The Long-Distance Call

The morning Lynne learned of her brother’s death, the sky was the color of old dishwater, and the rain fell in sheets, drumming against the tin roof of her rented farmhouse. Her phone had been dead for days—the lines were old, and the storm had knocked them out—so when she heard the knock, she assumed it was a neighbor seeking shelter. Instead, it was her sister-in-law, Mara, and her two nieces, their faces pale and streaked with tears. They stood in the doorway, dripping wet, and before a word was spoken, Lynne knew. Her brother, Derek, had died in his sleep the night before. He was only 41, healthy as a horse, and the coroner would later find nothing wrong. The shock was a physical blow, and the details of the following days blurred together.

After the funeral, Lynne offered to help Mara pack up the house—a sprawling, Victorian-style house on the edge of a misty, wooded valley. It was a place Derek had loved, with creaking floorboards and a porch that overlooked a creek. But now it felt hollow, and every corner held a memory. They worked in silence, packing books and dishes, when Mara said she needed to run into town to pick up some groceries and clear her head. She’d be gone at least two hours, she said, the roads were treacherous. Lynne nodded, and soon she was alone in the house, surrounded by cardboard boxes and the smell of dust and old wood.

Lynne found herself in Derek’s study, a room he’d used as a home office. She began sorting through his papers, when she found an old denim jacket draped over the back of his chair. She lifted it, inhaling the faint scent of his cologne, and her eyes stung. She hugged it, and for a moment, she could almost feel him there. That’s when she heard the front door slam. She jumped, then chided herself—it was probably just the wind. She walked to the door, opened it, and then went back to the study. But as she resumed her task, a new, chilling detail intruded: the smell of a lit cigarette, sharp and acrid, wafting through the air. Derek had smoked, but he’d quit years ago, and no one in the house smoked now.

Lynne froze, her heart thudding. She called out, ‘Mara? Is that you?’ But there was no answer. She told herself it was her imagination, that grief was playing tricks on her senses. But the smell grew stronger, and she began to feel a cold draft. She walked to the hallway, and the front door was open again, despite her having closed it. She slammed it shut, her hands shaking. As she turned, she thought she saw a shadow move in the kitchen. She went to check, but the room was empty. The cigarette smell was overwhelming now, and she realized it was coming from the basement door, which was slightly ajar.

Lynne had never liked the basement. It was old, with a dirt floor and a single bulb swaying on a cord. She descended the stairs, her footsteps echoing on the wooden planks. The smell of smoke was thick here, and she could hear a faint, rhythmic noise, like a rolling chair. She reached the bottom and saw Derek’s old office chair, the one he’d used before he got a better one, spinning slowly as if someone had just pushed it. The air was cold, and the light flickered. She whispered his name, ‘Derek?’ and the chair stopped. Then, a voice, low and gravelly, whispered, ‘Why didn’t you answer the phone?’

Lynne’s blood ran cold. She bolted upstairs, slamming the basement door behind her. She ran to the landline, but it was still dead. She grabbed her cellphone, but it had no signal. She sat on the floor, trembling, and realized that the basement door had opened again. She watched it, breathless, as it swung open slowly, and a wave of cigarette smoke billowed out. She scrambled to her feet, ran out of the house, and into the rain, not stopping until she reached the main road. She called Mara from a gas station, and when Mara arrived, Lynne told her what had happened. Mara’s face went pale, and she whispered, ‘He always hated that house, said it was haunted. But he never believed in ghosts.’

They went back to the house, but Lynne refused to go inside. Mara checked the basement, but found nothing—no cigarettes, no chair, only a thick layer of dust with no footprints except her own. The rest of the packing was done quickly, and they left the house for good. But Lynne never forgot the voice, and she became convinced that Derek was trying to tell her something. She started researching the house’s history and discovered that a man had died there in the 1920s, a recluse who smoked heavily and died of a heart attack. Strangely, the man’s last words were said to be, ‘Why didn’t you answer the phone?’, as if he’d been trying to call for help.

Lynne never spoke of it again, but every time she heard a phone ring, especially on rainy days, she would jump, and a cold dread would settle over her. She knew, somehow, that the dead don’t rest easy, and that some calls are never truly received. The last thing she ever heard from that house, or so she thought, was a phone ringing from inside, long after she and Mara had driven away, its shrill cry echoing in the rain, unanswered.