The Static in the Wires

The first time I heard it, I was alone in my attic apartment, the one with the sloped ceiling and the one window that looked out onto a brick wall. I had my old Bluetooth speaker perched on the windowsill, a birthday gift from my mom, and I was belting out some chorus, stomping my feet on the creaky floorboards. The music was too loud, the bass thrumming through my ribcage, and I didn’t notice at first. But then, between the drum hits and the guitar riffs, there was a woman’s voice—not part of the song—muffled, like she was talking through a thick wall. I paused the track, heart hammering, and leaned closer. The room was silent except for the hum of the fridge downstairs. I laughed it off, told myself it was just the sound of the neighbors’ TV bleeding through, and pressed play again. The voice came back, clearer this time, almost like she was whispering my name—not my real name, but a name I hadn’t heard since I was a kid. I yanked the speaker’s cord from the wall, and the silence was so loud it hurt.

I sat on the edge of my bed, trying to slow my breathing. I’m not the jumpy type, but something about that voice had burrowed under my skin, a splinter I couldn’t dig out. I told myself it was a prank, one of my friends messing with me, but they didn’t have my spare key, and the speaker was new, untouched. After ten minutes of staring at the black speaker on the floor, I crouched down and pressed the power button. The little blue light flickered on, and at first, there was nothing but a low hiss. I exhaled, feeling foolish. Then the hiss broke into syllables—’please don’t turn me off again’—and I scrambled backward, tripping over a pile of laundry. I hit the power button with the side of my fist, but the voice continued, tinny and small, as if it was coming from the speaker’s invisible guts. I threw a blanket over it, as if that would help, and the voice grew louder, desperate, until it was almost a shout. I grabbed the speaker, ran to the bathroom, and dropped it in the tub. I turned on the cold water until it was submerged, and I stood there, shaking, watching the blue light fade. For a moment, all was quiet.

But I couldn’t stay in that bathroom forever. I dried my face, went back to the living room, and sat on the couch, hugging a pillow. I told myself it was a hallucination, a side effect of too much caffeine, but my hands wouldn’t stop trembling. I decided to test it one more time. I retrieved the soaked speaker from the tub, dried it with a towel, and plugged it in. The power light came on, and I could hear a faint, wet crackle. I spoke to it, my voice cracking, ‘Who are you? Why are you in my speaker?’ The speaker hissed for a long moment, and then a woman’s voice, clearer than before, answered, ‘I’m not in your speaker. I’m in your building. I’m in the walls. I’m in the floorboards. You hear me because I want you to hear me.’ I unplugged it and brought the speaker into the bathroom, slammed the door, and turned the shower on full blast, hoping the noise would drown out the memory of that voice. But even under the roar of the water, I could swear I heard her humming a song I didn’t know, a tune that felt ancient and hungry.

The next morning, I called my landlord and asked him about the previous tenant. He was a gruff old man, but when I mentioned the voice on the speaker, he went silent for a moment before saying, ‘That was my sister, actually. She lived in that attic before you. She was a singer, used to practice up there with a little radio. She… died in the walls, sort of. There was a fire, and she couldn’t get out. We never fixed the place up because we had to leave it to the insurers, but you’re the first who’s stayed more than a week.’ I asked him what she looked like, and he described a woman with red hair and a birthmark on her cheek—the same face I’d seen in the corner of my eye, reflected in the mirror when I was brushing my teeth, just for a second, before it vanished. I hung up and looked at the speaker. It was still on, humming quietly. And then, from the other side of the wall, I heard a voice, not the speaker this time, but the voice of the woman herself, singing the same melody from the night before, now coming from the electrical outlet by my bed.

I can’t move yet. I’m still here, one week later, because whenever I try to leave, my keys go missing, my phone dies, and the door won’t budge. The speaker sits on my desk, unplugged, but it still hums. And tonight, the voice is not just in the walls; it’s in my head, telling me that she’s lonely, that she wants company, that she’s been waiting a long time for someone to sing with. I’m sitting in the bathroom, the only place that feels safe, with the shower running and the speaker thrown in the tub. But even now, I can hear her, through the water, through the tiles, through my own skull. She’s not asking anymore. She’s telling me to come out. And worst of all, the humming is starting to sound like ‘Happy Birthday,’ and I know, I just know, that it’s mine, from a birthday I never told her about, because I never shared that with anyone. I’ve never been so scared in my life, and I don’t think I’m going to make it to tomorrow.

I’m going to try to throw the speaker through the window. It’s my only hope. But the window is painted shut, and the glass is too thick. I’m just hitting it with a lamp now, and the voice is getting closer, and the humming is getting faster, and I think she’s in the hallway, because I can hear her footsteps, wet and heavy, like she’s just stepped out of a flood. The bathroom door is locked, but the handle is turning, ever so slowly, and I can see a thin line of darkness seeping under the door, inch by inch, reaching for my feet. I’m going to scream, but the sound is stuck in my throat. The speaker in the tub is hissing now, like it’s ripping itself apart, and I can hear her voice, not from the speaker, but from just behind the door, saying, ‘Don’t be scared. I just want to make sure you never forget the song I taught you.’ I don’t remember teaching her any song, but I can feel the melody crawling up my spine, and I’m starting to hum along, and I can’t stop. The door is almost open. The speaker is on fire. And I’m still alone, but I’m not alone, and I never will be again.