Nightmare Fuel #20: Unknown Caller 2: Power Outage
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Welcome to another edition of Nightmare Fuel, creeps and peepers. I'm Dan Cummins, and I'll be sharing another original short story of the fictional horror variety. I highly recommend Noise Cancellation Headphones for the ultimate experience.

Hope you enjoy this new nightmare that is a continuation of the previous Nightmare Fuel, picking up shortly after where that story ended. It also connects to Nightmare Fuel 11 if you want to get the very most out of it. Time now for the tale of Unknown Caller 2, Power Outage, Five Days Later. Homicide Detective Blaine McGrath from the NOPD's 5th District was at the end of his rope.

He'd holed up inside of the half of the duplex he rented on the corner of Poland and Burgundy in the bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. He hadn't gone into his station in four days. He'd taken some PTO under the guise of a death in the family. A sister he'd never mentioned before, never mentioned because she didn't exist. A lazy lie, but it had worked, even though he didn't think his captain had really bought it. He'd needed to get away from his fellow officers before he'd had his gun and badge taken from him.

The harassment from the unknown caller had become so intense so quickly. He already hadn't looked good when he'd come in the morning following the murder of Naomi Howard, a murder that wasn't being treated as a murder because there were eyewitnesses who had watched her step in front of that Range Rover with no one around her. But Blaine knew better.

He'd felt 90% certain before she died that something, he hadn't wanted to use the word supernatural yet, but couldn't think of a better term, had been harassing her. Now he felt 100% certain what had killed Naomi was supernatural because the same thing had started harassing him.

This thing that was definitely supernatural had started harassing him just like it had harassed so many others before him. He'd gone over so many police reports over the past few days. He'd confiscated and studied Shane Dixon's notebook, and what he had read had proved the reality of a paranormal and malevolent entity beyond a shadow of a doubt to anyone with an even slightly open mind. He'd figured out quite a bit about this thing he'd begun to simply call the demon.

but he still hadn't figured out the most important thing about it. He hadn't discovered how to kill it, or how to send it back to hell or wherever else it had come from. He hadn't even figured out how to at least get it to just fucking stop. Four days ago, to buy himself more time, he had smashed his phone and untethered his text messages from his computer. He knew what kind of mayhem this thing could cause with texts.

He had taken Naomi's phone from the scene of her death. He'd used her face, there was just enough left of it for this to work, to unlock her phone, and then he set her auto-lock to never, so that he wouldn't need her password to access her text history going forward. This was the first chance he had had to thoroughly examine the call and text history of one of the demon's victims. And what he saw terrified him. Hundreds and hundreds of unanswered texts,

So many of Naomi's family and friends had been sent pictures or videos of Naomi doing all sorts of things that he'd imagined she'd be mortified to have out there in the world. Things he strongly assumed she'd never actually done. Deep fakes, but incredibly convincing deep fakes. He wasn't sure if smashing his phone could stop the demon from doing something similar to him, but it was certainly worth a shot.

He realized this thing could show up in his computer too. So he'd ended up smashing that as well, hoping that doing so could keep it out of his emails. But smashing up his computer had really handicapped his investigation. Now he didn't have any way to research how to stop the demon. He also couldn't reach out to anyone online for help. He'd left himself alone against this thing, but at least it couldn't contact him anymore. Or that's what he'd thought. But then it showed up on his TV.

So he'd smash that too. And he had smashed the lights when it had started messing with those. He'd quickly figured out something he'd already suspected. That it could manipulate literally any electronic device. That it somehow lived in electricity. He suspected it fed on it as well. He'd ended up cutting the cords off of literally all his electronic devices, including his appliances.

and then worried that it would somehow still find a way to turn something on or use the power to access him in some way he hadn't anticipated, he'd pulled off all of his unit's outlet cover plates, and then unscrewed and ripped out the actual outlets themselves. All of them. He completely destroyed his place.

in the hope that if he took away this thing's ability to feed, it would move on to someone else, and then he'd have a real chance to try and stop it. Or to at least escape its reach, move away, maybe to the other side of the world, and spend the rest of his life hiding from the damn thing. But then, it had started showing up in the flesh, or at least in its equivalence to flesh. It had begun appearing before him as this ghost-like dark body, a body made up of some kind of moldable smoke.

It had been tormenting him in that form for days now, although less and less so as time passed. Blaine had figured out pretty quickly that it couldn't actually touch him, or touch or manipulate the things around him if they weren't electronic in nature in some way. It could only speak and make other noises, and assume a variety of horrifying shapes. It could only create what were essentially hallucinations, mirages, vivid ones, but still imagery that wasn't real.

Also, it had never harassed him for any real length of time while in this form in any single instance. And always, after it was done harassing him, he wouldn't see it in this form again for some time. It was like it needed a chance to recharge. So, pretty quickly, Blaine had stopped being afraid of it doing something disastrous to him directly.

but he'd remain constantly worried about what it might be doing to those he cared about based on its continual threats. Threats he couldn't warn those he loved about with no phone and no computer. Threats it might have already carried out based on what it would tell him. He tried to hold on to hope that its threats were hollow, nothing more than lies. And it did certainly love to lie. He'd been trying to stay strong, to wait it out, to not give it what it wanted, to not play its sick little game any more than he had to.

He'd been trying to treat it like an older sibling who harasses you until you snap because it's just so much fun to get a big reaction out of you. But if you could stop reacting, they'd move on to someone or something else. But now he was truly exhausted. He could only take so much. And despite his best efforts, despite having a pretty good understanding of what he was up against, the demon was relentless. It would just not move on.

Instead, it had moved next door. But not to torture his neighbors. A young couple named Ross and Abigail. No, it had moved next door to continue torturing him using their electronic devices. Usually, at least one of his neighbors were home almost all the time. So the thing left their shit alone. It clearly liked to attack its victims one at a time. Isolating them was part of its M.O. All his research had confirmed that.

But last night, Ross and Abigail must have gone out of town on some vacation or something because it had cranked their stereo to the max, and the noise had bled loudly through the thin walls of the old duplex. It had played circus music, the screams of what sounded like people dying, a cacophony of dogs barking. It had played Cisco's goddamn thong song, Blaine's least favorite song of all time, over and

And over and over. It had screamed at him, mocked him, threatened him. It had impersonated his parents, old girlfriends, his sister, his niece, his nephew, even though his nephew had died over a year earlier with remarkable accuracy. It had impersonated an officer and friend of his he had seen killed in the line of duty. Blaine hadn't been able to sleep at all.

And now, a little before noon, sleep-deprived and scared and driven half-mad despite knowing that how he was feeling was exactly what it wanted, despite doing everything he could to hold on to his sanity, he just couldn't fucking take it anymore. Everyone has a breaking point. And he had reached his. And in this state, Blaine had decided that he had to destroy every outlet, every device, every piece of tech and lightbulb in his neighbor's unit.

that he had to take away this thing's ability to manipulate the devices not just in his unit but in the whole building. And because he was enraged and legitimately starting to lose his mind, he had decided to take his Glock 22 next door to put a few bullets in the stereo, TV, and anything else it could use to make any noise or fuck with him in some other way. What he had really wanted to do was to put a bullet in the unknown caller.

But since it didn't seem to have an actual body you could punch holes through with bullets, shooting shit it was controlling would be the next best thing. After Blaine had kicked in his next-door neighbor's locked front door and set off their alarm, he was pretty surprised they had an alarm, actually. Blaine had went berserk. He had shot out the TV in their living room. He had shot out their record player. He had also walked back to his place and grabbed an aluminum bat halfway through his rampage and had used it to smash up all their lamps and light bulbs. He had destroyed their fish tank.

He hadn't just moved the refrigerator away from the wall, he had slammed it to the ground and ripped its cord out by hand. He had done exactly what the demon wanted him to do. He'd made himself look certifiably insane. And then the police had showed up. A bunch of officers from his district, since he not only worked in the 5th, but also lived there. And one of the officers was the closest thing he'd had to a partner. And the best friend he'd had on the force, fellow detective Cole Batiste.

Cole was a few years older than Blaine and had really went out of his way to help him when Blaine had first made detective. He was also the only officer who'd swung by to check on him since he'd taken his PTO. And although Blaine had done a pretty good job of looking like he was just really upset about his sister and not losing his fucking mind, Cole had been worried about him. And when Cole showed up to his house with his fellow officers now, he'd become real, real worried about him. Blaine!

"'What are you doing?' he'd yelled, when he'd approached the residents to speak with a wild-eyed and bloody Blaine, bloody from glass bouncing back and scratching him while he had destroyed a few things during his gun and bat rampage. Blaine was standing on the building's porch and holding his bat in his right hand, while his Glock remained tucked into the waistband of his jeans. He didn't look like he had been grieving. He looked like he had been working on his manifesto, putting together a plan on how to stop the Illuminati by shooting up a mall or something.

He had looked like the guy that everyone in the neighborhood was rightly worried about. A guy who was about to do something terrible. And they were correct. He was that guy now. Which was hard for Cole to believe since Blaine had been the same old stable, excellent level-headed detective for as long as he had known him, just a few days prior. I had to do it, Cole! You wouldn't understand, but I had to! It's the only way to make it move on! Blaine yelled.

While the rest of the officers on scene five and counting stayed back, Cole had slowly approached Blaine's porch. "'What are you talking about, Blaine?' he'd asked, hoping his voice or his face wasn't betraying him and allowing Blaine to hear or see not just the extreme concern he had for his friend, but also the pity. "'What are you trying to get to move on?' Blaine spoke as calmly as he could now, but he still looked batshit crazy."

The same thing that killed Naomi Howard. The same thing that killed Shane Dixon and Marissa Lynn and Isabella Lynn and on and on and on, one after the other. Cole replied as calmly as he could without seeming like he was patronizing his friend. No one killed those people, Blaine. Naomi got hit by a car, you know that. And no one was near her who could have pushed her in front of it. Shane died of a heart attack. The autopsy confirmed that.

We got two eyewitnesses who watched Marissa Lynn wade out into the Mississippi and started swimming all by herself. No one killed her, Blaine. She drowned. And her sister Isabella, she jumped off a building. She wasn't pushed. We have security camera footage of her jumping. She was the only one on the roof. And I'm, God damn it, Cole! Blaine screamed, interrupting him. None of them were fucking alone!

You saw what most of them did to their places, how much shit they smashed up, what they wrote, what almost all of them did to their phones. You think what? That's all just one hell of a coincidence? The same fucking demon was with them all the whole time. Not everything has to be seen to be real, Cole. The same thing killed all of them. Cole gritted through his teeth, doing his very best not to yell back.

He was trying his damnedest to remain calm while creeping closer to the madman on the porch that most of the neighborhood had by now come out to watch. Blaine, you need calm down. Listen to yourself. No! Blaine screamed as he dropped the bat and put his hand on his gun. You listen to me, goddammit!

just give me a few days cole and you'll see it can't keep with me now don't you see that that's why i did this i destroyed everything it needs just go back to the station just take everyone with you just give me a couple more days and i'll prove everything i'm saying to you is real cole's stomach sank his friend had lost it this was painful to witness blaine cole pleaded you know we can't do that man

"'You just busted the hell out of your neighbor's place "'and then already complained about you before you did that. "'They left yesterday because you were freaking them out, man. "'You scared them. "'They called your landlord who called us this morning, "'and now you know we got to take you in. "'We'll get you help.'" "'Help!' Blaine laughed maniacally. "'Are you fucking kidding me, Cole? "'With all the phones at the station, with all the equipment, "'with all the electricity?'

As Blaine finished saying the word electricity, all the phones of all the cops on scene began to ring at the same time, as did the phones of all the neighbors who'd come out to watch the show. Blaine then grabbed his gun, which prompted Cole to take out his and pointed at Blaine, while the other officers behind him did the same. You have to leave me alone! Blaine roared. You have to get those phones away from me! I just need a few days! Blaine was almost crying now. Just a few fucking days, Cole! You know me!

Cole had a bad, bad feeling in his gut. Was his friend going to make him shoot him? Blaine, please drop the gun, man. Come on. What are you doing? Blaine screamed in agonized frustration, and then a strange calm fell over his face. A dark acceptance, and he spoke with an eerie tranquility to his voice. Pray he doesn't call you next, Cole. Read my notes. They're on the kitchen table. Maybe you can stop it.

And with that, he raised his gun. "'Blaine, man, don't make me fucking do this, brother, please!' Cole begged. Cole's pleading did nothing. The man staring at him from the porch was no longer his fellow officer. That guy was gone. A completely broken, exhausted shell of a man stood in his place. A man who smiled when he pointed the gun at his temple and said, "'At least you can't keep fucking with me now, right?' "'No!' Cole screamed as he watched his friend blow his brains out in front of what felt like the entire neighborhood."

As he continued to listen to dozens of phones ringing, including his own, Cole and his fellow officers would all later look at their list of missed calls. And at the exact same time, all of them had been called by an unknown caller. It would be the same for everyone else who witnessed Detective Blaine McGrath's death. A few of the witnesses had answered the unknown caller. All but one of them heard nothing.

All except 53-year-old Dee Dee Houston, who lived across the street and three doors over. A single mother of three grown children and five grandchildren, who worked as a checker during the day at Robert's Grocery, and did tarot card readings on Bourbon Street a few nights most weekends. "'Hello, Dee Dee,' said a smug man's voice, followed by some laughter. "'Have you read your own fortune recently?' "'You should.' "'I'm curious what you'll find, regardless of what the cards say they have in store for you.'

I'm afraid your fate will be the same, though. We're going to play a game, Dee Dee, and you're going to lose. But oh, what fun we'll have before it's all over. Who is this? Dee Dee asked, looking concerned, but they'd already hung up. Dee Dee shook her head as she walked back to her place. So much for enjoying her day off, she thought. She had a sick feeling in her gut. The combination of the man she had just seen die and the phone call felt like a terrible omen.

A little over 10 hours later, Cole sat inside his house in the Garden District on 3rd, just off Magazine Street. He and his wife Aisha had bought it two years earlier, shortly after they'd gotten married. It was a four-bedroom, big enough for the two kids they'd talked about having. But that dream of children had been put on hold a few months back, and Cole had become worried that not only would they perhaps never have kids together, but by the end of the year, they might not even be together. Bye-bye marriage. Bye-bye house.

Cole wasn't sure what thought upset him more, no longer having Aisha in his life or no longer owning a house in the Garden District. Growing up in the Lower Ninth Ward, he didn't think he'd ever get a place in the area his parents wouldn't visit when he grew up. Thinking it was nothing but rich white folks and their little yappy dogs, he and Aisha were taking a breather. She'd gone to Dallas for a few weeks to stay with her folks. And when she came back in 10 days, she'd made it clear that they would either be on the same page about starting a family in the very near future

or they would be discussing a subject Cole had previously thought was a ridiculous concept, an amicable divorce. Cole believed he was ready for kids when they had gotten married, but now he was having second thoughts. What he did was just so dangerous. The city and the whole damn world felt more dangerous than it used to. The homicide rate was worse since Katrina, and it was bad before then.

And it seemed like every day somebody was shooting up a school or a party or a church. People just kept losing their damn minds. Like Blaine, he thought without consciously wanting to. He poured himself another glass of Four Roses bourbon. Neat. He planned on cutting back on his drinking before Aisha had decided to go to Dallas. Before he'd watched Blaine die. But now was not the time to take away anything that helped make life a little more bearable. He stared at Blaine's notebook in front of him.

He had taken it from Blaine's kitchen counter. Wasn't supposed to, but he did. And he hadn't even tried to be sneaky. It didn't matter. Blaine's place wasn't the site of an open investigation because it wasn't like how he died was up for debate. And Cole highly doubted that Blaine's parents would have ever wanted to read it. And Blaine didn't have any kids or even a girlfriend. He'd lived alone, like you might be again soon. Spoke another intrusive thought from the back of his mind. Cole stared at the notebook he held in one hand while he used the other to sip his bourbon.

Blaine had written, please give to NOPD if I die across the top of the spiral college ruled red notebook in black ink. Beneath that, he had written, I know how everything looks, but I'm not crazy. I'm a victim, one of many. Cole sighed. Oh, you were definitely crazy, buddy, he said aloud. But maybe you were also onto something, he said and then laughed before he added, shit, maybe I'm crazy too.

Cole opened the notebook to the first page, and along the top, Blaine had written, "'How can all of these deaths be nothing more than coincidence?' Beneath that, he'd written, "'April 9th, Naomi Howard dies,' and underlined it. The 9th was just five days earlier, when Naomi had been hit by a car. Underneath the date and name, Blaine had written down the number of missed or received calls from an unknown caller in the time between Naomi showed up to declare Shane dead and when she had died, 43, in less than 36 hours."

And in the final hour of Naomi's life, she had sent 446 texts, which Blaine then pointed out was literally impossible for one person to do with a single phone. It would have amounted to sending one text approximately every eight seconds, and many of the texts were lengthy with large attachments. No one could do that, he wrote. You got a point there, Cole said with a cocked eyebrow.

Blaine had also written about how Naomi had smashed out all of her lights, about how she had duct-taped her laptop shut,

ripped the cord out of her TV set, smashed her microwave on the floor, pulled out the stove and ripped out its cord. She complained to the NOPD, to Blaine specifically, that she'd been harassed by an unknown caller ever since she'd showed up at the home of Shane Dixon. She believed Shane had been murdered by the same thing that was harassing her. She said the same man who called her at Shane's house also called her at the police station, perfectly mimicking her father's voice.

She said the unknown caller even somehow knew that she would speak to Blaine at the station before she did. Underneath all of that info, Blaine had written, April 8th, Shane Dixon dies, underlining this date and name as well, one of many dates and names he had underlined. Blaine had written that he couldn't access Shane's call records, but he had clearly been called a lot.

Because in the last 48 hours or so of his life, according to a neighbor, he had demanded that the neighbor keep her phone away from him. He'd busted out all of the lights in his house and destroyed his refrigerator and microwave. He'd ripped his TV off of the wall and destroyed all the speakers in his home. He destroyed his cell phone and landline. He boarded up all of his windows and he'd left dozens, if not hundreds of notes around his house that said things like, how does he know so much?

How can he mimic their voices? He's evil. He's not real. Demon or devil. Don't answer the phone. He's in the phones. And if you don't answer, he can't talk to you. Shane had also left a notebook behind that Blaine had taken home. And in that notebook, Shane had written that an unknown caller had started calling him within five minutes of coming across the freshly dead body of Marissa Lynn floating face down in the Mississippi River.

To the responding officers, who showed up after Shane called in the body, Shane reported that the unknown caller sounded like a man who, quote, knew things about me he shouldn't have been able to know. Blaine also wrote how Shane had come into the station to talk to him the next day, claiming the same unknown caller had called him dozens of times and not just on his phone.

He called him when he was grabbing a burger at Port of Call, pretending to be his wife and mimicking her voice perfectly. He'd called him at PJ's Coffee when he'd gone in for a latte, pretending to be his grown son. He pretended to be his dad and co-workers on other calls. He'd also called people from Shane's phone mimicking him, saying horrible things to people, things they truly believed that Shane had told them. The next name and date underlined in Blaine's notebook was Marissa Lynn, April 4th.

Blaine had written that Marissa had spoken with Detective Kiara Brown from the 7th District the day before she died on April 3rd. She'd reported the same shit, being harassed by a male unknown caller who could, quote, Marissa had believed someone had unleashed some type of dark spirit on her with a voodoo curse.

Blaine wrote down three more dates and names, with fewer details assigned to each one, saying that he couldn't look into their deaths because the unknown caller wouldn't let him. He begged whoever was able to read his notebook to gather the details he couldn't.

Finally, Blaine had written pages and pages of theories of what this thing might be and what it could do. He'd repeated several times about how it would be especially hard to try and trap and catch this bastard, because its modus operandi was to only inflict horror on victims in ways no one else would hear or see, so that it always looked like the victim had lost their mind. There would never be any firm proof to substantiate their claims.

By the time Cole closed Blaine's notebook, he'd finished his glass of bourbon and poured himself another. "What the fuck happened to you, Blaine?" he wondered aloud. And he shivered. "You're spookin' me, buddy. You're spookin' me." He teared up slightly upon saying that, and then looked up towards the ceiling. "I don't know what I'll find or what good it'll do, but I'll look, buddy. I'll look." And then he made the sign of the cross, like he'd been taught growing up in Catholic school for the first time in years.

He checked his door to make sure it was locked and turned on the TV to catch the end of the Pelicans' last regular season game and try and think about anything else but the day he had just had. And now before we check in with D.D. Houston, the most recent resident of New Orleans to be contacted by the unknown caller, time for our mid-show sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads anymore, please become a Robert or Annabelle on the Scared to Death Patreon and get these nightmare fuel stories and all other Scared to Death episodes ad-free and more.

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Thank you for hearing out our sponsors. And now poor DeeDee Houston is hurting. DeeDee Houston sat in her living room, a room thick with the smell of incense and full of dozens of lit candles and charms and little statues. Her daughter LaDonna sat beside her.

LaDonna had never seen her mom so scared and rattled. Not in the aftermath of Katrina, when a dangerous chaos ruled the city. Not the night the police officer came to their door when she was 17 to tell them that her father, Dee Dee's husband and childhood sweetheart, had been shot and killed over by the No Longer There Florida Projects. Not when they found out her brother Dean, Dee Dee's pride and joy and favorite of her three kids, even if she wouldn't say it, got sent to prison for eight years for dealing cocaine.

Her mom had been the family's rock for as long as LaDonna could remember. But now, she was literally shaking. Doesn't matter what you believe, baby girl. I need you to go down to Botanica and get me some more Grigri. And give this list of instructions to them. LaDonna sighed as she took her mom's note and was barely able to keep from rolling her eyes. She loved her mom. She admired her mom. And also, no one else on earth drove her fucking crazy like her mom.

Her mom had considered herself a voodoo practitioner for as long as LaDonna could remember, but she hadn't gone full voodoo until about 10 years earlier. By botanica, her mom meant Island of Salvation Botanica, a so-called spiritual shop, but really a voodoo supply store about a half mile away on St. Claude.

And Botanica wasn't some touristy voodoo shop like you'd find in the Quarter either. It was the real deal. An honest-to-God voodoo supply store that sold all sorts of little idols, candles, crystals, incense, oils, tarot cards, and herbs. Stuff you wouldn't find anywhere else like skullcap, pennyroyal, dragon's blood, and mandrake root.

Growing up, LaDonna and her sister Grace had jokingly said that their mom was heading out to grab some witch's supplies in Diagon Alley from Harry Potter when she went to Botanica. But back then, it was only a few times a year, not every week. And because her dad hated it, she kept most of her stuff in one little corner of the living room, not spread out all over the whole house.

And now she wanted some grigri, some little charms or talismans made up of herbs that rituals have been performed on, charms that you feed with rum and oils or some shit, to protect herself from Papa Legba, a powerful loa or spirit in the voodoo world. Mama, you honest to God think that Papa Legba is angry with you? Yes, her mom practically shouted. He's trying to kill me, baby girl.

Mama, please. I understand you being upset. You watched a man die today. That would get anyone upset. Papa Legba killed him, drove him mad, and now he's coming for me. Mama, someone is messing with you. Maybe they were messing with that poor man who killed himself too. Not messing, child, killing. Someone killed that man. They might not have pulled the trigger, but they killed him all the same. And now they come for me. Look, she shouted as she pushed her phone in her daughter's face.

LaDonna could see that her mom had 23 missed calls from an unknown caller and three answered calls from an unknown caller. Mama, we need to report this to the police, not buy you some voodoo spices. Voodoo spices? How dare you? DeeDee was offended. And what good would calling the police do? Pop a leg would just kill the police officer. LaDonna sighed again and shook her head. Okay, Mama, but why can't you come with me to grab this stuff?

"'I have to stay home, baby girl, surrounded by all this protection,' she gestured at all her candles and statues and various amulets and crystals and charms. "'It's not safe for me out there.' "'Okay, Mama,' said LaDonna, defeated. "'But how come if Papa Legba has been mostly calling you on the phone to harass you, he hasn't called you once since I've been here?' "'Cause he knows you're here, child. Don't be so foolish. He wants you to think I'm crazy. He won't call until you leave.'

Then why don't I just stay with you here tonight, Mama? Antoine can watch the kids. No! Her mom snapped and then reached across the couch and took her daughter's hand. I appreciate you offering that, baby girl, but I need those Grigri. I can't just keep you here around forever. I need to protect myself and appease and make things right. LaDonna was worried that the combination of being harassed by some asshole on the phone plus seeing that cop die was going to give her mom a stroke or something. She hoped that if she got the stubborn woman, her damn Grigri, she'd start to calm down.

And if that asshole kept calling her, LaDonna would go to the police tomorrow, no matter what her mom said. Okay, mama, she said. I'll go get you, Grigri. I'll be right back. Thank you, baby girl, her mom said and gave her a kiss on the cheek. And then LaDonna was off. And as soon as she was out of earshot, Didi's phone started to ring. Unknown caller. I will not answer, Papa Legba, said Didi firmly, but with more than a note of fear in her voice.

Didi let out a little whelp when the TV turned on all by itself and dark foreboding music blared out of it.

The screen became filled with the sight of the bayou at night. Dee Dee's worst fear. Dee Dee hated the bayou. Hated the bayous that surrounded the only city she had ever known. Her grandfather had taken her deep out into the bayous near New Orleans a few times when she was a little girl when he'd gone to his old family fishing cabin. And the last time they went, a storm had started to roll in before they left.

The skies had gotten dark and the water had gotten darker. And then a big gator had almost bit her grandfather's arm when he was pulling in the last fish of the day. And then the canoe they were in had rocked so badly when he shifted back away from the gator that Dee Dee had almost fallen out. Ever since, though not as often as during the first few months after it happened...

Didi had been plagued by nightmares about falling into the dark water of the bayou and being drowned and eaten alive by a gator. And now on her TV, she was watching a little girl and an old man in a canoe cutting across the bayou. The little girl was her, and the old man was her grandpa, and there were gators all around them. And from deep in the bayou emerged a figure, a shadowy figure of a tall man with dreads wearing a black hat with a band of small skulls around it, Papa Legba.

"Dee Dee, aren't you happy to see me? Haven't you paid tribute to me in the past? Asked me for good fortune and protection?" Dee Dee was so scared she was starting to cry. "Yes, yes, of course, Papa Legba," she said with a trembling lip and quivering voice. "Then pick up the fucking phone when I call, or I'll slice you open from asshole to eyeball, you ungrateful pig!" Dee Dee screamed in terror as Papa Legba's furious face filled her television screen.

Yes, Baba Lingba. She whimpered. Play the game and make this fun, or I'll feed you to the fucking bayou, inch by inch. I'll push you under the black water and sacrifice you to the darkness and the gnashing teeth of the creatures who dwell there. I'm sorry, Baba Lingba. Diddy Cry yelled as she slipped down off the couch and got onto her knees, facing the screen in a position of worship.

That's more like it, Didi. Papa Legma joyously beamed before he laughed. Yes, I like this, he said gleefully. You stay right there, just like that, until I say you can move. Yes, yes, Papa Legma. Didi cried, rocking back and forth, beginning to mumble some sort of religious refrain.

That was how LaDonna found her mother when she returned to her house. On her knees, facing the TV, which Papa Legba turned off seconds before she walked in the door. Rocking back and forth, mumbling some sort of prayer and hysterically afraid. LaDonna had a hell of a time getting her mother to stand up. She just kept saying she didn't have permission yet. Once she finally got her to stand, she gave her the Grigri and her mother clutched them like she had cancer and holding them was the cure.

Afraid that she'd anger Papa Legba further if she let her stay, Didi then begged her daughter to leave, which she did reluctantly. LaDonna decided to get up early the next morning and stop by the police station before she went into work to have them look into who was harassing her mother. Her mother, who was already staring at the TV again before LaDonna got into her car, darkly mesmerized by a new scene of black water and hungry gators.

Less than an hour after Detective Cole Batiste showed up to his station, and directly after he anonymously posted a synopsis of Blaine's information about the string of victims he believed were murdered by a supernatural entity he simply called the Demon, on a subreddit he'd found for people, mainly current or former law enforcement it seemed, who were trying to solve exceptionally difficult or strange cases that seemed to point towards the paranormal in some way, he overheard something that caught his attention.

A woman he assumed to be about his age, somewhere in her early to mid-thirties, was speaking to an officer, adamant that some unknown caller was currently harassing her mother. And when the officer asked her where her mother lived, and she said it 928 Poland Avenue, Cole's ears really perked up. That was just across the street and a few houses down from where Blaine lived, from where he had died the day before.

Cole hopped up from his desk and told the officer he'd take over finishing the woman's report. The woman who was, of course, LaDonna, Dee Dee Houston's daughter. And after Cole got LaDonna to share a few more details about what her mom said she was experiencing, he told her he would go talk to her mom right away, as in right now.

He'd been just a few minutes away from leaving to visit the parents of Marissa and Isabella Lynn when he had heard LaDonna, a visit he had not been looking forward to. Those poor people had lost both their daughters. For now, his talk with the Lynn's could wait. Someone else was experiencing what both those girls, Blaine and others, had, and Cole felt he needed to figure out just what the hell was really going on to find out if it was possible for him to save anyone else from the same fate.

If LaDonna wouldn't have had to go to work and could have accompanied Cole to her mother's place, she would have been shocked by her mother's appearance. It was like she had aged a decade in less than 24 hours. Dee Dee had called in sick to work. The unknown caller had allowed her that small kindness for whatever reason. And she certainly had looked sick. She hadn't slept at all the night before. And on top of looking exhausted, she also looked like someone had beaten the shit out of her.

She had a black eye, a bloody nose, bruises all over her body, and burn marks on her hands and forearms. The unknown caller had been torturing her, or rather, making her torture herself. Dee Dee was afraid to not answer his call, and he called her over and over throughout the night, demanding that she hit herself or burn herself or be dragged out into the bayou and fed to the gators. And now she was twitchy and hysterical.

It took Cole almost an hour to get a few minutes worth of information out of her, due to her either being too afraid to talk or to her babbling nonsensically when she did. Once he'd figured out what had happened to Dee Dee, he walked away far enough for her not to be able to hear what he had to say, but not so far that he couldn't keep an eye on her, and he called LaDonna, half expecting some demonic voice to answer in place of her when he did.

When she fortunately answered in a very human and not at all demonic voice, he asked if she could either leave work to come be with her mother or if she could call someone else who could come stay with her. Cole explained to her that what he was about to tell her had to stay off the record because if his fellow officers found out what he was saying, he could end up getting sent in for a mandatory psych eval. He told LaDonna that her mother was not alone.

that something had targeted numerous victims in New Orleans the past several weeks, if not longer. An unknown caller. A man who seemed to have a supernatural ability to know when his victims would be alone and could be harassed. Someone who never seemed to target his victims when they were surrounded by others who could give credence to their wild claims. Someone who seemed to be able to manipulate the victim's electronic equipment.

Cole stopped short of telling LaDonna that all of the previous targets had died, instead saying that the caller was extremely dangerous and unusually good at getting his victims to harm themselves. But he added, from what he could tell, the victims were only ever harmed when they were alone and isolated away from anyone else. And Cole thought if LaDonna and her family could make sure that her mom was never alone, she'd be safe.

He explained he didn't know how long Didi would have to be surrounded by people who cared about her, but that he would dedicate every moment going forward he could spare to figuring out exactly what was happening and how to stop it. When LaDonna agreed to leave work and head over, he assured her he would wait until she arrived before leaving himself.

For the next 30 or so minutes, Cole sat in Dee Dee's living room while she performed some kind of voodoo ritual in front of a small altar. And at one point, he caught a bad case of the chills. When he could have sworn he saw the dark shape of a man appear in the shadows at the end of the hallway before dissipating into the air like a puff of smoke.

Hours later that night, while Detective Cole Batiste was at the station going over notes she'd made after speaking to Marissa and Isabella's parents, Shane Dixon's widow, and Naomi Howard's boyfriend, a woman living across the country named Lizzie Chavez went over a list of Google alerts related to the paranormal she'd gotten that day, part of her nightly ritual.

Many years back, when she was young and foolish, Lizzie had briefly considered building a website advertising her special set of monster hunting skills to make it easier for those in need to find her. But her father, and the man most responsible for training her in how to fight the forces of darkness, had talked her out of it, rightly worried that she'd be overwhelmed with nuts crying wolf or ghost junkies just seeking the attention of someone who had gained a high level of notoriety in paranormal circles.

And worst of all, her father had explained, the more attention she received and the more her name got out, the greater the odds that some stalker, superfan, or trespasser would find the so-called demon penitentiary on the Calhoun family ranch in Bodie, California.

The underground facility where she, her father, her grandfather, and her great-grandfather, Ezra Calhoun, had been storing hard or impossible-to-kill entities they'd managed to capture with their very unique set of passed-down skills for roughly 80 years.

So instead of advertising her skill set, Lizzie used the power of the internet to find and track down dark world creatures, setting up a number of carefully worded Google alerts to find out when someone had sent out the digital equivalent of Batman's bat signal.

And lo and behold, tonight, after finishing her remote day job work at her home in the desert just outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, a city she chose as her home base because it was a six-hour drive from Bodie and the Demon Penitentiary, and under an hour from an airport with some of the most direct domestic flights in the nation and a growing number of international flights as well, Lizzie had come across a post that both interested and concerned her greatly.

She'd read the anonymous post NOPD detective Cole Batiste had left in that subreddit for people who were trying to solve exceptionally difficult or strange cases that involved the paranormal. And everything she read reeked of the dark world, as opposed to a ghost or some type of highly intelligent hacker using AI. This entity clearly existed specifically to torment humanity.

And based on how it seemed to feed off of electricity in some way, or at least how it seemed to need it to pull off its torment, she surmised that there would be a way to weaken, or maybe even kill it. There would almost certainly be a way to trap it and bring it to Bodhi, but that would take time, possibly a long, long time. It would require building a special box that insulated whatever was incited from any and all electricity. And while she worked on building that box, how many more would die in New Orleans?

And also, what if after having a prototype built, it didn't work? And then she had to go back to square one. And now even more people would die. Lizzie checked for flights and bought a ticket for a red-eye that left a few minutes before midnight and would have her landing in NOLA at 5.03 a.m. After packing, she did some research and figured out that most of the victims lived in or very near the Maroney neighborhood. And that the cop who died worked in the 5th district.

The post had also clearly been left by a cop or someone working in law enforcement in that area. So that's where she would start to track down this entity, at the 5th District's police station. Her heart beat a bit faster as she packed. She felt butterflies in her stomach and she smiled. Lizzie was admittedly an adrenaline junkie and nothing got her blood pumping faster than a new creature to fight.

LaDonna was shocked at how much worse her mother looked when she showed up at her house and relieved Detective Cole Batiste of his watch. After Cole left and promised to stay in touch regarding anything he found that might help Dee Dee, and told LaDonna that he'd at least check in at the end of each day and first thing in the morning even if he found nothing, LaDonna made food for her mother, who she insisted stay in the same room with her. She also got her mom to hand her her phone so she could resist the urge to answer it. That had taken some real persuading.

Didi was convinced that Papa Legba was going to take her to the bayou, hold her under the dark water, and let the gators eat her alive. LaDonna had to keep reminding her mother that this thing, Papa Legba or whatever the hell it was, despite all of its torment, had never once touched her. She told her that Detective Batiste was certain it had never actually touched any of the other people it had tormented.

What LaDonna didn't tell her mother was that she was certain that this thing had killed everyone it had tormented, even though Cole had never explicitly said that. Eventually, her mom had calmed down after she'd spent a few hours with her daughter, gotten some food in her, and hadn't been harassed by the thing since Cole had sat with her. Eventually, though, Dee Dee had to use the bathroom.

LaDonna had wanted to go into the bathroom with her or at least have her leave the door open, but her mother wasn't having it. She'd said, "I haven't done my business in front of anyone since I was a baby myself, and I ain't starting now. I'd rather die than lose all my dignity." And that was that. Dee Dee wasn't feeling nearly as courageous as she'd acted regarding her trip to the toilet.

She'd walked in, locked the door out of habit and to keep her bossy daughter from barging in if she mistook the sounds of her doing her business for a cry for help somehow. And then she had worked on steadying her shaking body, the thing she'd heard in the past 36 hours. Not even 36 hours, the thing she'd seen. She'd believed in Papa Legva since she was a teenager, when she'd accepted her own mother's beliefs as her own.

But she'd never actually, not with such certainty, seen Papa Legba or any of the other Loas of the voodoo world like so many of her fellow believers claimed. Yes, she had invoked the spirit of Papa Legba on many occasions at various ceremonies to give herself access to the spirit world, and she had claimed many times to have been possessed by Loas, but she had never truly ever seen anything.

She had felt moved by the power of the drumming and the chanting and the ritual of it all. It had made her feel in moments like you do when you smoked a bit too much of some really good, strong weed. But it hadn't ever made her see what she'd now seen on her TV, or heard what she'd now heard on her phone, or seen anything like the dark, smoky man who had appeared before her in her bedroom and demanded that she hurt herself.

Didi shuddered at the horror of it all. Right before she pulled up her dress, pushed down her underwear, sat on the toilet and started to pee. And then halfway through using the bathroom, the lights went out. And then the unknown caller, the entity she still believed was the real Papa Legba, began to whisper in her ear. "Hello, Didi. Did you really think keeping baby girl nearby was gonna keep me away?" He mocked before laughing. Didi was paralyzed with fear.

"'You missed some of my calls, Dee Dee. "'I told you what would happen if you did that. "'You can say a lot of things about me, "'but if you say I'm not fair, then you're a liar,' he cruelly whispered. "'No, no, no, please, Papa Legba,' Dee Dee whispered back. "'Don't take me to the bayou. "'I'll take my phone back. "'I'll make LaDonna leave.' "'I won't bring you to the bayou tonight, Dee Dee, "'but if you look in the bathtub, "'you'll see that I brought a bit of the bayou to you. "'Can you hear it, Dee Dee?'

Can you hear the gator thrashing in the black water? Dee Dee could hear it now. The tub sounded full, and like there was something big and mean and full of teeth thrashing in it. Please, please don't let it hurt me, she whimpered. Open the curtain, the unknown caller quietly commanded. Open the curtain, or I'll kill baby girl tonight, he then laughed. Dee Dee, terrified that his threats were real, did as he asked.

And when she saw the shadowy form of a large alligator thrashing what looked like a tub full of black water, a clever bit of trickery from the unknown caller, she couldn't help but scream. And she kept screaming as LaDonna wrestled with the door to get in. Mama! She screamed. Mama, unlock the door! Her mother kept screaming and was oblivious to her daughter's cries. LaDonna then ran into the kitchen, found a big meat cleaver in one of the drawers, and ran back to use it like a hammer against the handle. She hit it over and over, and when she finally broke the handle off, the door popped open and the bathroom light turned back on.

Now, Dee Dee and LaDonna both saw that there was absolutely nothing in the bathroom. Dee Dee screamed in anguish, exhaustion, and frustration. "Leave me be! Oh Lord! Why would that devil leave me be?" She broke down in sobs, burying her face in her daughter's stomach. LaDonna's heart ached with worry. Worried that this thing would kill her mother, and worried that even if it didn't, it would break her spirit forever.

Didi agreed to not leave her daughter's side again, and she wouldn't the rest of the night and into the next morning. She would trade abject terror for total humiliation and a childlike dependency, and she would begin to think that if this was how she now had to live, she'd just rather die. Lizzie Chavez's flight had landed on time, and she drove her rental car to the Hotel Peter and Paul in Burgundy in the Marigny.

Staying in a former Catholic church, rectory, and convent somehow felt right while fighting the forces of darkness. After she had unpacked her stuff and plugged in her computer to charge, she'd grab breakfast at Hoodat Coffee and Cafe next door while she waited for the nearby police station to open up.

After breakfast, she drove over to the 5th District Station and asked if any of the officers there had been looking into a possible connection between a string of recent deaths in the area, including Detective Blaine McGrath and a woman, Naomi Howard, who had contacted him to report being harassed by an unknown caller shortly before she herself was hit by a car.

And then there was Shane Dixon, a man who'd had a heart attack after destroying his own home and covering it with a strange series of notes centered around someone who had been harassing him over the phone primarily, and on and on. The receptionist called over an officer to speak with her, but it was clear almost immediately that he wasn't the officer who had posted any of the information Lizzie had read on Reddit, and also that he clearly didn't think the deaths were connected.

So instead of giving him any real info, Lizzie pretended to be a journalist working on a story. And then throwing a Hail Mary before she resorted to canvassing the neighborhood near where Blaine had died to see if anyone in the area was being tormented or knew of anyone being tormented, she yelled out so anyone in the station could hear her. If whoever posted a Reddit about some connections between Blaine McGrath and Naomi Howard wants some answers, I might be the only person on earth who can give them to you.

She had then been quickly, and a little forcefully, escorted out of the station by officers who were still grieving Blaine's death and didn't care for a reporter who seemed to want to link it in some sensationalist and bullshit way to some other deaths just to get a bunch of eyeballs on some clickbait tabloid nonsense. Lizzie had hoped to catch a glimpse of the officer who posted all the connections as she walked out, but no dice.

But then, after she'd already gotten back into her rental car and was about to drive over to Blaine's former address, an officer was walking in her direction and making eye contact with her. She rolled down her window, and while walking past her without turning his head, he'd quietly said, follow my car, before hopping into his vehicle, pulling out, and driving down the street. Six or seven blocks and a few turns later, he'd pulled over, and Lizzie had pulled in behind him.

He'd gotten out of his car, walked up to her window, and before introducing himself, had bluntly said, Off the record, I'm your guy. I don't have time for any bullshit. People's lives are at stake. So if you really are just some journalist, you better fuck off and leave right now. Rather than look offended, Lizzie smiled.

"'I like how serious you are, detective. I am too. Most people would think I'm crazy if I told them that monsters and demons were real, and I'm probably one of the few people on earth who've been trained to stop them. But after what you posted, I'm guessing you at least believe some of what you wrote.' The detective shook his head in the affirmative, looked Lizzie over, trying to assess how crazy or not she was, a look she'd gotten very, very used to over the years. And then without speaking, he'd walked around her rental to the passenger door, opened it, climbed in, and shut it.

Detective Cole Batiste, he said as he stuck out his hand Lizzy Chavez, she replied as she shook it I have an idea of how to stop this thing Cole and Lizzy went on to speak for about 30 minutes about who Lizzy was about how she'd been raised to not just believe in monsters but to confront them and to trap them if she couldn't outright destroy them

Cole wanted to think she was crazy based on what she was saying, would have thought she was crazy if he would have met her just a few days earlier. But she didn't give him any crazy energy. In fact, she had the energy of another detective, and a good one. Calm, steady, methodical, the mind of someone who likes solving puzzles and doesn't rattle no matter how difficult the puzzle is. After Cole got on board with her credentials, as much as he could without seeing her in action, she told him her plan.

We need to starve it, she said, to take it far away from any source of electrical current. I believe, based on what you posted, that when it can't perform any tormenting tricks with technology, the only trick it has left is to appear in its physical form, which isn't very physical. It seems to be made up of some sort of black particle-based mist, a mist that can infiltrate and manipulate circuitry, but can't become solid enough to alter anything in the physical world that doesn't have any juice."

It can maybe use a bit of electricity to, say, move a power cord back to a nearby socket, or depress the mechanism that turns a phone back on. But it can't seem to, for example, take that cord and wrap it around someone's neck. Or even if it could, I don't think it could do that if there was no power source nearby. Its ability to hurt us in ways outside of sheer terror and continual harassment seem to be non-existent. There's no evidence of this thing ever choking anyone, or throwing them across a room, or down the stairs, or...

stabbing them, is there? No, not that I know of, Cole admitted. Right, Lizzie said, resuming her dissertation. 95% of its terror comes from technological interaction with electrical devices and the other 5% essentially from smoke and mirrors. Yeah, yeah, that seems right, Cole nodded. And then he added, but how does that prove that without electricity, it'll starve? It doesn't, Lizzie acknowledged.

but I noticed a pattern based mostly on Blaine's observations. Sorry about what happened to him, by the way, she quickly added, immediately registering that he and Cole were close by the subtle change in his expression when she mentioned his name. Thank you, said Cole before she continued. He wrote that it never tormented him for very long in any one instance in its, well, for lack of a better description, smoke-based form, and that it also, after tormenting him in that form, didn't torment him again in that form for quite some time.

Yeah, Cole said, not quite yet making a connection, she was illustrating. I think that's because it can't stay in that form for very long because it takes a lot of energy to do so, she explained. Energy it gets from electricity. And I think if we lured it out to some cabin, say some old abandoned cabin way out in the bayou, one that doesn't have a power source, and then let any phones or other gear we had brought with us either run out of juice or better yet, if we destroyed them, it would have nothing left to feed on.

Now Cole understood what she was getting at, and its own battery would run out, he mused. Cole was excited by this possibility. It was better than anything he had come up with so far. Exactly, Lizzie said. And I think, and I hope, it would then either die, or at the very least, go into some state of dormancy until the next power source came around. If another power source came around. Cole shook his head as he considered all of this. What if you're wrong? He asked.

that a lot more people will die while I go home and go to plan B, which is to create some kind of box that is essentially an electrical dead zone, and then try to figure out how the hell I can get that thing inside of it. Cole tossed his head back, closed his eyes in contemplation, and took in a long, deep breath of air, held it before exhaling it in an equally long fashion before he spoke. "'All right,' he said. "'Fuck. "'Looks like we might be heading out deep into the bayou, "'without even a goddamn phone in order to give this plan a shot.'

My wife's gonna fucking love this. She's gonna leave me for sure. Less than 10 minutes later, Cole was introducing Lizzie to both LaDonna and her mother, Dee Dee. And when Lizzie told them both about the plan of taking Dee Dee deep out into the bayou, away from any and all electricity,

Dee Dee lost it. No, no, Papa Legba sent you, she yelled. He sent you to take me to the bayou where he'll push me into the black water where he'll feed me to the gators. She quickly became hysterical. When LaDonna tried to calm her mother down, she pushed her daughter and ran into her bedroom and locked the door. And then no more than a few seconds later, LaDonna, Cole, and Lizzie all heard Dee Dee start to scream.

As soon as Dee Dee turned around after locking her bedroom door, the unknown caller appeared before her in the form of a black, smoky visage of Papa Legba. And he started to quietly torment her, loud enough for her to hear but not loud enough for any of the others outside her door.

He laughed.

Now Dee Dee saw the dark, shadowy shape of gators in her bedroom, snapping at her, lunging towards her. No, no, no, please, Papa Legba! She cried out in total and complete terror. Anything but this! Anything but this! And then dodging another shadowy bite, she spun and slipped and fell backwards. And on the way down, arms flailing, her head caught the corner of her bed frame. And she broke her neck. Dee Dee Houston was dead in seconds. Dead before Cole could break down her door.

And right before Cole burst into the room with LaDonna and Lizzie on his heels, before the shapes of gators and Papa Legba disappeared, the unknown caller spoke as he looked at the body of his latest victim. I enjoyed my time playing with you, Dee Dee Houston. Not everyone gets so completely swallowed up inside the terror. As LaDonna then wailed in grief and collapsed onto the body of her mother, as Cole felt for a pulse he knew either wouldn't be there or at least not for long, Lizzie's phone rang.

She knew who it was before she answered, the unknown caller. Hello, Lizzie Chavez. It's been a long time since I had a real challenge. I'm excited to see how much it'll take to break you. And you will break, the unknown caller giddily threatened before laughing his arrogant, taunting laugh. Lizzie shocked him by replying now in the tongue of the dead, the unknown caller's native language, a language he had never heard a human speak before.

I fear no lesser demon. You are nothing." And then before he could reply with some taunt or menace, she hung up. And this monster, this demon of the dark world, its actual name being "Ramux Pantomi" which roughly translates into "electric phantom" or "electrical demon" now felt some version of an emotion it had seen so many times in others but never experienced itself before.

It was stunned. Not only had no one ever spoken to it in the tongue of the dead, no one had ever so casually insulted and dismissed it. And now it was filled with rage. It called Lizzie's phone over and over and over. But instead of answering again, she walked to her car, tossed the phone inside, and then walked back into the house where Cole was waiting for. That was him, wasn't it? He asked. Yeah, Lizzie said flatly. Looks like I'm next.

"'What did you say to it?' he asked. "'What language was that?' "'I spoke to it in its own language. One never meant for humans. Basically, I told it to fuck off.' "'You really think that was smart? I think I just gave it that much more incentive to follow me out into the bayou, right into our trap.' "'I think you meant follow us out into the bayou,' Cole said before asking. "'You still really think that'll work? I guess I'm willing to bet my life on it,' she replied.'

Lizzie and Cole then went in and shared their plan again with LaDonna, who was scared for Lizzie, but also hopeful that her mother's death could possibly be avenged. She agreed to call in her mother's death and not tell anyone that Cole or Lizzie had been at the house when her mother died. She understood that if the police wanted to look into either one of them's involvement, that could prevent one or both of them from hiding out in the bayou, which would get Lizzie killed.

She also told them that she had the ideal place for them to go. An old abandoned cabin that her great granddad once owned, way out in the bayou. One near where her mom had almost fallen off the boat when she was a kid. She'd heard from a cousin a few years back that their family might still own it. That it was still standing, but that no one ever used it due to how rugged and dilapidated it was. So it was perfect.

Cole then called into the station and spoke with his captain. He told her that the shock of Blaine's death had worn off, and now he was feeling the pain of losing his best friend on the force, and how Blaine's death, combined with the marital problems he was already going through that his captain knew about, was really messing his head up, and he needed to get out of town for a few days and completely disconnect. She didn't push back.

Cole then spoke with his wife, Aisha. She was already worried about him pushing down his emotions about Blaine's death and not dealing with him. And while she didn't love that he would be out of range for a few days, she also understood his need to disconnect. Lizzie didn't need to call anyone. She had no serious romantic interests, and any friends or family she had were used to her disappearing for days at a time, if not longer.

She and Cole headed over to a coffee shop to game plan. He made a call to rent a little fishing boat with nothing but a gas-powered engine on it and some paddles. They grabbed a bunch of supplies, bottled water, groceries, toilet paper, sleeping bags, candles, whatever else they thought they would need to survive a few nights or longer out in the bayou with no running water, electricity, or even electrical devices. And off they went on their literally do-or-die mission.

Cole and Lizzie had driven out to the Hopedale Marina, which was an hour's drive south of Lizzie's hotel in the Maroney. They'd picked up their boat and followed LaDonna's instructions to the cabin that lay way out west of a former Filipino fishing village from the 1700s called St. Malo, deep, deep in the bayou, next to the Biloxi State Wildlife Management Area. It took them hours traveling via the small boat they'd rented for the week.

They had a hell of a time finding the cabin and were starting to think that it must have been torn down or that they hadn't followed the instructions correctly when they finally saw it. Tucked around a big bend along a tiny inlet, surrounded by brush and cypress trees full of Spanish moss.

Thankfully, Lizzie was still able to get a signal. Otherwise, they would have had to make camp on some tiny spit of land somewhere closer to the marina and take turns standing guard against whatever other creatures were out there in the bayou with them with no structure to hide themselves in. All along the journey, Lizzie had been taking calls from the demon, Ramux, and alternating between enraging him and pretending to be terrified. She wanted to keep him off balance and distracted, and she did.

Then once she and Cole had made it to the cabin, after disconnecting the spark plug in the boat's motor to make absolutely sure it couldn't produce any electricity, after covering the boat in some brush so that if anyone passed by they wouldn't know that they were there, after laying out all of their things and lighting candles, Lizzie took one last call on their only electrical device, the only phone they'd brought. Cole had left his back in Lizzie's rental car.

Hello, Lizzie Chavez. Brave, bad monster hunter. You act so tough, so smart, so strong. But everyone breaks. Everyone dies in terror in the end. Cole was impressed by Lizzie's refusal to give in to any fear over this thing. She answered calmly. Her voice didn't waver as she spoke. Her hands didn't shake. It was more like she was talking to an annoying little brother than a powerful and murderous demonic force.

"'So far, yes. Yes, they have,' she admitted. "'But have you ever met anyone like me? Someone who actually knows what you are? Someone who has faced things like you, faced things far worse than you?' The demon laughed. "'Worse than me? That's adorable. You actually think, in that silly, arrogant little mind of yours, that there's anything worse than me? How cute!'

You forget that anything you've ever faced before, all have had something in common. They've lost. Some of the ancients. They're no longer built to thrive in this modern world. But the modern world is what I was literally created to torment. Lizzy remained completely unperturbed. Yes. Yes, you were, she said. One of the Architect's finest new creations, I'm sure. But still, one with fatal flaws.

You lie, the demon roared. Maybe with some fear in his voice? You've grown arrogant, creature, Lizzie taunted. You've won for so long, you've forgotten that you can lose. More lies, darling, the clearly shaken and irritated creature snapped. In a world of devices, it continued. My powers will only grow. Wow, Lizzie replied with a smile on her face. Do you actually not realize that the only device with any juice for miles and miles around is the one you're on right now?

Silence. The unknown caller had gotten lazy. It had gotten so used to every human it encountered being so surrounded by and immersed in technology that it had forgotten that the world still had plenty of spaces left where there was not only no tech, but no power whatsoever. It had stopped considering, if it had ever considered, that someone could take it deep out into the wilderness, destroy whatever tech they had brought with them, and leave it with no power source to continually draw on to fuel its torment.

And now it felt another emotion. It had instilled so many times in others, but never felt even a twinge of itself. Fear. What would happen to it if it were left without power? It would weaken, surely. But would it die? Could it die? It actually didn't know. It was a possibility it had literally never considered. What now, tormentor? Lizzie mocked.

Ah! Rahmukh's pantomi screamed in rage and drained nearly all the remaining power in Lizzie's phone in mere seconds as it did so. She watched as her battery went from 80% to only 10%. You think you can best me, you bitch? I'm gonna make you suffer more than anyone has ever suffered before. You're gonna beg me to die before it's over. You're gonna... Hate to interrupt your big, important speech, but can I put you on speakerphone? Lizzie smugly asked.

It's just me and Detective Cole Batiste here. We both know exactly what you are and what you do, so there's no real point in not sharing this with him, is there? Lizzie clicked the phone over to speakerphone, and for the first time that either of them knew, the demon spoke to two people at once. Cole Batiste, it hissed. What fun I'm going to have with your wife Aisha and your fellow officers. Lizzie cut him off again before he could possibly rattle or scare the detective. No, you won't, demon, because this is the only device you have to use right now.

You don't live in the internet. You live in the current. You need it to feed. It's why you just took all that power. You're scared. I can hear it in your voice. And now you're going to die scared. The unknown caller just lost his ability to use the phone. And with that, she set her phone down on a rock, grabbed another rock she'd gathered exactly for this purpose, and smashed it to pieces. And then she gathered all the pieces and threw them in the dark water of the bayou. What now? Cole asked.

"'Now we wait,' Lizzie said. "'The unknown caller is in unknown territory. "'I'd strongly recommend you eject the magazine out of your glock "'and make sure you don't have one in the chamber. "'If this thing starts to believe it might die here, "'I can't imagine it not trying to at least take us with it "'by turning us on each other somehow, "'by tricking us into some lethal mistake.' "'Cole did as Lizzie recommended. "'And for the next several hours, deep into the night, "'they talked about life, Lizzie's history, "'Cole's marital problems.'

They read a little from some magazines they'd brought along to pass the time, cooked up some canned food on a portable propane grill, and drank a little bourbon. And all the while, Lizzie secretly worried about one possible fatal flaw with her plan. How every human body has a bit of electricity inside of it. How each cell in the body acts like a tiny battery. A resting human body can create 100 watts of power, and a moving body creates even more.

She just hoped that humans had the wrong kind of electricity inside of them, small chemical reactions within cells as opposed to high voltage current from a power plant. And she had reason to be hopeful, since there was no evidence that the demon had ever controlled anyone's body like it had controlled an electronic device. Still, if it could somehow latch on to either her or Cole and make it back to New Orleans, she was fucked.

Finally, sometime around midnight, she guessed. Since they had no devices with them that could tell time, Lizzie fell asleep while Cole took the first shift as lookout. You better leave right now if you don't want to get your ass shot! Lizzie woke up startled to Cole, wild-eyed, veins and muscles bulging, pointing the Glock that he'd put his magazine back into out the open window of the dilapidated cabin. Cole, no, it's a trick! She yelled.

Cole had been watching several shadows that looked like the bodies of several men approaching their cabin in the moonlight. He'd heard them mumbling and it sounded like they were up to no good, like they very much intended he and Lizzie harm. Lizzie, doing her best to stay out of Cole's line of fire, looked outside and saw what he saw. Cole, she yelled again. They're not real. It's trying to trick you. It wants you to shoot me on accident and then, I'm guessing, race back into town and take me to the hospital so it can tag along and power back up.

"'I don't know,' Cole said, looking around frantically. "'These assholes look and sound pretty fucking real to me! "'You better get out of here if you don't want to die!' he yelled. "'Go ahead!' shouted Lizzie as she crawled towards him. "'Fire some shots! See for yourself how it won't do anything. "'But you'll risk attracting the attention of someone real, "'someone with a phone who will give it exactly what it wants, "'and it'll use their power to keep coming for me!' "'Cole, still staring at the demon's very realistic-looking shadow puppets.'

"'Looked like he was just about to fire. "'And then he sighed, popped out the magazine, "'and ejected around from the chamber. "'And the shadows and voices disappeared immediately. "'He said apologetically, "'Sorry about that.' "'It's okay,' said Lizzie. "'It's very good at this. "'It's been doing this a long time. "'Get some sleep,' she added. "'I'm good for the night.' "'Cole took her up on that. "'He was thoroughly exhausted. "'The last few days have been "'some of the longest of his life. "'His nerves were shot. "'He was asleep within 20 minutes.'

and he didn't wake until sunrise. You think it's over? He asked in the strangely quiet beauty of the striated rays of early morning light filtering in through the cypress groves of the bayou, before he grabbed some coffee that Lizzie had made on their little portable gas stove. No, she answered. I think it wants us to think it's over. I think we're going to have to stay here for at least a week, if not two. Two weeks? Are you crazy? Cole said, irritated.

Shit, Lizzie, I can't stay here for two weeks. I'll lose my job. I'll definitely lose my marriage. So you'll abandon me, even if leaving early means you'll be signing the death warrant for all its future victims, including me. Cole and Lizzie argued heatedly back and forth about how long they'd have to stay in the bayou, an argument that was part of the plan. She'd written it all down on a note back at the coffee shop, how they would need to pretend to stay even longer than they'd originally said to provoke this thing into wasting the rest of its energy by trying to scare them back to civilization.

And judging by the shadowy figure that now approached their cabin, her plan seemed to have worked. The shadowy mask kept changing in shape. At first, it looked like Detective Blaine McGrath for a few moments, asking Cole why he didn't help him, why he didn't believe him, telling him that Cole had pushed Blaine to do what he did instead of saving him.

Then it took the shape of Lizzie's ex-boyfriend, Emilio Mejia, who was murdered years earlier while helping her hunt a creature from the Dark World. Emilio's death haunted her more than any creature or demon or spirit could. The demon then appeared as Cole's mother, who had died a few years ago, and it mimicked her voice so perfectly it brought tears to Cole's eyes, begging her son to return home so that the demon would stop tormenting and torturing her in the afterlife.

It filled them both with terror and sadness. It brought them the deepest kind of manipulative heartache. It was trying to use their worst memories and biggest regrets against them. But also, it was beginning to flicker in and out, to lose some of its mass. It looked like it was almost out of juice.

While Cole did his best to resist running to the boat and getting as far away from what he was witnessing as possible, Lizzie stood firm and looked upon the evil creature fiercely, determined not to let this thing see her scared, hoping to enrage it further into using up the last of its remaining energy.

Shut your fucking mouth!

Romux roared as it turned its shadowy shape into a massive humanoid devil-looking creature twice the size of Lizzie, thrusting a monstrous-shaped face up against hers. It was using everything it had left, a last-ditch now-or-never attack. Lizzie still wasn't scared. It was almost over. She just had to hold the line a few more moments. But then the creature showed her one final trick, one even it wasn't sure it could pull off. She began to feel it trying to feed off of her.

Cole looked on as the creature lost its shape and devolved into hundreds of little dark tendrils of smoke that twisted around and enveloped Lizzie, dark, smoky snakes streaming into and out of her mouth and nostrils. He watched as her eyes rolled back into her head, and she seemed to lose consciousness.

Lizzie, meanwhile, was fighting with everything she had to not let go and give in to what the creature wanted. She felt like her body was being torn apart from the inside out. It felt like every single one of her cells was on fire. Like every ounce of her being that made her her was being sucked out of her body all at once in every direction to feed this monster. It was desperately trying to use her as a power source, to take her life directly instead of its preferred method of forcing its victims to take their own.

This attack wasn't about terror for the creature, it was about survival. And Lizzie Chavez was losing. She was dying. She was about to have her life force completely ripped out of her. Then the creature would be able to manipulate Cole into bringing it back into the city, back into its world of power lines and power stations and a nearly infinite number of devices and an equal number of potential victims to torment and destroy.

For one of the only times in her life she'd spent fighting these things, Lizzie felt completely helpless. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. "'Over here!' Cole screamed as Lizzie, who already looked like she was unconscious, was about to truly pass out. And then he fired his gun into the air. "'Officers, we're over here!' He cried out before pleading. "'Just please, leave your phones on the boat! And you have to turn them off completely, please!' That was enough. That was just enough to distract it. There was no boat. No officers.'

Cole's improvised deception had worked. The entity flew towards the water's edge, where Cole was looking. It made it far from the cabin before it realized it had been tricked. Furious, it started to race back, but didn't have quite enough power to make it to them.

It began flickering wildly as it tried. It screamed in anger and protest and fear and morphed into all kinds of shapes, hundreds of shapes, the shapes of so, so many previous victims, the shapes of whatever those victims had been most afraid of, one after the other, like a toy that was malfunctioning. All the while, it slowly moved in spastic jerks towards the cabin. It roared, now sounding far more scared than powerful. This is not the end of the game! I do not lose! Ahhhh!

Following a final scream, the flickering grew much more intense and rapid, and then, in an instant, it flickered completely out of existence. It was gone. It was truly gone. But to be absolutely sure, Lizzie and Cole would spend two more days and nights on the bayou. Two more days talking about life, Cole's marriage, Lizzie's crazy backstory.

Two more nights sleeping in shifts, wondering if Ramux Pantome had one last trick up its sleeve. And then they took their little boat back to the marina, paddling most of the way to avoid even using a spark plug to help ensure that if the thing was still alive, it was alone and deep out in the bayou. And then Cole did his best to make peace with the knowledge that things like Ramux Pantome were real. That demons weren't just made-up boogeymen that sold tickets for his city's ghost tours.

He also sadly decided that he could not have kids. And he said goodbye to his marriage and to his house in the Garden District. He didn't want to bring any people. It would be his job to protect into a world that had not just the murderers he was used to dealing with in the 5th District, but entities that were even worse than those murderers. Lizzie returned to her home outside of Las Vegas. And she took a few weeks off from her routine of checking her online alerts, seeing who needed her help next,

Ramux Pantomi had scared her good, had almost killed her, and she wouldn't be able to face the Dark World and its evil creatures again until she could think clearly, until she no longer felt a sinking, sick feeling of dread every time she heard her phone ring and saw what were currently her two least favorite words on the screen, Unknown Caller.

And that's it for this Nightmare Fuel. I hope you loved, or were horrified by, or at least very entertained by today's tale of Unknown Caller 2, Power Outage. Today's tale was written by me, Dan Cummins, and scored by Logan Keith. Sorry about not getting back to many of you on Patreon recently regarding feedback from Part 1. This sequel, for whatever reason, took me much, much longer to write than any of the previous Nightmare Fuel stories.

I had to use all the time I had this past two weeks when not recording other episodes of Time Suck and Scared to Death to work on it. I hope the additional creative effort showed much more lore to track with this one than normal. And I really didn't want to mess up Lizzie's return. I really love her. And I want you to love her too, to look forward to other adventures she could go on, other monsters she could take on. She is a lot braver than I have ever been or will ever be.

If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic Productions catalog. Time Suck every Monday at noon Pacific time with little short sucks on some Fridays. And these new Nightmare Fuel episodes on some Fridays as well. And episodes of the now long-running Paranormal Podcast, Scared to Death, every Tuesday at midnight. Please go to badmagicproductions.com for all your bad magic needs, including all show-related merch, and stay scared. Bad Magic Productions.

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