the dead whisper in your ear

I have a ritual to guide myself to sleep. I have to do it every night. If I don't, I won't sleep a wink, just stare at the ceiling as I pick at my skin.

It goes like this: I turn on the tube preamp I keep next to my bed, making sure a guitar isn't jacked in. Then I plug a set of headphones into the amp's output and put them on. I have the volume and gain settings all worked out.

It's amazing to me how such a huge wall of sound can come out of nowhere.

What I'm saying is that there's a special kind of static I found, some kind of white noise in the crushing hiss of the tube amp that knocks me right out. I've been refining it for years. I fall asleep within moments of putting on my headphones. It's some kind of magic, I swear.

12:00 am

I wake in the night to silence. No white noise. None. I sit up.

A red light in the darkness indicates the amp still has power.

I pull off my headphones, turn on my bedside lamp, and check the preamp. As I suspected, one of the tubes has gone bad. This happens pretty often. I go through tubes pretty fast, keeping the amp on all night while I sleep. I've got plenty of backups though, so it's not a big deal.

I change out the bad amp and within minutes I'm asleep again.

1:02 am

"sss coming run... sss coming run... sss coming run... sss coming run..."

I wake up. The static has an odd repetition to it that must have woken me up. It could almost be a child's voice.

I turn on the bedside lamp. I check the new tube. Sometimes, when a tube goes bad, you'll hear unusual sounds. But I check all the tubes, and none of them appear to be broken.

I shut the amp off, wait a moment, and turn it back on again.

The static is back to normal.

Ah, my precious white noise. I'd never be able to sleep without it.

1:22

"he's coming, run... he's coming, run... he's coming, run... he's coming, run..."

I wake up with a start and yank off my headphones. I definitely heard a voice that time. A kids voice, like a little boy, but far away, buried deep in the static, repeating the same words over and over.

Amps can sometimes pick up radio signals. That must be it. Something to do with parts of the electronics acting as an antenna. The amplifier circuit then turns those radio waves into audible sound. I've never had that problem before—not with this amp, anyway.

I turn on the bedside lamp.

A boy is standing in the corner of my room.

"Fuck!" I scream.

Then I freeze. It's just a guitar case leaning in the corner. I could have sworn I'd seen a little boy, a kid with dark hair, a white t-shirt, and black overalls.

No. It was just a guitar.

"Jesus," I say, rubbing my chest. My heart is still going berserk.

I turn my amp off and on again, get comfortable, and before long my eyelids are drooping again.

Though, this time, I leave the bedside lamp on.

1:55 am

"He's coming! Run! He's coming! Run!"

I sit up straight. The boy is at the foot of my bed and he's screaming, eyes bulging with fear, mouth agape.

"He's coming! Run! He's coming! Run!"

I jolt up, stand on the mattress, and push myself into the corner. My sudden movement yanks the headphone cord from its jack, and the boy goes silent. I mean like silent movie silent. Nothing.

But he's still screaming. I can see him trying to yell at me. There's no mistaking it. He's in the room with me. But he's gone completely silent.

1:57 am

He stopped moving or trying to scream after my headphones came unplugged. He just kind of faded away after that.

What was he saying? "He's coming. Run."

He, who? Run where?

There's no chance in hell I'm sleeping after that. I must have accidentally turned my amp into some kind of paranormal investigator's tool. Who knew ghosts could communicate over the sound waves like that?

What have the dead been whispering in my ears as I sleep?

2:02 am

I've got my phone out, and I'm ready to hit record the moment I see anything unnatural, but the ghost boy hasn't come back.

I am so tired.

2:20 am

I can't do this all night.

I search on my phone for paranormal experts, but I feel stupid. Who am I gonna call? The goddam Ghostbusters?

2:38 am

It was a fluke. It had to have been something my mind made up. My imagination. It was the static playing tricks on my mind—some kind of noise-induced hallucination. Who knows what effects prolonged exposure to white noise can have on the psyche? Maybe I overdid it.

I need to clam the fuck down. In just a few short hours, the sun will be up, and everything will be back to normal.

I lay back down, but I leave the light on.

2:48 am

I can't sleep. I'm just compulsively picking at the same three spots on my skin: one at my temple, one on my ribs, and another in the fat above my right hip. I can't help myself. Before long, my skin hurts and I've opened old scabs.

Fuck. I can't sleep without that white noise.

2:53 am

Okay. Maybe I'll jack in the headphones one last time. I need some sleep. Just a couple hours. That's all.

I am so fucking tired.

I turn on the amp and plug in the headphones.

Then I hesitate. That boy was so vivid. Could I really have dreamt the same apparition twice in a row?

I rub my eyes. I can't do this. I can't just lay here. I need sleep. So fucking tired.

Fuck it.

I put on the headphones and hear that euphoric hush of a million waves crashing endlessly against a velvet coastline. I feel tingles at the base of my skull. My neck and shoulders relax. I can feel every muscle in my body release its tension.

God, I need this.

Just before falling asleep, I take a furtive glance around the room.

There's nothing there. Just sound equipment and piles of clothes. I'm all alone in here. I'm safe. It was just a dream. A fucked-up dream.

4:00 am

"tried to warn... tried to warn... tried to warn..."

It feels like someone is digging a tattoo machine into my side.

I wake up, sit up, and lift my shirt. My skin is distended, something pushing out from the inside, something sharp and pointed.

I pull off my headphones. I still hear that static coming from somewhere. But it sounds muffled like a speaker smothered in blankets.

"Ah!" The point of something is now protruding from my skin. It's one of the spots I pick at when I can't sleep, only now it's opening like a doorway to another realm. And that static sound, the one I used to lull myself to sleep so many nights, it's coming from somewhere inside me.

I scream. Something breaks the surface of my skin. Blood oozes. And that static is louder, as though I swallowed a speaker that is now digging its way out of me.

It looks like a finger. A hand with sharp, pointed nails is reaching up and out of me.

My hands are shaking. I don't know whether to push it back in or pull it out.

I scream my lungs empty as an entire hand emerges, then a wrist.

I'm losing consciousness from the pain and blood loss. As my vision tunnels and blurs, another voice comes through the static—this one deeper, darker, full of crackling, velvety bass:

"Go to sleep... go to sleep... go to sleep..."