Cold Call

The Offer Was Too Good to be True

Words 1996

Something woke her. Laurel turned her head towards the window; the moonlight seeped through the wooded slats of the closed plantation shutters like a silent intruder. She reached out a hand to tap on her phone—the illuminated screen showed ten past two. Her husband’s deep, regular breathing told her she was the only one in the house awake.

There it was again—an unfamiliar humming sound— as if it was coming from downstairs. Laurel slipped out of bed and padded across the oak floorboards. Perhaps I left the dishwasher on.

The light on the landing, always left on for the children, illuminated her progress down the stairs. On reaching the kitchen she flicked on the light. Ruby, the cat blinked from her perch on the top of their new acquisition—a robotic, vacuum cleaner. The cleaner moved around the kitchen in slow circles, Ruby sat up proudly, resembling a jockey upon a thoroughbred racehorse. Gracie, the kitten, cowered in a corner.

‘Oh, Ruby!’ Laurel gathered the cat in her arms and released the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. Her gaze turned to the shining steel body of the cleaner. She imagined it much like an animal awaiting to pounce. Laurel frowned, still unsure of her feelings towards the machine.


The way they’d acquired the fancy vacuum in the first place had been unusual. It all began when Laurel took a cold call on the phone. That was out of character, she didn’t normally answer unrecognised numbers. The man’s voice had sounded friendly, and he’d assured her straight away he wasn’t selling anything. The company he represented was looking for a family to trial their state-of-the-art vacuum cleaners, he’d explained. He asked if her house had stairs, as this product for which they needed to test in the field, was a prototype with the unique ability to climb and clean stairs.

Laurel had been sceptical at first, after all, it was expected to sell for thousands of dollars he told her, and he was offering it for free to use for six months, with the option to purchase afterwards at a ridiculously cheap price. He’d asked her about the number of people in the family, and how many pets etc. She thought about the mess her four children, two cats and a cage full of guinea pigs made, and about her old, heavy, plug in vacuum cleaner and agreed to take him up on his offer.


Two days later, after the day care, kindergarten, and morning school run, she arrived back home to a large, plain brown box on the doorstep. It had no company name or return address attached.

That evening, after the children were all in bed, her husband Tom, opened the box. He let out a low whistle. ‘Now there’s a machine intended for business,’ he said, admiring the sleek lines and the promise of fine engineering beneath the stainless-steel body.

Together they downloaded and followed the setting up instructions, which seemed straightforward enough, but Tom frowned as he crouched next to the vacuum.

‘Where’s the dustpan on this thing?’ he murmured. ‘Where does all the dirt go?’ He re-read the manual until he found the explanation. The Etherclean uses a molecular disintegration system — it vaporizes organic and inorganic matter, converting it into energy to power itself.

‘Cool, even better,’ Tom nodded appreciatively, ‘now there’ll be no need to regularly unclog the thing, unlike the old one.’

They gave it a test run and watched it in action. Both laughed when four legs smoothly extended when faced with the carpeted stairs. It had no problems with ascending and descending the obstacle.



That had been less than a week ago and Laurel appreciated the benefits of not having to do the vacuuming herself, and yet she still had her reservations. The feeling of being watched— even judged—by that one red eye blinking in the corner of her kitchen, was something she couldn’t shake.

The children had given it a name and after much discussion—Muncher—because of its habit of munching anything they might leave around and of course there was no way to get anything back as everything was instantly vapourised. This had caused quite a few tears, but at least, Laurel thought, it was training them to put their toys and clothes away, something she’d never had much success in achieving.


But now, standing there in her kitchen, clutching her cat in the middle of the night and watching Muncher doing its own thing, unsettled her. She’d ask Tom tomorrow to reset the machine’s parameters but decided to keep her feelings and suspicions about Muncher to herself—she didn’t want him to think she was becoming paranoid.

‘Muncher has been cleaning out of the hours you set, Tom,’ Laurel told him the next morning at breakfast. She frowned and said, ‘I wish there was someway we could contact the manufacturer, I mean, that’s why we’re testing the thing, to find out and report any faults.’

‘I’ll reset it tonight, love. But you’re right, it’s strange we’ve heard nothing back from them.’


When Laurel returned home one day after grocery shopping, she noticed a slick of what looked like oil on the kitchen floor. Ruby, her normally placid cat, sniffed the dark patch. She paced and cried—a mournful sound Laurel had never heard her make before.

‘Where’s Gracie?’ she asked, as if Ruby might answer. Then she noticed Muncher wasn’t in its place. She dropped her bags of shopping on the kitchen counter and went in search of the missing machine.

Laurel paused, she listened at the bottom of the stairs and heard the now familiar hum. It wasn’t a day for cleaning upstairs, or she would have scanned the kid’s rooms beforehand. So cautiously, and not even knowing why she felt the need for caution, she climbed the stairs. The hum was emanating from the master bedroom. Standing in the doorway she could see Muncher’s rear end sticking out from under the bed and waited for it to reappear.

When it didn’t emerge, she crouched and peered under the bed. Muncher seemed reluctant to come out. Laurel saw the same dark slick of unknown origin on the carpet before noticing the tufts of grey fur and a tiny bell from Maisie’s collar stuck on the bristles of Muncher’s brushes.

‘Oh no! Gracie?’ she whispered, as she freed the tiny bell.

Muncher backed out from under the bed and began to circle Lauren, nudging her ankles as if it resented losing the item and demanded its return.


Tom attempted to reprogramme Muncher, but no matter what he did, the control panel refused to respond. He’d tried turning it off and even turned the power off and on at the mains before the realisation hit—the machine was out of his control. The control panel configured itself before his eyes, numbers and symbols flashed rapidly, until eventually it read, Phase two: Organics.

That night Laurel dreamt she was being chased by a swarm of angry bees, the sound of a thousand beating wings woke her, before realising it wasn’t a dream—it was Muncher.

Careful not to wake Tom she followed the sound downstairs where she found the vacuum cleaner circling the kitchen. It spun around and faced her, its red light glowing and blinking.

‘Muncher stop!’ she called out as it began to move towards her. But instead of reacting to her command, it sped up and smashed hard into her shins. Shocked, she grabbed hold of Ruby, trembling and cowering in a corner. Lauren turned to run but Muncher caught the hem of her nightgown and began to suction it in. The thin material ravelled in the whirring brushes; the neckline tightened around her throat. Laurel screamed and dropped the cat, tugging desperately to escape. She eventually broke free and ran upstairs. She heard repeated thuds as Muncher slammed against the closed kitchen door. For a few minutes there was silence—until she heard Ruby’s plaintive cries. Then nothing.

Laurel stood on the landing, her heart in her mouth. Tom still slept but the baby cried out in the nursery. As she soothed her son, her thoughts ran wild imagining what Muncher might be capable of.

Returning to her room she checked the baby monitor which stood on her bedside table..

“Tom! Wake up! We need to wake the children,’ she whispered.

‘What’s up? What’s happening?’ Tom groaned.

But Laurel had already gone to gather her children. She came back holding the sleeping baby. She shushed and soothed the others and placed them into the big bed.

Tom, who had pulled on a pair of sweatpants, sat on the edge of the bed, ‘What the hell’s happening, Love?’

‘Shh’ she whispered. Then, ‘Tom, look!’

‘Tom saw she was staring at the grainy, green tinged vision on the baby monitor. He watched Muncher leave the nursery and roll out onto the landing, heading towards them. It was as if it could sense their presence. The scratchy audio on the monitor amplified the sound of its hum. Then came another sound.

‘Oh God, it’s trying to get in!’ Tom gasped as the door handle began to turn.

Laurel clutched the baby, the other children, awake now, began to whimper and ask questions, sensing their parents’ panic.

Eventually the sound of Muncher’s motor diminished as it moved away and down the stairs. They stood silently, holding their breaths.

‘It’s gone,’ Laurel whispered.

‘You all stay here and keep the door locked. I’ll sort this out once and for all.’ Tom opened the closet and brought out his golf clubs, selecting a nine iron.’

He opened the door, Laurel whispered, ‘Be careful, Tom.’


He stepped out, closing the bedroom door behind him, and listened, but Muncher was nowhere to be seen. He moved stealthily down the corridor, peering into all the bedrooms before progressing to the top of the stairs. He heard a mechanical clicking sound and leaned over the banister. Muncher waited at the bottom of the stairs, red lights blinking.

Tom raced down the stairs, golf club swinging, his pent-up tension releasing in a torrent of abuse and anger. He launched himself at the malevolent machine, striking it repeatedly and cracking the outer casing. One wheel flew across the room but it seemed unstoppable as it latched on to Tom’s leg with its powerful suction, refusing to release him. Tom fell to the floor, screaming, Muncher rolled on to the prone man, the suction ripping pieces of flesh from his body.

Laurel raced down the stairs, yelling to avert the attention from Tom, the baby wailed in her arms, the children hung on to her as she tried unsuccessfully to drag Muncher from his victim.

‘Mummy, make it stop!’ a child cried out.

Suddenly there came a mighty flash. The lights went out and the humming stopped.

Laurel herded her family back up the stairs and into the bathroom. She locked the door.


The endless night had come to an end. Bird song infiltrated the bathroom as dawn bled through the shutters. They were alive. Laurel tried not to think about Tom— she needed all her strength—the children were relying on her. She placed the sleeping baby in her seven-year-old daughter’s arms.

‘Stay here. All of you. I’ll be back.’ She closed the bathroom door and left to check downstairs. There she saw Muncher lying on its back. It seemed broken beyond repair, its traversing wheels ripped off, the stainless-steel casing gaped wide open, oozing a sticky black liquid. Next to it lay Tom’s golf club, bent, and twisted.

Laurel turned away, frozen with the enormity of the horror.

The phone in her pocket rang, startling her into action.

‘Hello,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

Thank you for participating in the Etherclean’s household field trial. Data collection Complete. Prototype Two will be delivered shortly. Please ensure access to all rooms.

The call ended.

Muncher’s red light blinked and one by one the household appliances began to hum.