TWENTY-SIX
SOMETHING AND NOTHING
“Are you going to answer it or not?” Kate asked as the phone rang and rang as we all stared at the jangling instrument on the hall table. We’d all responded in shock to the sound of the phone as it stampeded into the middle of our conversation a few seconds earlier, so intensely had we immersed our thoughts in the eerie and quite terrifying subject under discussion.
Her words stung me into action, and I moved to answer the incessant ringing.
“Hello?” I spoke into the mouthpiece as I grabbed the phone from its cradle.
A stranger’s voice replied, spoke a few words to me and I asked the caller to hold on a moment. I held the phone out to Kate.
“It’s Miles Prendergast!”
Kate quickly took the phone from me and sat down on the stool beside the telephone ta
