The voicemail from myself arrived after I realized I had passed the same fallen cedar twice.
I know how this sounds, so I'll start with the part that makes me look least like an idiot: I wasn't hiking somewhere unfamiliar.
I'd done that trail at least fifteen times.
It's a loop through state forest, a little under nine miles, nothing technical. Mostly fir and cedar, one creek crossing, a long climb in the middle, then a gradual descent back toward the parking area. I used it when I wanted exercise without thinking too much.
On October 18, I started late.
That was my first mistake.
I left the parking lot at 2:47 p.m. The weather was overcast but dry. Sunset was around six. I had a headlamp, water, a shell, battery pack, and the offline map downloaded to my phone. I wasn't being reckless. I figured I'd be back at the truck before dark.
At 4:12, I realized I had passed the same fallen cedar twice.
It had a trunk split like a tuning fork and an orange patch of fungus on one side. I noticed it the first time because somebody had stacked three stones in the fork.
When I saw it again, I stopped.
I checked my map.
The GPS dot showed me exactly where I expected to be, half a mile past the creek.
Except the creek was behind me, and according to the map I had somehow turned around without noticing.
I wasn't worried yet. Trails bend. GPS bounces under tree cover.
I kept walking.
Ten minutes later, the forest got very quiet.
People say that in scary stories all the time, but what I mean is specific. No wind in the canopy. No birds. No insects. I couldn't even hear the road, which you can usually catch faintly from that side of the ridge.
Then my phone vibrated.
I had no service. The screen showed SOS only.
But there was a voicemail notification.
One new message.
The caller was me.
My own name. My own number.
I actually laughed.
I assumed the carrier had done something weird with an old message. I tapped it.
At first there was nothing but movement—branches scraping fabric, fast breathing.
Then my voice said, "Ben, listen to me."
I stopped walking.
The voice sounded exhausted.
"You're going to hear me calling you. Don't answer. Don't follow it. Stay on the trail even if you see me."
There was a loud crack in the recording.
My voice whispered, "Oh, God."
Then the message ended.
I stood there staring at the phone.
The voicemail was timestamped 5:36 p.m.
My screen said 4:29.
I checked twice.
I opened the details.
Received today. 5:36 p.m. Duration: 00:19.
I wish I could say I immediately understood something impossible was happening.
I didn't.
I thought the clock was wrong. I restarted the phone.
When it came back on, it said 4:31.
The voicemail was still there.
The voicemail from myself became a voice in the trees
I started walking faster.
Not running. Running in fading light on wet roots is how you break an ankle. I kept telling myself that. Be practical. Be boring. Get back to the truck.
About five minutes later, someone behind me shouted, "Ben!"
I froze.
It was my voice.
Not close. Maybe seventy yards back.
"Ben, wait!"
I didn't turn around.
The voicemail had said not to answer.
I started walking again.
Behind me, my voice laughed once.
It was exactly my laugh. The stupid short one I make when I'm uncomfortable.
Then it said, "Come on. This isn't funny."
I picked up speed.
The trail curved around a slope.
Twenty or thirty seconds passed.
Then my voice came from ahead of me.
"Ben?"
I stopped so hard my boot slid in the mud.
Someone stood on the trail between the trees.
Maybe forty yards ahead.
Same height as me.
Gray jacket like mine.
Dark cap.
It was getting dim enough that I couldn't make out the face.
The person lifted one hand.
"Hey," he called.
My voice.
I backed up.
The figure stayed where it was.
"Wrong way," it said. "Parking lot's this way."
I turned off the trail.
I know. The voicemail literally told me to stay on it.
But there was a person shaped like me standing in front of me, and every animal part of my brain screamed not to get closer.
I went downhill through the brush.
Branches tore at my jacket. I slipped twice. I kept checking the map, but the GPS dot didn't move. It stayed fixed on the trail even though I was definitely leaving it.
Then the calling started from all around me.
"Ben."
Left side.
"Ben, stop."
Behind me.
"You're going the wrong way."
Downhill.
Every voice was mine.
Not copies with strange accents. Mine.
One sounded angry.
One sounded scared.
One was crying.
Then one voice, very close on my right, said something no stranger could have known.
"Benny, tell Mom I didn't mean it."
I almost answered.
That sentence came from when I was twelve. My younger brother had broken our mother's favorite lamp and made me promise not to tell her. He died in a motorcycle accident at twenty-four.
No one knew that wording except him and me.
I ran.
I don't remember deciding to.
I just ran downhill until my lungs hurt.
At some point I crossed the creek, but it was wrong. The real creek on that trail is shallow and rocky. This water was black and slow. I stepped in up to my knees and nearly lost a boot in mud.
On the other side I found a narrow path I had never seen before.
My phone vibrated again.
Second voicemail.
From me.
Timestamp: 5:51 p.m.
My screen said 4:48.
I didn't want to listen.
I did anyway.
My voice whispered, "If you crossed the water, it knows which one you are."
Then there was breathing.
Not mine.
Long, slow breaths right next to the phone.
The message ended.
That's when I finally panicked.
I turned my phone off completely.
I walked until it was dark.
I don't remember most of the next part. I remember my headlamp catching pale trunks. I remember hearing footsteps matching mine about ten feet to my left. When I stopped, they stopped.
Once, I shone the light toward them.
There was nobody there.
But something farther back reflected the beam.
Two points at approximately eye level.
Too far apart to look human.
I kept going.
Eventually I saw headlights through the trees.
I came out onto a paved road almost three miles from the trailhead.
A couple in a pickup stopped for me.
According to them it was 7:04 p.m.
My phone, when I turned it back on, said 5:02.
Then it corrected itself to 7:05.
The two voicemails were gone.
I checked deleted messages, carrier voicemail, everything. Nothing.
Search and rescue later told me the area where I thought I had crossed the creek didn't make sense. There isn't another drainage there. The slope should have taken me toward a logging road much sooner.
I stopped hiking alone.
I also stopped thinking about the messages, as much as anyone can stop thinking about something like that.
Three months later, my wife woke me at 5:36 in the morning.
My phone was ringing on the bedside table.
The caller ID showed my name.
My number.
I didn't answer.
It rang until voicemail picked up.
A minute later, a new message appeared.
I still have this one.
It's nineteen seconds long.
There are footsteps. Branches. Someone breathing hard.
Then my own voice says:
"Ben, listen to me. You're going to hear me calling you."
It's the same message.
Except this time, right before it ends, another voice speaks in the background.
Also mine.
Very close.
It says, "You answered the first time."
DarkRecord editorial note: This is an original fictional submission-style horror story. The named submitter and events are fictional.
