“I don’t think it works, do you?” Ana asked.

Rita shrugged. “How would I know?” She bent down so she could see the underside of the blue box attached to a rusted line on the side of a telephone pole that looked like splinters would jump off and attack if she got too close. “Do you want to use it?”

Ana laughed. “Of course not, but makes you wonder why it’s here when everyone has cell phones now.”

“Because some people you cannot reach on cell phones,” said a voice behind them that was as rusted as the nails long ago stuck into the side of the phone poll.

Both women spun around to find themselves staring at nothing, but the other side of the empty path. There was no one else around.

Ana laughed, but this time it was tinged with a wavering note that set the hairs on the back of Rita’s neck on alert.

“Let’s get going. I think I’m getting light-headed,” Rita said and took off down the path. “I could use a coffee.”

“Me, too,” Ana said, her voice still pitched too high.

Neither woman looked back as they walked out of the woods and neither ever mentioned the incident, but they also didn’t walk on that path the next time they were in the woods.