Chapter 1 - The Burner PhoneClara froze completely as the little boy screamed in sheer terror.
She dropped her phone back into her deep coat pocket immediately.
“Okay, Julian, okay,” she whispered, holding both hands up in surrender.
“No police.”
“I promise you, no badges.”
Julian was panting heavily, his small chest heaving under the soaked peacoat.
He stared at her as if searching for a lie in her exhausted eyes.
Finding none, he slowly reached down to pick up his muddy velvet bear.
“My father said the police work for the bad men,” Julian stated with chilling absolute certainty.
Clara felt a cold bead of sweat mix with the freezing rain on her neck.
No six-year-old should ever be taught that the authorities were the enemy.
“Do you know a phone number for your dad?” Clara asked gently.
Julian nodded slowly.
He recited a ten-digit number with an unlisted area code.
Clara pulled her phone back out and dialed the strange sequence.
It rang only once before a deep, terrifyingly calm voice answered.
“Speak.”
“Hello, my name is Clara Miller,” she stammered, her voice shaking against the wind.
“I found a little boy named Julian at the Park Street subway station.”
The silence on the other end of the line was suffocating and heavy.
“Do not move,” the voice commanded, cold enough to freeze the blood in her veins.
“We will be there in exactly three minutes.”
The line went completely dead.
Clara stared at the cracked screen of her phone in absolute shock.
She pulled her heavy wool scarf off her neck and wrapped it around Julian’s shivering shoulders.
May you like
“Your dad is coming, sweetie,” she promised.
She had no idea she had just summoned the devil himself.
