Crossed Wires

He looked at them and sighed. The numbers on the alarm clock casually ticked into another hour, yet still his insomnia showed no signs of loosening its grip.

3:00am

Huntleigh exhaled, relieving the tautened muscles in his stomach momentarily. He was wound way too tightly. The pressures of his life, of his expectations, and his appetites, were all backed up. He craved a release.

A holiday, that’s what he needed. And by his reckoning, he was overdue. It had been six months since his last trip. Staring at the ceiling, Huntleigh began to relive the long days stretched over unspoilt beaches, the even longer nights, tumbling from one place to the next. Fragmented memories merged. Huntleigh’s pulse stirred.

Just then he heard the piercing ring of an old-fashioned telephone from outside. Frustrated by the distraction, Huntleigh kicked off the sheets and strode over to his bedroom window.

On the opposite side of the street sat a decommissioned telephone box. Except now it rang out brazenly, unnervingly, in the stillness of night. As though it were gleefully committing a crime in open view.

Huntleigh edged back from the window, enabling him to observe from the safety of shadows, should someone emerge.

But no one came.

Instead, the phone continued its insistent ringing. After a few minutes the chime became a drone, turning Huntleigh’s fear into annoyance, and he began to peer openly for movement.

But still no one came.

The shrill, metronomic bells rang on.

And on.

And on.

That settled it. Without turning on his bedroom light, Huntleigh quickly dressed, all the time watching the darkened phone box, its ring almost taunting him now.

Downstairs, he paused for a moment at his doorstep, fearing a trap, but the sound of the bells pushed those doubts away. The tinny, shrill bells were becoming painful.

It was a relief then when he picked up the receiver and silence descended, though Huntleigh’s ears still rang as he held it up to them.

‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Hello? Who the bloody hell is this?’

Nobody replied.

Instead Huntleigh heard a distant conversation, as though the wires were crossed on a long-distance phone call. He covered his other ear and, as he focused his concentration, two voices became louder.

One belonged to a man, an Englishman, but he was talking a foreign language, fluently and calmly, to another, younger, person. The dialect sounded familiar to Huntleigh, though he understood nothing of it. Cantonese maybe?

‘Hello? Hello?’

No response. The two continued their conversation, only it seemed to Huntleigh that the youth was becoming increasingly aggravated.

‘Can you hear me?’ Huntleigh asked.

They clearly couldn’t, but the conversation on the other end was getting out of hand, in spite of the Englishman’s attempts to pacify it.

After a few more seconds Huntleigh replaced the receiver. The experience had unnerved him, and he felt suddenly isolated and vulnerable.

He hurried across the street, desperate for the safety of home, but as he inserted his key into the lock, the phone rang out again.

Huntleigh whimpered. He was so close, but he also knew that if the phone was left unattended, it would just keep on ringing.

And ringing.

And ringing.

Better to take it off the hook.

Drawing a breath, he ran back to the phonebooth and once again picked up the receiver.

‘Hello?’ he said. All traces of anger gone, replaced now by fear.

Huntleigh was greeted with the same empty response, the same crossed line, and the same softly spoken Englishman, only this time he was speaking a different language, equally fluently. Huntleigh recognised it as Dutch.

‘Can you hear me?’

Again, the conversation turned ugly, compelling Huntleigh to turn away. He left the receiver hanging and was just walking across the road when that high-pitched, soul grating ring, sounded out.

Huntleigh froze.

This was impossible! Almost manic with fear he flung open the telephone booth and picked up the receiver.

As he did so, the ringing stopped.

He lifted the earpiece.

‘H-hello?’

Nothing.

‘Hello?’

Still nothing. There were no distant conversations now either. The only sound Huntleigh could hear was his heartbeat. And then-

‘Hello Huntleigh.’ It was the Englishman. His voice was a clear, warm brandy calm.

‘Wh-who’s this?’

‘Oh, I think you know who this is, Mr. Huntleigh.’

Huntleigh did.

‘And I think you know who I’ve been talking to; those buried souvenirs from your little holiday adventures? They’re with me now.’

The Englishman laughed.

‘Just waiting for you.’