Strange Happenings - Chapter 5

Darren had called his Mum twice a week since he'd moved in to his own house. It was never a great relationship, his dad had died when he was very young. He had no brothers or sisters and his mum had been very strict during his childhood.

She had never spoken of his dad very much other than the odd remark and when Darren had started to ask questions, she tended to ignore him.

He never seemed to be able to make friends at school either. He put this down to his mum though. She wouldn't allow him to go on school trips or to have anyone around to the house. Apart from Samantha, Darren had only had one other girlfriend which only lasted about two weeks when he was 18.

Regardless of his unhappy childhood, he still rang his mum regularly each week on a Monday and Thursday. He hadn't seen her now for almost four months.

It was a Monday and he rang her at the usual time of 4 o'clock. "Mum, it Darren, you ok?" he asked as the phone was picked up. "Sluuuurrrrrppp" came the response in an horrible sucking like sound. "MUM, it's Darren, can you hear me" he said.

Again the same response with a louder tone "sluuuurrrrrrp" came down the earpiece of Darren's phone. He thought he'd obviously dialled the wrong number and somebody was just fooling around. He decided to hang up and dial again. The slurping and sucking sound repeated just as Darren tried to remove the phone from his ear.

The phone wouldn't move from Darren's right ear. It was stuck solid. Darren panicked immediately. He tried to pull it off using both hands but it wouldn't budge. He grabbed the mouthpiece and pulled upwards with both hands and just for a fleeting second, it started it give way but then it flicked back down against his ear with greater force.

"Arrhhh" he screamed as he realised it was stuck to him by some kind of suction and the loud 'slurping' sound still continued down line.

Darren grabbed the base unit of the phone, ripped the cord away from the wall and ran into his bathroom to look in the mirror. He wasn't sure what scared him more, the sight of the phone stuck by incredible suction to his ear or the fact that even though it was no longer connected, the loud slurping noise continued through the earpiece.

He continued to try and pull the phone away from his ear, it was really hurting him now and the sound was getting unbearable. Looking in the mirror at the same time, Darren could see his head was getting somehow smaller and was beginning to warp.

"Noooooooooo!" he screamed as he realised his whole head was slowly being sucked into the phone. The slurping noise continued and Darren relentlessly tugged and tugged at the phone. He watched himself in the mirror with horror as his head continued in its tortuous shape shifting journey into the phone.

Darren felt like his head would explode. It hurt like nothing he could ever imagine, it was burning him and the slurping sound continued but in the agonising torment of the suction, it sounded different. It was more of a high pitch squeal, no, more like a ringing sound.

Darren closed his eyes with the pain of it all, he continued to resist and tried desperately to pull the phone away from his ear. The pain was getting worse and so was the ringing.

Darren suddenly opened his eyes and realised he was somehow back in the hall and the base unit was back on the phone table near the front door. The pain had eased, almost disappeared but the ringing was still there. Again it was different though. He relaxed and tried to concentrate on the sound.

'Ring Ring, Ring Ring' Darren noticed the handset was free and back on the base unit. He realised the phone was ringing. "What the hell is going on" he thought.

Reluctantly he answered it, ensuring his ear didn't actually make contact with the phone this time. "Hel ...Hello" he said down the mouthpiece cautiously. "Darren, it's your Mum, you rang me and then you hung up! Are you ok?". "mum? Mum, I'm fine" Darren said as he breathed a sigh of relief and came to the realisation that it had all been some kind of bad hallucination.

When Darren finally finished his conversation with his Mum, he hung up the phone and started to shake and cry as he looked at the phone plug on the lower wall. It was unplugged.