TWO, THREE, FOUR in the morning. The night is deep. Sleep is thick and woven in layers. The phone rings. My eyes open, but the room is darker than my dreams and I blink. The sound keeps ripping at my rest and I wish it would stop so I grab at it, grab at the sound. Is this a dream? My hand hits the phone and knocks it off the nightstand and it clatters to the floor, the handset coming off the base, and I reach for it, but I have to get out of bed to get it. A tiny, tinny voice comes out of it, calling my name. In the dark, swearing to myself, I fumble around for it and grab and the voice is still calling my name.
“David? David?”
“Yeah, what?”
“You’re all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, who is this?”
“Are you still working for Mister Stowe?”
“Wha’? Yeah. Is this. . .”
“Elaina?”
“Have you seen anything?”
“What are you talking about?”
The phone goes dead.
At that point I was awake or I woke up or I had been awake and I was, without doubt, on the floor with the phone in my hand, but I wasn’t entirely sure if the call had been a dream or real. If it was real, what was it about?