The Channel



The Channel

Around mid October, my television started to make a noise. Not all the time, just when it was set to a specific channel. The noise it made caught my attention. The channel appeared one day with some weird code in the corner. I figured it was a glitch due to it just being made available. Most of the time it was just static, and since my TV, being quite old, can hardly pick up the decent channels, it was no surprise to me that this new channel would cut in and out like it did. I don’t have any sort of television provider, I use antenna. I had been meaning to get one for a long, long time, but I hardly watch TV anyway, and I didn’t feel like paying the outlandish costs.

In the beginning, the new channel didn’t play anything I was familiar with. I couldn’t make out most of the shows because the signal was sporadic, but when the waves made it through, it would show images of people. I think they were stills, I never saw them move. These people would be shown one at a time, standing in black space. I figured that whatever show was playing had to do with strange diseases; all of the people that were displayed had these grotesque looking growths on them. Some looked like simple boils, others (I guess the more developed stages) had their skin almost peeled back from their muscles. It would just be hanging there. I never caught a glimpse of any of the people’s faces, but I assumed that they were just as bizarre looking as their bodies.

The noise that the channel made is hard to describe. It was like when you had the volume on your speakers turned up too high, that background buzz. I’d check my volume whenever I flipped to it, and it was fine, so I blamed the signal. When nothing good was on the few channels I can pick up, I flipped to the new one, and sure enough, the noise was there. Whatever the show was, it was interesting enough to wade through the static to try and make out what was happening.

After a couple weeks, the people in the images started getting closer to the screen. They’d be more detailed, and they seemed to be decomposing further. They would lose more and more of their skin as they crept forward, after a while it looked like they were coming towards me. They started to discolour more as well, it was like the air was getting to them. The noise started getting louder, as well, and began to cross over into the other channels I could pick up. So did the images. I thought it to be the fault of my television, so I stopped watching it for a while. Not too long after, out of curiosity, I flipped on my TV and turned to the channel, but it wasn’t there. I went through the available channels three or four times, and it was nowhere to be found. The noise had stopped, too.

A few days ago, I woke up in the middle of the night. All I could hear was the noise. I went into my living room and sure enough, my TV was on, and up in the corner was that code. The images though, were right up against the screen, like they were pressing on it. They were flickering between one another. I ran over and turned it off. I stood there for a while, making sure I was okay. Eventually I calmed down enough to go back to bed.

The channel hasn’t been on since. My TV is fine, all the old channels work. Lately, though, out of the corner of my eye, I can see the people. They’re just as decayed as when they were on the screen, but one thing’s different. They move now. I can hear the noise, too, and it’s getting louder.