The Static Between Us

It was a Tuesday afternoon when my good friend Marisol called and said we were road-tripping to a town called Clearwater Junction to help her old high school buddy, Felix. I didn’t know him, but I had nothing else to do, and a drive through the dusty backroads sounded better than another afternoon of scrolling my phone. Marisol’s boyfriend, Derek, drove; I sat in the back with a six-pack of cheap soda and a half-eaten bag of chips. The radio kept losing signal, spitting out bursts of white noise, and Derek would slap the dash until music crackled back. I remember thinking how the static sounded like a swarm of insects, but I brushed it off.

Clearwater Junction was a dried-up speck on the map, and the college we pulled into had a sign that read ‘St. Cyril’s Institute for the Deaf.’ I’d never seen a school like it. The buildings were all flat and gray, with wide windows and ramps instead of stairs. As we got out, a group of students walked past, their hands moving fast in a silent language, their laughter soundless. I felt a strange weight on my chest, a feeling like the air was thicker here, and I couldn’t shake it. Felix met us at the door of his dorm, a tall, lanky guy with a shy smile. He signed something to Marisol.

‘He says his roommate is away for the weekend, so we have the place to ourselves,’ she said, speaking loudly as if that helped. ‘He also says to ignore the humming.’ I asked what humming. Derek shrugged. We followed Felix inside.

The dorm room was cramped, filled with boxes and old furniture. But the walls—every inch of them—were covered in clocks. Not just any clocks, but all kinds: cuckoo clocks, digital clocks, vintage railway clocks, even a large grandfather clock that stood in the corner like a silent sentinel. They weren’t ticking, though. They were all frozen at different times: 11:59, 3:17, 8:42. And in the center of the room, on a small table, sat an old-fashioned radio, the kind with a big dial and a wooden case. It was on, but emitting only static. A low, crackling hiss that made my skin crawl.

Felix must have seen our faces because he grabbed a pad of paper and scribbled a note. ‘My family collects them. It’s a tradition. But they all stopped when I moved here. The radio wouldn’t turn off. It’s been like that for a week.’ I asked why he didn’t just unplug it. He shook his head, pointing to the cord—it was cut, the wire frayed, the plug missing. ‘It’s battery powered,’ he wrote. ‘But I never put batteries in.’

We started hauling boxes to the car, and the static followed us. I could hear it even outside, like a faint hiss beneath the sound of the wind. At one point, I looked back at the dorm from the parking lot, and I saw a face pressed against the window—a woman with pale skin and dark eyes, her mouth open in a silent scream. I froze, but when I blinked, she was gone. I asked Marisol if she saw anything. She laughed: ‘You’re seeing things from the heat.’ But Felix was watching me, and his face was white.

By evening, we were exhausted. Felix suggested we grab dinner at a diner on the edge of town. We sat in a booth, and Felix wrote little notes to us. He wrote about how he’d felt a presence ever since the clocks stopped. How at night, the static would grow louder, and he’d feel something watching him from the corner. He wrote: ‘It’s the Radio Man. He’s been here since the previous student. He wears a red bow tie and a big smile, but he never blinks.’ I asked who the Radio Man was. Felix wrote: ‘He’s the one who makes the static. He only comes when you’re alone. And he whispers things you can’t understand.’

That night, Felix refused to return to his room. He crashed on the floor of Marisol and Derek’s motel room, leaving me in the dorm alone, because we didn’t want to waste the money. I lay in a sleeping bag on the floor, the radio still hissing from the table. I tried to sleep but the static was a living thing, rising and falling like breathing. Then I heard a voice—just a mumble under the static, like a man talking far away. I sat up. The radio had a small red light blinking, and for the first time, I noticed a cord running from the back, not cut, but snaking along the floor, along the wall, into a hole in the baseboard.

I followed it. The hole led to a crawl space. I pulled open a small panel and saw a dark void. The cord went deeper, into the shadows. I leaned in, and I saw something glinting—a small, red bow tie. My blood went cold. I scrambled back, and the radio blared static so loud it hurt. I saw a shape in the corner of my eye, a tall man with a wide smile, but when I turned, he was gone. I grabbed my bag and ran to the motel, not stopping until I was pounding on their door.

We left the next morning, Felix in tow. He said he’d never go back. As we drove away, the radio in the car began to hum static, even though it was off. Derek slammed it with his palm, and it stopped. But I kept looking in the rearview mirror. The college was shrinking into a haze of heat, but I could have sworn I saw a figure standing on the roof, waving.

Three years later, I was in a liquor store, and I saw a bottle of something called ‘RumChata.’ It had a picture of a milk and rum cream swirl, and it triggered a memory I’d suppressed. That morning at the dorm, before the moving, Felix had given us each a small glass of something he called ‘college punch’—a mix of rum and cream that tasted like sugary vomit. We all gagged, but we drank it to be polite. I remembered that the static from the radio, it was like a signal, and I remembered that Felix’s roommate, who had left, had a name. A name I’d seen on a plaque in the college lobby. The plaque read: ‘In Memory of Ronald Tipton, a beloved student.’ And underneath, ‘He heard the Static, and it took him.’

I haven’t drunk cream liqueur since. But sometimes, late at night, I hear static from my own phone, even when it’s off. And I can almost see a face on the screen, smiling with red lips. I’m just waiting for the day he speaks clearly, and I’ll know that the Radio Man has found me too.