Dead Screen

The living room looked exactly as it always did. There was no hint that someone had died just feet away, along the narrow hallway, in the galley kitchen. 

I felt a sense of trespassing - trespassing on my late father’s space behind his back, and on my own past, as this house had been my home for nearly twenty years. 

Of course, I’d visited in the past four decades, but this was the first time I’d let myself in and stood alone amongst the furniture and clutter, much of which had been part of my childhood — the large mirror with a bamboo frame above the mantlepiece; a set of china dogs, each representing a different breed lined up on the window ledge; and in the centre of the floor, a leather pouf that hadn’t been in vogue for at least half a century.

Even the ancient TV set that Dad had inherited from his grandparents in around 1975 still sat in one corner. It had died long ago, but my father had refused to throw it out. He said it had sentimental value. My mother had accepted its redundant presence and disguised its useless ugliness by placing trailing plants on top of it. The leaves of the plants had draped over its dead scream until its bulk could have been that of an unsightly side table. There was a plant sat on top of it now, but it was as dead as the set. Several shrivelled, brown leaves lay on the carpet nearby.

I inhaled deeply and headed to the kitchen. I had to face it some time. According to the coroner’s report, Dad had likely slipped on a puddle of water where the old fridge had leaked and hit his head against the work surface. I’d half expected to see a bloody piece of scalp and hair stuck to the fake marble, but even here, there was no vestige of the death. I shivered anyway and folded my arms across my chest.

***

My childhood bedroom was now very much the spare room. There were none of my old belongings stored in the mirrored fitted wardrobe that filled an entire wall. It had been painted a shade of beige, and my posters of pop icons and sports stars replaced with generic artworks of clowns and fairies

I threw my backpack on the single bed, then flung myself next to it.

I’d given myself two weeks to clear out some of the junk and get the house on the market. I’d checked out some of the local estate agents and similar small terrace houses in the area were selling for around £850k. I think Dad had paid about £2,500 for it in the early sixties, so not a bad profit. Of course, I’d have to take into account the lack of modernisation and general poor state of the place, but this part of north London was described as ‘up and coming’, so I was still reckoning on at least £750k.

I felt a wave of guilt for reducing my father’s passing to the value of a property.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them it was dark, apart from the weak, yellow light from the street. I glanced at my watch. I’d slept for three hours. It was only 7pm, but I’d meant to be productive with my time at the house.

I sat up, surveying the shadows in the room. Despite having slept here most nights for twenty years, the lack of my belonging made it feel unfamiliar. As I sat up, trying to muster the energy to head downstairs, I heard a sound. At first, I thought it was rain, but a quick glance out of the window dismissed that theory. As I listened more intently, I realised it was a fizzing, crackling sound. Like static.

I followed the noise to the downstairs hall. A flickering light glowed through the crack in the living room doorway. The sound was coming from there.

I felt a heavy sense that someone else was in the house.

I tried to recall if I’d turned the TV on at any point — the working TV under the window — but I knew I hadn’t. And even if I had, why the static?

I pushed open the living room door, preparing for a shock, but with no idea what I was expecting it to be. My father, sitting in his armchair, staring with dead eyes at the TV?

The TV wasn’t even on. It was a black, thin thing that weighed practically nothing. I knew this, as I’d carried it in from the car on the day my parents had bought it about 15 years earlier. It sat silently on a wooden chest by the window. But the sound of static continued, as did the flickering blue/grey light.

It was coming from behind me.

I turned from the TV below the window to the ancient relic in the corner of the room — the set that hadn’t even been plugged in since around 1985.

The screen was obscured by the brown, trailing leaves of the dead plant, but it was lit up and buzzing with static.

I took two tentative steps towards the set, as if it were an unexploded bomb. Even if by some miracle it still worked, who had switched it on?

As I drew closer, the static seemed to hiss louder, the black dots growing more frenzied, as if they sensed my presence.

I prodded the on/off button, but it had no effect. Tutting, I leaned over the set, reaching out to unplug it from the wall socket. But there was no plug. I remembered now that my father had removed it to use for another electrical appliance. The cable for the set ended in three twisted coloured wires.

I stepped back, releasing a harsh breath.

The screen was blank.

Actually, not quite blank. If I squinted, I could see the ghost of something fading fast. It was the grey outline of the number 23.

***

I awoke at just after 9am, groggy and disorientated. The memory of last night returned like a punch to the chest. I questioned if it could have been a dream, but it had seemed too real for that. Plus, I’d poured myself a glass of water on the way back to bed, and that was sitting on the bedside table.

I decided to do something normal, to put some distance between myself and the impossible events of the small hours.

There was a café ten minutes from the house where Dad and I would often go for coffee during one of my rare visits. I decided to head there for an hour or so, use the free Wifi to send some emails and maybe Google ‘How did an ancient, unplugged TV switch itself on in the middle of the night?’

As I walked down the short path to the front gate, someone called to me from the house next door. I turned and saw an elderly woman waving to me from the doorstep of number 32.

‘Mrs Drake,’ I said after a moment’s processing. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of years and she’d aged massively since then. I remembered Dad saying that her husband had died and how devastated she’d been.

‘Hello, Simon. How are you? I was so sorry to hear about your dad.’

She looked waif-like, her tiny frame clothed in loose-fitting jeans and a pink blouse that was buttoned up wrong, so that one side hung lower than the other. Her white hair was so thin I could clearly see her equally pale scalp.

She made to walk down her own front path towards me, but I held up my hand in a stop gesture and walked back towards Dad’s front door so that I could talk to her over the low brick wall between gardens.

‘I always thought I’d go first,’ she said, appraising me with misty blue eyes. ‘Your dad always seemed so robust.’

I nodded. ‘I never thought he’d die the way he did.’

‘Such a shock,’ said Mrs. Drake, resting a blue-veined hand on the wall between us.

‘Alright mate!’ a loud male voice caused us both to jolt.

I turned to see a man of around 40, crossing the narrow road and striding towards me.

‘See you later,’ said Mrs Drake, stepping backwards and closing her front door in a surprisingly fluid motion.

The man, who’s overly beaming, flushed face I didn’t recognise, opened my front gate and continued towards me.

‘You must be Jack’s son, Simon, is it?’

I resisted the urge to follow Mrs Drake’s example and duck inside and slam the door.

‘That’s right.’ I used the same tone I always used with a cold caller.

‘Tony,’ said the man holding out a plump hand. I shook it, but didn’t hold on longer than I had to. The skin was warm and moist.

‘Sorry about your old man. We used to hang out sometimes, watch the odd game on TV. I thought he might be a bit lonely.’

He made it sound like an accusation.

‘That was kind of you,’ I said.

Tony shrugged. ‘Wasn’t a hardship, Mate. I enjoyed his company.’

I didn’t know what else to say, so I just nodded and smiled.

Tony patted me on the shoulder, hard enough to make me grunt. ‘Anyway, my condolences, Mate. How long you staying for?’

‘Not sure,’ I said.

‘Well, let me know if I can help at all,’ said Tony, still grinning.

“I will,’ I lied, releasing a sigh of relief as he departed.

As I headed towards the café, I analysed what about Tony had repelled me. He’d only been polite and friendly. I realised that his demeanour reminded me of every bully I’d ever encountered. That over-zealous pat on the shoulder could turn into a punch in the gut very easily, and the cheery chat into aggressive insults just as quickly.

***

I woke up at 3 am to the sound of static. The fizzing and buzzing filled the house. I felt cold when I climbed out of bed, the chill prickling at my bare legs and arms. I lifted a hoodie from the chair next to the bed and pulled it on as I headed downstairs.

The same silvery glow emanated through the slightly ajar living room door, and the static now sounded like a swarm of angry bees.

I pushed the door open, staring at the old TV in the corner. The screen was awash with manic dots as before, but as I watched, they began to converge towards the centre of the TV. I watched as they formed a face, forcing myself to stand firm and not run for my bed.

At first it was a blurred, almost featureless visage, but then the form began to push forward, bulging out of the screen, seeming to stretch the glass. I saw a gaping mouth, then dark oval eyes, each with with a piercing silver dot in their centre.

‘Twenty-three!’ the mouth screamed. ‘Twenty-three!’

And even through the fizz of static, I recognised my father’s voice.

***

The image and voice of my father had faded almost immediately after the scream. I had stood paralysed in the living room doorway for several seconds, before a wave of dizziness overcame me.

I awoke to daylight, unable to remember returning to my bed.

I lay staring at the off-white ceiling, trying to come to terms with the fact that I’d experienced something supernatural. I’d always claimed to have an open mind about ghosts and hauntings, but accepting the possibility and actually being confronted with a supernatural event were two very different things.

I needed to calm my brain and focus on why my father was trying to communicate with me and the significance of the number 23.

I was still contemplating both these questions while making a mug of tea in the kitchen when the front doorbell rang.

A woman I didn’t recognise stood on the doorstep. She was slightly built, I guessed in her late thirties, and had the demeanour of a frightened animal, ready to flee at the slightest sign of aggression.

‘I’m Sarah,’ she said, waving something metallic in front of my face. ‘I’m Tony’s wife. He says he saw you yesterday.’

‘Oh right,’ I responded.

I realised that the item she was flapping in front of my face was a set of keys.

‘I thought I should return these. Your dad gave us a set in case he locked himself out. Him and Tony were quite matey. Used to watch football together and stuff.’

‘Yes, your husband said.’ I took the keys from her, as much to stop the irritating rattling as anything.

‘Well, I thought you should have them back,’ she said, taking a bird-like step backwards.

There was an awkward pause where Sarah appeared to have something else to say, but then she gave a nervous smile and a minute wave of her left hand and minced back across the road.

I watched her for a few moments, then was distracted by a movement to my right. I turned to see Mrs Drake’s net curtain drop back into place.

***

Throughout the morning, the dead TV set turned itself on for brief moments, filling my head with the increasingly violent sound of buzzing static. There were no more vision or screams. Just a constant reminder that I needed to do something.

The doorbell rang again at around 3.30 in the afternoon. It was Mrs Drake.

‘I feel like I’m interfering,’ she said, without preamble.

I frowned.

‘I just don’t trust them.’

‘Who?’ I already knew who she meant.

‘That Tony and his misses. Well, not her so much, but him.’

‘What has he done to make you not trust him?’ I asked, genuinely intrigued.

Mrs Drake shrugged. ‘It’s just that things started to go wrong around here after they moved in to number 23.’

The number clunked from Mrs Drake’s mouth into my brain in slow, heavy motion, landing like blocks of lead.

‘Number twenty-three?’ I repeated.

Mrs Drake nodded. ‘We’ve had burglaries up and down the street, bikes going missing from garden sheds…’

‘But my dad trusted them,’ I said. ‘He gave them a spare set of keys.’

“Your dad was a bit confused towards the end. He forgot my name a few times. He always remembered it eventually, but you could see it was a struggle. I wouldn’t be surprised if that Tony took advantage of that.’

‘How exactly?’ I regretted the snappy tone of my voice.

‘I said I was interfering,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

She headed back down the path before I had a chance to reassure her. I closed my front door because I couldn’t think what to say.

I stared at the dead TV as I passed the living room door, then stood in the kitchen, playing a scenario in my head. My Dad coming downstairs at night for a glass of water or a pill for his bad back, seeing Tony from number 23 standing in the kitchen, maybe clutching the jar of petty cash, or just preparing to case the downstairs for anything worth nicking; Dad confronting him, Tony panicking and shoving him backwards. I heard and felt the thud of my dad’s head hitting the edge of the wok surface.

I couldn’t know for sure this was how events had unfolded, but I’d find out.

Behind me the TV came to life for one final burst of static.

‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ I whispered. ‘I’m on it.’