For days now, Ned’s phone had been on the blink. Almost at the point for a factory reset, he’s so fed up with it. Today is Thursday, if it is still playing up on Saturday he’ll drop by the phone shop in town, maybe they can sort it out.
On the train it rings annoyingly in his pocket, despite
being set to vibrate, a mad tune of shrill notes and groaning, like he’s
deliberately trying to annoy the other commuters. He thrusts his hand deep into
his jacket pocket and rummages around for the off button. For a second it feels
as though something alive tickles his skin, like a spider. He yelps and
withdraws his hand.
The old guy opposite, engrossed in his laptop, looks up and
frowns. Once he’s off the train, walking the familiar footbridge over the
platforms to his office block, Ned carefully opens out his jacket pocket and
empties the contents onto the ground.
His phone clatters to the concrete. Whether it is the trick
of the light or his own imagination, he could swear there were tendrils, like
plant roots, stretching out from the phone case. He kicks it, but it is just a phone.
He picks it up. The screen now has a long crack running across it. He tries
turning it on but nothing happens, and he groans. Broken and now no phone till he
can get to the shop on Saturday.
On Saturday, the phone fix-it girl places Ned’s phone in an
in-tray bulging with phones. She blows a bubble-gum bubble and then hands him his
receipt. ‘Check back by five, we’ll have looked at it by then.’ Ned smiles at
her, noting her name badge, ‘Manda’ but she blows another bubble and it pops,
sticking to her nose like a big pink bogie.
Later in the day, when the Manda returns from lunch, she
could have sworn the phones in the in-tray were all moving. Perhaps it’s too
much sugar and she sticks her gum to the bottom of the counter. Ned’s phone is
next, she picks it up and prises off the case.
Manda jumps in surprise, is something growing out of the
phone like plant roots, maybe a fungus? But whatever it was is suddenly gone. She
must be imagining things. Manda replaces the screen and then prises the phone
open. Inside the phone, a swarming nest of tendrils expands out across her
hands, crawling up her arms. She screams as they wrap their way up her body,
searching for a way to reach her brain.
At quarter to five Ned stops by the phone shop to see if his
phone is ready. There is no sign of Manda, just the sweet smell of old bubble
gum. His phone is sitting on the countertop so he rings the bell for assistance
and picks up his phone. It switches on with no problem and he scrolls through
his messages. The screen is repaired and it seems to be working fine. No one
answers the bell so, since he paid upfront, he pockets his phone and leaves, he
doesn’t want to miss the match tonight.
Manda’s brain responds well to the tendrils, despite it
being an old-fashioned biological processing chip. The tendrils reach out
through her work and they infest every phone she works on.
A few weeks later, Ned notices the person sitting opposite
on the train is acting weird. Shaking and shivering, as though he’s ill. The
guy is shaking so much he drops his phone. Ned asks if he is OK and reaches
over to pick up the dropped phone. He hands it back to the other passenger and,
as he does so, tendrils swarm out from the other person’s hand, twisting and
climbing up his arm before Ned can even scream. By the time the train reaches
his stop, the tendrils have infested Ned’s brain. He crosses the footbridge and
makes his way to his office block as usual, placing his phone in the security
tray full of phones at the front desk as he makes his way to work.
