The Static Goodbye

It was the tail end of November, and I’d spent the night at Priya’s flat in the city, the kind of place that always smelled of curry and damp. My parents had moved to a village called Ashworth, a place of grey stone and silent lanes, and they expected me for Sunday lunch. I’d texted my mother, asking for a lift, and she’d replied with a series of brisk, upbeat messages. She’d ring when she was outside.

I was in Priya’s spare room, shoving my things into a bag, when my phone buzzed. The screen lit up with her name, and I answered, expecting her familiar voice. But the line was filled with a strange, layered hiss, like wind through dead leaves, and underneath it, a voice that seemed to be trying to speak but was being crushed. I said, ‘Hello? Mum?’ but the voice only grew more frantic, a torrent of static that almost formed words before dissolving. I couldn’t make out a single syllable. I told her I’d be out in a minute, and hung up, assuming it was a bad signal.

I said goodbye to Priya, who was boiling rice in the kitchen, and stepped outside. The street was quiet, the sky a bruised grey. My mother’s car, a silver Ford, was idling at the curb. I climbed in, and the warmth hit me like a blanket. I started to complain about the terrible reception, but she just smiled and said, ‘Shut the door, love.’

As we drove out of the city, I kept talking about the static, but she only nodded, her eyes fixed on the road. Something felt off. She was wearing a coat I didn’t recognize, a dark green, and her hands, gripping the wheel, seemed pale and thin. I tried to say, ‘You know, I couldn’t understand a word you said,’ but she cut me off, her voice oddly flat. ‘I wasn’t calling you.’

A cold finger traced my spine. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘I wasn’t calling you,’ she repeated, and then she turned to me, her smile wide and wrong, her eyes not my mother’s eyes at all. ‘I was calling you home.’

The road began to blur, the houses melting into a smear of grey. I reached for the door handle, but it was gone. The dashboard was smooth, featureless. I looked out the window, and the landscape outside had changed. We were driving through a forest, and the trees were black, like charred bone. My mother’s voice, or whatever was wearing her voice, began to speak again, but now it was clear, and it was a voice I had never heard before, a thousand voices layered into one. ‘You left your room a mess,’ it said. ‘You always leave. but now you’ll stay.’

I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The car kept going, deeper into the woods, and the static in my ears grew louder, until it was all I could hear. I don’t know how long I sat there, frozen, as the world outside became a nightmare of twisted shapes and watching things. Finally, the car stopped in front of a house, a house that was my parents’ house, but wrong. The windows were black, and the front door was open, like a mouth.

I looked at the thing beside me, and it was my mother now, but her skin was peeling away, revealing something dark and wet underneath. It smiled, and its teeth were too many. ‘Go inside,’ it said. ‘They’re waiting.’

I got out of the car, because I had no choice. My legs moved on their own, carrying me up the path, through the open door, into the dark. The last thing I heard, before the door slammed shut, was the static on the phone, playing like a lullaby.

Now, I live in that house. I see my parents, sometimes, in the corner of my eye, but they don’t speak. They just stare at me, their mouths open in silent screams. And sometimes, when the phone rings, I answer it, and I hear my own voice on the other end, saying, ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’ And I know that I’m waiting for someone else to come home.