Come Find Me

by Megan Miranda

  Other than this picture, my clothes, and my computer, I haven’t really gotten around to unpacking or making myself comfortable. Like I said, I’m an optimist.

  I’ve got the radio telescope data pulled up on the computer now, but right away I can see something’s wrong. And not the good type of wrong, which would make it seem like the telescope was picking up something other than background noise. Instead, this is the type of wrong that makes me think something is broken.

  Usually, the radio telescope is set to monitor frequencies where signals can be transmitted through space. The readout typically looks like one of those medical heart monitors, almost a flat line, but with little peaks and valleys.

  Today, it’s nonexistent. Not even background noise. It takes me a second to realize that the radio telescope didn’t register the right frequency channel. It’s set to something different, or else it’s pulling in some interference, I think.

  Elliot built the dish and made the program, so I have to drag the scale around for a bit before I finally find the data set where there’s actual activity, and at first my heart jumps, seeing a section of the readout—it looks like a repeating pattern of pulses: a quick spike, then a longer pause, over and over again, like a signal, or a message.

  I lean closer to the screen, until I can see my own reflection in the monitor: openmouthed, wide-eyed. But then I realize there’s a serious mistake somewhere, either with the program, or with the radio telescope itself. Because this potential activity is registering where no frequency should exist. The program is displaying what would be a typical radio signal range, except it’s negative.

  Negative.

  I let out a groan of frustration. I may have only taken a year of physics so far, but I do know there’s no such thing as a negative frequency. Not in reality. And definitely not something that Elliot would have programmed to record, either. It makes no sense.

  Just to double-check (because, again, only one year of physics so far), I type negative frequency into the search bar, but it only tells me what I had assumed: it only exists in mathematical theory, not reality.

  I scan the data, looking for the time stamps, and see that it registered from just after 1:00 a.m. until I pulled all the data, a short time later.

  Freaking Marco. I hope they didn’t damage the satellite dish last night. I hope Lydia didn’t perch on the edge of it, and Sutton didn’t throw a beer bottle at the center. I hope Marco didn’t stumble into it on his way back last night, knocking it off axis.

  It’s probably just the computer program, though in some ways, that would be worse—I wouldn’t even know where to start with that.

  God, it’s hot. But another six-mile bike ride it is.

  * * *

  —

  The dish looks fine, but Elliot built it, so I’m not really sure what could be happening on the inside. It’s still angled at the right spot, and structurally, everything looks sound. The cable’s buried underground, though, so that will have to wait. Best to track down the most likely culprit first.

  I head in the opposite direction from my house, over the split-rail fence, to the other side of the fields. There’s a development here, mostly modest two-story homes with landscaped backyards and two-car garages. Marco’s house is the third on the right from the way I enter—from the field, not the road. His car, an old green sedan, is parked in the driveway, and I’m assuming one or both of his parents’ cars are in the garage.

  I ring the doorbell, hear footsteps before his mother opens the door in workout clothes. Her face is makeup-free, her hair brushed up into a messy bun. Like this—relaxed and casual—she reminds me so much of my mom that I instinctively look away at first.

  “Hi,” I say. “Is Marco here?”

  His mom has that look of surprise and sympathy, which eventually merges into a painful smile. “Kennedy, how nice to see you! Did you call him? I think Marco’s still sleeping.” Then the sympathy and surprise swing in my favor, which I’ve grown used to with teachers and parents alike. She pulls the door open before clearing her throat. “Well, go on up.”

  “I’ll just be a minute,” I say, to reassure her.

  I knock once, wait to the count of five, and then let myself into Marco’s room. He pushes himself to sitting in his bed. From the noise that escapes his throat, he must be nursing a hangover, not that I’m surprised. But he doesn’t even question what I’m doing here, just flops down on his back, lifting a hand at me in greeting. He’s so disoriented by my presence I feel my stomach do that flip from the first time I was in his room last September, working on a school project, when I knew he liked me and he knew I liked him and the anticipation was so all-consuming I could only think of things in proximity to Marco.

  Current calculation: five steps from Marco’s feet.

  “Marco,” I say, and he flings an arm over his eyes. “Last night, did you guys mess with the telescope?”

  “The…what?” He rubs his eyes, pushes himself to sitting again, folds his legs up under the sheets. “Hi, Kennedy,” he says, like we’re starting over.

  I take a step closer. “The radio telescope. The satellite dish. Did you do anything to it?” Current calculation: four steps from Marco’s bed.

  “We didn’t touch it,” he says, now fully awake. He blinks his dark brown eyes twice, frowning. “How’d you get in here?”

  “Your mom. What were you doing out there last night?” I ask.

  Marco lifts one shoulder in half a shrug. “It was Lydia’s idea.”

  And this is where my affection for Marco wanes. Nothing is ever his fault, or his idea. He’s painfully indecisive, even more so in hindsight.

  “And why did Lydia want to go there?” I ask. Lydia is Marco’s best friend, and Sutton is usually kind of her boyfriend, not that they like the label. But that’s the best way to describe them. They all live in the same sprawling neighborhood behind my house.

  “I don’t know, we were at Sutton’s, and his parents came home, so Lydia said we should go there, and I don’t know, I couldn’t think of a reason not to, really.”

  And that, in a nutshell, is Marco. He runs his fingers through his messy hair, and no part of me wants to do the same. It’s been six months since I touched him last, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it since. Six months, it seems, is enough. “You swear you didn’t touch it,” I say.

  “I swear,” he says.

  I turn around and leave. He calls my name. I don’t look back.

  * * *

  —

  Back at Joe’s, I look over the data again. I’d ignore it, except there’s definitely a pattern. A spike every three seconds or so. And it repeats. On and on it goes. I log on to the amateur SETI forums, and I compose a message:

  Anyone ever register a signal at a negative frequency? I’m picking up a pattern of pulses. Interference probable.—KJ

  I post it.

  I wish Elliot were here.

  It’s quiet now, which means it’s finally safe to venture out of my room. Dad is cooking, which is marginally better than the days when Mom cooks, but unquestionably worse than takeout. He stares at the pictures of the missing while he stirs the pasta. “How’s the studying, Nolan?”

  “It’s all right,” I say.

  “Listen, can you help out tomorrow afternoon until Mike shows up? Someone needs to supervise the new volunteers. I’ve got a meeting downtown, and you know how your mother is with the phone,” he says, lowering his voice conspiratorially.

  “How your mother is with what?” Mom says, pulling out the earbuds and winding up the wires.

  “With cooking,” I say. “No offense, Ma.” How my mom is with the phone is actually like this: She takes it all too personally. She becomes too invested. And that’s saying something, seeing as the baseline for normal here is the downstairs of my house covered in pictures of other people�
�s missing children.

  “Mmm,” she says, ruffling my hair as she passes.

  Dad raises his eyebrow at me in question. I nod, admitting defeat. And they wonder why I don’t come out of my room more often.

  * * *

  —

  The maps aren’t really making any sense. Or maybe it’s just that they’re not coming together like I’d hoped—nothing registering outside the range of any normal household appliance, it seems. But then I think maybe I’m expecting too much, that I should be looking for the subtle. For tiny fluctuations; the unpredictable. I have a map with all the ghost stories and legends (and missing brother) pinpointed as much as possible. I’ve got another map with EMF, ELF, and Geiger readings, but they don’t seem to overlap in any meaningful way. I need to dig into the details.

  I couldn’t spring for the top-of-the-line digital EMF meter, so I’ve got one with a dial that looks kind of like the speedometer in my old car. After I hear my parents’ footsteps on the wooden staircase, I decide to take some baseline readings around the house, for comparison. I wait an extra hour, just to be sure everyone’s asleep. They’re not exactly aware of my extracurricular endeavor.

  I leave the stairway dark but turn on the kitchen light and take readings of the refrigerator, microwave, and anything else that seems to be functional, jotting them all down in a notebook. Back in my room, I add the computer and my cell. As I get ready to compare all the readings, I toss the EMF meter onto my bed, but it ricochets off the wall beside it, and I cringe. Please don’t let it be broken. For consistency’s sake, I really should use the same device for all readings. Also, I can’t exactly afford a new one.

  It looks intact, but before I even touch it, I can see I’ve screwed something up. Surprise, surprise.

  It’s sitting on my bed, beside the wall, and the dial keeps jerking down past zero. I pick it up, turning away from the wall, and the dial settles to zero. Okay, maybe it’s fine. I hold it to my computer again—same reading as before. Phone—same reading. Okay, everything’s fine. No problem. I set it back on the bed, facing the wall, same position as before, and the dial starts diving below zero again.

  There’s nothing on the other side of that wall anymore. Nothing electronic, anyway. Just Liam’s old bed, same comforter, same clothes in the closet, same notes from Abby.

  His computer is mine now, along with anything else of perceived value. And I’ve been through his drawers enough to know there’s nothing of interest anymore.

  Still. I let myself into his room, flipping the light, shutting the door behind me. Even after two years, the silence and the emptiness catch me by surprise each time. The worn blue blanket at the foot of the bed is the spot where Colby used to lie, even when Liam wasn’t home. It sits there now as another reminder of all the things that are still missing.

  In my hand, the meter continually bounces back and forth from neutral to below zero. I check under the bed, in his drawers, in the closet—but find nothing.

  Must be something in the walls. All the pipes and wires and ducts running through, creating an electric current. Maybe there’s some faulty wiring. Well, one way to find out.

  I head down to the basement and open the circuit breaker, and impulsively flip everything off.

  Impulsively, because now I’m standing in the pitch black, in the basement, with nothing but an EMF reader, and I suddenly don’t want to look at the readout.

  Impulsively, because it’s hard to research the paranormal without letting your imagination run wild. Because if it’s possible for one thing to exist, it’s therefore possible that other things do, too.

  The display is backlit, and everything appears normal. I walk slowly, using the meter as a flashlight. Back upstairs, I return to Liam’s room, and every hair on my arms and the back of my neck stands on end. The dial keeps moving, in a pattern—to negative, back to neutral, over and over again.

  It’s giving me the creeps.

  And then it’s just me and the stories, and the dark. And the dark whispers that there’s something in this room, and the room whispers the stories it remembers, and my stomach aches for my brother, all at once.

  I’m seventeen. My parents are down the hall. I shouldn’t be afraid of the dark anymore.

  I shouldn’t be afraid of the ticking of the gauge, or the way the dial shoots down into the red for no apparent reason. A quick spike. A long pause. A quick spike. A long pause.

  I shut it down, because it’s giving me the chills, the way it keeps up the pattern. I back out into the hall, open my parents’ bedroom door, hear my father’s predictable snoring.

  “Nolan?” The sheets rustle as my mom wakes up.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Sorry. The power’s out. I’m gonna go reset the circuit breaker.”

  “Just a minute,” she says, getting out of bed. I wait for my mother to grab a flashlight so I don’t have to go down to the basement alone. God, I’m an embarrassment to the male teenage species.

  * * *

  —

  It’s 2 a.m. and I can’t sleep. I feel something, like that premonition from two years ago. Like there’s a dream I’m not remembering, and by the time I do, it will be too late.

  Which is how I find myself at the computer, typing Negative EMF signal? into the search bar.

  The results get me nowhere. I add the word pattern, but nothing seems relevant. The meter starts at zero, which leads me to believe there shouldn’t even be a negative possibility here.

  It must be the meter. Maybe I can pretend it came that way from the store. Maybe I can get a refund, or exchange, for the same model.

  Except.

  There, deep in the search results, is a link to a SETI message board. The acronym sounds familiar, but my mind isn’t really placing it. I click on the link, and I see the initials spelled out—search for extraterrestrial intelligence—and I almost close it automatically.

  But the message is titled Signal at Negative Frequency? by someone named KJ.

  It talks about a pattern.

  And it was posted within the day.

  I’ve got seven responses when I wake up, all telling me more of what I’d already assumed. That there’s something wrong with the dish, or the wire, or—most likely—the program setup.

  And something from a Visitor357.

  Most visitors without account names are trolls, and I’ve heard enough stories about online message boards being the new Internet hookup site, which is why I use my initials and keep all my personal data off the site. Visitor357’s message begins:

  Hey, I was taking readings in my house with my EMF meter and kept getting a negative reading.

  I do a quick search for EMF meter and let out a groan. Not only is this guy possibly a troll, but now it looks like I have a ghost-hunting troll.

  My finger hovers on the delete key, but something makes me stop. It’s the way he describes it.

  A spike, then a pause, like a pattern.

  And the way he signs off:

  I turned off all the electricity. Sounds like this interference you speak of. Glad to know I’m not alone.

  I tap my pointer finger on the desk a few times, debating. Then hit the button to send a private message:

  Hey Visitor357,

  This is a site for signals we are receiving FROM SPACE. Not our houses. Probably a different type of interference (say, your microwave), but if you want to send me what you got I can take a look at it for you.

  —KJ

  In the meantime, the most likely reason for my own signal is either something mechanical or something computer-related, and there’s only one person left I know who can help me. The phone rings four times, and I’m on the verge of hanging up when she finally answers, clearing her throat before speaking.

  “Hello?” Her voice is quick, unsure.

  “Hey, Lydia. It’s Kennedy.”


  “Yeah, Kennedy. Hi. I know. Your name is on the display.”

  A pause.

  “So,” I say.

  She clears her throat again.

  So, it’s going to be like this. Awkward, because we haven’t really spoken in six months. More awkward, because the only reason we ever did was because she’s Marco’s best friend and I was his girlfriend. Most awkward because I once heard her refer to me as Child of the Corn, and no one called her on it, which led me to believe she probably used it more than once. I even Googled Children of the Corn later to see what she meant, but there was zero resemblance that I could tell, which made me wonder what she was really saying about me.

  “I was wondering if you could help me with some computer thing today,” I finally say.

  “I don’t have a car,” she says.

  “Right, no, at my house. By the satellite dish. You can walk. I mean, you were there Friday night, right?”

  And with that, I know I have her. “Sure, okay,” she says, like I haven’t just accused her of trespassing at my house, a crime scene, a place she has no right to be anymore. “What kind of computer issue are we talking about, though?”

  “I have no idea,” I say. “That’s why I called you. I’ll be there in one hour.”

  * * *

  —

  When I arrive at the house and round the corner to the backyard, Lydia’s already there, leaning against the split-rail fence. I walk the bike toward the shed and wave for her to come closer. She steps tentatively away from the fence, as if even this—being this close to the house, alone—is too much.