The Concession Stand Calls

Concession worker here… someone keeps calling our counter phone, and he hasn’t been alive for a long time.

Hey everyone. I work at a pretty small, old theater — the kind with squeaky seats, weird carpet patterns from the 90s, and a concession stand that gets renovated about once every thirty years. I usually open on weekday mornings when it’s dead slow and feels like a tomb with a popcorn machine in it.

We still have this ancient landline under the counter. Like rotary-era old. It’s not even connected to our main system anymore — supposedly disconnected years before I was hired. It’s just… there. A prop at this point.

Or at least that’s what I thought.

Last Thursday, around 10:15 AM, I was restocking the candy fridge when the landline rang.

Not the business phone.

Not my cell.

Not the emergency line.

The old, dead landline.

It has this awful analog ring, the kind that sounds like someone hitting a metal pipe underwater. It scared the absolute hell out of me.

I thought maybe one of the managers had plugged it in for some reason, so I answered.

“Concessions,” I said, trying to sound normal.

There was this tiny sniffle on the other end. Like a kid who’d been crying.

Then a small voice said, “Can I have popcorn? Please?”

I swear to God, it was a little boy. Sounded maybe six or seven. Soft, polite, scared. I asked where he was. No answer. Just breathing. Then the line cut out with a click like someone hung up an old payphone.

I told my manager. She shrugged it off, said maybe the line still has power somehow but isn’t supposed to. But that didn’t explain the kid.

We didn’t have any showings until noon, so there were zero customers inside yet. I checked the lobby. Checked the halls. The bathrooms. Even Theater 3, where the lights sometimes flicker for no reason. No kids. No parents. No one.

I tried to shake it off.

Then the next day, same time, same ring.

I answered again.

Same little voice.

“I really want popcorn.”

Sniff.

“I’m hungry.”

This time, I asked his name. The kid said something like “Evan,” or maybe “Ephram.” Hard to tell — the line is static-heavy, like he’s calling from underwater. Or underground.

He said he “can’t find the door.” When I asked what door, he just whispered, “Too dark,” and hung up.

I was officially freaked out.

Later that night, after close, I was taking out trash with one of our janitors — old guy named Ruben who’s been here since the 80s. Nice dude, real quiet. On a whim, I told him about the calls.

He froze. Like… actually stopped mid-step.

Then he said, “You’re hearing the boy again?”

That wording — again — made my stomach drop.

Turns out, concession workers have been reporting the same calls for decades. Always from a little boy asking for popcorn. Always from that same dead landline. Ruben says the earliest case he remembers was back in 1987, right after the theater reopened following renovations.

I asked what he thought it was.

He said he didn’t know for sure.

But he did know one thing:

Back in the 50s, before the theater was converted, it used to be an old community hall. A kid supposedly went missing during a matinee magic show. They never found him. The only clue was a little paper popcorn bag near the back of the room.

I thought he was messing with me. But then he said this:

“If he asks you to come find him… don’t.”

I laughed it off at the time.

But yesterday morning, the phone rang again.

This time, the kid didn’t ask for popcorn.

In a quiet, shaky voice, he said:

“I hear you. Can you come help me? Please? I can’t see.”

I hung up.

The phone started ringing again immediately.

I didn’t answer.

And I haven’t touched it today.

But every few minutes, I swear I hear that faint analog ring echoing from beneath the counter — even though the phone isn’t ringing at all.

I don’t know how much longer I can work the morning shifts.

Or how long that kid’s going to keep calling me.