Dust and Static

Just one more box.

Frank thought to himself as he turned back into his childhood home. The loss of his parents was, on paper, a tragedy, a car crash that couldn't have been avoided, but in reality it was no real loss to him. It had been years since he'd spoken to them, and even longer since he'd seen them.

Growing up, his parents were distant and elusive, almost as if they never wanted kids. They were relatively well off, which meant that Frank was able to get whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, his parents would just buy it for him to keep him out of their way.

And now here he was, clearing out their house of all their belongings. It had taken a few days to box and pack everything up, a lot of Frank's stuff sparked memories of growing up and he was sick to the bone of being in this house again.

Putting this box in the back of the truck, stacking it like an expert tetris player, he walked through the bare hallway and past the ornate bannister, not taking in the details anymore, just keen to be finished. Before stepping into the dining room where the last box was sitting on the table, his shoe snagged on something on the floor. Looking down, assuming it'd be a large splinter from the old wooden floor, he was surprised to see what looked like a hinge.

Further inspection found a second hinge, and a hole that could've easily been mistaken for a knot in the wood. Frank now understood the use for the seemingly useless hooked stick he’d found in the cupboard under the stairs.

Hidden by a rug for as long as Frank could remember, he would have never found this trapdoor had he not caught his foot in the now empty hallway. Intrigued, and knowing he'd be wondering his whole life what was down there if he didn't go down now, he put his finger through the hole that could've been a knot, and pulled up enough for him to stick his foot under, giving him the leverage he needed to lift open the trapdoor to rest against the understairs cupboard door.

It was dark, not that he’d expected anything less, but it seemed darker than it should, ominous almost. It was a staircase down at least, as opposed to a ladder, which Frank started to make his way down. Each step creaked underfoot as he gingerly stepped down into the darkness, carefully placing each foot, concerned that every step might break through the weak staircase.

Reaching the bottom unscathed, and staircase intact, Frank fumbled around with his left hand feeling for a light switch he couldn't see, his arm brushed against a pull chord, which he tugged down and heard the familiar sound of a click and the light flickered on.

There didn't seem to be much on initial glance apart from a pile of old boxes which immediately Frank didn't like the look of after hauling what felt like hundreds out of the house already today. Along with the boxes was a tape recorder sitting alone on a desk against the back wall, with two chairs pushed in on either end.

Finding the setup strange, he looked at the six boxes with more detail, and found that they were labelled with his name and a date range, each box ranging two to three years. Feeling increasingly disturbed, Frank took a tape out of that box labelled;

FRANK GRIFFIN

2003-2006

At that time, he would have been between 8-12, depending on the month. The tape itself was labelled specifically as May 4th 2004, with no other information, putting him at nine years of age at the time of recording.

He put the tape in and pressed play. The whirring of the tape recorder started, and there was a crackling static before a sound he hadn't heard in years.. His own mothers voice.

“Can you state your name and age for the record?”

“Frank Griffin, ten years old."

“What can you tell us about what you remember from our last time talking, Frank?”

A pause, as Frank's younger self took time to think about his answer.

“I.. I don't think I remember talking to you before.”

“Excellent, do you know who we are, Frank?”

“No ma'am.”

No pause that time. Frank's brows furrowed in confusion as he listened. He hadn't heard it in a while, sure, but he was confident that was his mother's voice. And as if in confirmation, the following voice he heard, quiet, but confident and strong, was definitely his father's.

“What can you tell us about where you are, Frank?”

A small pause again, presumably as young Frank was looking around him.

“A small room, roughly square, a couple of boxes, a desk in front of us and three cha… Mum? Dad? Where are we?”

“Shit.. Forty-two seconds, knock him out again John.”

“Huh? Mum? What do you mean? Dad.. Dad no, please, Dad?! Dad stop, Dad stop please! AAAAAHHHH.”

Frank cringed in almost physical pain as he heard his younger self screaming in emotional agony as his parents drugged him, they then briefly spoke about how long his memory had been tampered with as a quick session debrief, before he heard the click of the tape stopping, and the whir of the tape recorder as the now finished tape kept spinning.

Frank's concern ran deep, like a trench opening up in his heart, and multiple realisations hit him at once. His parents weren't just distant and dismissive, they were also manipulative, abusive and completely devout of emotion. The pure amount of tapes in this room must have equaled roughly two of these sessions per week for twelve whole years of his life.

That realisation also made him aware that his whole reason for being was to be an experiment. This wasn't a random occurrence, twelve years of his life had been consumed by this, and his parents had chosen to do that from a very young age, perhaps they even had him for this purpose.

Not only that, after listening to the first tape, he questioned how any adult could treat any child like that, let alone their own. Messing with someone's memory was incredibly dangerous for one, and more than just a breach of trust, it was a breach of humanity. Frank didn't remember any of these conversations, and there were hundreds of them. It even concerned him that he didn't even know about the basement he was currently standing in, yet he had apparently been in here hundreds of times before.

Frank listened to more tapes, and before he knew it four hours had passed, he'd listened to over a hundred. He'd gathered information from the debriefs, it seemed his parents had been attempting to develop a drug to make people susceptible to suggestion. In all the tapes Frank never once lost his temper, he answered every question as openly and honestly as possible, and he barely showed emotion. Until the drug wore off, which as the dates kept getting closer and closer to today, lasted longer and longer. The last tape he'd listened to he was under for almost three minutes, but that clearly wasn't enough for dear old mum and dad, as the tapes kept coming.

Deciding to skip a little bit of time, he picked a new box, and grabbed a random tape with the date July 9th 2009. At fifteen years old, Frank's parents had increased the drug's potential and young Frank was under for almost fourteen minutes.

Frank then listened to another four of these in a row, all of them starting in the same way, the same few questions, and then diverted off with almost random questions being asked - what was his favourite colour, his favourite subject, who his family was, etc. At first it seemed unnecessary, but Frank realised it was a controlling factor, a way to prove that the drug worked as a suggestive one, where there was no want or need for avoidance of, or reluctance to answer the questions.

Frank put the next tape in, and hit play, the start of the conversation so familiar to him now.

“Can you state your name and age for the record?”

“Frank Griffin, sixteen years old.” His birthday being towards the end of July, this was his first tape at sixteen. Not that it made any difference to his parents.

“What can you tell us about what you remember from our last time talking, Frank?”

“I don't remember talking to you before.”

“Okay, and do you know who we are, Frank?”

“No ma'am."

“Right, it's time to ask a few questions… What's happening, what's wrong?”

Frank hadn't heard this yet, not once had it gone ‘wrong’ until the drug had worn off, but there was concern in his mother's voice, but, Frank thought, not concern for young Frank, but for the experiment and drug, up until now they had been making steady progress.

“Frank?”

His father's voice this time, tinted with a little concern as well, and was that.. Fear? It was rare to hear his voice, it tended to be his mother conducting the interviews.

“An agent. Seventeen seconds. No, never. Yes. Red. Cricket."

“How… How did you know what my questions were for the day?”

“I heard them.. Inside… ” A pause, followed by a flurry of seemingly random answers. “Janine, Atherton Street, University of Durham, Alfie and Jonah, Sonia, Oakhill.”

The tape went silent, it was still playing, but young Frank had finished his outburst and his parents were taking it all in. But so was someone else, Frank stood there in front of the tape recorder frozen, stunned and heartbeat hammering. What young Frank had said on tape had meant nothing to Frank's parents, but to adult Frank it meant everything.

Janine was his ex-girlfriend at sixth form, Atherton Street he had moved to when he was at university in Durham. Sonia was the one who got away, his girlfriend of three years after meeting at uni. Oakhill is the name of his current house, and the two boys names he didn’t know for sure, but he had been speaking with Sonia at uni about their future, and if they had boys their names would be Alfie and Jonah.

So lost in his own thoughts, still in shock from what he'd just heard, Frank didn't hear that his mother had started talking again, trying to get their conversation back on track. He did tune back in however to young Frank coming out of his drugged state, confusion clear in his young voice, before his parents knocked him out and stopped the tape, skipping their debrief for the first time.

At this point, Frank recognised that he'd picked tapes out of the most recently dated box, he had a thought and quickly sifted through the rest, trying to find a tape with a later date on it.

He found none.

Either his parents had stopped after that last one, or they'd moved their operation elsewhere.

Frank didn't know what to do with himself, he knew he'd reached a point where he couldn't listen to anymore after getting to the end of the proverbial timeline. But at the same time, going back to emptying the house and going home felt… Wrong.

He sat there in silence for what felt like hours, and then decided to take these boxes with him, get home and then decide what to do after that.

He picked up the last box and saw a tape inside that wasn't dated. Confused, he wondered how he hadn't seen it earlier. He elected to play it before he left and Frank heard his young voice once more, it was distorted and the static almost disguised it, but what he heard chilled him to his bones and caused his hair on his arms and back of his neck to stand on end.

“Just one more box.”