Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

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.’

10 – SLAUGHTER HOUSE

I submit for your consideration, the following manuscript which was mailed to this office some weeks ago. It is presented with neither evidence nor judgment as to its validity. This determination is for the reader to make.

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

I

This occurred many years ago. My brother Saul and I had taken a fancy to the old, tenantless Slaughter House. Since we were boys the yellow-edged pronouncement-FOR SALE- had hung lopsided in the grimy front window. We had vowed with boyish ambition that, when we were old enough, the sign must come down.

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