The Static Between Stations

The apartment on the corner of Maple and 14th smelled of boiled cabbage and old dust. I was twelve, sprawled on the living room floor, my back against the peeling baseboard, a secondhand Super Nintendo in my lap. The screen glowed with the pixelated fury of a green-shelled turtle, and I was deep in the final castle, my fingers a blur on the controller. My parents had left for the late shift at the cannery, and my older sister had taken the car to the drive-in with her boyfriend. I had the place to myself, just me and the hum of the fridge and the flicker of the TV.

I had been sleeping on the floor in the corner of my parents’ room for a week, ever since my cousin’s family had stayed over and claimed the spare mattress. The floor was hard, but the pipes in the wall sang a low, rhythmic song that almost lulled me to sleep. That night, though, the song was off. There was a new note, a kind of wet, sucking sound, like a boot pulling out of mud, coming from the direction of the kitchen. I paused the game, my hand hovering over the controller. The sound stopped.

I went back to the game, but the sound returned, closer this time, from the hallway behind me. I didn’t turn. I told myself it was the old radiator, or the cat, but we didn’t have a cat. The hairs on my arms stood up, and a cold draft crawled across the back of my neck. The sound was right behind me now, a slow, deliberate breath, like someone savoring a secret. I squeezed the controller, my knuckles white. My reflection in the dark TV showed me frozen, my face a mask of terror. I was alone. I had to be alone.

A low chuckle, like gravel rolling in a can, rumbled from just over my shoulder. The room temperature dropped, and I could see my breath fog in front of me. The controller slipped from my hand and clattered on the floor. I wanted to run, but my legs were lead. The laugh came again, closer, and then a voice, dry as paper, whispered, ‘You always play the same level, don’t you?’

I squeezed my eyes shut. It was a dream. It had to be a dream. But when I opened them, the TV was off, and in the dark screen I saw a shape behind me, tall and thin, with a head tilted at an unnatural angle. The shape raised a long arm, and I saw that its fingers were far too long, ending in points like needles. I screamed, but no sound came out. The shape leaned down, and its face, if it could be called a face, was a void of static, white noise crackling where eyes and mouth should be. It said, ‘I’ve been watching you from the walls. You never turn around.’

I finally forced my body to move, scrambling on all fours toward the kitchen. The floorboards seemed to shift and ripple beneath me, and the walls pulsed like they were breathing. The kitchen was darker than it should be, the windows painted over with black tar. I grabbed a knife from the block, but the handle was slick and cold, and when I looked down, it was not a knife but a withered, gray hand, reaching up from the drawer to grip my wrist. I yanked away, stumbling back, and the hand retracted, but the drawer closed with a snap that echoed like a bone breaking.

I fled to the bathroom, locked the door, and pressed my back against the sink. My heart hammered in my ears. The mirror above the sink was cracked, and in the cracks I saw movement, a squirming darkness. I blinked, and the darkness had taken the shape of a face, pressed against the glass from the inside, its mouth open in a silent scream. The lights flickered, and the water in the tap turned on by itself, gushing a black, oily stream that filled the basin and spilled over, flooding the floor. The face in the mirror grinned, and the voice came from the drain, ‘There’s no lock on me, little one.’

The door didn’t budge. The black water rose, cold and thick as tar, covering my ankles, then my knees. I clambered onto the toilet seat, then the tank, but the water kept rising, and the face in the mirror grew larger, pushing against the glass until it bulged. A crack splintered across the mirror, and the face’s eyes, if they were eyes, were like tiny televisions, playing static, and in the static, I saw my parents’ empty faces, my sister’s, and then my own, all screaming. I opened my mouth to scream, but I was underwater, drowning in darkness.

I woke up on the living room floor, the sun streaking through the blinds. The SNES was still on, the game paused. The room was empty, but the smell of boiled cabbage was gone, replaced by a faint, sweet rot. I stood, shaking, and walked to the kitchen. The knife block was intact, the window normal. The bathroom mirror was whole. But on the floor by the TV was a small, black, greasy handprint, smaller than any of ours. My sister, coming in later, said the TV had been on static, but the picture was fine now. I never told anyone, but I stopped playing games with the lights off, and I kept the doors locked at all times. And I never, ever looked behind me, even when I heard that wet, sucking sound, crawling closer, waiting for me to turn.