his wife to return to normal before all of this foolish turmoil began. Was their marriage able to be stimulated again? His hope was, that it was. He texted his wife, “Anne, I am coming upstairs. I cannot wait to see you.”

He took his time climbing the stairs waiting for one last text as an assurance that his wife actually wanted to reunite. This time the response did not come back as quickly. As Henry reached the top of the staircase, heading toward the master bedroom, his phone pinged again.

He took a few steps toward the bedroom before looking down at his phone. Anxiously, with a smile and growing optimism, his eyes flicked down to the message.

The message read…“I am not Anne.”