Serenity Security Solutions

Andrew Careaga

Frank Gomez reached the front door as the afternoon mist turned to drizzle. He held the house key in his right hand, cellphone in his left. Never leave home without your phone, Jackie had told him. Cold droplets landed on his windbreaker and rappelled from it in rivulets to the concrete steps below. More rain hit his thinning white hair and rolled down his face, onto thick eyebrows, into his eyes, and Frank thought he should have worn a cap today. Jackie would have reminded him to wear one.

Beneath the gabled awning, Frank turned his back to the dampness to face the door. Hunching his shoulders, he peered into the phone screen, which glowed a dim fluorescent blue. Frank tapped the Serenity Security Solutions app. The app’s blue tile transformed into a block of white text on burgundy background.

Update required, it said.

“Crap,” Frank muttered.

He tapped the message once. Nothing. He tapped it again, and the message vanished, replaced by another: The version you are using is no longer supported. Please update your Serenity app.

“For Christ’s sake,” Frank said.

He turned toward the street, which was now glistening from the drizzle. He sighed and closed the app, tapped on the Contacts icon, and scrolled until he found the number for Serenity Security Solutions. Jackie had entered the company’s 800 number into his phone’s contacts when they’d first signed up for the security system. “Just in case you ever need it,” she’d said. “Not that you ever will. But better to be safe.” They both knew she was dying then, and Frank knew Jackie was trying to prepare him, to look out for him from beyond the grave.

The damp afternoon chill was infiltrating his bones now, like water through porous limestone. The sky was a gloomy gray soup above him.

Frank touched the phone icon to connect with the home alarm company. He heard a ring cut short. Then a cheerful womanly voice.

Thank you for calling Serenity Security Solutions, where your security is our guarantee. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 9-1-1. Otherwise, please hold for our next available representative.

Frank shifted his weight. Cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, he zipped up his windbreaker, shaking drizzle from it, and tried to fold into himself to ward off the chill. A few seconds of hold music gave way to a voice.

“Greetings from Serenity Security Solutions, where your security is our guarantee.”

It was another woman’s voice. A more human monotone, and pleasant enough, Frank thought.

“Please know that this conversation may be recorded for training purposes,” the voice said. “My name is Amanda. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking today?”

“Um, hello.”

“Yes?”

“This is Frank Gomez. I’m one of your customers, and I’m having some difficulty getting the app to work.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that, Mr. Gomez. I can certainly help. Are you referring to our home security app?”

“Yes,” Frank said. “I need to get into my house.”

“Certainly, Mr. Gomez. I understand.” Her voice maintained an even cheeriness, indifferent to Frank’s eroding patience.

“For security purposes, may I please have the correct spelling of your name and your address?”

Frank recited the information.

“Thank you, Mr. Gomez. Let me access that information. One moment, please.”

He heard typing on a keyboard, the sound of bureaucracy. He imagined Amanda’s fingers at work, nails painted red and chipped at the tips from repetitive typing.

“I – it says I need to update my app,” he said, “but I don’t know how.”

“I can certainly assist you with that, Mr. Gomez,” Amanda said. “One moment, please.”

More typing. Then, “Hmm,” and a pause.

“Is something wrong?”

“It seems we don’t have any record of an account under your name, Mr. Gomez. Could it be under a different name?”

“Oh, of course,” he said, emitting a short laugh of embarrassment. “It’s probably under my wife’s name. Jackie. Jackie Gomez.”

“I see,” the woman said. “One moment, please.”

“Or Jacquelyn.” He spelled out the name as Amanda typed.

The clouds converged overhead, growing darker and hovering closer, like a soggy gray blanket about to be pulled over the world. The streetlights awakened to the descending darkness. Frank looked out into the street and saw the shapes of people in the distance, faintly illuminated by the streetlights. Some pushed shopping carts, others tugged at shabby backpacks or rucksacks draped over one shoulder. Still others carried nothing but a jacket. They ambled along the street, oblivious to their surroundings or the drizzle that was growing heavier, colder.

“Mr. Gomez, thank you for your patience.” Amanda’s voice drew Frank’s attention back toward the door, away from the darkness and the shadows of people in the drizzle.

“My sincere apologies, Mr. Gomez, but I do not find anyone by either name in our database.”

“No Jackie or Jacquelyn?” His voice trembled with irritation.

“No, sir,” she said. “But we can look up your account by phone number. Do you happen to know what number the account is under?”

“I – well, I really don’t,” he said. “But it’s probably under Jackie’s. She took care of these kinds of things.”

He sighed. How he missed Jackie.

“I see, Mr. Gomez,” said Amanda. “Do you have her number handy?”

“It’s – it’s in my contacts. Let me look it up.” He fumbled with the phone. “I hope I can do this without losing this call.”

“We can certainly call you back if we are disconnected,” Amanda said, her voice all scripted efficiency.

“It’s starting to rain out here,” he said. Amanda did not respond.

He found his wife’s number and recited it to the woman.

“Thank you, Mr. Gomez. One moment, please.”

More keyboard clacking.

“Oh, Mr. Gomez. I see the issue here.”

“What? What issue?”

“It seems your last name was mistyped into our system,” Amanda said. “We have it entered as G-O-M-E-S, with an ‘S’ at the end instead of a ‘Z’.” Amanda emitted a faint laugh that sat somewhere between embarrassment and diffidence.

Frank sighed and pressed his forehead against the door.

“I sincerely apologize, Mr. Gomez,” Amanda said. “We will correct that right away. One moment.”

“Thank you,” he replied, “but right now, I just need to get into my house. Can you just help me with that? Can you just disarm the security alarm for me? You can fix the spelling later.”

He sensed a hesitation on the line.

“Mr. Gomez, since this account is registered under the name of Jacquelyn Gomes – excuse me, Jacquelyn Gomez – I cannot authorize any action on your alarm system without her approval. Is Mrs. Gomez with you, by chance? Can she give her verbal permission for us to disarm the alarm system?”

He sighed.

“My wife is dead,” he said.

“Oh, I’m very sorry, Mr. Gomez,” Amanda said. “And I apologize, but I am going to have to escalate this to my manager. Please hold.”

“But I just need – ”

Her voice vanished, replaced by hold music.

“God dammit.” He hammered one fist against the door, holding the phone at his side in his other hand. He pounded the door again, harder, causing the key it held to fall to the wet concrete steps below.

As he stooped to retrieve it, Amanda’s voice returned. “One moment, Mr. Gomez, while I connect you with my manager.”

Then came another voice, a man’s voice, from behind him.

“Something wrong, old man?”

Frank rose and turned to see two men facing him. They were young, probably in their mid-twenties, taller than Frank, and lean. Their hooded sweatshirts were damp from the drizzle, the hoods cinched tight around their thin, stubbled faces.

Frank’s eyes widened as he looked at the faces. Obscured by the hoods and drizzle, their faces were long and gaunt, misshapen, with narrow chins and cheeks and broader foreheads, like the head of a wasp. Their eyes were dark, hollow pools that revealed nothing. Reflected nothing.

Frank swallowed hard, his throat suddenly tight and swollen, like it had been stung from within.

“Oh, no. Nothing’s wrong, thank you,” Frank managed to say. The words came out cracked and dry, as the key again fell from his trembling hand.

He turned to the door again, hunching his shoulders, as one of the hooded men put a hand on one shoulder.

“No, something’s wrong, old man,” the man said. “I can tell. I can sense these things. Maybe we can help.”

The man’s hand gripped Frank’s shoulder and turned him away from the door.

“Hello, Mr. Gomez?” It was a man’s voice on the line.

“Mr. Gomez? Are you there?”

Frank lifted the phone to his ear, his hand unsteady, as the hooded man released Frank’s shoulder and motioned for him to hand over the phone. The hooded man smiled, revealing a mouth full of discolored teeth, rotted and jagged like shards of glass.

“Mr. Gomez?” came the disembodied telephone voice. “Hello?”

Frank could not speak. Heart racing, he surrendered his phone.

“It’s okay,” the hooded man said into the phone. “All taken care of.”

He smiled at Frank and tapped on the phone screen as the voice on the other end said something muffled and indistinguishable.

“You can bypass it, see?” The hooded man displayed the screen to Frank. “That turns it off. I took care of it for you.”

Frank emitted a soft, nervous chirp of a chuckle.

“Oh, thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much. I – I had no idea. I’m not very good with all this new technology.”

He tried to clear his dry throat as he reached for his phone. “Thank you,” Frank said in a voice that felt strange and frightened.

The hooded man gave a jack-o’-lantern grin and tossed the phone onto the wet lawn as his companion bent down to retrieve Frank’s housekey.

“Come on, old man,” said the first man. “Let’s go inside, where it’s warm.”

He placed a cold, wet hand on the back of Frank’s neck as the other man turned the key in the lock.

“Please,” Frank said, turning toward them both. “Please, I – ”

The lock clicked open and the men nudged Frank into the foyer of his home. “Very nice,” said one as he closed the door behind them.

“Jackie?” Frank called out. “Jackie?” He sobbed. “Oh, Jackie,” came the words from his trembling voice. “Oh, Jackie.”

Outside, in the cold, gray rain, an automated voice spoke from the slick wet grass.

Thank you for choosing Serenity Security Solutions. Please stay on the line for a brief customer survey.

AUTHOR BIO