Behind Dark Doors (the complete collection): Eighteen suspenseful short stories

by Susan May

Just as he was about to reply, he reminded himself he must also employ shrewdness. This person could be Meucci’s assistant or even the man himself.

  “Hel-lo?” Bell ventured.

  His voice, halting and hollow, echoed as though he were speaking into a can. This is Aleck Graham.”

  He’d decided to use his true first name for concealment.

  “You would be, dear sir?”

  “Jordan Drake. Who ya calling?”

  “Calling? I’m sorry, calling?”

  “Who do you want? What number did you call?”

  Bell paused, his mind spinning like the disc. Although the man spoke English, of what he spoke was as puzzling as if he spoke Meucci’s native Italian. Perhaps the number, to which this Jordan referred, was a code between collaborators.

  “Do I need to give you a number? I merely pressed the switch.”

  Laughter echoed into his ear.

  “Oh, I get it. You butt-dialed me, right? I do that all the time. You gotta turn it off before you put it in your pocket. You got an iPhone, yeah?”

  What was this thing—iPhone? This must be the name Meucci gave his prototype. The crackling had faded, and the voice was incredibly clear. Genius.

  Bell hesitated with his next question, but he could not contain the admiration and enthusiasm in his voice.

  The man sounded American, so he couldn’t be Meucci.

  “Are you Meucci’s assistant?”

  “Nope. I’m an electrical engineering student. Don’t think we have a Meucci on campus.”

  Ah, another scholar. Bell smiled.

  “Perhaps you are an apprentice to Meucci?”

  “Sorry, buddy. Like I said, I don’t know a Meucci. I think you got a wrong number. So—”

  Bell sensed in Jordan’s tone their exchange would soon terminate. He needed to understand this man’s connection to Meucci’s machine. At the very least, he must ascertain if his possession of the prototype was now exposed.

  He brought every ounce of persuasion to his next articulation.

  “Mr. Drake, perhaps you can help me. I’m looking for Antonio Meucci, a very dear friend.”

  Jordan’s voice softened. “I’m really sorry, but I don’t know him.” Then he added with enthusiasm: “Maybe I can check on the Internet for you.”

  Bell opened his mouth to query the strange word, when, almost instantly, Jordan came back with: “I’ve got seven times Tony Meucci. No Antonio, though. Where’s he live?”

  Even as he answered “I think currently, New York,” Bell pondered what this miracle all knowing Internet could be.

  The earpiece went quiet again, and for a moment Bell feared Jordan had gone. Then the voice was back. “Nothing for New York.”

  He couldn’t contain is curiosity, even if it gave away he had a machine, he probably shouldn’t possess. “Can I ask when you say In-ter-net is that the name of your telegraphic device?”

  Silence hung heavy for a very long moment.

  “Are you saying you don’t know what the Internet is? Really?”

  Panic gripped Bell. Blood pounded in his temples. Had he revealed himself? This Internet might be part of the device of which he should be aware. Attempting to cover his lack of knowledge, he replied, “This Internet, is it something you and Meucci have worked upon? Part of the telegraphic device? He may have forgotten to advise me.”

  Silence again.

  When Jordan spoke next, his words were slow as though he were addressing a child.

  “Look, I don’t know how to convince you, but I don’t, know, a Meucci. Have you been living under a rock? The Internet. The Web. The thing that makes the world go ‘round these days. You know, the little thing that can give you the answer to just about any question.”

  A tone of sarcasm permeated his words.

  “Sorry. So sorry.” Bell’s mind whirled, until an idea suddenly occurred to him. “If I may impose two more questions? This iPhone, as you call it. Did you invent it? Is it similar to a telegraphic device for the transfer of voice.”

  Jordan laughed.

  “Yeah, right. My name’s not Jobs. Wish I had, considering how many millions of iPhones exist now. If you mean is it a phone for transferring your voice? Why, yeah, of course. You really have been under a rock. No, I didn’t invent the phone either. Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone, like, eighteen hundred something. Everyone knows that. Now buddy, it’s been fun … and weird … but I gotta go.”

  There was a loud click, then a humming sound, and Jordan was gone.

  Bell stood there, mouth open, his stomach writhing. Jordan had spoken his name. According to this voice, he had invented the phone. What the devil had Meucci created in this machine? This was not a mechanism to transfer the voice. This was some kind of voice time-travel device.

  His head had begun to hurt. A drink! That’s what he needed. Something to calm his nerves. Something to help him process what had just happened.

  Sitting in his chair, his hand wrapped too tightly around the stem of a crystal glass, Bell stared at the leaping flames dancing merrily in the fireplace. Slowly, he began to understand. This was no ordinary telegraphic transmitter. If he believed this event, and he was beginning to think he must, then, somehow, he had connected to the future, a future where this iPhone, as Jordan called it, was commonplace. Millions, he’d said.

  Could this be possible he had spoken to someone in the future?

  His mind skipped back to his university days, to a discussion with fellow physics students. They’d been speculating on time travel. There was a theory proffered—he couldn’t remember who had said it—about time being spherical. That if one had a powerful enough energy source it might be possible to cross through the sphere instead of travelling around the circumference.

  How he now wished he had paid them more heed. Asked more questions. Yet, even as this thought occurred to him, another crossed his mind. It tiptoed like a thief.

  Jordan had also said, he, Alexander Graham Bell, had invented the telephone, Jordan’s names for the telegraphic voice transfer device. If that were so in the future, then he must have lodged the first patent.

  Currently though, he did not have a working model. All his transmission tests had failed. He had feared for weeks now Elisha Gray’s patent lodgment including a working model, was imminent.

  That magical Internet thing, though, now that could be the key. If it contained all the information in the world, then it stood to reason it must contain his patent—or Gray’s or even Meucci’s. Whose it truly was now became debatable. He would sleep on it. Work the idea through his mind. There was much to consider.

  Twenty-four hours of conscience probing found him still in a maddening quandary. The idea of asking Jordan to describe the patent seemed too simple. If he did, would he be inventor or thief?

  The alternative, to wait and continue his experiments risked Meucci and Gray beating him to the goal. Surely, after all his work, when he was so close, he had a right to this chance. Then there was the risk if he did not source the plans through his future contact, the future might be damaged in some way. Timeline ripples had been another topic well discussed in the university physics group that night.

  By six the next evening, he had still not slept. His eyes, red and gritty had barely rested from examining his designs. He kept willing the answer to solving the problem with his own prototype, so he might not have to do this thing that still felt dishonest. To no avail. The damn thing still wouldn’t work.

  At one stage, he stood over Meucci’s machine, poised to reach for the lever, only to withdraw back to his desk. His heart racing each time he glanced at the box. The skin on the back of his neck tingled at the idea one pull of the handle could end his search.

  Occasionally his concerned wife had interrupted, persistent in her insistence it was time to stop whatever he was doing. Each time, he shooed her from his laboratory, finally telling her to “leave me be, woman.” She gave him one of her one-of-these-days looks, and departed. That had been ho
urs ago. No doubt, she’d gone to bed. It was after one in the morning.

  He stared at the clock upon the wall. The pendulum’s swing ticking away what he now saw as imperfect time. As it struck with its single chime, it felt as though a magnesium flash had erupted before his eyes.

  He could not wait any longer. The time for thought was over. Either he moved now, or not at all. Stress at him like a voracious rat.

  Trembling, his hand reached toward the instrument. Slowly, he turned the handle forward, then back again. He didn’t dare breathe. Again the long cat purr sounded.

  “Yup, hell-o,” answered the familiar voice of Jordan.

  Bell breathed again.

  “Hello, Jordan. It is Aleck.”

  “Wrong number again?” There was a smile in Jordan’s voice. “Or are we becoming friends?”

  “I wanted to ask of you a little help in using your In-ter-net. Bell prayed Jordan would not hear the quaver in his voice.

  “My Internet?”

  “Yesterday, you spoke of the inventor of the telephone? Bell, you said?

  “Uh-huh. Yep.”

  ‘Sir, I do not have this … Internet. Could you do me the greatest service in providing some information?”

  “Fire away. I’m on the Net now.”

  Bell struggled to completely understand the man. The words he used seemed so, so … alien. He hoped he would understand Jordan’s information if he provided it.

  “Does your Internet contain the designs for the original telegraphic trans—, telephone invented by Mr. Bell?”

  Bell paused, but there was no answer. Had Jordan gone? His chance lost? Or was this indeed a Meucci trap, and he had just given himself away. He drew a long, worried breath.

  What should he do?

  Then Jordan’s voice came back into the earpiece.

  “Coming up now. The Net’s slow today.”

  The vision of a woven mesh thrown over a pile of books entered Bell’s mind.

  “I Googled, designs Bell’s telephone. It’s brought up the original pages from his notebook, dated 10th March 1876.”

  Bell wondered about the words. Googled? What kind of thing was that? He couldn’t even imagine. He wished he could ask more details about this Net, but there wasn’t time. He needed the information Jordan somehow had before him.

  “Can you read it to me? And, Jordan, I’m taking notes, ah, … for research, so would you be so kind as to read slowly.”

  Bell smiled as he listened, scribbling quickly as Jordan read from his own notebook. He wondered if the notes he was taken now were the exact same notes Jordan was reading. Occasionally he would ask his unknowing accomplice to repeat points he had not considered. He saw now where he had gone wrong, missing several key design elements. It seemed so obvious now.

  At one point, he requested the repetition of a documented exchange between himself and his assistant, Watson. He found that very interesting.

  Finally, with excitement skipping in his belly, there was nothing more to write. He had everything he needed. He wondered how he could ever repay Jordan and his Internet for what he had done. Of course, they could and would never meet. The young man would never know his role.

  He couldn’t think of anything grand to say. In the end, he simply said: “Thank you kind sir for your assistance. Please know you have provided aid which cannot be calculated.”

  What else could he say?

  “Hope it helped,” replied Jordan. “And whatever you needed it for goes well for you.”

  “It will go very well,” Bell said to the ensuing silence, as he pulled back the lever to switch off the machine.

  For a very long time he sat beside Meucci’s incredible creation just staring at it. Finally, as if in a dream, he turned toward his own transmitter. Feverishly, he worked for the next twelve hours making the necessary modifications. Then, he went to work creating backdated entries in his notebook. Without a completed notebook, there would be questions asked about the validity of his amended patent.

  Jordan had told him so. His miraculous Internet held all the patent rules.

  10th March 1876

  Huddled over his completed telephonic transmitter, Bell breathed deeply and steadily to calm his nerves. In his head, he called it a telephone as Jordan had, but he did not dare use the word aloud. It seemed too odd, too foreign.

  Carefully, he pressed the earpiece to the side of his head. It felt smooth, cold, and empty. Raising the mouthpiece to his lips, he waited for the signal from his wife.

  As his eyes met hers, he wondered if he would ever divulge to her his enigmatic adventure. He still struggled with his conscience and suspected he always would. The questions surrounding his choice was now his constant companions. And tormentor.

  Had he simply borrowed the plans from himself? This would then mean he hadn’t truly stolen them. In connecting with the future, had he altered a history where Meucci or Gray had been the telephone’s inventor?

  He would never know. This not knowing was the maddening price he would pay. It would, he felt certain, haunt him until his death.

  His wife standing at the doorway to his workshop, nodded to him. The nod was the signal his assistant Watson was now ready in a room at the other end of the house.

  Bell returned the nod, waving for his wife to leave him to join Watson.

  The next step he wished to take alone.

  Once he was certain she was gone, Bell opened his notebook. The sound of pages flipped quickly sliced through the silent room. He found the page for which he searched. He’d realized its importance when he had first heard the words. That’s why he’d asked Jordan to repeat them.

  Head bowed over the notebook, earpiece held against his head, preparing to read the sentence. These words were about to become history. Inhaling deeply, then exhaling slowly, he steadied himself, before shouting into the mouthpiece the first ever telegraphically transferred words.

  “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”

  © 2012 Susan May

  From the Imagination Vault

  Ring Ring was another competition story. I wrote many stories for competitions in the early days of my career. I figured it taught me to write in many different genres and styles within set word counts, and to a deadline. It was my version of creative writing class assignments.

  Ring Ring is defined as Steampunk. I’d never heard of this fantasy sub-genre, so that piqued my interest. Steampunk encompasses stories inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Ah, the penny drops. Steam … punk. The twist is the story needs to contain futuristic machinery and objects as imagined by the people of that era, but using 19th century technology. So, like time travel machines as in H.G. Wells Time Machine, or a futuristic gun that still looks like a Victorian-era revolver, or the weird spider creature in the 1999 film Wild Wild West. It can also include alternative futures set in the early 19th Century.

  Ring Ring didn’t turn out to be a true steampunk story, I think. You must be immersed in that genre to get it right. I just briefly dabbled. However, it gave me a great opportunity to play with alternate history and, for a short time, live in the very stressful mind of a genius inventor.

  I chose Alexander Graham Bell as my character because the invention and patenting of the telephone was actually a very dramatic affair. Some of this story is true. Bell did just pip Elisha Gray at the patents office, both men filing a patent on the same day for "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically.”

  Great debate has surrounded the patenting. Many questioning whether Bell did, in fact, invent the first telephone or if he stole the idea from Gray. On January 13 1887, the U.S. Government even attempted to annul Bell’s patent, citing grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. Italian inventor Antonio Meucci also claimed in a deposition, it was he who created the first working telephone in Italy in 1834.

  So amid all this debate, I decided why not throw out another theory. A time loop. What had thrown suspicion on the
validity of Bell’s claim to the invention was he seemed to had made a leap in his experiments when he finally created a working prototype. In the 1800s in order to file a patent, you needed a working model as proof.

  The world will never know the truth of the matter. Therefore, I throw my theory into the ring. It can’t possibly be true, can it?

  To Be Or Not To Be

  Once we hit the Desson Tipping Point, there was no return for the world. The carbon dioxide-oxygen balance had been destroyed. The only hope for mankind now was to create Oxygen Conversion plants to support key cities. All seemed doomed, until they came. With them, came hope. They had come to save the world. So we thought. Now, because of them, Keriss must face a heart-breaking decision. Either way, she loses the most precious thing in her world.

  Dedication

  For Harry, my brave little soul who will never be tamed. Good for you, my son.

  It was all too late in the end. Carbon taxes, the failed Kyoto agreement, sanctions against China’s massive pollution output, even the new breed of sucrose-powered car, popular in the 2020’s—none of it could prevent the inevitable.

  The carbon in the atmosphere started increasing exponentially around 2035. Scientists called it the Desson Tipping Point, which simply described the point of no return for the balance of the carbon-oxygen exchange. Theories abounded. Governments and environmental groups hurled condemnations like schoolyard bullies.

  The trees began to die. Toxic rain, the result of the addition of mankind-produced by-products into the atmosphere, unbalanced the carbon dioxide-oxygen ratio. The trees were incapable of adapting. The planet’s last natural facility for purifying air—the forests—were rapidly disappearing.

  Predictions were it would take only twenty years before all the great forests and jungles withered away. Their death would be our death.