The Phone Company

by David Jacob Knight

  He flipped open his phone. “JJ?”

  “Hello, Steve.”

  Something cold and spidery scurried up Steve’s back. “What the hell do you want?”

  “To say hi,” Graham said. “It was nice seeing you today.”

  “Bullshit. Where’s my son? Where’s JJ?”

  “He’s safe.”

  “He was talking about killing himself! Some sort of sacrifice, for chrissakes!”

  “Steve, you chose not to understand this. You had a Tether and you chose to throw it away.”

  “Then make me understand! What the hell have you been telling my son?”

  “Please, Steve, no one can make you understand. You either get it or you don’t.”

  “Yeah? You’ve certainly done a fine job brainwashing everyone else! Why don’t you try me?”

  “Hey, Steve, I’m going to put you on speakerphone, okay? Just a second.”

  “No, I don’t—”

  It was too late. There was a pop, followed by the background hiss of air.

  The next time Graham spoke, he sounded as if he were in a tin can. “It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we all work together. Your students, they’ve come up with some of the most amazing apps, did you know that?”

  Steve’s car began to accelerate. The pedal wasn’t moving at all, but something was opening the throttle. Steve mashed the brakes. His car kept accelerating.

  “What are you doing?” he shouted. “Stop!”

  “Have you ever heard of HAARP?” Graham asked.

  “Please, I haven’t done anything!”

  “Some believe it’s a weather-controlling station. Marvin certainly believed.”

  “Just stop!”

  “And one of your Language Arts students . . . you wouldn’t believe your eyes, Steve.”

  A water droplet hit the windshield.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Big fat drops popped on the glass, and the windshield wipers cleared them away.

  “You know, people like Marv, they believe HAARP can even cause earthquakes.”

  “Please!” Steve said, steering, trying to keep his car from careening off steep banks of rocks and trees. The ground trembled beneath the car, jerking the wheel.

  “Free will,” Graham said, and the ground settled. “That’s why we can’t force you to switch providers, Steve. It’s why you had to smoke that cigarette. We couldn’t smoke it for you. We couldn’t force you. Only you can break your promises.”

  “What—what promise? What the f—”

  “Your promise, your covenant to protect your firstborn son. We needed you to break it. But no one could force you.”

  The car began to slow down again, and the rain went away. Steve got control of the gas and pulled to a stop in a turnout, trying to breathe.

  “Just as no one can force you to believe.”

  “Fuck you,” Steve said, panting, shaking, wishing he could reach through the wireless tower and strangle this asshole, if only to shut him up.

  “See?” Graham said. “I show you the powers of a god; I crack open the sky for you, I bring rain. Someone could rise from the dead, and still you wouldn’t believe.”

  Steve hung up, but not before he heard Graham say, “Happy Halloween, Ste—”

  * * *

  Halloween, Steve thought as he rounded the bend toward the old billboard for Hayworth Diner. “1 Mile to Paradise” it said, with a ’50s-style waitress winking and holding up a plate of bacon and eggs. Homecoming fell at the beginning of October, and that had been last week. What had Graham meant, Happy Halloween?

  As Steve approached the sign, he noticed something hanging from it. A cat, skinned. Nailed to the post.

  He shivered as he drove by it, as if he’d passed through a sheet of ice, thin as glass, separating Cracked Rock from the rest of the world.

  Black, coiled phone cords and entrails of busted up electronics dangled from both the data center and Hayworth Diner. The parts looked like decorations.

  Steve sped by.

  But then he slammed on his brakes, turned back around, and screeched to a halt in front of the data center.

  Through his window, he stared at the brick façade. He traced the convolutions of the phone cords and glanced at the security camera.

  No windows.

  But they do have eyes.

  A second later, Steve was banging on the solid metal door.

  “JJ? I know you’re in there!” He didn’t, really. But it was worth a try. “You’re not in trouble, I just want to talk—”

  The door fell away beneath Steve’s hand.

  As it opened, as the crack in the door widened and Steve realized he hadn’t expected it to open at all, he felt for a second like he was up on Mount Rushmore, standing again at the precipice, about to fall in.

  The building sucked in air, and then a head poked out. A body filled the crack.

  “Hey,” Cathy said, “where’s your costume?” She was dressed in her waitress uniform from the diner and was frowning playfully at Steve’s jacket and slacks.

  “My son, JJ.”

  “Huh? You didn’t dress up?”

  From her confused yet playful smile, Steve could tell Cathy truly didn’t know what he meant; he relaxed a bit.

  “I’m looking for my son.”

  “Oh.”

  “He went missing.”

  “Oh my God, is he all right?”

  “I don’t know, Cathy, I haven’t seen him.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  Typical Cathy.

  “Who else is here with you?” Steve said.

  “Just me.” Cathy grinned, as broadly as her overly broad face. “Just handing out candy.”

  “Can I come in?”

  That playful pout came back on Cathy’s face. “Oh, sweetheart, no. Employees only. I’d lose my job, or I’d invite you in.”

  It was Steve’s turn to frown. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

  “Oh, yeah, they let me go at the diner. It’s all self-serve now. They didn’t need me. So they took me on over here, handing out candy.”

  Steve found himself gazing across at Hayworth Diner, the peeling, slumping old stick frame, moss on its shingles. He checked his watch. “All right, well, if you see JJ, please have him call me immediately?”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  “Thanks, Cathy. Be safe.”

  “Oh hey, wait.” Shutting the door behind her, Cathy stepped out, holding a bowl of loose phone buttons, Cialis, and morning-after pills. “You forgot your treat.”

  Steve stared down at the bowl, at the red wires spooling out of the piles like veins. “No, thanks.”

  Cathy looked hurt for a second. Then the smile came back, and she gave an awkward curtsy. “Well, do you at least like my costume? Now that I’m not a waitress?”

  Steve smiled sadly. “It looks great.”

  As he left, the smile faded, but not the melancholy.

  Poor Cathy.

  Farther on in town, he saw more adornments on houses and businesses alike, red and black wires strung from gutters, sometimes woven into webs, circuit boards dangling like victims of spiders, old phones splayed open, guts arrayed.

  Thick black cables ran from house to house, connecting them, plugging into random pieces of equipment stacked and scattered everywhere.

  But no kids.

  No one on the sidewalks at all.

  Steve glanced at the date on his phone.

 

  No way.

  No way could he have lost that much time. PCo must have messed with everyone’s calendars. They seemed to control anything electronic anyway. Why not calendars?

  Dates on phones, computers, tablets, and whatever the hell else people used to tell time these days. That meant Steve had no way to double check. Every calendar he used, aside from his wall calendar, was digital, and he had flipped the wall calendar to October anyway. It’s not like he marked off the days.

  No
t possible, he thought, and yet he had seen PCo perform miraculous things.

  They could control the weather. They could control minds. They could control cars and plate tectonics. So why not time? The only thing they couldn’t seem to control was Steve. That was the only reason he wasn’t bunkered down in a hole somewhere, shuddering. That, and he had two kids to save.

  Steve pulled down his long driveway, expecting to see Bill’s cruiser. The drive was empty, except for the pale light of the sunset.

  “Sarah?” Steve said, bursting into the house. “Hello?”

  He stopped and listened, and it was like pressing an ear to outer space.

  “Hel—” Steve began.

  Someone sat up on the couch.

  “Hey, buddy.”

  “Jesus.”

  “You all right?” Bill said.

  Steve lowered his hand from his chest. “You scared me.”

  “Wuss,” Bill said.

  Despite everything, despite that his son was missing, maybe even dead, despite that everyone in town he’d ever cared about had gone crazy, Steve found himself chuckling at Bill’s self-amused smirk. Only Bill could remain so optimistic in times like these. Defense mechanism, Steve thought.

  He walked around the couch, casting a glance at his friend’s uniform, the hat on the seat next to him. “Where’s your car?” Steve asked, taking off his jacket. Bill had built a great fire. The house was hot, almost sweaty.

  “Hidden,” Bill said.

  “And Barks?”

  “Around.”

  Steve nodded. “Is it really Halloween?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Steve said. “I see you’re not wearing your glasses.”

  “Nope.”

  “Good.”

  “Been trying not to. Make me look too much like an old fart.”

  Steve chuffed again and slumped into the couch next to his friend, with the cowboy hat between them. “How’s Sarah?”

  “Fine. Crashed early. You find JJ?”

  “No. I even checked at the data center.”

  “Damn it,” Bill said, and a darkness came over him. “I’m so sorry, partner, it’s my fault.”

  Maybe it had to do with the overwhelming combination of fear, sorrow, and relief, plus what Bill had just said, blaming himself, but Steve barked out a sob.

  Bill looked uncomfortable, shifting in his seat. The leather made a farting sound, and Bill paused, then shifted his butt again, grinning, ripping an even bigger fake fart.

  Steve laughed and tried to look like a man as he dried his eyes. “Sorry. Heh.”

  Bill held up his hands. “Hey, not your fault.”

  “No, it is. You shouldn’t be apologizing to me, man. I’m their father, for chrissakes. It’s like I’m great with everyone else’s kids, but give me two of my own and I’m a piece of shit.”

  “You’re not a piece of shit,” Bill said. “Well . . .” He held his thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. “Maybe a little piece.”

  Steve sort of chuckled, sort of cleared his throat.

  “You’re one-eighth a piece of shit,” Bill said.

  Steve shook his head and stared at nothing. “I can’t lose him, Bill. I can’t.”

  “I know.”

  “She’d never forgive me.”

  “Huh.” Bill fell silent, like he always did when Steve mentioned Janice. But then he broke the silence. “You know, I hated you. For a long time I held a grudge.”

  “I know,” Steve said.

  “I mean, I loved you, man, like a brother, but I guess I was angry, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I spent a long time angry at her, too. After she, uh, you know, after that day. But after all that, and all the drinking . . .” Bill shook his head. “I’ve been an alcoholic for years, did you know that?”

  “What? No, man, you drink a bit, but you’re no alcoholic. I’m the alcoholic.”

  “You drink on weekdays?”

  Steve shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  “At work?”

  “No. Well, maybe once or twice, but usually after.”

  Bill nodded. “See, I did it in secret. I snuck it. Weekdays, workdays, weekends especially.”

  “You gotta take days off,” Steve said. “That’s how you do it.”

  “You were always a pro at that,” Bill said. “Thing is, I haven’t been thinking clearly for a long time. Lately, though, I’ve been sitting and thinking, hey, it was me who got you guys both to smoke. You and Janice. You remember that? My dad’s old roll-your-owns?”

  “Yeah,” Steve said.

  “Dragnet reminded me of that. So that’s on me, not you. This whole time it turns out I didn’t really hate you at all. Turns out all this time I hated myself.” Bill shrugged. “Still kind of do.”

  After that, they sat there for a while, each staring off at nothing, each in their own miserable world. Finally, Bill stood to leave.

  “Tell you what. Let me find JJ, all right? I can use Dragnet. Least I could do.”

  “Absolutely not,” Steve said, standing up. “Throw those goddamn things in the trash, burn ’em.”

  “Sorry, buddy,” Bill said. “You don’t really have a choice.”

  “Then let me come with you.” Steve pulled on his jacket. “I can make sure it doesn’t. . . . I can keep you thinking clearly. Just let me go get Sarah, and I’ll—”

  “Nope. You stay here, take care of your daughter. Seriously, you two stay out of the way. We don’t need to get her in danger, too.” Bill headed for the door, but stopped halfway out. Holding his hat against his heart, he gave Steve a sad smile. “And between you and me? She forgives you.”

  Bill left, and Steve was alone on the couch, feeling better, lighter. It wasn’t just that Bill seemed to be Bill again, although that was part of it. It was more that Bill had taken some of the blame onto his own shoulders. Bill had given Steve the gift of forgiving himself, if even a little.

  He sighed, then went upstairs to confiscate Sarah’s Tether. From the loft hallway, Steve could hear her singing in her room. Her voice was like light: bright, glowing, harmonics as fragile as glass. He knocked.

  She didn’t answer, didn’t stop singing: “Darkness is another light . . .”

  “Sarah?” Steve said, easing open her door.

  “. . . that exposes true beauty,” she sang.

  She stood in front of the vanity inherited from her mom, wearing her mother’s wig and her mother’s bloody wedding dress, singing a song her mom used to sing. Sarah continued humming, and Steve remembered the words.

  All through the night, she hummed.

  All through the night.

  CHAPTER 42

  “Take that off,” Steve said. “Now.”

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Sarah said, twirling so that the bloody skirts twirled too; the locks of the wig bounced. “Where’s your costume? Or are you going as a boring old dad?”

  Steve’s eyes dropped to Sarah’s bed, where her Tether glowed. She saw him looking.

  Damn it, he thought as his hand shot out.

  He grabbed the Tether.

  Sarah grabbed his wrist.

  “Let go,” she said, hissing between clenched teeth.

  Steve kept his grip on the phone. He had never seen this look in her eyes. It didn’t seem natural on her good-natured features. The snarl warped them, stretched them, almost as if something else, something bony and evil with sharper teeth, had cut off her face for a mask.

  The Tether buzzed angrily against Steve’s palm.

 

  Sarah’s eyes flicked down, and Steve took advantage. He ripped his wrist out of her grip and backed out of her room to the balcony hall.

  “Give it back,” Sarah said, stalking toward him, her wig slipping.

  Steve backed away from her, glancing down at the Tether. The phone was unlocked. He could see a love note from �
�JJ.”

  “Oh my God,” Steve said, beginning to read. Sick. Sad. Angry. He didn’t think he could feel any worse than he already did. But these messages. . . . Apparently Anastasia Disney had committed suicide.

 

 

 

  “Who is this?” Steve said, backing up toward the staircase.

  “Give it back.”

  “Who’s sending you these?”

  Sarah started crying, and Steve paused for a second, thinking, Goddamn it, way to be a dad, but then he realized.

  She’s faking it.

 

 

 

  Steve kept one hand on the railing, searching for the staircase, reading the last of the texts.

  “It’s my phone, Dad, my personal life. Quit spying on me, you have no right.”

  “They’re spying on you! Everything you do, they see! They’re using you, Sarah. They’ve brainwashed you!”

  “You’re so stupid. You don’t know anything! I was nothing before I got that phone. I was no one! And you want to know why? Because. I took after you!”

  She might as well have stabbed him. Might as well have slid a blade between his ribs.

  Steve knew he was lame, according to his kids. Sometimes he was pretty sure they didn’t like him, and sometimes there were even hints of hate.

  But one thing he had always believed until now, until his daughter had so viciously ripped away his delusions, was that at least he was a good role model. At least they could see his hard work and his smarts.

  That was the ugliest thing about the PCo. It brought out the truth. How people really felt.

 

 

 

  “Graham,” Steve said, feeling his own guts shriveling inside him. “It’s Graham, isn’t it? You’re seeing Graham.”

  “I want it.”

  “He called me. Earlier.”

  “Give it.”

  “Same ringtone. Same screen name. And he’s always talking about how everything’s connected.”