The Last Message

The iphone lay on the nightstand, its screen cycling through photos she couldn't bring herself to delete. Three years of messages, voice notes, the ones where he said he'd love her forever. Now he loved someone else—someone younger, someone who didn't remind him of his dead mother.

Barnaby, their golden retriever, pressed his warm flank against her leg. He'd been sleeping in her bed since Mark moved out two weeks ago. The dog sensed the emptiness in the house, the way her footsteps echoed differently now.

"Just us, buddy," she whispered, scratching behind his ears. Barnaby sighed, resting his chin on her knee.

Her finger hovered over the last voicemail. Unknown caller, received three nights ago at 2:47 AM. Mark's number. She'd played it once—static, rustling, what sounded like

—a grunt, maybe words, then a sharp crack. Like a branch snapping. Like bone.

The police said he'd probably just drunk-dialed. He'd been at that cabin in Montana with her—what was her name? Sarah. They'd gone hiking. Mark had fallen, they said. Tragic accident.

But she kept hearing something else in that message. Something that sounded like heavy breathing. Something that didn't sound human.

Barnaby growled low in his throat, staring at the dark window. The hairs along her arms rose. Outside, beyond the glass, something moved—a shadow massive and silent, towering over the backyard fence. Not a person. Not anything that belonged in suburban Chicago.

Her iphone lit up again. Another voicemail from Mark's number.

This time, she answered.

Static. Then a voice that wasn't Mark's, deep and guttural and impossibly old, spoke three words before the line went dead.

"Found your husband."