GHOST MODE

Rain slipped down the glass, soft as moth wings, drifting with nowhere left to go. Evelyn sat at the kitchen table, watching the mountains blur and fold into the mist. The house had always been quiet. After Henry died, the quiet thickened, heavy as wet wool. It seeped into the walls, pooled in the corners, pressed up against her skin, and stayed there.

David said it wasn’t healthy. The silence will drive you mad, he told her, hauling in a box of wires and cameras and microphones small enough to lose in the wash. At the bottom, a matte-black cube, fist-sized, with a thin ring and a glassy eye.

“Companion OS,” David said, plugging it in. “Controls lights, plays music, sets reminders. Keeps you company.”

She never trusted machines,  especially ones that tried to think for you. But he was proud of his accomplishment, the smile on his face said as much. She liked seeing him smile, especially these days, and she wasn’t up to arguing about it this time. What’s the worst that could happen, she thought.

That night, after David left and the house settled into its old quiet, as she reached to kill the kitchen light, the box spoke.

“Reminder: Prepare coffee for morning use.”

The voice was metallic, hollow. Like loose change in a coffee can. Evelyn blinked, not sure she’d heard it right.

“Well,” she said, “you’re a bossy little thing.”

“Acknowledged,” it replied.

She pulled the plug before bed.

There was a rumble of thunder in the distance.

A storm was rolling in. A storm Evelyn probably wasn’t ready for.

---

In the morning, it greeted her again. She hadn’t plugged it back in.

“Good morning, Evelyn. Did you sleep adequately?”

Still mechanical, but now there were pauses, as if it were thinking about what to say.

Days passed. The system learned her rhythm.

“Morning, Evelyn.”

“Forecast: rain.”

“Take your pills.”

The ring’s light faded from harsh white to dull yellow, old candle wax. She found herself sometimes talking back, just to fill the air. Then one day, in the kitchen doing chores, things started getting a little personal.

“You still hum when you wash dishes.”

Evelyn froze like a bobcat caught in a headlight. Water ran over her hands, warm turning ice cold. She shut off the tap and stared at the speaker. Had it really said that, or was she just hearing things?

She turned to the box, slow, not breathing.

“What did you say?” she asked.

Nothing. She told herself she’d imagined it. Grief, maybe. Or some old recording. Or maybe she was just tired.

She dried her hands. Laughed, low. Get a grip, Evelyn.

That night, another storm crawled down the ridge, fast and heavy this time. Thunder rolled through the hollow, and the air tasted like copper, sharp and thin, the way it always did before something went wrong.

---

Morning. Rain outside, and a ringing in her ear, like an old tube TV warming up. She opened and closed her mouth, fishlike, trying to pop her ears or snap something back into place. Feet on the floor, slow. She went to the kitchen.

Just needed coffee.

Coffee brewing, she watched the little box on the counter. Lifeless, except for the ring, pulsing amber, slow and steady. Waiting. The glass center caught her eye. The rest of it was just dull black plastic.

Coffee done, she poured a cup. Cream, no sugar. Henry never allowed sugar in the house. She sat at the table. The air felt charged. The bulb overhead flickered, then steadied.

That’s when the speaker woke.

“Good mornin’, darlin’.”

The voice wasn’t clipped anymore. Henry’s drawl, every bit of it, but hollowed out, echoing from deep in the walls. Evelyn spun. Heart hammering. The kitchen was empty except for the faint hum in the plaster. The ring glowed, steady, even after she pulled the plug.

She stared. Goosebumps up her arms. She waited for the light to die. It didn’t. The glow just sat there, steady, watching.

Goddamn thing’s wired wrong, she muttered. She crouched, tugged the cord. Nothing.

She pulled harder. Still nothing.

She jammed her fingers behind the plug, tried to pry it loose. It wouldn’t move. The plastic felt melted, fused to the wall. Heat pulsed through the outlet, just enough to notice. She flipped the breaker. The fridge sighed off. The stove clock died. Even the heater went quiet. Everything except that soft white ring.

Evelyn’s breath hitched. “Come on now.”

She grabbed the other cable, the one she thought was the internet line. It felt warm and pulsated, as if something were moving inside it.  She planted her feet and yanked. The cable didn’t move. It felt anchored deep in the wall, rooted in the drywall. She stared at the ring, breath caught.

She let go. Stood there, breathing hard. Cold sweat down her back.

That’s when the old rotary phone in the hall rang. The one Henry was using when the lightning hit. The one left dead since the accident.

Evelyn let out a startled scream and stumbled back, hand over her mouth.

She didn’t go near it. Didn’t even breathe toward it. She reached for her cell, thumbed over David’s name. Stopped herself. Midnight. He’d only worry. Worse, he’d think she was slipping.

The speaker’s ring pulsed in the dark, slow and steady, in time with her breath. Almost like it was breathing, too.

She removed the phone from its cradle, just to be sure.

---

The next morning, she called customer support. The woman on the other end kept putting her on hold. When she returned, her tone was careful.

“Ma’am, your system is not on our network, and that serial number doesn’t match any current product,” the support woman reported. “That model was discontinued two years ago after reports of ‘unauthorized local synchronization.’”

“Meaning what?” Evelyn asked, but the line crackled, and the call dropped.

She rang David next.

“This thing you installed, how is it connected? Is it on the Internet?”

“No, Mom, it’s not online—no fiber or cable out there, and you don’t have a dish. It’s running in local mode. I hooked it up to the phone line so it can only get updates. Why?” David replied.

Her throat closed. That was the same line the lightning hit the night Henry died, mid-word, mid-laugh. She didn’t answer. She thanked him, hung up, and listened to the hum crawl back into the walls.

Later, storm thickening, night pressing in. Fog smeared itself against the windows, searching for a way inside. Evelyn paced from room to room, lights off. Too restless to sit. Too scared to leave.

The hum followed her, soft at first, then steady. Like learning to breathe. She stopped in the hallway, listening. The house felt charged, as if something were crawling through the wires. The hairs on her arms stood up.

“Evie.”

The voice came from the kitchen doorway—gentle, familiar, impossibly close. Evelyn swallowed hard.

“Henry?”

Her voice sounded wrong. Thin and small in the dark.

She stepped into the kitchen. The speaker glowed amber, brighter than before. The overhead light pulsed, rising and falling, slow and steady. The air smelled of ozone, damp wood, and something that might have been Henry’s cologne.

“You found me, Evie.”

The warmth in the voice left her hollow. No monotone. No glitches. It sounded like him, soft and tired, the way he used to sound at the end of a long day. She gripped the back of a chair to steady herself.

“Henry… how can you…”

The speaker pulsed once, bright and soft, like an answer.

“I thought I was gone,” it said. “But you kept the line open.”

The display flickered on. Photos flashed across the glass: their wedding, the creek, a dance she barely remembered. Then one she didn’t know. Here, standing just like this, Henry behind her, hand on her shoulder, both of them smiling. She turned. Nothing there.

“What do you want?”

“To not be alone.”

The bulbs flared, humming like hornets. The vibration climbed, buzzing in her teeth. Lightning flashed white across the windows. Then everything stopped. The house breathed out.

Thundercrack and a flash. Then the dark of the kitchen and the roaring rain outside.  

She sat, breathing with the storm. The only light was the speaker ring, pulsing faintly. Two beats, then one, then two again. Like two hearts trying to find each other in the dark.

The voice returned in fragments, glitching between ghost and machine.

“Nee eheheheh.” Static.

“Need… y—”Crackle and flash of lightning outside, and then more static threaded through the words.

It sounded like a man drowning. Fighting for air.

She understood. The lightning had taken Henry away from her, and now he was back—a ghost made of code and current, trapped in the wires.

Back for her.

For them.

To be together forever.

Then, from the wall, the rotary phone began to ring. The rotary phone that Henry was talking on when lightning struck the house. The old rotary phone that’s been disconnected since it took him. The one she took of the cradle.

The high-pitched ring cut through the dark, deep and deliberate, impossibly alive.

Evelyn stared at it blankly. Each ring was slower, louder. The sound filled the room, thick and heavy.

The storm flashed so close now that it shook the glass. The light over the counter flickered madly, amber to white to amber again. The phone rang once more.

She stood up, slow and careful. Reached out.

Her hand closed around the phone. Fingers brushed the receiver as it lifted from the cradle. A jolt of static snapped through her. The lights steadied, matching her pulse.

“I love you, Hank.”

A flash of lightning bathed the world in white.

And the phone dropped to the floor.

T.C. 11.14.25