Free New Title 1 by Edward Lee, David G. Barnett Page B

noise erupted in the room.
    Helton, Dumar, and Micky-Mack leapt up, eyes darting, positions shifting, hands opened to futile claws.
    “The hail’s that? ” Micky-Mack yelled.
    Dumar hooted at the loud, semi-rhythmic jangling that continued to spill sourcelessly into the primitive room. “Sounds like—sounds, like…sounds almost like the ringin’ of a telephone! ”
    “Yeah!” Helton barked. “And we ain’t had a telephone in years!”
    The jangling, unnatural din drew on and on as the three men pranced about in utter confusion, trying to locate the noise’s source. But it was Micky-Mack—whose younger aural facilities were perhaps better capable of identifying proximity—who swept upon the box that the DVD player had come in. He reached down as if into a snake-pit, then, with eyes abloom, withdrew…
    “Look!” came Dumar’s hushed exclamation.
    Helton stared with all intentness.
    What Micky-Mack now held in his hand was a small rectangular object roughly five inches long and two wide. It was very slim. And there could be no doubt: that blaring, jangling, unnatural ringing was coming from the object.
    “What the fuck is that?” Helton voiced.
    “Unc Helton!” Micky-Mack shouted. “It were in the same box the machine come in and I think… I think it’s one’a them things they call…a cellphone… ”
    A cellphone, thought Helton in all perplexion. He’d heard myths about such things: tiny telephones folks carried ’round in their pockets like a pack’a Luckys— telephones that mysteriously didn’t need no wires!
    It rang and rang. Micky-Mack, with a shaky hand, passed the cryptic device to his uncle.
    “Guess ya should… answer it, Paw,” Dumar figured.
    “How ya reckon I do that?” Miffed, he held the thing to his ear and said, “Hello?” but it just kept ringing. “Jesus! That noise is irkin’ me fierce! What I gotta do?”
    Still amazed, Micky-Mack stammered, “I’se think ya… open it, Uncle Helton. I seen a fella once in Crick City with one, and he somehow opened it…”
    Helton’s big, callused fingers fumbled with the Liliputian device, but eventually the top half lengthwise did indeed open, and the instant Helton achieved the feat…
    A thin, depthless voice from nowhere could be heard squawking.
    “Anyone there?” said the agitated caller in what was most likely a Jersey accent. “Jesus Christ, Argi, I don’t think these hayseeds even know how to answer a fuckin’ phone…”
    “Put it back to yer ear, Unc,” Micky-Mack suggested.
    Helton did so. “Huh-huh…hello?”
    “It fuckin’ took ya long enough,” the voice cracked back. It seemed to emit—again, impossibly—from a pinhole at the top.
    “You there, asshole?” the voice asked.
    “I’se here…”
    “Good. Now which goober is it I’m talkin’ to? Would it be Doooo-mar or Helton or Micky-Mack— ” and then a tiny, etching laugh spilled from the hole. “Holy fuck, fella, where you rednecks get these names?”
    “I-I’se Helton—”
    “Well, good, fuckface. Now, you don’t know me but—”
    “Ain’t no one else ya can be ‘cept Paulie!” Helton roared.
    “That’s right, cracker, I’m Paulie, and it was me and my crew did the job on that snivelin’ little inbred kid of yours. You did see the movie, didn’t you?”
    Helton gulped, trembling in place. “Yeah. We shore did.”
    “Good. Fuck, I’ll bet it took you rubes three or four hours to figure out how to set it up—”
    “It didn’t take but one hour, you evil, low-down bastard!”
    Paulie laughed over the seemingly supernatural connection. “I’ll tell ya, Helton, we had a blast killin’ that kid! Man, it was sweet! Got all our dicks hard it was so sweet! Kid shittin’ and pissin’ himself, cryin’ for his daddy and his uncle, and we just kept tellin’ him ‘They don’t want you no more, ya little booger,’ and then we’d push his head in and pull it out, and push it in and pull it out—fuck, it was fun!”
    “Who