The Radio at the End of the Hall

The year I turned twelve, my mother married a man named Carl, and we moved into his late mother’s house—a sprawling Victorian at the edge of a town that seemed to be perpetually shrouded in fog. The house was full of her things: porcelain dolls with cracked faces, doilies on every armchair, and an old AM/FM radio in the hallway that Carl said had been his mother’s prized possession. She’d kept it tuned to a classical station, and he’d never once seen her change it.

Not long after we settled in, his mother, Elsie, died in the hospital after a sudden stroke. We were all there when she passed, holding vigil in a room that smelled of antiseptic and wilting flowers. At the moment of her death, the clock on the wall stopped, and the lights flickered briefly. But it wasn’t until we returned home that the truly strange things began.

We walked in, weary and grieving, and the radio in the hallway was on. It hadn’t been touched in months, ever since Elsie had been admitted. And it wasn’t on the classical station. A song was playing—a soft, mournful folk ballad about a loved one crossing over, with lyrics like ‘Don’t weep for me, I’m not gone, just waiting by the river.’ Carl stood frozen, his face pale, because he recognized the song: it had been played at his mother’s wedding, a record she’d cherished. The radio had never even had that song on any station we could find later.

At first, we shrugged it off as a strange coincidence, perhaps a faulty radio that had somehow picked up a distant signal. But over the next few weeks, the house began to change. The lights would strobe in the kitchen, then go out completely, plunging us into darkness for hours. Carl replaced bulbs, checked wiring, even called an electrician, but the problem persisted. The fuses would blow without any overload, and sometimes the lights would flicker in rhythm, like a heartbeat.

The worst, however, was the radio. It would turn on by itself at odd hours, usually in the dead of night, playing that same song—or variations of it—songs about death and longing. It never played anything else. And the volume would swell and fade, as if someone was leaning in to listen, or adjusting it for a better reception.

One evening, when my mother was out with Carl, I was home alone, lying on the couch in the living room, trying to read a comic book to distract myself. The radio in the hall clicked on, a familiar crackle, then the song began. But this time, it was different. There was a voice woven between the notes, a raspy whisper that seemed to come from the radio itself. It said my name—’Samantha’—and then, ‘Come, it’s time to listen.’

I ignored it, pulling the blanket over my head, my heart pounding. But the voice grew louder, more insistent, and the radio’s static rose to a hissing roar. I felt compelled to get up, as if an invisible hand was pulling me by the arm. I walked to the hallway, my steps hesitant, and stood before the radio. The voice spoke again, clearer now: ‘I never liked the dark, Samantha. I’m so tired of the dark.’

I reached out and turned the dial, expecting static or silence, but the radio kept playing, and the voice continued. It told me things—secrets about Carl, about the house, about a hidden room in the attic where Elsie had hidden her journals, journals that revealed she’d been haunted all her life by a presence she called ‘The Listener.’ According to the voice, Elsie knew she was dying, and she had tried to communicate through the radio, to warn us.

The voice began to fade, replaced by static, and the radio clicked off on its own. I ran to the attic, my heart racing, and found the journals buried under old Christmas decorations. They were filled with frantic scribbles, describing how the radio had become a conduit for something sinister that had attached itself to her family for generations. It wasn’t just a radio; it was a doorway. And Elsie had been trying to keep it closed.

I told Carl and my mother, but they dismissed it as stress and grief. The electrical problems continued, and the radio kept playing its songs. One night, I woke to a piercing shriek from the hallway. I rushed out to find the radio smoking, its dial glowing red-hot, and the song playing at a distorted speed. Then the radio exploded with a bang, and the house went dark.

When the lights came back on, the radio was a pile of charred parts, but from the wreckage, I heard a faint voice, barely a whisper: ‘You can’t destroy me. I am still here, and I will always be here.’

We moved out shortly after, leaving the house behind. But even in our new apartment, sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear a faint static, and a song about crossing rivers and fading lights, coming from nowhere. And I know that the Listener isn’t gone—it’s just waiting for the right moment to turn up the volume again.