Work Text:
[ARCHIVIST]: Statement of Thomas Watson, originally given sometime in October 2021, committed to tape by Karl Jacobs, the Archivist the 14th of May 2022. Statement describes a... strange red phone that appeared in Watson’s apartment, and the phenomena that occured over a three-month period directly following it's arrival.
[ARCHIVIST]: Right. Uh. Statement begins.
[ARCHIVIST]: My dad said he came here. Uhm, recorded a statement about my brother. Wilbur. Wilbur Soot, that was his name? My dad said I should come and talk about what happened, said it helped him, said it might help me too. Funny how everything comes down to Wil, innit? We didn’t even share a last name. He uhm. Hah. He was planning when he turned eighteen to change his name to Wilbur Watson, as a Christmas present for mum and dad, and all that. But, it– he never got there.
Fuck. Shit. Sorry– nevermind.
I don’t know why I’m here? It’s not like it’s weird or anything, I mean it is weird because I never saw where the phone came from, it was just in my flat right, I haven’t talked to my dad in sixteen months and twenty-four days or whatever, but–
I moved out, yeah? I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Our family was broken. Ever since Wil died– since mum died, really. Even though I was littler when it happened, I don’t know. Things changed, and I wasn’t okay, we weren’t a family, dad Techno and I. So I moved out. When I turned seventeen, actually, not eighteen. I haven’t spoken to Techno in years, literally, ever since he moved– I think he’s in America now? I don’t keep track. Dad never even spoke to me anymore either, so I left and bunked up with one of my friends. He’s got this rich uncle who gives him money and shit for rent so we paid for a place and started living there.
Absolutely crummy apartment. Cheap, amenities half not working, the whole nine yards. But it was somewhere that wasn’t the big empty house of my childhood.
And… that’s when I found the phone.
The phone is– it’s just a red mobile, like– it’s not anything special, it’s just a phone. It just sits there and does nothing until it rings and it rings… It’s one of those old phones, one of the dial-up ones where you have to put your finger in the hole and like, turn it ‘round to make it go? So you can call someone? It’s one of them. It’s bright red, with a handset and a receiver, and makes a buzzing noise when you pick it up. It plugs into the wall. And– there was just this phone in my apartment, and I didn’t think it was weird or anything, it was just part of the decor, y’know, it just came like that and I figured it was just a phone! And then one night, I’m sitting there, Tubbo was at work– that’s my mate– doing his late night shift, and I– it–
It rings.
I mean, you know, when a phone rings you’re gonna pick it up and answer it, right? ‘S what any bloke would do so I pick up the phone and I answer it. And–
I haven’t heard my brother’s voice in eight years– like, longer, I was nine when he died and I. I haven’t heard his voice in about nine years. But– the voice on the other end of the phone was my brother. Wilbur Soot.
And I thought y’know, it’s gotta be a joke. Someone’s gotta be fucking with me, a prank, it’s Tubbo or some shit. We prank each other all the time but it’s not like this, not this– this. This fucked me up. And he would know that. So maybe it was my dad, or maybe it was Techno, or someone, but I don’t think it was any of them because when I start talking I was like– hello? And the phone went hello? back at me and it was Wilbur talking. And I said Wilbur? and he said hello again in the same tone, like it was mocking me.
I don’t– I don’t remember what I did next, I just kind of stood there. I might’ve said his name again trying to figure out if it was really him, and he said: Tommy, it’s me!
And I– I didn’t–
They have all that shit on the internet now, deep fakes and stuff, like you can recreate anyone’s voice just from a clip of them, and so I thought it must’ve been that so I went off. I said this isn’t fucking funny, if this is supposed to be some sick joke you’re not making me laugh, you’re being a right fucking dickhead, do I sound happy right now, and then I slammed the handset down on the reciever and I stood there and I–
I’m a big man, yeah? Big men don’t cry. I just stood there for a little while.
The phone didn’t ring again. It seemed like it was done, whoever was trying to prank me knew it wasn’t funny so I went and I sat back on the couch and I waited for Tubbo to come home and I wanted to know if it was him– but he got home and I asked why he did that and he said what? It wasn’t me!? And when I explained it properly he was upset for me. So I knew it wasn’t him. I didn’t want to call my dad ‘cause I hadn’t talked to him in months at that point and I just… gave up. I decided if they called again I would just unplug the phone. And I went to bed and that was it.
Uh– but it wasn’t it.
‘Cause the next day, the phone rang again.
I had just gotten home from uni, Tubbo was in the shower. I gave it a weird look before I picked it up? Like maybe that would change things. Before anyone on the other side could get a word I just said– if this is a prank it’s not fucking funny. And then I heard Wilbur. He said– he said this isn’t a prank, Tommy. He sounded so sure of himself. Like– like he knew something I didn’t. And I can remember when I was a little kid whenever he used that tone of voice it pissed me right the fuck off and I’d tell him fuck you Wilbur Soot and he’d just–
But it was that same tone of voice. Like it really was my brother on the other end of the line.
So, I– I don’t know what made me ask it. But I asked him: if you’re real, tell me something no one else but the real Wilbur would know. Like a test. Like when you meet someone online and tell them to draw a star on a piece of paper and hold it up in their selfie to know they’re not a catfish. I don’t wanna be catfished! And so I said, y’know, prove you’re real. Something no one else would know.
And he said there were only two baby pictures of you before six months, before you were adopted. Dad and Mum gave them to you on your sixth birthday in a manilla envelope and told you to do what you wanted with them. You and I pasted them inside the beat-up cover of a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and stuck them back in the bookshelf, so they were hidden but you could also look at them whenever you wanted. I helped you open the envelope because you were too scared.
And it’s impossible– you know, he can’t be alive. My brother is dead, he cannot be alive, fuck off, I walked in on my dad holding his cold body. I– so many years, so many years of going to therapy for that.
But it… was him. On the phone. Or something that sounded like him and knew the things Wilbur would know. So– him, yeah?
I’m a big man. I fucking sobbed. ‘Cause my brother was dead, and I told the guy on the phone that and he said yeah, I know, I am dead. I’ve been dead.
And I–
You know, the first thing I asked him as that was processing was what’s being dead like?
And that bastard– hah– that bastard went: it sucks.
Hah! Can you believe that? What’s being dead like– oh, it sucks. Jesus christ. It’s exactly the type of morbid humor Wilbur would love, which just kind of cemented further in my mind that somehow, this was him. Some way he’d crossed the boundaries of life and death through the red dial-up phone in my flat to… talk to me?
So we talked. For almost twenty minutes. God bless Tubbo and his long-ass showers. Wilbur asked questions and I caught him up on the last decade of my life and right before the water turned off in the bathroom, he said he was sorry. He was sorry for what he did to us, and that he wishes he could come back and make it right. Before I could say anything to that, the phone hung up on the other end.
Tubbo came out and found me standing there with the phone in my hand. He said I looked like I’d seen a ghost, which made me laugh, of course it did. Because technically I’d been talking to one.
I’ve never really been a skeptic. I think it’s funny to play into the supernatural horror, like a bit. If you make it ridiculous enough, it becomes less scary than before, you know? And maybe it was the ghost of my dead brother on the other end of the line, or maybe it was just some sick, really well-done prank. But again, he’d proved it was him, in a way. I didn’t know what to think.
So when the phone calls kept coming, I kept answering.
Three months. The phone rang every week for three months. It was never on a specific day, or at a specific time, since it always seemed to know when I’d be home and not busy, and when Tubbo would be out or distracted. I tried to show him, once, tried to get Wilbur to talk to him, but it never… worked. Something always got in the way. It was like the phone only existed to me after a while, and I just went along with it. It was nice to talk to Wil– he wanted to hear about the things I was doing, how my film classes were going and what I had for breakfast that day. He always kind of sounded a little echoey and sad, but when I asked about it he said it was a side effect of being dead. And then he’d laugh.
You know what? I remember his voice and shit. But I don’t remember him ever laughing like that before. Now that I look back on it, of course it seems off. Like it should’ve cued me in or something, but I was just so excited to be able to talk to my brother. Three months I fucking talked to him, and he never said a word that made me think he was anything other than Wilbur Soot. And then about three weeks into November– right around the anniversary of his death, actually– Wil… asked me to do something for him.
He asked me to go to his grave. I hadn’t been since three years before. I asked him why, and he said it was ‘cause he missed me, and wanted to give me a hug. I told him that was stupid ‘cause even he admitted he wasn’t exactly physically present anymore, but he said it was important and blah blah blah.
So I told him I’d go. He told me to wait until later in the evening, because Dad still apparently goes and sits there all afternoon and I had class that morning. So we figured out the time and I told him I loved him and then the phone hung up.
I never hung up the phone. It always just kind of… stopped.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, you know? Like, you look back at yourself right before you do something stupid and it’s like screaming at the guys in a horror movie. Like fucking hell, man, don’t do it. Obviously don’t do it! Who goes to their dead brother’s grave in the middle of the night after he called you up and asked you to do it? Huh? Who does that?
Me, apparently. The day came and I waited and then took the bus out to Holywell Cemetery, where Wil was buried. I don’t really remember the service we had there, back when I was nine. My therapist said I probably blocked it out? To be fair, I don’t remember a lot of things from when I was a kid, so, I guess it’s normal. But I’ve been in the years since, and I know where Wil’ grave is, so I went and as the sun was setting, walked along the concrete pathways until I found it.
I’ll admit, for as shit as a dad he got to be, Dad bought Wil a really nice headstone. Mum, too. They’re buried in plots right next to each other, although Mum’s grave has a weird slash through the stone on the back, like someone tried to graffitti it with a chisel and shit. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve sat behind her tracing those stupid lines over and over– it’s almost a shape, like an elongated circle with an eye in it or something? Or another circle? Dad said it was probably some kids trying to trash the place or something, but Techno always got a weird look on his face about it and we always dropped the subject. Never had enough money to fix it either, so it stayed.
I sat by Mum and Wilbur for a while. Chatted with the air. It’s easier to talk to the dead when they can reply, honestly. I fidgeted with the grass and dirt and shit, and the soil still kind of felt as soft and loose as it did the day they buried both of them. Crumbly. It was… warm, like the sun had been beating down on it after it had been turned over, even though there was plenty of grass on top of it and it was November. The sun was just starting to set and the air was getting fucking freezing when I stood up to go– and that’s when–
That’s when I– saw it.
In the treeline. Around the cemetery? There’s a thin line of poplar trees or something and– between them I saw– someone. Something. They were tall, and skinny as shit. Wearing some kind of brown coat that cut a weird angle through the trees, and their hair was as dark as the mud I was sitting on except for one strand, which almost looked white. Greasy, too. And I could’ve sworn for a brief second it was–
I mean– it wasn’t, right? But– I–
We looked at each other, and I don’t–
I don’t remember the rest of the night. The next thing that registered was a car’s headlights coming at me really fucking fast and a horn blowing as they swerved, and I realized I was in the middle of the fucking road. It was properly nighttime then, dark as shit and I was– I looked down at myself because apparently I’d just fucking time traveled or teleported or something, and I was covered in dirt. It was all over my hands and my favorite red sweatshirt and my face, too. In my hair. Between my fucking teeth. I was smeared in the stuff. And the car that had almost hit me was pulling over and someone was getting out to ask me if I was okay, and I didn’t– I didn’t know what to tell them?
I just kind of– my hands were torn apart, okay? My fingernails were dirty and ripped and it looked like I had dug something up, but I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there, wherever I was. When I asked for the time they gave me a weird look, but apparently it was three in the fucking morning.
They gave me a ride to my apartment. Some guy who’d just gotten off his night shift. Kind bloke. Didn’t seem to mind that I got his seat all disgusting.
When I stumbled in, Tubbo and his– he had a friend over, name was Ranboo? Nice guy, kind of weird. They were up watching TV and they looked at me and asked me what happened and I didn’t… I couldn’t answer them. I didn’t have an answer. So I just showered and then sat there with them and watched TV until the sun came up. I couldn’t fall asleep. Every time I closed my eyes the darkness behind them… freaked me out. Made me feel like I was falling, or resting somewhere, like there was dirt falling in on me as I lay in some deep hole. Like I was…
Like I was dead.
I stayed up until about ten, when I got a phone call. A regular call on my cell, not the red one. It was from my dad. He hadn’t bothered to reach out to me in months, so I figured what the hell and answered.
He told me that he’d gotten a call from the cemetery. That someone had dug up and disturbed Wilbur’s grave last night. He didn’t sound like he was… blaming me, per say, and I have no idea if he even fucking should blame me for it, but he sounded like maybe he thought I would know something. I thought maybe I should know something, but I thought back and there’s just… a hole, in my memory. I didn’t tell him about it– or anything, really, but he said if there was maybe something I wanted to get off my chest I should come here. It was a good conversation, actually? The best we’ve had in years. Definitely the longest.
So I actually thought about it. Coming here. Thought about it for almost a month. There were… no more phone calls in that month, either. From the red phone. Wilbur was… gone. But there were– outside my apartment’s door, there were muddy footprints every other weekend. Tubbo blamed it on me. I didn’t bother to correct him.
I’m starting to think whatever I talked to on that phone wasn’t my brother– or, not all the way.
I’ve been having dreams, too. Where I’m lying in a sunken pit ready for a coffin, and I’m covered in dirt, and slowly, two hands start peeling it away from me like skin. And it hurts, like they’re actually peeling my skin off. And once enough of the soil comes away from my eyes, sticky and goopy and gummy, I can see who’s digging me up. It’s always Wilbur. Once, though, it was my dad. That really freaked me out. Finally got the guts to come here after it, though, ‘cause it reminded me of our phone call enough. It’s– it’s not that bad. I’m not scared. I’m not. I just…
I wasn’t sure– it– I just wasn’t sure. I still can’t remember that night, and– the day after, when dad called about the cemetery, do you…
Do you want to know what the worst part was?
… In that hole, six feet down, there wasn’t a body in my brother’s coffin. Just empty wood, and piles of freshly turned dirt.
[ARCHIVIST]: …end statement.
[ARCHIVIST]: Um. Well, I looked into this one– I met with Phil Watson a few d– years ago, and that is on file. Lots surrounding this Wilbur Soot and death. I attempted to follow up with Thomas, but it looks like he moved to America a couple months ago and might be living with his surviving brother there. Looks like they may have made up or something. I also tried to get in touch with the roommate– one name in there looked weirdly familiar, but I couldn’t find anything. The cemetery checks out. Reports of grave desecrations have been on the rise lately, and Wilbur Soot’s grave was among them. There’s nothing about a missing corpse, though. No idea where that came from.
The Watson family seems to be somewhat pulled towards The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored. Like they just can’t wait for it all to be over. I’d kill to talk to Phil again, but his memory of me is ten years old at this point and I think I was a little too over-familiar with him when I called. Oops.
Thomas mentions time travel here. A little funny, but unlikely. I imagine he finished whatever ritual Wilbur Soot first tried with their mother, and then started on himself. Based on the evidence? I think it probably was successful.
Makes you wonder what being a walking corpse is like.
Maybe I’ll run into him one day. Or shamble into him, considering the state of–
C’mon, I’m a little funny!
[ARCHIVIST]: End recording.