The New Uncanny by Etgar Keret, Ramsey Campbell, Hanif Kureishi, Christopher Priest, Jane Rogers, A.S. Byatt, Matthew Holness, Adam Marek Page B

that unlocked the keypad, but she fumbled it. She could not make her fingers go where she wanted. She tried again, muffed it again. She remembered Hike had an instant-dial number. Numero Uno , he said, when he had set it up for her five weeks earlier, just before he drove away.
    She pressed the speed-dial key, then the ‘1’ on the keypad. The ringing tone sounded in her ear.
    She moved the handset away briefly, to listen for sounds from upstairs. She went back to the door, peered out at the bottom of the stairs, the part of the wall where one of Hike’s old paintings still hung. The ringing tone continued.
    How late was it? She glanced at her wristwatch: it was just after midnight. Hike was sometimes asleep by this time. She felt the back of the handset growing slippery, where she held it so anxiously. Then at last he answered.
    ‘Hullo?’ He sounded curt, muffled, annoyed at being woken.
    She started to say, ‘Hike...’, but as she tried to speak the only noise she could make came out as a single gasping syllable. ‘ Ha-a-a-a! ’ That uncontrollable sound amazed and appalled her. She sucked in air, tried again. This time she managed a high-pitched squeak:
    ‘ Hi-i-i-i! ’ Silence at the other end. Humiliated by her own terror, she tried to control herself.
    Finally, she got his name out, nearly an octave too high: ‘ Hike? ’
    ‘Yeah, it’s me. Is that you, Mel?’
    ‘ Hi –! ’ She swallowed, took another shuddering intake of breath, concentrated on the words she had to say. ‘Hike! Help me! Please? ’
    ‘It’s the middle of the night. What’s up?’
    ‘Someone – there’s someone in the house! Here, when I came in. I found the door –’ Again she remembered what had happened at the start, just those few minutes earlier. That dread feeling when she found the door open in the night, the darkness within, the silence. She almost let go of the handset at the memory. She sat down, lowering her backside against the edge of her desk, but immediately stood up again. Trying to keep her voice low, but hearing the stress make it harsh, she added, ‘I think someone’s still here.’
    ‘Have you looked?’
    ‘Yes. No! I haven’t been upstairs. I’m too frightened. They might still be in the house! ’
    ‘Is this what it takes to get you phone me?’
    ‘Hike, please...’
    ‘How long has it been? Five or six weeks?’ Melvina could not answer, cross-currents of Hike and the fear of an intruder flooding together. ‘Is there anything missing?’ he said.
    ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’ The cross-currents gave her thoughts sudden freedom. ‘Was it you, Hike? Have you been over here while I was out?’
    He said nothing.
    ‘Maybe it was just local kids,’ he said after a moment. ‘Kicking the door in for fun.’
    ‘No... it’s been forced. A chisel, a hammer, something heavy.’
    ‘Are you asking me to drive over?’
    Hike lived more than an hour away, by car. He had always said he disliked driving at night. She had kept him away all this time.
    ‘No, I’m OK,’ Melvina said. ‘I’ve just had a fright, that’s all. I don’t think there’s anyone still here. I’ll be all right.’
    ‘Look, Mel – I think I’ll drive over and see you anyway. You want me to pick up my stuff, and this might be an opportunity to do that.’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I told you and you agreed, you bloody agreed, that you would send a friend to get the stuff. I want that room cleared out.’
    ‘I know. But you need me, otherwise you wouldn’t have called me in the middle of the night.’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll call the police. That’s what I ought to do.’
    Suddenly the phone went dead at the other end. Hike had cut off the call.
    She put down the phone, laid it on her desk next to her keyboard. A mistake! A mistake to call him... but there was no one else. The flashing LED on the answering machine radiated normality, and for a moment she reached over and rested her finger on the play