Winona Morris always knew she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. When it became apparent that she was never going to grow up she decided to become a writer anyway. After sharing her multi-genre fiction on various free blogs over the years she has finally decided to lock her imposter syndrome in a closet so she could be a "real" writer.
She currently lives in coastal Georgia with her husband, 2 kids, and 8 pets. When not writing or working at the full-time retail job she's kept for nearly 2 decades, she likes to read and live vicariously through other people on social media.
Connect with Winona right HERE.
THE WIND PHONE
by
Winona Morris
At the edge of the graveyard, within eyesight of where all of Oliver’s family lay, they installed a telephone that didn’t work.
They called it a Wind Phone. You used it to call Heaven. Someone on the council had seen one online and thought a device to help with the mourning process was a good idea.
Oliver thought it was stupid. Had he been sober, he wouldn't have wobbled his way up the stone path or sat down on the bench placed at its end. He sat there, staring at the phone. Someone had painted it blue but in the dark, it looked grey, like everything else.
He wasn’t going to use it. Using a broken phone to call a dead person was nonsense. It would be great if it were real though. He missed his brother.
When it rang, he reached for his phone. Except he had left it at home, or the bar, or somewhere he wasn’t.
It was the Wind Phone.
Oliver stared at the phone as it rang. He thought he was imagining it, that it would stop eventually. When it didn’t stop, he answered it. He didn’t expect anyone to be on the other end, least of all his brother.
“Ollie...” the familiar voice whispered down the non-existent line. “.... miss you....” Then there was a low howling noise, something that was almost a word, something that was more terrifying than his dead brother talking to him.
He stood quickly, dropping the phone and staggering on weak legs. He fell hard enough to tear both knees of his jeans, and the skin inside of them. The phone dangled silently as he hurried away.
Still wearing the same torn jeans, the next day, he stood in front of the Wind Phone. It was earlier than he would normally get out of bed, and the sunlight shot daggers into his eyes and through his hungover head.
He wiped his sweaty palms on his thigh before reaching for the receiver. It wasn’t ringing this time, and he didn’t say hello. He just held it to his ear, waiting.
There was silence, and he felt foolish. “Ricky?” He felt silly calling out to someone who was dead and buried just yards away from him, and he almost hung up, before his brother’s voice whispered his name back. He didn’t say anything else, just listened as his brother talked. Then the howling came again. There were words in that howl, but he didn’t have time to figure out what it was saying.
His brother had asked him a favor.
He got what his brother wanted quickly but had to wait to go back. Any time after midnight would work, Ricky had told him. Just like last night, the graveyard would be empty.
Her name was Natalie and getting her to the graveyard had been harder than getting her to his apartment earlier that day. The fact that no one was around to see him dragging her by her hair, or hear her screaming for help, was very fortunate.
He grabbed the phone on the way to the grave where he shoved her down. Then he gently set the phone down beside them.
Natalie sat, rubbing her head where it had connected with the stone when she fell. Her hair had turned dark in that spot, bleeding onto her hand.
“What are you doing Ollie?” she asked, almost conversationally, like they had been back at his place, talking and acting like she wasn’t the reason his brother was dead. He kicked her, planting his foot firmly in her stomach, knocking her back into the headstone again. This time she slid to the ground, eyes glassy, but conscious.
“Shut up you WHORE!”
Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a small switchblade and flicked it open. “Do you know what this is, Natalie?” He crouched low beside her, holding the blade inches from her face. “This is Ricky’s knife. The knife he used to open his wrists when he found you screwing around!”
“No,” she tried to push herself away from the blade. “I never did that. I loved Ricky!”
He grabbed a fistful of hair again, and pulled her head backward, exposing her neck. He pressed the blade lightly against her throat, feeling satisfaction when a welt of red immediately blossomed under its silver.
“I KNOW you did because Ricky told me all about it when he called me this morning. He told me every sordid detail, and he told me exactly what he wanted me to do about it.”
“This morning? Oliver, Ricky is dead.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
He pressed harder on the blade, and the welt turned into a trickle. Oliver grinned in the moonlight, ready to give Ricky his revenge.
The Wind Phone rang.
“But first, I’ve got to take this call.”
Still crouched he turned sideways and lifted the receiver. He only heard the howl, louder than it had been before. He jerked the receiver away at the same time he felt a sharp pressure at his core.
Natalie had moved beside him, her fingers wrapped around the slim black handle of something that disappeared into the center of him.
“I’ve got a knife too you fucker,” she said, yanking upwards and twisting the blade as she removed it.
Natalie dropped her knife and ran. Oliver could hear screaming again, hear her crunching over the gravel path, and he could hear sounds coming from the receiver of the Wind Phone, lying on the ground near his head.
With one hand over his gut, he let Ricky’s knife fall and pulled the receiver to his ear. "Ricky,” he whispered, blood staining the mouthpiece. For the first time, he could hear the words behind the howling.
“Don’t listen to It, Ollie! That’s not me!” his brother’s voice roared as his vision faded.
And somewhere behind it, another voice laughed.