The long, thin grey tube slowly moved across the wall towards the window.

It hesitated, then rose to the ceiling.

After crossing the width of the small office space, the barrel pointed to the two large computer screens, then the loudspeakers, followed the cables and reached the door, where it found Max.

The long metal bar rose up to her face and stopped there, aiming at her stern expression.

‘Drop the gun; I’m here for you,’ she eventually said, offering a paper bag with a big yellow M.

Alex immediately lowered the Sennheiser MKH 8070 professional shotgun microphone and took off her huge headphones.

She grabbed the bag and sank her teeth into the fuming burger.

‘How much longer are you going to stay awake all night, spying on the neighbours?’ Max asked, sitting down on the floor next to her. ‘You should be working on digitalizing the studio’s sound archive…’

Alex replied with her mouth full, ‘I don’t have much choice, Max.’

‘You’re still convinced there was a murder upstairs?’

Alex stopped chewing for a moment and looked at Max with a frown, ‘You make it sound silly.’

‘It is silly.’

‘Only because of the way you say it.’

Alex balanced the half eaten burger on top of a portable DAT tape recorder, and pulled her laptop towards her to show Max some audio files.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’m here 24/7, my leg is fractured and I’m blocked here.’

‘No one forced you to move into the office and sleep on the floor,’ Max said.

‘Boss is obsessed, he’ll kill me if I’m not done by Friday.’

‘So how many DATs have you sampled?’

‘I’m half done.’ Alex said.

Max turned the laptop around and fiddled with the keyboard, opening folders.

‘It doesn’t look like your half way,’ she said, ‘Your still on ambient, you haven’t even started interior backgrounds or footsteps.’

‘Look, don’t worry about that. You should worry about this!’ Alex pointed to several images of oscillator patterns on the screen.

‘The old tenant in the apartment upstairs is dismembering her, sawing her to bits and putting her in plastic bags, which he then takes away somewhere with his car.’

Max didn’t flinch. Her deadpan expression stayed the same.

‘Ok,’ she then said, her eyes half shut-half open, as usual, ’how do you know he is cutting her up?’

Alex handed the headphones to Max.

‘I recorded this yesterday evening, listen. He begins at the same time every night. Look at the oscillator pattern. I have the DAT equivalent, exactly the same, they correspond: it’s an electric knife. Every night. Goes on for hours.’

‘She could have just left, Alex.’

‘She was in a wheelchair. They’re old. They were always arguing.’

‘And?’

Alex took the shotgun microphone and began pointing it to different areas of the ceiling as she spoke. ‘There’s the kitchen, the bedroom, living room,’ then she pointed the tube to a corner of the room to the side of the window, ‘that is where it happened, a blow with some heavy object. Then he dragged her to the kitchen. This was three days ago.’ She pointed the microphone towards the other side of the ceiling. ‘And this is where he’s cutting her up.’

‘So you never heard her voice again?’

‘No way. Every day, every night, their lives were like clockwork. I could hear the squeak of her wheels. Now it’s only him, she’s disappeared. There’s only his distinctive step left, trudging from kitchen to bathroom, trying to clear up his mess. And there’s no one else in the building. He has no idea I’m here. We’re closed for the summer and there’s no one around. He thinks he’s alone around here.’

Max looked at her friend, then at the huge black tutor velcroed to her leg, finally at the half eaten burger on the DAT.

‘You really should get some sleep, Alex.’

The following night, Max finished taping the lavalier microphones to the ceiling of Alex’s office space, and in the adjacent room. Dozens of wires hung from them, like a huge thick web.

‘These work like wall-contact microphones now,’ Alex said, excited. Max continued being unimpressed and looking tired.

‘This will show you that nothing is going on. The man is probably a cook, and preparing a dinner party.’

‘He’s not, he’s a lawyer, and he’s killed his wife.’ Alex rapidly and deftly connected cables and hard drives, with her giant headphones on. Eventually Max sat next to her and wore a pair too. The short cables held them close together and the two looked each other in the eyes for an instant.

‘You believe me?’ Alex asked, in an unusually gentle tone.

Max sighed, pulled her hand up from her pinky and tightened it, ‘I believe IN you. Which is a bit different.’

Alex smiled.

Max adjusted her headphones, ‘My mission is to get you back to work, to finish off the archive. So I guess I’ll do anything to make that happen and put you off this obsession...’

Alex turned back to her devices and turned the lights down. She lifted the shot gun and the oscillator began vibrating.

The two girls followed the sounds as they emerged around them.

Seagulls, distant traffic, a dog barking. Laughter echoing somewhere in the distance.

The yellow light from the street lamps drew a large oblong shape above them.

Then the footsteps began from the apartment above. The two followed them, Alex aiming with the shotgun mic.

Buzzing sound from the kitchen.

‘The electric knife!’ Alex whispered in Max’s ear, pulling on her headset. The two girls listened with their eyes closed, both hands clasping their earphones.

Then the sound stopped.

A large plastic something was crumpled. More footsteps, a front door opening. Stairs. A car door opening. Then driving off.

Max turned to Alex, her blank tone unchanged, ‘He didn’t shut his front door.’

’You’re right, I didn’t hear that either,’ Alex exclaimed, electrified.

Max got up and took off the head set. She moved to the door.

Alex looked at her, wide-eyed, ‘Hey, what are you doing?’

‘I’m going upstairs,’ Max replied, leaving the room.

‘Are you mad! No!’

But there was no way she could stop her. Plus, she couldn’t even get up, or walk. Her leg was paralyzed, locked by the tutor.

Alex frantically grabbed the shotgun mic and pointed it towards the corridor.

She nervously followed Max’s footsteps up to the front door. She heard the sound of the door opening. Max left it open and slowly made her way up the stairs.

Alex listened, her eyes glued to the oscillator vibrating on her screen, sweat trickling down her temples.

The hinges of the door upstairs. Max’s footsteps slowly crossed the apartment.

Alex followed them across the ceiling, then she jumped on hearing her phone beep.

A text from Max.

NOTHING HERE.

Minutes passed.

NOTHING HERE EITHER.

Then the footsteps stopped in correspondence with the kitchen.

THERE’S A WHOLE LOAD OF MEAT HERE.

Alex’s heart was thumping so loud she didn’t notice the sound of a car coming in the driveway.

THERE’S A LOT.

I MEAN

IT COULD BE ANYTHING.

Alex suddenly noticed the oscillator vibrating in a rhythmic pattern.

The stairs!

She pointed the shotgun to the far wall.

Then she fumbled with her phone.

MAX HE’S COMING BACK! GET OUT!

But an instant later the sound of the front door upstairs came through her headphones.

There was a silence.

Then a cry.

Voices, indecipherable, agitated.

A verbally violent exchange.

She couldn’t make out what was being said.

The lavalier microphones weren’t made for this. The voices were much too muffled.

Then a sound which took away her breath. A thud. Like the one she had heard a few days ago.

Then nothing.

Alex froze.

MAX! ARE YOU OK?? DID HE FIND YOU IN THE APARTMENT? I CAN’T TELL WHAT’S GOING ON!

At that very moment Alex heard the beeping of her text coming through on Max’s phone, upstairs, directly above her head.

She froze again, no answer. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

Then the trudging footsteps again. Towards the entrance of the upstairs apartment.

Then the stairs.

Alex took off her headphones.

She held her breath.

After what felt like several minutes, a faint, almost imperceptible sound came from inside her apartment. A creak. The slightest ever. Then another one. A bit closer. Alex’s eyes were fixed on the doorway.

A drop of sweat slipped off the tip of her nose and hit the DAT with a tiny flump.

The sound was just off the side of the door, now.

Maybe less than an inch.

Then the faintest hint of a shadow.

The tiniest sound breaking the deepest silence.

A sudden 140 decibel siren can cause serious damage to eardrums but can also have effects on vital organs.

A high sensitivity microphone placed in front of two powerful loudspeakers can create a “positive gain loop”.

The speakers amplify the mic signal, and then the mic picks up the sound from the speakers. The loop continues and the system overloads, resulting in microphone feedback.


The old lawyer, the tenant from the floor above “Studio-S, sound system and foley artists”, collapsed with a heart attack caused by the strong sound created by Alex using a RODE Nt1-a linked to two very large Yamaha DXR12 MkII, 1100 Watt speakers.

Her friend Max recovered from severe concussion in just under fourteen days.

The tenant also recovered from heart failure and received a life sentence for the murder of his wife.

He died in prison after just two months of serving in Wingdale.

Max, lying in her hospital bed, pointed index and thumb mimicking a gun towards Alex, as she came in with a paper bag with a yellow M, hanging from one of her crutches.

‘Drop the gun; I’m here for you.’