Nightmare At 20,000 Feet (14 page)

'I'll just keep calling her and calling her until she
does,'
she said irritably to Nurse Phillips just before afternoon nap.

'You just do that,' said Nurse Phillips. 'Now take your pill and lie down,'

Miss Keene lay in grumpy silence, her vein-rutted hands knotted at her sides. It was ten after two and, except for the bubbling of Nurse Phillips's front room snores, the house was silent in the October afternoon.
It makes me angry,
thought Elva Keene,
that no one will take this seriously. Well
- her thin lips pressed together –
the next time the telephone rings
I'll
make sure that Nurse Phillips listens until she does hear something.

Exactly then the phone rang.

Miss Keene felt a cold tremor lace down her body. Even in the daylight with sunbeams speckling her flowered coverlet, the strident ringing frightened her. She dug porcelain teeth into her lower lip to steady it.
Shall 1 answer it?
the question came and then, before she could even think to answer, her hand picked up the receiver. A deep ragged breath; she drew the phone slowly to her ear. She said, 'Hello? '

The voice answered back, 'Hello?' – hollow and inanimate.

'Who is this?'
Miss Keene asked, trying to keep her throat clear.

'Hello?'

'Who's calling, please?'

'Hello?'

'Is anyone there!'

'Hello?'

'Please
…
!
'

'Hello?'

Miss Keene jammed down the receiver and lay on her bed trembling violently, unable to catch her breath.
What is it,
begged her mind,
what in God's name is it?'

'Margaret!' she cried. 'Margaret!'

In the front room she heard Nurse Phillips grunt abruptly and then start coughing.

'Margaret, please…!'

Elva Keene heard the large bodied woman rise to her feet and trudge across the living room floor.
I
must compose my-sell,
she told herself, fluttering hands to her fevered cheeks.
I
must tell her exactly what happened, exactly.

'What is it?' grumbled the nurse. 'Does your stomach ache?'

Miss Keene's throat drew in tautly as she swallowed. 'He just called again,' she whispered.

'Who?'

'That man!'

'What Man?'

'The one who keeps calling!' Miss Keene cried. 'He keeps saying hello over and over again. That's all he says – hello, hello, hel -'

'Now stop this,' Nurse Phillips scolded stolidly. Tie back and…'

'I don't
want
to lie back!' she said frenziedly. 'I want to know who this terrible person is who keeps frightening me!'

'Now don't work yourself into a state,' warned Nurse Phillips. 'You know how upset your stomach gets.'

Miss Keene began to sob bitterly. 'I'm afraid. I'm afraid of him. Why does he keep calling me?'

Nurse Phillips stood by the bed looking down in bovine inertia. 'Now, what did Miss Finch tell you?' she said softly.

Miss Keene's shaking lips could not frame the answer.

'Did she tell you it was the connection?' the nurse soothed. 'Did she?'

'But it isn't! It's a man, a
man
!'

Nurse Phillips expelled a patient breath. 'If it's a man,' she said, 'then just hang up. You don't have to talk to him. Just hang up. Is that so hard to do?'

Miss Keene shut tear-bright eyes and forced her lips into a twitching line. In her mind the man's subdued and listless voice kept echoing. Over and over, the inflection never altering, the question never deferring to her replies – just repeating itself endlessly in doleful apathy.
Hello? Hello?
Making her shudder to the heart.

'Look,' Nurse Phillips spoke.

She opened her eyes and saw the blurred image of the nurse putting the receiver down on the table.

'There,' Nurse Phillips said, 'nobody can call you now. You leave it that way. If you need anything all you have to do is dial. Now isn't that all right? Isn't it?'

Miss Keene looked bleakly at the nurse. Then, after a moment, she nodded once. Grudgingly.

She lay in the dark bedroom, the sound of the dial tone humming in her ear; keeping her awake.
Or am I just telling myself that?
she thought.
Is it really keeping me awake? Didn't I sleep that first night with the receiver off the hook? No, it wasn't the sound, it was something else.

She closed her
eyes
obdurately.
I won't listen,
she told herself,
I
just won't listen to it.
She drew in trembling breaths of the night. But the darkness would not fill her brain and blot away the sound.

Miss Keene felt around on the bed until she found her bed jacket. She draped it over the receiver, swathing its black smoothness in woolly turns. Then she sank back again, stern breathed and taut.
I
will sleep,
she demanded,
I
will sleep.

She heard it still.

Her body grew rigid and abruptly, she unfolded the receiver from its thick wrappings and slammed it down angrily on the cradle. Silence filled the room with delicious peace. Miss Keene fell back on the pillow with a feeble groan.
Now to sleep,
she thought.

And the telephone rang.

Her breath snuffed off. The ringing seemed to permeate the darkness, surrounding her in a cloud of ear-lancing vibration. She reached out to put the receiver on the table again, then jerked her hand back with a gasp, realising she would hear the man's voice again.

Her throat pulsed nervously.
What I'll do,
she planned,
what I'll do is take off the receiver very quickly
-
very quickly – and put it down, then push down on the arm and cut off the line. Yes, that's what I'll do!

She tensed herself and spread her hand out cautiously until the ringing phone was under it. Then, breath held, she followed her plan, slashed off the ring, reached quickly for the cradle arm…

And stopped, frozen, as the man's voice reached out through the darkness to her ears. Where are you?' he asked. 'I want to talk to you.'

Claws of ice clamped down on Miss Keene's shuddering chest. She lay petrified, unable to cut off the sound of the man's dull, expressionless voice, asking, Where are you? I want to talk to you.'

A sound from Miss Keene's throat, thin and fluttering.

And the man said, 'Where are you? I want to talk to you.’

'No, no,' sobbed Miss Keene.

'Where are you? I want to…'

She pressed the cradle arm with taut white fingers. She held it down for fifteen minutes before letting it go.

'I tell you I won't have it!'

Miss Keene's voice was a frayed ribbon of sound. She sat inflexibly on the bed, straining her frightened anger through the mouthpiece vents.

'You say you hang up on this man and he still calls?'
Miss Finch inquired.

'I've
explained
all that!' Elva Keene burst out. 'I had to leave the receiver off the phone all night so he wouldn't call. And the buzzing kept me awake. I didn't get a
wink
of sleep! Now, I want this line checked, do you hear me? I want you to stop this terrible thing!'

Her eyes were like hard, dark beads. The phone almost slipped from her palsied fingers.

'All right, Miss Elva,' said the operator. 'I'll send a man out today.'

Thank you, dear, thank you,' Miss Keene said. 'Will you call me when

Her voice stopped abruptly as a clicking sound started on the telephone.

'The line is busy,' she announced.

The clicking stopped and she went on. To repeat, will you let me know when you find out who this terrible person is
V

'Surely, Miss Elva, surely. And I'll have a man check your telephone this afternoon. You're at 127 Mill Lane, aren't you?'

That's right, dear. You will see to it, won't you?'

'I promise faithfully, Miss Elva. First thing today.'

Thank you, dear,' Miss Keene said, drawing in relieved breath.

There were no calls from the man all that morning, none that afternoon. Her tightness slowly began to loosen. She played a game of cribbage with Nurse Phillips and even managed a little laughter. It was comforting to know that the telephone company was working on it now. They'd soon catch that awful man and bring back her peace of mind.

But when two o'clock came, then three o'clock – and still no repairman at her house – Miss Keene began worrying again.

'What's the
matter
with that girl?'
she said pettishly. 'She promised me faithfully that a man would come this afternoon.'

'He'll be here,' Nurse Phillips said. 'Be patient.'

Four o'clock arrived and no man. Miss Keene would not play cribbage, read her book or listen to her radio. What had begun to loosen was tightening again, increasing minute by minute until at five o'clock, when the telephone rang, her hand spurted out rigidly from the flaring sleeve of her bed jacket and clamped down like a claw on the receiver.
If the man speaks,
raced her mind,
if he speaks I'll scream until my heart stops.

She pulled the receiver to her ear. 'Hello?'

'Miss Elva, this is Miss Finch.'

Her
eyes
closed and breath fluttered through her lips. 'Yes,' she said.

'About those calls you say you've been receiving.'

'Yes?' In her mind, Miss Finch's words cutting – 'those calls you
say
you've been receiving.'

'We sent a man out to trace them,' continued Miss Finch. 'I have his report here.'

Miss Keene caught her breath. 'Yes?'

'He couldn't find anything.'

Elva Keene didn't speak. Her grey head lay motionless on the pillow, the receiver pressed to her ear.

'He says he traced the – the difficulty to a fallen wire on the edge of town.'

'Fallen wire?'

Yes, Miss Elva.' Miss Finch did not sound happy,

'You're telling me I didn't hear anything?'

Miss Finch's voice was firm. 'There's no way anyone could have phoned you from that location,' she said.

'I tell you a
man
called me!'

Miss Finch was silent and Miss Keene's fingers tightened convulsively on the receiver.

'There must be a phone there,' she insisted. 'There must be
some
way that man was able to call me.'

'Miss Elva, the wire is lying on the ground.' She paused. 'Tomorrow, our crew will put it back up and you won't be…'

'There
has
to be a way he could call me!'

'Miss Elva, there's no one out there!'

'Out where,
where?
'

The operator said, 'Miss Elva, it's the cemetery.'

In the black silence of her bedroom, a crippled maiden lady lay waiting. Her nurse would not remain for the night; her nurse had patted her and scolded her and ignored her.

She was waiting for a telephone call.

She could have disconnected the phone, but she had not the will. She lay there waiting, waiting, thinking.

Of the silence – of ears that had not heard, seeking to hear again. Of sounds bubbling and muttering – the first stumbling attempts at speech by one who had not spoken – how long? Of –
hello
?
hello
? – first greeting by one long silent. Of -
where are you
? Of (that which made her lie so rigidly) the clicking and the operator speaking her address. Of –

The telephone ringing.

A pause. Ringing. The rustle of a nightgown in the dark.

The ringing stopped.

Listening.

And the telephone slipping from white fingers, the
eyes
staring, the thin heartbeats slowly pulsing.

Outside, the cricket-rattling night.

Inside, the words still sounding in her brain – giving terrible meaning to the heavy, choking silence.

'Hello, Miss Elva. I'll be right over.'

Samuel D. Machildon,
Associate Secretary, Rand Society for Psychical Research

When we had attained our manhood, this aspiration somehow remained. We had a taste for the Victorian, Saul and I. His painting was akin to that roseate and buxom transcription of nature so endeared by the nineteenth century artists. And my writing, though far from satisfactory realization, bore the definite stamp of prolixity, was marked by that meticulous sweep of ornate phrase which the modernists decry as dullness and artifice.

Thus, for the headquarters of our artistic labours, what better retreat than the Slaughter House, that structure which matched in cornice and frieze our intimate partialities? None, we decided, and acted readily on that decision.

The yearly endowment arranged by our deceased parents, albeit meager, we knew to suffice, since the house was in gross need of repair and, moreover, without electricity.

There was also, if hardly credited by us, a rumour of ghosts. Neighbourhood children quite excelled each other in relating the harrowing experiences they had undergone with various of the more eminent spectres. We smiled at their clever fancies, never once losing the conviction that purchase of the house would be wholly practical and satisfactory.

The real estate office bumbled with financial delight the day we took off their hands what they had long considered a lost cause, having even gone so far as to remove the house from their listings. Convenient arrangements were readily fashioned and, in a matter of hours, we had moved all belongings from our uncommodious flat to our new, relatively large house.

Several days were then spent in the most necessary task of cleaning. This presented itself as far more difficult a project than first anticipated. Dust lay heavy throughout the halls and rooms. Our energetic dusting would send clouds of it billowing expansively, filling the air with powdery ghosts of dirt. We noted in respect to that observation that many a spectral vision might thus be made explicable if the proper time were utilized in experiment.

In addition to dust on all places of lodgement, there was thick grime on glass surfaces ranging from downstairs windows to silver scratched mirrors in the upstairs bath. There were loose banisters to repair, door locks to recondition, yards of thick rugging out of whose mat to beat decades of dust, and a multitude of other chores large and small to be performed before the house could be deemed liveable.

Yet, even with grime and age admitted, that we had come by an obvious bargain was beyond dispute. The house was completely furnished, moreover furnished in the delightful mode of the early 1900s. Saul and I were thoroughly enchanted. Dusted, aired, scrubbed from top to bottom, the house proved indeed a fascinating purchase. The dark luxurious drapes, the patterned rugs, the graceful furniture, the yellow keyed spinet; everything was complete to the last detail, that detail being the portrait of a rather lovely young woman which hung above the living room mantel.

When first we came upon it, Saul and I stood speechless before its artistic quality. Saul then spoke of the painter's technique and finally, in rapt adulation, discussed with me the various possibilities as to the identity of the model.

It was our final conjecture that she was the daughter or wife of the former tenant, whoever he had been, beyond having the name of Slaughter.

Several weeks passed by. Initial delight was slaked by full-time occupancy and intense creative effort.

We rose at nine, had our breakfast in the dining room, then proceeded to our work, I in my sleeping chamber, Saul in the solarium, which we had been able to improvise into a small studio. Each in our places, the morning passed quietly and effectively. We lunched at one, a small but nourishing meal and then resumed work for the afternoon.

We discontinued our labours about four to have tea and quiet conversation in our elegant front room. By this hour it was too late to go on with our work, since darkness would be commencing its surrounding pall on the city. We had chosen not to install electricity both for reasons of monetary prudence and the less sordid one of pure aesthetics.

We would not, for the world, have distorted the gentle charm of the house by the addition of blatant, sterile electric light. Indeed we preferred the flickering silence of candlelight in which to play our nightly game of chess. We needed no usurping of our silence by noxious radio Heating’s, we ate our bakery bread unsinged and found our wine quite adequately cooled from the old icebox. Saul enjoyed the sense of living in the past and so did I. We asked no more.

But then began the little things, the intangible things, the things without reason.

Walking on the stairs, in the hallway, through the rooms, Saul or I, singly or together, would stop and receive the strangest impulse in our minds; of fleeting moment yet quite definite while existent.

It is difficult to express the feeling with adequate clarity. It was as if we heard something although there was no sound, as though we saw something when there was nothing before the eye. A sense of shifting presence, delicate and tenuous, hidden from all physical senses and yet, somehow, perceived.

There was no explaining it. In point of fact we never spoke of it together. It was too nebulous a feeling to discuss, incapable of being materialized into words. Restless though it made us, there was no mutual comparison of sensation nor could there be. Even the most abstract of thought formation could not approach what we were experiencing.

Sometimes I would come upon Saul casting a hurried glance over his shoulder, or surreptitiously reaching out to stroke empty air as though he expected his fingers to touch some invisible entity. Sometimes he would catch me doing the same. On occasion we would smile awkwardly, both of us appreciating the moment without words.

But our smiles soon faded. I almost think we were afraid to deride this unknown aegis for fear that it might prove itself actual. Not that my brother or I were superstitious in the least degree. The very fact that we purchased the house without paying the slightest feasance to the old wives' tales about its supposed anathema seems to belie the suggestion that we were, in any manner, inclined toward mystic apprehensions. Yet the house did seem, beyond question, to possess some strange potency.

Often, late at night, I would lie awake, knowing somehow that Saul was also awake in his room and that we both were listening and waiting, consciously certain about our expectation of some unknown arrival which was soon to be effected.

And effected it was.