Static

Banshee's Cry

Until one day, I was alone in the house and went downstairs to go to the bathroom. The upstairs one had a window that faced the neighbors, mother always forgot to fix it as it was stuck open for years. The neighbors played their radio around that time of day. I didn't want to be in that bathroom if it went off. The downstairs bathroom had no window, so it felt safer.
As I sat there, feeling the cold porcelain of the seat press into my legs, I heard it. I panicked, pants wrapped at my ankles, shimmying around on that damn thing trying to find the source. When I found it, I cursed. Mom had gotten a shower radio that stuck to the wall on those little rubber suction cups, and it was screeching at me, echoing off of the tiled walls like the sound of a banshee's cry. I fell forward, my feet tangling in my jeans, as I tried to reach it. I scrambled up and ripped it from the wall, slamming it to the floor under my foot. It just kept going, I felt I was about to snap. I continued to stomp on it until, of its own fruition, it ceased.
I stood there staring at it, feeling my bones trembling beneath my flesh. I flew from the bathroom and found my cell phone. When I dialed my mother's number, all I heard was that horrid static, same with Thomas. I began bawling, screaming through my sobs at it to stop and to leave us be. Amid my screaming, my phone began to ring. I stared at the number on my caller ID, knowing full well what it was. I thought that perhaps if I ignored it, it would go away. That they'd be alright. I tried to rationalize that maybe the answering of the call was what really killed them and not the white noise.
Against my better judgment, I answered.
While crossing the road from the market with the groceries they'd gone to get for dinner, the breaks of a semi-truck had failed. It'd hit them straight on, obliterating them. The only possible form of identification was to look at their licenses, after digging for them through blood and debris.
There was barely enough of both of them for a cremation. I had their ashes combined with my father's and laid to rest in this grave. I had their names added alongside his on his tombstone. At this point, I was the only one left alive to attend the funeral. The pastor spewed his usual garbage about release from this life and ascension into heaven. How could there be such a place when all I knew then was a never-ending plane of hell. I couldn't bring myself to believe that my many loved ones were in some fluffy, cloud laden paradise when all of them died in such horrific ways. The graveyard around me had become a family plot at this point. So many of those grave stones had the names of people I'd once laughed with.
People I'd once cried with, shared a home with, shared a bed with...
And I was left alone. I couldn't understand why. Why did this thing want me to suffer? What had I ever done? What had little seven or eight-year-old me done to bring down such a merciless wrath from this unseen force of nature?
I never learned why. That's what makes it so terrifying to me, what always scared me. The question of why or how went silently unanswered. Some nights I felt I could hear a snickering in the blackness, mocking me.
In the years to follow, I became invisible. I never left my mother's house. After I'd taken over the deed and inherited the property and all she owned, I turned that house into my own personal sanctuary. I rid the place of anything that could make a sound. I secured all of the furniture to the floor. I used only plastic utensils and dishes. I removed the curtain rods and secured the curtains to the wall. I did everything possible to create a space that even the most paranoid person could live in and feel safe. Of course, at that point, that person is who I had become.
I ordered a delivery service for groceries, I applied for disability payments, I even ordered from a weekly book club I found in the paper. I found a way to live completely unplugged. I even had the wiring in the house removed for fear that somehow, they'd even find a way to create that god-awful sound.