The Pay Phone

The Pay Phone

D. A. Ratliff

As I walked by the old pay telephone, it rang. Startled, I stopped in my tracks, my heart racing from my morning run and the jarring sound.

What the heck? I ran this route every morning because of the light traffic. When the old high school closed, very few cars turned down this road, and I could run for two miles, rarely seeing anyone. It always struck me that the phone was too pristine, too shiny for a relic. I couldn’t imagine it was connected any longer.

Yet, it was ringing.

With too many images of slasher movies rolling around, I debated whether I should answer it. The ringing hadn’t stopped.

I reached for the receiver with shaky fingers, lifted it off the hook, and said hello. Granted, my hello might have sounded a tad strained. Expecting the ringing to be an electronic fluke, I nearly jumped out of my sneakers when a voice responded.

“You have to help me. He’s going to kill me. Please help.”

“Wait, who are you? Who’s going to kill you.”

‘Lindsey Tate… he’s coming back any second. He’s so mad.”

‘Where are you?”

“Madison Grove. Hurry.”

I was about to respond when I heard a door slam, a man yell, and she screamed, “No, Matt, no.” Then the line went dead.

Only seconds passed, but I felt like I hadn’t moved for hours. What should I do? Call the cops? They’d probably think I was crazy. How could this be real? But it could be. I couldn’t take that chance. I had to call the police and slipped my cell phone from a pocket in my running pants.

“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

I decided not to tell them I got the call on a pay phone. “My name is Trina Marcella. I just got a phone call from a woman named Lindsey Tate in Madison Grove who said some man was going to kill her. I heard a man yell, and then she screamed, ‘No, Matt, no.’

“Do you have a location other than Madison Grove?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Sending a squad car to your location, 2710 Old Vaucluse Road. Is that correct?”

“Yes, but shouldn’t you try to find her?”

‘We are doing so now, ma’am. Are you in a safe location?”

“Yes.”

“Then stay there until the officer arrives. I’ll keep this line open. He should be there in three minutes.”

A few seconds passed, and I heard the operator dispatch two units to an address in the Madison Grove area of town. I heard her say, Matthew Tate. It was then that I began shaking violently. Matt existed? If he did, was Lindsey real too?

Another eternity passed until the officer arrived. Amazing how, when under stress and waiting for help, a minute can feel like a day. The officer exited his cruiser and walked to me.

“Ma’am, you okay?”

I laughed. “I really don’t know, officer.”

He asked a couple more questions, requested my ID, and said, “May I see your phone? It may have the number Tate called from.”

I stuttered. How did I tell him? Okay, say it. “The call came from the pay phone.”

He looked at me as if I was nuts. I might be. He lifted the receiver and then held it out from his ear. “Ma’am, this phone is dead.”

“I… I know. I don’t know how but as I ran by, the phone rang. I decided to answer out of curiosity. I know it sounds crazy, but the message came from the payphone. I know you must think I’m crazy, but I couldn’t take the chance that the call wasn’t real. So, I called 9-1-1.”

“Ma’am, the phone is dead. You are certain it rang?”

“Yes.”

He went to his cruiser for a few minutes, and when he returned, he handed me my ID. “We are looking into the matter and will be in touch. Are you okay to go home alone, or do you want a ride?”

I assured him I was fine, and before I continued my run, I took one last look at the pay phone.

~~~

The police contacted me at seven p.m. The call was genuine. Police rescued Lindsey Tate from confinement and beatings by her husband, Matthew, who was in custody. They determined that Lindsey called 9-1-1 from her phone, but it did not go through. However, it was completed. The phone company had yet to understand how it routed to a defunct pay phone.

The good news was that Lindsey was recovering from her injuries in the hospital and wanted to see me. This time I drove, not ran, to talk to her.

***

Author's Note: I wrote this story for What's Next?, a weekly writing workshop exercise on Writers Unite!, a Facebook writing group. WU! posts a photo image and provides the opening sentence, and the writer tells What's Next?