The Antenna Man

In the late autumn of 1994, I was nineteen and working the night shift for ‘Swift Cabs’, a small taxi dispatch office that sat opposite the old fairgrounds. The fairgrounds had been abandoned for years, but the rusted Ferris wheel still loomed like a broken skeleton against the cloudy sky. I was studying electrical engineering at the tech college, and my brother and I spent our weekends gutting old radios and salvaging speakers from junked televisions. We had a basement full of coils, capacitors, and tangled wire, and we were always trying to improve our homemade antenna to pick up distant stations. That night, I had a portable shortwave radio with me, tuned to a frequency that usually brought in static or faint Portuguese broadcasts. I was hoping to catch a signal from a new experimental station in the city, but all I got was hiss.

At about 2 AM, the phone rang. It was a regular customer, Mrs. Delgado, who always called for a cab to take her to the hospital for her dialysis. I noted the address, 14 Mango Lane, and radioed the driver, Frank, who was loitering by the all-night bakery. He acknowledged and said he’d be there in five. I hung up and leaned back in my chair, staring at the clock. The office was small, with a counter, a couple of chairs, and a wall of outdated maps. The only light came from a flickering fluorescent tube that hummed like a trapped bee. The fairgrounds outside were pitch black, except for a single orange light that I assumed was a security lamp on the gate.

Then the radio did something strange. The static suddenly stopped, and a clear, resonant hum filled the small speaker. It was like a tuning fork, but deeper, almost felt in the chest. I turned the dial, but the hum remained, unwavering, as if the entire band had been replaced by a single tone. I tapped the radio, thinking it was a glitch, but the hum persisted. It seemed to come from everywhere, not just the speaker. The office walls seemed to vibrate with it. I noticed the fluorescent light was flickering wildly, and the clock on the wall had stopped at 2:02. I felt a cold draft, but the door was closed.

Then I heard a voice. It was barely a whisper, but it cut through the hum with clarity. It said, ‘I see you.’ I spun around, but there was no one. The office was empty, except for me. The voice was close, as if someone was standing right behind me. I turned back to the radio, and the hum intensified. The dial was turning on its own, slowly, toward the highest frequency. I tried to pull my hand away, but my fingers wouldn’t obey. It was as if the radio had a magnetic pull.

I looked out the window toward the fairgrounds. The orange light on the gate was growing brighter, swelling like a star. It pulsed in rhythm with the hum. Then I saw a shape under the light: a tall, thin figure, featureless, but with a distinct outline of a man. It didn’t move, but I felt it looking at me. My heart raced. I wanted to run, but my legs were frozen. The voice came again, more distinct: ‘You like to listen. I can hear you too.’

Then the phone rang. I jumped, and the spell broke. I snatched the receiver, expecting Mrs. Delgado, but it was Frank. ‘Hey, the address on Mango Lane is a vacant lot. There’s no house. And there’s a weird light over the fairgrounds. What’s going on?’ I stammered that I’d check the address, but Frank said he was coming back. I hung up, and the hum stopped. The radio was dead. The clock was ticking again, showing 2:07. I checked the address book: 14 Mango Lane had been crossed out, with a note ‘deceased’ under it.

The light outside was gone. The fairgrounds were dark again. I felt a chill, and I tried to rationalize: maybe I had dozed off, maybe it was a prank. But my hands were shaking.

The next night, I brought a different radio, an old tube model we had repaired. I set it on the desk and dialed into the same frequency. The static was the only sound for hours. At 2 AM exactly, the hum returned, stronger. The tube glowed brighter than usual, and the room filled with a smell like ozone. The door rattled. I heard the voice again, but this time it was not a whisper. It was a low, guttural chant, like a language I didn’t know, but I understood the meaning: ‘You are my antenna. You bring me to the world.’

I looked outside. The orange light was back, but it was not on the gate. It was floating just above the ground, about a hundred yards away, and it was growing. It elongated into a vertical slit, like an eye opening. A cold wind swept through the office, toppling papers. The radio tubes flickered, and I saw the image of a man in the metallic surface of the radio chassis: a gaunt face, hollow eyes, and a mouth that stretched too wide.

I slammed my hand on the radio, trying to turn it off, but the knob spun free and fell. The hum was so loud that I felt my teeth vibrate. I stumbled to the window, and the slit of light was now large enough to see shapes inside: shadows that moved. One of them stepped out, taking the form of a tall, thin man. It began walking toward the office, crossing the empty field with an unnatural grace. Its steps were silent, but I could hear the crunch of grass as if through the radio.

I grabbed my jacket and ran. I didn’t stop until I reached the all-night diner three blocks away. I called the dispatch office, but the line was dead. I told the diner owner, a beefy guy named Gus, that I had seen a prowler. He drove me back in his pickup, but the office was dark and quiet. The radio was on the floor, shattered. The clock had melted, its hands drooping like wax. There was a burnt smell. On the desk, written in ash, was a single word: ‘MORE’.

I quit my job the next day. I never went back to the fairgrounds. But I kept the antenna from that radio, a twisted piece of copper. I hung it in my basement, thinking it was harmless. But sometimes, at night, I hear a low hum, and I know it’s still there, waiting. It wants to speak again, and it has learned my frequency. I’m just afraid what it will say next.

I never told my brother. I told him the radio was stolen. But he saw the antenna and asked what it was. I said it was an old project. He let it be. I’m writing this because I need someone to know. If you ever find an antenna that hums, don’t listen. Move. Change your name. Because it will find you. It always finds a listener.