The Static Between Stations - Chapter 7: Crossed Frequencies

The next night, I almost didn’t make it to bed.

I sat downstairs until nearly two in the morning, lights blazing in every room, the television droning just to drown out the thought of static. I considered leaving the house entirely—walking the streets until sunrise, checking into a cheap motel, anything. But when the clock crept toward 2:10 a.m., a crushing exhaustion fell over me. My eyes burned, my limbs felt like lead. It was as if the house itself were pulling me back upstairs.

By the time I stumbled into my bedroom, the red glow was already there, waiting.

The static rolled out in thick waves, louder than before, a relentless hiss that gnawed at the edges of my thoughts. I pressed my palms to my ears, but it didn’t matter. The sound was inside me, vibrating in my teeth, rattling in my ribs.

And then came the screams.

They cut through the static so suddenly that I staggered back, tripping into the dresser. A man’s voice—raw, ragged—crying out in pain. A woman’s desperate sobs tangled with his, both distorted by the frequency but unmistakably human.

“Please!” the man shouted, his voice warping in and out like a bad signal. “Don’t—don’t let it—”

His words vanished into static, swallowed whole. Another scream tore through, high and piercing, before dissolving into a garbled mess of sound.

I clutched at the nightstand, knuckles white, unable to breathe.

“What… what is this?” I whispered.

The Caller’s voice slithered back into focus, calm and composed. “It’s what came before. Echoes of those who tried to resist.”

The screaming returned, overlapping itself, multiplying. Dozens of voices, wailing, crying, begging for help, all stitched together in a terrible chorus. My chest tightened until I thought I’d collapse.

“Stop it!” I shouted, voice breaking. “Turn it off!”

The Caller chuckled, the sound cruel in its gentleness. “There is no off, Brian. You think you can sever the signal? You’ve only tuned deeper.”

The static rose to a fever pitch, jagged and violent. Beneath it, the screams twisted into something worse—not just fear, but laughter. Choked, broken laughter that bent unnaturally, echoing until it felt like the whole room was laughing with them.

I fell to my knees, covering my head, begging for it to end. My voice was a whisper against the storm. “Please… please, I’ll listen, just stop.”

Instantly, the noise cut.

The silence after was deafening.

The Caller spoke softly, almost tenderly. “There. Better, isn’t it? You see how much easier it is when you stop fighting?”

I trembled, unable to answer. My throat felt raw, every nerve buzzing.

“They’re not screaming anymore,” the Caller said. “Because they’ve accepted. You will too. Soon.”

I dared a glance at the radio. The glow seemed brighter than ever, casting the room in a sickly red haze. For a split second, I thought I saw movement in the fabric screen of the speaker—like fingers pressing outward, stretching the cloth.

I stumbled back, knocking over the chair. My heart hammered against my ribs, but I couldn’t look away. The fabric pulsed once more, as if something inside had taken a breath.

The Caller whispered, “Do you feel it? The wall between us thinning? It won’t be long now.”

My body shivered uncontrollably. My mind screamed at me to run, to throw the cursed thing out the window, to flee the house and never come back. But I stayed frozen, caught in the glow.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, the radio clicked off.

The glow vanished. The room plunged into stillness.

I collapsed onto the floor, sobbing into my hands, too drained to move.

But through the silence, faint and steady, I could still hear them.

The screams.

Not from the radio anymore.

From somewhere deeper in the house.

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