The Cornstalk Static

That summer, the air in Minnesota felt thick as pond scum. My best friend, Maya, and I had driven up from Texas with my parents, stopping to see my old haunts in Iowa. We’d paid our respects to the giant slides at Ledges State Park, but the heat had gotten to Maya, and by the time we reached Ames, she was curled in the backseat, shivering and moaning about her stomach. We fed her ginger ale and saltines, but she looked pale as the underside of a fish.

My aunt’s apartment in the Cities was a cramped, beige box on the third floor of a building that smelled like old cabbage and despair. My cousins, Derek and Lucas, were there, along with my grandmother, who sat in a vinyl recliner and watched us with rheumy eyes. Maya, despite her illness, perked up when she saw Derek. He was tall, with a jaw that could cut glass, and he had that careless, arrogant charm that made high school girls swoon. I tried not to scowl as she laughed at his dumb jokes, leaning into him as he showed her his phone.

Night came, and my aunt set up an air mattress for Maya in the boys’ room. Derek was on the top bunk, Lucas on the bottom, and Maya was on the floor between them. I got the couch in the living room, a lumpy thing with a suspicious stain. I lay there, listening to the murmur of voices through the thin wall. I could hear Maya’s giggle, Derek’s low chuckle, and it gnawed at me. I hated that she was giving him all her attention. I stared at the ceiling, my mind churning with petty grievances, until the sounds faded into a heavy silence.

I must have drifted off, because I woke to a strange static, like a radio between stations, but it was coming from the kitchen. I sat up, my heart doing a jittery tap. The apartment was dark, except for a sickly green glow from the microwave clock. The static was low, a hiss that seemed to have words buried in it, like a voice trying to break through water. I crept toward the kitchen, my bare feet sticking to the linoleum.

The radio on the counter was off, but the static was getting louder. It was coming from the corner, near the pantry. I inched closer, and I saw that the pantry door was slightly ajar. Inside, the shelves were lined with canned goods, but in the corner, a small transistor radio I’d never seen before was sitting on the floor, its antenna extended. The static hissed from its tiny speaker. I reached to turn it off, but when my fingers touched the dial, the static coalesced into a voice. It was thin and crackly, like a memory through a bad phone line. ‘He’s not listening,’ it said. ‘He never listens.’

I yanked my hand back, the voice cutting off. The radio went silent. I stood there, my breath shallow. I must have imagined it. The heat was doing things to me. I went back to the couch, but I couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing that voice, and I began to wonder if Maya was okay. I tiptoed to the boys’ room and pushed the door open a crack. In the dim light from the hallway, I saw Maya’s shape on the air mattress, but it was twisted, the blanket tangled. Derek was sitting up in his bunk, his eyes open, staring at the wall. He didn’t blink. I saw his lips moving, but no sound came out. I watched for a moment, then backed away, my skin crawling.

I returned to the couch and pulled the blanket over my head. I tried to think of something else, but the static kept hissing at the edge of my hearing. Then, I heard a shuffling from the kitchen. I held my breath. The shuffling grew closer, and then I felt a presence at the foot of the couch. I peeked out. It was Lucas, his face blank, his eyes rolled back. He spoke in a monotone, ‘The corn is tall in August.’ Then he turned and walked back to his room.

Morning came, and the apartment was bright and normal. My aunt made pancakes, and my grandma complained about the cold. Maya looked better, a little color back in her cheeks. Derek was sitting at the table, and he seemed fine, joking with Maya. But when I looked at him, I saw something in his eyes, a flicker of something dark. He caught me staring and frowned. ‘What?’ he said. ‘Nothing,’ I said, and I looked away.

As we prepared to leave for the rest of the trip, I went into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. The transistor radio was gone from the pantry. I asked my aunt about it, and she looked confused. ‘We don’t have a radio,’ she said. I felt a chill. That night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had slipped into that apartment, something that had found a home in Derek and Lucas. And later, when we said goodbye, Maya hugged Derek a little too long, and I saw that same flicker in his eyes, and I knew that the static hadn’t gone away. It was waiting, in the cornfields, in the radio, in the spaces between us. I just hoped it would stay behind when we left. But I knew it wouldn’t.