Mr Mumbles

Fingers shaking, eyes blurred with tears, I stabbed three nines on the keypad and held the receiver to my ear.

Nothing happened. I pulled the phone away and peered at the little LED display. The battery was still flashing, but it was hanging in there. The number was right, but it wasn’t working. Why wasn’t it working?

Trying to ignore the sound of the knocking on the window, I pressed the cancel button and redialled the number.

‘Come on,’ I hissed, as I waited for something to happen. ‘Come on, come on, come on!’

After what seemed like an eternity, I heard the ringing tone I’d been waiting for. Yes! In just a few seconds the line gave a faint click as someone answered.

‘Help me,’ I begged, not even waiting for the emergency operator to speak. ‘I need the police, there’s someone here. They’re trying to get into my house! Please, come quick!’

An empty hiss down the line was the only reply.

‘Hello?’ I said into the soft static. For a moment I could hear my own voice drift off into the chasm of silence on the other end of the phone. Another failed connection? I’d have to hang up and dial again.

Before I could end the call, a low moan reached my ear, breaking up and distorting as it travelled down the telephone line.

‘H-hello?’ I said again. My voice echoed back to me, and I could hear my own fear.

Further moans and groans crackled from the earpiece, low and menacing, but with some urgency in their tinny tones. As I listened, I realised the sounds weren’t just random groaning at all. If I concentrated I could almost make out what sounded like words. Broken words.

Mumbled words.

I concentrated harder still on the distorted, indistinct voice. And then, suddenly, the sounds made sense. I understood them. Every word.

Time to die.

I let the handset slip from my fingers. The plastic back flew off as it bounced on the carpet, letting the tired battery ping free. A low mumbling repeated over and over in my head – time to die, time to die, time to die…

I jumped as the CD player suddenly sprung into life. The electricity was off, yet somehow the orange LED display on front of the machine had blinked on. Hypnotised, I watched the track number display count slowly upwards. One. Two. Three. It made it all the way to track eight, then stopped.

For a moment there was nothing but the faint whirr of the disk spinning, then the music began, loud enough to shake the walls. I threw my hands over my ears to protect my eardrums as Nan’s Christmas hits CD kicked in.

You’d better watch out,

You’d better not cry,

You’d better not pout,

I’m telling you why,

Santa Claus is comin’ to town.

My finger flew to the power button. I pressed it once, but the music played on, drowning out all other noise. Again and again I stabbed my finger against the controls, but the machine didn’t respond to any of them.

Reaching down behind the player, I gave a short, sharp yank on the power cable. It would have to shut up after that.

But it didn’t.

He sees you when you’re sleeping,

He knows when you’re awake…

My whole body shook with shock. This couldn’t be happening. This was impossible.

Frantic with fear, I brought the baseball bat down hard on the CD player. The plastic casing gave a crack, the disk let out a deafening screech, and then silence returned to the living room.

I waited, bat raised, eyes fixed on the stereo. The storm howled outside, but inside all was quiet. Cautiously, I lowered the bat, turned away, and got back to trying to think of a way out of this mess.

Click. Over my shoulder, I heard the display on the CD player blink into life once again. Track eight kicked back in straight away. This time, though, it seemed stuck in an endless repetitive loop.

You’d better watch out, tsssk.

You’d better watch out, tsssk.

You’d better watch out, tsssk.

I lifted my leg to stamp on the machine. Suddenly, the window to my right exploded inwards, showering the room with deadly shards of glass. The couch shielded me as I threw myself to the floor behind it, my hands held protectively over my head.

As soon as the last pieces had fallen, I leapt back to my feet. A tall dark figure drew itself up to its full height on the other side of the sofa.

Another lightning bolt cast a blue aura around the figure, revealing his long dark overcoat pulled up to his ears, and his black hat pulled down almost to meet it. My mouth flapped open and closed, acting out the motions of screaming, but too choked with terror to actually manage the noise.

The figure fixed me with a beady glare and a million memories came rushing back, as if a dam had been thrown wide open in my subconscious. They were overpowering. Overwhelming. The sheer force of them nearly knocked me off my feet. They couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be happening!

Deep down, though, I knew it was. Deep down I finally understood exactly what was going on.

Mr Mumbles was back.

Chapter Five A NEW FRIEND (#ulink_9f59b003-1576-503d-b631-b5bc7b34b4e4)

I remembered.

Every line, every detail of the figure before me was…no, not the same. Familiar, but different. The Mr Mumbles of my childhood hadn’t been quite like this. He had been short and skinny with friendly, shining eyes and a gift for slapstick.

His speech had always been impossible to understand, but he’d made up for it with his wide range of comedy pratfalls and skilful miming. He had been my funny little friend. My very own Charlie Chaplin.

The thing standing before me now didn’t look funny at all.

The clothes were the same – the overcoat with its high collar, the curve of the hat. Parts of his face looked vaguely like I remembered – the bushy eyebrows, the big ears – but others couldn’t have been more different.

His once playful eyes were dark and sunken. He’d had jolly, rosy cheeks, but now they were pale and wrinkled, like old paper. Even in the dark I could make out the spidery, dark blue lines of veins creeping below the skin.

Every detail was so lifelike. He was so real. Solid. And standing in the middle of my living room.

I’m not sure, but I think even when I was young I kind of knew Mr Mumbles wasn’t real. Not really real, anyway. That’s not to say I couldn’t see him back then, but I suppose the way I saw him wasn’t the same. He was more like a ghost I could conjure up. A supernatural spirit dressed for stormy weather, invisible to everyone but me. My best friend.

Not any more.