The Static Between Stations - Chapter 4: The Caller

By the fourth night, the voices had become a ritual.

No matter how I tried to fight it—earplugs, headphones, blasting music on my phone—the moment the clock struck 2:14 a.m., the radio would click to life. The static always found me. It slipped past every barrier, burrowed into the quiet between sounds, until there was nowhere left to hide.

But this time, it was different.

Instead of the overlapping murmur of countless voices, there was only one.

It came sharp and clear, threading through the static as though the frequency belonged to it alone.

“Hello, Brian.”

Hearing my name again, so calm and deliberate, made my stomach clench. I sat up in bed, shoving the blankets off like they were choking me. The red glow of the radio’s eye stared back from the nightstand, steady and unblinking.

“Who are you?” My throat was dry, words little more than a rasp.

The voice didn’t hesitate.

“I’m the one who found you.”

The static swelled and dipped, almost like breathing. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female—the pitch wavered too strangely—but the tone was intimate, too close.

“You’ve been listening,” it said. “That’s good. That’s how it starts.”

I shook my head, gripping my knees tight to stop my hands from trembling. “No. I didn’t choose this. I don’t want this.”

A pause. Then a soft laugh, crackling at the edges like the tape of an old cassette.

“Choice doesn’t matter anymore. You’ve already tuned in.”

The words sent a chill rippling through me.

I forced myself to stand, moving toward the nightstand. “You’re just… interference,” I muttered. “Some radio prank. CB chatter. That’s all.”

“Is that what you think?” The voice sharpened, cutting through the hiss like a knife. “Then why is your window open?”

My breath caught. Slowly, I turned toward the window.

The lock was undone. The pane was raised half an inch, letting in the night air. I hadn’t touched it.

The voice chuckled again, softer this time. “See? I know things.”

I lunged for the window, slamming it shut and throwing the lock. My pulse throbbed in my temples, vision blurring with panic.

“Stay out of my house,” I whispered.

“You invited me in the moment you listened,” the voice replied. “That’s how it works.”

I clenched my jaw, snatched up the radio by its cracked wooden frame, and hurled it across the room. It hit the floor with a dull thud, the back panel snapping loose.

The static never wavered.

From the shattered casing on the floor, the red glow still pulsed steadily. The voice sighed.

“You can’t break me. Not while you’re still here.”

The urge to run flooded me, but my legs refused to move. My body felt caught in a web, every muscle taut and useless. All I could do was listen.

“Soon,” the voice said. “You’ll hear them all. You’ll understand. And when the signal is clear, you’ll come to us.”

“Come… where?” My voice cracked.

“To the other side of the frequency.”

The static surged, swallowing the words whole. The light flickered once, then went dark.

The room fell silent.

I stood there, chest heaving, eyes fixed on the broken radio lying lifeless in the shadows. I waited for another word, another sign of life, but none came.

For the first time in days, the silence held.

But that silence didn’t comfort me. It terrified me more than the voices ever had.

Because silence, I realised, meant waiting.

And waiting meant it wasn’t over.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model