Down The Line

After everybody, except for her brother, had left the house after her husband’s funeral, Elizabeth Brown sat in the garden and watched the evening breeze gently rustle the tops of the apple trees that stood in a group at the far end of the lawn. She dabbed at her eyes with the crumpled handkerchief that she had been clutching all day and breathed a sigh of relief at the silence that now fell through her home.

She was pleased at the number of people that had turned up for Johnny’s funeral but she was equally pleased that they had now gone. She sighed again as her brother, Ray, emerged through the back door with two mugs of tea in his hands.

“Here you go,” he said gently and offered her one of the mugs.

“Thanks,” she replied and took the mug from him.

Ray sat down in the plastic chair next to her and placed his mug down on the floor. Silence fell heavily between them as they both watched the dancing trees at the other end of the garden.

“Why did he do it, Ray?”

“Do what?”

Of course he knew what she was talking about but he asked her anyway – he thought it would be a good way to get her to open up a bit as she hadn’t said very much about the accident at all since it happened.

“You know – why did he make that call?”

Johnny Brown was driving home from work when he decided to call his wife on his mobile. Elizabeth heard him say hello, then he swore loudly, and then came a loud metallic grinding noise. She called Johnny’s name but a loud bang came down the phone and the line went silent.

According to the police report, Johnny dropped his phone, causing him to crash his car into the metal barrier that ran down the middle of the motorway. The car then spun around before it bounced back out into the path of an oncoming lorry.

Elizabeth had listened to the whole thing.

“I don't know,” Ray answered. “Maybe there was something he needed to speak to you about.”

“But I told him so many times not to use his phone while driving, and he still did it. And now he’s gone...”

Ray placed an arm around his sister and she leaned her head against him while she wiped her tears with the crumpled handkerchief. Ray felt his arm move up and down with her shoulders as she fought against the sobs that were climbing up from her chest.

“Don't worry yourself about that now. Why don't you go for a lie down, it's been a long day,” he said.

“I don't know if I can sleep.”

“I know,” Ray said. “But at least try. It'd do you some good if you did.”

She looked up at her brother with wet eyes, nodded at him and then slowly walked through towards the back door.

When she was gone, Ray took a deep breath and wiped away his own tears that only dared to show themselves while he was alone.

 

Elizabeth woke up to the sound of her mobile buzzing like a demented wasp on the bedside table. She blinked and rubbed her eyes before trying to focus on the red LED display of her alarm clock. She rubbed them again when she saw it was 3 o'clock in the morning. She wondered who could be calling her at such an ungodly hour and grabbed the phone. It carried on vibrating in her grasp and she stared down at the display to see who the mystery caller was.

When she saw the name, her mouth fell open.

There, in bright white letters, were the words 'Johnny calling...'

She couldn't believe it. Her first thought was that she was dreaming, but the phone felt too real in her hands. She then wondered if somebody else was calling her from Johnny's phone but she remembered that it had been destroyed in the accident. Her hands trembled as she pushed the answer button with her thumb and placed the phone to her ear.

“Hello?” she whispered nervously.

There was silence at first but, eventually, a voice came through the phone.

“Lizzie, is that you?”

Tears ran down her cheeks like miniature glass snakes and her entire body shook as she sobbed when she recognised the caller's voice. It was definitely the voice of her husband.

“Yes,” she managed to answer. “I'm here, Johnny.”

“Good,” he replied. “I thought I'd lost the signal for a moment.”

“No, it's fine. Where are you?”

“I'm not sure. It's very dark here and really cold.”

“But you must know where you are,” she whispered.

“No, I don’t. One minute, I was driving home and then – nothing. Now I’m alone in the dark.”

“You’re alone?”

“Yes. Come and get me. Please.”

“But I don’t know how I…”

A strange noise came down the phone - it sounded to her like a growl of some unknown animal and not a sound that any human could make.

Then there was silence.

“Johnny?”

Still silence.

“Johnny!”

Still nothing.

A moment later her door opened and Ray stepped into the room.

“Are you OK?” he asked her. “I heard you talking to someone.”

She sat up in the bed and held the phone out to her brother.

“It was Johnny,” she said. “He was calling me.”

Ray took the phone, sat down on the bed next to Elizabeth and folded his arms around her.

“It was just a dream,” he said.

“I know. It’s just that… it seemed so real.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Dreams are like that sometimes.”

He released his sister from his embrace and pushed a couple of things on the mobile’s screen. Then he flipped the phone around to show Elizabeth.

“See?” he said, pointing at the call logs. “No calls from Johnny.”

She looked at the screen and then at Ray as she wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Now get some sleep,” Ray continued. “You need the rest.”

She nodded and lay down on the bed. Ray placed the phone back on the bedside table and walked to the door.

“Call me if you have any more bad dreams.”

“I will,” she replied. “Good night.”

“Good night,” he replied, smiling. He watched her settle down in the bed and then left the room.

When the door clicked shut, Elizabeth grabbed the phone and placed it on the bed next to her.

She stared at it for the best part of an hour before she finally went to sleep.

 

The following morning, she walked in to the kitchen following the sweet odour of frying bacon and saw that Ray was standing at the cooker turning over several rashers in the pan.

“Bacon sandwich?” he called to her without turning round.

“Ooh, yes please,” she replied.

He cooked them until they were nice and crispy – just how she liked it – and then assembled her sandwich on a small plate before he walked it over to her at the kitchen table.

“Any better this morning?” he asked her with a smile.

“Yes, thanks. I slept really well after I had that dream.”

“Maybe your mind was, you know, clearing itself a bit.”

She nodded. “Yeah, maybe. It seemed so real, though.”

“You don't think that Johnny actually called you, do you?” Ray asked with concern tainting his voice.

“No, of course not.”

“Good,” Ray said. “You eat your sandwich and I'll go get a shower.”

He placed the sandwich down on to the table, spun around and left the kitchen. She bit into the sandwich with her eyes closed as she savoured the taste of the crispy bacon. A few moments later, her eyes snapped open as she felt her mobile vibrating inside her dressing gown pocket. She dropped the sandwich and scrambled in her pocket for the phone, which she quickly retrieved. When she looked at the screen, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

It was Johnny again.

“Johnny?” she asked, almost before the phone was even to her ear.

“Lizzie?” came the reply, in Johnny's unmistakeably deep voice. “Are you here yet?”

“Where, Johnny? Where are you?”

“Please come, Lizzie. I don’t want to be alone here.”

“But I don't know where you are,” she cried.

“I'm here,” Johnny replied. “I'm in the dark.”

“Are you... alright?”

“Yes, I'm - “

There was a hissing noise and the phone went dead, just as it had during the night. Elizabeth held the phone out in front of her and stared at it with tear-filled eyes.

Ray eventually appeared in the doorway after taking his shower, and saw his sister crying and holding the phone with trembling hands.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“It - it was Johnny,” she replied. “He called again.”

Ray moved forward and released the phone from her grasp. She looked up at him like a lost child as he placed the phone down on the table and then cuddled her.

“You know that's impossible, right?” he said, squeezing her gently in his arms. “Johnny's gone now.”

“I know but... Last night, you said it was a dream.” She took a breath. “But I'm awake now, so what's going on? Am I going crazy?”

“No,” he replied, gently stroking the back of her head. “Of course not. You've had a lot to cope with since the accident. If your mind plays the odd trick on you, that's understandable.”

She nestled her head against him and sobbed loudly. He squeezed her tightly but found himself unable to fully believe his own words. Taking phone calls from your dead husband wasn't normal and he wondered if she really was going mad. He understood that grief could do strange things to you, but this wasn't right. If it carried on, she might have to see someone.

“But I had a conversation with him,” she said, after pulling herself together a little. “He answered me.”

“No,” Ray said. “It's just... something in your head, that's all.”

“So you do think I'm crazy.”

“No,” he laughed. “Not at all.”

He released her from his arms and grabbed the phone. Just as he had done the night before, he flicked through the call log before showing her the screen.

“See?” he said. “No calls from Johnny. I don't think you're crazy - I just think your mind needs to accept that he's gone, that's all.”

“I don't know if I can,” she replied before crying again.

“Yes, you can. Just give it time.”

She nodded and turned away from him.

“I'll go and get dressed,” she said, still crying as she left the room.

Ray put the phone down on the kitchen table without looking at it. He walked through to the living room and sat on the sofa as he churned a few things over in his mind. Was his sister going crazy? Maybe he could call someone and get her some help as it was now obvious to him that she really wasn’t coping with her grief. I don’t even know who to call, he thought. Her doctor? A psychiatrist? The hospital? He rubbed his face with both hands as his mind raced away. He eventually decided that he would sit her down and talk to her properly, then call her doctor and get this sorted.

He sat there mulling it all over for half an hour before Elizabeth appeared. She smiled at him as she sat down in the armchair opposite the sofa.

“Ray,” she said. “I think I’ll call the doctor and see if I can get some help with this.”

“That’s a good idea,” he said, happy that this was going to be easier than he thought.

“I know,” she replied. “Talking to my dead husband isn’t great, is it?”

He gave her a gentle smile as she got back out of the chair and went to the kitchen. She grabbed her phone off the table and went out to the garden; she wanted her call to the doctor to be a private one and didn’t even want Ray to hear it.

She sat down on the bench in the middle of the lawn, took a deep breath and started to scroll through her contacts for the doctor’s number.

The phone immediately started ringing in her hand and she couldn’t believe it when she saw who was calling.

It was Johnny.

Without thinking, she immediately pushed the answer button and placed the phone to her ear.

“Johnny?”

“Hi, Lizzie,” came the familiar voice of her deceased husband.

“Johnny, I know this can’t be you. I have to hang up now.”

“Please don’t. I just need you here with me, that’s all.”

“No, Johnny. This is all in my head, please go away.”

“It’s not in your head – it’s really me. I can’t be alone. Please, it’s so dark here – I’m scared.”

She sobbed at the thought that her husband might be scared and alone – wherever he was – and she wanted to help him. But then she remembered this was all in her mind and she had to try and fight it.

“Johnny… I-I don’t know…” she blubbed.

“Please,” he begged. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She found that she was now starting to believe it again – she was talking to Johnny, and it wasn’t her mind playing tricks. She knew this because his voice sounded so real that was no way it was in her head.

“OK,” she said. “Where are you? Where do I go?”

“Go to the shed,” he said. “You’ll find me.”

She followed the instruction and went over to the shed, opening the door with trepidation, as she wasn’t sure what she would find inside it. The rusty hinges squeaked as the door swung open and she peered inside the shed.

It was full of gardening tools, a few stacked up cardboard boxes and a workbench that had various hand tools strewn over its surface. Johnny, however, was nowhere to be seen. I knew it, she thought. I’ve completely lost it. However, she found herself placing the phone back to her ear.

“You said you’d be here,” she said.

“No,” Johnny replied. “I said you’d find me. This is the first step.”

“What’s the second?”

“Go inside. You’ll soon see.”

She stepped into the shed and, as her weight moved the wooden floor slightly, something moved on the workbench. She stepped forward and, when she was almost at the bench, something else moved and a small, shiny object fell from somewhere and clattered on the floor. She turned her head to see what it was and saw a small garden knife lying there with its blade sprung open.

“Johnny?”

“Yes,” he said. “You know what to do – come and find me.”

The phone hissed and, once again, Johnny was gone. Tears streamed down Elizabeth’s face as she bent down and picked up the knife. Johnny was right – she knew exactly what to do.

“Don’t worry, Johnny,” she cried. “I’m coming.”

 

Ray’s guilt over the death of his sister was keeping him awake. His friends had told him there was nothing to be guilty about – he couldn’t have known what she was planning to do; even if he had checked on her sooner, would he have been able to stop her from killing herself anyway? Deep down, he knew that would have come sooner or later.

He couldn’t help the guilty feeling, though, that relentlessly gnawed away at his stomach. Maybe he should have taken Elizabeth’s phone away from her straight away as soon she started talking about having conversations with Johnny. Maybe then he would have had more time to get her to a doctor. Maybe then somebody could have saved her.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

The word repeated itself over and over in his head and swirled around inside his skull like a tornado until he felt so dizzy that he had to sit down. He looked at his watch and saw that it had just turned midnight. He felt his stomach lurch inside him as he realised that he was now into the next day. The day he was dreading.

The day of Elizabeth’s funeral.

He knew that he should at least try and get some sleep so he moved to towards the stairs. As he put his foot on the first step, his phone started ringing in his pocket. He wondered who on earth could be calling at this hour and then he remembered something. His mind had recalled the night that Elizabeth had received a phone call at stupid o’clock in the morning. That was the night she said Johnny had called her. He shook his head to dispel the memory, but it still lingered there as he put his hand in his pocket. He didn’t believe in ghosts and spirits but, right now, he felt a little nervous as he pulled the phone out. He knew that Elizabeth couldn’t be calling him. He was absolutely sure about that. If it was her calling, then it would be his turn to go crazy.

He took a deep breath as he looked at the screen to see who the caller was…