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The Orange Noise

It started with an ad.

“Orange Noise Therapy — the next step in restful sleep. Scientifically engineered to calm your mind and gently drift you into the deepest dreams.”

Couples bought in right away. Play the chimes before bed, and your mind slips into serenity. The sound was a soft hum. It was tinted with faint bells. It was hypnotic in a way you couldn’t describe. Yet, you couldn’t forget it.

For people, it was heaven. For their pets, it was something else entirely.

At first, it was subtle. A dog pacing more than usual after bedtime. A cat sitting and staring at its owners all night long. Harmless quirks. But soon, reports started to trickle in — mysterious night attacks. Couples found dead in their homes. No signs of forced entry. No fingerprints. Only scratches, bites, and wounds that didn’t make sense.

No one connected it to the Orange Noise. Not the police. Not the doctors. Not the scientists. Because who would suspect the pets?

The murders grew in number and geography. Tokyo. Paris. Chicago. Johannesburg. Always at night. Always when the chimes played. And always with the same eerie detail: the victims had purchased Orange Noise Therapy.

The breakthrough came in a dark, windowless police archive room. Detective Randall Kerrigan sat alone, replaying hours of video footage from a suburban home. He was only watching out of boredom at first. The husband and wife were asleep in bed, chimes faint in the background. Then movement — the couple’s Labrador trotted into view. Kerrigan almost skipped ahead, but something about the dog’s posture froze him.

The tail was stiff. The eyes were locked on the sleeping pair.

And then, without hesitation, the dog leapt.

Kerrigan slammed the pause button, heart thudding in his chest. He rewound and watched again. It wasn’t rage. It wasn’t fear. It was… programmed. Deliberate.

The detective knew the nightmare wasn’t just in this room, or this city. It was global. And the real horror? The chimes were still being broadcast every night. Piped into thousands of homes, turning pets into killers while their owners dreamed sweetly beside them.

No one had thought to turn it off.

By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | 2025