The Phone That Shouldn’t Ring

M Mehran

After her grandmother’s funeral, Nida inherited the old farmhouse at the edge of town. The place was filled with relics—dusty furniture, cracked photographs, and one object that didn’t belong: a heavy, black rotary phone sitting on the hallway table.

Her grandmother had lived without electricity for years. There were no lines, no service, no reason for a phone to even work.

So when it rang that first night, Nida froze.


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Chapter Two: The First Call

The sound was harsh, metallic, echoing through the empty house.

Hands trembling, she lifted the receiver.
“Hello?”

Silence. Then a faint hiss. She was about to hang up when a voice whispered: You came back.

Her skin prickled. “Who is this?”

But the line went dead.


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Chapter Three: The Photographs

The next day, Nida explored the attic. She found a box of photographs—most black-and-white portraits of her grandmother as a young woman. In each one, there was a man standing in the background. His face was blurry, his eyes always on her.

When Nida flipped the last photo over, words scrawled in shaky handwriting read: Don’t answer the phone.

Her blood ran cold.


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Chapter Four: The Second Call

That night, the phone rang again. Against every instinct, she picked it up.

“Why did you leave me?” the voice rasped. “I waited.”

“I don’t know who you are,” she said, her voice shaking.

The whisper grew harsher, more urgent. Look in the mirror.

Before she could respond, the line went dead again.


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Chapter Five: The Mirror

In the upstairs hallway hung an old mirror. She approached slowly, her flashlight shaking.

At first, it was only her reflection. But then, behind her, a man appeared—thin, pale, with eyes like hollow pits.

She spun around. The hallway was empty.

When she turned back, the mirror was cracked down the middle.


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Chapter Six: The Journal

Digging through her grandmother’s chest, Nida found a worn leather journal. Pages detailed strange events: late-night phone calls, whispers, warnings. Her grandmother wrote of a man she had once loved, who had died young under violent circumstances.

He doesn’t forgive me, one entry read. He wants me with him. The phone is his voice.

Nida slammed the book shut, heart racing.


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Chapter Seven: The Third Call

The phone rang at 3 a.m. this time, louder than ever. She almost didn’t answer. Almost.

“Hello?”

The voice growled: I’m closer now.

She dropped the receiver, but the whisper continued—seeping from the phone’s mouthpiece, crawling into the room itself. The mirror upstairs shattered with a deafening crack.


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Chapter Eight: The Arrival

Every lightbulb in the house flickered, then burst. The air grew heavy, suffocating. From the hallway, the rotary phone began to ring and ring, faster, shriller, until it became a single unbroken scream of sound.

Nida clamped her hands over her ears. The journal slid off the table, pages flipping on their own until it stopped at the final entry:

If you answer the third call… he comes through.

She looked up.

The man from the photographs was standing in the doorway.


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Chapter Nine: The Last Call

The phone fell silent.

The figure’s grin stretched impossibly wide as he stepped closer. “You shouldn’t have answered,” he whispered, his voice exactly like the one from the line.

The last thing Nida saw was his hand reaching for hers, ice-cold, pulling her into the darkness.


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Epilogue: The New Ring

The next morning, a neighbor came to check on her. The house was quiet, the hallway table empty. No journal. No Nida.

But on the porch, a black rotary phone sat waiting.

And when the neighbor touched it, it rang.