When The Call Comes
11.21. It’s always 11.21 when the call comes. It’s gone from being a bit weird to utterly disturbing. It’s also statistically virtually impossible. There’s a hunt group on the phone system in this call centre so the fact that it should randomly manage to come through to his extension every day at the same time is so mind bogglingly improbable that it really shouldn't happen. Add to that the fact the call he’s on beforehand always finishes in time for this call to come through again and… well, it just shouldn't be.
Dafydd checked the time on the phone’s display. 11.17. Light flashing on the phone. Time for another call. Maybe it will be a longer call this time and he’ll miss the 11.21. He adjusted the headset and pressed the answer button. “Hello, Dafydd Davies speaking, National Mail Services Sales Centre, how may I help you?”
The calls have always been the same with one exception. There’s a crackling, slightly staticky noise and a pause. A clear intake of breath. Not heavy breathing, mind. Just a clear intake of breath. Then the voice. A man’s voice. Age is hard to pinpoint. It’s clear enough but slightly muffled seeming. Almost as if someone might be playing a recording down the phone.
The first call had just been the two words. “Eight days.” Then the breath being exhaled and that crackling, staticky noise again before the caller hangs up. The second day (Dafydd assumed it was the same time; he hadn’t really been paying attention to the time) the call had come again with that one slight variation:- this time the voice had said, “Seven days,” before hanging up.
By day three, Dafydd was convinced that it was some sort of wind up. He’d asked around the office (starting with Gaz who was usually the main culprit for this sort of thing) but the genuinely baffled looks that he’d been getting confirmed that this wasn’t someone in the office. His mates had seemed equally nonplussed by the whole thing.
By day four, he'd clocked that these calls were coming through to him at the same impossible time every day.
By day five (with apparently only four days left on what was now some sort of countdown), fear had begun to set in. There was something horribly threatening about it. What was it counting down to? What was going to happen to him?
Dafydd had stopped sleeping properly. His dreams were becoming haunted by the voice on the phone so it seemed best to just not bother. His friends were concerned about the lack of contact they were receiving. Work had begun to suffer too. Twice Dafydd’s manager Ruth had called him into her office for failing to answer calls. Dafydd hadn’t even realised he;d missed them. Must have been having little micro-sleeps.
Yesterday had been day eight when the countdown had reached number one and now he here was on “the day”, whatever that day might be. He looked at the time on the phone readout. 11.19 and this call was winding down. He tried to prolong it, broke the spiel about special discounts and account privileges but the call was done. 11.20. Dafydd began to sweat.
11.21.
Nothing.
No call.
Dafydd watched the clock with his pulse pounding in his ears.
11.22.
Still no call routed through. Dafydd let out a breath that he hadn’t realised that he’d been holding.
There was a loud clunk and the lights went out. The room, being windowless, was plunged into darkness. Someone over on the far side of the office screamed and the sound of a glass being dropped and smashed cut jaggedly through the blackness.
Dafydd could hear Ruth stumbling out of her office and calling out, “What fresh hell is this?”.
From right behind his ear, Dafydd heard a familiar intake of breath.
“Now,” said the voice.
Dafydd screamed.
The Prompt
Here’s what I had to work with courtesy of Chris:-
Title - When the call comes
Character - Dafydd Davies
Object - Telephone
Line Of Dialogue - “What fresh hell is this?”
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