Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

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 I 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