Static

By Ben Macnair

The asphalt rippled under the oppressive heat, a black ribbon stretching into a horizon that shimmered with false promises. Arthur traced the lines on his topographical map, his thumb smudged with dried coffee. This forgotten stretch of highway, nicknamed ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ by some ancient guidebook, was supposed to lead him to the phantom town of Oak haven – a ghost of a place, perfect for his current photographic obsession with forgotten Americana. Instead, it was leading him to nothing but an unbroken wall of evergreens, their shadows long and skeletal under the late afternoon sun.

He’d taken the detour a week ago, leaving the familiar hum of the Interstate for the silence of back roads, chasing whispers of spectral beauty. His latest project, an exploration of places time forgot, had drawn him further and further into the country’s decaying periphery. Now, the silence wasn’t inspiring; it was smothering. His old Ford Explorer, usually a reliable workhorse, coughed, sputtered, and died with a final, gasping sigh.

Arthur slumped against the steering wheel, a curse thick and bitter in his throat. He tried the ignition again. Nothing. Just a pathetic click and then a deeper, more profound silence that seemed to sink into the very bones of the forest. He stepped out, the air thick and still, buzzing with unseen insects. Even the crickets seemed to hold their breath. The engine was cold to the touch, defiant. No cell service. Not a soul for miles.

Dusk began to bleed across the sky, painting the western horizon in bruised purples and blood oranges, ominous precursors to the impending night. Panic, cold and sharp, pricked at him. This wasn’t the romantic solitude he’d sought; it was stark, isolating terror.

Just as the last sliver of sun dipped behind the tree line, a figure emerged from the deepening shadows up ahead. Arthur squinted, heart lurching. The man was old, impossibly so, with a stooped posture and clothes that seemed to belong to another era – a threadbare tweed coat, heavy boots, and a wide-brimmed felt hat pulled low over his eyes. He carried a gnarled, dark wood cane, not for support, but almost like a divining rod, tapping it rhythmically on the asphalt.

“Trouble, friend?” The voice was a raspy whisper, like dry leaves skittering across pavement.

Arthur forced a smile, gratitude warring with a primal sense of unease. “Yeah, she just quit on me. Any chance there’s a tow service around here?”

The old man chuckled, a sound like gravel shifting. “Tow service? Not for fifty miles in either direction, no sir. Not on this stretch of road. Folks don’t much like to come out here.” He took a step closer, and Arthur noticed his eyes, pale, almost milky, but with an unsettling intensity that seemed to penetrate rather than merely observe. “Name’s Silas. And you’re a long way from home.”

“Arthur. Arthur Finch.” He extended a hand, but Silas merely nodded, his gaze fixed somewhere past Arthur’s shoulder, into the trees. “I was heading for Oak haven.”

Silas’s lips thinned into something that might have been a smile, or a grimace. “Oak haven. Yes, many come looking for Oak haven. But Oak haven isn’t a place you find, Mr. Finch. It’s a place that finds you.” He gestured with his cane further down the road, into the encroaching darkness. “My place isn’t far. You can rest there. We’ll see about your vehicle in the morning.”

Arthur hesitated. Every instinct screamed no. The man was too old, too gaunt, too perfectly timed in his appearance. The way he spoke, the unsettling precision in his movements. But the alternatives  a night in a broken car, exposed to whatever unseen things rustled in the forest were worse.

“Thank you, Silas. That’s very kind of you.”

“Kindness,” Silas echoed, the word tasting strange on his tongue. “Necessity, more like. The Road takes care of its own.”

The house was a shadow against the darker shadows of the forest, a Victorian-era relic that seemed to have materialised from a forgotten dream. It listed slightly to one side, its paint peeling like sunburnt skin, but a faint, welcoming glow emanated from a single window. A porch light, dim and yellow, illuminated a meticulously swept path. Ivy, thick as a man’s arm, snaked relentlessly up the walls, clutching at the eaves.

Inside, the house was a mausoleum of dust and old wood. The air was heavy, smelling of forgotten things dried flowers, beeswax, and something else, something metallic and faintly saline, like old blood. Silas moved with unnerving familiarity through the gloom, lighting a kerosene lamp that cast long, dancing shadows.

“Make yourself at home, Mr. Finch.” He gestured to a worn armchair covered in a faded floral print. “I’ll fetch you some water. It’s been a long journey for you.”

Arthur sat, his back ramrod straight, trying to soothe his frayed nerves. The room was crammed with antique furniture, each piece draped in a fine, almost imperceptible layer of dust. The walls were adorned with framed photographs, sepia-toned snapshots mostly, of people with indistinct faces, their features blurred as if viewed through a dirty pane of glass. They stared out, their smiles fixed, eternal. He felt a shiver despite himself.

Silas returned with a glass of water, presented on a silver tray. The glass was strangely cold, condensation beading on its surface. Arthur drank it down, the water tasting flat, metallic.

“You’re a photographer, I gather?” Silas asked, his milky eyes fixed on Arthur’s camera bag, which he’d instinctively clutched to his chest.

“Yes. I look for the forgotten, the overlooked.”

“And the Road,” Silas mused, settling into a rocking chair opposite Arthur, “is very good at forgetting. And at being overlooked.” He paused, his gaze drifting to the window, where the night pressed in like a physical weight. “This Road, it collects. Not just dust, you understand. But stories. And sometimes, the storytellers themselves.”

Arthur managed a weak smile. “A poetic way of putting it.”

“Truth isn’t always pretty, Mr. Finch. Sometimes it’s just necessary.” Silas’s voice dropped, becoming even more of a whisper. “How far did you travel today?”

“About three hundred miles since sunrise. Came off the 51, onto the old 17.”

Silas nodded slowly. “The 17. Yes. A hungry road, that one. It weaves and tangles, doesn’t it? It likes to lead folks astray. To bring them here.” He leaned forward, his eyes suddenly piercing. “You felt it, didn’t you, Mr. Finch? That pull. That whisper that said, ‘Go this way. There’s something forgotten here.'”

Arthur felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cool night air. He had felt it an inexplicable urge to take this specific, obscure detour, despite his better judgment. The map had seemed to sing to him.

“You’re tired,” Silas said, rising. “I’ve a room ready. Just for tonight. We’ll see to your engine in the morning.”

The bedroom was small, sparsely furnished with an old cot and a rickety chest of drawers. A single window looked out onto impenetrable darkness. The air in here was even heavier, charged with a strange, static energy. On the bedside table, a half-burnt candle sat next to a small, leather-bound journal. Arthur, his curiosity overriding his caution, picked it up.

The script was elegant but faded, the ink a pale brown. The first entry was dated “October 14, 1937.” “The car stalled. Old Silas offered shelter. He speaks of the Road as if it were alive. I am uneasy.”

Arthur’s heart hammered. He flipped further. Entries from 1952, 1978, 1999, all mentioning Silas, the broken car, the quiet dread. The handwriting changed, becoming progressively less coherent, more desperate. One entry, dated “April 3rd, 1965,” read: “He watches. Always watches. The house breathes. I hear scraping. He says I am part of the plan now. Part of the Road. Cannot leave. Cannot remember my own face.”

Then, a newer entry, in a different hand, dated “July 22nd, 2007”: “Another one. Silas says my work here is important. I am the caretaker now. I guide them to the house. To the Road. The faces blur. My face blurs. I remember a name. Arthur?”

Arthur dropped the journal as if it were a venomous snake. His breath caught in his throat. Arthur? He scrambled for his phone, but the screen remained stubbornly blank no service. He raced back to the living room, but Silas was gone. The rocking chair was empty, rocking gently as if he’d just risen from it. The lamp glowed, casting long, accusing shadows.

“Silas!” Arthur’s voice was a desperate croak.

No answer. The house creaked, settled. The silence pressed in, heavier now, filled with a thousand unseen eyes. He ran to the front door, rattling the knob. Locked. He tried the windows. Sealed shut, or painted over, impossible to open. He was trapped.

He stumbled back, his gaze falling once more on the blurry photographs. Not just blurry, he realised now. The faces were faded, dissolving into the sepia background, their features becoming indistinct smudges. These weren’t old photos; they were images of people in the process of unbecoming. The faint metallic smell in the air suddenly seemed to pulsate, joining with the static charge that prickled his skin.

He heard a faint thud from the back of the house, followed by a low, rhythmic scrape, scrape, scrape. He moved, drawn by a morbid curiosity, his heart pounding a frantic drumbeat against his ribs. The sound led him to a door at the far end of a narrow, dark hallway. It was slightly ajar, a sliver of eerie green light escaping.

Pushing it open, Arthur peered into what appeared to be a workshop. Tools hung neatly from pegs: wrenches, pliers, strange, slender instruments made of dark, polished metal. In the centre of the room, under a single bare bulb, lay a large, intricate mechanism. It was made of interlocking gears, pistons, and polished metallic plates, all gleaming with a dark, oily sheen. And it was moving. Slowly, deliberately, the gears turned, the pistons pumped, and a thin, dark liquid pulsed through transparent tubes. It wasn’t driving anything. It was simply operating.

Silas was hunched over it, meticulously wiping down a joint with an oil rag. He didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge Arthur’s presence.

“What is this?” Arthur whispered, his voice trembling.

Silas finally straightened, his movements slow and deliberate, as if his body were stiff, unaccustomed to quick motion. His pale eyes met Arthur’s, and in them, Arthur saw not just age, but an ancient, weary patience.

“This, Mr. Finch,” Silas said, indicating the machine with a sweep of his hand, “is the heart of the Road. Or perhaps, its stomach. It processes. It consumes. It ensures the flow.” He tapped a metallic plate. “It must be maintained. And I am the Steward.”

Arthur felt a cold sweat break across his forehead. “Maintained? Consumes what?”

Silas smiled then, a wide, empty smile that stretched his gaunt face into a grotesque mask. “Travellers, Mr. Finch. Like you. Like the others. The ones who feel the pull of Oak haven, the whisper of the forgotten. They come here, to the Road.” He gestured to the wall, where more blurred photographs hung, not just sepia now, but faded colour prints, some looking eerily recent. “Their stories. Their faces. Their very essence. All collected. All fed into the Road so it might continue its journey. Its purpose.”

He walked over to a small, heavy workbench. On it lay a collection of objects: a tarnished silver locket, a pair of spectacles, a child’s wooden toy. And then Arthur saw it – a familiar, well-worn leather lens cap, emblazoned with a small, stylised ‘FA.’ His own. He had lost it this morning, thought it had fallen out of his bag.

“The Road knows what it needs,” Silas continued softly, running a skeletal finger over the lens cap. “It gathers the tools. It finds the next pair of hands.”

Arthur backed away, tripping over a loose floorboard. “No. No, I’m not.. I’m leaving. Now.”

He turned to flee, but Silas was suddenly in front of him, blocking the doorway. He hadn’t moved quickly, Arthur realised, but as if he had always been there, always would be there. Silas’s eyes were no longer milky; they were deep, boundless pits, reflecting the green glow of the machine.

“You are already part of it, Arthur. The Road called, and you answered. You felt the static, didn’t you? The hum beneath the asphalt? You are already forgetting what your own face looks like, aren’t you?”

Arthur reached up, his hand fumbling for his face. He could feel it, of course, the bone and skin, the stubble of his beard. But suddenly, he couldn’t quite picture it. The memory was hazy, like looking through a camera out of focus. He could remember the concept of his face, but the image, it was slipping.

The scraping sound intensified, a rhythmic grind that seemed to emanate not just from the machine, but from the very walls of the house, from the floorboards beneath his feet. The metallic smell was overpowering now, filling his lungs. He felt a profound weakness in his knees, a draining of energy, of self.

Silas reached out, his hand cold and dry as parchment, resting gently on Arthur’s shoulder. “The Road is eternal, Arthur. And now, so are you. Your memories, your experiences, your very spirit – they will fuel its journey. And in time, you will learn to guide the new arrivals. Just as I learned. Just as the others learned.”

Arthur looked at Silas, truly looked. And through the ancient, gaunt features, he saw flashes of the blurring faces from the photographs. He saw a flicker of the elegant script from the journal, a memory of a lost child’s toy, a faint reflection of his own camera lens. Silas wasn’t just a man. He was a confluence of them, a vessel, a living manifestation of everyone the Road had collected. A Steward, formed from countless forgotten souls, each contributing to the ancient, insatiable hunger that wound itself across the land.

The green light from the machine pulsed, casting Arthur in its sickly glow. He felt a sharp, electric jolt, then a profound emptiness, like a memory being erased. His thoughts became disjointed, his purpose fading. Oak haven. The forgotten town. He had come here for a reason, hadn’t he? It was important. The Road was important. Someone had to care for it.

He looked at the tools on the workbench, the intricate gears of the machine. He felt a strange competence rising within him, a knowledge of how to operate, how to maintain. An understanding of the ebb and flow, the subtle hum that signified the Road’s satisfaction.

“There’s new ones coming,” he heard himself say, his voice raspy, unfamiliar, yet perfectly natural. “I can feel them. They’ll need guidance.”

Silas smiled, a slow, knowing curvature of the lips. His eyes, now a clear, untroubled pale blue, seemed to reflect the infinite stretch of the road outside. “Yes, Arthur. They always do. The Road always calls.”

Arthur nodded, the last vestiges of his former self ,the photographer, the man who chased forgotten places – dissolving into the pervasive static. He picked up an oil rag, his movements unhesitating, and walked towards the humming machine. He had work to do. The Road awaited. And somewhere, out on the dark asphalt, a lone car, its engine sputtering, was about to pull over.

Ben Macnair is an award-winning poet and playwright from Staffordshire in the United Kingdom. Follow him on Twitter @ benmacnair