The Static Visitor

Eight years had passed since we moved into the old farmhouse, but the unease had never truly left. My little sister, Emily, was four now, and I was fourteen. She was just beginning to string sentences together, her voice a fragile melody in the quiet rooms. That afternoon, I was supposed to be watching her while our parents were outside tending to the garden. We were in my room, which faced the orchard, and I was trying to build a castle out of blocks while Emily babbled and stacked them in crooked towers.

The radio on the nightstand had been unplugged for weeks. I never listened to it; it was a relic from the previous owner, a heavy wooden cabinet model that crackled with static if you even touched the dial. But suddenly, it burst to life with a burst of white noise, followed by a garbled voice that sounded like a man speaking backwards. I yelped and stumbled backward, knocking over the block castle. Emily didn’t seem scared; she just giggled and pointed at the radio. I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room, my heart hammering. We stood in the hallway, catching our breath, and the radio went silent.

I crept back in, Emily clinging to my leg. I unplugged the radio from the wall, but the dial was still, and the room felt oddly cold. I knelt down and asked Emily, ‘What was that, sweetie?’ She looked at the closet door, which was slightly ajar, and said, ‘The old man is here.’ I frowned. ‘What old man?’ She pointed to the closet. ‘He’s in there. He said hello, but his voice was funny.’ I scooped her up and hurried to the living room, where our grandmother was reading a book by the fire. I set Emily down and told Grandma what happened, my voice shaky.

Grandma closed her book and looked at me with knowing eyes. ‘That would be your great-grandfather, Henry. He built this house, and he died here in the 1970s. He used to listen to the radio in that room every night. He was a pleasant soul, though he had a strange habit of speaking in reverse when he got excited.’ She glanced at Emily, who was now playing with a toy truck, and added, ‘The little ones see what we don’t.’ I felt a chill run down my spine. I looked back toward the hallway, half-expecting to see a figure. But there was only the sound of Emily’s truck rolling on the hardwood floor, and the old man’s static still ringing in my ears.