Vance felt a vibration in his back pocket—his phone going off. That was odd, as he was sure no one he knew would be calling him during the school day. He drew his phone from his pocket and looked at the incoming number.
Local, but he didn’t recognize it. He stepped off to the side of the corridor, next to the water fountain. “Hello?”
For a moment, all he heard was strange buzzing and hissing. A strangely alive sound, he thought. Then a sharp, distorted voice said, “The coordinates are three, eight, five, five—”
A cold chill passed through his whole body. “Who is this?”
The voice continued to recite numbers. “Nine, two, six, zero, eight, two—”
“Who is this?”
“Zero, three, five, three, zero.” The voice stopped for a moment, but then started over again. “The coordinates are three, eight, five, five….”
“Oh, jeez,” Vance said and reached into his pocket to grab his ink pen. As the voice continued to say the numbers over and over, he wrote them down on the palm of his hand.
At last, the voice fell silent, but he could still hear a low buzzing, moaning sound in the background.
“Who is this?” he asked in a shaky voice. “What’s your name?”
There was no immediate reply, but the droning grew louder.
Then the caller said, “Indrid Cold.”
#
