She answered a phone call from her own number. It wasn’t obvious at first but after she said, “Hello,” she glanced at the caller ID on her old-fashioned answering machine, to see who was calling. notelpmeT ecilA, the red LED letters spelled, backwards. “Alice Templeton,” she questioned, recognizing her name. The device showed her own phone number, backwards as well. “Hello,” she said again, curiously wondering how she was calling herself. She pulled the handset away from her ear and looked at it, as if it would tell her what was going on. She heard the faint voice of a woman coming from the speaker so she put it back to her ear. “6, 5, 4, 3, 2,” she heard and then electrifying static. She looked at the handset again and then hung it up, almost throwing it into its cradle. A dial-tone hum started coming from the base speaker. It grew in volume until it was almost too loud to tolerate. The piercing monotone sound filled Alice’s small dark apartment as she stepped back away from the phone. The dial-tone stopped with the first beep and she realized the phone was dialing a number. She listened as the phone started ringing, waiting for someone to answer. There was a loud and sharp click, and she heard a voice say, “Hello?” Alice tilted her head at the voice, almost like a dog when they hear a strange sound. She knew that voice. It took her a moment of thought, but then she recognized the voice. It was ‘her’ voice! It grew darker in her apartment as storm clouds took over the evening sky. She heard “Hello” again and she moved to the phone to answer it. She picked up the handset and put it to her ear again. Only a dial-tone could be heard. She hung up again as an unsettling darkness surrounded her, so she went to a light switch on the nearby wall. As she flipped the switch to the on position, a bright flash of lightening entered her room and the light switch “popped”. A deafening crack of thunder filled the evening air and the floor shook under her stocking feet. Again, the phone produced another dial-tone and then the beeping of the numbers, in similar musical pattern. Another “Hello” came from the speaker. “Hello,” the voice repeated and then the phone disconnected for the second time. Alice suddenly felt her head begin to spin, not with the room, but rather like her brain was spinning inside her skull. She leaned against the wall to brace herself and the dial-tone noise pierced the relative quiet of her room again after about two minutes. The dial-tone, and then the beeping again. She tried to answer again but was again, only met with the dial-tone. Alice hung up the phone again and the dialed out once more. Just the dial-tone and the beeping of the numbers, then the “Hello” twice, and the disconnect and silence. “Enough,” she thought. Alice went to sit on her bean bag chair in the corner. The faux leather cover wrapped around her as she sank into the softness. Thankfully, the phone didn’t ring again for another hour or so. When it did ring again, she just stayed in the comfort of her big, round chair and ignored the ringing. But this time when the voice came through, it said, “I can’t get to the phone right now so leave your name, number and reason you called and I’ll get back to you, eventually!” She heard a silly laugh as the message faded off and the machine beeped, and again, Alice recognized the voice. Her voice! She pushed herself up from the bean bag and went to the answering machine. She pushed the “replay” button on the device and nothing happened. She pushed the button over and over again and nothing happened! Alice grabbed the phone cords that were plugged in to the base and ripped them out, breaking their clips as they came loose. The power supply cord and the phone cord fell to the floor, but the power button still glowed red. She slapped the phone off the shelf and it crashed on the floor, spraying plastic parts everywhere on the wood floor. She screamed, “Arrrrrghh,” as she dropped her arms in disgust and went to the closet to retrieve her broom and dustpan. When she returned, the phone and answering machine were back on the shelf, intact, as though they were never broken. “What,” she screamed, curious and also now afraid. She even wondered if someone was in her apartment, pranking her. But the answering machine was back together, with a scratch. “This is nuts,” she thought as she wondered what to do. She hesitantly picked the phone up from it base and put it to her ear. No dial tone. No beeping. No static. She gasped in disbelief and then she heard something coming through the speaker pressed against her ear. It also sounded like a gasp. He muttered a broken “Hello”, and in response, she heard her own voice say “Hello”. She thought maybe it was an echo of her voice so she whispered “Hello” again and the whisper came back to her exactly like she said. Almost in sync with her own voice. She thought for a moment and then Alice yelled into the mouthpiece, “Who is this?” the voice in her ear yelled the same thing, barely a millisecond after she yelled it. “Get off my phone,” she demanded. But this time the voice spoke directly to her. “I’m sorry but we cannot call out without help Alice.” “What,” she asked back. “We cannot call out Alice. They have to call out. We just take messages.” “What are you talking about,” Alice now pleaded. “We cannot call out because we are just the machine. The others have to use us to speak to whomever they need. We just record the messages for when they are not here.” “We what,” the mechanical voice asked herself.