Fiction: The Proxy, a short horror story

The Proxy

A short horror story, by Erik Engström, July 2024.

I saw myself in the reflection in the TV-screen as it powered down. It was midnight already and I was going to bed, even if I knew it probably would be yet another sleepless night. The anxiety kept me from the rest that my mind so badly needed. The text message I received from the bank I had received the other day made me question my own sanity, it claimed I had been to the bank and signed up for a loan. Normally I would dismiss this as a lazy-at-best attempt at phishing, but this was one of many similar text messages I had received. Had I really been there? No. I wouldn’t have. I couldn’t have.

Sleep never came that night, I turned restlessly in bed, begging a higher power to let me sleep. This state of psychological torture went on throughout the night, until bird song snapped me back to reality the following morning.

My grasp on reality loosened further the next day when my brother called me, thanking me for the visit yesterday. He wondered how I felt, claiming that my voice had been sounding different.

I did not hesitate, questioning him if he was pranking me I asked ”What are you talking about? I was at home. Like all other days!”. Only too late did I notice that I had raised my voice. I hadn’t been there, had I? My senses grew dull, I could listen to him speak, but I could not hear what he was saying. The words made little sense, it could have been a foreign language. ”Something is seriously wrong” I told him, ”I need to figure this out”. Confused words in reply reached my ear, but I was staring blankly ahead as I ended the call mid-sentence.

What is going on? Had the sleep-deprived nights finally made me crazy? I asked myself.
I need to call my friend, ask him if he has noticed anything strange, before it was too late for my brittle sanity.

I stared at my phone for a second, wondering if I really should make the call. The notifications of missed calls and text messages convinced me to finally make the call to my friend. He picked up after a few signals, asking me how I was doing and we chatted for a few minutes as I was making my way to the kitchen from the bedroom.

Had I not been on the speaker phone I would have missed the notification. My security system had spotted movement outside the bedroom and I could hear a strange sound coming from that direction. I told my friend that I needed to check something out in the bedroom and I rapidly walked back there.

Seeing what I saw made me gasp as my phone slipped out of my hand, landing with a thump on the carpet. I stood frozen in utter confusion, whoever it was looked back at me, completely expressionless and with a wooden log in its hand. There was no time for me to react. It rushed towards me with extreme speed and with one swift strike it brought me to the floor, landing just out of reach of the phone laying not far away from me. A warm liquid trickled from the side of my head and for a moment I was paralyzed. My willpower had been drained and I was powerless to stop the being from picking up my phone that had slipped out of my grip, just as life itself was slipping away.

At first I thought it was my own thoughts that were being read out loud, but it wasn’t. Whatever that thing was, it spoke with my voice, using my phone, to my friend!

Hello, sorry about the noise, I dropped my phone. Are you coming to pick me up later?

And as I helplessly lay dying I could hear my friend’s voice at the other side.

Yes, I will come by later, it will be nice to see you again.