Nightmare At 20,000 Feet

by Richard Matheson

  'Oh, wait!' Miss Keene said hurriedly. 'Oh, well, it doesn't matter,' she added, seeing it was already down. 'If it happens too often, I'll just call Miss Finch and they'll have a repairman check on it.'

  'I see,' Nurse Phillips said and went back to the living room and Faith Baldwin.

  Nurse Phillips left the house at eight, leaving on the bedside table, as usual, an apple, a cookie, a glass of water and the bottle of pills. She puffed up the pillows behind Miss Keene's fragile back, moved the radio and telephone a little closer to the bed, looked around complacently, then turned for the door, saying, I’ll see you tomorrow.'

  It was fifteen minutes later when the telephone rang. Miss Keene picked up the receiver quickly. She didn't bother saying hello this time – she just listened.

  At first it was the same – an absolute silence. She listened a moment more, impatiently. Then, on the verge of replacing the receiver, she heard the sound. Her cheek twitched, she jerked the telephone back to her ear.

  'Hello?' she asked tensely.

  A murmuring, a dull humming, a rustling sound – what was it? Miss Keene shut her eyes tightly, listening hard, but she couldn't identify the sound; it was too soft, too undefined, it deviated from a sort of whining vibration… to an escape of air… to a bubbling sibilance. It must be the sound of the connection, she thought, it must be the tele-phone itself making the noise. Perhaps a wire blowing in the wind somewhere, perhaps…

  She stopped thinking then. She stopped breathing. The sound had ceased. Once more, silence rang in her ears. She could feel the heartbeats stumbling in her chest again, the walls of her throat closing in. Oh, this is ridiculous, she told herself. I've already been through this - it was the storm, the storm!

  She lay back on her pillows, the receiver pressed to her ear, nervous breaths faltering from her nostrils. She could feel unreasoning dread rise like a tide within her, despite all attempts at sane deduction. Her mind kept slipping off the glassy perch of reason; she kept falling deeper and deeper.

  Now she shuddered violently as the sounds began again. They couldn't possibly be human sounds, she knew, and yet there was something about them, some inflection, some almost identifiable arrangement of…

  Her lips shook and a whine began to hover in her throat. But she couldn't put down the telephone, she simply couldn't. The sounds held her hypnotised. Whether they were the rise and fall of the wind or the muttering of faulty mechanisms, she didn't know, but they would not let her go.

  'Hello ?' she murmured, shakily.

  The sounds rose in volume. They rattled and shook in her brain.

  'Hello!' she screamed.

  'H-e-l~l-o,' answered a voice on the telephone. Then Miss Keene fainted dead away.

  'Are you certain it was someone saying hello?' Miss Finch asked Miss Elva over the telephone. 'It might have been the connection, you know.'

  'I tell you it was a man!' a shaking Elva Keene screeched. 'It was the same man who kept listening to me say hello over and over and over again without answering me back. The same one who made terrible noises over the telephone!'

  Miss Finch cleared her throat politely. 'Well, I'll have a man check your line, Miss Elva, as soon as he can. Of course, the men are very busy now with all the repairs on storm wreckage, but as soon as it's possible…'

  'And what am I going to do if this – this person calls again?'

  'You just hang up on him, Miss Elva.'

  'But he keeps calling!'

  'Well.' Miss Finch's affability wavered. 'Why don't you find out who he is, Miss Elva? If you can do that, why, we can take immediate action, you see and

  After she'd hung up, Miss Keene lay against the pillows tensely, listening to Nurse Phillips sing husky love songs over the breakfast dishes. Miss Finch didn't believe her story, that was apparent. Miss Finch thought she was a nervous old woman falling prey to imagination. Well, Miss Finch would find out differently.

  'I'll just keep calling her and calling her until she does,' she said irritably to Nurse Phillips just before afternoon nap.

  'You just do that,' said Nurse Phillips. 'Now take your pill and lie down,'

  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 1 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 thoug
ht. 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

  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 t
aste 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 arrangements were readily fashioned and, in a matter of hours, we had moved all belongings from our uncommodious flat to our new, relatively large house.

  Several days were then spent in the most necessary task of cleaning. This presented itself as far more difficult a project than first anticipated. Dust lay heavy throughout the halls and rooms. Our energetic dusting would send clouds of it billowing expansively, filling the air with powdery ghosts of dirt. We noted in respect to that observation that many a spectral vision might thus be made explicable if the proper time were utilized in experiment.

  In addition to dust on all places of lodgement, there was thick grime on glass surfaces ranging from downstairs windows to silver scratched mirrors in the upstairs bath. There were loose banisters to repair, door locks to recondition, yards of thick rugging out of whose mat to beat decades of dust, and a multitude of other chores large and small to be performed before the house could be deemed liveable.