The Caller in the Walls: A Ghost Story

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The Baxter family had been searching for a fresh start for months. When they stumbled upon the quaint two-story house nestled at the edge of town, it seemed perfect—almost too perfect. White picket fence, a sprawling backyard, and an eerie quiet that had a certain appeal after the chaos of city life. It was exactly what they needed: a new place, a new life.

Grace and Thomas Baxter, along with their 6-year-old daughter Emily, moved in without a second thought. From the moment they walked through the door, the house seemed to welcome them with open arms. The floors creaked as if sighing in relief, the light filtered through the windows like a gentle embrace, and Emily wasted no time in exploring every corner. Her favorite spot? A small nook in her room where she set up her toy phone, a brightly colored plastic relic she’d had since she was a toddler.

The first call came three days after they moved in.

Emily was playing in her room when her parents heard her giggling, her high-pitched laugh echoing through the house. Grace stood in the doorway, watching her daughter clutching the receiver of her toy phone, speaking animatedly as if deep in conversation.

“Who are you talking to, sweetheart?” Grace asked, amused.

Emily grinned. “A friend. He’s really nice.”

Grace smiled, assuming it was just one of her imaginary games, and thought nothing of it. After all, kids had a knack for inventing invisible friends, especially when adjusting to a new environment. But as the days passed, Emily’s conversations grew longer, more involved, and…strangely unsettling.

It was the end of the second week when Grace started to notice the subtle changes. Emily became quieter at dinner, her normally bubbly chatter replaced with brief responses. She spent more time alone in her room, and when Grace listened outside the door, she would hear Emily whispering into her toy phone.

One evening, as Grace tucked Emily into bed, she asked casually, “What does your friend say to you, sweetie?”

Emily’s blue eyes, wide with innocence, looked up at her mother. “He tells me secrets, Mommy.”

A chill crawled up Grace’s spine. “What kind of secrets?”

Emily hesitated, her small hands gripping the edges of her blanket. “He says he’s in the walls. And that I should come live with him there.”

Grace felt a wave of nausea. It was probably just her daughter’s overactive imagination, but the way Emily said it, so calmly, made her heart race. She kissed her daughter’s forehead, trying to brush off her unease.

“Well, tell your friend goodnight,” she whispered. “It’s time to sleep now.”

Emily nodded obediently, but as Grace left the room, she could hear her daughter whispering into the toy phone again. This time, the words were muffled, barely audible, but the tone was unmistakable—almost like Emily was…afraid.

By the third week, the house felt different. There was a heaviness in the air, a stillness that clung to the walls like dampness. Grace began hearing strange noises at night—scratching sounds, faint thumps, like something moving behind the plaster. Thomas tried to reassure her, chalking it up to the old house settling, but Grace couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

One night, as they lay in bed, a loud crash startled them both awake. They rushed into Emily’s room, only to find her standing in the middle of the floor, staring at her toy phone which lay on the ground, shattered into pieces. Her face was pale, her hands trembling.

“He’s angry,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

“Who, Emily? Who’s angry?” Grace knelt beside her daughter, heart pounding.

“The man in the walls. He says…he says I’m his.”

The following days blurred into a nightmare. Emily refused to sleep in her room, terrified of the voice on the phone. Despite the broken toy, she claimed she could still hear him, whispering from the walls, telling her things—dark, horrible things. Grace and Thomas tried to reassure her, but they were growing increasingly alarmed by the strange occurrences in the house. The noises behind the walls grew louder, more frequent, as if something—or someone—was moving within them.

One night, after yet another sleepless evening filled with Emily’s terrified screams, Thomas made a decision. “We’re tearing the walls down,” he announced, his face set with determination.

“But what if—”

“I don’t care, Grace. Something’s wrong here. We need to figure out what’s going on.”

The next morning, they rented tools and began the grim task of tearing down the walls of Emily’s room, hoping to find a reasonable explanation for the sounds—the calls. Grace tried to keep Emily occupied downstairs, but the little girl seemed strangely calm, almost detached, as if she already knew what they would find.

When Thomas cracked open the first section of the wall, the smell hit them like a wave—rotting, damp, and sickeningly sweet. Grace covered her mouth, bile rising in her throat.

“What the hell…” Thomas muttered, pulling back more of the drywall.

Behind the plaster, hidden in the darkness, were bodies.

Dozens of them.

Their decayed faces were frozen in grotesque expressions of fear, their skin rotting away, leaving behind a horrific sight. And in their skeletal hands, each one clutched a phone—rusted and ancient, but unmistakably phones.

Grace let out a choked sob, stepping back in horror. “No…no, this can’t be real…”

But it was. And as they continued tearing down the walls, the horror only grew. The bodies were packed into the spaces between the walls, as if they had been entombed there—each one holding a phone, as if trapped in eternal conversation with something…or someone.

Then they found her.

A small, decayed body, perfectly preserved among the others, but eerily identical to Emily. Same blonde curls, same small frame, the same delicate features. In her tiny, bony hands, she too held a phone, her head tilted slightly as if listening to something only she could hear.

Grace screamed.

“No, no, this can’t be happening!” she cried, backing away as Thomas stood frozen in shock.

“It’s her,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “It’s…Emily.”

But it wasn’t their Emily. It was someone else—someone who shouldn’t exist.

Then, from behind them, a voice echoed softly from the broken walls. A familiar voice, gentle and possessive.

“She was always mine…and now I want her back.”

They turned to see Emily standing at the doorway, her eyes wide and filled with terror. She dropped her toy phone, the one they thought was broken, but it wasn’t her speaking.

The voice came from the walls.

And the last thing they heard before the lights flickered and went out was the soft, rhythmic ringing of dozens of phones. One after the other.

Weeks later, when the authorities finally entered the house, they found it empty—except for the bodies in the walls. Of the Baxter family, there was no sign. Only a toy phone lying on the floor, its receiver hanging loose, and the faint sound of static crackling from somewhere deep within the house.

The house was condemned, the secrets within its walls left to rot. But even now, locals say that if you stand close enough to the cracked plaster, you can still hear it—the soft, eerie ring of a phone waiting to be answered.