1408- Voice from the Telephone

He meant to jab out a hand to the old-fashioned telephone—the
twin of the one in the bedroom—and snatch it up. Instead he
watched his arm descend to the table in a kind of delirious slow
motion, so like the arm of a diver he almost expected to see bubbles
rising from it.

He closed his fingers around the handset and picked it up. His
other hand dove, as deliberate as the first, and dialed 0. As he put the
handset of the phone against his ear, he heard a series of clicks as the
dial spun back to its original position. It sounded like the wheel on
Wheel of Fortune, do you want to spin or do you want to solve the puz-
zle? Remember that if you try to solve the puzzle and fail, you will be
put out into the snow beside the Connecticut Turnpike and the
wolves will eat you.

There was no ring in his ear. Instead, a harsh voice simply began
speaking. “This is nine! Nine! This is nine! Nine! This is ten! Ten! We
have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six!”

Mike listened with growing horror, not at what the voice was say
ing but at its rasping emptiness. It was not a machine-generated voice,
but it wasn’t a human voice, either. It was the voice of the room. The
presence pouring out of the walls and the floor, the presence speak
ing to him from the telephone, had nothing in common with any
haunting or paranormal event he had ever read about. There was
something alien here.

No, not here yet . . . but coming. It’s hungry, and you’re dinner.

The phone fell from his relaxing fingers and he turned around. It
swung at the end of its cord the way his stomach was swinging back
and forth inside him, and he could still hear that voice rasping out of
the black: “Eighteen! This is now eighteen! Take cover when the siren
sounds! This is four! Four!”
...

The telephone continued to grind and spit,
the voice coming from it now the voice of an electric hair-clipper that
has learned how to talk: “Five! This is five! Ignore the siren! Even if
you leave this room, you can never leave this room! Eight! This is
eight!”

- 1408, chapter II