“Who was that?” my mother asked careful y. There was an edge to her voice.
“Oh,” I said with a shrug. “Just some guy.”
“Dex?” she asked venomously. Her tone jolted me.
“No!” I exclaimed. “Not Dex. Do you think I’m stupid?”
She didn’t say anything. Of course she thought I was stupid. Look what had just happened to me.
“It was this guy Maximus,” I explained with a sigh, tucking my feet underneath the quilted blanket. “I met him while we were in Red Fox. He lives in Portland now.”
“Oh,” she said. She stil looked suspicious but a wave of relief washed across her brow. It was official; my parents hated Dex with a passion. And I couldn’t blame them at all .
Not that I cared.
“Is this Maximus a nice guy?” she asked.
“I think so. He’s very polite. Old-fashioned. You’d probably like him.”
“Then we should have him over for dinner sometime.”
I was taken aback. I gave her an incredulous look. “We aren’t dating mom. I mean, he just asked me out on a date but I’m certainly in no shape to go anywhere, let alone with…a man.”
“But that the last date you went on, nothing came of that.”
“With Brock? Mom, he was a meathead.”
“He seemed like a nice young man.”
“You never met him!”
“He got you to lose weight.”
“Mom…,” I warned.
“Perry,” she retorted in her clipped voice. She turned her attention back to the show, where vapid American model wannabes were bitching about each other. “You are a pretty young woman. You could be on this show, if you lost enough weight-”
“And grew eight inches,” I interjected.
“And found some confidence. You deserve to have a nice man in your life. Someone stable, who wil take care of you, put up with you-”
“Thanks mom!” I rolled my eyes.
“-and love you. Your father and I, it hurts us to see you like this. For the last few months you’ve just been… sleepwalking through life. You’re not yourself anymore. I’m glad you’re finding friends where you work but it’s time that you start finding that right person for you.”
I crossed my arms and tried to focus on some bald model cal ed Raquel. “I’m only twenty-three years old, for crying out loud.”
“And life goes by far too quickly than it ought,” she finished in a tone of voice that signified that it was, thankful y, the end of the conversation.
She went back to watching her show, instantly drawn into the drama, while I was left pondering what other weird wrench could be thrown into my life. As if I didn’t have enough things to think about.
The erratic thoughts about my tumultuous love life fol owed me into my sleep, where I lay tossing and turning in my bed, half awake in a delirious state. finally I had enough and rolled over, forcing my eyes open. It was 2:42 in the morning but I was lucky I had one more day off before I returned to work.
I sighed at my restlessness and let my eyes adjust to the dimness of the room. My ears rolled into effect and picked up the various noises around me, the faint howl of the wind outside, the whir of my laptop computer, the fuzzy sound of static from my TV.
Wait, static from my TV?
I slowly rolled over and looked at my TV in front of the bed. It was on, the red light at the bottom left was lit, but the picture was near black and the faint fuzz of static warped around the corners of the screen.
That was odd. Why was the TV on? I had only watched TV downstairs with my mother. I hadn’t watched a thing up here for days.
I was reaching over for the remote on the bedside table when the TV suddenly lit up with the grey and black static of a lost signal.
It reminded me a little too much of Poltergeist. My heart hammered loudly in my chest.
I aimed the remote at the TV and quickly pressed the off button.
Nothing happened.
I pressed it again, aiming it at an angle.
Again, nothing happened. The static grew louder and the outline of a woman’s face fil ed the screen, her face comprised of wavering, jagged black, white and grey lines.
I couldn’t make out any detail except for grey tubes that were lips. They moved up and down, as if the face were talking.
This…was not good.
I got out of bed and approached the TV as if it were a skittish deer, keeping the remote aimed precisely at the off/on button. I pressed it repeatedly as I approached the screen, but to no avail. I was going to have to turn it off by hand.
I was right up against the screen, my hand going for the physical button on the bottom left corner when the face moved. I froze, eyes drawn to the dancing screen. The lips opened.
“Perry!” the face on the TV screamed.
I screamed back. I hit the button with my fist but it did nothing.
The TV screamed my name again, the voice coming out of the speakers.
I quickly lunged for the back of the unit, taking the power cord in my hands and yanking it out of the wal .
“Help me!” the TV screamed again, in a voice not unlike my own. It wasn’t plugged in anymore. But it stil screamed.
I scampered for the door and flung it open, taking off down the dark hal way that was only lit by the nightlight by the bathroom door. I went straight for Ada’s room, ripped open her half-shut door and jumped into bed with her.
“Ada!” I cried out in the darkness, putting my arms around her. “My television is possessed!”
I paused after I said that. Ada didn’t feel like Ada. She felt… leathery. Beneath the sheets, something hard and cold and pointed flicked my way and it wasn’t her legs.
“Ada?” I whispered in horror, an unbearable feeling rising up in my throat.
Whatever I was holding shuddered, as if it were laughing.
The rough protrusion stroked my inner calf.
Then the light went on and I was blinded into a sea of yel ow/white.
“What the hel ?”
I squinted at the direction of the voice and saw the blurry shape of Ada standing by her door, one hand on the light switch, the other at her chest, clutching her pajama shirt.
“Oh my God, Perry, you scared the hel out me! What are you doing?”
I looked down at where I was on her bed. I was holding her pil ows in my arms.
“I don’t know. I…my TV…it came on…”