Mute

Jill and her brother, Jimmy, ride a strange bus along a desolate road.  The driver points out the burial plot of Jill and Jimmy’s mother.  Jill struggles to remember her mother, long dead.  The bus passes along a stone wall set with an iron gate and a sign reading “Poplar Hill.”  

Turning up a twisting drive, the bus approaches a large house.  Jill spots a man smoking outside the back door.  The driver drops the children in front of the building, which he identifies as belonging to their father.

Gathering their scant possessions, Jill and Jimmy alight from the bus.  Jill comments on seeing their father, now vanished.  Jimmy supposes he is inside the house.  The siblings find the door ajar and the kitchen floor strewn with leaves. The house stands silent despite a well-stocked pantry and a red-hot electric stove. 

Jimmy comes across a television in the parlor that is set to mute.  Jill and Jimmy watch a man speak soundlessly on the screen while they search without avail for the remote.  Jimmy flicks through the channels to find static, a woman making an address, and an image of two bodies strewn across a roadway.  Her brother tunes into the original station, and Jill attempts to read the speaker’s lips. 

Hearing the sound of footsteps overhead, Jimmy rushes upstairs but finds the floor deserted.

Jill and Jimmy pass the night together. In the morning, Jill finds the television on despite having switched it off before falling asleep.  The siblings explore the massive house and find it empty.  Jill watches the man on television and concludes that he is a prerecorded message playing on repeat.

As Jill prepares dinner, she hears Jimmy shout and a door slam.  Jimmy claims to have seen their father standing in the hallway before disappearing into the basement.  The siblings descend into the foul-smelling cellar, where they find their father’s rotting corpse.