What happened to Mr. Forster by Gary Bargar

Author:Gary Bargar [Bargar, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-21T13:00:00+00:00

Forster, Jack (Mr.) 7324 Arcadia Jackson 2-8846

“All right!” Paul said. “You want to dial?”

“No, you do it.” Something in my stomach rippled.

Paul picked up the receiver. He dialed Mr. Forster’s number.

We bent our heads together to listen. One ring. Two rings. Three.

“He’s probably not home. Let’s hang up,” I said.

Paul rolled his eyes and sighed at me.

On the fifth ring, someone answered. A man’s voice said, “Hello?” It didn’t sound to me like Mr. Forster.

“Hang up,” I whispered to Paul. Then I pushed down the button in the phone cradle.

“Hey! What’d you do that for?”

“That wasn’t Mr. Forster,” I said. “It was probably the wrong number. You would have been doing the Voice of Doom for a total stranger.”

Paul looked exasperated. “Okay. You dial.” He shoved the phone at me.

I dialed. J…A…2…8…8…4…6. Every digit was right this time. I was sure of it. My stomach did that rippling thing again.

Mr. Forster’s line rang twice. Then the voice. “Hello?”

“It’s the same person,” I mouthed at Paul.

But Paul went ahead. “Good evening,” he said, sounding like Alfred Hitchcock. “This is the Voice of Doom.”

“What?” the man on the phone said sharply. “This-s-s is the Voice of Doom.”

For a minute there was no sound at all on the other end of the line. Then the voice again, mad: “What is this? Who are you?”

Paul’s Voice of Doom got a little quavery, but he went on. “You must beware. Be-e-ware.”

The voice at Mr. Forster’s end drifted away, as if it was talking to someone in another room. I heard it say, “Jack.”

I motioned at Paul to hang up. Paul started to. Then the man’s voice came on again, loud. “I don’t know who you are and how you got this number, but I advise you not to call here again. The police—”

There was an interruption. Voices muttering out of range of the phone.

I couldn’t stand it. I grabbed the receiver and banged it down, hard. Two times, to be sure.

Paul let out a shaky laugh. “Boy. He sure sounded mad. I mean, he acted like it was some kind of crime. Not just a Halloween joke.”

“Maybe we better not call anyone else tonight,” I said.

“I guess not,” Paul said. “Anyway, it must be almost time for Shock Theater.”

I didn’t answer. I was thinking. Who was that man on Mr. Forster’s phone? A brother? Mr. Forster’s father, maybe? No, his family lived in Virginia. Whoever it was, I felt sorry for Mr. Forster if his friends were all that touchy. Would the man really have called the police?

“We better put the phone back,” Paul said.

“Yeah.”

But the whole time we were sneaking the phone and the phone book back into the dining room, I was listening for sirens. I half expected a black-and-white car to pull up in front of the house. I knew that man on the phone had no way of tracing us. But still…

“Snap out of it, Louis. It’s time for the movie.” Paul grabbed my shoulder and shook it lightly.

I let Paul push me into the living room, where Aunt Zona was just gathering up the last of her popcorn balls.

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