Page 20 of White Noise

His answer comes back almost instantly.

And you’re fucking predictable.

I start typing something else, delete it, then force myself to slow down before I answer.

You watched me through my phone. Big fucking deal. Creepy? Sure. Supernatural? Not exactly. I’ll wipe it, replace it, and you can go obsess over somebody else.

There’s a pause before his next message appears.

Replace it. Smash it if that makes you feel better. I want to watch you figure out how little it fucking helps.

That one gets under my skin worse than everything else he’s said.

He doesn’t sound angry or even defensive. He sounds amused, like I’ve just told him a joke he already knows the ending to, and for the first time I don’t have a smart answer ready.

I toss the phone onto the island and step away from it, suddenly hating how small the room feels with that stupid thing sitting there.

It buzzes again, then once more, but I leave it where it is.

My eyes stay on the screen anyway.

And that pisses me off almost as much as the fact that I’m finally starting to feel genuinely fucking scared.

A few seconds later, my laptop makes the little notification sound it uses when an export finishes.

Except nothing is exporting.

I look over and realize my editing software is gone. A black window has replaced it, and there’s one line of white text sitting in the middle.

Still think it’s the just phone?

My stomach tightens.

“Okay. Fuck this.”

I slam the laptop shut, grab my phone, power it off completely, unplug the laptop, then walk over and shut down the router too because if I’m going to become the crazy bitch disconnecting everything in her house, I might as well commit to the goddamn bit.

The condo goes quiet again.

I stand there for a while listening for anything strange, but there’s nothing.

No buzzing or messages.

No weird lights. No haunted fucking technology.

A minute passes, then another, and eventually my shoulders start to loosen.

“Yeah,” I mutter as I reach for my energy drink. “Thought so.”

I get one sip in before I hear it.

Typing.

From the mechanical keyboard at my cam setup upstairs. I know that sound because I hear it almost every night. The heavier click of those keys carries down through the condo in a slow, deliberate rhythm, one press at a time.

My phone is off, the router is dead, and the laptop on the island is unplugged. The PC in my bedroom shouldn’t even be doing anything right now, let alone typing by itself.

I stare toward the stairs with the can still in my hand, waiting for my brain to hand me something reasonable.