Benjamin Crawner awoke to an odd screeching sound outside of his window. He lay frozen for a few seconds as the sound gradually faded away, replaced once again by the sound of crickets and squirrels that inhabited his backyard. He rolled over in his bed to check the time on his alarm clock. 3:57. He was planning on getting up earlier this morning, so why not start now? Besides, he was curious as to what that sound was. Surely it couldn't be the groundskeepers, it was too early for that. Crawner's house was one thin fence away from an apartment complex where every day there would be groundskeepers outside, messing about the leaves with leafblowers. Nobody used a rake in Crawner's neighborhood, which bothered him. It was much cheaper, more effective, and less annoying that the inconsistent machines. But he tried to ignore it as much as he could before he took the mid-day shift at his retail job at what passed for this town's mall.

Crawner slid out of bed rather lazily and threw his clothes on, rather lazily, and then he turned on his computer, rather lazily, and then he went to take a piss, rather lazily, and then he went downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee, rather lazily, and then he opened the blinds on his sliding glass door, rather lazily, and then he noticed the big blue box in his backyard, parked rather lazily, and then he made himself a sandwich, rather lazily, and then he made a sudden realization, rather-oh, wait, he performed this action quite quickly. He ran back to the glass door and looked outside again just to confirm what he, rather lazily, barely noticed seconds before.

And there it stood. A big blue box in his backyard. It had a lit-up sign above the door that read POLICE BOX, and there was some more writing on a small white panel on one of the doors. Crawner ran to the front door to get his shoes, which he threw on as quickly as he could, then ran back to his glass door. He wasn't hallucinating, the box was still out there. He opened the door and walked outside. The bitter cold quickly reminded him of the fact that it was 4 in the morning, something that had slipped his mind by his sudden wakefulness at this new development. He shivered, but continued to make his way towards the box. The writing on the sign read Police Telephone free for Use of Public - Advice & Assistance obtainable immediately - Officer & Cars respond to all Calls. Then in rather large letters read PULL TO OPEN.

So Crawner did.

Nothing happened.

The door wouldn't seem to budge no matter which way he tried to open it. Defeated, he gave up on trying to open the strange box and settled for examining it instead. He walked all around it until he made his way back to the front. He looked up at the top of the box, and it had a small blue light that repeatedly flashed on and off. Curious. Then again, this whole situation was curious indeed. He backed away from the box and sat on the grass for a few minutes.

"What are you?" He said. "And where did you come from?" He scoffed at himself. Talking to a telephone box. What had his life come to.

Then, as if by some miracle of chance, the box made a sound. A loud sound. A loud whirring sound. A loud whirring screeching sound. Cranwer backed away from the box slowly until he was pressed up against his house. The box kept getting louder and louder until it suddenly stopped. Crawner let loose a breath that he had not realized he had been holding and ran to the side of his house, out to the front. Once there, he looked up and down his street. 4 AM, nobody's up yet. That's either really good or really bad. Crawner looked down his street: Nothing unusual. Crawner looked up his street: Again, nothing out of the ordinary. With a quick pull of breath he ran up the hill a bit, to the next duplex that was beside his, and to the farthest unit. He ran up to the door and pounded like a madman.

"Irene! Irene, you better come out here quick! You're not gonna believe this!" He yelled.

Irene Simmet was Crawner's friend and coworker. They had known each other since they were teenagers, and they had become fast friends mainly due to their shared love of science fiction, fantasy, books, movies, music, tv shows, you name it. Ordinarily, Crawner usually walked to Irene's house at 10:30 AM so they could walk to work together, but today was no ordinary day. He kept pounding at the door until she finally answered.

"Ben, it's four in the fricking morning, what do you want at this ungodly hour?" She said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Crawner knew that when she had her mornings ruined, it never ended well.

"Irene, I'm so sorry to wake you up, but there's something in my backyard that you are not going to believe"Crawner said hastily.

"Did one of Jim's dogs crap in your lawn again? Seriously, that's not reason enough to wake me up, man" She said irritably.

"No no no, it's nothing like that." He thought for a moment. "You'll think I'm crazy if I tell you, but it's something you just gotta come see. Get something warm on and come outside. I'll wait for you" He finished. Irene nodded, clearly pissed because Crawner had pulled these kind of antics before, but nonetheless she agreed. A few minutes later she followed him to his backyard, and he showed he the blue box.

"What the hell?!" She exclaimed. "Why do you have a 'Police Box', whatever that is, in your backyard?" She asked.

Crawner shrugged. "I have no idea how it got here. I heard a noise this morning, got up, went out here and I found it just sitting here." He motioned towards the door handle. "Still have no clue how to get inside it though. pulling and pushing didn't work, so I assume it's locked."

For a while the two just stood there dumbstruck until Crawner offered her a cup of coffee and the two sat outside trying to figure out what the telephone box was doing in his backyard and trying to stay warm at the same time. They eventually distracted themselves from the peculiar situation by talking about work and their plans for the weekend, to joking around. During this reparteé, Crawner noticed something strange; the light that was flashing had suddenly stopped doing so. He pointed this out to Irene. The two began to walk towards the box. It began whirring and screeching again, but it sounded different this time. It sounded...Healthier? That was the only word that Crawner felt was fitting. The sound had definitely changed from last time, and that made him uneasy. That's when the two of them heard a loud crash, followed by muffled grunting and screaming coming from inside. They looked at each other and took a step back from the door. A good choice, considering what happened next.

The doors of the blue box flew inwards, and a man stood in the doorway. He looked to be in his late twenties to early thirties, with dark ruffled hair that seemed just slightly too long, green eyes, decent chin, and a smirk on his face. His clothes were tattered and torn, but before they probably were a suit of some kind, perhaps velvet. His shoes caught Crawner's eye, as they seemed so out of place with the rest of his dress. He wore grayish sneakers that, while unfitting for a suit appearance-wise (something he clearly didn't care about at this moment), looked rather comfortable. The man looked at the pair with that same dastardly grin on his face before he spoke.

"I seem to have broken down, could you two mates help me get my engine repaired?"