The Night Clerk’s Call

It was a Tuesday, late autumn, and the air had that bite that makes you pull your jacket tighter even inside a car. My father, a paramedic, had to pick up his new schedule from the dispatch office, a squat, brick building on the edge of town. My sister, Mara, and I tagged along for the ride, mostly to get out of the house and away from our mother’s endless cooking show marathons. We parked in the near-empty lot, the only other vehicle a beat-up sedan with a faded ‘Fischer’s Taxi’ sticker on the bumper. Dad jogged up the steps, his reflector vest catching the orange glow of the security lights, and disappeared inside.

Mara and I sat in the front seats, the engine idling to keep the heater blowing. She was already scrolling through her phone, earbuds in, bobbing her head to some indie track I didn’t recognize. I flipped through radio stations, landing on a classic rock song that was decent, and settled back. The dispatch office had a ground-floor window that looked into a reception area. Beyond that, I knew, was a small break room where the dispatchers took their coffee breaks. All the lights were off—it was a skeleton crew night, just one or two people on duty.

I glanced over at the office as I always did when we waited, a habit born from boredom. The reception area was empty, dark, the only illumination coming from a streetlamp that cast long shadows across the deserted parking lot. I turned back to the radio, adjusting the volume, and then, for no reason I could name, I felt a pull to look again. It wasn’t curiosity; it was a dull, insistent tug, like a fishhook in my chest.

When I looked, I saw her. In the tiny break room, behind the reception area, there was a figure sitting in a chair. She was a woman, middle-aged, with hair the color of weak tea, thin and curly, pulled back in a loose ponytail. She wore a white button-up shirt, the kind nurses wore, and she was holding a landline phone to her ear. As I watched, she lifted her other hand and gestured outwards, as if emphasizing a point in a conversation. But there was no one else in the room. And more importantly, the phone cord—I could see it clearly in the half-light—was not plugged into anything. It ended in a ragged fray, copper wires exposed, hanging limp near her feet.

I stared, my breath fogging the window. She continued her conversation, her lips moving, her hand waving. Then, as if sensing me, she turned her head sharply and looked directly at me. Her face was pale, almost translucent, and her eyes were dark hollows. She smiled—a slow, deliberate smile that didn’t reach her eyes—and then she pointed at the phone in her hand, and pointed at me. She mouthed something. I couldn’t read her lips, but the gesture was clear: she wanted me to pick up the phone.

I tried to look away, but my neck felt locked, my eyes glued to her. She slowly placed the phone back on its cradle—I saw it materialize on the small desk beside her, a bulky beige thing with a coiled cord—and then she stood. She walked to the window of the break room, which was a separate pane just feet from where I sat. She pressed her palm against the glass, and I saw her mouth form the words, ‘Please.’ Her expression was desperate, pleading, and for a moment, I felt a surge of pity.

Then the palm print began to change. The flesh on her hand seemed to melt, the skin sliding off in gray, putrid strips, revealing bone and sinew beneath. She didn’t flinch. She just kept staring, her smile widening, her teeth now black and rotten. I finally broke free of my paralysis and screamed, throwing myself back against the seat. Mara yanked her earbuds out, startled, and asked what was wrong. I pointed at the window, but when we both looked, the room was empty. The chair was in place, the desk bare.

Dad came out a moment later, his schedule in hand, and asked why we looked so shocked. I told him what I saw. He laughed it off, said the old office had been closed for years, that the break room was nothing but storage now, full of old furniture and boxes. ‘Maybe you saw a reflection from the street,’ he said, though there was a quiver in his voice that I didn’t like. He started the engine and we drove home in silence, except for Mara’s music and the hum of the road.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept replaying the image of the woman, her melted hand, her desperate ‘Please.’ Around 2 a.m., the house phone rang. I answered it, thinking it would be Dad’s partner calling about a shift change. But there was only static, then a woman’s voice, faint and crackly, like it was coming from a long distance. She said, ‘He never called back. He left me waiting. Now I’m stuck here, always waiting. You saw me. You must have. Will you tell him?’

I dropped the receiver, my heart pounding. I called out for Dad, but he was already standing in the hallway, his face pale, holding his work phone. He said he’d just gotten a call from the dispatch office, asking if anything was wrong. They said a mysterious interference had been recorded on their line at 2:00 a.m. exactly—a faint voice, whispering a name. My name.

We never went back to that office. But sometimes, late at night, I’ll see a phone ringing on a table that shouldn’t be there, and the caller ID shows ‘Unknown.’ And when I answer, there’s that voice—the woman named Elsie, the night clerk who died in that break room forty years ago, waiting for a call that never came. She always asks the same thing: ‘Will you tell him I’m still here?’ And every time, I hang up, but I know she’s not done with me. She’s patient. She’s been waiting a long time.