The Call - Halloween 2026

Every year for the past approximately 40 years, I’ve written a Halloween story to amuse my family. Certainly the tone and level of the stories have changed as the years progress. Every year, I swear is the last. But that’s not this year!

The Call

The woman, Clarissa, stared at her cell phone, her face as white as chalk, her hand trembling. “Kids!” she screamed. The TV noise, a blaring stereo, and the yip-yipping of the terrier, fought against her.

“Turn it off!” she shrieked, running up the townhouse stairs two at a time. “Listen to me. NOW!”

Jerking open bedroom doors, snatching power cords from the walls, she could barely catch her breath as she corralled her two teenagers into the hallway. “Where’s the dog?” she asked in a voice containing unrestrained panic. “Find him!”

Her son and daughter, sullenly leaning against the hall wall, shrugged. “He lost his ball again, I think,” her son answered. “What’s the big deal? Shit mom, you look like you’ve had a cow.”

Clasping her trembling hands to her chest, she tried to control her breathing. “I never thought this day would come,” she muttered. “Grab a backpack and stuff it with essentials. Toothbrush, undies, whatever you need and can fit. We have to get out of the city this instant. Lord have mercy, I don’t know how long we have, but it’s already five minutes later than it should be. Get going, do it!”

Straightening up, her daughter tugged at her mother’s arm. “You’re scaring us, mom. What the hell’s going on?”

She shuddered as she answered her child. “I got the call. It’s happening. And we need to be out of the city as far as we can get before it hits. It’s war. Everywhere. War. Now move it!”

It felt like a nightmare that she’d awaken from as soon as the sun rose. But the sun might never rise again. As a member of Parliament, she was privy to information the general public never got. The message she’d just received had frightened her more than she’d ever been scared before. If not for her children, she’d have curled into a ball and waited for the end.

Grabbing her car keys, she hesitated in the kitchen before running into the garage. Food. They would have to survive on what she brought with them. Grabbing the trash can, she dumped its contents on the kitchen floor and began stuffing it with everything she could grab from the pantry. Bottled water, peanut butter, biscuits, dried fruit, cereal, bread, every can on the shelf. Knives. Pans. She gave up when the trash can started to tip over, and dragging it across the kitchen floor, she hit the release button on her keys and heard the boot pop open. Trash can safely tossed in, she raced back upstairs to grab a few things for herself. Her kids ran into her at the top of the stairs, their eyes wide and panicked. The terrier squirmed in her son’s arms. Suddenly, she realized feeding a dog wasn’t going to be her priority.

“Leave him,” she commanded. “We need to feed ourselves, and I don’t know how long.”

“No,” her son cried. “He can share with me.”

“Don’t you understand?” she countered. “We can’t afford sentimentality. This is about survival. Ours. Nothing else matters anymore.”

The scream of city-wide sirens cut through their argument. It was already too late.

The gray sky at noon was nothing new. Malcolm rubbed his tired eyes, grateful the baby had slept four hours straight. As prime minister, he was accustomed to long hours and little sleep, but he felt his age with this new baby. New young wife. Second baby in two years. While he relished his new role as father, he was very aware they were going to need help. Although Niamh swore she was going to be a hands-on mum and no one was going to deprive her of the experience, he really didn’t have the luxury of claiming the same privilege as a dad. They’d retreated to their country property, a nineteenth century home built by a nouveau riche middle class bloke, to settle down for a week or two after the second birth. Alana, they’d named the baby. She still looked like a drowned rat, but she’d come around soon. He hoped she’d look like Niamh one day.

The horses had already been let out to pasture, and he was sure the property manager had taken care of the rest of the animals, the goats, the ducks, the chickens, the sheep. Niamh loved the menagerie, swearing that they calmed her down and made her feel like a human being, and not just a brood mare. He cringed every time he heard her use the “brood mare” phrase, because if she would just be honest, she’d say she was the one who’d insisted on starting a family when he was well past the age of dirty diapers and no sleep.

Still, it was a new day and the beginning of the second week of his “paternity” leave. Politically, his taking time off had played well with the female voters. Devoted dad, waiting on mum hand and foot, and all that nonsense.

“Papa!” His two-year-old son was calling him from the upstairs. “Me go potty!”

“Coming, Liam,” he shouted from the front door. Closing it with a sigh, he trudged up the stairs to the second floor. Liam insisted on showing off his new-found skill, and evidently his mother had declined the offer to observe.

Poking his head inside their bedroom door, he waved at Niamh, who was nursing Alana. “Got it covered,” he said as he blew her a kiss. She looked like a Madonna, all glowing and gorgeous in her post-partum haze. She really had been born to be a mum, he thought. Wished he’d noticed before they got married.

Hurrying to the bathroom, he prepared praise for his young son’s new skill, when he noticed his phone wasn’t where it should have been. The upstairs version of the “hot” phone, the one used by staff to alert him to whatever mess was going on, wasn’t on its table by their bedroom door. Niamh had insisted it couldn’t go in their bedroom, feeling it was an intrusion in their marriage. Liam had been told he wasn’t to touch it, and in fact, it was situated in a case that no two-year-old could jimmy open. So who had it?

Question answered: Liam sat on his child-sized potty, the red phone to his ear, listening intently. Malcom chuckled as he recognized his son’s mimicking of him. Then he turned on his stern fatherly voice.

“Liam, you know you aren’t to touch that. Give it here this instant. Naughty boy!” Reaching for the phone, Malcom was shocked to hear a voice saying in a dead monotone, “Yes, sir. Weapons launched.”

“What” Malcom screamed into the phone. “What do you mean, weapons launched?”

“Sir,” the voice belonging to the general stuttered. “You gave the go-ahead. You said ‘yes.’ I explained the scenario, as instructed.”

“What weapons, aimed where?” His heart was beating so hard he thought it would explode.

“Why, to counter attack the threat from Iran. And Russia.” The voice sounded incredulous. “I explained it all, Prime Minister. Just now. When I requested the go-ahead, you said ‘yes.’”

Sinking to the bathroom floor, the red phone clutched in both hands, Malcom stared at it as if it were a venomous snake about to strike. “How long before contact?” he managed to choke out.

“Minutes, Prime Minister. A car is on its way to pick you up and take you to the bunker.”

“Very good,” was all he could manage. “Has the public been notified?”

“Not yet. A statement is being prepared now. All members of parliament have been informed, of course. You are needed in London, of course. Immediately.”

“Papa, I do poo-poo,” his child crowed from the potty seat. “I’m a good boy!”

He wished his son had never learned to speak. Never learned the word ‘yes.’ The fate of his country, his political legacy, and indeed, the world had just been decided by a two-year-old boy.

“Yes, yes. You are.” He had no idea how he was going to explain this to Niamh or the nation.

His son had just started a war.