The Unplugged Ritual

For weeks after the storm knocked out half the power in our old farmhouse, I tried to convince myself that the flickering lights and phantom beeps were just echoes of the outage. But then the microwave began its own liturgy. It would turn on by itself, the digital display glowing green in the dark kitchen, the turntable humming a low drone. My wife, Mara, would wake at 4:47 AM every morning to the sound of it churning, but by the time she stumbled downstairs, it would be silent, the interior light still burning like a tiny sun in the gloom.

I chalked it up to a faulty circuit, a ghost in the wiring left by the power surge. But then it spread. The coffee maker would gurgle without water, the toaster would pop empty, and the radio in the den would switch to static at the same ungodly hour. Our niece, June, who had come to stay after her parents’ accident, was the first to see the pattern. She sat at the kitchen table one evening, her pale face reflected in the microwave’s dark glass, and said, ‘Uncle Ray, it’s counting down.’ I laughed it off, but she pointed to the display. It wasn’t the time; it was a descending number: 99, 98, 97…

That night, I couldn’t sleep. At 4:47, I crept downstairs and found the microwave running, its carousel spinning empty. The door was ajar, and inside, a faint red light pulsed from the back panel, like a heartbeat. I slammed it shut, and the countdown reset to 99. But now I knew it was counting down to something. The next day, I tried to unplug it. The plug was welded to the socket, as if fused by heat. I yanked the cord, and the plastic melted into my hands, leaving burn marks that looked like letters. Mara saw them and grew pale. ‘It’s her,’ she whispered. ‘June’s mother. She used to do this—set the microwave to count down before the accident. She said she was cooking something for us, but she never told what.’

That Friday, June woke us at dawn, shaking. ‘The microwave is beeping,’ she said, her voice hollow. ‘It’s at zero.’ We ran to the kitchen, but the microwave was dark, silent. The clock on the wall had stopped at 4:47. And then we heard it—a low, rhythmic knocking from inside the appliance. Not from the walls. From the microwave. I opened the door, and a gust of cold air hit me. Inside, on the glass turntable, lay a small, charred object that looked like a heart. It was still steaming. Mara screamed, and June backed away, tears streaming down her face. ‘She’s back,’ June said. ‘She said she’d come back when the countdown ended.’

Now, every night at 4:47, the microwave turns on by itself. The display shows the number 98, and it counts down one digit each night. We can’t unplug it, can’t break it, can’t move it. The rest of the house is fine, but that kitchen is a time bomb. Last night, the countdown reached 1. I stayed up, watching through the crack in the door. The microwave glowed, the turntable spun, and I heard a child’s voice—June’s voice—singing a lullaby from inside. But June was asleep in her room. When I opened it, the display read 0. And the microwave was empty, but the walls were covered in a thin film of frost, and written in the condensation were the words: ‘I’m home.’

Tonight, the countdown starts again at 99. And I’m terrified of what will step out when it reaches zero.