The Frequency of Missing Teeth

The night was a thick, wet blanket over the hollow. Marcus had chosen this cabin for its isolation, a break from the city’s constant hum. But now, with the storm knocking at the windows and the generator sputtering in the shed, he felt less like a guest and more like a patient under observation. He was halfway through a dog-eared mystery, the prose blurring as his eyes grew heavy, when the lights blinked, held, and died. The sudden silence was louder than the drone of the fan, which had been his only companion. The heat rushed in, sticky and patient. He sighed, laid the book on the nightstand, and stretched out on the creaking bed, hoping sleep would come quickly.

He was drifting, that liminal space between waking and dreaming, when a sound sliced through the dark. It was a burst of static, like a radio tuning through channels, but fractured, swallowed by buzz and crackle. Words, if they were words, were mangled, torn apart before they could form. Marcus’s eyes snapped open. He listened, heart thumping against his ribs. The sound was gone. He sat up, straining. Nothing. He thought of the neighbors, but they were miles away, and the nearest road was a dirt track that washed out in rain. Maybe it was just the wind, or the old house settling. He lay back, but sleep was slow to return.

He was on the verge of slipping under again when it came back. This time it was different: a sound no animal he knew could make. It was a clucking, but too deep, like a chicken swallowed a goose, and then a goat, and something with a rattle in its throat. It was clear, distinct, and it was coming from just outside the window, inches from his head. Marcus froze, his body locked in a cold sweat. The sound repeated, a question without words. Then, a rustle, a scrape, like something heavy dragged across the gravel. He didn’t dare breathe. The sound began to recede, moving around the house, toward the front door.

Marcus grabbed the flashlight from the nightstand, his fingers slick. He clicked it on, and the beam cut through the dark, illuminating the room with a weak, yellow cone. He crept to the window, slowly, and peered out. The rain had stopped, leaving a glistening sheen on the grass. There, he saw it: a figure, silhouetted against the treeline. It seemed to be wearing a long coat, but its posture was wrong, too straight, too still, like a scarecrow waiting. And then it turned. Its head swiveled, not left or right, but too far, as if on a pivot. In the flashlight’s beam, he saw the face. There was no face. Just a smooth, pale expanse, featureless, like a doll’s head before the paint. But the mouth, when it opened, was a mess of jagged, uneven teeth, some missing, some broken, like a row of tombstones.

Marcus stumbled back, his breath caught in his throat. He screamed for help, but his voice was thin, swallowed by the vast silence. The figure took a step toward the house, its gait jerky, as if learning to walk. Then another. The sound came again, that awful clucking, but now it was garbled, like a radio with a broken antenna, through the wooden walls. Marcus turned and ran for the back door, his only exit. He burst into the kitchen, the beam of the flashlight dancing wildly, and slammed into the door. He yanked it open, and the night air hit him like a wet towel. He fled into the darkness, not looking back, the flashlight’s beam bouncing over the uneven ground.

He ran until his lungs burned, until the cabin was a dim memory behind him. He tripped, fell, scrambled up. The forest was a maze of shadows and dripping leaves. He had no idea where he was. He stopped, panting, and listened. The only sound was his own ragged breath. Then, the static returned, but closer now, almost in his ear. He spun around, the light revealing nothing but trees. And then the clucking sound, from all directions. He dropped the flashlight. The darkness was absolute. He heard the rustle again, closer. A whisper of a voice, broken, like words from a dying radio: ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

Marcus screamed, but the sound was choked off. He felt a cold hand on his shoulder, and the smell of damp earth and rot filled his senses. He tried to pull away, but his legs gave out. As he fell, he saw, in a flash of moonlight through the canopy, the figure standing over him. Its mouth opened wider, impossibly wide, and he heard the buzzing, the static, like a thousand locusts. And then, for Marcus, there was nothing but the frequency.