Issue #69 : Dropped Call

The answering machine was blinking red when he walked in through the front door, the number one flashing at him, indicating the sole message waiting for his review. He pressed a finger to the button, and listened as he tapped his keys against his leg. There was no voice on the message, but he could hear sound, feedback like wind, but muffled. Somebody had likely dialed him from their pocket, no way to know how long the message would go on like this. He was reaching out again, this time for the delete button, when there was a burst of static from the speaker followed by the sound, again muffled in the background, of a child laughing. The message returned to silence and Roland frowned. Had to be stray cellular transmissions getting mixed up. He wanted to just delete the message but for some reason, was also intrigued.

He let it run for another ten seconds or so before the sound of the child came through again, hysterical giggling at some joke unheard, something private which he had been left out of. He took a step back away from the machine as the sound cut off and was replaced by a high pitched ringing. It went on for several seconds and he clamped his hands over his ears, dropping his keys in the process when the ringing shut off and after what felt like several minutes, a mono-toned voice came through the speakers, crystal clear and spoke only one word.

“Goodbye.”

There was a clatter of plastic on the other end, like a drunk trying to manage hanging up the phone when there was finally a click, followed by the beep of the machine, indicating that the message was done. Roland stepped forward and pressed play again, but despite the fact that the machine still indicated that there was a message to be played, nothing happened when he pushed the button. The machine merely beeped, indicating a cleared memory.

Roland shrugged it off and started for the kitchen, noting the complete stillness of the house around him. The only times he recalled it being this quiet was during power outages. Still, the clock on the oven was correct and the fridge was on as he took the frigid cold bottle of beer from the shelf. He reached for the remote and just as his fingers brushed against the plastic, the television clicked on, displaying static. Roland frowned first at the screen and then the remote, muting the volume and changing the channels, finding nothing but static. He pointed the remote and pressed the power button but it remained on. Batteries had to be dead. He reached for the set itself to press the power button, but still nothing happened. He smacked an open palm against the side of the TV several times and pressed the button again. It stayed on.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered as he felt back behind the coffee maker for the extension cord, shaking it until the loosely fit plug from the television dropped out and the screen went dark. He shook his head as he headed for the basement, hoping that the older model television was the source of the problem instead of the cable being out altogether. As he got to the bottom of the stairs and started turning towards the couch, he heard a sound coming from behind the door that led out to the garage. He could hear and identify it, even through the heavy-duty security door.

It was the sound of static.

Roland threw open the door to the garage and was again greeted by silence. He picked up a shovel that was leaning up against the door frame and walked around the three-car garage, looking for anything out of order, anything that he could use to take out the frustrations of the day. After several laps, he was satisfied that nothing was waiting out here to jump out at him so he returned to the house, double checking the deadbolt before heading for the couch. If there was no signal from the satellite and he couldn’t access the DVR, at least there were the movies down here he could settle for. He twisted the top off the bottle and dropped into the sofa. Picking up the remote, he wasn’t surprised to see static on this screen as well. He pressed the button to access the Blu-ray player and call up one of the hundred or so discs that were inside.

The screen went blank for a micro-second before the Blu-ray menu came up and as he started to scroll through his options, a memory tugged at the back of his mind, something he had seen, but not immediately acknowledged. It had been a reflection in the screen just before the menu came up. Something behind him. Roland pointed the remote and turned off the television.

There was a woman standing on the stairs behind him.

Roland leapt off of the sofa and spun around, the bottle flying from his now limp fingers where it hit hit the floor, fountaining beer out and all over the carpet. Be barely even noticed it as he looked around the room, breath starting to come in fragmented gasps.

The room was empty.

But he had seen her. There was no doubting his memory of what had just happened. He had distinctly seen her standing there, looking over his shoulder and staring at him in the reflection. Still, no one else was in the room. Other than the cat, which was now cowering in the corner under the office table, he was alone.

The air in the room had taken on a heavy, burnt smell, as if something electrical was on the verge of overheating. He thought about running over to the fuse box when he staggered slightly as a sudden wave of dizziness hit him. The room started to spin around as he tried to stay on his feet and just as the spinning was starting to make him feel like he was going to throw up, he heard the sound of footsteps running down the stairs along with the shrieking laughter of children playing. He felt the physical sensation of people rushing past him, as if he was stuck in the middle of a huge crowd. The house itself felt like it was shaking when he was suddenly knocked off his feet. He landed on his back, and after a second felt himself being lifted up off the floor for several feet before being dropped. He felt a sharp blow to the back of his head and then darkness.

When he came to, he was being dragged by the heels by some unseen force, pulled up his own stairs. He started to struggle and screamed as tiny incisions began to cut their way across his arms, hands, neck and face, as if from a hundred miniature scalpels. The invisible hands gripping his feet relaxed suddenly, and he slid backwards, down the stairs, the repeated blows giving a staccato like sound to his screaming. He hit the bottom, and stars exploded in front of him as his head struck the tile and he had the vague sense of his own feet tumbling over himself and again, darkness.

He woke up to the sound of screaming.

The sound was neither male or female, but rather a bizarre, modulated androgynous combination of both, as if souls themselves were screaming out to him for relief. He clamped his hands over his ears but it was pointless, as if the sound was coming from the inside of his own head. The volume rose, becoming more animalistic in its fury and rage. He smacked himself, as if the sudden pain would bring him back to his senses, but even the ringing in his ears wasn’t enough to overcome the cacophony of suffering, howling in his head.

The grip on him was still absent, so Roland staggered to his feet and ran for the garage. He bounced off the door before getting his fingers around the doorknob and twisted, pain flaring up again from the cuts on his hands and he stumbled out into the garage. Somehow, he managed to trip over the snowblower and the door rumbled to life and started opening all on its own. He managed to get to his feet and under the door as he made his way down towards the street.

There was little noise outside, even for early evening as he sprinted away from his house, clutching at his head and crying for the screams to stop. The neighborhood was quiet enough that he should have heard the moving truck. He was so occupied that he didn’t even register the sight of the truck’s grill as it caught him in the chest, spinning him, while taking a substantial amount of flesh and muscle with it.

He was lying on his side in the street, looking up at his house. His legs were either gone completely or merely beyond his ability to feel them. There was no pain, but he was struggling to get breath past the blood that was bubbling up into his throat. He could see the windows of his dining room looking down over him and in his last few moments, he saw the woman again, staring passively out at him. They made eye contact, and as his eyes started to droop and he felt the sensation of sleep overtaking him, he heard the quiet voice in his head, speaking to him out from the void. One word only.

“Goodbye.”

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