We all knew it was a myth about the telephone booth. It was just a story just like
Bloody Mary. Even knowing that walking towards it still made my heart sink into my
stomach. I breathed in and out with a huff. “ Come on Brandon it’s just a myth don’t
back down now you promised you’d do it. You would look like such a baby.” I muttered
to myself. I’d been walking for a while at least 20 minutes determined to prove the older
boys wrong. All I have to do is knock on the door three times and yell “Are you home Mr.
Red.” Then open the door step inside and close my eyes until he comes to find me.
Every step felt like a hundred years. My hand trembled while I lifted it. I delivered three
knocks. I stuttered over my words with a frantic tone. I yelped “ Are you home Mr. Red.”
I opened the door, stepped inside, and shut my eyes so tight that all I could see was red.
I sat there frozen scared unable to move for an eternity. Is nothing gonna happen I
thought with genuine confusion. I started to open my eyes and then Mr. Red found me.
One of his hands wrapped around my mouth the other around my neck. I tried to pull
him off gasping for and and screeching every second. As the air in my lungs dwindled
and the darkness seeped in, all I could think was Mr. Red was home.
One minute there was complete darkness and the next I was in a hospital bed tied
down with a tube down my throat. I don’t remember being found. I don’t remember how
I got over 400 miles away in the 5 days I was missing. I saw the footage from the police
officer’s dash cam of them finding me in the middle of a rural road. I was shivering
muttering “Mr. Red was home.” again and again. I was barely recognizable, my face was
hollow and my eyes were bloodshot. I don’t remember the ambulance ride or the first 3
nights in the hospital, followed by an emergency surgery. I do remember fighting the
doctors. I remember not recognizing my parents when they came in for the first time. I
remember the constant shaking that vibrated through my body. I remember being
unable to say anything other than “Mr. Red was home.” I would say unconsenting until
my throat stretched and ached with pain. I remember each of the boys who teased me
coming in. Some of them cried, some of them said that they had prayed for me and all of
them left me with an apology. I remember being put in a hospital for the insane. They
said I had a psychotic break. That I was seeing and feeling things that weren’t real. They
said that I ran away thinking that a made-up man had tried to kill me. They told me all
these things but would never listen. If they would just listen they would know the truth
that Mr. Red was real. That if you went to the Telephone booth and knocked on the door
three times and stepped in he would find you.