I Answered the Phone on a Plane

I recently flew home from college after the end of my fall semester. I'm currently studying abroad, commuting to and from Europe every time I fly home. I'm 20 years old. This wasn't my first flight, or even my tenth. But in all my years, I'd never actually seen anyone answer the phone. I was in my early teens when my dad first told me about the legend of the airplane phone. "You know there's phones on every plane under the seats, right?" he asked me. I had been on planes without once noticing them, but I had a habit of not paying much attention to my surroundings. "Yeah, I think so." "Do you ever wonder what happens when you use one?" "No." We were in the car, he was driving me to soccer practice. He had just picked me up from school. I was still pretty young, only in 9th grade. "I called one from a flight once, just to see what would happen." I looked at him, interested. "What happened?" "I don't know," he said nonchalantly. "I hung up." I'm not sure he actually did, or if he was just making it up. Anyway, I had this conversation with my dad years ago, and I was reminded of it as I settled into my seat in the back of the plane. It was a short flight out of Dublin and I was going home to the States for the holidays. I sat next to the window and stowed my luggage, then leaned back in my seat with a book. That’s when I noticed it. The phone was tucked into the magazine stand, connected to it by a thin wire. I had never even noticed them before, let alone seen someone call from one. I had always thought it was crazy that they were still here, now that we were all required to put our phones on airplane mode anyway. So I decided to call from it. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Euro, then put the phone to my ear. It rang for a moment before a robotic voice came on. “Insert more coins.” I held my Euro out in front of me, thinking there was a slot on the phone, but I realized that there wasn’t. I felt dumb and was about to hang up when a flight attendant approached me. “Sir, here.” She handed me a quarter. “I think you’ll need this.” I took it, stuttering a bit. “But I’m not American,” I said. “This isn’t my currency.” “Just take it.” I could see her smiling and I felt a stutter of gratitude. I thanked her and I put the quarter in, listening to the sound of it fall through the machine, then I heard a ringing again. When a voice answered, I was taken aback. “Hello?” I thought it was going to be an automated message. I didn’t know what to say. “Hello,” I repeated. “Where am I calling?” “I think we have a bad connection. You sound very far away,” the voice on the other end said. “I’m on a plane,” I said, feeling a little silly. “I just decided to call to see where it went,” I explained. “Oh, oh, oh. Yea, we get a lot of calls like that,” the voice said. I felt a little bad. I didn’t mean to be rude. “Can you tell me where I’m calling?” There was a pause. “Don’t hang up.” Then the line went dead. I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it. I had no credits on it to call again, and I wasn’t going to waste more of my money on it. About five minutes later, a flight attendant approached my seat again. “Sir, there’s a call for you.” I took the phone from her, wondering if it was my parents calling from home to see how my flight was. I felt bad, I hadn’t texted them since I’d left. “Hello?” “Don’t hang up. Listen.” It was a woman’s voice. She sounded very serious and very scared. I felt a slight tremble as I replied, “Ok.” I was hesitant. “Don’t say anything to anyone. Just listen,” she said. I was starting to get freaked out. I stuttered again, but the flight attendant was walking away. I didn’t get a chance to say anything. “Check the locks on the bathroom doors. Count how many people are around you. Don’t look back at the person behind you,” the voice said. “Ok,” I said, looking around me. I was in an aisle seat, middle row, and there was a man and a woman across from me, with two children next to me, one in the window seat on my left, and the other on my right in the aisle seat. I noticed the man across from me was looking at me. I smiled, but he looked away. There was no one in the row behind me, and the row in front of me was filled. “Do it now.” The voice repeated. I decided to play along. I got up from my seat and walked towards the bathrooms. There were three next to each other, and there was a fourth across from them. That one had an occupied sign on it, even though the light was green. I figured there was just a problem with it. There were small metal locks on each of the other three, about waist high. I saw the locks as I passed them, there was one on each door. I didn’t want to be too obvious, so I continued on, walking past the bathrooms to the bar. “Welcome to Ryan Air, where you even have to pay to use the bathroom!” A man said as I approached. I laughed awkwardly, not sure what else to do. I went to the bar and ordered a water, then drank it and went back to my seat. There was no one else in the aisle as I walked back, and I decided to stop by the bathrooms again as I passed them. This time, there were only locks on two of the doors. I felt a slight tremble. I didn't know what was going on, or what this was about. I decided to play along, and I felt a weird surge of excitement as I did. I walked back to my seat. I noticed the other seats around me as I sat back down. The family across from me was still there, and there were two guys in their mid-twenties behind me. In front of me were two middle-aged women, probably in their 50’s. The man across from me stared at me again as I sat, and I felt my heart beat faster. I tried to shake it off and brought my book up to read. I kept glancing around me, feeling a sense of unease. I decided to stop paying attention to everyone else and focus on reading. I had been reading for a while, I don't know how long, but I was about two chapters further than I was when I started. I had just stopped paying attention to my surroundings. That’s when I saw him. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a flight attendant approaching me. I pulled my book down and looked up at him. “Sir, there’s another call for you,” he said. He was smiling. I never even saw him come from anywhere, he just appeared. “I thought the call ended,” I said. “Oh,” he said, a slight smile playing on his lips. “Looks like it did,” he said, holding out a phone to me. I took it again, bringing it to my ear. “Hello?” “Don’t hang up,” it was the woman again. “Have you done what I told you to do?” “Yes,” I replied, looking around me. The flight attendant was walking off towards the front of the plane, towards the cockpit. I noticed the man across from me had a little smirk on his face. “Do you know who we are?” The voice asked. “No,” I replied. I was hesitant. “All of us in this plane are part of something called the sky cult. A few years ago, the leader of the sky cult was on a flight from the States to Ireland and we called him from the plane, warning him not to let the flight take off. We were too late, though, and the flight was shot down. The government blamed terrorism, but we knew it wasn’t true.” I had heard of the flight she was talking about. It had been in the news recently, since the leader of the sky cult was from the town next to mine. I had completely forgotten it was a resident of my state who was on the plane. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “Listen,” she said. “Every plane has four bathrooms, and there are four locks. If you see all four locks, you are in danger. There are people in the other bathrooms. If you don’t do anything, they will take over the plane and crash it, or hijack it. You’re the only person who knows this, and you have to stop it.” “I’m on a flight,” I repeated. “I’m already in one of them.” “Oh,” there was another pause. “Then you have to do something. How many locks did you count?” “I saw four at first, but then there were only three,” I said. “Oh no,” she moaned. “Don’t hang up,” she said again, then the line went dead. I looked around me, but everything looked normal. I couldn't see anything.

I Answered the Phone on a Plane

Comments (18) 37969 👁️