Call for help

I made it to my room. The stairs creaked hard, and the hinges of my bedroom door gave the best and loudest squawk they had in them, yet all was silent beyond, and after several seconds waiting for someone to come and disturb me, nothing happened. I was alone for now.

I locked my door, more to obtain warning of intrusion than to discourage it outright, unpacked and put away my school things, and then sat down on the bed pulling my phone from my pocket. I needed to make a call.

There were a few people I knew who definitively lived outside the city, mainly relatives and the odd friend who had moved away. Unfortunately there was no one I felt I was in sufficiently regular contact that calling them in itself would be conspicuous.

Calling my uncles, aunts and grand-parents, who lived way out in the forgotten corners of formerly industrialised lands, would likely not help, because they would too far removed to have seen any of the madness. They would think I was mad, and promptly phone Mother or anybody else close by, and that would be the end of the line for me.

Calling someone who had moved away was also risky; most of those friends I had not maintained contact with, and so I didn’t know if they had truly moved town or simply moved to the suburbs.

I needed to call someone close enough to have seen strange behaviour, but far enough not to have been affected by it themselves.

There really was only one way to find someone who fit that description.

**

“Who is this?”

“Frank.”

“Frank who?”

“Oliver. I went with you and some friends on some sort of a pilgrimage, and I got lost, remember? You helped me find my way.”

He was silent for exactly a minute. I know he was silent that long because I tried to stop myself panicking by watching my phone screen measuring the call duration, second by second.

“Yes.” And he paused again. Then, “Do you still live in the City?”

“I do. We didn’t move an inch.”

“...Do you...?” he faltered audibly, but I didn’t let him abort.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Do you see anything strange going on?” he blurted.

It was my turn to pause. His question betrayed an insecurity I wanted to be the same as mine.

“Have you seen anything strange?”

Again he didn’t answer immediately. I struggled not to give in to the assumption that he was thinking what I was thinking. The idea that I might be speaking to somebody sane was almost overwhelming.

“I was at the station, and there was a train coming from your parts. Some folks got out, and I don’t know what to make of them.”

He wasn’t going to dive in with both feet. He daren’t. I had to throw him a bone.

“Do you think it’s particularly warm outside at the moment?”

As he was quiet again, I couldn’t help but visualise our conversation as happening with one of us on a distant moon, and the radio wave travelling millions of miles leaving a long delay between replies.

“I think it’s very cold at the moment.” he said at last.

“People around here would beg to differ.”

I heard a lock turning on his end, then a soft squashing sound, which must have been him sitting down in a comfy chair. When he spoke again he was almost whispering.

“What on Earth is going on over there, Frank? Everyone over here cringed when we saw what was up, and there were some police hanging about but they said nothing! Is the City a loony bin now?”

I took a deep breath. I wanted to vent, tell him everything I had done, how I had pretended to be someone else all day and how I wasn’t sure how much of it really was pretend and how much was just me losing it and turning like everyone else. I knew I couldn’t afford to waste my breath like that.

“May as well be a loony bin. Look, we can’t talk on the phone; I just needed to know how far it reaches. Where you live, are most people... like us, sane?”

“More or less... like I said, the cops don’t care...”

“Yes but the cops aren’t living with you 24/7,” I cut him off, “I need to get the blooming hell out of here, is there anywhere you can hide me?”

“Sure.”

“Name me a station to aim at. Any station, just choose one that isn’t yours.”

“Saint Mary Mead.”

“Right, find me there tomorrow around midday.”

“I will.”

“OK. Then we can talk properly. Wish me luck.” And I hung up.

Almost the instant I ended the call there was a knock on my door, and someone on the other side tried to open it to no avail. As I scrambled to come and unlock my room the intruder called out to me, irate.

“Damnit, Frank, quit being so territorial. Let me in!”