Party Line

By L. G. Merrick
Illustrated by Steve Morris

Helene called and there was only screaming on the line. But Helene was eleven. She had outgrown that melodrama. And this didn’t sound like her old scream for attention. 

This sounded like sanity evaporating in terror. Like an aria of chaos.

“Helene,” Georgiana said. “Helene. Breathe. HELENE.”

The screaming did not pause even for breath. Even the inhale came noisome, a ragged strangled shriek. And then the air was flowing outward again. Screaming, louder, screaming—

“HELENE, WHAT IS WRONG?”

The call went dead. Oh Jesus! Georgie fumbled with her phone, to call Helene back.

It was Helene’s first phone. A Christmas present. It took pictures, sent texts, made calls — no internet. That was Georgiana’s effort to make the girl happy and be a good parent. She wondered more and more, as the kids got older, whether she was any good as a mother. 

Pick up pick up pick up—

“Hi Mom.” Helene’s voice. Cheery. Ordinary. “What’s up?”

Georgie frowned. “You tell me. You called me a minute ago, screaming.”

In the ensuing pause, she could picture Helene two ways. One, going all bobble-headed as she tried to think up a cover story; two, slowing to a halt except for her dramatic forehead scrunch, baffled.

“I didn’t call you.”

“Don’t lie,” Georgie said — sounding overjoyed though. The relief was just now taking root, that the scream had not meant anything. She laughed, then, thinking how she’d made don’t lie sound cheery. “I can check my phone’s call history.”

“Well, I guess check, then.”

“Did your brother borrow your phone?”

“Which brother?”

“Either one.”

“No.”

The beautiful inanity of her ten-year-old made her laugh again. It was such a relief—

“Vance is playing Photon Disaster 2,” Helene continued, “and Josh is digging in the yard.”  

“Okay. You be good. I’ll be home in three hours. Okay? All you have to do is go three hours without burning down the house.” 

“Jeez. I won’t.”

“Love you, munchkin.”

Georgie went back to work. 

I was on my own all the time at that age, she reminded herself. Never got hurt, never burnt down the house. 

There’s no such thing as a perfect mom. Just do your best. 

But it was new to her, leaving the kids. It was a house they’d only lived in a couple of months. It was only her third day on the new job. 

It occurred to her she actually should check the call history. She could swear Helene’s name flashed up on the screen when it rang, so Helene was lying, but—

But nothing. When she tapped the Recent Calls tab, it was Helene. 

So maybe her daughter butt-dialed, and something in her pocket scraped against the mic. A handful of safety pins, some crinkling candy wrappers. That was it — it wasn’t mindbending fear, or even a lie. It was Jolly Ranchers. Or — this had to be it — the noise came from Photon Disaster 2. A shoot-em-up, she was pretty sure. The game audio would include screams of the dying, probably. Vance was on a tear. He was good.

Wait, she thought. Josh is digging in the yard?

Josh was not old enough to have a phone, at ten. That was the right age, however, to destroy the lawn. 

She called Vance. Vance was fourteen, oldest of her four. Vance, Helene, Josh, lastly Giselle. Before taking this job she’d sat each one down. She’d mapped out a network of responsibilities. She’d put Helene directly in charge of Giselle. Vance in charge of the overall house. Josh in charge of secretly reporting on Vance, who could not be one hundred percent trusted.

Vance answered her call saying “What?”

She heard his game in the background. Laser pew-pews. The synthy melody of shimmering lights, the frazzle of explosive flashes. She could remember the visuals but not the exact premise of the game. She strained to hear some kind of scream.

“What’s your brother doing?”

“How should I know?”

“You should know because I left you in charge. Do you want Helene to be in charge?”

“No. I’ll check as soon as a I finish this level.”

“You will pause that level and check now.”

“Mom, I have the photon splitter. Do you realize what that means?”

“Pause it. Call me back in five minutes. Bye.”

She hung up.

Her phone rang three minutes later and she grabbed it quick because her boss was within ear shot. She did not want him hearing the ring of personal calls. Not the first week, anyway. She wanted to be thought of as professional, not seen as a mom lost in the office.

The screen said Helene, not Vance. She clicked the green answer icon.

“Helene, what—”

That was as far as she got. She had answered in the middle of a scream. 

Georgie’s heart instantly began to thunder. She felt her blood leap like a thing alive and desperate to claw its way of her veins in fright. 

“Helene! Helene!”

The excruciating torture in the scream in her ear. No pocketful of safety pins. No candy wrapper. It was Helene. In the background a second scream began. That one too was sheer unyielding terror but it ratcheted in its panic into quick rat-a-tat gasps. 

That’s Josh, she thought. Maybe Vance.

Helene’s scream choked into gurgling. 

As if her throat had been cut. 

Then the call ended.

Without realizing it, Georgia had stood up. Now she felt like she might fall over. 

“Georgiana?” her boss asked. “Are you okay?”

Oh, she thought, he’s decent, he cares.

She didn’t turn to him. She sat down, shaking. 

“I don’t know.” 

She thumbed to Recent Calls and tapped one. Aimed for Helene, saw it was Vance she’d tapped.

“I know, I know,” was how he answered. Resigned. Busted. “I’ll go. I’m pausing it now.”

“You’re,” she said, choking, “still playing?”

“It’s a key level, Mom.”

“Where’s your sister? Where’s your brother?”

“Jeez. I’ll look. I’ll call you back.”

“No. No — you need to hide—”

Vance had already hung up.

She called Helene.

“Jeez, Mom. You sure are calling a lot today.”

Georgie laughed out loud. Long, braying, wild peels of the stuff.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

“You didn’t just call me again? And scream?”

“Mom. I am trying to read a book. You keep interrupting me.”

“Where’s Vance?”

“He just walked in.”

“Tell him he still has to call me even though I called you. Where’s Giselle?”

“Vance, Mom says call her. Giselle is, um, right here too.”

“Don’t lie.”

“She’s upstairs.”

“Go check.”

“Mom! I’m busy!”

“GO FUCKING CHECK.”

There was a silence. Georgie had never cursed in front of, never mind at, her children. It must have seemed to Helene, Georgie thought, as if her mother had just undergone a radical personality change. The idea caused Georgia once again to bray. She covered her mouth with her hand, feeling giddy and sorry and absolutely right to be mad. 

“Sorry, sweetie. Please check?”

“Okay.” Helene sounded shocked. Tiny. “Uh. Do you want to talk to Josh? He’s bringing rocks into the house. Maybe you should yell at him.”

Well, that was a nice quick recovery, Georgie thought, admiring her daughter’s sass.

“Put him on.”

“Hi, Mom,” Josh said.

“What’s this about you digging up the yard?”

“I found the coolest rocks.”

“Put them back. And the grass better not be all torn up.”

“Only where the holes are. But it’s worth it. Wait’ll you see these rocks.”

“I’ve seen rocks before, Josh. I don’t want to ever see these.”

“They’re really weird.”

“Are you going to make me ask again?”

“You didn’t even ask once. You just ordered me.”

“True. Now go put the rocks—”

“Helene’s back. Here.”

The phone changed hands.

“Giselle is in her room,” Helene said.

The phone beeped and Georgie looked at it. Incoming Call, it said, from Vance. Red and green symbols popped up. End the call with Helene, or put Helene on hold? Hold, she decided. She more to say about Giselle, Giselle was only six, you need to pay attention. She switched to Vance.

“V—”

She got no further. Vance was screaming. Screaming and barfing and choking on the liquid in pained raucous barks that turned his screaming guttural. As if his guts were being churned apart. In the background she heard Helene’s scream. She heard the rat-a-tat of Josh’s, collapsing in exhaustion, turning to tears. She heard Giselle begin to scream. The baby. A high-pitched confusion. There was no pain in it, but somehow it was the worst. In it Georgie could hear whatever Giselle was seeing. Whatever was being done to the other three.

Georgie felt weightless, immobile. Felt like she didn’t exist anymore.

She detected a laugh. In the background. A man’s. An amused chuckle, torqued at the end by a grunt of physical effort. A grown man laughing as he exerted himself with a knife. That’s what she pictured. 

She heard ripping. Rending. Something thicker than fabric. Not easy to tear. Meat.

Vance’s barking scream turned to a piercing shriek, then cut off.

Georgie threw up on her desk. Lunch and coffee were out of her before she knew anything was coming up. Then she reeled back and missed her chair and landed hard on the floor, and hit her head on the edge of the chair’s seat. From the impact, the chair rolled back slowly, with a squeak.

“What the hell,” her boss said, mystified, worried, reaching for her. “Are you — you’re not okay.”

She scrambled for her phone. She had dropped it. Vomit dripped off the edge of her desk onto the phone. She picked it up. 

The call was still going. Loud enough that everyone could hear it. Helene and Giselle screaming, still. Two of them, still. Helene managed to cry, “Mom, help! Help!”

Giselle’s became a squeal.

“I’m coming!” Georgie yelled into the phone, struggling to her feet. “I’m coming!”

Then the call went dead.

Except the phone was still live.

“—and no, you’re in big trouble, your address is Trouble Town, Apartment 5, because when Mom sees those holes? You don’t even know. She dropped an F-bomb on me, I’m not even—”

It was Helene, the call with Helene. The one she put on hold.

“Helene?” Georgie said.

“Oh crap. Hi Mom. Yeah, I’m still here.”

“Is Vance with you?”

“He left. I was talking to Josh.”

“Josh is not in trouble. Okay? Just — are you — are you playing a joke on me? All of you? A practical joke?”

In the ensuing silence she pictured Helene two ways. First, trying to concoct a believable lie. Second, wanting to answer honestly but no idea what the question meant.

“You better not be playing,” Georgia said. “It better be — some crossed cell signal. If you had anything to do with this. . .”

“We’re just here.”

“I’m coming home. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

She made it in closer to fifteen. The phone rang in the car. Vance. She didn’t answer. She was afraid to.

She screeched into the driveway and braked so hard the car made a thump sound as it stopped. When she got out she saw she’d parked so crooked the driver-side front tire was completely on grass. She hoped the neighbors didn’t see.

As she rushed to the door, the phone in her hand beeped. She looked.

New text, it let her know, from Helene.

It was all a joke and here’s the punchline, she thought, here’s the Gotcha. She felt her tears ready to burst through. She opened the text.

It was a photo. Taken with the phone’s camera, presumably. It showed the game room. The sliding glass door was open into the backyard, where there were holes dug. The TV said GAME OVER. A pile of weird rocks sat in the middle of the carpet. Blood sprays decorated the walls. There were pieces. Arms, legs. Hands. Strewn across the red-soaked carpet. There were four tiny heads. There were torsos dressed in the clothes she had set out for them that morning. 

Reflected in the glass of a picture on the wall she saw that a giant of a man held the phone and he had stocky friends with him.

She looked away from the photo. 

She stood, rocking back and forth, staring at the front door of her house. 

When she could think, or nearly think, she listened carefully for sounds inside. She wanted to hear Vance shout “Yes!” because he had kicked some important ass in the game. She wanted to hear Helene tell Giselle, “Mom said no running!” She wanted to hear Giselle laugh, or Josh tell Vance what move to try next. Wanted to hear her children say anything at all. 

Sometimes the phone calls had come from a peaceful ordinary house, it seemed, and sometimes they had come from hell. She would listen and open the door when she heard proof that she was opening it to the house she wanted.  

She waited a long time.

The end