The Static Man

I always thought the old TV in my grandmother’s attic was broken. It would never receive channels, only emit a hiss of static when you tried turning the dial. But last December, I discovered it wasn’t broken after all.

The first time I ever laid eyes on him, I figured I was only drunk. My cousins and I had snuck in whiskey up in the attic after the Christmas party, challenging one another to turn the dial on that old TV that didn’t work anymore. I recall leaning in too close, my forehead almost on the glass.

That’s when the static warped.

I don’t mean the image clarified I mean the gray-white mist leaned towards me, as if the screen was attempting to breathe me in. And there, within the flicker, was a face of a man. Not clear. Not complete. Just the suggestion of a man’s eyes, wide and black, gazing back.

“Do you see that?” I breathed.

But when I turned back at my cousins, they were laughing at me, too distracted pouring shots to care.

When I turned around again, the man’s lips were moving. Silent, engulfed by static. But I could have sworn I saw the word:

“Soon.”

I did not return to the attic until months later, after Grandma died and my mother requested I assist her with cleaning the house. I was alone, the dust, and that TV sitting in the dark nook like a grave marker.

I said to myself, do not touch it. But as I piled boxes and folded moth-eaten quilts, I continued to glance at it, pounding heart, half-expecting the man to materialize again.

I should have gone away.

I turned it on instead.

The static leapt into being in an instant, brighter than I could remember, verging on blinding. In a matter of seconds, the same image coalesced: the soft shape of a man pressed against the screen.

This time, I didn’t even blink.

His hand moved, fuzzy but unambiguous, and he touched it against the glass. I have no idea why I did it, but I raised my own hand and mirrored it.

The glass was ice-cold.

And then God help me the static broke. Just for a heartbeat. Long enough to get a look at the face.

He had no skin.

Just muscle and teeth and eyes stretched too wide. His jaw unhinged, and although the TV had no sound, I could hear his voice in my head, buzzing like bees in my skull:

“LET ME OUT.”

That night, I dreamed of him.

I was again in the attic, but the TV was missing. He was there instead, standing tall and dripping static as if it were water running off him. With each step, black footprints appeared on the wood.

I awoke screaming.

I didn’t sleep for three nights following. Each time I drifted off, I could hear the static, a persistent hiss against my eardrums.

On the fourth night, my phone clicked on automatically.

No ringing, no apps but pure static covering the screen.

And in the static, weak but clear as glass:

“Closer.”

I attempted to remove the TV. I lugged it out to the dumpster at the back of the house, slicing my hands on the jagged edges of the screen as I dropped it in. But by the morning, it was back in the attic. Parked in the same spot, dusted to perfection, like it had never been moved.

That was when I understood it wasn’t the television he lived in. It was the static. Any static.

I tested it. Radios. Old VHS tapes. The snow between channels.

He was always there, waiting.

And he was getting clearer.

Two weeks ago, I woke up to see static creeping up the walls of my bedroom. Not light, not shadow. Actual static. Like my whole room had turned into a screen.

He stepped out.

Not fully his torso still melted into the wall but his head was free, and his hands. Skinless, wet, fingers bending in ways they shouldn’t. He reached for me.

I froze.

Just as his hand brushed my ankle, the static vanished. He was gone.

But he left a print. A hand-shaped burn, blackened into my skin.

I’m writing this tonight because the mark has spread.

It began as a palm print. Now it’s veins, black and crawling, wriggling up my calf. My skin is parched and cracking. Flakes of static sometimes peel off with me when I scratch, fizzing, before they reach the floor.

The worst part?

I hear him when the house falls silent. Not only in the walls or the television, but in me. In my head, like my skull is a hollowed-out antenna.

He says he’s nearly here.

That static isn’t an entrance.

It’s an infection.

And tonight…

The downstairs TV came on on its own.

No one is home but me.

I can hear him scrolling through the channels. Clicking closer.

The walls are already humming.

He’s coming through.

And the very last thing I’ll ever say, in case anyone ever reads this.

Wait.

Do you hear it too?
I thought sharing my story would make a difference.
Such as perhaps putting it into writing would cure the infection. Lock him in words.

But that was foolish.

If anything, it made him more powerful.

The evening after I posted my entry, I dreamed again. But it didn’t feel like a dream. I sat at my desk, reading responses saying how “creepy but phony” my tale was, when the screen dimmed. All the words turned into static.

And then the responses altered.

Dozens of usernames I didn’t know. All typing the same thing:

“LET HIM IN.”

The screen vibrated, and the cursor started typing by itself:

“YOU’RE MINE.”

When I awoke, my laptop remained on. The draft of my novel remained open, except someone or something had made changes to it. My words were still intact, but interspersed among them were his.

Every so often, in bold black uppercase:

SOON. SOON. SOON.

I erased them. Saved the file. Rebooted the computer.

But when I reopened the document, the words had grown. Pages of them. That single word repeated and repeated, like the static was typing through me.

The infection is more severe now.

The veins which began in my leg have burst over my chest. Black streaks, as if lightning runs beneath the skin. Sometimes they imbue themselves with an ethereal glow, a momentary flash, and when they do, the lights in the room shudder in sympathy.

I can’t remain in darkness any longer.

For that’s when he comes nearest.

Each time the light goes out or the electricity falters, I hear him take a step nearer to the surface. The static buzz begins low like bugs scurrying in the walls swells until it sounds like it’s shuddering the air asunder.

And I watch his hands press against the cracks.

Tonight I tried one more thing.

If he’s spreading from signals, perhaps cutting myself off might be enough to put a stop to it. I took the TV off the plug. Smashed my phone. Ripped every cable out of the walls. Even flipped the breaker, so the house was dead quiet.

I felt relieved, for an instant.

Then I remembered:

Silence is no longer silence.

Because the static remained.

Inside me.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting in the dark now. My skin feels like it’s infested with electricity. Every couple of minutes, my sight fizzes out, and I look through the static rather than my eyes.

That’s how I know he’s nearly done.

Because when the static gets me, I see him standing right behind me. Even clearer than ever. Skinless. Smiling too wide. And his voice.

Oh God, his voice is no longer in my head.

It’s whispering in my ear.

If this is the last I type, I want someone to know:

The static is not only him.

It’s a portal.

And the more you stare at it, the more you hear, the bigger it gets.

I think sharing my tale infected you as well.

Wait.

Do you hear it?

That hiss in your speakers?

That flicker on your screen?

Don’t turn around.

Credit: Luis Mondejar

Official Site