When Static Speaks

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Hailey Winston, an 18-year-old freshman at Fredrickson University, had lit it with trembling hands just minutes before. She stood in the middle of the room, staring out at the shadows that pooled just outside the candle’s weak flame. The threadbare, moth-eaten curtains shook and trembled in the breeze and the old wood creaked as she tried to face whatever lurked in the darkness without shaking. In her sweaty palm, she clutched the handle of a knife. Her heart pounded, but she refused to let her guard drop for even a moment. Finally, after a handful of excruciating seconds, she opened her mouth and began to chant, her tongue stumbling over the unfamiliar Latin words. Exsurge a mortuis et iterum ambula inter homines. After she had recited the phrase a dozen times, she fell suddenly silent. Every muscle in her body tensed as she waited. Moments passed, each one more slowly than the last. Despite how hard she was straining to listen, she still wasn’t ready when she heard it, a sound normally so unremarkable magnified a thousand times by the heavy quiet of the forest that surrounded it. The distinct snap of a brittle branch crushed underfoot. It was at that moment, with fear heightening her every sense, that she realized –

“Damn.” Amy stumbled to a halt in the middle of her monologue, biting her lip as she stared into the lens of the camera in front of her.

“Forget your line again?” I asked, holding back a sigh.

“Damn it, Clara. Yes.” Amy huffed as Parker, our intern, shifted the camera into her other hand and reached into her back pocket, fumbling for our script. I wiped at the sweat pooling on my forehead as Amy stared down at the lines and pursed her lips. Sunset was nearly here, but the temperature hadn’t dropped yet, and the woods felt muggy and claustrophobic. I could feel my t-shirt sticking to my back and winced, wondering whether the sweat marks would show up on camera.

“Should we break?” I said, hopefully, glancing at the crumbling cabin behind Amy and then at the sky to check the remaining light. “It won’t be dark for another thirty minutes.”

Amy looked up and squinted in frustration. “Yeah. Fine. We’ve done like fifteen takes at this point anyway.”

“Maybe,” Parker said slowly, her meek voice barely audible, “you could just wing this one. The script feels a little… overdone to me. We don’t actually know if Hailey did any of what you’re saying. No one was with her.”

A pang of discomfort passed over me at the words, but Amy just sniffed. “It’s called creative license, Parker. Do you think that all the narration on those true crime podcasts you’re obsessed with is 100% accurate?” She pushed her hair back from her face and squinted at her phone. “God, my life for one bar of service.” She stalked off into the woods, leaving Parker flush-faced behind her.

I walked up to her and bumped her shoulder with mine. “I get what you mean about the script. It’s not our best.” I agreed.

She looked up at me, a brief, grateful smile appearing on her face. Parker was only two years younger than us, a sophomore at Fredrickson University where we all went, but being a senior made me feel ancient. It didn’t help that Parker looked a little short of her nineteen years with her big wire-framed glasses and nervous glances. When Amy had told me two months ago that she was thinking of hiring her as our intern, I’d laughed. “Why would Panicky Parker want to be an intern on an internet ghost show?” I’d said, shaking my head. But it was undeniable that Parker was a whiz with technology, and a little bit of audio-visual magic was just what we needed.

Amy and I had met during Rush Week three years ago and if you told me then that just six months later, she would talk me into taking a camera and a Ouija board to a famously haunted dorm on campus, I would have laughed in your face. For one thing, with her designer bags and perfect make-up, she didn’t seem like the type to focus on the macabre. For another, I didn’t believe in ghosts. And yet, two and a half years later, here we were, with an audience that gave her the attention she so clearly craved. Such was the magic of Amy. She was difficult, but she also made things happen. For better or worse.

Anyway, when we were both on camera, our roles were clear. She was the talent and the clickbait, her big eyes and quivering lips always projecting pure terror whenever we ventured to a new spooky location. Meanwhile, I was the writer, researcher, and resident skeptic, my arms folded in every thumbnail. I had yet to see anything that had truly spooked me since we had started visiting haunted locations. At least… nothing we had filmed for the show.

I shivered and drew my arms around my body. Parker shot me a glance. “Cold?” She said, her eyes traveling up to the still blistering sun streaking the sky red and gold above us.

“Not exactly.” I shook my head, looking around at the empty clearing, the cabin sagging in front of us like a broken body, the glass in the windows crusted with dirt, and the door hanging off one hinge. “I don’t love this place.”

“You’re scared of the Merchantville Madman?” Parker said, quirking an eyebrow.

The Merchantville Madman was part ghost story and part local lore. Since middle school, I had heard whispered stories about the escaped mental patient who had taken his prey back to this cabin to murder them. It wasn’t even a little bit true, but even though this bogeyman was long dead in all the stories told about him around campfires, some claimed his ghost still visited this shack, searching for new victims. That didn’t stop every teenager and young adult in a ten-mile radius from making this their make-out spot, but at one time, I still would have agreed that this rundown eyesore was a prime location for one of our silly videos. But now… we weren’t really here to test the limits of a legend, and for a moment I hated Parker for making me say that out loud.

“I’m more put off by the real tragedy that happened here,” I said, quietly. “It wasn’t my idea to come here on the anniversary.”

Parker was fiddling with her camera now, but if she didn’t like being reminded that she was at the scene of a murder, it didn’t show. “Yeah, what happened to Hailey was awful. But they caught the guy, right? That drifter creep who slept nearby. We should be safe now.”

“Yeah,” I murmured around the lump in my throat. Hailey Winston had been found brutally stabbed in this cabin almost a year to the day. For a few weeks, even sober-minded adults had wildly speculated that the Merchantville Madman was behind the crime. But in the end, it wasn’t a ghost story that killed Hailey. It was a vagrant with a history of violence. He had come up to the cabin in the night, spotted Hailey, and tried to assault her. When she fought back, she ended up with a knife in her chest, a knife he claimed she had been carrying. No one could understand it though, why Hailey had been in the woods in the first place, why she seemed to be waiting for something terrible to happen with a knife in one hand. So, the rumor mill kept turning, and some people remained convinced it was all a cover-up, the deranged man a patsy for a lunatic murderer the police denied existing. It was all very sensationalized and seemed to ignore the pain Hailey must have felt in those last, horrible moments. I had tried to avoid it as much as possible over the last 12 months, but now… here I was. A part of it all over again.

“Okay, let’s do this.” Amy’s brisk, all-business voice cut through the gathering dusk as she walked back towards us, phone in hand. Her blonde hair was perfectly styled despite our rustic setting, and I saw from the sheen on her lips she had just reapplied her lip-gloss. The irony of primping at the scene of a murder didn’t seem to register with her, so I let it pass.

She walked back in front of the cabin and struck a pose. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. When I first met Amy, I had thought she bought into all the spiritual mumbo jumbo she spouted on camera and off, but I had seen her switch off pure terror too many times now.

Parker peeked through the camera’s viewfinder and bit her lip. “Actually, I don’t know if we still have the light. It’s a little shadowy.”

“Are you serious?” Amy said, her voice tight with irritation.

“It’s fine,” I piped up. “We got a lot of B-roll earlier. We can do some voice-over. It might feel more professional.” Amy seemed inclined to disagree, but she saw the look on my face and snapped her mouth closed.

“Alright, Clara, let’s head inside.” She turned on her heel and stalked towards the cabin, ignoring Parker completely. Parker winced and glanced at me apologetically, but I just rolled my eyes and shrugged one shoulder. When Amy got in one of her moods, it was best just to go along with her. I did wish she could at least pretend though, especially since we had argued about coming here. I had been against it, but she had insisted that the views would be worth it. It certainly wasn’t the first time Amy had gotten her way against my better judgment. My heart twisted in my chest at the thought.

By the time Parker and I got into the cabin, Amy was already unzipping her bags, pulling out all the gadgets we’d acquired over the last couple of years, the pseudo-technology looking particularly out of place in the rundown setting.

“Do you want to start with the spirit box to reach out to the Merchantville Madman?” Amy said, holding up the boxy contraption in one hand as Parker started setting up the camera tripod and our small, battery-powered light.

“Whatever you want,” I said, aware I sounded a little icy. “You’re running the show.”

Amy raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Reaching out to the fictional Merchantville Madman had been our compromise between Amy wanting to completely center the episode around Hailey’s death and me wanting to stay the hell away from the topic. But I still wasn’t happy about the way that everything had panned out. No matter what we chose to discuss and what we decided to dance around, being here felt like we were mocking Hailey's pain.

"Here, help me," Amy ordered, holding up a bag I knew was packed full of crystals and sage. I went to work setting them up around the space, trying to make everything look suitably occult. Once I was finished, the old cabin looked like a cross between a witch's hut and the metaphysical gifts section of an Anthropologie.

"Alright," Amy's voice was a little hushed, and I wondered if despite her bravado, being here was influencing her mood too. "You ready?"

"Yes," Parker said, aiming the light to hit the space where Amy and I would be sitting. "Let's do this."

Amy and I sat down cross-legged from each other on the dirty floor. I tried not to think about remnants of Hailey’s blood staining the boards beneath us, my throat thickening. I stared at Amy and saw the exact moment when her eyes went glassy and terrified, perfectly on cue as she reached over and gripped my hands with hers. "W-we are here tonight, to speak to anyone whose spirit may be residing in this cabin." My spine stiffened and I tightened my hold on her fingers. She didn’t acknowledge it as she continued, "But in particular, we wish to speak to the Merchantville Madman. I'm going to turn on the spirit box now, which should make it easier for him to reach out to us." She flipped the switch on the radio-like contraption, which began to hiss with static. Allegedly, the shifting radio frequencies would allow a ghost to transmit their voice to us.

"I feel weird." My eyes darted up to meet Amy's as she spoke, her voice so soft I was confident it was meant more for me than the cameras.

"What?" I whispered, but she shook her head as if she hadn't spoken and continued.

"In life, they called you the Merchantville Madman. In death, you're known as a menace and a legend." She nodded at me, and I picked up from where she had left off in our script.

"Some skeptics, like myself, choose not to believe, but I come here tonight with an open mind, ready to interact with-"

SLAM. The sound of the door of the cabin banging shut interrupted me and the words dried up in my throat. Amy jumped and Parker inhaled in a quick, desperate squeak. For a moment, the sound of static was all that filled the room. I stared at Amy, and she shrugged. "Must have been the wind."

"Amy-" I began, something like dread unspooling in my stomach, but she kept talking.

"Why did you do what you did?" Amy said, addressing the spirit box directly. "Are the stories true? About the victims you brought here? Was it you who took Hailey Winston's life?"

"Amy!" I said again, my voice sharper. Her name had barely left my mouth when our light began to flicker. Parker moved silently over to it, her face puzzled and tense. I tried to say we should cut, but before I could begin to form the words, the static got louder, filling the space. Amy’s eyes darkened, a mix of excitement and interest swirling in them, but I felt only horror as a garbled voice unlike any we’d heard before began to spew out of the speakers. It was almost impossible to make out any words, but there was a human quality to the rushed, desperate noise that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"Hello?" Amy said. She glanced up into the camera, her features contorting in fake fright, “I think this might be him, guys. It sounds like a man.” I glanced nervously at Parker, whose face was paler than ever in the strobing light. "Who am I speaking to?" Amy continued.

"Mur-." The disembodied voice spat out.

"Mur?" I said, slowly.

"Mur." The voice repeated louder, making me jump. A cold chill streaked down my spine, a realization dawning over me just as the voice managed to say, "Murderers."

The word was crystal clear through the static, and each syllable cut through me like a knife. I stared at Amy. "We have to turn it off," I whispered, but she wasn’t listening.

"Is this the Merchantville Madman? What are you talking about?" She leaned forward, her cheeks red and eyes wide. "Who are the murderers?"

"You killed Hailey!" The voice yelled, and black spots appeared in my vision. The voice was no longer hard to decipher. Amy finally met my eyes, shock and horror melding her features into a twisted reflection of her usual smirking expression.

Before either of us could move, the cabin’s windows slammed shut and Parker screamed as the light went out completely, plunging us into darkness as the camera continued to roll.

"Turn it off, Amy!" I yelled. I could hear her hands scrabbling around in the darkness, searching for the switch to the spirit box, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts as the voice kept shouting, "Murderers! Murderers!"

"Got it!" I heard Parker yell and the click of the switch being flipped, but nothing changed. The static still filled the room, the voice continued to rant.

"What's happening?" Amy choked out, her voice now laced with tears.

"We have to go. Now." I stumbled to the door in the dark and yanked on the handle, but it wouldn't budge. I slammed my palm against the brittle wood, hoping it would give, but it was useless. I turned back to face the suffocating interior of the cabin. In the dark I could imagine the walls growing closer, the cabin boxing us all in like a creaky coffin. Parker was sobbing now. The voice that was still booming through the spirit box gave one last cry of "Murderers!" and abruptly cut out. In the silence that followed, Parker whispered, "What.... what was that?"

"I don't kn-" Amy began, but as if in response, the spirit box roared back to life, the voice coming out broken and angry but still clear enough to be understood.

"Admit what you did. Admit what you did. Admit what you did." The accusing phrase droned on and on amidst the static, growing louder and louder until I clapped my hands over my ears.

Amy reached out and clutched my hand in the dark, her nails sinking into my skin. "I didn't do anything!"

The voice kept screaming. "Admit what you did. Admit what you did. You killed Hailey!"

"I didn't kill her!" Amy shouted. "I didn't know he would hurt her."

I froze, my heart pumping wildly in my ears. As if Amy’s word were a magic spell, our light began to glow dimly again, but in the half-light, all I could see was the horror in Parker’s eyes.

She stared back and forth between us, shaking. "W-what are you talking about?”

"It’s not-” I began, but the voice silenced me with an angry, "Tell the truth." The windows slammed open and shut again and I cowered.

Amy folded into herself, shaking. "She was rushing our sorority. We were sophomores, she was a freshman. It was normal to pick on her a little, you know? It was just a prank. A stupid hazing ritual. I gave her a knife and told her she had to go to the cabin and call up the Merchantville Madman. It was just a dumb game." She choked back a sob. "B-but, Clara and I came here that night just to see... how long she would stay."

I felt bile rise in my throat at her words. I remembered the way Amy's lip had curled the first time she met Hailey, how threatened she had been by her pretty face and big smile. When she had first told me about the prank, I had only rolled my eyes at her, but when she had demanded we go to see how long Hailey would stand in that darkness, waiting, I realized that this wasn't just about pranking a pretty freshman. Amy wanted Hailey to experience real fear, so she could feel power over her. In a way, maybe that’s why she was always trying to scare our audience too. The power. That alone, the excitement in her eyes when she told me about the plan to watch and wait, should have been enough for me to stop it, but I hadn’t.

"I-I knew that that drifter was up here. I saw him once when my boyfriend and I were at the cabin together after a party. He had been watching us through the window. He terrified me when I saw him, but he ran off when I screamed. I thought he was pervy but harmless. I thought she'd see him through the window and think it was the Merchantville Madman, and that then he'd leave again. I just wanted to scare her! I didn't know what he would do!” Amy sobbed.

Her words brought me back to that night, crouching in the underbrush, watching the candle in the cabin flicker, as the dark shadow of the vagrant approached, his head cocked to one side. I remembered the dread I had felt as he walked up to the door, the way it had felt like waking up, that jolt of realization of what we had led Hailey into. I had whispered, "We have to do something." Amy had barely seemed to hear me. Her eyes were two dark pools in the moonlight and her breath was hot on my face when she finally whispered back. "He'll just scare her."

The seconds that crawled by as he opened the door of the cabin were too long and too short at the same time. My entire body bristled at Hailey's agonized cry as he lunged forward, and my heart went into my throat. We heard a crash, and I jumped to my feet. "We have to help her!”

I hadn’t waited for an answer. I ran forward, rushing to the cabin window just in time to see him sink the knife Amy had given Hailey deep into her chest. The scream that poured out of her had haunted my nightmares for the last year, but the worst part was the way her eyes had flicked to mine in the window mere seconds before the light left them. She had seen me and known what this was. Not an accident, or a tragedy. A betrayal.

"I don't understand!" Amy yelled at the still screaming spirit box. "We didn't kill her! We're not murderers."

"No," I whispered, and my whole body shook as I remembered the blood pooling on the cabin floor, the way her eyes had filled with unimaginable pain, rage, and horror. "But we led her here and let her die. We're complicit. We're cowards." I raised my voice. "Are you happy now?! We're cowards and we did this to her!"

The voice instantly silenced and the light returned to its normal full glow. I gasped. I turned to Parker, expecting to see judgment or horror on her face, but her expression pulled me up short. Parker wasn’t crying anymore. She wasn’t cowering. She didn’t look sad at all. Parker was smiling. And she was holding the camera pointed straight at us.

I stared at the lens, feeling all the blood draining from my face. “What are you doing?”

“Ending this charade.” She said, pulling a small remote out of her pocket. With a click, the doors and windows opened on their own. “It took me a while to get that set up.” She said, nodding at her handiwork. “Impressed?”

“What?” Amy was swiping angrily at her tears. “What are you talking about? You did this?” She gestured at the cabin and the now-silent spirit box. “How?”

“Just a little audio-visual magic. A remote, a recording, and a voice changer.” Parker said. She straightened her shoulders, her meek, hunched pose disappearing in an instant. “Isn’t that why you hired me?”

“Do you think this is funny?” Amy said, her voice growing colder, her tears already evaporating. “Delete that footage right now. “

“Do you think you have the upper hand here, Amy?” Parker said, unbothered. “You don’t. I know you like to play God, but you must understand, that ends after tonight. I’m finally getting Hailey the justice she deserved.” She smiled, the expression resembling a snarl. “You thought Hailey wouldn’t have told anyone about your prank and you were right, almost. But she told me. She told me everything.” Her voice shook slightly on the word. “I was her best friend. And you two… you got her killed.”

“If you knew,” I said slowly, trying hard to steady my breathing, “why didn’t you tell anyone?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “No proof. And little Miss Golden Girl over there wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. I knew neither of you would admit to it. So, I got closer to you, and I waited for my moment. This was it.” She glanced around. “One year later, right where she was killed. Almost poetic, right?”

“You bitch.” Amy hissed. “You lied to me. Delete that footage! Now.”

“No, Amy,” Parker said, not even flinching. “I won’t. And if you feel betrayed right now, that’s nothing to how Hailey must have felt lying on this floor one year ago.”

Amy swore angrily and launched herself forward, and for a moment, I thought she would wrench the camera from Parker’s hands, but the next second she bolted past to the open door, running out into the night.

For a moment, the only sound was the snap of branches as Amy disappeared into the dark woods. I faced Parker, trying to reconcile this cold, confident woman with the scared teenager I had gotten to know over the last few months. “Tell me why.”

She stared me down with cold eyes and said, “Because you deserved it. Not even for what you did but for how quickly I know you must have left her.”

I felt a pang in my chest as I remembered that moment, standing frozen outside the window, watching the blood flow over the killer’s hands. For a moment I had thought about racing to the door, screaming, waving my arms, doing anything to get him off her, but the terror spiking through my veins had stopped me. Fear had sent me scurrying off into the woods instead, Amy following behind me. I had known before we even stopped running that we would tell no one.

Tears slid down my face. "There was nothing we could do."

"How would you know?" Parker spat as if each word had a bad taste. "You didn't try."

Before I could say another word, a piercing scream pulled my attention to the tall shadows of the trees outside. Horror filled me. "What did you do?"

Parker looked confused, but I didn’t wait for her explanation. I ran out of the cabin, toward the desperate sound. The stars were blotted out by dark clouds, and I could barely see as I flung myself through the thick underbrush, branches and twigs like claws slashing at my face and clothes. I reached a clearing and shouted, "Amy!" but there was no sound, only the wind in the trees and behind me, the gasping breaths of Parker following me through the woods. When she reached me, I whirled on her, my teeth bared. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing." She said, trying to catch her breath. "I don't know where she went. Do you think part of my plan is her running away from the consequences?"

“Then where is she!” I yelled, but another scream, this one longer and more agonized, pulled me up short, my whole body coated in sweat. I knew that sound. It had echoed in the darkest corners of my mind for months. Amy’s scream had sounded frightened and shrill, but this noise, a raw shout of anguish, sounded so familiar my heart faltered. It was Hailey. My blood turned to ice water in my veins.

"It has to be her.” I turned to Parker, eyes wide, but she was staring at me in horror, shaking her head wordlessly.

I plunged into the forest again, heading back to the cabin, where everything began and ended one horrible night a year ago. A thick dread like poisonous sludge filled me when I saw the single candle flickering in the window once again and a shadow on the wall inside, but unlike last time, I didn’t hesitate or stand frozen outside the window. Instead, I threw myself at the door, wrenching it open.

Amy was dead on the floor, her face set in a permanent stare of horror with her jaw split in a silent scream. Hailey’s knife was jammed into her chest.

Blood was everywhere, soaking into the cracks of this cursed place all over again as I knelt beside her, crying and gasping. I turned back to Parker, who stood in the doorway, hand to her mouth. "Did you do this?”

"I-I didn't. I swear. I don't know what's happening." Parker said, and the real terror in her voice and tears on her face told me the truth. This wasn't Parker's game anymore. This was something darker.

I stood up, turning away from Amy’s body. For the first time, I allowed myself to believe. "Hailey? Are you here with us?" I whispered. I felt a chill like cold fingers up my spine and Parker’s eyes grew wider, her mouth opening and closing as she pointed behind me. I turned back, shaking. Hailey stood there, still wearing her blood-soaked clothes from the night she died, eyes vacant and dark, skin pale as moonlight. This was not a legend, or a ghost story whispered around a campfire. The only thing tying Hailey to this world was the pain and anger that filled the space around us like a suffocating heat.

"I'm sorry," I whispered brokenly. Behind me, I heard Parker scream again and begin to run, but I couldn't make my limbs move. I was too burdened by all the guilt and fear I'd carried for the last year. It was time for me to set it down. No matter what it cost. "Hailey, I'm so sorry."

She opened her mouth, a black pit of emptiness and death, and screamed, launching herself forward to wrap her icy, dead fingers around my neck.

As she pinned me to the floor and the air began to leave my lungs, I thought I heard the spirit box start up again, the endless static filling the cabin and my brain as everything went dark.