Spectrogram

Dust gathered beneath the floorboards. The house was darker now as the sun retreated and the sky grew black.

He’d killed more women than he could count on both hands. Each sacrificial soul made the static on the radio louder and, eventually, the voice clearer. Someone was trying to contact him.

‘Is this it?’ she asked, lifting his Bafta award from the table.

‘Careful. It’s delicate.’ Everett warned her. He poured another drink, this time only for her. The old radio sat in the darkest corner of the room. It was vintage and unbranded. Broken, yet still made sounds.

‘I’m impressed. It’s really… pretty.’ She placed the award back down after admiring it. The girl in his house was no older than eighteen but spoke and dressed in a rather mature manner. She, like the radio, may well have just stepped out of the 1940s. He amused himself with the thought, letting it show on his face. His smile only made her more at ease, as she took the drink from his hand.

‘Maybe you can show me other things…’ she grinned, taking a sip from her glass of G&T. It was her first display of immaturity that night, and it stirred a morbid sadness in him. He preferred to think of her as older; a person he was taking less years from. They usually were older. Not someone as young as she was, with many years ahead.

‘I have a surprise. Upstairs.’ He smiled and took the unfinished drink from her hand, placing it on the table next to his award. ‘But you’ll have to wear this.’

Everett Mensch was born in 1973. He grew up in the West End of London – a prodigy of a starlet and a television writer. When he graduated with a law degree, a brief spell of drug abuse tilted his career prospects and led him to pursue the same dream his mum had – acting. He landed his first major television role when he was 26 and later became a household name in Britain. When his wife died suddenly in 2019, he left the world of soap operas and TV dramas to pursue something else. Something more profound; something lasting.

He guided the young woman up the stairs making sure she kept the blindfold on – promising her a reward at the end of it. She drunkenly agreed and found it funny as she climbed the last steps of the narrow staircase; blindly navigating her way forward with her arms. The hallway that awaited was dark, with a red door at the end of it, but she didn’t know that.

‘Why the secrecy?’ Her words were slurred, and her balance was off, and she giggled as Everett opened the door at the end of the hall and led her into an empty room. Unlike all the other rooms in his house, this one was completely void of personality. No wallpaper or carpet, decorations or tables. Just a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and a white mattress in the centre of the room. He guided her to the mattress.

‘This is low down.’ she laughed as she sat down, pressing her hands against the hard foundation underneath her. ‘When can I look?’ She went to remove the blindfold, but Everett gently pushed her hand from her face.

‘Not just yet. There’s one more thing.’ He watched her move her hands gently across the mattress, trying to decipher with just her touch what her surroundings were. Her movements and overall tone became more whimsical as she giggled at the whole situation. ‘Don’t you take that fucking thing off.’ The seriousness in his voice amused her and she let herself fall back onto the mattress. She spread her arms out like wings and tilted her head from side to side, relaxing and simultaneously trying to find comfort in what little room there was for it. Within a matter of seconds, her laughter turned into words that were slurred beyond comprehension. A few yawns, and then within several more seconds she was unconscious.

The old and useless radio had been gathering dust for a long time – how long, Everett never knew. He discovered it whilst looking through the belongings his wife had left behind. A clutter of memories. It’s value as an antique or collectable was of no interest to him, as the same night he found it – over a week after his wife had died – the noises started. At first it was a static sound, a tinnitus of sorts – and he restlessly searched the house for the source of the noise. It was like a religious experience when he discovered that the noise was coming from a radio that hadn’t been turned on for decades. With no battery or power, the clear and uneasy sounds emitting from the broken radio startled him. Was he going mad? Then he heard her voice.

Everett re-entered the empty room, closing the red door behind him and placing the radio on the wooden floor. The girl – Becky, her name was – remained unconscious on the mattress. He sat down beside her and ran his fingers through her hair, gently at first but with more force as he moved his hand across the side of her face to determine whether she was in a deep, unawakening sleep. Her breathing was shallow; her eyes still covered with the blindfold. The stuff he put in the drink always worked fast. He looked back one last time at the radio; it’s static sound climbed in volume as he reached into his jacket and took out a knife. He rested his hand on the side of Becky’s face one more time as guilt briefly threatened to override his desired outcome. He pushed the knife into the side of her neck and covered her mouth with his free hand. He applied as much pressure needed as she began to struggle; to quell any potential noise she might make as blood ran down her throat and onto her chest. Her legs fluttered around like the wings of a butterfly and her body twitched before she was defeated. It was over quickly, and Becky ceased to be. Then, for the first time since the night he found the radio, he heard his wife’s voice again: ‘I’m here. I want to show you the other world.’