Horror Sensation

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@ DIAL 666 # By Andrew Campbell 1993 "So where do you come from?" asked Owen Banner. David planted his hands in his trouser pockets and kicked a loose chipping of gravel half way across the street. "Blackpool." he said quietly. Fiona Westlake gasped. "Blackpool? Wow! What the hell did you move to this dump for? Are you mad or what?" "Shut your face, Lake-o." Banner snapped. He was by far the most irritable member of the gang and quite obviously the leading figure. He was a strange looking boy of about fifteen, with big red lips that seemed perminantly uplifted in a threatening form and hair that was shaved to within a milimetre of his scalp. It wasn't too hard for David - even as a newcomer - to figure out that no one really approved of Banner's leadership. It was a position he had assumed rather than acclaimed. David smiled at Fiona. "My father died from a brain tumor. My mother and I couldn't afford to keep the house on our own because Dad was the bread-winner. So we found a place here." "Are you sayin' this place is cheap?" Banner put in nastily. David tore his eyes away from Fiona and frowned. "I'm sayin' its cheaper to live here than in Blackpool." "Leave him alone, Banner." Craig Jules said. Craig was smaller than David and looked about a year younger too. He had short blonde hair brushed back into a flat haystack and a pair of beady blue eyes which he blinked constantly. A girl called Pearl Cunliffe was stood beside him in a pair of tight blue denims and a plain white tee-shirt. David's eyes skimmed hers and she smiled at him unsurely. "How old are you Dave?" Craig inquired. His voice was delightfully friendly in contrast to Banner's. "Seventeen." David said. "You don't look it." Banner commented unpleasantly, eyeing David up from trainers to hairstyle. David was a handsome boy, dark brown from his afternoons laying in the coastal sun. He had jet black hair and a thin, developing moustache. Fiona waved her hand. "Get out of it, Banner. I'm seventeen too." "Really?" David grinned at her. "You're the oldest then." "Craig is fifteen." she pointed at Craig, then at Pearl, "And Pearlo is our baby girl cos she's only fourteen." "Fifteen in two weeks." Pearl murmoured softly and blushed. She was a slim little brunette with a cute, fox-like face. "Betcha think this street is a complete shit hole, eh Dave?" Banner said. He began to point out some of the features of the dull, red- bricked back-street in which all five of them were stood. It was early evening and the sun was fading, leaving the sky a wash of purplish-yellow. The air stank of litter and discarded fish and chip wrappings. Banner pointed a finger down to the far end of the road and, through curiosity, everyone followed him. "See that old phone box?" he said and looked at David. David didn't see it at once. He had been looking for either a modern B.T phone with a piper printed on the sides or an old, antique red one with demolished windows. There WAS a phone box down there, about fifty yards away, but this one was green and had no windows in it at all. In fact the more David looked at it the more he began to think it could have been planted there by a gang of forgetful workmen who needed a mobile connection to headquarters. On the door, in red spray-paint, some freelance graffiti-artist had rendered: # The Devil's Phone Box "What kind of a mobile toilet is that?" David chuckled. Pearl giggled in the background somewhere, along with Fiona. Craig came forwards and stood in front of David. "Don't even look at it, Dave." he said quite seriously. "That fuckin' shit-box is rigged up to some crazy-minded bastard." Banner was quick to put in: "Only chickens daren't go inside it." "Shut the fuck up, Bannister." Craig hissed, "Don't set him off." "YOU shut the fuck up, dicknose, I ain't called Banister and don't you ever call me that again or I'll break your face-" "Cool it, dudes." Fiona demanded. "Don't get so tetchy." "Just don't go near it." Craig warned. "Doesn't look dangerous." David shrugged. With two girls constantly watching him, he was almost aching with the need to show off. He turned to Banner. "Have you been inside it?" "Of Course." Banner said immediately. "Whatcha think I am? A fuckin' wet chicken?" "I wouldn't know, I've only been here a day." David said. "Does the phone work in there or what? I bet it's just a fuckin' toilet." "Hey Dave, don't." Fiona cautioned. "Don't go near it. Please." Craig was silent. David glanced at Pearl. She was looking concerned, which made him feel good. He liked it when girls were worried for him. It made him feel capable of doing absolutely anything. "Betcha daren't ring six... six... six..." Banner said softly. "Jesus fucking CHRIST!" Craig yelled and began to walk away, "I'm not hanging around here whilst you fuckers play with fire." "Wimpy little shit!" Banner laughed hysterically. Craig only waved his hand before breaking into a fast jog. "Whats so good about six-six-six?" David said, watching Craig's hair bounce around like a bush of golden leaves. He vanished out of sight around the corner of the street before the next word was spoken. "Six-six-six is the Devil's number." Fiona said softly. "If you'd have watched 'The Omen' or read the Bible, you'd have known about it." Banner clapped his hands merrily. "Ring that number and Fiona will fall in love with you. You'll be shaggin' her brains out before you can say `rubber johnny'-" "Up yours, fuckweed!" Fiona snapped furiously. "Pearl will let you have her cherry, won'tcha Pearl?" Banner giggled. Blushing, Pearl yelled, "Get fucked Bannister!" David began to walk towards the green phone box. Banner, Fiona and Pearl followed him - Banner cheering him on, the girls pleading him not to risk it. David didn't listen to either of the opposing parties - a phone box was a phone box, no matter what colour it was, what was sprayed on the door or whereabouts in the world it happened to be. As he approached this particular box though, he felt a sharp, chilly coldness prickle menacingly down his spine. # The Devil's Phone Box He didn't like that label at all. <=====> The green phone box did have a window albeit a very small and narrow glass insertion at the top of the door. It was dark and reflective and David watched his own face grow bigger as he approached, and behind, the images of Banner and the girls cautiously following him. The phone box was very old and tatty and the green paint was peeling away randomly, revealing a greyish metalic chasis. Screwed into the door was a large, steel handle. David carefully took hold of it in his right hand. It was icey cold. "David wait!" Fiona called and David smiled to himself. "Go on!" Banner laughed. "Open it! Betcha daren't!" David gripped the door handle firmly and gave it one huge tug. A weak latch buckled and clicked and the door swung open with a loud, eerie squeal. He saw an old telephone receiver hanging from a rusty cash machine on the right hand wall and underneath it, a wooden shelf holding a thick, heavily scribbled directory. There was nothing else inside the compartment at all, except for a lingering aroma of burned coal. "It stinks like someone torched a fuckin' donkey in there." David told the others. Banner stopped about six metres away from the phone box and folded his arms. Fiona and Pearl stood at either side of him, both wide-eyed and fidgety. "Take a look at the digits." Banner said. David strode into the phone box and examined the push-button dial. Every single number had been plucked out of its socket apart from the number 6. Small blue and red wires were protruding randomly from the empty black squares and the some joker had drawn a pair of curvy thighs around the vertical coin-slot. "Theres only the number six in here!" David called, his voice booming around the compartment like a lions' roar. Banners return call seemed distant and vague: "I dare ya to push it three times!" David laughed - a dry cackle that made him nervous and unsure of himself. He could still smell that strong burning aroma, but he couldn't pin it down to a particular source. The walls looked as though they were made out of lead and were covered with rude messages and drawings, mainly done in thick black marker pen. By far the biggest message, sprawled plainly over the top of the telephone machine, said : # DIAL 666 FOR AN UNRIVALLED CHAT-LINE SERVICE "Hey Dave!" Banner yelled. "You got any change or what?" David rumaged through his trouser pockets and came up with a fifty pence piece. He leaned out of the door to prevent his voice echoing. "It'd better not be one of those dirty lines, Banner. You might be into that pervy shit but I certainly aren't." "Come out, Dave." Fiona said. She took a step forwards but Banner placed his hand on her shoulder and halted her. "David, I gotta warn you kid!" Banner chuckled. "A few lads have rung that number and never been seen again. Of course, I rung it ages ago and not a blue fuck happened. Still, I gotta warn you." "Get real." David said, immediately recognising the sarcasm in Banner's voice. The guy was a liar and a creep. Making sure both girls were watching him, David picked up the heavy receiver from its cradle and placed it to his ear, expecting no sound at all. But there was a dialing tone. He'd never actually heard one exactly like it before but it sounded convincing enough. He placed the fifty pence piece against the metal slot and paused. "Banner!" he yelled. "What? Have you dialed yet?" "You owe me a quid if this line is crap." David inserted the coin between the comic thighs and released his grip. His money tinkled into the machine and the dial-tone crackled and loudened until it sounded like a queen bee buzzing. David placed his finger over the only digit he was allowed to use and clicked it down once. The line jumped and began to click. Staring out of the door with a smile on his face, David punched the '6' again, and winked at Pearl. He made up his mind that once he had dialed this stupid number and shown Banner that he wasn't a wimp, he was going to ask Pearl if she had a boyfriend. David pressed the '6' one last time. The clicking stopped and the phone began to ring at the other end. <=====> # "Hello David Walter Freeman." A harsh male voice boomed down the line. David's smile dropped. He stared at Banner suspiciously. # Has that dim fuckwit set me up? Is he having me on or what? Banner was staring into the phone box with his hands in his pockets. His lips were still and his face was blank. Beside him, Pearl and Fiona were arguing over something. David cleared his throat and said, "Hello? Banner? Is that you?" Wicked, manic laughter poured down the line. David dropped the reciever and stepped towards the door. It swung closed with a mighty scream and slammed against his nose, bursting it open in a spray of hot blood. The tiny room became a void of darkness. "BANNER YOU BASTARD!" he yelled and dabbed his nose with his wrist. The unhooked phone was swinging left and right, suspended on a curly grey wire and laughter - evil, soul-tearing laughter - was roaring out of it. "Jesus christ." David whispered. He pressed his back up against the door and frantically mopped up the blood from his nostrils. A faint rectangle of light was beaming into the booth from the letter-box-size window. David peered out of it. He saw Banner and the girls sprinting towards him. # Yeah, stay cool. They'll get you out. Nothin' bad will happen'. David placed his fingertips onto the small window ledge and pressed his forehead to the glass, trying to soak up as much light as he could. He hated darkness, he'd always been scared of monsters and things as a child... vampires and ghosts and ghouls coming out of the wardrobe to get him but until now he hadn't realised just how much of that fear was left in him. Banner and the girls vanished from the street and the sky began to fade from light purple to deep crimson. The buildings, the road, the old street lamps and litter began to blur into a soup of entangled imagery. A mechanical noise, like the sound of a grandfather clock chiming under water, began to rattle and boom outside somewhere and David felt his stomach buckle in the way it does when you decend in a lift. The laughter coming from the dangling receiver became louder and louder but David didn't hear it because he was screaming - screaming like an imprisoned infant at the mercy of some cruel, molesting relative. <=====> Banner tugged at the door of the phone box. "I can't open it." he said worridly. Fiona pushed him aside, "Let me try-" "You?" "Yes ME you useless fucker!" She began to yank the handle with all her might. Pearl volounteered to help and together the two of them wrenched the door wide open, releasing startled screams when the latch broke. "Jesus!" Banner waded back from the phone box, his hands against his forehead. "He's gone!" Fiona peered inside and saw the receiver swinging like a pendulum. She looked around the street, behind the phone box, even on top of it, but there was no sign of David. "He must have rung that stupid number." she assumed. "Is he gone forever?" Pearl asked morbidly. "Can't we get him back?" Fiona angrilly swung around to Banner. The boy was breathing in quick, exhasperated wheezes and his skin had gone pale. "You stupid shit!" Fiona shouted. "YOU made him do this!" "I warned him." Banner said weakly. "I warned him." "If he never comes back, it's YOUR fault!" she cried, her eyes as wide as pie-plates. "Now you go and fucking find him, Bannister." "No way!" Banner gasped. "Fiona don't make me... please!" "Someone has to." "I will." Pearl offered quietly but Fiona told her to shut the fuck up. Banner stared at the phone box and wiped his mouth. He altered his gaze back to Fiona. She nodded slowly. "Have you got a twenty?" Banner asked in a feeble voice. "I'm skint." Fiona dug three tens out of her trouser pockets and tinkled them into Banner's palm. He stared at the money for a few seconds then clenched his fist and began to walk towards the phone box. He gave the outside world a last glance before stepping inside the booth, inserting his credit and punching the '6' three times. Pearl and Fiona stood outside, holding the door securely with their hands ready to prevent it from closing. "It's ringing." Banner whispered. He was covered in goose-flesh; even across his forehead there were tiny pimples of fear. The call was answered "HELP MEEE!" David's voice screamed and Banner jumped. "David?" he said. "Where the fuck are you?" "BANNER YOU'VE GOT TO HELP ME! OPEN THE DOOR! OPEN THE FUCKING-" "Which door?" "I'M STUCK IN THE FUCKING PHONE BOX! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOOOOOR!!" "Mate, I'm sorry, I don't know how... where..." Pearl and Fiona screamed. The door of the telephone box was steaming. The girls' hands came away from it with bearing huge red blisters. Banner stared at them both with his mouth agape, the receiver sliding slowly out of his grip. "BANNER! Get out of there!" Fiona shrieked. She turned away just as the door slammed closed in Banner's blank, perplexed face. <=====> "BANNER!" David yelled hysterically. The line was still open but Banner wasn't talking. The receiver was jiggling around in his hand as though it was made of jelly. "Please help meee-uh!" His breath caught in his throat. The door of the phone box was gradually opening. Faint beams of red light were flooding inside, bringing also an overwhelmingly strong stench of burnt coal and live ashes. David dropped the receiver and pressed himself as far as he could against the wall opposite the door. His face became toned with redness as light trickled further into the phone box. His shirt transformed from white to pink, his jeans from dark blue to bottle green. He heard screams; distant, painful screams coming from the crimson world beyond. He heard the clashing of whips, the cries of tortured souls and the roar of white hot flames. A gusty wind, as hot as fire itself, tousled his hair and burned his eyes. As he took a breath, he realised the fresh air was no more - instead of oxygen, his lungs expanded with boiling heat. Beyond the door, outside in the nightmarish world to which he had been teleported, David could see a suspended pathway made of scorching hot cobbles leading off into the horizon. The sky was a swirling mess of organic clouds, filled with the terrifying screams and cries of lost souls. Far below the pathway was fire. An eternal sea of raging white waves, carried by the scorching wind to unearthly shores never told of by mortal man. David took a slow step forwards as though participating in some kind of immortal trance. The rubber soles of his trainers were melting away beneath his feet and he had to wrench them from the ground with every stride he took. Smoke was rising in narrow tendrils from the very ends of his hair and his clothes were beginning to singe. "Hell..." he whispered and a bluish-yellow flame licked out from his mouth like a demonic tongue. <=====> Banner smashed his fists against the door of the phone box. "HEY! PEARL! FIONA! HEY DON'T!" he cried but no one answered. The narrow window that had once provided the only source of light had now darkened over with what looked like mud of some kind, and he could no longer see out of it. "Come o-on," he moaned, cursing under his breath. The darkness was almost complete but Banner wasn't afraid of the dark. He wasn't going to be tricked by some hooligan playing around with a green phone box. It was all a set-up. # It had to be. "GET ME OUTA HERE YOU FUCKERS!" he demanded, pounding on the door furiously. Something clattered behind him and he swung round, eyes squinting into the blackness. He couldn't see but he had definitely heard something. "I don't know what you're trying to do but-" ? CLANG! He gasped with fright. # What the hell was that? ? CLANG! # Jesus mother of god. Don't let this be happen- ? CLANG! CLANG-CLANG! # I swear, I'm sorry for what ever things I did wrong- The noise tranformed into a thunderous racket that made Banner scream with terror. He felt something small and hard skim across his right trainer, then another dance across his left. "HELP!" he cried, but his voice was buried by the incredible racket. Dozens of what felt like small stones began to whack at his shins. Blindly, he took a step forward and plunged his feet deeply into a deep pile of cold, metalic discs. They were pouring out from somewhere and clashing together like a fountain of coins- # COINS! That's all they are! COINS! Oh Jesus! The cash vault had exploded and an impossibly large collection of change was pouring out. Even now, after only a minute, the floor was covered in slippery coins of all manner of shapes and sizes. Banner couldn't see them, and he couldn't see the gash in the machine from which they were all spilling, but he knew for sure they were just coins. He also knew that if they didn't stop coming out he was going to be buried alive. <=====> "Don't go in there!" Pearl begged Fiona, who had managed to open the door of the telephone box for a second time. Neither she or Pearl had expected to see Banner in there so nothing much had come as a shock. The booth was deserted and the receiver was swinging around by its cord. Fiona snatched Pearl's hands away from her jumper and stepped inside the phone box. She examined the ruined push-buttons and glided her hands down towards the telephone directory, which she picked up and examined. It had a worn, red sleeve, decorated with scribbles, but on the back in small, white print, read : # CHARGE FEES FOR CALLS TO THE UNDERWORLD # DIRECT CALL - 50p # EXTERNAL CALLS - 10p # REFUND - ONE LIVING SOUL Fiona stared at that last line again. "Banner." she whispered softly. <=====> David was ten strides away from the phone box when a loud crash startled him. He turned around. The door of the phone box had closed. Something had arrived inside it. The narrow window at the top of the door was dark again, but now reflected the red sky of the world in which he was standing. The door opened and a mountain of silver and copper coins exploded out across the cobbled pathway bringing with it the stiff body of Owen Banner. The boy landed face down onto the bulk of the coins, sending some of them showering off over the edge of the pathway and down into the white sea of flames far below. His skin was deathly white but he was still breathing. David, the cuffs of his shirt smouldering, turned the boy onto his back and lifted his eyelids. "Hate... loose... change..." Banner whispered and trickled a handful of pound coins through his bony fingers. Already his hair was catching alight. The phone rang. David scrambled for it, his gooey trainers picking up coins as he strode. He reached the phone box and lifted the receiver. It was scalding hot but David had somehow accumulated to the immense heat. "Hello?" his breath flamed again and caused the plastic phone to liquidate and bubble. "DAVID?" Fiona cried. "Where's Banner?" "Right here," he told her. A scalding, sticky clump of plastic plopped onto the floor and sizzled. "Fiona I'm burning up..." David wept. "Just stay in the phone box! Don't let Banner in!" "Are you crazy? He's dying!" "Only one of you can come back! It's an exchange you have to make-" "I can't leave him!" "David, for fucks sake you HAVE TO GET-" The connection broke. <=====> David peered through of the door of the booth and saw a flaming bird- like creature hovering on the horizon. Its wings were gigantic clusters of yellow-orange flames that left sparking trails of light in their wake. He ran out onto the pathway and began to pull Banner into the phone box by his legs. By now, Banner was smoking all over, his scalp was turning red and the tips of his fingernails were blackening. Whilst he attempted to drag Banner to safety, David glanced up into the sky to check on the bird-creature's progress. It was almost upon them. "Come ON!" he shouted to Banner. "We've got to get out of here!" The bird released a deafening cry of outrage. David could feel its presence in the form of an incredible heat wave. His clothes had almost burnt away into nothing and his skin was now a bubbling mess of red and pink blisters. It was only after the shadow of the burning creature loomed over him that David gave up on Banner and began to run for his own life. The coins that had fixed onto the sticky soles of his trainers acted as replacements. The roaring bird hovered like an exploded helicopter above Banner's body for a few moments then lowered itself down, two scorching talons outstretched to take him. David slammed the door of the phone box closed to help protect himself. He closed his eyes tightly and waited for Banner's screams. It was a very short wait. <=====> When David opened his eyes he found he was huddled up in a sweaty pile in the darkest corner of the phone box. He heard someone crashing on the door, trying to wrench it open from the outside. At first David thought it was the fire-bird returning to take him away like it had taken Banner. But when the door finally opened and Fiona and Pearl came into sight, he knew his ordeal was over. The girls were looking very concerned, which pleased him. "That triple six is one hot line." he told them and tried to laugh. But he couldn't. His laughter, like Banner, had been stolen away for eternity.