by Tobias Wade
“Nothing to be scared of,” I said to Thaddeus.
He draped himself across my lap, his eyes fixed on my nachos. I giggled and, bleeding heart that I was, gave him one. When a gust of wind rattled the nearby windows, we huddled closer together and I turned up the TV even more.
We made it part way through an episode of my show before the phone went off again. This time I only sat up slightly to look at it.
It stayed quiet after that single ring.
I tried to dismiss it like I had before, but a line of goosepimples had started to creep up the back of my neck which I rubbed roughly. Don’t be a baby, I repeated to myself a few times. It’s just the phone. I tried to pay attention to the TV again, but every few seconds I’d find my eyes slipping back to the phone.
The next time it rang, about ten minutes later, the lights overhead flickered.
Just once. Another single ring, then silence.
The storm outside continued to batter the house, and the lights dimmed again before coming back on fully. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I suddenly had the urge to use the restroom. I gave Thaddeus a quick pat and leapt off the couch to run down the hall to the bathroom.
I was in the middle of washing my hands when the lights went out. The bathroom was plunged into total darkness.
I whimpered and groped for a towel to dry my hands, then for the handle. There were flashlights in the junk drawer in the kitchen. I just had to make my way down the hall to them. My trembling fingers closed on the doorknob, and I started to pull it open at the same time the phone rang.
It echoed once throughout the dark and the quiet.
I froze, too afraid to move forward. It was dumb—I knew it was dumb—but the high pitched trill of that phone was almost enough to have me bursting into tears. Why did it keep ringing? Who was it? What did they want?
It’s someone who knows I’m home alone, a panicked voice cried out in my head.
Thaddeus whined from the living room. He was alone and as scared as I was, and I had to get to him. It was the only thing that got me moving again. I bit my lip, bowed my head, and charged down the hall to the kitchen. The junk drawer was thrown open, and I felt around wildly until I found one of the flashlights there. I switched it on and followed its thin beam of light to the living room.
Lightning lit up the house around me for a second, quickly followed by a deep growl of thunder. I forced back a sob and, in a shaky squeak, called for Thaddeus. He whined again and I shined my flashlight around the room until I found him.
He was sitting at the foot of the table the phone was on, staring up at it.
As soon as the light landed, it rang again. Just once.
“Thaddeus!” I shouted as if I was afraid something was going to reach through the phone and grab him.
He continued to look up at it, his ears perked forward. He whined again.
I darted across the room and knelt to pick him up when I heard something: a thump on the front porch right outside the door. My flashlight was on it instantly, just in time for the lock to start turning.
The door swung inward and I started to scream.
“Hannah! Hannah, calm down!”
It took me a moment to realize that the figures in the doorway, dripping wet and featureless in the shadows, were my parents. They’d come in through the front door since there was no power to open the garage. I dropped the flashlight on the floor and Thaddeus and I ran to them. I fell into my dad’s arms.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked. I looked up at them, ready to tell them all about the storm and the phone, but the words died in the back of my throat.
Their eyes were red and puffy, and Ma’s face was twisted with an expression I’d only ever seen once after her dad’s accident three years prior. An ugly sinking feeling filled my whole body. For a moment, the strange calls were forgotten.
“Nana?” I managed to ask.
They hugged me tightly between them. It was all the answer I needed.
“She’d been real sick for a long time, baby girl,” Dad said so Ma wouldn’t have to. “We thought we’d have more time with her, but she suddenly got worse today and...we were with her in the end. That’s what matters.”
I wanted to say something nice to Ma, something that might have helped her feel even a tiny bit better, but my tongue had become thick and clumsy. All I could do was cling to her and cry in the doorway.
Behind me, the phone rang just once.
I stiffened and, to my surprise, so did my mom. I looked up at her and saw that she was staring over my head, right at the phone.
“It’s been doing that for a while,” I was now angry at whoever was playing the prank instead of scared. Ma didn’t need to be bothered right now!
“What, ringing?” Dad asked. He guided Ma the rest of the way into the house so we weren’t standing half in the storm and shut the door.
“Yeah, just on—”
“Just once,” Ma whispered in disbelief.
“How’d you know?” I asked, my eyes widening.
Ma crossed the dark living room and took a seat on the edge of the couch beside the phone. She never stopped looking at it.
“After I moved out of my parents’ house for the first time, I lived an hour away. I’d visit every other weekend and each time I left, Ma would ask me to call them to let them know I made it back to my apartment safely. I did it for a long time, until I met your dad,” Ma’s voice cracked and she ran her fingers down the receiver. “I’d let the phone ring just once to let them know all was well. She’d call back and let my phone ring once too. She said it was to say got it, thank you, and I love you.”
Dad sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Do you think...do you think it’s Nana?” I asked.
“It can’t be, honey,” Dad said gently.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the phone rang again, just once. The same signal Ma had used for years to let her family know that she was safe. That she was home.
Ma and Dad exchanged a look.
“Abby,” Dad said as she reached for the phone.
“She rang once, George. Now it’s my turn,” she said with the ghost of a watery smile.
Instead of arguing, Dad took her hand and gave it a squeeze. He released it so she could dial her mother’s phone number for the last time.
She held it up to her ear just long enough for it to ring once.
Just long enough to say got it. Thank you. I love you.
After she hung up, the phone didn’t ring again.
Airsekui
I knew the way to Grandpa’s by heart.
An hour up the highway, then another on small country roads. When you start seeing signs for the Native American reservation off to the right and some for the nearest town on the left, you’ve got exactly twenty minutes left. Then it’s just past the same three billboards for anti-abortion, a missing person, and a divorce attorney that hadn’t been changed in at least five years.
The edge of Grandpa’s property, a massive farm that seemed almost endless when I was young, was marked by a fence with a bright pink corner post. On the days he knew I’d be visiting, he’d tie a balloon to it and we’d ride out to get it on his tractor after saying our hellos. We’d continue on to visit the pigs and the goats and the cows. He only kept a few of each, mostly for my benefit, and they were all fat and happy and friendly.
His “real moneymaker” was his corn: acres and acres of it that ran behind his house. I wasn’t allowed to play in the corn fields unsupervised—he and my parents thought it was too dangerous and that I could get lost or hurt among the stalks—but that didn’t bother me much. I much preferred to spend time with my favorite goat, Sally Mae, a young white doe who would chase me around and gently headbutt me for chin scratches and carrots.
I didn’t even mind that his old TV only had five channels. There was always something
to do outside, a chore to be done, somewhere to explore, an animal to play with, and I could keep myself busy from morning until night.
Grandpa loved having me (I liked to think I was his favorite out of all seven grandkids), and I loved going. When my dad had a big conference out of town that he wanted Mom to go with him for, it was a no-brainer where I’d end up.
“You’re going to be good for Gramps, right, Hazel?” Dad asked, glancing at me in the rear view mirror as we passed the pink post with a foil “Welcome!” balloon waving above.
“Yup!” I agreed readily.
“What do you think you guys are gonna get up to this weekend?” Mom half turned in her seat toward me with a smile.
“I’m gonna play with Sally Mae and go down to the creek and help milk the cows and pet the pigs and—”
My “to do” list took us all the way to Grandpa’s front door, where he met us with a broad grin and a big hug for each.
“Thanks again, Pop,” Dad said. “You’re sure you don’t mind? Keeping an eight year old entertained on your own for four days can be tough.”
“I’m up for it,” Grandpa assured him. “We’ll have lots to keep us busy, right Hazelnut?”
I nodded enthusiastically as I hauled my little suitcase up the porch steps. I was ready for my parents to be on their way so I could start living the farm life. Mom chased me and scooped me into a tight embrace, which I returned briefly before wriggling for freedom. My parents had never left me for so long and, and now that it was time to say goodbye, it was obvious they were having second thoughts.
“She’ll be fine.” Grandpa laughed. “We both will be! But if she doesn’t behave, I’ll just drop her in the middle of the cornfield, no muss, no fuss.”
After they’d finally left, I dumped my things inside and grabbed Grandpa’s offered hand to head out to the tractor.
Once we retrieved the balloon and I had its ribbon tied securely around my wrist, we zoomed (as well as one can zoom on a tractor, anyway) over to the pig pen. He let me throw some feed into the trough. When the pair of pigs, Gretel and Fat Babs, came trundling over, I crouched between them and stroked their sides while they munched. The rotund sows leaned into my hands with satisfied snorts.
Afterward we stopped by the cow and goat enclosure, which was just a large fenced in area where the seven of them could roam free. As soon as she heard the tractor approaching, Sally Mae came bounding toward the gate, bleating loudly and tossing her head. I barely made it in before she was bomping against me and nuzzling her face into my stomach.
We stayed out for much of the afternoon, tending first to the animals, and then picking through the ever-expanding vegetable garden for supper. He’d bought some fried chicken to go with it, and we sat on the back porch to eat while the sun set on a fiery horizon.
“What did you bring to read tonight?” Grandpa asked after we’d settled inside for the evening.
He was in his recliner with his feet propped up and a crossword puzzle book in his lap. We both knew he’d only get about three words in before his eyes drooped shut and he started snoring, something I liked to tease him about.
“It’s about kids who live in an old boxcar ‘cos they don’t have parents,” I said from my place curled up on the couch.
“S’that so?”
“Yeah, it’s for school. They make us read books over summer, but I like it.”
“Good, good,” he mumbled, his pencil scratching across the page of his crossword.
It was quiet on my grandpa’s farm, especially at night. I was used to hearing cars going by, dogs barking, neighbors outside, and all the sounds of suburbia. Out here was nothing but insect songs, the occasional farm animal call, and the wind. It could be a little unnerving at times if I focused too much on it, but when I was awake in the living room with Grandpa nearby, surrounded by soft lamp light, I found it peaceful.
Grandpa had just dozed off and I’d tucked myself comfortably under a blanket, my book propped up against my bent knees, when the pigs started to scream.
I nearly dropped my book. Grandpa rocked forward in his chair, his eyes snapping open. The pencil he’d been holding slipped from his hand and rolled across the floor. I looked to him, my jaw clenched tight with surprise, uncertainty, and fear.
“It’s ok, Hazelnut,” he said, pushing himself quickly to his feet. “Probably a coyote sniffing around and scaring the girls. Nothing to worry about.”
But he didn’t seem entirely convinced of that himself. In all my visits to Grandpa’s, I’d never heard Gretel and Fat Babs make that kind of noise: loud, harsh squeals that cut through the evening air. Nothing about it sounded right or normal.
I followed close at Grandpa’s heels wile he hurried out of the room and went to his office. He got his shotgun, ammunition, and a flashlight from his closet.
“A-are you gonna shoot it?” I asked shakily.
“Maybe,” he replied, grim. “You stay inside.”
The shells loaded with loud clicks into the belly of the gun.
“No!” I cried, desperate not to be left alone while the pigs were shrieking so frantically.
Grandpa looked like he wanted to argue, but the loud bellow from one of the cows cut him off. Like the pigs, she sounded panicked. As soon as one cried out, the other two joined in. He told me to stay put again and headed toward the door in long strides. I’d never seen that stony look on his face before. I hesitated a moment, just long enough for one of the pigs to scream again, before chasing after him.
“Grandpa!” I shouted.
“I told you to stay inside!”
“I’m scared!”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, grit his teeth, and nodded. “Stay close behind me.”
We followed the squeals to the pig pen. Grandpa handed the flashlight to me, and I shined it around, looking for the girls. Usually they would have come up to meet us when Grandpa whistled sharply, but there was no familiar tromp of hooves over dirt.
Only screaming.
The flashlight beam finally fell across them in the middle of their pen. Fat Babs had her teeth buried in Gretel’s ear, and she was squealing and pulling and trying to buck. Gretel was bowed slightly and tearing chunks of flesh from Babs’ neck. Both were already bloodied from multiple bite wounds and gouges, their mouths lined with thick, red foam, their eyes rolling wildly.
Grandpa shouted their names, but neither even looked at us; they just kept attacking each other and making the most awful sounds. He grabbed me by my upper arm and dragged me away, toward the cow and goat enclosure, where more bellows and shrieks and moans tore through the night.
Lady, my grandpa’s oldest and favored cow, was on her side by the gate, her legs kicking feebly. Two goats rammed into her body over and over again. Off to our side, another goat released an agonized bleat. I found her quickly with the flashlight.
Sally Mae was pinned beneath the trampling hooves of a second cow who kicked and stomped madly at the smaller animal. I screamed and grabbed at Grandpa.
“She’s killing Sally!” I cried.
Before he could do anything, the cow reared back as far as she could and brought her hooves down onto Sally Mae’s head with a ringing crunch. Blood poured from the poor goat’s nose and ears. She writhed upon the ground until the cow did it again and a third time, and then Sally Mae laid still.
I turned with an anguished cry and took a few steps away. My ears rang with the sound of the hysterical animals and tears spilled in hot streaks down my face. I lifted the flashlight again, trying to find my way home. I just wanted to get inside. I wanted the noise to stop!
Something moved in the darkness a few feet ahead of me, just beyond the reach of my light. I froze.
“Grandpa!”
I didn’t know if he’d seen it too, but he grabbed me around my waist and hoisted me up against his side. He started to sprint as fast as he could back toward the house. We passed the pig pen again, where I caught sight of
Gretel standing over Fat Babs, rooting through her spilled innards.
The back door was in sight. We just had to cross through the vegetable garden and we’d be behind the safety of locked doors.
My grip on the flashlight slipped slightly as I was jostled about. It angled downwards, illuminating the ground in front of us. I screamed again.
Arms. Human arms, at least a dozen of them, were reaching up from between plants on either side of the path leading to the door. They waved jerkily, their fingers clenching and then unclenching as if grasping at something.
When the light fell on them, they all turned and stretched toward us.
“No.” Grandpa breathed the single word in disbelief.
He stumbled backward and we both fell hard to the ground. I yelped and the flashlight bounced from my hand to land beside me, pointing toward Grandpa. He’d gone so white, so haggard, and his eyes were locked on those reaching arms.
Gradually, through the haze of terror and confusion, I realized that there was a figure standing behind my grandfather. It looked like a man, but taller than any I had ever seen, and so muscular and broad. It took a step toward Grandpa, who was still unaware, and moved more into the light. The head sitting atop its neck wasn’t human, but that of a great brown bear with one eye scarred shut.
I knew I should have been afraid. I should have warned grandpa, should have responded in some way, but when I looked into the face of that creature, all I felt was an odd sense of complete peace.
You do not need to be afraid. I felt more than heard something in my head. A voice, a thought, I wasn’t sure. It was like nothing I’d ever known. You are an innocent.
I wanted to tell it that Grandpa was an innocent, too, but I was unable to speak.
It reached out its large hands and plucked Grandpa off the ground as if he weighed nothing. He let out a strangled yell as he was tossed into the vegetable garden into those waiting arms. I just sat there and watched with that same feeling of peace as the filthy hands closed around Grandpa’s body. They began to pull and pull and pull, until the soil swallowed him up along with his screams.
