A Stormy Night: Stories to Read by Candlelight

White Noise

It was a quiet night in the Jones household. The curtains had been drawn, the doors and windows locked tight, and the lights all turned off. In the living room, however, light flickered onto the carpet and cast the youngest boy, Ernest's, shadow onto the high pile carpet beneath him.

"WBSC will now cease broadcasting," a voice said to Ernest through the speakers, "our next scheduled broadcast will come to you at seven thirty AM for the morning news broadcast. Until then, thank you, and goodnight." The set went blank for a moment, then white and black static filled the screen, and empty noise engulfed the room. Ernest didn't move, however. Instead, he sat staring at the set with wide, transfixed eyes, lost in the dancing lines and dots of the active screen before him. His movement went wavered until someone crept their hand onto his shoulder-

"Ah!" He shouted, spinning around and stumbling back into the television to see his older brother, Eddie, standing above him.

"Hah, I gotcha!" Eddie said, leaning back, pointing down at his younger brother and laughing, "I gotcha good!"

"Why'd you do that Eddie?" Ernest asked, "Why'd you have to scare me?" Eddie thought for a moment,

"Cause it was funny!" He replied. Ernest frowned,

"It wasn't funny to me..." He sat back down on the floor and continued staring into the television set, and Eddie stopped laughing and asked,

"Shouldn't you be in bed anyway?"

"What do you care?" Ernest asked.

"I don't," Eddie replied, wiping spittle from the peach fuzz on his chin, "but mom told me to make sure you got to bed, remember?" Ernest sighed but didn't move, and Eddie slumped into his father's recliner.

"Besides, haven't you heard of-" Eddie paused, "Static Man?" Ernest turned slowly to see the look of seriousness on Ernest's face,

"What do you mean?" He asked, "Who's Static Man?" Eddie turned his head from left to right,

"Static Man is the man-" Eddie paused again, "thing-That comes out of the television at night." Ernest turned fully now, his eyes wide with fear.

"He slowly creeeeeps out of the screen, using his arms to pull himself out," Eddie put one arm out, then another and imitated crawling, "then, his head pops out, but there isn't any face!" Eddie whispered now, and Ernest leaned in to hear him better,

"Why doesn't he have a face?" Ernest asked.

"He doesn't have a face," Eddie said, "because he's just static, just like the T.V set." Eddie pointed to the screen that was still filled with the white and black specks dancing around on the glass.

"Then, he grabs you by the feet..." Eddie stopped, looked left and right, and leaned in closer to his younger brother but stayed silent.

"Then what?" Ernest asked impatiently, "What happens next?"

"Well, he-GETS YOU!" Eddie shouted and grabbed his brothers ankles and pulled them, causing him to fall onto his back in terror while Eddie laughed. He fell back into the recliner and tried to catch his breath, while his brother lay on the floor, doing the same.

"Eddie!" Ernest cried, tears welling up in his eyes as he stood up, "You scared me!" He stormed off to his room and left Eddie to his fits.

It was nearing two in the morning, and Eddie awoke to the flickering of lights beyond his eyelids. When he opened them, he realized that he had fallen asleep in his father's recliner and had forgotten to turn off the television. He blinked once, then twice, and as his body started to become unfrozen from the grasps of sleep, he found himself unable to move. Panicking, he attempted to look around him, but he couldn't move his head. He realized that the recliner had been moved closer to the television, and that his head, arms and hands were restrained to the chair with a thick, scratchy rope. To his left, he noticed a vague outline of someone familiar, and after moving his eyes, he saw his brother.

"Ernest, thank god," he shouted as he fought the restraints, "you've gotta get me out of here!" Ernest moved closer to the chair,

"Why?" He asked, grabbing one of the ropes near Eddies arm and pulling it tighter, "Are you afraid of Static Man?"

"Oh, come on, Ernest, that was just a joke!" He said exasperatedly, "I was just fooling around, honest!" Ernest moved to the right of the chair and tightened another rope, but remained silent.

"Aw, jeez, I didn't mean to scare you that badly," Eddie replied, "I'll never make fun of you again, swear!" Ernest blinked slowly and rubbed his eyes before turning his gaze to the television. Faintly, at first, he watched as a rough outline of a hand formed near the center of the screen. Ernest smiled, and Eddie moved his eyes to the glass as the first hand protruded, and a second started to force its way out. Each hand looked exactly like the background they reached out of: static. The white noise from the speakers grew slightly louder as the figure of a head slid out of the fuzziness, and each hand slapped down onto the carpet in front of Eddie. Sparks of electricity flew from the fingertips of the creature, and jumped up Eddies leg as the head fully revealed itself. Eddie looked on in horror at the faceless figure and fought the restraints,

"Ernest! You've gotta help me! Please!" A hand slapped down onto Eddies left ankle, "Oh god! Ernest!" Eddie screamed at the top of his lungs as the second hand fell down upon his right ankle, and slowly, the thing pulled itself back into the television.

"Ernest! Ernest help!" Eddie screamed as the electricity jumped from the hands to Eddies legs and crept up, slowly turning them into static as they were pulled into the screen. Eddie shouted and wailed in agony as the ropes were also consumed by the static and released their hold on Eddie, and the figure quickly retreated into the set, but not without Eddie first grabbing the chair and causing it to fall over and knock the television off the stand, shattering the glass as the last of Eddie's head was sucked in and the sound ceased.

Later that night, Ernest's parents arrived home to find him hiding in the closet near the foyer, tears streaming down his face and in a cold sweat.

"Oh my god," his mother said as she reached down and picked him up, "what happened?"

"He broke the T.V is what happened," his father said from the living room.

"Someone came in and took Eddie!" Ernest exclaimed in his mothers arms. Their looks changed. His mother set him on the carpet and ran to the kitchen phone, his father walked away from the T.V and sprinted to the second floor to look for Eddie, and Ernest went into the study in the back hall, turned on the television, and watched.