The Static in the Wiring

My name is Marisol, and I’ve always been a night owl, finding comfort in the hum of my laptop and the glow of the screen when the rest of the world is asleep. I live in an old farmhouse on the edge of a dried-up cornfield, and the silence out here can be suffocating. That night, I was scrolling through a forum, reading about other people’s ghost stories, when my computer just died. No warning, no blue screen, just a black void. I shrugged it off, figured the power had flickered, and went to the basement to check the breaker box.

But the breaker wasn’t tripped. The main switch was off, flipped cleanly to the ‘off’ position. That was impossible. That switch is stiff as a corpse; it takes a real yank to move it. I pushed it back on, and when I got upstairs, the computer was already humming back to life. I sat down, and not five minutes later, the whole room plunged into darkness again. I stomped back to the basement, and there it was, off again. My heart started to hammer. Something was wrong. I flipped it on and ran upstairs, but the moment I closed my eyes, the computer died a third time. I didn’t go back down. I just sat in the dark, listening to the wind in the corn, and I felt a cold spot on my right side, just below my ribs, like a dead hand pressed against my skin.

That cold spot has been my companion for the past year. It comes and goes, but it’s always in the same place. I’ve had my mom touch it, and she gasped because it was like touching a piece of frozen meat. I’ve taken photos, but nothing shows up. The doctors say it’s nerve damage, but I know better. It’s a presence that lingers, patient and cold. My daughter, Ana, and my niece, Lucia, sleep with me in the big bed, and my two dogs, Bruno and Coco, curl at our feet. One night, I was lying awake, watching the moonlight stripe the floor, when I heard it. A tiny, high-pitched voice, like a child, said, ‘Dada, dada.’ It wasn’t Ana or Lucia; they were both sound asleep. The dogs’ ears perked up, but they didn’t bark. They just stared at the corner of the room, where the old rocking chair used to be.

I tried to ignore it, but the voice kept going, ‘Dada, dada,’ over and over, like a broken record. It was coming from the hallway, just outside the open door. I was frozen, my skin crawling. Bruno whined, and Coco let out a low growl. I whispered, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ but my voice was shaking. Then I heard footsteps, barefoot slaps on the wooden floor, coming closer. The voice got excited, ‘Dada, dadaeeee!’ and a small shadow appeared in the doorway. It was the shape of a child, but too thin, with long arms that hung almost to its knees. It took a step into the room, and the dogs went ballistic. They shot off the bed, barking and snarling, and the shadow retreated, but not before I saw its face—a pale, featureless oval, like a balloon with a mouth cut into it.

The dogs chased it into the hallway, and I heard a crash, then silence. I called them, but they didn’t come back. I finally got up, my heart in my throat, and flicked the light switch. Nothing. The power was out again. I made my way to the basement, flashlight in hand, and when I got there, the main breaker was off, but the switch was covered in frost. I reached out to flip it, and a voice behind me said, ‘Dada, dada.’ I spun around, and there it was, the pale child, standing in the corner, head tilted. It pointed at the breaker and said, ‘Dada fix it.’ I screamed and ran. I grabbed Ana and Lucia, threw them in the car, and drove to my mom’s house. I never went back to that farmhouse, but the cold spot on my back never went away. And sometimes, when I’m lying in bed at my mom’s, I hear a whisper, ‘Dada, dada,’ coming from the wall outlet, and I know the breaker is off, but something else is still running.