The Case of the Haunted Cot

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Hiiiissssssssssssssssssssss.

Keith Fullwood stood in the kitchen, waiting for the toaster to pop. This was what his days had come to now, passing the time whatever way he could. He didn’t even feel all that hungry. But eating was something to do, as was preparing food, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything more complicated than placing bread in a toaster then buttering it.

He could hear the constant loud hiss of the static from the living room, where Sophie sat waiting to hear the dead. He couldn’t put it out of his mind, that damn hiss. Even if he went into the bedroom on the opposite side of the flat, he could still hear it. Hell, even on the rare occasion it was turned off Keith thought he could hear it, lurking there in the background. But nothing was worse than when he really could hear it, when he was close to it, like now. Sophie had it loud enough that the kitchen door barely helped.

Keith walked over to the fridge and removed the margarine, then he got a knife from the cutlery drawer. He took his time with the movements, as if the act of walking and preparing might distract his brain from that noise.

And the only thing worse than that damn hiss was the sound Sophie was waiting for. Keith didn’t want to believe it was his daughter, but, like Sophie, he felt the increasing foreboding in his heart, and that cry did strike him in a deep, primal, sort of way he couldn’t fully understand. And still Sophie refused to believe that he felt it as deeply as her.

Pop.

The bread flew up and fell back down in the toaster. Keith looked at the dull knife in his hands, ready for buttering. He probably couldn’t kill himself with it. Or at the very least it wouldn’t be easy. He’d probably have to hack away at his wrist for at least ten minutes. Of course, he could get one of the sharper knives. Or maybe jam this one into the toaster, see what happens.

Hiiiisssssssssssssssssssssss.

Dear God would that ever stop. Did she need to constantly listen to it?

Hiiiisssssssssssssssssssssss.

Without thinking, Keith slammed the knife down on the work-surface and barged into the living room. Sophie sat on the couch, papers and books spread across the coffee table. By setting up a tape to record the static, Sophie had managed to drag herself away from the radio long enough to get some essential reading from the library.

Sophie paid no attention to him entering the room, if she’d even heard it. With a quick press of a button, Keith turned the radio off. He didn’t move immediately, and didn’t turn to look back at Sophie when she spoke.

‘Leave it on.’

Keith sighed.

‘Nothing happens until the evening anyway,’ he said.

‘I don’t care, I’m not risking missing anything.’

Sophie turned around long enough to look at Keith with so much anger that he genuinely felt scared. Not for his safety, but because of how easily that anger could turn to hate, and if she hated him he truly would have lost everything. Keith turned the radio back on, but dared to put the volume slightly lower than before. If Sophie noticed, she didn’t say anything. She turned back around and continued with her reading.

Keith stepped lightly towards Sophie, his footsteps hidden by the white noise. He looked over her shoulder. She held an old book with a dark green hard cover that was frayed at the edges. The page she held it open on had the title Hauntings at the top. Risking another step closer, Keith looked at the papers and other books on the table. He caught the phrase EVP on two of them, remembering Price’s words. Random noise, indeed. The longer he thought about it, the more times he heard it, the more convinced Keith became that Price was wrong. Seeing him had been a waste of time, and risky too. If Sophie had —