Chapter 13: The Humming in the Static

Chapter 13: The Humming in the Static

The first thing I remember after the collapse is the light. Not a bright, welcoming light, but a thin, intrusive sliver cutting through the absolute blackness. It was accompanied by muffled shouting and the screech of tortured metal. The world came back to me in agonizing pieces: the coppery taste of blood, the grinding ache in my skull, and the thick, gritty film of dust coating my tongue. I was alive, buried in the dark, but alive.

When they finally pulled me from the rubble, blinking into the harsh glare of floodlights, the world outside the school seemed unreal. Paramedics wrapped me in a scratchy blanket while police officers, their faces grim and set, swarmed the site. They pulled Harding out on a stretcher, conscious but pale, his leg professionally splinted. He caught my eye as they loaded him into the ambulance, and gave a single, curt nod. We did it. The official story, as he later told me from his hospital bed, was simple and clean. A deranged homeless man, a long-term squatter in the school, was responsible for Jacob's abduction. I had returned to town, followed a hunch, and in a desperate struggle for survival, had inadvertently caused a structural collapse that trapped the suspect. There was no mention of a cult, of an ancient entity, of decades of stolen children. The world wasn’t ready for that kind of truth. Blackwood certainly wasn't.

I became a reluctant, hollow hero. The local paper ran a grainy photo of my face, calling me "The Boy Who Came Home." People in town would stop and stare, their eyes a mixture of pity, awe, and a morbid curiosity that made my skin crawl. They saw a brave man who had faced a monster. All I saw in the mirror was the coward from the closet, now with a better ending to his story. The trophy of my survival felt like it had been bought with Jacob's four years of hell, and it offered no comfort.

The town wanted to heal, to pave over this fresh wound just as it had all the others. They wanted a simple narrative with a clear villain and a triumphant hero. They wanted to forget the darkness that had festered right under their feet for generations. I couldn't give them that, and I couldn't stay. There was only one more thing I had to do before I could leave for good.

I bought a small, cheap bouquet of wildflowers from the grocery store and drove to Blackwood Cemetery. It sat on a hill overlooking the town, a peaceful, manicured place that felt like a lie. The graves were neat, orderly rows, a stark contrast to the chaotic violence of the lives they represented.

Jacob’s grave was a fresh wound in the earth, the mound of soil still dark and unsettled. A simple, temporary marker bore his name and dates. A beginning, and an end fourteen hundred and sixty days too late. I knelt, the damp grass soaking through the knee of my jeans, and laid the flowers on the disturbed ground.

The air was still. The only sound was the rustle of leaves in the oak trees standing sentinel over the dead. For a long time, I just stayed there, the words I needed to say caught in my throat like gravel. The apology I had rehearsed in my head a thousand times over four years felt cheap and inadequate.

“Hey, Jake,” I finally whispered, my voice cracking. The name felt strange on my tongue after so long. “It’s me.”

I stared at the name on the marker, and the memories came flooding back—not of the terror, but of the good times. Building a treehouse in the woods behind his house, trading comic books, spending hours in front of a flickering TV, trying to beat that stupid video game with the little blue bomber.

“He’s gone,” I said, the words a little stronger now. “The janitor. Silas. He’s gone. It’s over.”

I took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Jacob. I’m so sorry I ran. I never stopped seeing your face. Never. You were the brave one. You were always the brave one. I should have… I should have stayed. I should have fought. I don't know if anything would be different, but I should have tried.”

Tears I didn’t know I had left began to trace paths through the grime on my face. “Four years. God, Jacob. I can’t even imagine it. I hope… wherever you are… I hope you know I came back. It’s too late, I know it’s too late, but I came back for you. And I didn't run this time.”

I placed my hand on the cool, damp earth of the grave. It felt like a final goodbye, a closing of a chapter that had been ripped open and left to bleed for half my life. I didn’t feel forgiven—that wasn’t something I could ever grant myself. But for the first time, the crushing weight on my chest lifted, just a fraction. It wasn’t gone, but I could breathe around it now. I had faced the ghost that haunted me, not just the monster in the basement, but the one I had carried inside me. I had finally given his suffering a meaning beyond my own failure.

I decided to leave that same afternoon. I packed my single bag, checked out of the motel, and got in my car, not looking back. This time, I wasn't running from the past. I was finally, tentatively, moving toward a future. I didn't know where I was going, and it didn't matter. Anywhere but here.

As I reached the town line, the familiar ‘Welcome to Blackwood’ sign looming in my rearview mirror, I switched on the car radio, craving the distraction of a mindless pop song, of anything from the normal world.

The speakers hissed with static. I twisted the dial, searching for a clear station, but the static only grew louder, punctuated by strange clicks and whistles. I was about to switch it off when a sound began to coalesce from within the white noise.

It was faint at first, a thin, melodic thread woven through the static. A high, breathy sound. A seven-note melody.

My blood ran cold.

It was Jacob’s tune. The humming. It wasn’t a memory. It was coming from my radio, a ghostly broadcast from a station that didn't exist. My hands locked on the steering wheel, my knuckles white. Silas was dead, buried under a mountain of his own making. He couldn’t be doing this.

My gaze snapped to the dense forest lining the road. The tall pines stood in silent, shadowy ranks, the same woods that bordered the old school, the same woods that stretched for hundreds of miles. And for a fleeting, heart-stopping second, I saw them.

Deep within the shadows between two ancient trees, watching my car pass. A pair of eyes. They were flat, black, and utterly devoid of human emotion. They weren't Silas's eyes, not exactly. The face was different, younger perhaps, weathered in a new way. But the emptiness was the same. The ancient, predatory stillness.

The car passed, the eyes vanished back into the gloom, and the humming on the radio faded back into static.

The horrific truth crashed down on me with the weight of the collapsed ceiling. The Tending is a sacred duty. A duty. A job. The town legend wasn't about a man; it was about a position. The journal, the trophies, the childlike drawings—it was a tradition, passed down. Silas hadn’t been the monster. He was just the monster’s servant.

And the position was no longer vacant. Silas was only one Caretaker.