There was a man in a house on the edge of town—no name, no family, no mail. Folks didn’t remember him moving in. Didn’t remember the house being there either. Just one day, it existed, grinning with broken windows and a crooked chimney, like it had been watching all along.

He lived alone. Or so he claimed.

Day One

Rain chewed on the roof like a starving beast. The man sat by his dusty rotary phone, sipping black coffee that tasted like burnt dreams and moth wings. He stared at the phone as if it owed him something.
3:13 AM.

RING.

He didn’t have a phone plan. The line was dead.

Still—it rang.

He picked up, slow, like lifting a coffin lid.

“Hello?”

No voice. Just breathing.

Whisper-soft.

Wet.

Hungry.

Then: “Help… he won’t stop.”

Click. Dead silence.

Day Two

The phone rang again. Same time. Same voice.

“Please,” she cried, “he’s watching me. He knows I called you.”

The man didn’t ask who she was. Didn’t ask who he was either. He just listened, like he’d done this before.

She screamed. Something shattered.

Click.

The man got up, walked to the bathroom, and stared into the mirror. Not at himself. At something behind him that wasn’t really there—until it moved.

Day Three

He didn’t sleep. The house whispered all night. Pipes groaned with secrets.

Floorboards coughed.

At 3:13, the phone rang again.

This time, the voice was different.

Deeper.

Mocking.

“You’re next.”

He didn’t flinch.

He whispered back, “I know.”

Then he smiled. A long, bone-deep smile that didn’t belong to a sane man.

Or a man at all.

Day Four

The police got a call from the house. A woman screaming.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“He’s coming! He—” static

Officers arrived, but found no woman.

Only the man. Alone. Calm. Making tea.

“I don’t own a phone,” he said, smiling that strange smile.

They checked the phone line. Cut decades ago. Disconnected.

Impossible.

Yet, every night, the 911 dispatch lit up with calls from that address.

Day Five

They found blood in the basement. Old. Thick. Like it had been poured, not spilled.

Underneath the floorboards: fingernails. Dozens. Some fresh. Some cracked and yellowed with age.

And a rotary phone.

Still ringing.

Day Six

No one answered the call that night.

The dispatch room went silent at 3:13 AM.

Every single line is dead—except one.

From the house.

A recording played:

“Don’t worry. You’ll understand soon. He doesn’t live alone anymore.”

Day Seven

The house is empty now.

Or so they say.

But sometimes, late at night, if you drive past at 3:13 AM…

You’ll see the porch light flicker on. You’ll hear the phone ring.

And if you’re really unlucky…

You might just pick up.

And realize—

You called 911… but no one’s coming to help you.