Every Night at 2:17 the Same Number Called and Said Nothing
55% BELIEVED
CASE FILE #528
FILED: May 20, 2026
CLASSIFICATION: Customer Service Stories
WITNESS ON RECORD: CoastalFinn
JURY OF 94 READERS HEARD THIS CASE: 52 believed it, 16 had doubts, 26 weren't buying it.
I took overnight calls for a roadside assistance line, the kind you get with your car insurance -- flat tires, dead batteries, people locked out at truck stops at four in the morning. It was a lonely job but a real one. People called us when they were stranded and scared, and mostly we helped them, and mostly it felt good.
Except for 2:17.
It started in my second week. At exactly 2:17 in the morning, a call came in from a number with no name attached. I picked up, gave the greeting -- "Roadside assistance, this is Cole, are you in a safe location?" -- and there was nothing. Not silence exactly. There was a sound. Wind, maybe. A car passing far away. Breathing, slow and even. But no words.
"Hello?" I said. "Are you there? Do you need help?"
Nothing. And then, after about a minute, the line went dead.
The first night, I figured it was a pocket dial. The second night, when it happened again at 2:17 on the dot, I figured it was a glitch. By the fifth night I had stopped figuring anything and started dreading the clock. I would watch it crawl toward 2:17 and my stomach would tighten, and sure enough, 2:17, the call, the wind, the breathing, the minute, the dead line.
I asked the others. Marcus, who worked the desk beside me, said he had never gotten it. Denise on the far side said the same. It only came to me. It only ever came to my extension, which is not, our IT guy assured me, technically possible, because calls route randomly to whoever is free. But I was not always the only one free at 2:17. Sometimes all four of us were sitting there. And it always, always came to me.
I started talking to it. I don't know why. Somewhere around the ninth or tenth night, I stopped saying the script and just started talking, the way you talk to something you have decided is real. "It's Cole again," I'd say. "I'm here. If you can hear me, I'm here." And the breathing would go on, slow and even, and once -- once -- I swear it changed. It caught. Like whoever it was had heard me, and reacted.
Except for 2:17.
It started in my second week. At exactly 2:17 in the morning, a call came in from a number with no name attached. I picked up, gave the greeting -- "Roadside assistance, this is Cole, are you in a safe location?" -- and there was nothing. Not silence exactly. There was a sound. Wind, maybe. A car passing far away. Breathing, slow and even. But no words.
"Hello?" I said. "Are you there? Do you need help?"
Nothing. And then, after about a minute, the line went dead.
The first night, I figured it was a pocket dial. The second night, when it happened again at 2:17 on the dot, I figured it was a glitch. By the fifth night I had stopped figuring anything and started dreading the clock. I would watch it crawl toward 2:17 and my stomach would tighten, and sure enough, 2:17, the call, the wind, the breathing, the minute, the dead line.
I asked the others. Marcus, who worked the desk beside me, said he had never gotten it. Denise on the far side said the same. It only came to me. It only ever came to my extension, which is not, our IT guy assured me, technically possible, because calls route randomly to whoever is free. But I was not always the only one free at 2:17. Sometimes all four of us were sitting there. And it always, always came to me.
I started talking to it. I don't know why. Somewhere around the ninth or tenth night, I stopped saying the script and just started talking, the way you talk to something you have decided is real. "It's Cole again," I'd say. "I'm here. If you can hear me, I'm here." And the breathing would go on, slow and even, and once -- once -- I swear it changed. It caught. Like whoever it was had heard me, and reacted.
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Votes on record: 52 believed · 16 unsure · 26 didn't · 55% of readers believe this story