Late at night, the old apartment was deathly quiet. Jack had just come home from working overtime and flopped exhausted onto his bed. A light drizzle fell outside the window, making the room feel even more desolate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just as he was about to turn off the light, a faint whisper suddenly drifted from the old, closed wardrobe in the corner of the bedroom: \u201cJack\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jack\u2019s eyes snapped open, and his heart skipped a beat. It was his wife Martha\u2019s voice\u2014gentle, familiar, and tinged with a hint of hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Martha had died in a car accident three months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jack froze in bed, cold sweat instantly soaking through his pajamas. He stared intently at the carved wooden door; his rational mind told him this was definitely an auditory hallucination, an illusion born of overwhelming grief. But immediately afterward, a grating sound of fingernails scraping against wood came from inside the wardrobe, accompanied by Martha\u2019s tearful whisper: \u201cJack, it\u2019s so dark in here\u2026 I\u2019m so cold. Open the door and let me out\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The voice sounded so real\u2014even the habitual drawl at the end of her sentences was exactly the same. Jack\u2019s eyes instantly welled up with tears as overwhelming grief and fear intertwined. Trembling, he threw back the covers, stepped barefoot onto the cold floor, and walked step by step toward the closet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMartha?\u201d His voice trembled as he placed his hand on the cold brass doorknob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s me, Jack. Hurry up and open the door\u2014I\u2019m scared\u2026\u201d The voice from inside grew more urgent, even taking on the nasal tone she used to use when she was being playful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tears streamed down Jack\u2019s face. He was desperate to pull the door open\u2014even if it really was a ghost inside, he wanted to see her one last time. Just as his hand pressed down with all his strength, his phone suddenly began to vibrate on the nightstand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the deathly silent room, the vibration sounded like a clap of thunder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jack startled, his hand frozen mid-air. He turned to look at the bedside table, where the phone\u2019s screen glowed with a faint blue light in the darkness. He hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked over to pick it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was his mother-in-law calling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jack took a deep breath and pressed the answer button. Just as he was about to speak, he heard his mother-in-law\u2019s voice on the other end, a scream of extreme terror held back: \u201cJack! Don\u2019t make a sound! I was just going through Martha\u2019s belongings and found a recording on her old phone\u2026 She recorded it in the garage right before her car accident! She\u2019d run into a stalker who\u2019d been following her\u2014that man\u2026 that man\u2019s voice sounded exactly like Martha\u2019s!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jack\u2019s mind went completely blank; it felt as if his blood had frozen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just then, from the closet behind him, came that exact same, unnervingly gentle call once more: \u201cJack\u2026 who are you talking to? Open the door\u2014I\u2019ve been waiting for you for so long\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time, Jack heard it clearly: beneath that familiar voice was a faint, sickening chuckle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Familiar Call from the Wardrobe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[18,22],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suspense","tag-story","tag-suspense"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions\/571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}