The Constant Hum

The day we moved into the old farmhouse, the realtor said it was ‘full of character.’ I should have known that was code for ‘it will slowly drive you insane.’ My name is Amelia, and I moved there with my father, Marcus, a year after my parents’ divorce. The house sat at the end of a winding gravel road, surrounded by fields of overgrown weeds and a forest that seemed to press in from all sides. It was quiet—too quiet, save for the constant hum of an old refrigerator in the kitchen that never seemed to shut off.

From the first night, something felt off. The house was always cold, no matter how high we cranked the thermostat. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and decay, as if the walls themselves were sweating. But the strangest thing happened in my bedroom. There was an old radio on the nightstand, a relic from the 1970s with a cracked dial. I never used it, but it would turn on by itself, always at 3:15 AM, crackling with static that sounded like whispers. I would turn it off, but the next night, it would be on again. My father thought it was a wiring issue, but the electrician found nothing.

Then there was the vintage wind-up clock on the mantelpiece. It had belonged to my grandmother, and my dad had set it to chime once at noon. But it started going off at random hours—sometimes at 2 AM, sometimes at 7 in the evening, always with a loud, jarring cuckoo that made us jump. My dad would have to climb on a chair to silence it, but as soon as he stepped down, it would start again, its mechanical bird mocking us. We finally threw it in a drawer, but the chimes echoed through the walls at odd times, as if from a distance.

One night, about a month in, I woke up freezing. My breath clouded in the air, and the cold was so intense it felt like needles on my skin. I reached for the extra blanket at the foot of the bed, but as I rolled over, I saw it—a tall, thin figure standing in the corner of my room. It was not quite solid, like a film of darkness with a faint, sickly glow. It had long, spindly arms that hung to its knees, and its face was a featureless void, yet I could feel it staring at me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. It stood there for what felt like an eternity, then it simply vanished, and the cold lifted. I told my dad the next morning. He said I had a nightmare, but his hands were shaking when he poured his coffee.

The following night, I was afraid to sleep. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of the old house. I must have dozed off, because I woke up again to the same bone-deep cold. This time, I felt a weight pressing down on the mattress beside me. I turned my head slowly, and there it was—the same figure, but now it was lying next to me, its face inches from mine. Its form was more solid, and I could see the faint outline of a nose and lips, but the eyes were just empty sockets. It seemed to be breathing, a slow, raspy rhythm. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed, and when I opened them again, it was gone. But the cold lingered, and I felt a wet spot on the sheets, as if something had melted there.

My dad and I started sleeping with the lights on, but it didn’t help. The figure would appear less often, but the radio and the clock kept acting up. One evening, I came home from school and found my dad sitting in the kitchen, staring at the wall. He said he had heard his own voice coming from the radio, reciting a grocery list we had made the day before. He was pale, and his eyes had dark circles. I knew he was not sleeping either.

We decided to move out after just three months. We packed in a single day, leaving most of the furniture behind. As we drove away, I looked back at the farmhouse, and I saw something in the window of my old bedroom—the shape of a tall, thin figure, standing perfectly still. I blinked, and it was gone.

It’s been two years since we moved. I still can’t sleep without a nightlight, and I’ve changed my alarm clock to a digital one. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear a faint hum, like an old refrigerator, and I smell damp earth. And I know that if I turn around, the figure will be there, waiting, lying next to me in the dark. Sometimes I wonder if we ever really left that house, or if it followed us, just waiting for the right moment to make itself known again.