This week, with Halloween fast approaching, I have a story for you with that in mind. Some of you may have read it before, in which case, my apologies...
The Halloween Handset
‘Where ever
did you get it?’ Ruby asked, eyeing the unconventional telephone with a mixture
of contempt and horror.
‘It’s great,
isn’t it?’ Gerard enthused. ‘It was on
the Office web. ‘Perfect gift for Halloween’, they said. And the eyes light up and everything!’
Ruby glared
at her husband.
‘It’s shaped
like a skull, Gerard, a shiny, tacky-looking skull. It doesn’t have eyes – it’s got sockets…’
‘Oh, you know
what I mean! But it’s ace, let me plug it in… look…’
But Ruby had
set her lips together in a hard, hard line and had turned away.
‘It’ll make
a great centrepiece for the party tonight…’
Ruby’s heels
clattered disdainfully into the kitchen to where she’d been busy with the party
food before Gerard’s arrival home had interrupted her. She was muttering under
her breath all the while she cut bread and filled and sliced.
‘…Halloween
party! Ha! Who bothers? It’s not as if we’ve kids to consider… instead we’re
having half the street in to look at his new plasma and rub crumbs into the
carpets…’
Deftly
covering a plate with cling film, she slid it into the fridge and began slicing
quiche and pizza.
‘Ruby…
Rubes…’
Gerard slid
his arms round her waist from behind.
‘Sorry,
Hon,’ he whispered in her ear.
‘C’mon. Don’t be cross…’
She slapped
his hands away, but her heart wasn’t in it and she was glad he couldn’t see her
lips twitch in what was nearly a smile.
‘All right,
then. Show me the stupid phone!’
He bounded
away to the dining room, where he’d set the phone down on the sideboard, Ruby
following in his wake, mildly curious
and watched as he lifted away
what was effectively the front of the face to reveal a dialling pad
beneath. He stabbed in a short sequence
of numbers and put the handset back in place.
After a few seconds, a shrill ringing and two bright points of light
shone out from deep in the eye sockets.
‘LEDs,’
Gerard enthused. ‘The chap I bought it
off said…’
But catching
sight of the time, Ruby had headed upstairs to change.
‘Later,
Gerard,’ her voice drifted down to him.
‘Promise?’
he called up hopefully.
He heard her
door slam shut. No. Didn’t sound like it.
He grinned suddenly, hefting the phone high to sit in the palm of his
hand.
‘…’Alas,
poor Yorick’…’ he intoned. ‘…’I knew him
well’…’
‘It’s ‘Horatio’,
Ruby called down the stairs. ‘‘I knew
him Horatio’.’
‘Thanks,’ he
called out, briefly lifting his eyes skywards as he set the phone down. ‘Knew you’d know that.’
Ruby
appeared in the doorway. ‘Well? What do you think?’
She had a
black felt pointed hat perched on top of her blonde and grey bob, a lacy black
shawl cast over her favourite Little Black Dress with a fake plastic spider
pinned to the edge of her décolletage.
Her stockings – probably tights, Gerard thought ruefully, were black
with a tracery of silver spiderwebs printed over. Her shoes were black kitten
heels and she was eyeing him with a measuring look, as if her question was
another test.
‘Wow! You
look very… er…appropriate, considering you don’t look at all like a witch,’ he
ventured.
‘Thanks,’
she said drily and cast a glance around the room. ‘Will you bring in the bowl
for the bob-apple?’
‘Me?’
‘Well, I
can’t be messing around with water and stuff now I’m dressed! And this party
was your idea, after all.’
He sighed
quietly.
‘Okay, I’m
on it.’
*
Alone with
the skull telephone staring at her from the centre of the sideboard, Ruby sighed. All Gerard’s idea, he’d asked most of the
neighbours – but, she’d noticed, he’d leaned heavily towards asking single
young mums with children, for the most part.
Amongst his friends, he’d invited the married men and their wives.
‘I’m not in
the mood!’ she told the skull. It
grinned at her.
She sneered
back at it and began rearranging glasses on the end of the sideboard.
A brief
flash of red, then the shrilling of the phone, the eyesockets pulsing in time.
Awkwardly she picked up the handset.
‘Hello?’
‘Gerard,
hello?’ A woman’s voice, indistinct, an edge to it. ‘Gerard?’
‘Who is
this?’
‘Who’s that?
Gerard, come and get me, the car’s stuck, in the ford near the woods…’
‘Yes, but
what…?’
‘Is there
anyone there? Hello? ’
‘Look, I
don’t have time for…’
‘Gerard!’
the woman’s voice changed, became anxious.
‘Gerard, is that you?’
Ruby slammed
the receiver back into place on the skull. Her eyes were dangerous as she
stood, shaking. What was Gerard doing,
having strange women call him at the house? It might be perfectly innocent, but
it felt like a betrayal.
Almost
without thinking she grabbed her bag and car keys off the windowsill and
stalked out into the evening darkness to the car; it was only a few minutes to
the ford near the woods that the caller had mentioned - she’d tackle this at
the source, and deal with Gerard later…
Not really
thinking that far ahead, just filled with some vague wrath and determined that
she would Make Him Pay, she drove off down the lane.
*
‘Hi, come
in,’ Gerard said, welcoming the gaggle of guests that had showed up. ‘Ruby’s just… er… Make yourselves at home. Anyone want a drink?’
‘Where’s
Ruby?’ Sal, the wife of one of his pals,
asked. ‘Does she need a hand with
anything?’
‘Actually,
I’m not quite sure where she’s got to…’ Gerard frowned. ‘You could try the
kitchen…’
Busy with
his hosting duties, he got on with serving drinks. No doubt Ruby would come through from the
kitchen when she’d had a good vent .
*
Ruby
crunched though the gears, sending her little car flying down the lane. A left
turn at the bottom of the hill and she sloshed into the ford.
And then the
engine stalled.
Furious, she
got out, landing ankle deep in the cold water of the ford and struggled up the
slope to stand under the only streetlight still working to drag her mobile from
her bag. Much against her will, she’d
have to call Gerard to pick her up.
It seem to
take forever to connect, for him to answer.
‘Gerard,
hello?’ she said, unsure who’d picked up, she couldn’t hear a thing from the
other end of the line. ‘Gerard?’
Nothing.
Perhaps Gerard’s beloved new toy phone wasn’t working properly.
‘Who’s
that?’ she demanded; someone had picked up, after all. ‘Gerard, come and get me,
the car’s stuck, in the ford near the woods…’
Then she
looked up as a sound distracted her, peering into the dark to where the fringe
of the woods appeared to be stirring.
‘Is there
anyone there?’ she called out, looking into the trees. ‘Hello?’
A tall,
irregular shape emerged, black on black, from the trees. It had a looming
quality and Ruby stared in disbelief.
‘Gerard!’
she said, hesitantly, anxiously ‘Gerard, is that you?’
But it
wasn’t.
*
In the
dining room, the phone began to shrill in time with the flashing of its eyes.
‘Oh, hey,
guys, look at this! Great timing!’
He reached
for the handset.
‘Hello?’
‘Gerard,
hello?’ He heard a woman’s voice, familiar, but with an edge to it. ‘Gerard?’
‘Who’s this?’
he asked.
‘Who’s that?
Gerard, come and get me, the car’s stuck, in the ford near the woods…’
‘Ruby? Is
that you?’ he asked, confused.
‘Is there
anyone there? Hello?’ the woman’s voice, Ruby’s voice, asked.
‘Damn phone,
no wonder it was cheap, she can’t hear me.
Hello?’
‘Gerard!’
the woman’s voice changed, became anxious.
‘Gerard, is that you?’
‘Rubes, you
okay?’
And then the
screaming began.
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