“I said put the phone down!” a woman’s voice chided. “Don’t call until you know who to call.”
Sue glanced at the television in annoyance as she lifted the phone to her ear. It was silent.
She checked the screen. The call hadn’t started. She tapped the screen again and watched to make sure the call went through this time. As it began to ring, she held it to her ear with her shoulder.
Folding the check, she placed it with her wedding ring and the jewelry box inside a zipper pocket in her purse for safekeeping.
“Stop what you’re doing,” a car commercial demanded.
The phone stopped ringing and went silent.
“Hello?” She paused and listened. “Hello?”
Sue checked the phone. It had exited to the home screen.
“For a limited time, escape in a brand-new sedan,” a salesman dressed as a ninja offered. Technology might have changed, but car commercials were as stupid as ever. The word escape began echoing as the ninja posed, “Es-cape. Es-cape. Es-cape.”
Sue patted around the couch, looking for the remote. She finally found it trapped between two cushions. She muted the television and dropped the remote on the couch before reaching for her phone to try again. The screen flashed and went black.
“Great,” she mumbled in annoyance, dropping the dead phone into her purse. At least walking to the cellular store would give her something to do in the morning.
Sue reached for her tea to take a drink. The cooling liquid passed her lips—and instantly set her mouth on fire. She spat bourbon at the television in surprise, opened her mouth wide, and breathed fast to try to calm the burning sensation.
Lifting her teacup, she sniffed the hard liquor inside it. “How in the…?”
Sue gathered the cup and plate and took them to the kitchen.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” She dumped the liquor down the sink. The taste of bourbon lingered in her mouth. She didn’t remember pouring it.
The sound of television static came from the living room. The steady light from the lamp flickered off, replaced by the bright television light cast on the doorway.
A click sounded, and the channel changed. The light became softer. She slowly walked toward the doorway.
“Enjoy our quaint coastal…”
“Is someone here?” Sue called, really hoping she didn’t get an answer. “Kathy?”
Hank’s mother had a key to the house. The woman might have come over when Sue didn’t answer the phone.
“You’ve never experienced a place like Freewild Cove, North Carolina.”
The television blipped again, and a woman belted out a soulful song. “Run away. Time is short.”
“Kathy, is that you in there channel flipping?” Sue’s voice came out in a shaky whisper. She leaned to look past the doorway into the empty living room. The remote was on the couch where she’d left it.
The channel changed again, and an angry man covered with tattoos pressed his face to the bars of a jail cell and yelled, “You better watch your fucking back. I won’t be trapped forever, and when I get out—”
“Hello?” Sue demanded. “This isn’t funny.”
A black-and-white movie replaced the jail scene. The Mid-Atlantic accent of a 1920s movie star boasted, “I’m from North Carolina, and there’s something you need to know about girls from North Carolina. We don’t give up without a fight.”
Sue glanced around the empty room before slowly making her way toward the couch. She stood by the arm and stared at the changing screen.
“Run away, run away, run, run, run!” the woman sang desperately into her mic.
The channel changed to a closeup of a clown holding a knife next to his face. “I’m coming for you.”
Sue took a deep breath. She believed in logical explanations, not the paranormal. Mrs. Dane at the store had joked that Mercury was in retrograde and that would make electronics malfunction. The cable provider had once issued some statement about radiation or sunspots or something messing with signals. That sounded like a reasonable, science-y explanation she could get behind.
Sue picked up the remote and hit the power button. The unit didn’t respond. She walked closer to the television and hit the button repeatedly with her index finger.
“You’ve never experienced a place like Freewild Cove…”
Sue reached for the power cord and yanked the plug from the wall. The television turned off. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Without the television, darkness flooded the space. The drawn curtains blocked the view of the street. Sue blindly navigated the living room, letting her leg brush along the edge of the coffee table. She reached her hand out and walked until she felt the wall. Her fingers moved around a corner and down the hallway toward her bedroom.
Her hand met the door, and she skated her fingers to the doorknob.
Static sounded behind her, and her shadow flashed next to her. Sue flung around in surprise.
The television had turned on.
“I turned you off.” Shaking, she forced herself toward the light. “I unplugged you.”
She flipped the hall light switch as she passed it. The remote remained on the couch. Sue passed in front of the television.
A black-and-white closeup of a woman’s face filled the screen, and the actress seemed to stare directly at Sue. She wore a sleek hat and dark lipstick indicative of film noir, as the serious male voice narrated, “I could see the lady was frightened by the way she lingered in my doorway, even after I invited her in. I’d seen this kind of desperate look before. She was in danger, and she needed my help.”
Sue looked at the plug. It was in the wall.
“You’ve never experienced a place like Freewild—”
Sue pulled the cord and watched the plug come free of the wall before draping it over the edge of the television.
“I unplugged you. I’m looking at you, and you’re unplugged. The television is unplugged.” Sue took a deep breath.
Cedar and gun oil filled her nose. She hated that smell. Why wouldn’t it go away?
“It’s just phantosmia,” she whispered, unable to stop her hands from trembling. Sue walked with purpose down the hall. “I need to sleep.”
“Magic is real. I’ve seen it, Bev.”
Sue stopped halfway down the hall as a contemporary soundtrack played behind the woman’s excited words. The mounting terror caused her eyes to fill with tears. She’d unplugged the television and hung the cord. She knew she had. She heard the small blip of channels changing as the voices continued.
“Have you ever been to North Carolina?” a man asked with a slight twang.
“You’ve never experienced a place like Freewild Cove, North Carolina,” the travel commercial insisted.
“I escaped across the moors,” a British lady sounded like she read from a book, “away from the tyranny of my father’s house.”
“…run away, run, run…”
Sue sprang into action. She ran into her bedroom and grabbed a suitcase from the closet. She didn’t think as she threw things into the bag, scooping up armfuls of clothes and shoving them inside.
“…a place like Freewild Cove, North Carolina.” The volume became louder.
Sue zipped the bag and dragged it behind her down the hallway. The plug was in the wall, and the television kept flipping through channels. She snatched her purse from the coffee table.