Accounts From A Lonely Broadcast Station | CreepCast

I know every operating system like the back of the camera.

In my current role, I'm a company.

I've got five years of experience and have worked with several people from your company.

I've been recognized for my passion.

My team is everything.

LinkedIn delivers candidates who rise above the rest with an up-to-date view into shared connections, skills, and interests you won't find anywhere else.

See why 86% of small businesses who post a job on LinkedIn get a qualified candidate within a day.

Post a job for free at linkedin.com/slashachie.

LinkedIn, your next great hire, is here.

here.

Welcome back to Creepcast.

Today we are going to be reading

a story that I've even heard from only because it, like, let me, when I say that I've heard from,

It's only because when we first started this, this is one of the stories that was brought up as like, oh, we could read this one.

And this is Accounts from a Lonely Broadcast Station.

This story is broken up into like, I believe, three seasons.

We're just going to focus on season one today, which is parts one through nine of the first installment of the series.

As far as I understand, that's season one.

There's also these other kind of side stories related, like Dead Air and 104.6 FM that may also be technically considered season one.

We're stupid, so we're just going to read parts one through nine.

We think that's safe.

This story has been recommended to us a ton.

There is one account on Twitter that every time I tweet, there's two people.

There is one who every time I tweet, regardless of what it is,

asks me to make a video about Cormick McCarthy's The Road.

And there's another account that every time I tweet asks

us to cover Tales from a Lonely Broadcast Station on Creepcast.

So now one of those needs to shut up

because we're doing it, we're doing the thing.

Uh, but this story comes highly recommended.

People like it a lot.

It seems to have a similar following to me as to like um

tales from a lonely gas station, you know?

Yeah, like people were really into the characters and they do a lot of like custom art and stories and like stuff like that.

For a limited time, we've got merch for sale.

Get in on some of our cool t-shirts, backpack, all of those goodies at the link in the description, creepcast.store.

It's here for a limited amount of time and then it's gone forever.

And if you decide to support us over there, it means a lot, and thank you.

At least from me.

Hunter doesn't care.

It feels like one of those stories that is going to lean into that, where it's going to have creepy moments, but it's also going to have

some humor and stuff as well.

It's kind of what it just feels like a very similar fandom.

And that's what leads me to believe it's going to be like, oh, it's going to go silly in some places.

But even with

Tales from the Gas Station, there were some nice, like, fun, creepy moments in that story.

A lot of like great writing and character building.

So

if it can nail at least a little bit of that, I'm going to be stoked to read it.

Which also,

there, yeah, the author's name is Kel Byron.

And just for people who are going to be listening to this,

she has written a

She has written a full-length novel from Accounts for a Lonely Broadcast Station, but it's like way more, added way more than what we're about to read.

To my understanding, she made the Reddit post and then afterwards, like reimagined it, rewrote it, and then is publishing it as a trilogy to which I believe the first two books are out right now.

There's a third one on the way.

There's also, there is a 10-hour

audio book that she sells on her website, which is which is kelbyron.com.

She sells a audio recording of this series that has like Mr.

Creepypasta and other people voice acting acting that is 10 hours long.

So if you're into what we're reading today, this is like the first drop in a very large bucket of Lonely Broadcast Station content.

And Kel Byron also seems to be cool online, like she interacts a lot with the community.

She has a new story coming out called We Don't Hear Crickets Anymore, which is coming this fall.

So that's pretty sick.

She also follows me on Twitter and stuff.

So I imagine she's a fan.

So that's pretty cool.

So be sure to support her.

We'll have all her links below.

She is also a uh goss girl by the appearances of it so one of the seven sisters it would seem part of the family part of the tribe um so check her out also her name on uh reddit was win dingus which i can only imagine is a windigo slash dingus play so once again or hitting all the spots for me one

very intuitive

one of us very very very very intuitive uh detective work there uh

we'll have, like Isaiah was saying, we're going to have all of the links below.

You guys are cool about this and go support the author.

So please pick up the book if you like it.

It really does help the author out a lot.

And I think it's just in good faith.

What are we doing here?

Let's support the fucking authors while we can.

But without further ado, I say let's just jump right into part one.

I just have to say, because I was pulling up all her socials to find this, she made a tweet that said, Gonna take four bottles of Tylenol and chase it down with some battery acid to turn my body into a super-powered autism machine that only knows how to hate.

And then she replied to that with a picture of AM from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

So,

yeah,

I think we'll get along.

We got a nice Tyl rider here, so we'll be

just off the goop, gone writing

All right, are you ready Hunter?

Yep

The story story so many people have told us to cover it's happening now.

It is time accounts from a lonely broadcast station part one I only just started working this new job and already it warrants keeping some kind of online journal The internet up here isn't so great, but now and again when I stand in just the right spot, I'm able to get a signal.

It probably sounds ridiculous that i'd have so much trouble considering that i work at a broadcast station where you would imagine it's downright necessary to have contact with the outside world well in these last three weeks i've been here i feel more out of contact than ever let me be frank with you all it's pretty lonely and boring up here sometimes and other times it's absolutely bonkers During those days when it's dull and painfully slow, I think I need some kind of outlet to talk and tell my stories.

That's why I've chosen this outlet, so that I can tell you all what it's like up here.

Right now I'm sitting next to the wall by the bathroom, the only spot I can get a tiny bit of Wi-Fi today.

My butt is cold, my back is sore, but it's better than not having any internet connection at all.

My name is Evelyn.

It's an old lady name, I know.

I'm 24 and I have a degree in journalism, but the best I could do with it right now was apply for a radio DJ position.

Three weeks ago, I started working at a broadcast station that sits 50 feet above the ground on a hill between an old rural town and a long, sparsely inhabited woodland.

It's a surreal, lonely, and sometimes maddening place to be.

If you live here, which I'm almost sure none of you do, I'm probably the only station you can listen to.

The town is nestled between green covered mountains, but the signal reaches far enough for travelers to hear sometimes.

If you've passed through a very long stretch of road next to the woods, maybe taken a piss by the trees after passing the rest stop that's been without plumbing for 10 years.

Maybe you've heard my voice or listened to a couple of songs.

There's nothing else for miles, and somehow, our town doesn't even pick up the tiniest signal from anywhere else.

We play a bit of every genre of music to keep everyone in town happy.

By we, I mean myself and the owners of the place who put me here.

I'm the only radio DJ working right now.

I know a few of you are probably thinking how this place stays running with only one DJ, and I'll tell you, I live here.

Since I got the job, I also received a back room inside the station with a mattress and a fridge and the basics you would expect from a one-room apartment.

At midnight, the radio plays an automatic playlist for six hours so that I can sleep, though I've been known to wake up several times in the night just to check how the broadcast is going.

Living on site was a part of the deal that many others would probably reject, but it works for me.

I lost my home recently.

But, I mean, that's another story for another post.

What I'm trying to illustrate is that I've been working alone without more than a a few five-minute conversations this entire time.

And because I'm the only DJ, obviously there aren't many things involved aside from playing music, sharing the weather forecast, warning the locals about emergencies, and talking about a bit of local news.

Calls happen so infrequently that sometimes I easily forget that anyone's even listening at all.

But all that aside, I did say that things are a little maddening around here, didn't I?

I imagine what some would think.

It's a pretty remote place.

Only one corner store and one tiny diner for 50 miles.

Woods all around us.

And it would be expected if I said we had some backwoods mischief makers roaming about.

That's not it, though.

Last week, the same song played on the radio for over an hour.

I don't mean it repeated over and over again and I couldn't turn it off, like some technical difficulty.

It simply never ended.

I even remember the song.

It was Unchained Melody.

And I knew as I looked, like from Fleetwood Mac.

Unchained Melody, I think, from Elvis and shit.

Oh

my love,

yeah, my darling.

I hunger for

your

touch.

Are you

still

mine?

I need

your love.

I need your love.

God

speak

your love

to

me

that one

okay

which also is a cover I'm pretty sure unchained melody I'm pretty sure is also a cover of

I don't know who did the original one it was the righteous brothers righteous

okay well I didn't mean to

set you off with that question I don't know what song I was thinking of.

Is it the chain?

Is that the Fleetwood Mac one about?

You don't love me now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't sing it.

Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.

I didn't mean to do it.

No.

We're in part one.

We have to have some semblance of respect for the story.

Benny.

I don't.

The only reason you're here is because you're going to bark at people who come to the door.

Woof.

If you're left down, I don't want to talk to you.

I don't want to interact with you.

I don't like you.

Go somewhere else, okay?

It was Unchained Melody, and I knew as I listened that it had never been 75 minutes long.

There were no calls of complaint, and after almost 80 minutes of listening to the song seamlessly repeat its chorus as if it had been composed that way, I was finally able to simply switch to the next piece on the list.

Not before getting a call, though.

It was the first call I'd gotten in the station.

On the other end of the phone was the voice of an old man, frail and hoarse.

He simply croaked, Thank you.

His words were agonizingly slow, painful, dry.

It almost sounded like he had a mouthful of dust, and I swear I could smell the mustiness from over the phone.

He hung up before I had a chance to say anything to him, but I'm almost glad.

I'm not sure he had the energy for another word.

Another time, just this last Wednesday, five birds killed themselves on the window.

That is to say, they smacked against it so hard that they just dropped.

I thought there was tiny nooses for a second.

I was a pediment to yes.

It's like, well, yeah, I assume that's how a bird would kill itself by flying into something.

Their tiny bodies just hitting the window.

Tell my wife I love her.

Tweet, tweet.

I know for a fact that this tower isn't invisible.

It's an eyesore against the view of the trees, really.

But on that same day, just minutes apart from one another five different birds hit the glass of my broadcasting room headfirst hard enough to well die on the same general spot too i'm surprised they didn't leave a crack they did however leave a bit of mess that bothered me for the rest of the day until i finally climbed out on the fire escape with a rag like some kind of old-timey window washer we also have interesting rules There's a board near my desk with a list of guidelines I've been told I have to follow.

Here we go.

You can't be a narrative like multi-part online horror series and not have a set of rules somewhere.

You gotta have the rules.

You gotta have the rules.

You gotta have the rules.

Rule number one, never let the radio go silent for more than a few minutes.

If the broadcast is down due to technical error, activate the bell.

Note that I still don't know what the bell is other than the fact that there's a button on the wall labeled as such.

It remains a tempting mystery.

Rule number two, take care of the equipment.

Don't let anything break.

Rule number three, any suspicious calls must be recorded.

Never tape over a recording.

Rule number four, when the fog rolls in, do not leave the building.

Do not open the door.

Sound the emergency broadcast.

Like that.

I was about to make

a comment about like, well, all those rules sound like normal rules for a broadcast.

Like take care of the equipment, record calls.

And then the fog.

Beware the fog as it rolls in.

Anytime I hear when the fog, like, oh, if the fog comes or anything like that, in a horror sense, it always makes me think of like Stephen King's The Mist or something like that.

You know what I mean?

You have no, when you're a teenager, you have no real understanding of the world yet, I don't think.

Or at least a lot of people.

I don't want to say everybody because I know someone's going to be like, I fucking was stabbed or whatever.

So what I'm saying is, at least when I was a teenager and I was a giant piece of shit, which, you know, still kind of am.

I just remember like my, I think I remember like my English teacher coming in and being like, I have to take some days off because my mom was in a car wreck and she died, whatever.

And like, it's just that all the kids being like,

and like laughing because not really, like, not really, like, not really understanding the weight of something.

You know what I mean?

It's, it's, it's shit like that.

Well, well, there's that, but then there's like, oh, my, someone died.

I feel like that's what I'm saying.

Even the concept, even the concept of death, because if it was somebody that you, like, oh my God, dude, Jordan died.

Your friend, that is sad.

Even, I just don't think that you fully understand what that means.

Like, you understand the permanence of it.

It's not that, but I just mean like the sympathy of like knowing somebody for a lifetime.

You know what I mean?

That kind of thing.

I could be completely, I'm just sad.

I'm trying to.

That was probably a bad example.

I could see that.

I could see that.

I could see that.

I know what you mean, I think.

Anyway, so, yeah, the fog.

Look out for the dog rolling.

Yeah, the fog.

It struck me as very odd that my employer would have such a strict rule about the fog.

Oh, did it now?

Was that your first clue?

After all, this is the main reason why they insisted on hiring someone who could stay at the station 24-7, at least until they get me a co-worker.

It seemed out of left field, so specific and yet unrelated to any of my duties.

I was surprised the fog was enough of an issue to warrant an emergency alarm, really.

But only a couple of days into my job, I saw it for myself.

On my second day of work, I was put to the test of getting the emergency broadcast out as soon as I could.

You see, the entire room I work in has windows all around so that I can see outside into the woods.

I assumed at first that this was just for the natural light, but now I'm thinking it's more of a watch.

A fire watch, a fog watch, whatever kind of watch.

I figure if I'm positioned so high in the trees, it must be for a good reason.

I'd been switching between songs, getting ready to introduce an old classic by Fleetwood Mac.

Whoa!

Whoa!

Whoa!

Your intuition is is strong, young indigo.

I'll take that.

I'll take that bear trap.

When my eyes caught a rolling cloud of white on the horizon, I let the song start, turning off my microphone and rushing to the window, expecting an avalanche coming this way.

It seems absurd, I know, but that's exactly what it looked like from a distance.

It looked like an avalanche, rolling wide and gray, moving like ocean waves as it spilled over its own form and moved closer and closer.

Foggs didn't walk, did it?

Fogg's movement were so perfectly executed that it reminded me of steps.

It undulated, as if its motions were being controlled by weight.

I almost expected it to make a sound, but that's a stupid thought to have.

I didn't watch for too long.

Slightly startled by the thickness of the fog on its way towards the town, I did just as I was instructed to do and returned to my station, killing the music immediately and taking up the microphone.

This is an emergency broadcast from Pine Haven.

Does she have a mid-Atlantic accent?

Oh shit, I was speaking.

You know what?

Go for it.

This is an emergency broadcast for Pine Haven.

Okay, looking for it.

You know, honestly, her being like a 50s reporter.

No, no, no.

I'm not doing that for nine parts.

It's going to be like five hours of recording.

I'm not going to.

I have to try.

I just thought it was.

I legitimately was like, oh yeah, I forgot she's the one that's running the fucking thing.

This is an emergency broadcast for Pinehaven.

I was speaking straight from a script, using my most stern, clear-spoken voice.

This is a heavy fog warning.

I repeat.

This is a heavy fog warning for Pinehaven.

Return to your homes immediately and wait for further instructions.

Please lock all doors and windows.

That's her stern voice.

See?

Yeah, she switches into like the old detective.

Cigarette smoke fills the room.

She's wearing a trench coat.

Yeah.

I furrowed my brows at my own.

We went out with a group of friends for a wedding a couple weeks ago.

And one of my buddies, two of my buddies were drunk and thought it'd be a funny bit to walk around the room.

And anytime one of them was about to say something, he would look at the other and go, saxophone.

And he would start making like a perfect saxophone noise with his mouth.

And the other one would just start monologuing as if he he was a detective in an old TV show, and then they'd walk away and just go do that somewhere else.

That is

boy, oh boy, glad I was not there for that.

That sounds just fucking horrible.

Good God.

Saxophon.

Hi, my boys.

Everyone's like, okay.

Okay, that's awesome.

Saxophon.

Yeah, well, that's cool, dude.

It's a nice youth pastor group thing you have going on there.

That feels like the very innocent time.

It'd be so funny if you guys were like in an opium den when this was happening.

Three black people, three people overdosing.

Yeah, exactly.

Three dead Chinamen just like laying there with these long opium pipes.

It's saxophone.

Like walking through, walking through the opium haze.

What

Benny's freaking out.

He didn't know it.

Someone's probably at your house, dude.

They might be.

I'll just kill them.

Whoever they are.

This video is sponsored by our partners at Factor.

Fall is here.

The kids are back in school.

The days are getting shorter, and the holidays are approaching fast.

And with so much to do, it's hard to stay on top of your eating habits.

Thankfully, Factor has got you covered.

Factor powers your day, sun up to sundown, with nutritious breakfasts, on-the-go lunches, premium dinners, and guilt-free snacks and desserts.

In just two minutes, you can heat, eat, and enjoy, baby.

Each week, you can choose from 65 different menu options, and you are sure to find something you like.

Factor has always had variety, but now there's even more with the introduction of Asian-inspired meals.

And their new Mediterranean diet options are packed with protein and good-for-you fats.

97% of customers said that Factor has helped them live a healthier life.

And with options like Calorie Smart, Keto, Protein Plus, and Vegan, it's easy to see why.

And the best part of Factor is that there is no prep work, no grocery lines, and virtually no cleanup.

Eat smart at factormeals.com slash creepcast50Off and use code Creepcast50Off to get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year.

That's code Creepcast50Off at factormeals.com slash creepcast50off for 50% off your first box

plus free breakfast for one year.

Awesome.

Get delicious ready to eat meals delivered with Factor at factormeals.com slash screamcats 50 off!

50 off!

Offer only valid for new factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase.

Yeah!

Thank you, Factor, for smoking the video.

Now back to the video.

I furrowed my brows at my own words.

This was extreme for fog, I thought, but it wasn't going to creep into anyone's house and commit a breaking and entering, was it?

I shocked it all up to paranoia.

Perhaps it was an unnecessary precaution we were obligated to make for some legality reason, but it still sent a chill up my spine.

I turned my microphone off, leaving the music off as well.

As much as I loved a bit of Stevie Nick's, I was too interested watching the fog to pay attention to the silence.

My eyes were fixed downward.

This insanely thick bank of misty-ass fog had almost gotten all the way to the station.

and was curling around the bottom of my tower.

It didn't quite reach where I was up in the air.

However, wisps of clouds still drifted in front of the huge stretching window that showed me the entirety of the forest.

I could see just how far this fog went.

It must have gone pretty damn far because it was just about the only thing I could see aside from the tops of a few of the tallest pine trees.

And those tall pine trees were moving.

I thought it was an illusion at first, brought on by the churning waves of fog beneath, but I was wrong about that.

The trees that I could see were shaking, moving from side to side briefly and one at a time.

It was almost violent, as if they were being pushed.

The most ridiculous thought popped into my head as I realized what it looked like.

It looked like something was on its way towards me, crashing through the forest and hitting the trees as it went.

The motions were serpentine.

I watched one tree shake, then another to its right, then another to that tree's left.

all the while it came closer.

I watched all of this with more curiosity than anything else.

Judging by the speed, I was about ready to panic at any moment when I suddenly heard something that startled me even more.

It was an unfamiliar sound.

The phone rang.

I ran to the desk and picked up the phone quickly, all the while my eyes continued to stare out the window.

It was my boss on the other end.

He sounded furious.

I could almost hear the spit flying from his mouth with each word.

Turn the radio back on now!

Sir, there's a fog emergency.

I didn't think I knew!

Now turn the radio back on!

He hung up the phone before I had a chance to ask questions, but it's a good thing I didn't get that time.

I glanced upwards.

I fixed out the window to see that the fog was growing higher and higher.

The treetops had all completely disappeared, and the window was nearly covered completely.

I swore in that moment, I saw something in the murky gray mass slowly pulsing on the other side of the glass.

A shape.

It was a dark, moving shape that was too concealed within the mist to give any semblance of detail.

I didn't wait around to see what happened next.

I followed my boss's orders, slammed my ass back into my chair, shoved my headset back over my ears, and turned up the music again.

Within moments, the signal was live once more, and some bit by the eagles was playing through my speakers and every radio in town as well.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

What was I so relieved about?

As far as I knew, nothing was on the line just because I had forgotten to turn the music back up, other than perhaps my job.

There was still a sense of discomfort, however, as I turned my eyes back up to the window.

The fog was still there, but it was creeping further and further down back into the woods.

In moments, it had sank beneath the bottom of the window and out of sight.

Pine trees came back into view, and then, before my very eyes, I watched the horizon appear as the bank of fog slowly dissipated and moved on through.

Strangely, I got the same feeling that I was looking at something solid and organic again.

Well, the fog stopped after that.

I didn't have to make another emergency broadcast and it's been two weeks since.

Now, things are just a normal level of weird.

I get a strange call now and then, usually someone from the town I don't recognize saying some gibberish message I can't understand, or now and then a song in my music lineup begins to play backwards.

Once or twice, I swear I've heard someone talking in the room even with headphones on, but it's a muffled blur noise.

Yesterday I saw a bird perch on the edge of the window staring at me, and I swear it has human-like eyes.

But unless there's some weirdo out there crossing bird DNA with human genetics, it's probably just me being overly paranoid.

I think that happens when you've been alone for a really long time.

I have a lot more to talk about and I'm sure in the following days and weeks I'll have more stories and things to write down that might be of interest.

But honestly, right now, my butt is starting to hurt something awful from sitting on this cold floor next to the bathroom.

The 20-minute music block is almost over and I'll have to go through the local news.

Maybe if you're driving through looking for a place to stop, you might hear me.

Oh, and if you are, don't bother with the rest stop.

The plumbing is still broken, and their coffee tastes like gasoline.

It probably is gasoline.

This is Evelyn from 104.6 FM.

Have a safe night and be careful out there.

End of part one.

That was fun.

End of part one.

Yeah, I like it.

It's a good vibe.

I really love the whole like Fire Watch Tower aesthetic.

Get any sorry.

Yeah, I was going to say it's a very cool, very alien setting.

it's uh it's always like a fun

it has the same kind of uh idea of like a lighthouse or something yeah because obviously it feels like evelyn is up there to keep an eye out for something but then also for some reason the frequency i don't know if it's just the music or if it's the frequencies of the actual uh radio station is like keeping something at bay because the fog crept all the way up to her windows like 50 feet in the air And then as soon as she started playing it, it started to dissipate back down, which is obvious that it's like, oh, yeah, the tower is fending something off.

But there's also the angle that I like a lot of human isolation.

Like your mind starts playing trick.

I mean, can you imagine being out like isolated like that 24-7?

I mean, that's a prison sentence.

It's insane.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the idea is.

You're constantly surrounded by like the visual of trees everywhere, like how isolated you are.

Yeah.

So, I mean, the idea of like, because there's been some times of like, I've, you know, worked a long time, haven't talked with anybody.

And either one, when you're really tired or something, you like hear or see something but even this idea of like a bird coming in and there's like human eyes there uh on the bird of like wait did i just actually see that your mind playing weird tricks with you i that's gonna i think that's gonna be a really fun thing as we start diving through the next uh like eight parts of this story so

yeah yeah

well

shall we move on to part two let's move on to part two Before we continue, I want to take a quick moment to thank today's sponsor, Ridge Wallet.

I've been using the Ridge Wallet non-stop for over three years now.

So to me, it's safe to say they're trusted, and they're here now with a cool new offer.

When you're on the go as much as I am, cords become a hassle.

You've got to remember the cord for the phone, and the cord for the watch, and the cord for the laptop, and the cord for the headset, and the cord for the thing that charges the things the cords are connected to.

All of it's a tangle, and everything is frustrating.

Well, Ridge saw this problem, and just like they revolutionized the wallet, they've done it again with portable charging.

With Ridge's 5N1 Travel Power Bank, Ridge's Power Bank has built-in cables that let you charge all of your devices at the same time with just one source.

That means no extra cables and no confusion.

I mean, this thing has everything.

MagSafe wireless charging, Apple Watch charging, lightning chargers, plus USB-C.

And at 20 watts of power, whatever you have can get charged at light speed.

The power bank itself comes in matte black, matte olive, or base camp orange.

Now you have a charging solution that's as durable as your wallet or your knife or your keyring or whatever you got from Ridge.

And whatever you choose from them, you can't go wrong, as Ridge has free shipping, a 99-day risk-free trial, and a lifetime warranty.

So it's free to ship.

They stand by their products if something goes wrong.

And if you don't like it in 99 days, you can send it back.

What's not to love?

With Ridge's Power Bank, you have one thing to pack and five ways to power.

You can find Ridge's Power Bank at Best Buy, or you can get 10% off at ridge.com by using our discount code Creepcast at checkout.

That is right.

Just head to ridge.com ridge.com and use code creepcast to get 10 off and you're all set after your purchase they'll ask where you heard about them and if you could say us it would really mean a lot thank you so much to ridge for sponsoring the show we are now back to the episode have you ever met a person who was just too much person I'm talking about one single human who sucks the energy out of you as if they were an entire bustling big city crowd somehow condensed into one body.

I think we've all met at least one person like this before.

The type that makes you wonder how they fit such a big attitude inside themselves without popping like a cheap dollar store balloon.

Yeah, it's like you, Hunter.

Tough thing about you.

I knew I fucking knew you were going to say something.

I don't know.

Well, you know,

maybe I can play jazz saxophone with my lips and you'll start giving me a little more fucking respect around here.

Is that a district jealous?

Do you wish you could play a saxophone with your lips?

Oh, I could.

I met a guy like this.

He's sitting in the room with me right now.

I'm sure you're all here to read about the more unusual things happening up here at the the radio station and believe me, I have some downright creepy shit to tell you about.

But first, I need to introduce you to my new co-worker who just started this morning.

Today was his first day.

Might be his last day too.

His name is Daniel.

Daniel is a lot.

He's loud, full of motion, and may genuinely think he's Bob Barker in the flesh.

My boss dropped by during my second week here and noted that I looked weary.

He knew why.

I sleep four hours a night if I'm lucky and haven't gone outside in three weeks.

Dan will be your part-timer, my boss said.

Let him take a few responsibilities so that you can get a little fresh air.

The folks in town will like a new voice.

As hesitant as I was, I knew what he meant.

I could use the extra help, and those at home could use a little conversation to add spice to their listening experience.

But I knew right away that Dan and I mix like oil and water.

I decided to let him try his hand at announcing, but the first time he turned on his mic and heard him belt out, Good

morning!

And would you look at that sunshine?

I hope Daniel gets hit by a truck.

Exactly.

I hope he ends up like one of those fucking birds, dude.

I need him to fall out of the tower.

Say head first, please.

Yeah, not even supernatural, just like a gun accident.

Some kind of just literally slip wooden stairs and just fall right off.

I couldn't help but give him a stare of both disbelief and the fear that if he keeps bellowing like that he'll give every old person in town a heart attack on the spot he cut our population in half but as much as his over-the-top radio personality irks me i kind of feel bad for the guy not because he tries too hard or because he seems to have some deep-seated need for attention that's all true but it's not why i feel bad I feel bad because,

well, right now he's sitting across the room from me in a fetal position, shivering with blood running out of both ears and one nostril, weeping.

Okay, well, I got what I wanted.

Yeah.

Well, no, no, no.

He still has not descended down the stairs yet.

Well,

he's getting there.

I'm getting closer to what I want.

As far as first days go, Dan had a weird one.

At eight o'clock in the morning, he arrived.

I think he was surprised to see that he wasn't getting some cute, spunky thing as his.

I read that like an alien.

Cute, spunky thing.

Gleb, clorp, clob, glib.

I think he was surprised to see that he wasn't getting some cute, spunky thing as his co-worker, but rather my tired self with a messy braid and a hoodie filled with two warm granola bars I had forgotten about, but would be delighted to find later on.

At 9 o'clock, I let him give the weather forecast, and he did so with enthusiasm.

Then at 10 o'clock, I had to explain to him that the bird on the window with human-looking eyes has been hanging around for days now and probably isn't up to anything.

It's just ugly.

I reassured him

at 11 o'clock.

He told me that there was some creepy human sobbing coming from inside the bathroom sink.

I was a bit shaken that he hears it too, but shrugged it off by telling him that it doesn't excuse him from washing his hands.

I actually kind of feel bad for Daniel.

Like that would the idea, the idea of your co-worker just being like, yeah, pretty much just like a

boy with human eyes and a woman crying.

It's not a big deal.

I mean, like, I would be fucking horrified.

Yeah, but after his good, after his

good

money,

yeah.

Yeah, Jason.

Wash your hands, Dan.

Wash your hands.

Go ahead.

Wash your hands, Daniel.

Nah, I doubt wash them.

Then at noon, exactly on the hour, we got a caller.

This was very, very unusual.

Of all the things considered weird, the weirdest was a reminder that other people actually live here.

I stared at the screen for the longest time, trying to figure out whether or not to answer the call, but ultimately decided decided that it would be ridiculous not to.

Hello, Color.

We've got you on the line.

I spoke in a soft, mature, radio voice.

The line was quiet for a moment, but I could hear a soft but ecstatic and the slightest hint of a breath.

Yes, Evelyn?

It was a woman's voice, probably about 70 years old.

She sounded as if she were shivering, which I assume was just shitters from being live on the air.

My name is Rose.

I had something I'd like to tell you.

Uh, of course, Rose.

What's on your mind today?

Well,

I've had a bout of strange dreams, dear, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had the same.

You see, last night, I had a dream in which the forest splits in two at the parting of the Red Sea, dear.

I hope you know the story of Moses, don't you?

Uh, we play songs, ma'am.

We know.

Yeah, can you imagine?

Well, at this point i'm like oh the fog comes for us all we're all a little shaken up you know it's like yeah get in line i've also had my four splitting dream and there's a human eye bird and like a japanese woman crying in a well below us like i think hey rose you want to come listen to the sink

come come over to the sink

check this out yeah yeah can you also fall off of the tower please

I spared a glance towards Dan.

My lip curved upward in a tiny smile mixed with a grimace, as if to say, oh boy, here we go.

He returned it with a witty grit of his own, glad that I was the lucky one to answer.

Um, sure I do, Rose.

What happened next?

Well, the ground was open and something was rising out of it.

It blocked out the whole sky, you see.

I can't even describe it.

But it covered everything.

The town and the sun,

all that my eyes could see.

The sound it made.

A fearsome bellow that shook the whole earth.

Then I woke up.

Do you think that God lives in the forest, dear?

Dan apparently saw the expression on my face, unwilling to answer for fear of, well, offending or encouraging any other zealous callers.

So he finally did something good for me and answered in my place.

That's an interesting dream, ma'am.

I think if God lived in the forest, He wouldn't give you a nightmare like that.

That

you did at the end of the laugh pissed me off at Dan

so much.

The little

like the satisfaction after the laugh at you, the only thing you said.

I want to say that I probably have put Dan into a position, like in a position of redemption now.

No,

but I feel bad.

He's wearing suspenders and a bow tie in my mind.

No,

I've got to fight him.

He laughed, but his laugh was cut off by a snappy tone from the woman on the line.

Well, he tried.

We're meant to be afraid of God, dear.

Her voice sounded like a slither, like a hiss.

For an old woman, she almost struck a bit of fear in me with that tone.

Besides, I wasn't talking to you.

My grimace was gone, replaced by a furrowed brow of concern and very obvious discomfort.

I didn't like this conversation.

It had gone from, oh boy, to oh no, to oh shit, very, very quickly.

I had three weeks to get used to some of the weird mind tricks around this place, but this was different for me.

This was real human conflict that I couldn't just blame on the stress of isolation.

Rose's words and the way she said them bordered on malicious.

That sweet, nervous, grandmotherly tone was gone, and suddenly it felt as if I were on the phone with someone who genuinely had ill will towards us both.

I'm afraid it's time for the weather, Rose, but feel free to call back should you keep having these very interesting dreams.

Thank you for calling, ma'am, and have a wonderful afternoon.

I ended the call, then faced Dan with wide eyes while mouthing the words, block that number.

That's pretty funny.

It's just like a mentally ill old woman.

It's like, keep her out of here.

The one phone call they've had in like weeks.

It's like, never let her go.

If you were in total isolation, but the only like you're in total isolation like she is, right?

But

you hear the music and all this stuff, and the only caller is this person talking about their dreams in that manner.

Would you ever, would you just be like, I'm not going to answer anymore?

Or would you have it just for the human connection?

I mean, you have nothing to do up there.

I mean, now she's got Dan, sure, but I hope he dies.

So I think you would answer, even if it was weird, you know, it's awesome,

right?

I I don't know if I'd want that kind of like spiritual crisis, like existential spiritual crisis.

You know what I mean?

The other option is you just stay in your lighthouse above the trees and never interact with anyone.

I feel like I'd rather go insane and just make up people.

I'd call the radio station myself and talk to myself.

You do that anyway.

That does feel about what it's like on this show.

Let's keep in mind, this is coming from the guy who does cartoons where he voice acts all of them and has arguments with himself in character.

So I think it's safe to imagine that you will.

I've got enough.

Those are videos, so I have to do it because it's a video that I'm presenting.

I know we're just arguing with you.

I have been with you and I have witnessed you do a voice and then another voice hears the previous voice and they get into a fight with each other.

That is not true.

You 100% would be stuck in a tower by yourself screaming at yourself.

And I think I would have enjoyment.

I think that having someone else call me,

it would add too much.

The human interaction would add too much.

Or just the freakiness of it.

There's already so much other weird shit.

I'd block the number.

All I'm saying is I'd block the number.

That's what I would do.

Okay.

I wish I could say that the weirdness ended then and there, but we're never so lucky.

After the call from Rose, we had more calls.

Two and then three, then seven by the time five o'clock rolled around.

Wow.

They were all very similar.

People in town were recounting their dreams, but they weren't all elderly people talking about God or whatever eldritch abomination they saw rising out of the woods.

I heard all types of people, all types of voices, young and old, some a little quirky, and others who seemed more skeptical.

One caught me off guard.

I still remember her words perfectly.

It was a young woman, maybe my age, and she sounded as if she was hesitant, but somehow still desperate to tell anyone about what she had seen.

I saw a bird with human eyes.

Right away, I was curious, as this was something a little too real, levels of weirdness.

In a dream?

No.

The woman answered.

There was a harsh intake of breath from the other side.

I don't sleep anymore since it started perching at my window.

All of them.

Windows that weren't even there before.

Sorry, I shouldn't have called.

Before I had a chance to say anything, she hung up the phone.

It's difficult trying to think of the best words to explain how I felt after that phone call.

Regret, I think.

I felt somehow responsible for the sorrow and hesitance in her voice, the way she saw some need to apologize for telling me what she saw.

There's a deep pit of dread in my stomach.

I hope she's okay, whoever she is, and that she figures out where all those extra windows came from.

I hope she figured out where all those windows appeared on her house.

I hope she gets past that.

Yeah, I feel personally responsible for those windows.

I'll admit that I had to take a break from writing this in order to tend to my new co-worker.

I had said that he had a rough first day.

Rough's a bit of a lax word.

At first, he was only a bit spooked about the general weirdness up here, but after what happened with our final phone call of the day, there was enough to warrant actual concern for his physical health.

I let Dan take over all the controls while I left just long enough to make a sandwich, realizing that it was almost 9 o'clock at night and I had yet to feed my flesh prison that entire day.

Human bodies, obnoxiously needy.

He had a call come in, which I realized only because I heard him answer it.

I didn't even hear it ring.

It was late and a strange time for calls, but I figured if it was someone being a creep, at least it would be entertaining to see how he handled it.

However, Dan was silent after that first initial greeting.

Seconds ticked by and he said nothing.

Finally, when I stepped out of the tiny employee kitchen with the peanut butter sandwich in hand, I witnessed my co-worker throwing the headphones off his head and letting out a shriek as he covered his ears.

His eyes were wide and impossibly bloodshot.

Veins were popping in his forehead and neck, and his moppy dark hair flew back and forth as he shook his head before dropping to his knees.

I could see blood dripping down from his nose over his top lip and his teeth, which were barred in a pained grimace.

Through the hair at the sides of his head, I saw dark trickles of blood streaming over his hands as if something inside his ears had burst.

I dropped my sandwich with a few cuss words exclaiming as I rushed over to him, grabbing one of his wrists in an attempt to see the damage.

He didn't want to move his hands and I didn't blame him.

With that much blood, I'd be afraid too.

His eyes blearily scanned over my face and I asked loudly if he could hear me.

He simply gave me a dumbfounded expression and whimpered pathetically as if even more upset over the fact that he could only read my lips.

Oh god, his ears were totally shot.

The music continued to play.

However, with the microphone still running and his screaming likely caught on the broadcast, I made the decision to keep the rest of his struggle private by marching over to the console and turning off both microphones.

I let the music run automatically and returned to his side, where he had fallen over and was now lying on it with his legs curled up, shivering and traumatized.

He looked at me, tried to mouth a few words, but didn't get far before his eyes rolled back and he was out cold in a dead faint.

I sat across him for a long time.

Myas glanced over at my sandwich, which was already being feasted upon by some very fortunate ants that probably thought a merciful god had rained down this gift from the heavens.

I left it there, not wanting to disappoint them.

That's when I found the granola bars in my pocket, half melted, but still a very happy surprise.

Maybe I was my own merciful God.

After a while of watching over Dan and writing up a bit of my day, I noticed him finally stir.

He was startled, gasping for breath as if waking from a nightmare, eyes darting around the dark room until he saw me cross the space and approach him.

I got down to his level, lying on my sides so that he could see my face clearly and understand what I asked him.

We were on the floor side by side like two kids at the shittiest slumber party ever.

Not even one pillow to spare.

Your face is bloody.

Think you can walk to the bathroom?

He nodded.

Want to sleep on an actual mattress?

He hesitated, then nodded again.

I'd already called an ambulance while he was unconscious, but I knew it would take a while to get here.

Our town didn't exactly have a hospital, and anyone who's had to drive around the mountains knows the chore that trip is.

Until then, he could rest on the mattress in my employee apartment and sleep off whatever shit he was going through.

I was surprised that he got on his feet as easily as he did.

That is to say, without falling over at all.

Although, his balance was worse for wear.

One would suspect as much with two newly injured ears.

I let him sit down on the toilet as I helped clean up his face and underneath his ears, letting him wash his own hands.

Can you hear me at all?

I asked now that we were in a quiet, noise-free room.

Took him a moment before he finally spoke, but his voice was a hoarse whisper that he probably couldn't even pick up.

A little, he said, and smirked with a sad excuse for a chuckle.

You're friendlier when I can't hear you well.

Okay, so

she picks up Dan and she throws him through the paint glass window.

I think Dan's kind of growing on me a bit.

No.

Honestly, you know what, honestly, did it?

Is that chuckle that you did when you were paying him earlier.

Because now when he did the you're friendlier when I can't hear you well, I couldn't help but imagine like

you're friendlier.

To be fair,

I could have read it like

he could have been like, you're friendlier when I can't hear you well.

That's what it was in my head.

So you didn't have to read it that way.

You've already said that in stone.

All right.

Okay.

I would have slugged him in the shoulder for that one, but I just laughed and let it slide.

It felt weird taking care of someone else.

I didn't think I was a maternal type of person but I found myself being as gentle as possible with his bloodied face with genuine care for his comfort.

He was cleaned up all except for his ears which were covered in what bandages we had on hand and I helped him to the mattress so he could lie down and rest.

Damn as far as first days go his was probably the worst I could imagine.

I really felt for the guy then.

First he was just annoying, but now that he was subdued, albeit in a terrible way, he wasn't so insufferable.

As he lay down with a bit of a wince, I turned to leave, but not before he waved a hand towards me in a weak sort of attention-grabbing slap to the arm.

I heard it, he mumbled, the volume of his voice fluctuating but still difficult to make out.

The color was drained from his face, and he took in a breath, laced with an audible shiver.

Apello, God in the woods, black rose.

My brow crinkled, and I turned away, grabbing a thin folded blanket from the top of a plastic shelving system and draping it over him.

That wasn't some fearsome god, Dan, Just something really wrong with your headset.

We'll fix you up, just get some rest.

That's where Dan spent the rest of the evening, at least until an ambulance came to pick him up.

It took them damn long enough to get there.

I decided to spend the night at my desk, watching the broadcast go without even putting my own headset on.

After a while, it became a surreal experience, just watching the music play by itself and trying to imagine who out there was actually listening to it.

Maybe I was the only one.

It's crazy how I went from hating Dan to suddenly missing his presence now that I was alone and completely uninterested in sleep.

And yes, I know I lied to him.

It wasn't his headset.

Whatever he heard was very real, but I don't know.

He's gone through enough without that to worry about, too.

It's after midnight now, and I heard a disturbing sound.

The phone started ringing again.

Someone was calling in.

I took a deep, steady breath through my nose and ignored it.

This is Evelyn for 104.6 FM, and the strangest looking bird is still sitting at the edge of my window.

End of part two.

I like

the way so far.

Well, first off, I don't know if you've been feeling the same way, but these read really easy.

Like, I feel like they flow.

Yeah,

they're very conversational speak.

They're very kind of...

There will be a moment of like talking about something or recognizing something, but then it's like back to plot, back to whatever the thing going on is.

There's not a lot of time, and I mean it as a compliment.

There's not too much time spent on like

mulling stuff over or interpersonal thoughts or stuff.

It's just like, these are the things that's happening to me.

I think one thing that it's doing well is kind of to your point of not mulling things over.

I think that also each plot so far, it's been something very simple.

The first one was, oh, there's weird rules and yep, the fog came and it's just fixing on that, fixating on that versus having like a bunch of other things happening.

And then this one of now the second one just being like, well, yeah, there's a new guy coming in because she's like, Oh, maybe hopefully, they'll hire somebody in the first part.

And then in part two, they hired somebody, but mostly the whole thing is, oh, we have callers today, and it's just fixating on the callers and just kind of like that, and how that affects the new guy.

I think that uh, it it feels like it's building it also, too.

I really like Evelyn as a character,

yeah, she's really she's very sweet,

she she's kind, uh, she's got a little bit of the kind of like

it doesn't have like a because I at first I thought it was gonna be like a tumbler kind of like

she's always snark like snarky or like

that kind of thing which it's like there's it's she just feels which I think I like it because she just feels like a person doesn't she it's like yeah she has like little funny things of the of the the kind of chiseledness that you would find from someone who's like been dealing with this for however long she's been working at the broadcast station.

But it's not like everything is accompanied with like a fucking quip, which I I feel like a lot of stories that we read that are like this, all the characters do that, where everything is just kind of like, yeah, well, he wasn't such a baby, or, you know, they're like, or there's always something that's, uh, you know, there's way too many,

there's way too much winking at the camera to be like,

yeah, I thought so.

Get a low to this guy, but I mean, other than like,

like the closest thing we got to that was she was like, humans are needy.

I'm in a flesh prison, but it's still not, it's not egregious.

It's just

she's mostly to to herself she's fine being up in here

um you know like i said it feels conversational feels like i'm just reading like a casual honestly what it is it's it's it is a girl posting a blog about working in a weird tower that's why uh yeah exactly i think that the no like the no sleep format works really well for this because it does feel that conversational with the viewer also like i said to dan He was insufferable, but at the same time, at the end, he kind of felt bad for him.

And I like that even as Evelyn was annoyed with him as well, by the end, she was just kind of like, I kind of miss him.

Like, I liked, I hope that we get some more of those interactions, or even maybe Dan can come out,

or maybe come back, I should say.

Um, no, no, I just fully disagree with you on that one.

I don't need him back.

I don't

think it's your fault a lot.

He's gonna stick around for a while, is what I think.

The hyper-eagerness of him is going to get on my nerves.

Good money.

Which if I heard that on the radio, I would change the station immediately.

All right, part three.

Part three.

I want to take a quick moment to thank today's sponsor, Tushie.

Tushi is the luxury bidet that your bathroom's been missing.

And over 2 million butts left Tushie, and it's not hard to see why.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

If you don't have a bidet, you mean less than me.

I did not have a bidet for a long time.

I thought that they were silly.

And then as soon as Tushi sent me one, I now am someone whose life matters.

I'm not kidding, there's a few household inventions that have definitively changed my life, and Tushi's bidet is one of them.

I now feel like an animal anytime I have to use someone's bathroom who doesn't have one.

And you know this is a personal endorsement because this is far too aggressive for them to pay me to say.

Not only are Tushi Bidets more hygienic, but people who have made the switch to Tushi use up to 80% less toilet paper.

And less toilet paper means more money saved, less clogged toilets, and less gross bathroom experiences.

Since the bidet does most of the cleaning and you use the toilet paper to dry off.

And of course, tushi therefore reduces things like irritation or tearing.

Tushie is also super easy to use and install.

Depending on the model you get, it either replaces your toilet seat or just goes underneath the one you already have.

Remember, a hole is only a dirty word if you watch.

And if tushie sounds good to you, and it should, then now's the perfect time to get in on the offer.

That's because for a limited time, our listeners get 10% off their first bidet when you use code Creepcast at checkout.

That's right, 10% off your first bidet order at hellotushy.com.

Promo code Creepcast to get your incredible offer today.

Thank you to Tushi for sponsoring the show.

We are now back to the episode.

I never knew that ear surgery was so simple.

Dang it, he lived.

That sucks.

He's back.

Poor Dan.

Not to say that it isn't a delicate and skilled process, of course, but when I got the call from Dan's mother, lovely woman, by the way, she told me that with an outpatient surgery, they'd be able to decently repair one of his ears and possibly give him some partial hearing in the other.

At the very least, they'd fix it up enough to avoid infection.

I suppose I always thought the ear was such a small and intricate part of the body that fixing up those tiny, cramped caverns of bones and delicate vibrations would be a huge deal.

A dangerous deal.

Turns out, Dan got the surgery the morning after the incident with his headset and is recovering.

They think he'll be able to hear well enough to stick around here and do his job.

Dang it.

Are you sure?

Did Did you double check?

Though he may need some hearing assistance once he fully heals.

He won't be returning to work for a few days probably and may not be wearing a headset for a long time.

But while talking to his mother, I heard him in the background saying, Is that Evelyn?

Tell her I'm not done being a nuisance yet.

It's like a steak in your heart every time.

I love it.

It is.

I love it.

The hum of satisfaction after laughing at your own joke.

It's absurd.

It's awful.

Oh.

So I guess I've still got a part-timer, a nuisance part-timer.

He's just taking a very early, very medicated vacation.

While he's out, I've been here by myself.

And damn it, that bird will not leave.

Do you think the bird is some kind of like omen of some kind?

Or

for sure?

I hope foreshadowing.

I hope it's there to kill Dan.

Whatever.

It might, it might kill Dan.

I'm wondering if it is like this, might be a stupid take or something, but the thing that is existing in the fog, it almost like I'm wondering if it's like

it's its eyes or something, you know, like it's something that's like it can see through these birds, which is also like why they're kind of going up over town and creating this like surrealist nightmare of creating new windows that weren't there before.

Like, I'm wondering if whatever's existing down there is like vicariously looking at things through it.

It could be.

It could be like

a harbinger.

Knowing this series, it could be just someone's soul.

There's just a person.

Could be the bird now.

Kind of like how they say seagulls, or at least in the Lighthouse movie, they say seagulls.

They've got the souls of sailors.

Souls of sailors.

Yeah.

It could be the souls of people that have died in the forest or something.

I noticed something while looking out the window between giving the forecast and playing a block of commercial-free music.

It's building a nest.

That little shit piece in its damn eyes is building a nest right out in front of where I sit all day.

Now, I like birds.

I generally don't have trouble with any kind of wildlife, so long as it's not trying to pick a body apart to run off with.

But somehow, for whatever reason, the last thing I want to see is this bird create multiple mini versions of itself.

I can just imagine tens of them lined up all around the window, staring at me from every direction, watching what I'm doing.

I almost decided to go out there and try moving the nest down into the woods, but I don't want to leave the station unmanned for too long.

Maybe I'll wait until Dan gets back and let him take over for a while so I can take that thing far, far away from the tower.

I hate the stupid bird.

Before I sat down in the morning, I cleaned myself up at the bathroom mirror.

The sink was quiet.

I know that should be a good thing, but I don't mean clanking pipes or clogged plumbings causing any sound.

On Dan's first day, he said he heard the sobbing from down to the pipes, and it shook me a bit.

I've heard it too, but I figured it was just me.

I figured the isolation of being up here 50 feet in the air and with no company except for the grocery delivery man was starting to make me imagine human voices in places where they didn't really exist.

But he heard it too.

Honestly I was a bit disappointed that it didn't continue the first time I noticed the eerie silence.

I was going to try convincing Dan that we had a colony of mole people living in the plumbing as soon as he got back.

That joke wouldn't solve the mystery, but at this point, humor is just about the only thing keeping me sane around here.

But if you ask, did I think it was a ghost down there?

A person?

No.

I didn't care so long as it remained a sound and nothing else.

It didn't matter where it came from.

I forgot about it for a bit.

I stopped thinking about whatever was, or wasn't rather, in the sink and went about my daily work.

The skies were blue and clear.

The air was chilly, but warm for being in the mountains.

All in all, things were boring.

But I suppose I could use a boring day after watching my co-worker's eardrum simultaneously ruptured the day before.

I'll take a boring day over a bloody one.

I sat down, putting my headset on and waiting for the automatic music block to come to an end.

There were envelopes opened and stacked about with get well zoom cards placed in a line above the consoles.

Word got out fast that Dan was undergoing a standard minor surgery, and I imagine that anyone listening the evening before who heard his pain screams was quick to hunt down the gossipers for information.

At least 10 people in town sent cards straight to the station with the early morning mail.

I set them in front of his chair like a cute surprise for when he came back.

Even I ordered one for him too, but unfortunately the grocery delivery guy had accidentally been given a happy birthday grandma card instead.

I still signed it and put it up with the rest.

It's the thought that counts.

Good morning, this is Evelyn McKinnon with 104.6 FM.

I hope everyone is enjoying the sunny skies today.

Daniel Esperanza will not be joining me this morning, but he would like to thank everyone for the kind well-wishes and can't wait to return at the end of the week.

Stay tuned for the five-day forecast at 8.30 this morning, but until then, enjoy the 30 minutes of uninterrupted music here on 104.6 FM.

Something that the story's done twice now that I like is it will very casually slip a detail that becomes like

the thing the next section talks about, right?

Because in the first part, it's like, oh, I'm supposed to get a new co-worker soon.

And it's kind of just brushed over.

And then the second part's about that co-worker.

And now, during the part with the co-worker, it's like, he said he heard something in the pipes.

I ignored it.

He said he heard sobbing or whatever.

And then, like, this next part's dealing with that a bit.

And then maybe the next part will be about the grocery delivery guy or something.

It's just a casual way to make everything feel connected, but still having like, there's enough of a point to be like, yeah, this was always the direction it was supposed to go with the next parts.

Let's just smarter, or like the bird with the eyes, stuff like that.

Just little breadcrumbs that you don't realize are breadcrumbs till they're picked up later, I like.

I wasted most of the morning away.

The Wi-Fi was close enough that I could sit near my desk and surf the web a little, looking for news to talk about.

I was in a bored daze, looking at the clock, waiting for time to pass.

The internet's too slow to play much video unless I'm in the mood for a good long buffer.

So most of that time was spent just staring at a dull screen.

At noon, my eyes snapped to the sides as the noise came through my earphones.

It was the phone.

Even while the music played, someone was calling in.

I thought maybe it was a request or maybe Dan's mother calling again.

Apparently, Daniel had said enough good things about me for her to invite me to her niece's wedding in June.

Sweet woman.

I made sure that the audio mixer wouldn't pick up the call or my voice with the music broadcast and with a touch of hesitance, I allowed the voice to come through.

This is Evelyn at 104.6 FM.

What can I do for you?

There's a loud gasp on the other end.

Then a shaking, shivering sob and the sounds of a young woman breathing in through a stuffy nose.

I recognized the sound.

It was less muffled than it had ever been, more direct, or human.

It was the same pattern of sobs I heard from inside the sink every day since I had started, and the same one Daniel had heard as well.

I felt a chilling sensation, like the sudden gust of wind you feel walking out into a blustery winter night from a warm building.

It didn't hit me all at once, but traveled from the top of my head down my back and all the way to the tips of my toes.

every hair of my body stood on end every pore and freckle was like a stinging pinprick and then words began to come through you have to stop she was still sobbing still gasping and sniffling she paused and i assume it was to let me speak are you all right oh my god

stop stop making excuses she interrupted me and all at once i became confused was she talking to me at all i'm so

so tired this is this is my home.

I wanted to help you, but you won't let me.

I didn't respond.

It was as if I were listening to only one half of a conversation, like a recording.

Something about the voice sounded familiar to me, enough to make my stomach drop into a pit deep in my gut.

But then again, I'd heard it before in the bathroom sink.

Had I heard it anywhere else?

Please, let me let me help you.

Please, you haven't.

You haven't been sober a single day since graduating.

All at once, I ripped the headset off my ears, pushed my chair back, left the device dangling on a cord like a pendulum off the side of the desk.

It wasn't for lack of reason.

I felt the most intense nausea erupt suddenly, stomach churning and mouth watering, no time at all to wonder if I'd be able to let it calm or not.

I rushed to the bathroom with the call still going, the voice speaking and sobbing into the open air.

Vertigo struck as soon as the door was within reach, and those three steps of the toilet felt as if I were walking in a bright, spinning carnival tunnel.

My legs buckled at the knees and I went crashing down, white knuckles gripping the edge of the toilet seat as I tried to drag myself towards it.

My arm lacked the strengths, but it was then that the nausea turned to something else.

I was choking.

Shit, if there was ever a time I could have a co-worker there with me, this would be the moment.

I lost my breath and the vibrant colors that spun around me only grew more blinding, static in my vision as I prepared to lose consciousness.

And then, with a desperate cough, I felt a sharp pain as something dislodged itself from my throat.

My head hit the floor with a thud, but I found myself staring directly at the thing that had somehow gotten inside of my body.

It was a stone.

Just a stone.

A brown, speckled one like you'd find out in the woods, maybe on a hike, maybe from a riverbed.

As far as things you could mysteriously choke on with no explanation, a stone seemed like a rather boring item.

But as I looked at it, perhaps it's sheer frustration that it had almost killed me, I wanted nothing more than to be rid of it.

My arm shook as I pushed myself up, grabbing the stone in my fist.

Without a second thought, I threw it into the toilet, flushed the handle, watching it disappear down the cyclone of water.

It was then that I swore I heard a sniffle to my right, coming from deep down inside the pipes beneath the sink.

You can have it back.

I wiped my face with my sleeve, then washed my hands thoroughly before returning to my desk.

My headphones were still dangling off the edge of the table, swinging back and forth slowly.

I picked them up, put them over my head once more, and was greeted with silence from the other line.

The woman had hung up the phone.

The sense of discomfort hasn't left.

That bird hasn't left.

What's worse is I saw it clicking its beak on the window, looking straight at me.

It wants to come in.

I know how crazy it sounds, acting like I know what a bird wants and is thinking, but the sparrow is too human not to be aware of its expression.

Pleading, demanding eyes are staring constantly as I sit at my desk, only gone when it leaves to fill its nest.

I'm not letting it in.

There's a fog advisory for Thursday.

It's only Tuesday as I write this, but I still find myself staring across the forest, expecting to see the hills of trees start to move.

I expect to see a burst open.

Where does the fog even come from?

I'm imagining it now, drifting up from beneath the ground, rising into the air and covering the town and the sun, all that my eyes can see.

And the sound it might make.

Fearsome bellow that shakes the whole earth.

Shit.

Maybe I shouldn't have blocked Rose's phone number at all.

This is Evelyn from 104.6 FM, and I just noticed a brown speckled stone sitting on the edge of the window.

Class of 2017 written in white paint on its side.

I don't know how it got there, but more importantly, who on earth fished that thing out of the damn toilet?

End of of part three.

Starting to get a little mystery buildup, though.

I'm liking it.

I'm getting more into it the more we go.

Because the pieces are cool.

Like the lady on the other end saying, you haven't been sober since graduation.

She throws up a stone.

The stone appears on the window and has class of 2017 written on it.

Which this story was written.

I think in 2017, right?

Eight years ago.

So 2017, right?

So,

but our Evelyn

didn't graduate high school this year, I don't think.

So maybe that's like a high school student.

Maybe it has something to do with like

someone that died.

I don't know.

Maybe it's something like, maybe it's something like someone died and they're the bird or whatever, like souls in the bird or whatever.

And then.

Like the woman calling was a mother, like a concerned family member.

I'm just making stuff up.

I don't know.

I like, I like a lot of the pieces it's giving, the little mystery stuff.

I think it's fun.

Yeah, I think so too.

Only way, one way to keep finding out this mystery is to read on into part four.

I was also confused at the beginning because when she says, I thought maybe it was a request for Dan's mother calling again, and for some reason, my head's like, oh, this is going to be Dam's mom.

And she's just screaming and crying.

And for a second, I'm like, maybe he's dead.

But no, that's not what it was.

So.

I don't get what I want.

All right, part four.

I honestly never thought I'd dread a Thursday the way I did.

It's a perfectly good day of the week, and rarely do you ever hear people complaining about how much they hate Thursdays.

There's no, is Thursday over yet, mugs out there next to the Monday ones.

However, as the week drifted slowly by, all I could think about was the constant warning of another foggy day quickly approaching.

Top of all that, my morning started with a script for a missing persons report.

A woman named Jennifer Cook, age 25, had wandered into the woods in a supposed sleepwalking incident, and her status, for whatever reason, had been listed as an extreme danger.

I recognized her name.

We were friends in college.

Oh, I didn't even...

I'm stupid.

I didn't even think about college graduation.

It could be class of 2017, you know, for college.

One good thing did happen.

Daniel decided resting was boring as hell and made the decision to return one day earlier than expected, still recovering, but plenty well enough to pester me.

I almost regretted to say it, but I missed the guy.

I guess it's true that you don't always realize you'd miss something until it's taken away from you, and even this insufferable pain in my ass was better than the absolute isolation.

Beggars can't be choosers.

I watched as his eyes lit up, seeing the get-well cars that have been left on his side of the console.

He snorted when he noticed the one I left for him.

Happy birthday, grandma.

I want to feel bad because it's not him, it's you that makes me hate him.

But it's so inseparable in my mind at this point.

Like what, like when we heard his last name was Esperanza, I just coasted over that fact.

I coasted over the mention he has moppy black hair.

In my head, it's like he has a perm, like a perm almost of like red hair.

Red hair kid.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's like in a, it's like a high-end type, but it sets off his head and is curly, and he's wearing glasses that are taped in the middle.

He basically, he looks like a human embodiment of Carl Weezer from Jimmy Neutron.

But annoyingly skinny.

Oh, gosh.

Okay.

Whatever.

He laughed as he picked it up, opening the card to find no kind words or even a signature, but a doodle of him with two Beethoven-inspired ear trumpets stuck taped to his head.

What can I say?

I was bored.

Thanks, Evelyn.

You're a very thoughtful grandchild.

After the morning weather broadcast, at which time he joined me to announce his return to the station, we turned off our microphones to catch up.

I hardly believe it needs saying that catching up for us didn't only involve the mundane.

He told me about his procedure in vivid detail, almost excitedly.

And to be honest, I was very interested.

Delicately, he tilted his ear to either side to show the scars behind his ears and the surgical dressing still kept on the inside.

It was no wonder he still spent most of his time trying to read my lips.

Even if his ears had been successfully repaired, he couldn't hear a damn thing with cotton stuffed in there.

Eventually, we exhausted talk of scalpels and stitchels, and he asked me what sort of bizarre things happened he had missed while on his vacation.

Seek is still acting up.

The pipes were a little rusty the other day, though.

I think that was making it a bit weepier than usual.

Did you get any calls?

I hesitated, but trying not to look too unwilling to answer.

Rather, I pretended I was in thought, looking back at dull and completely unimportant memories before shaking my head.

Daniel's eyes were fixed on my face, reading it far after my lips had stopped moving.

I think the fact that I avoided his gaze completely was more of a telltale sign of secrecy than anything else.

I didn't want to tell him about the crying woman on the phone, the rock that had been in my stomach, or any conversation all of that may stir.

The feeling of unease that subject caused was so fuzzy, so confusing to me that I had no desire to go tumbling down the rabbit hole, but my own free will.

That bird, though, I interrupted just as he took in a breath to speak, bringing my knees up in my chair and kicking off from the desk to roll away a few feet, practically jumped out out of the seat to stomp across the room.

Headset left a bayonet and a finger pointing at the window.

Sure enough, my nemesis was picking at its nest it had built on a tree branch right at the window's edge.

You don't like nests?

Daniel asked as if there's any possible doubt of how I felt.

It's going to have all of its creepy-looking babies right in front of our broadcast room.

I put my hands to the glass with an exasperated groan.

But even as I knocked my fist against the surface, that shitty little bird did not leave.

It just stared at me, face turned so that one human eye followed my movements.

If its beak had the ability to move and a grin, I'm almost sure it would have been smirking at me.

I'm getting rid of it.

Hold up.

I know it's weird looking, but you're not gonna kill it.

No, I'm not killing it.

I corrected Daniel, returning to the desk to hang up my headphones properly.

I leaned against the back of my abandoned chair, facing my co-worker to explain my instructions.

I'm going out on the fire escape to grab the nest, and I'm taking it out in the woods.

Won't hurt it.

We'll just make it a nest in a new spot.

You need to take the controls while I'm gone, though.

He couldn't wear his headset, but that didn't matter.

So long as he could.

Yeah, leaving the deaf guy to the men at the radio are gone.

The guys whose ears imploded within themselves, whatever.

You'll be fine by yourself, right, buddy?

And he's like, yeah.

And then she's downstairs and she just hears like an explosion.

Goes back up and he's just like particleized all over the room.

He couldn't wear his headset, but that didn't matter.

So long as he could keep the music running on his own and avoid any lapse of silence while I was gone, plan would be simple and effective.

I still try to wrap my head around this feeling or urgency.

I needed to get rid of that nest, and it needed to happen immediately.

Adelia.

So to clarify,

she's not saying she got nauseous at the phone call because of the contents.

It just made her nauseous, like supernaturally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not like she heard the woman crying and the graduate mention and she's like, oh no, that reminds me of the saying.

She just got like a supernatural the the rock appeared in her throat right yeah i mean i think i i'm not sure that we have the full scope of that yet yeah i don't think she knew what it meant i don't think

i had to leave the station in order to get to the fire escape i know that completely defeats the purpose of the fire escape but it wasn't worth triggering the alarm just to save a few steps and explaining my stupid obsession to my boss while disarming it That involved descending endless clinking stairs, downwards and downwards, until I had circled a 50-foot spiral of rusted metal to the cold cement floor.

The exit sign no longer glowed, but the door's window shone a tarnished yellow light from the overcast sky outside.

Wait, so it's it's enclosed, the staircase is.

It's not like a wooden staircase on the outside of the structure.

That's what I'm wondering, too.

Rusted metal to the cold cement floor.

I wonder if the cold cement floor is supposed to be like the padding, like the like, you know, I mean, the landing.

Like Like it's where the yeah, yeah, that's what I think the floor is.

But she says she gets to an exit sign and there's a window.

So, does that mean that the fire escape is like a spiral metal staircase that's enclosed the whole way?

I wouldn't say it's enclosed, though.

I bet you there's a roof, but maybe I doubt it's enclosed.

Yeah, that would be horrifying.

It's like a 20-foot coffin.

Laustrophobic nightmare.

When my shoes sank into the long grass, kicking up tiny pebbles in the dry dirt, I felt a sense of immense insignificance.

The world felt big and I felt small, suffocating somewhere in the middle of all that vast and limitless space.

It was the first time in over a week I had felt the wind on my skin so directly, and something about standing in the open air failed to feel comforting.

I didn't feel freedom.

I felt violated, exposed.

I felt like a newborn without guidance.

I decided to make the job as quick as possible, secured my flannel around my waist, holding on to to either side of the fire escape as I climbed my way upwards.

I spared a look out into the mountains, those rolling high hills of rock and dirt covered in newly budding trees and evergreens.

Looking at the horizon brought me stress.

That stress formed gnarled balls sitting in my stomach.

Kind of like a stone, really.

I didn't need more of those in my guts.

Okay, you feathered fuck.

Once I was at the top, panting breathlessly in the absolute throes of exhaustion, I waved my hand to shoe the bird away.

For once, it actually left.

That didn't bring me much comfort.

It flew away from its nest without panic, as if it wasn't leaving because it feared me.

It was simply moving out of the way to perch elsewhere.

Casually, as if to say, I'm only moving because I want to.

I reached out over the metal bars to grab the nest, plucking it off the branch.

Now, as much as I hate this bird, and as vocal as I've been about that fact, I couldn't bring myself to be rough with its nest.

I held it with some level of tenderness, but still held my breath anxiously as I peered into the circular web of twigs and discarded animal furs.

There were no eggs, but the nest wasn't empty.

With a shudder of disgust and every single nerve in my body wanting to get that damn thing away from me as quickly as possible, I threw the nest as far as my arm would let me, wiping my hands on the waist of my shirt as I watched it fly into the trees.

Inside that nest, nestled into the center like beloved, delicate eggs, were four human fingers chewed off from the knuckle

jesus yeah maybe he just killed the bird

smash the fucking bird into smitheries

yeah that's not a bird anymore get rid of it they were young and slim the nails painted in partially chipped red polish so this is like a little girl's fingers it kind of seems like

or or could it be the woman in the uh

Could it be the woman that's been sobbing?

Oh, it could be.

It could be.

Yeah.

It was then that I heard a slither behind me, scraping wet against the metal of the stairs.

It was a sickening sound that only added to the chill I felt traveling up my arms and neck.

I turned, ready to lock eyes with whatever creature had crawled out of the woods and found a thick, dirt-covered vine that had grown all the way up the rusted beams and across the first step.

I had seen a bird with human eyes, a sink with a human voice, but God forbid would this plant start personifying itself too.

Eager to get off that fire escape and back into the station, I stepped over the muddy green appendage and prepared for my shoe to clank against the second stair.

It never hit.

Instead, another vine, just as slick and swift as the others, snaked its way underneath my foot, then another and another down at least three more steps.

No matter where my foot fell, it would slide and I'd go crashing down each and every one of those stairs.

At least, that's what I thought would happen.

As soon as my balance was lost to me, I felt a slimy grip around my ankle.

One of the vines grabbing my leg and using an incomprehensible amount of strength to fling my weight away from it.

I felt like a fly being swatted with an aggressive hand, as if I was the pest in the situation.

One moment I was staring down at my feet and the next, I was looking at the ground as I began to fall.

50 feet was a distance I may not have survived.

I flailed in some attempt to grab the edge of the stairway, but happened to fall with my chest pinned over a bar on one of the spirals right below the top.

The breath was knocked out of me, arms gripping the rail as pain erupted in my shoulders and my elbows from holding up my weight.

I kicked my legs upwards, wrapping them around the closest bar I could find until I was clinging to the edge.

The endless forest was in front of me, and all I saw was at first sea of green.

That's when I saw movement on the horizon.

It was the undulating, swirling, thick clouds of fog slowly creeping towards the radio station in the town beyond us.

And for the first time since I had started working here, I could hear a groan on the wind.

It wasn't quite a rumble, like one would expect from thunder, but a low, whale-like moan one might imagine would echo from the ocean floor.

The fog was making that sound, like a living thing with a voice of its own.

I yelled out some stream of curses, mixed with unintelligible sounds of panic as I used all my strength to pull myself up onto the landing, choosing the stress of sore arms over a long drop.

I pulled myself up, tumbling over the railing and falling to my stomach on the solid metal.

As I stood, I lost my flannel shirt on a snag and didn't bother to come back for it, even if it was my favorite.

I half ran, half stumbled down the remaining steps, skipping over whichever ones I could while the ground below wriggled and moved in my line of sight.

The same mud-covered vines that had thrown me off the fire escape were crawling their way out of the ground, all of them twitching in agitation.

I tripped my way through them, making a dash to the door, but when it was finally within my reach, there was no opening it.

The door had been covered from bottom to center in a thick layer of vegetation, overgrown as if the forest had swallowed it in a coat of thorns and branches.

Young, miniature trees had sprouted from the ground in that short amount of time it took me to leave and come back, their trunks and branches intertwined to keep the door fastened shut.

I tore my hands at the bark, the thorns biting into my skin, but with every tug and crack of solid wood, the trees would writhe and snap back into a place in a stubborn game of tug-of-war.

The distant groan was closer now, wisps of fog surrounding my ankles as it slowly began to cover the ground and grow.

But as panicked as I was, I only screamed when I looked back to the door, seeing a darkened face and the whites of eyes staring at me through the window.

It was Daniel, knocking on the tarnished yellow glass as he attempted to force the door open on his side.

Get up there!

I screamed through the door.

Make the emergency broadcast!

Go upstairs!

He stared at me, shaking his head as he tried yet again to bust the door open to no avail.

The stained window clouded my face, making my lips impossible to read.

I turned around to see the same trees covering the door had now sprouted at the bottom of the fire escape.

The fog was tumbling closer, completely engulfing the trees only a dozen feet away from me.

With nowhere to go, I turned back to the door with one last desperate attempt to tear the plants away.

I saw Daniel's face, washed out and blank with fear, with both of his hands on the glass, and then as the fog wrapped itself around me and the radio station itself, I couldn't even see an inch in front of my face.

Dan disappeared from my view.

as did every single thing except for the swirling gray clouds.

I don't think I've ever experienced such silence.

There was no wind, no birds, only the sound of my own labored breathing as the air grew thick with the taste of wet soil.

Though I had been facing the door, the clouds in front of my eyes made it seem as if I were floating in some endless waste.

It was a sea of cold, heavy air that tickled every hair of my arms and all my head.

There was that whale-like groan again.

It was followed by the strangest series of clicks, like a tongue against teeth rapidly popping in no real pattern.

I was unprepared when it touched me.

Oof.

I pursed my lips tightly to keep from making a sound as something sharp and thin grazed the raised flesh on the back of my arm.

It was followed by another and another, like impossibly long fingers or the legs of a spider toying with my hair and poking at my arms.

It felt threatening, but also curious, so whatever it was patrolling in the fog was trying to figure out what I was or what it could do with me.

My eyes were clamped shut and my arms squeezed tightly around my body.

I can't even begin to describe what it's like in your head when something massive, unseen, and unidentifiable pokes and prods as if you're its human toy.

I was waiting for fangs and claws.

I thought for sure in that very moment, I was about to be eaten alive by something I would never get the chance to see.

My last act on this earth would have been harassing a damn bird.

My teeth rattled as I waited for a fate that was certainly grim, but it was surprising when I felt all presence around me suddenly back away.

The ground shook once, twice, and then the world went still again.

My eyes cracked open as I watched the swirling gray clouds in front of my vision slowly begin to clear.

The doorway, as well as the gnarled trees surrounding it, came into view bit by bit.

The curling ropes of bark and thorns began to untach from one another and spiraled back down into the ground as if they were beckoned beneath the dirt.

The door was in my sights as the fog all but disappeared completely.

Well, as it turns out, I didn't die.

Shocking, I know.

I don't think I ever opened a door so quickly in my life.

I rushed inside, slamming it behind me, wasted no time at all, sprinting up the stairwell towards the broadcasting room.

Pure adrenaline got me to the top in what seemed like an instant, where I found Daniel sitting at the console with the microphone situated in front of his face and the radio line up, back on track.

It was better late than ever.

I breathed a loud, heavy sigh and slumped against the wall, movement catching my gaze at the window.

My flannel shirt was still caught on the edge of the fire escape, torn to absolute shreds and waving like a flag of surrender.

It was then that I made a solemn oath that should I ever see a bird's nest near the fire escape again, it can stay.

Hell, I'd throw in a damn welcome party if it would keep this from ever happening again.

Since afternoon arrived, some things have come to light.

I've gotten more than one angry call from the owner of the network who claims it took us far too long to sound the announcement for the people downhill in the towns.

Married couple last seen taking a walk near the trees hasn't come home since the fog passed.

And of course, we made the missing persons report immediately.

I've also got a huge pattern of bruises appearing on my chest from the fall, and I must say, hurts like a bitch.

We did call the police about the fingers.

They assured us there wasn't a murder loose in the area, though that sounds simpler to deal with.

I was a bit surprised that the police asked for copies of our caller records from earlier in the week, and luckily, the rolls of the station meant none of them had been deleted or taped over.

The only recording missing was the one Daniel had taken the very moment he lost most of his hearing.

Why would our boss delete that after collecting his copies?

I overheard whispers of who those fingers may have belonged to.

They say the missing girl, Jennifer, was probably the victim of an animal mauling while wandering in her sleep due to a newly prescribed pill she had only just started taking.

A sleeping pill.

I've decided that when I'm done here, I'm looking at our call records from the last few days.

A certain call from a sleepless woman is coming back to me, and I may recognize that phone number if I see it again.

I suspect it might match a number.

I still have my own personal cell phone.

I'll be honest, I hope I'm wrong.

There's a lot I need to explain once I know for sure.

This is Evelyn from 104.6 FM, and I might take a walk in the woods later.

I really enjoy how the mystery keeps kind of building up.

Like it's, it's, yeah, I don't know if you feel the same, but it's kind of losing its goofier tone more.

It's starting to shed it a bit, and it's more into like there's a mystery around Evelyn herself.

She knows something about this woman that's disappeared.

Why are their fingers in the woods?

Why are the police covering up?

Why is the boss covering up the phone records?

What's on the other end of the line?

It's, it's, it's unraveling in pieces.

I like it.

That, that set piece was really good with the fog coming coming in and the branches covering up the vines and stuff.

You've mentioned the mist earlier.

That felt very the mist that whole segment.

Yeah.

Well, definitely the tendril y finger spider kind of

tickly thing.

But I will say, I really enjoy the almost as if the forest itself is like coming to life and attacking her.

Like, just there's something so creepy about like vegetation growing and attaching itself very quickly.

You know, it's almost like the forest understands that the radio station is a watchtower.

And as soon as the watchtower is empty or vulnerable, that's its moment to attack.

Yep, exactly.

Well, shit.

On to part five.

Yeah, I'm vibing with it.

This is

really cool so far.

Part five.

So here's the thing: it's dark outside.

The forest is apparently alive, and you want to go out there looking for a dead body?

Okay.

Daniel had been here only a few days, and already he was mouthing off to me.

He moved fast, I guessed.

I shot him a look, expression cold, as I sat on the floor and laced up the first of my boots.

If those fingers are the only part of her disconnected from the rest, there may not be a dead body.

She might still be alive.

So the one thing I haven't pointed out about the story, honestly, because I've been hooked, is the question of why don't they just quit?

Why don't they just leave?

But I feel like the tone of it where it is so fantastical, it's not really,

you know, why don't they i feel like in another story be like just walk away but because of how high fantasy it kind of is it's like you know who cares right why don't they just walk away i mean one

i think that it's been established that this stuff has been like they have

evelyn at least has been existing in the weird for so long that it's become normal and only recently has it been something where it's like okay well this is a little more out of the comfort this is more out of my comfort zone of what this weird shit is but now it's become a thing where i feel like one evelyn is so attached to this job the kind of cushy nature of it and that it's become her lifestyle that i think that it cements her there but then two i do think that like we've established too that she's caring and that she like

at this point too if she believes that she can help somebody i think that she will So now I think that, so, I mean, and Daniel, I think too, I think he's just a bit of a younger, ignorant kind of, uh, kind of character that I think doesn't really realize the severity of the situation he's in, even though his eardrums fucking imploded and all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

After the last time I sat down to write my thoughts and experiences, I ended up looking back at all the calls that came through in the last few days.

I wasn't looking for the recordings, but rather the numbers, something that I rarely paid attention to.

My heart sank when I saw that my suspicion had been unfortunately correct.

The number on our work phone matched the cell phone number I had listed for Jenny, a college friend whom I graduated with a year earlier.

Although there was a surprise I hadn't quite expected.

Jennifer didn't call the station only once, she called twice.

The first time to tell me about a bird with human eyes that had been keeping her awake for days.

The second time, I heard a woman crying and pleading over the phone.

That woman was her.

Maybe it's true when they say that no one ever sounds like themselves over the phone.

I'm going along with you.

Dan was turning in his chair, ready to get up, when I shot him a look of disbelief.

No, you're not.

I thought I sounded demanding, but he didn't listen for even a moment.

He was already up on his feet, leaning over the console and fiddling with the music lineup.

We can't leave the station completely empty.

Who are we going to ask to take over for us?

The weird-ass bird?

The toilet ghost?

Excuse you, it's the sink, not the toilet.

Besides, I have an idea.

He wasn't bluffing either.

His idea sounded silly and impossible at first, but the more I molded over in those moments, the more I realized it would work.

He told me that we should pre-record all of our content for the night.

We'd record the evening weather, the 10 o'clock news, and even a good night message, then put those recordings in the lineup with the rest of the music.

No one would know.

And if it took much longer than expected, we'd simply set up the broadcast schedule to continue into the six-hour night owl block.

I will say, too, the one thing I was thinking while you're reading that, I was like, well, if the boss shows up, they're fucked.

But that's one thing we haven't really talked about, Isaiah, is the boss.

who is this who is this man some guy that knows the rules who like owns this place but he also does stuff like delete call records that make well that's exactly that's why i'm like that that i'm very suspicious of that man but the the deleted call record thing that was kind of fucked up it's also insane if like this is a

giant like the fog can come in and kill everyone and there's monsters in the woods and stuff like that to be like i'll just hire some girl to do it no I won't explain to her maybe they'll get a second guy later like that's like a huge oversight well it sounds like an oversight but does it it to me it kind of sounds like it's like per it's purposeful like he's like I either need someone who doesn't know what's going on who can do this very mundane task or it's something that he's like I need someone that will fulfill X in time You know what I mean?

Not sacrificial, but in like, just as an example, like, oh, and then we can sacrifice, like, once they, you know, just this person that has been working here for so long there'll be like a sacrifice not saying that's what it is but i'm just saying like it all seems too convenient i guess well here's here's the other thing too if they leave like sure they may be able to trick the people listening to the radio station but i don't think they're gonna trick the woods the woods is gonna know there's no one in the middle no no no exactly and that's what i'm like

how would they ever pre-record like a fog warning So are they just fucking over the whole town?

I don't know.

Well, they did say, so the fog came last time because there was an expected fog on on Thursday.

And then that Thursday fog showed up.

So if there's no fog forecast, I think they're safe from that.

But I mean, who knows what else goes on in these woods?

You know, I'm almost picturing the fog as like the evil dead fog that kind of like rolls in very quickly.

Well, even the way that they, it should be the way that Evelyn described it earlier, where it's like, oh, it moves like it has footsteps, like it's a creature roaming.

It isn't just like, oh, there's a fog report.

But I mean, maybe it is, it can be like, you know, calculated like the weather.

So, anyways.

I was supposed to leave at 10.

Daniel reminded me.

He was only a part-timer, whereas full-time took on a whole new meaning for my eternal presence here.

I couldn't believe I was actually going to do this.

I couldn't believe I was letting Dan do this.

Honestly, I don't know what scared me more.

The thought of walking into the woods at night and leaving the station abandoned, or the thought of going alone and leaving Dan with the responsibility of taking my place.

Now, I'm not saying he's incompetent, but I'm almost sure a wild badger could run across the radio console and operate it just as good as he does.

He has a lot to learn, is what I mean.

We put our plan into motion, recording all of our segments one after the other and making a long automatic playlist, including those files.

With any luck, it would sound just as genuine as live conversation.

By the time that was finished and the radio was set to play on its own until just before sunrise, Daniel and I raided the closet for flashlights, water bottles, and a first aid kit just in case.

I hoped we wouldn't be needing to reattach any of our fingers, but yesterday's grim findings had brought that possibility up from not worth mentioning to unlikely but could happen.

I've been sitting here trying to think of what this story reminds me of.

It reminds me of the Kirlian frequency.

Kirlian, Kirlian, Kirlian, whatever.

Which is a

series about like a town full of like vampires, monsters, but it's from the perspective of a radio host.

And then, also, isn't that what the plot of Welcome to Night Vale is?

It's about a radio broadcast station.

I think so.

It's like a podcast or like a audio show, I think.

I think that's the same concept.

Also,

for those who are curious, like myself,

you can build, they sell prefabricated fire towers.

It's It's like one room, all windows.

They range from 15 to 60,000.

That is 100% dude.

I'm building a fire tower.

That's going to be the new podcast setup.

Good man.

When you come,

I'm going to make a studio and we're only going to record at night.

And it's going to be horrific.

We're only going to record at night.

Jesus.

We only recorded at night.

I have to say that.

That does sound absolutely frightening.

My second trip out into the the fresh air didn't feel as daunting as the first.

Maybe it was because the fog wasn't set to roll in for a few days, or maybe having an important goal drowned out the feeling of insignificance.

I fished my phone out of my pocket, looking at the minuscule number of bars in the corner.

Out here, with a wall of trees all around us and a seemingly endless forest through the mountains, it was dangerous not to have some kind of connection with the outside world.

I watched the bars disappear as we continued to walk, the wet leaves squeaking under our feet.

I don't think I've ever been out here.

Not this late, at least.

Daniel was flashing his light on the ground, then up to the trees at eye level.

I hated when he did that.

I had some hidden fear that he'd shine the light up, suddenly illuminate something terrifying.

You do know your way around here, don't you?

I was grasping at memories.

I left town so young and stayed away for so long that any recollection of playing in the woods was lost to me at this point.

However, I did remember returning.

There were bits and pieces of a memory in my brain, but it seemed to melt as if some of those thoughts ran like water water straight out of my mind.

I was here about a year ago, but I can't memorize past that well.

But it's not as if we can't see the radio tower for miles away.

Daniel shrugged, nodding his head and accepting that answer.

He looked back at our metal and wooden sanctuary, which sat so tall on the hill with a huge tower looming above it that it would be near impossible not to see it from almost anywhere this side of the forest.

I stared forward in the dark, squinting as Daniel moved his light back to get a view of the station.

I kept my own flashlight turned off in order to save its battery in case his ran out.

But I had to admit, his constant tomfoolery with this damn flashlight was going to get on my nerves if he kept it up.

Will you stop that?

Dicking around with the flashlight.

What about the flashlight?

I raised my voice for him, remembering the cotton in his ears.

You're dicking around with Before I could finish that sentence, a sound erupted from in front of us, even loud enough for Daniel to hear through his bandages.

It was the groan of an animal, either aggressive or in defense of itself.

Dan whipped back around, his flashlight pointing straight towards the source of the sound while I stopped in my tracks and stood perfectly still.

It was an elk, enormous in size with eyes glowing wide at us in the darkness.

There's no way it could have gone unheard, leading me to believe that it had been standing there perfectly still all this time.

Its antlers clacked against the surrounding trees as it shook its head, stomping its front hooves in the dirt and stone.

Dan and I both backed up several feet, but the elk didn't charge at us.

Rather, once it was finished making noise and stomping about, it turned and stared at us for the longest moment.

Its eyes were reflective orbs, but I watched it blink.

Its eyelids were to the right and left, meeting vertically like that of a reptile.

Then, with a heavy grunt, it bounded heavily away further into the woods.

I noticed, between instances of wondering how close I had been to shitting my pants just now, that it ran with a very odd gallop.

It had three back legs, one on one side, two on the other.

It was a seriously screwed-up elk.

Is there anything out here that doesn't look like an absolute abomination?

Nothing would make me happier than for Dan to get impelled on the elk's antlers.

I say justice for Dan.

Justice for Dan the man.

Give me one reason he deserves to live.

He's a trooper.

He showed up.

He helped our girl, Evelyn.

Okay, his job is to stay in the radio tower and alert.

He sees the rulebook, same as her.

He turns on the siren if the fog shows up.

A fog shows up, and he's like, I should go downstairs and tap on the glass really hard.

Isaac doesn't get points.

He doesn't get points for doing his job.

He's as curious as a cat.

Can't blame Dan the man.

I'm going to blame him for a lot of stuff.

I bet I could blame anything on him if I wanted to.

Daniel asked in a hoarse whisper, his flashlight slowly scanning in search for anything else that might be hiding in the trees and overgrown bushes.

There was nothing, not even a sound.

After a few hesitant moments, we were on the move again, though I decided shouting probably wasn't the best decision to make.

I was looking down at my phone, watching the bars in the left corner.

I wouldn't have expected to have any signal out here.

Strangely, single bar kept flashing and then disappearing, as if it wanted to find a connection.

I had no explanation for it, but I didn't think on it too much.

All the weird crap I'd seen out here, a cell phone signal in the woods was the least of my curiosities.

But if I could just get one more bar, maybe I could try making a call.

How do you know her?

Daniel broke the silence after we were sure no more giant mutated elks were stomping around.

The missing girl, I mean, you seem dead set on finding her.

She wasn't my best friend in college.

We had a dorm together, we graduated together, we, uh, we lived together for a bit.

She was a generous she was generous when I needed a place to stay.

And now you live in the radio station.

Turn my eyes back to my phone, shrugging my shoulders.

I acted nonchalant like I didn't give two shits.

Actually gave quite a considerable amount of shits.

She didn't want me there anymore.

I could feel the question in the air.

I didn't have to look at Daniel to know what he was thinking, how badly he wanted to ask why generous best friend would kick someone out of their house.

Luckily, before he had a chance to speak and before I needed to think of a new conversation, I saw it.

Two bars on my phone, springing to life and defying all odds against the wild, uninhabitable mountain.

I raised my phone up in victory, stopping exactly where I stood for fear of losing the signal.

Yes!

We have it!

We have a signal!

Daniel gave me a confused stare before I had a chance to explain.

I was tapping away at my phone, finding Jennifer's phone number among my minuscule list of contacts.

I'm calling her.

If she's nearby, she can help us find her.

Assuming she has a signal and a battery.

Assuming she has her phone, huh?

Daniel was obviously skeptical why a sleepwalking woman, presumably leaving her bed, would take her phone.

But I had a theory that Jennifer hadn't been sleepwalking at all.

Something had been luring her here.

I just had a feeling.

I didn't answer him, whispering a hoarse shh as the phone began to ring in my ear.

It rang once, then twice, then.

In both of my ears.

Her toned basic selection from the library of sounds was distant but audible in one exposed ear.

I lowered my own device, listening to the sound echo from further in the trees.

Faint, but there.

Daniel turned to the direction of my gaze, flashlight scanning along the ground to find a path of broken twigs and flattened grass trailing off deep into the brush.

What are you?

Her phone.

That was all I said before I chased the glow of his flashlight on the ground, deciding that one source wasn't enough.

I pulled the spare light from the satchel around my shoulder, tapping it against my hand as it flickered to life.

The tone stopped ringing, and so I called it again, desperately hoping this wasn't just a trick my ears were playing.

I couldn't help but feel some level of paranoia, knowing that this forest could be drawing us further in with illusions of sound and direction.

Perhaps that's exactly what it did to Jennifer.

I felt a sense of familiarity with the forest then.

I knew this path.

I almost felt sick the moment some old buried memory started to resurface, but not because those memories traumatized me.

No, the nausea was part of the memory.

I remember the campfire roaring high in the center of a clearing, one person's distinct voice nagging that it would burn the trees down if it got any higher.

I remember tripping over beer bottles and the sound of shitty guitar music, some drunk idiot singing off-key.

Shit, maybe I was the drunk idiot singing off-key.

That was probably me now that I think about it.

I could hear Jenny's voice mingling with the crackling fire and the terrible music.

Evelyn, lay off.

You've had enough.

Don't you scream at me.

You're such an ass.

To imagine that graduation party was the last time I'd ever seen this place until now.

Damn.

Why did I ever come back?

Ah, Christ!

Or Daniel yell before I caught sight of what he had found.

God, I wish I hadn't seen it.

I turned my light to him, first catching a glimpse as he staggered back with his eyes glued to the ground in front of him.

Then I foolishly illuminated the grass below.

There was blood soaking every inch of grass and dirt that i could see bits of cloth and who knows what else strewn around the forest floor and a man the top half of him at least nearby the bottom half of another person this one wearing a pair of khaki shorts and walking shoes both of them had been separated across the middle only one half of their bodies thrown down where we could see them

The rest,

where was the rest?

Those have to be the two people that went missing, right?

Yeah, this is the couple that went missing.

Yeah.

Yep.

I shouldn't have scanned the light upwards, but the sound of creaking branches tempted me.

My light followed the trunk, stained all the way up, till it illuminated what happened to be the other halves of the two corpses.

They were stuck in the branches by their clothes and their limbs, as if thrown into the air and getting caught wherever they fell.

The second body was of a woman, but it wasn't Jennifer.

I felt sick.

All the shadows and shapes were swirling around in my vision, pungent smells not only in my nose, but on my tongue, as the full wave of that terrible scent hit me.

I gagged, but before I could turn my full body away from the scene, my light caught something else.

The glow of eyes from the trunk of a nearby tree.

Let me just say, I've seen some uncomfortable things, merely in the time I've been working out here in the woods.

I don't just mean gruesome, terrifying things, but unsettling things, unusual things.

As of right now, this takes the cake.

We found Jennifer.

She was in one piece, as far as I could tell, aside from a hand missing every finger, except, ironically, the middle one.

I'd like to think that was some final joke from whatever murdered her, but that's probably wishful thinking where humor is realistically non-existent.

She was stuffed.

Her limbs twisted to roll her into a human ball inside the hollow trunk of the tree with her stark white face peering through a hole in the bark.

Eyes were open wide and staring forward, making her look like some kind of pale nightmarish owl.

Her mouth was wide open, filled with dry grass and twigs, almost like a bird's nest.

That's sick, man.

One of her hands was sticking out of the tree, the arm likely broken in order to accomplish such a position.

Her hand was tilted, palm pointed upwards, and a cell phone was sitting in the center, flashing its its 10% battery warning.

Well, that, and the two missed calls for me.

My name was on the screen.

Evelyn, followed by an alien emoji.

It was perfectly appropriate.

There's not a single damn person on Earth who could convince me she wasn't positioned that way on purpose.

We weren't even friends anymore, but shit, man.

I really failed her one last time.

At least I'm consistent, I suppose.

Daniel and I knew we couldn't stay there.

Not only was it a nightmare to behold, but the smell from the blood and bodies on the ground was making both of our stomachs churn.

That's a smell you don't really forget, I don't think.

It's been a full day and I still recall it in vivid sensory detail.

So we turned back to leave, completely silent.

We had nothing to say to one another, nothing comforting and no energy even to talk about our fears.

We were halfway back to the radio tower when Dan finally spoke up.

You know, I wanted this job because I thought it would be right up my alley.

I thought I'd be good at it.

Maybe make people laugh and smile a bit, but so far it's only been horrifying.

He's still wearing, like, shorts with suspenders and a bow tie in my mind, by the way.

Now, while I know that hiring Dan had been none of my responsibility, I still felt a twinge of guilt.

He meant well, and his heart had always been in the right place.

But he was suffering for it.

He had the chance to leave, but chose to come back regardless.

Sometimes I wondered if this bizarre, bizarre, messed up situation was the only exciting thing he had to look forward to.

At least until actual death entered the picture.

Now he was in too deep.

Both were.

Hey, Dan.

I asked him, shining the light on my own face.

Yeah?

Your mom invited me to a wedding in June.

Mind if I go with?

He laughed.

It was the first time he had heard him laugh like that.

Well, ever.

That didn't say much, considering we had known one another for less than a week, but time seems to drag out after you have some freaky shit with someone.

Matching tuxedos?

Okay, this is my bear trap.

This next line is my bear trap.

I nodded decisively.

With plaid bow ties.

You know why, Isaiah?

Because you are this person.

That's why.

That's not a bear trap.

That's a mirror.

That's a new thing I'm introducing.

mirror.

That's one of the worst things you've ever said to me on the show.

What do you mean I'm this person?

What do you mean?

Explain yourself.

I'm propping up my mirror, is what I'm saying.

That's why you're bear trap.

How is that me?

How?

I could just, I could see you be like matching tuxedos, and then you would have a plaid bow tie.

I could see it in a heartbeat.

Don't you ever.

Also, I feel like you've ever weddings that I've ever heard anyone ever go to.

Yeah, because I got like 40 friends who all got married this year, and it's and it's, I'm, I'm at my limit.

They all get one.

If they get divorced, I'm not going to the next one or whatever.

I do, I do.

I think that's only fair.

You get one.

You get one.

Or, and guess what?

Your spouse dies, sucks.

Not coming to the next one.

You get one.

No, I think a death is a restart.

That's only fair.

Nope.

I've been to too many.

I'm over it.

I'm over it.

What do you mean, I'm Daniel?

What do you mean I'm this annoying guy that moans and like sad as is like hums at his own jokes that he laughs at?

Okay.

Are we to believe that so

Jennifer's body was cool and all that, especially like the bird's nest in the mouth?

That was awesome.

But like

is the implication that all these memories are kind of being hidden from her?

Like her true

connection to

Jennifer and stuff like that, all that's kind of like being seen through a dark glass and she's trying to understand?

i mean it all feels a bit convenient like i i i think that you're on to something it would be too convenient to just be like oh and jennifer she's the one you know what i mean so it seems like so it seems like the forest is articulating that uh or it's like basically like revealing these things in these horrible ways and it seems like it's torturing specifically evelyn

Because she said earlier she couldn't remember the paths while she was talking to Daniel, but then when she hears Jennifer's phone ring, she says, I knew this path.

Um,

and she talks about buried memories, and

she says she gets nauseous, but she's like, Oh, no, nausea is the memory.

And she remembers the campfire, and she remembers someone being drunk and acting a fool, and then remembers that's herself.

That she's so it's like, it's a weird way to remember something.

It's almost like she's getting it back in pieces as things become too familiar.

Yeah, and I mean, we keep we've we've we're starting to establish the idea too of like her, not her as an unreliable narrator, but like

we obviously she's had some kind of substance abuse in the past so that also plays a factor of like oh man you know like we're unraveling things in the same time as her but there's also things where i feel like she's either trying to forget or she completely doesn't remember and they're kind of like coming back you know

yeah yeah

the rest of the walk was quiet we got back to the radio tower after midnight the late-night music block beginning on its automatic run just as we had planned.

I took the opportunity to take the evening slow.

No need to rush back to the console or even to that old lumpy mastress where I slept.

Daniel was leaving, as I expected and wanted him to, but I made an extra effort to stand out in the gravel driveway and tell him goodbye.

Could have been emotional about the whole thing, thanking him for saving my life in the fog or for insisting on going with me to find Jennifer.

Instead, I just told him to drive safely and to show up in One Piece on Monday.

Two pieces at most, so long as it's a small loss.

He just pointed to one of his ears and said, I already made my blood sacrifice.

I spent a long, long time that night just sitting cross-legged in my chair and looking out the window.

I had my headphones on, listening to the music.

Almost wanted to turn on my microphone to ask who was out there listening with me, but I'd not be too disappointed if nobody called in with an answer.

This is Evelyn at 104.6 FM, and I have some advice.

Don't treat your friends like shit.

End of part five.

Man, that's got to be in reference to Jennifer.

Like

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because, I mean, obviously, she was probably a junkie and ruined that relationship.

And it's probably been way too much.

She drank a lot.

I don't know if that, would you call that a junkie?

I guess not.

Maybe just alcoholic, yeah.

Yeah.

But the uh, yeah, I mean, just, you know,

definitely pissed on someone's kindness and someone that was trying to help, whatever.

Um, yeah.

Man, it's insane to feel that we've been reading this for for like a little over two hours.

It's just, it's moving, and also part six already.

Each time, kind of sinking in, I'm wondering if there's, if there's going to be a moment where it starts to curve and this mystery becomes like I'm wondering if I mean, there's multiple seasons, so obviously the whole mystery can't be solved, but I'm wondering as we're reading into this because we're over halfway, how much would be solved?

Exactly, how much are we actually gonna get?

Because

I'm just like, I'm a little fucking piggy right now.

I'm like, give it to me.

I want to know.

Which, by the way, I also have...

What are you doing?

Hey, what?

Benny just started chewing on a gun.

What are you doing?

Are you insane?

My gosh.

He's saying, free me.

I have.

He's saying, get me out of here.

He's saying, please kill me.

I can't do this.

He's like, I'm about to eat.

Because you're like, I'm about to give you a little bow tie.

You just say to him.

Shut up.

Shut up.

Stop.

Don't bring that voice and mention of.

No, it's.

So I have the short story pulled up.

It does say that book book one is

contains the events of a council from Lonely Broadcast Station

and we're always on the air at 104.6 FM and then other bonus stuff.

But it covers this, the other parts and that.

Yeah, so confirmation there.

But there was something.

I had a train of thought that I lost.

I guess it's not that important.

So, oh, just that there's a bunch of side stories about these characters.

Like they're like little characters who have their own pieces, it looks like, and other writings that Kel has done.

Also, they called someone to come get the bodies, right?

Well, they did say that, but surely.

Yeah, I mean, you would assume so.

Because

I was kind of wondering because they were like being a bit too chill about it.

Because I was like, I feel like you guys should be like freaked out.

And then you should all, or at least just like, oh my God, this is horrible.

We need to call somebody.

You should be scared.

But maybe that's just, I don't know, implied.

Or they're like, I don't know, fuck it.

Whatever.

There it is.

Let them ride out of there.

I'm not moving that bird nest again.

So it's they belong to the woods now.

That's what that's what I feel like you would do with me.

If we're like out,

well, the forest wanted him.

I'd walk up with my flashlight to the forest.

I'd see your body separated, upper half of your face with your upper lip hooked and your bottom lip on the ground.

And I'd do.

And I'd just turn around and I'd walk away.

Never tell anyone.

No, I wouldn't.

Yeah, even your wife is like, have you seen Isaiah?

Nope.

Nope.

No, I haven't seen anything.

You know, you shouldn't be up here, right?

This is authorized people only.

That's what I'd say.

If I'm up in the broadcast station, you realize that you're not supposed to be here, right?

So

this is five years from now when I build.

a fire watch on my property and you find me dead on again, like in my backyard.

And then Kayla comes to find you once again at my house.

And you're like, you know, you're not supposed to be up here, right?

I would, uh, you know, you're, I would, uh,

I'd leave like bits of uh very good smelling food to attract bears to come and eat your body.

You should just get rid of all the evidence, too.

Totally.

So you killed me in this scenario.

No, no, no.

No, you're still dead.

Then why is it evidence?

Then why is it evidence?

Well, because I mean, there is a murder.

That was a Freudian slip.

That was a Freudian slip.

Listen,

I wish I would been the one to do it, but I'm the one.

I do.

Dang it.

That's what I say.

I come across your body and I say,

darn it.

Okay.

Well, thank God I have these hosts, these Twinkies on me.

And I drop the Twinkies down, and then the Bears start coming up.

Ooh,

when you said hostess, I thought you were saying, Thank God I have these hosts.

Like you have backup hosts on speed dial.

And there I died in a bear-related accident.

All right.

You want to start?

Hey, Bear, do you want to start a podcast?

You want to do a show?

I love you, Bear.

I say to him immediately.

I love you, Bear.

So we have a joke on the show called Bear Traps.

I think you're going to love it.

I don't like that.

Okay.

We'll change it just for you, Bear.

I love you, Bear.

I love you, Bear.

The whole show is just you reading stories and then being like, I love you, Bear.

I love you, Bear.

Love you so much.

Kind of impressive that he talks, honestly.

That'd be worth calling from the that'd be worth listening to the show.

Yeah, that he has a bear.

You have a show with the talking bear, but it's like, well, we read scary stories.

That's the scary.

He does, and then I say, Oh my god, that's kind of scary, isn't it, Bear?

And he does, Oh,

wow, Bear, that's so cool.

I'm so glad you're here.

Definitely not that other guy.

I'm still rotting in the woods, like right next to the corner site.

Part six.

Part six.

Benny, what do you want?

If I let you open my lap, you're not going to be chill.

You're going to freak out.

I'll start this off in the most direct way possible.

I'm not who you think I am.

I work at the radio station Pershin in the Air, looking over a forest-covered mountain range.

It's an absolutely bizarre place.

I've seen animals with human features, some eldritch abomination living in a fog bank, and even went partially deaf due to a phone phone call.

On top of all that, my coworker Evelyn McKinnon just became a murder suspect.

Oh.

Oh, interesting.

Daniel here.

That's cool.

It's cool that switched to Daniel's perspective.

It's interesting.

That being said, I hate, hate that I am now speaking for Daniel.

I'm speaking in Daniel's tongue.

That's unspeakable to me.

She didn't do it.

There's no way she could have done it.

And I think everyone in this tiny, superstitious town knows that.

I may not have been here long, but I've been here long enough to know that when something strange happens, people know when to turn their heads and ignore it.

The death of a well-respected couple and a promising colleague graduate gets people just a little bit riled up, however.

If you've read her post, you probably already know who I am.

My name's Daniel Esperanza.

I'm a part-timer at the radio station, and right now, I'm taking over Evelyn's full-time position until she gets back from a drive into town.

She's not arrested.

At least, I don't think she's arrested.

The police came by to ask a few things, which is understandable considering how our tower is less than a mile from the scene.

Some things happened, and they took her into town.

I haven't heard from her since.

I'm sure you're all wondering a couple of things.

First, how did I log into her account?

And also, why would I ever choose to work at this backwoods piece of garbage on stilts?

The second is a story for another time, but the first one's simple.

I called in an anonymous tip to the police last night after I left.

It was Evelyn's idea, seeing as there's no way they wouldn't be able to trace the radio tower and I'd have an easier time finding a public phone than she would.

But after the police promised to stop by the woods and confirmed what she had, but after the police promised to stop by the woods and confirm what we had found, I stopped in to see that Evelyn had packed up her laptop and was giving it to me for safekeeping, she said.

Wait, why did they just call and say, hey, we found a body?

Well, I think that

they're explaining that.

Okay.

She told me that this online document she's been keeping wasn't supposed to be found.

It was a good idea to get it far away from her just in case they had any questions.

So I have her laptop.

She was still logged in, and well, I guess I've got a story worth telling too.

Okay, no, they didn't explain that.

So why?

I feel like Evelyn's hiding something.

She could be.

There's some reason she didn't want to call the police.

I don't know.

It was early, about seven o'clock in the morning, when I called the anonymous tip and then rushed back to the radio station to warn Evelyn that there might be visitors.

I know.

I know.

His dorky, his goofy ass sprinted up that staircase and threw open the door and went, Evelyn, we've got company.

Evelyn, you're going to want to see this.

Like she's trying to do the broadcast.

He spends all day walking up to the window where the bird is and then turning to her and going,

it's right behind me, isn't it and then he walks over and he like eats snacks and then five minutes later

it's right behind me isn't it ah jays away

the drive there is daunting this town sits nestled so tightly between a range of mountains on all sides that you'd swear it was doughnut shaped with the townspeople all stuffed in the center it's a winding swirling hazardous path to get out of here which is why people rarely come and no one ever seems to go As I followed the path to the edge of the woods, the ground became steeper as I went.

There's a natural feeling of heaviness that just sits on top of you as you look up into the trees.

The way the mountains raise, it looks like the trees grow miles high, but it's just an illusion created by the thickness of the forest.

It's suffocating, and really no wonder why people seem to get lost so often.

Like looking up at a giant sitting at the bottom of the mountains can make even the strongest humans feel small, puny, and insignificant.

Thankfully, I'm nowhere near the strongest human, so feeling insignificant is less of a steep drop for me.

I understand this isn't the time for self-depreciating jokes, though.

Evelyn wasn't on edge when I arrived at the station, though she was surprised to see me.

I found her where she usually is, sitting in the chair behind the console, staring off into space.

I don't think she goes into the details too much, but anyone who believes she spends her days buzzing around and keeping busy is a bit mistaken.

In the week that I've known her, Evelyn spends an almost worrying amount of time in silence, looking tired and even even sick.

Every day she looks more and more like the poster child for anemia.

When she's not screaming at a bird or answering creepy phone calls, she spends the rest of her day seeming miserable with a few short intervals of pretending to laugh at my jokes.

I know she's faking it as to not disappoint me.

I want to tell her that she doesn't have to try so hard.

I told her that I called in the tip, and she already seemed prepared.

She gave me her laptop and charger, all packed up in a case, and told me to put it in my car.

It was then I was noticing the edge I hadn't seen before.

She was expressing her anxiety in silence, eyes avoiding mine, and her arms staying close to her sides or crossed over her chest whenever possible.

I study theater, trust me.

I know the telltale signs of someone who isn't feeling very confident.

Of course, he studied theater.

Of course, he's a theater kid.

That is,

that made me turn on Dan a bit.

I hate that, too.

I study theater.

You know what, Dan?

Why don't you fucking jump off the top station?

You took a theater class in high school?

What are you talking about?

What if you jump?

What if you did a flip and swan dove onto the elk antlers from the top of the...

Also, could you, could, could you, uh, like, I like how he's like, you know, I work for the FBI.

You're, you're a fucking theater major, dude.

Yeah, I have a pudding good time bleeding, people.

It'll be fine.

It'll be fine.

I assured her, even though I had no idea what we were in for.

We didn't do anything.

Maybe they won't even bother us.

As it turns out, I was wrong about that.

I left the radio tower, heading back to the tiny gravel parking lot that ended a long, twisting path through the woods.

I took the laptop case to my car where I hid it on the floor of the back seat underneath a few bags of plastic bottles.

I kept forgetting to recycle.

Of course, of course, he's the kind of guy that like carries around plastic and he's like, oh, I'm going to turn this in.

No, I'm going to take this to recycling plant, guys.

No, no, I'm going to take it there.

No, for sure, for sure.

Next week, next week.

It was a good thing it did happen then, because the glow of headlights at the end of the long, winding gravel road were coming closer.

A police car and an ambulance drove right up near my car in the small, cramped space just big enough for employees.

You work here?

One of the officers asked me.

He was a tall, broad-shouldered guy who looked like he could probably pick me up and toss me into the woods like a tree branch.

I'm sure that's every guy you've ever encountered, Dan.

Yes, sir.

I answered without hesitance.

Of course he would.

Because you know what?

Because

he does whatever they tell him.

He does whatever.

I'm so heated.

It didn't matter that Evelyn and I were innocent.

Acting suspicious in any way wasn't a good idea.

And it didn't help that.

What kind of a statement is that from him?

It didn't matter that we were innocent.

I shouldn't act suspicious.

Well, if you're innocent, why would you act suspicious?

Okay.

He's a theater major.

It didn't help that we were already hiding her written evidence.

I was just stopping by for a few minutes.

Can we help you?

Who's we?

Asked the second one, female officer.

What she lacked in size, she made up for in the most stern, thin-lipped expression I had ever seen.

Now, I'm almost 30 years old.

That is the most surprising thing I've heard in this whole story.

Now I'm almost 30 years old, and I still felt like I was about to get grounded just for looking at her.

Myself and my co-worker, you know, Evelyn McKinnon.

Thought I recognized your voice.

Female officer was the first to step forward, while the others followed right behind her.

My eyes trailed off to see two remaining police officers, as well as their leash canine and two medical responders, passing us to go straight into the woods with all the tools to mark off a crime scene.

As part of an ongoing investigation, we're going to have to ask a few questions to the both of you, as well as to ask that you don't go wandering into the woods today.

Is that all right?

It's fine.

It's going fine.

I was thinking to myself.

We had nothing to worry about.

We weren't criminals.

Sorry.

We weren't criminals!

Still, Still, being face to face with authority, especially when they were just itching to put someone behind bars for a triple homicide, was not the most comforting place to be.

Of course.

Come right up.

I led the police into the radio station, where Evelyn was sitting with her headphones over her ears and fingers adjusting the console controls after her first morning announcement of the day.

She didn't even hear the door open, and I hated to startle her.

When saying her name didn't catch her attention, I reluctantly reached out a hand to nudge her shoulder.

That was certainly enough to get her eyes on me at last, though she jumped so suddenly that I thought she'd lose her headphones in the process.

Don't do that!

She stopped speaking, words halting in their tracks as her eyes glanced from me to the two officers standing by the door.

It wasn't as if she didn't expect their company.

Of course he calls it company.

We've got company, but she still looked uncomfortable when all four eyes locked on her.

Microphones were silenced, the radio was set to automatically run for the next half hour, and the police got to questioning the both of us.

It started pretty normal, normal, pretty unassuming, and easy to answer.

Did anyone stop by the station in the last two days?

Did you happen to see anyone suspicious outside?

Has either of you had any contact with the missing individuals?

Luckily, the answer to all three of these was no.

I admit, I was further out of the loop than Evelyn was.

She spent all of her time here and had known Jennifer Cook for years, whereas I had never even visited this town before hearing about the job offering.

They seemed to pay far more attention to her than they did to me.

There is a moment when one of the police pointed out a dark bluish mark peeking out from the edge of Evelyn's neckline.

She put a hand to her chest as if she had forgotten about it until the pain came flooding back the moment her palm touched the spot.

All it took was a pull of the fabric to reveal a small portion of a huge, elongated bruise that stretched across her upper ribs and breastbone.

Where'd you get that?

The male officer asked.

I could tell Evelyn was taking a moment to think, realizing that the story of how she had gotten the bruises was very far-fetched.

Things were weird around here, but maybe not weird enough to to openly admit that sentient vines had tossed her and pinned her against the fire escape.

I was out on the fire escape and fell.

She admitted, but refused to elaborate any of the stranger details.

When I rolled down the stairs, I hit myself hard on one of the handrails.

They didn't press further, but it didn't mean they weren't still keeping those details in their minds.

It was uncomfortable, watching how intently they glared, taking in every small detail.

I knew it was just part of their job, but it felt almost unnecessarily intimidating.

Kind of sounds like uh i knew it was part of their job but i thought it was a little rude kind of sounds like also they're sending up that she just sounds like a drunk still

yeah yeah

it'd be funny if like there's absolutely nothing supernatural happening she just gets hammered and writes this stuff that would actually honestly be more so like i i fell because there was like there's like a

vine that like grabbed me and that's why i fell that's why that's why i went down the stairs and something like touched me and then i walked back up

minutes passed then a half hour, then an hour.

And the only time the police weren't asking questions was when Evelyn or I attended to our work to keep the radio running.

They were almost too attentive when it came to making sure everything was going smoothly with the broadcast, but then again, they lived in the town below.

There's no way any of the bizarre stuff that happened all around this building didn't get their attention.

Maybe they knew even more than we did about this old radio tower.

I think I was the first to see movement in the woods.

My breath hitched in a small gasp, and I think the police heard me, because moments later, they were swiftly marching to the window to see their fellow officers emerging from the forest.

Medical team carried back two cloth stretchers covered in white sheets.

Two.

Only two.

Hmm.

We were told to stay in the broadcast room until the police returned.

We watched nervously as they exchanged words below us.

Silence through the glass.

Evelyn said nothing, but she looked alarmed as the men and women below took turns making glances up at our location.

Something was wrong here.

Evelyn paced back and forth until the police came back upstairs, one of them holding a familiar object, Jennifer's cell phone.

Well, shit.

With a glove-clad hand, the female officer held up the device, which was supporting a dangerously low battery and two missed calls from the night before.

That phone should have been dead, I thought.

Yet somehow it was kept alive to the entire night just long enough to reveal its secrets.

My co-worker's face washed out, paler than ever when she realized that her name was flashing on the screen.

However, what they said next was perhaps even more chilling than all the facts that were laid out in front of us.

My heart sank, and I knew hers did too.

She looked at the two figures in front of us, then at me, her mouth slightly agape with the beginnings of a question that would have come out.

Her whereabouts.

Jennifer had been out there.

She was cold and dead in the trunk of that tree, and if they found her phone and the other two people, how the hell did they not see her?

The only answer I could possibly think of was that she wasn't there anymore.

But if that was true, who or what pulled her out of that tree?

I know her.

Evelyn's lips trembled.

I had never seen her look this close to tears.

In fact, I didn't know she ever cried.

Ever since Jennifer was announced missing, Evelyn had made an effort not to talk about their former friendship.

It was easy for me to forget that she probably was grieving behind the mask of indifference.

I was just thinking about her and thought I'd

This time she wasn't lying at all.

This new development put us far into the dark as we could possibly get, making me question everything I had seen the night before.

There's no way we both dreamed that up, was there?

No, not when the rest of the scene fell into place.

The other two bodies had been collected, but Jennifer had been taken while the others were left behind.

I couldn't even begin to think of her reason why.

God, I can't believe I even let it cross my mind, but for a split second, I had the chilling thought that maybe Jennifer had gotten herself out of the tree.

There's a lot of weird shit out there in the woods, and I wasn't ready to start worrying about the walking dead, too.

Evelyn's answer was honest, but it wasn't good enough for them.

Deciding that this wrong place, wrong time situation wasn't satisfactory, Evelyn was given a beckoning gesture of the hand from the female officer, whose other hand hovered close to her side.

It wasn't where her gun was placed, but rather the handcuffs.

She must have noticed that Evelyn looked down at them because she moved her hand away almost on cue.

Evelyn finished her thought while peeking out from the hair hanging in her face.

The policewoman gazed at her and silently nodded her head.

My co-worker never did have the most expressive face.

She often looked weary or annoyed, sometimes a bit of both.

But this time she looked towards me with a heavy frown and eyes that could only be described as soulful.

I could tell she was scared, but not with the type of fear we face before now, faced with impossible things.

It was a very realistic dread, with no disbelief.

It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.

Follow the rules, okay?

That was the last thing I heard from Evelyn's lips before she was escorted for questioning.

It's been so long now that I can't help but feel something went wrong and that maybe she's not coming before the day is done.

I want to leave.

I want to go find out what happened to Evelyn, but unfortunately, I can't do that.

I have to make sure the broadcast never goes silent.

This is Daniel at 104.6 FM, and I might be your host for just a little while longer.

End of part six.

Into part seven.

It's interesting.

Now she's basically being blamed for the murder here.

I wonder how.

I wonder.

It makes you kind of think, I kind of like that

narrator switch throughout there, too.

Makes you wonder if we're ever going to see Evelyn again.

Well,

because she's no longer our only point of view, it kind of paints the idea of

what if she

is up to something, you know?

Yeah, I mean, maybe.

I don't know.

I mean, I'm wondering if it's just a convenient thing that the cops...

Well, also them calling the cops.

I don't know.

It's very odd.

Like I said, the mystery is still up in the air at the moment.

I'm thinking, I kind of, I see where your gut's going, and I agree.

I don't think that we've heard everything yet.

It seems too like, oh, well, I got kicked out.

I think there's something there that we just don't know yet.

But I still don't think Evelyn is like,

to be clear, I don't think she knows either.

But I think it's like the memory she's getting of like, oh, I was here.

I was drunk or something.

She may have something to do with it.

Yeah.

But that she may not be privy to.

Right.

All right.

Well, part seven part seven snooping through someone's computer is a quick way to make an enemy out of a friend, but I somehow justified my decision

Out of all the confusing and traumatic things Evelyn and I have witnessed my invasion into her post isn't quite as bad as

well murder was it?

Uh oh wait, does that mean she did?

I don't know.

I'm wondering if now if they're gonna have uh

if they're gonna have him basically be like I like I guess raise suspicion where he's like, oh, shit, did she do this?

You know?

Oh, okay.

First, I think you all need to know.

It's been a couple of days now, and I haven't heard from my coworker at all.

It's almost as if she's dropped off the face of the earth.

I've been handling this radio station on my own, and things haven't been as weird as they usually are.

There's no crying from the sink, no freaky-looking birds outside the window, no fog.

However, I was still uneasy.

The police were almost always present on their search in the woods, looking for that girl's body.

The fact that they couldn't find it, even in the light of day, gave me the sinking feeling that Jennifer was out there somewhere, moved or hidden or maybe devoured.

Who knows?

I saw the same officer from the day they dragged two bodies out of the woods, taking Evelyn with them.

She looked just as stern and just as unfriendly as before, but at least she allowed me to ask her a question.

I simply asked her when and if she expected Evelyn to be done doing her part in the case.

I hoped my role as the concerned trainee would convince her to give me an estimate on when I might see her again, especially after I pressed that I was having some difficulties adjusting to the sudden full-time position.

Guilt-tripping a cop isn't something I would advise.

Can't be sure of that, she said matter-of-factly.

Depends on how well she cooperates.

We can't question her yet, though.

I had to let her go in for medical treatment first.

She refused to elaborate any further.

I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was.

Evelyn didn't look her healthiest, but I somehow doubted she would have agreed to a hospital stay in the middle of all this mess.

No, I feel there's something else going on.

That, coupled with all of the unexplainable things we had seen and my curiosity for what she had witnessed on the days I was gone, prompted me to look around her computer whenever I had some free time.

Now, I know she was hiding a few things from me.

More than a few things, really.

Her thoughts seemed scattered, documents filled with revisions and half-written bits of her daily experiences, but it still looks like she's avoiding the follow-through on so many thoughts.

It was cloudy in the early afternoon as I ate a late lunch, throwing away half of what was in the fridge that Evelyn hadn't touched, and committed to reading all of her prior post.

The stone, the crying woman on the phone, that thing in the fog, almost can't believe how much she was hiding from me.

And yet, I have this feeling that too much of this is personal.

I should have stopped there, but I didn't.

I'm ashamed to admit that my curiosity got the better of me and I looked at her internet history.

It was a lot of this, this website and her post, I mean.

It seems as if she dedicates most of her time to writing, but there were a couple of other things.

Facebook page, notably.

The rest look like the production of boredom, clickbait articles, dump quizzes, a Google search for mountain birds.

I told myself I would visit the Facebook page for just long enough to check my own, not expecting hers to still be open.

You, okay.

You can't be like, I went through all of her search history, everything she had.

I didn't want to pry on her Facebook page.

Like, okay.

Stop with the coy attitude.

Apparently, she hadn't logged herself out at all because the moment the page finally loaded after a long lapse of inactivity, there were unchecked notifications on the screen.

There were so many that it seemed like Evelyn hadn't read through them in weeks, and she posted even less.

Much of the content on her profile belonged to other people.

Some relatives of hers, maybe a great aunt, asked, how you been?

Which she never never responded to.

A young woman tagged her in a post with several others calling for a group hangout sometime, which she didn't react to at all.

And then there was an entire library of tagged photos, photos other people had taken.

I admit that I smiled at first looking through them.

They must have been from last summer because Evelyn's hair was shorter and she had a sunburn across her nose, mixing in with some major sun-inducing freckles.

There were pictures from a college graduation ceremony featuring her with all of her friends and professors.

She was smiling widely, grinning with all her teeth, looking bright.

The last graduation photo was of her and a familiar woman making faces at the camera.

Here's Jennifer.

As I continued looking through, I saw Jennifer a lot more often, mostly on photos she had taken.

Lynn and I went hiking today, moving day with Evelyn, Evelyn and Jenny, couchlifting champions.

Then there was a dark and blurry photo.

It was the first of many.

Someone had posted an album tagging Evelyn and at least 15 other people full the pictures from the woods.

My smile started to disappear.

Seeing that force and the blurry faces of strangers, most of them drunk or in clouds of smoke, made the photos seem ghostly.

Then I saw her again.

Evelyn was in the background of a few photos, sometimes so small that I had to pay an awful lot of attention to see her.

She was smiling and one or two talking in another.

And then one photo in particular...

chilled me right to my core.

Evelyn was at the edge of a group, as if pulled into a photo while passing by, but my co-worker was pale, eyes wide and glowing from the reflection of the camera flash, and her face was stuck in a grim look of terror.

It was clear something had happened.

She had seen something she didn't want to see.

I couldn't get away from the photo faster, and so I skipped forward again and again.

She was in almost every picture.

holding a cup in her hand each time, and I watched the progression from that scared, tired look to near unconsciousness as two friends were holding her up in the background.

Either she was drugged, completely wasted, or both.

And then her and Jennifer both disappeared from the remaining photos, leaving no trace behind.

I regret lingering so long on the photos because my online status, or rather, Evelyn's online status, had caught someone's attention.

I saw the blip of an instant message and the chat automatically popped at the corner of the screen.

Reading her messages was the ultimate betrayal of any kind of privacy, but I couldn't refuse just a small peek.

I can't take it.

I can't take Dan being like, oh, but

I don't want to invade her privacy.

Just grow up.

Just, you're doing it.

Be a man.

Evelyn, if you're reading this sometime from now, I hope you don't kill me for this.

I scrolled through.

It was a person I hadn't seen, though.

Jennifer was one of the two faces in his profile photo.

It didn't matter, as he made his purpose as to go between very clearly through a flood of at least 20 unanswered messages over the course of a month.

His name was Elijah.

April 2nd.

Hey, Lenny, can we talk?

April 5th.

Where are you staying?

Are you getting help?

April 18th.

Jinna has been asking about you a lot.

She really wishes you would unblock her.

April 23rd.

Evelyn, please.

And just now.

Lynn?

Hello?

As I scrolled upwards, I found the first message that started it all.

It was on the first of the month.

April Fool's Day.

Hey, Evelyn.

Jinn told me what happened.

I hope you get well soon.

But please take it easy from now on.

She can't babysit you just to make sure you don't drown in the tub you know if you need some help they've got anonymous programs for that right you should look into it she cares about you but she preferred you when you were sober

so it sounds like she saw something in the woods that night resorted that traumatized her and she started drinking to deal with it yeah i think um

also

like

This is a very interesting move for the story to pull because I really like they're switching to Dan here because it gives us perspective on a narrator in a way that, as established, our narrator wouldn't give us this information.

It would have to come from someone else.

But they set up someone previously so it's a smooth transition into a new narrator so that we can get like background on the person who's talking.

And now the story isn't so big.

It's kind of homed in, like it's narrowed its focus down to one person,

which is pretty cool.

I just like it.

Good touch.

Another red bubble.

There were more messages waiting below.

I was hesitant, still curious as I scrolled downward, finding that Elijah had left a handful of short, aggressive messages just seconds ago.

I closed out of the browser and slammed the laptop shut as quickly as I possibly could.

His words struck me instantly with the sudden fear that if I stayed on the page, I would have seen and read far more than I wanted to.

They They all die, he said.

Who is they?

The people who worked here before?

Hikers, climbers?

I'm still not sure if his words were a threat or a concern.

I'm no detective, but I'm worried that nothing here is coincidental.

I know my co-worker will read this and I'm sorry to her in advance, but I just can't pretend that all of this doesn't fit together somehow.

Evelyn, if you're reading this, I hope you can remember what you saw that night in the woods.

Could also be the thing that when the fog that was like, that didn't attack her, it like came up and

you know and like touched her touched the back of her arms and stuff could be something of like maybe having she has maybe done something with that creature before too like you know been a part of jenny's death or something and gave you know like some kind of deal or something i hate to say

that's being hidden yeah yeah there's there's a memory she's forgetting she might have seen something or became possessed by something or yeah she's she's more in than she knows yeah or that she's telling us or that she or that we know yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

I was going to post this earlier, stopping where I did above, but I'm glad I chose not to.

It's evening now as I put this down and something has happened outside the radio station.

I'm realizing the full weight of working around the clock.

There's boredom, especially being alone, and a tension that has been putting me on edge.

I was fitted for a hearing aid, which I received just a day or two earlier, and somehow being able to hear it decently from both ears again made the silence even more daunting.

That and I've noticed a faint sting in that ear since I I came back to the station.

I gave the evening news and prepared for another 30-minute music block.

With time to spare and no real interest in trying to hear any muffled bits of music through the headphones, I paced around the room and took a few moments just to peer out the window.

At the purple glow from the sunset, I saw something that caught my attention.

There was a man out there, standing upright but swaying slowly side to side.

Now, I would have been suspicious that this was something unnatural, considering how many times the woods have messed with both our minds.

But I recognized him.

He worked for a service that brought groceries to the station twice a week.

Oh, look, look, look who was right.

I said that the grocery guy would come back.

I mean, that's not really a bear trap or a good call out because, of course, he'll come back, but I'm still taking those.

I take those.

He was facing away from me, staring off into the woods.

I watched him intently, hoping he didn't take another step.

Those last words Jennifer's boyfriend had sent to Evelyn's messenger rang in my head.

They all die on that mountain.

Every single one.

In hindsight, I did the stupidest thing I ever could have done.

I went out there.

The thing is, I knew it was a bad idea, but three people had died in the woods in a matter of days, maybe even hours.

I didn't want to witness one more person getting lost and being pulled out in a body bag.

I abandoned the broadcast room, running down that long, winding staircase to the exit.

It was almost impossible to see it, but a very dim shimmer from the outdoor light led me there.

When I whipped open the door and ran outside to tell the man to come back, I saw only one of his feet as he stepped into the darkness between the trees.

Already pushing his way through the brush, I was a bit foolish, but I wouldn't say I'm stupid.

I didn't follow him into the woods.

I yelled at him to come back, but he didn't even seem to register that I was there.

Instead, my eyes dropped to the ground, where I saw he had dropped a cardboard box.

Why would he make a delivery this late at night?

As I stooped to pick it up, I heard the crunch of branches and rustle of leaves.

I thought it was him, turning back around, realizing his mistake.

It wasn't the grocery guy.

It was something so much worse.

I saw Jennifer walking out of the woods and making a path towards me.

Only I'm not sure walking was the right word.

Her neck was broken, her back was twisted, and her legs were snapped in directions that made my skin crawl just hearing the sounds her bones made as she moved.

One arm was twisted backwards at the shoulder, wrists dangling so loosely I thought it might fall right off.

She shambled towards me, putting weight on whatever parts of her legs would support her, but she looked like a dirt-covered marionette being operated by a puppeteer that had no idea what he was doing.

There were twigs, dead leaves, and bits of long grass sticking out of her hair and stuffed into her open mouth.

The sound she made was unnatural, like breathless gasping mixed with these low, guttural groans.

I couldn't even tell if she was looking at me.

Her eyes were milky white and her head rolled back and forth loosely on her snapped neck.

Without even thinking, I abandoned the box on the ground.

Whatever was in there didn't mean a damn thing anymore.

I ran back to the bottom of the tower, practically throwing myself into the building before slamming the door behind me and locking it as fast as I could.

I peered out the window.

It was a mistake.

Jennifer was inches away from the door.

Her head snapped back to the front so that her face was right there in front of me.

I don't know how she got there so quickly and honestly didn't care.

All I wanted in that moment was to get as far away as I could.

I ran up the staircase, pure fear and adrenaline pushing me to the top without so much as a second to pause.

I didn't care about the grocery guy anymore.

Just being locked in the broadcast room was all I wanted.

That in the comforting sunlight.

It was still so many, many hours for morning.

I locked myself in, getting as far away from that door as I could, avoiding the window for fear that I'd see her shambling up the fire escape, her face i can't get her face out of my head it's almost midnight as i write this i just got a call on my cell phone and i've never been so relieved to hear someone else's voice when i picked it up i would have been happy for anyone to answer me just another living breathing human being to talk to daniel are you there my heart skipped a beat it was evelyn She sounded tired, but it was her voice without a single doubt.

Where are you?

I asked her, skipping all pleasantries.

I think she heard the panic when I spoke.

Please, please, please tell me you're not in jail.

They didn't arrest me.

I think they wanted to find a reason to, but I'm coming back.

I'll be there before six.

That's all I can promise.

I'll catch up to speed when I see you.

She must have heard me let out the biggest sigh of breath because her next words sounded concerned.

Dan, what's wrong?

I'm fine.

It was a lie, but my nerves weren't ready to have that discussion.

Just be careful and get here safe.

I will.

Okay.

Don't you think that maybe

Dan should say something to the effect of, um,

hey, why don't you wait till daylight and not come when your dead friend's body is shoved up against the door to this building right now?

Yeah.

Maybe wait that one out.

I think, uh, well, one, I think that, one, I think he's freaked out.

And then two, I think that he's still...

I just think that there's like, there's not tension building, but suspicion building.

You know, I think that he wants to know the answers now.

Is what I think.

Hunter, if, if you, if you were like, hey, can you come here quick?

And I'm like, yeah, and you didn't tell me that like Harry's decomposing corpse was going to maul me to death when I got to the building, I would never forgive you.

That's okay.

What'd you say?

I said, that's okay.

Okay, all right.

She agreed softly, but I could tell she didn't call just to tell me she was alive and returning.

There's a storm coming tomorrow.

A really, really shitty one.

High winds, lightning, power outages, maybe.

She didn't need to explain why that was a reason to worry.

There's an impossible pressure keeping control of this place.

And still, I didn't even know why this radio station was the center of every weird thing happening in these mountains.

All of a sudden, I had a feeling that I hadn't really noticed until just now.

I realized how much this job and this place had changed my life.

Evelyn?

Yes.

I spared a glance to the window, relieved but surprised that Jennifer wasn't there.

However, I did see a small, unnerving sight.

Twigs, long grass, and bits of dead leaves and hair littered the top of the stairwell, making a path down the steps.

How long was she standing there before she disappeared?

As soon as we get a couple more part-timers, we're taking a vacation.

This is Daniel with 104.6 FM, and I've never been so eager for an early morning in my life.

End of part seven.

You know,

that comment at the end, like, we need a vacation.

I, I hope, I wish Jennifer broke down that door and ripped him in half.

He is definitely not the most optim.

He's definitely not the most charismatic guy.

I'll give you that.

I do think, um, I don't know, I, which I don't know if I'm being bought in too much, but before we get into eight, I legitimately feel like Evelyn has something, she's done something bad.

I think I'm kind of buying into that.

Yeah, she's done something.

She did something to someone.

Jennifer's spirit or whatever is mad about it.

The boyfriend blames her.

She's

the police that know about supernatural stuff suspects her for some reason.

100%.

Yeah.

Who knows?

Part 8.

Part 8.

This is really good.

I see why so many people were excited.

This feels like a perfect creepcast story.

Like, conversational, you know, language is very

like it keeps the pace up, keeps itself going easy, fun story, you know.

Very, uh, very well written.

Yeah.

I have so much news to tell, and yet I don't really know where to start.

First, let me clarify.

This is Evelyn.

I returned to the radio station at about 5.45 in the morning.

Was it one day ago, two days ago?

I'll be honest.

Sometimes I'm not even sure how long I'm here, what day of the week it is anymore.

I screamed at Dan for a while and locked him in the bathroom for about 15 minutes before I realized that he was sincerely just trying to be helpful and make sense of things.

I still wish he had stayed off my social media though.

Now I'm adding putting a 30-year-old man in timeout onto my list of activities I never thought I'd be doing at the workplace.

But while I was gone, I saw, heard, and experienced so much that I have to just sit down and tell you everything from start to finish.

Left-right game, that's the story this reminds me of.

I was thinking that like the wording of it and the style of the setup is similar to one we've read, left-right game, like how Bristol would have these kind of conversations where she would she wouldn't dwell too long on how she felt about things it was mostly action but it gave insight and stuff that's what this feels similar similarly paced to oh nice the storm is on its way and the lights have flickered a few times already due to the winds i'm typing this as quickly as i can because well i'll be honest i don't know what will happen after i submit this When the police picked me up from the radio station, they didn't really give the impression that they were questioning me as a suspect of Jennifer's murder.

I was never put in handcuffs, I was never put in a cell, but they didn't want me out of their sights until we had a good, long conversation.

However, as soon as we arrived, I was inspected a bit too carefully.

As a woman in gloves waved a little flashlight in front of my eyes and told me to strip down to my tank top so they could inspect my arms, I immediately had my suspicions.

Did they think I was shooting up the radio station?

High out of my mind?

It lasted far too long and I had to go through a seemingly unnecessary amount of searches and swabs before I was finally allowed to sit down.

All of my items confiscated, except for my clothes.

When one of the investigators came by to question me in a private room there at the police station, I voiced my concerns.

Listen, I'm not a junkie.

I told him, perhaps a little bit too aggressively.

I thought we were here to talk about my friend.

We are.

He sat down on the other end of the table.

In contrast to my bitterness, he seemed far more concerned than he was watchful or judgmental of me.

But due to your exposure, we're going to have to get your permission for a full medical exam before we do any of that

what exposure he seemed hesitant to explain but i had a feeling that he couldn't just keep it from me at the radio station is there something dangerous in the air out there i deserve to know what i'm getting around detective shook his head nothing like that i'm i'm not talking about radiation or a gas leak he folded his hands on the table as he continued we see

A lot of people coming down with illness or sustaining injury outside the town.

And while we can't explain it, we've learned to be very thorough when it comes to making sure anyone who spends a considerable amount of time in the woods is safe.

I'd only just gotten there, and already I felt confused.

I felt as if so much was hidden from me, so much that I wanted to know but wasn't being allowed to understand.

The detective didn't say any more, but instead he slid a piece of paper across the table.

We need your permission for a full medical examination and an overnight stay.

After we're sure you're in decent shape, tomorrow we'll talk about your friend.

What was I supposed to do?

Refuse?

I found it all very strange, but I admit that I was curious how all this fit together with the goings-on at the radio station.

It was all seeming like some kind of inside job, or perhaps some knowledge that I hadn't been awarded that everyone else knew about.

I allowed them to do the medical exam, taking samples of my blood and basically everything else they could get their hands on.

I was questioned a lot about the bruising on my chest, but when they had been assured it was from an honest injury and not some disorder in the blood, I was permitted to get a night's rest before being picked up first thing in the morning.

I saw the same investigator, a middle-aged man with dark skin.

He had a low voice that sounded nice, but I still couldn't shake this feeling that he wasn't any kind of friend to me.

I picked at the glue exposed on the frayed edge of my paper hospital bracelet in an attempt to get it off cleanly, but the residue just collected under my fingernails.

Evelyn Fay McKinnon.

He wasn't asking, but clarifying.

He rifled through a stack of papers, and I found myself growing impatient.

You were arrested twice in the last 12 months.

DUIs both times.

You and your roommate, former roommate,

you and your former roommate, Jennifer Cook, were fined one time for domestic disturbance.

We had a plenty, we had a purely verbal argument.

I had just gotten out of the hospital and she started lecturing me about...

My point is...

The detective spoke with such a piercing tone that I shut my mouth immediately, letting him talk.

We had your fingerprints.

We matched them to a set of prints on Jennifer Cook's cell phone, which we found a half mile away from your workplace next to a tree filled with blood.

She's like, well,

that I can explain that.

Yeah.

That definitely isn't what it looks like.

I squinted my eyes.

Filled was a word I hadn't thought to hear, not unless a tree sap was the subject of conversation.

At that point, I think he could sense the question I was about to ask.

What do you mean, filled with blood?

I mean, the tree was oozing several quarts of blood right from a hole in the center of the trunk.

And Jennifer's cell phone, the one with both her and your fingerprints, was found at the base of it.

He gave me an icy stare and I was waiting for a question.

I was waiting to somehow be blamed.

I didn't have anything to do with...

Again, he didn't let me finish, but his words both comforted and confused me.

Nobody thinks you were the one to hurt her, but we need to know what you saw in there.

Anybody, anything you may have witnessed.

We received an anonymous tip saying there were three bodies in the forest, and clearly, three bodies were not discovered.

It's very, very important that we find her body and that we find it soon.

The urgency in his voice was somewhat shocking to me.

I imagined Jennifer's family would want her remains, but the way he looked at me was almost desperate, as if finding her body is more important than just for the sake of her loved ones.

She was in the tree, I explained, though I knew how insane it would sound.

Stuffed in the center of it.

I don't even know how she fit, but her face and one arm were sticking out of it.

She was dead.

Her mouth is stuffed with a bird's nest, and that's where she was when

we turned around and left.

He nodded slowly, and I knew that none of that would help them actually find her.

It wasn't as if they hadn't checked the entire area probably ten times over by now.

Anything Anything else?

He asked with a raised eyebrow.

Anyone anything strange out there?

I found myself hesitating.

What kind of strange was he talking about?

I had weird stories and sightings.

Oh, I had plenty.

But at what point would it become too crazy to talk about?

No one else.

I saw some weird mutated elk, though.

It had like three back legs.

Really fucked up looking.

Weird eyes, too.

The two other bodies were on the ground and up in the tree in pieces, but I mean, that was all.

Pieces?

Investigator asked.

I gave him a quizzical look, wondering how he hadn't known the other two people had been split in half.

That was a detail that wasn't overlooked so easily.

Yes, the man and the woman.

They were both cut in half in the middle, and the man's legs and the woman's top half were stuck in the trees as if they had been tossed in there.

It sounds stupid, but that's exactly what it looked like.

He was flipping through his papers again, pulling out photographs and files.

I saw only a glimpse, but I recognized the forest floor, grass covered in blood, and the colors of the torn fabric of one of the bodies wore.

With a sigh, he pulled out a photograph in particular and slid it in front of me on the table.

It was the scene, obviously, but the photo had been taken far away enough to show the entirety of the area surroundings.

I grimaced as I saw the faraway shapes of two dead individuals and the bloodstained tree, now empty where Jennifer would have been.

However, I was surprised to see that the limbs of the other tree were completely and utterly bare.

There were no sign that the man's legs nor the woman's head had ever been there.

They were there.

I saw the woman's body and her face.

What she looked like.

As I rattled on, the detective stood from his seat, fished a cell phone out of his pants pocket, dialing a number quickly and turning away from me.

He spoke in a hushed voice, but I could still hear him.

Sounded urgent.

It wasn't her.

It wasn't just her.

There are three of them now.

He said, his free hand rubbing at his forehead with his eyes squinting shut in distress.

They were obviously moved, but we can't find her.

The others must have already left also.

If that's the case, it's too late.

They're part of it.

He hung up the phone and I watched him return to his seat, so many questions tumbling over one another in my head.

What's going on?

I asked him, annoyed.

A part of what?

Why are you asking about fucking animals?

I thought we were looking for Jennifer.

It's all important.

You don't need to worry.

If it's important, I should know.

I mean, I work out there.

I'm the one giving you all that I know.

And what the hell was with the medical exam?

What are we in danger of that no one's telling us about?

I watched the investigator lean back in his chair, his expression as calm and cold as it was before.

He waited for my outburst to end, but the look in his eyes had a sharpness to it that spoke of some reluctance, as if I were asking too much for him.

But when I didn't choose to leave, he had no choice but to lean forward and speak.

People go missing.

Several, sometimes dozens a year on that mountain.

Sometimes their bodies are found, and sometimes they aren't.

But they never return as themselves.

And it's not just the people.

We hire rangers to collect any dead animals they find and get them out of those woods.

But far too often, those rangers don't come back either.

I was silent for a long moment, processing his words.

None of it was making sense yet.

What happens to them then?

We can't explain it.

He continued, hoarse whisper.

Maybe a bush with fingers growing in a place with a few branches.

One time, an old woman nearly scared her son to death because she tried to coax a deer out of the forest, saying it had her husband's eyes.

Her husband had died collapsing on a woodland trail one month earlier.

She said he had fused with a deer.

I felt sick thinking of those human eyes.

Didn't Didn't need to make it up for my imagination at all.

That bird, that damn bird, I started to wonder whose eyes those were after all.

The detective continued.

We don't know what's in the air around here making people see this kind of shit.

But all we know is that when the fog season comes around, more people go missing and more weird things start to appear.

It's all around that spot, too.

your radio station.

Maybe there's some magnetic disturbance.

Maybe there's something under the ground we

He leaned closer across the table.

I didn't even try to say a word.

I just stared, exhaling through my lips as he looked me straight in the eyes with a look that was dire.

One thing we do need to know, though.

In the last five years, we've hired 27 different people to speak over that radio.

You and Mistress Esperanza.

You're 28 and 29.

I know the cliché of a heart dropping is overdone and insensible, but I felt it then.

My heart wasn't in my chest anymore.

It sunk so low, I felt every bit of confidence and safety in my blood disappear all at once.

One thing was bothering me, though.

One little thing that had been in my head for a while now that I was just now piecing together.

We've hired?

He didn't avoid the question, but he took a good long moment to answer.

Finally, he shook his head, sinking back down to his chair across from me.

The broadcast tower is a lot more than just a radio station.

You know that by now.

People around here feel safer when they think about the music.

And that's what we tried to, and that's what we're trying to do.

Keeping everyone calm until we know how to get rid of this problem forever.

It was making more sense to me now why the station was so high off the ground and why it had to be on air at all times.

Whatever signal we sent out wasn't there just for people to enjoy.

The music was just a mask, covering something that served a more defensive purpose.

It was a watchtower.

The broadcast station was never for entertainment, but for protection.

What would happen if the broadcast just stopped for good?

I didn't like to think about it, but I needed to know.

Man across from me shrugged his shoulders with a heavy sigh.

We don't know, but we never want to find out.

The fog has stretched all across the town before, and we think that, potentially, it could keep going as far as we let it.

And whatever's in that fog has been stealing people away.

That married couple that went missing the last time it crept into town.

Well,

you saw firsthand what happened to them.

And when the fog rolls around the next time, we may be seeing them again.

He stood up from his seat, walking around the table, giving me a heavy pat on the shoulder as I sat there, bringing gone to mush.

You better get back to your station.

Number 28.

So.

I like that scene.

I feel like that section did what a lot of stories we read try to do, where they have that scene where the person goes to to the investigator or the researcher or the cop, and they have the whole like, like at the end of

the Something's Wrong with Dad's story, where it's like, well, I shouldn't be telling you this, but that's a goblin man that came from the ground and blah, blah, blah, you know?

Like it's super

like they tell way too much and there's too many details.

This feels more twin peaks.

Like she goes down to the station.

She's like, what's going on?

And the cop's like, honestly, we have no clue.

Like we know it has something to do with the fog we know people disappear and they don't come back uh there's a lot of deaths um could be radio he doesn't say radio he's like could be magnetic could be a gas could be we have no idea uh but we know that this works to prevent it it's almost like an honesty of yeah we're doing our best whatever that looks like yeah i think that it's uh i think that it translates to it's a good desperation of like people that are just trying to solve a problem that have no idea how to do that yeah it's not it's not like they're no well This is it's not like she's like tell me what's going on and he's like well we trapped Cthulhu under the mountain.

Yeah, yeah, it it's like there's um

He's just like weird stuff's going down and if you stop what you're doing, it'll get worse.

That's all we know.

So I do appreciate that

Because there were there were like we did we got some stuff out of that little mentions of like

fog shows up people disappear they come back the woman who said uh she saw her husband's eyes and a deer which is cool um but it's honestly just

it's almost like just more pieces that we've already seen more little weird instances happening so right i appreciated that it also makes sense that the police would be in on it that morning i took a cab back to the radio station before the sun came up before i did i made one brief stop along the way In the early hours of dawn, I walked to Jennifer's house, the same one she had kicked me out of and the same one where her boyfriend Elijah now lived on his own.

I didn't knock or ring the doorbell, but I did slip a small piece of paper underneath the door.

It was the only printed photo I had of Jennifer, carried around in my wallet next to a photo of my parents.

Now, it was his.

Daniel filled me in when I arrived back to the tower, and after I had a bit of a fit, which may have been a lot of a fit, I tried to fill him in on what I had learned as well.

It was a lot to relay.

A lot for him to understand, but I felt better knowing that he wasn't any more in the dark than I was.

So, the people who hired us?

Not really a network.

I finished the idea for him.

It's some agency or town government.

I don't know.

That's why our signal only reaches so far.

There's no reason for it to expand.

Daniel looked overwhelmed, and I didn't blame him.

Hell, I wasn't feeling so great about all this either.

I went from being stressed about some weird shit to suddenly knowing that a lot of people could get hurt if we failed out of our jobs.

When I told Daniel about all the other former employees who had gone missing, he was visibly shaken.

What happens to them?

Do they die?

Do they quit?

I don't think they quit, Dan.

Yeah, Dan.

Do you think they do they get their benefits?

What about is there a severance package?

No, you fucking idiot.

Like what?

I don't think it's like, Dan, what are you talking about, dude?

They're not, no one's quitting.

We shared a silent, solemn moment between us.

We didn't say it, but we were both thinking the same thing.

how long would we last and if we didn't survive which one would be the first to go rumble of thunder interrupted any conversation that may have happened next both of us snapped our attention to the window where the heavy clouds were rolling in across the sky and the trees furthest in our view had started to sway back and forth from the winds a flash of lightning cracked through the dim light and was followed by another deep bellow from the sky that same low roaring groan that sounded like an angry god evelyn this place has a generator, doesn't it?

He asked as the lights flickered for the first time.

The radio skipped to static for a split second as another deep rumble resonated from the mountain.

Yes.

Where is it?

I frowned, giving him an almost apologetic look.

Outside.

This is number 28 from the 104.6 Emergency Outpost.

Fog advisory is in effect.

Stay calm, stay safe.

Stay indoors.

End of part 8 into part 9, the finale.

The finale.

i like the switch at the end how it goes to like emergency outpost yeah now recognizing what it is number 28

that's pretty sick that's pretty cool part nine i i i understand why this has such fun like at the last part it linked off to r slash 1046 fm so it has its own subreddit and i get i this is totally the kind of story i can see people getting into writing their own scenarios characters stuff like that you know yeah people could lie about what number they are too

I'm number 16, or you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you could do so much with it.

There's so much to run from,

run with, and so much to run from.

That too, I guess.

All right.

Well, are you ready for the finale?

Let's do it.

Part 9.

The forest was alive.

Even before the fog came, we could see it moving and wriggling with electric energy as the thunder roared overhead and lightning cracked at the top of the mountain.

I'll admit for a moment, I actually wondered if a forest fire would be preferable.

Obviously, death hadn't been enough to keep Jennifer and countless others from coming back in some form.

And so I later decided that setting every strange abomination on fire would only create more dangers for us.

I won't beat around the bush.

We were scared.

We knew enough and had seen enough to know we wouldn't be safe.

As the rain poured down and the cables and lines swayed from side to side off the tower, Daniel and I were not only afraid for our own safety, but for everyone else's.

This broadcast tower was keeping the town alive.

We were keeping the town alive.

An alcoholic and a failed theater actor, who knew?

Some would describe this podcast much the same, I would think.

I think so.

Gladly.

Gladly.

The lights flickered again, prompting the broadcast to turn to static and skip as I scrambled behind the desk to get the sound going again.

For mere seconds, the waves would go silent, then spring to life again just as a rumble would vibrate underneath the tower.

I noticed Daniel Flinch, holding one of his ears just moments after the broadcast came back and static-filled music played again.

You hurt?

I asked him, but he shook his head, stretching out his jaw.

No, my

ears won't stop ringing, though.

I shrugged it away, matching all those cliché excuses.

It's the weather, the pressure, it's different up in the mountains, and so on and so on.

But he bounced back immediately, marching over to the window to scan his eyes over the dreary-looking forest.

It was hard to see much of anything through the rain, but he squinted to make out shapes on the horizon.

There's something moving out there.

Far away, but it's it's getting closer.

It's it's hard to see.

I didn't need to see for myself to know what he was looking at.

In the midst of the rain and the lightning, the fog would still find a way to roll in.

After all, it wasn't really a product of the weather at all.

It's more of a living thing, rather an amalgamation of all formerly living things on the side of the mountain range.

I need you to run an emergency broadcast.

I told him as I pushed away from the console and popped up out of my chair.

A strong wind whipped past, rattling the walls and making the wooden floorboards creak beneath our feet.

I fell unsteady, suddenly worried the old stilts holding us up would give in and we crashed down into the trees below.

The only thing worse than the fall would be the exposure to the open woods, should we even survive the way down.

The floor rumbled as the building itself were breathing before it settled back into place.

I looked at Daniel and he looked back at me.

We both knew we'd have to prepare for the worst the storm could do.

As he practically fell into the chair, turning on the microphone to broadcast a crackling message over the air, I rummaged in the storage closet for industrial-sized flashlights and the keys to the generator shed.

Now all of the supplies made more sense to me.

Backpacks, emergency food rations, first aid kits, flares, fire starting kits.

This place was never meant to be a radio station.

It was most likely a ranger lookout that had been adapted into something capable of a large-scale broadcasting.

While knocking things out of my way in search of the keys, I found a pack of walkie-talkies and checked them for batteries.

Daniel was already done with his announcements by the time I found them and appeared at my side to snatch one out of my hand.

He seemed to be thinking the same thing I was.

If the power went out, one of us would have to go out there to turn on the generator.

One of us.

Couldn't risk both of our lives with nobody to take the responsibility.

Did you start the music again?

Daniel nodded.

It's going.

But the lack of confidence in his voice spoke of a deeper thought.

It was running now, but if the lights continued to flicker, it might not be for much longer.

There was nothing else to do but wait.

As the fog bounded through the forest, moving the trees with the weight of its eerie inhabitants, could only watch as it engulfed the entire woodland.

I had never seen the fog rest at the edge of the forest, but it did this time.

Something about the music, rather the signal, kept it from crossing that line between us and the town further down the road.

We unplugged our headsets, letting the music play in the studio for both to hear.

sat down at the edge of the window on the floor.

It was the calm before the storm as we stared at the swaying poles and the wires outside, wondering which one would be the first to snap or end up snagged in a tree.

Wait, hold on.

So every time they continue to play the music, the fog just stops, right?

And the only time it's kept going the previous two times is because the music hasn't been playing for some reason, right?

Well, I think that it's, it's not that it stops.

I think it just, or it's not that it stops rolling.

I think that it just can't bridge that divide for some reason.

Right, right.

Like, it's like the signal creates a barrier, right?

Yeah, of some kind.

So, so the previous two times, the first and the first part of the story and the other when Dan was controlling it, where they didn't have the music playing, they just filled the town with a Stephen King mist for a couple hours while they figured out what they were doing.

People just

monsters and creatures running around in the fog because they couldn't keep the radio on.

How many people have they killed?

Well, three, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, technically three and possibly more today, depending on the generator.

Yeah.

Well, that's not their fault.

The first one was our narrator's fault because she saw the fog and turned down the radio.

And then when Dan was there, when she fell over the railing, he came down to look and then the broadcast quit.

So

that's three.

They have a kill count of three so far between the two of them.

A moment passed, but it was a long and excruciating moment of silence.

Dan was the first to break it, as his talkative self almost always was.

You want to know what I did before this?

He asked, but I knew he'd tell me anyway.

I nodded still.

After I graduated with a master's degree in performance art, a master's degree, the only acting job I could get was recording a commercial for some plumbing service.

I record lines in the actual studio, talking about toilets for 20 takes, and you know it was the worst part?

He laughed, looking over with a stupid, somewhat disheartening grin.

They didn't even pick mine.

I heard the commercial on the radio in my car, and it was someone else completely.

Never in my life did I think I'd be legitimately pissed because I wasn't chosen as a spokesperson for a toilet cleaning.

You know what?

I'm glad.

I would have done the same.

I'd be like, we're not using his lines at all.

Not one.

That actually made me laugh, even if it was a bittersweet moment of lightheartedness.

I shrugged my shoulders with an expression of nonchalance.

You get good figures, you get let down by the radio twice.

Gestured to the room around us, and Daniels snorted mid-chuckle.

What about you?

Tell Tell me a stupid thing you've done.

I was getting over my hate, and it's back now.

It's back in full power.

I had to think for a moment.

Not because I couldn't recall any, but because there was too much to recall.

Somehow, all my stupid mistakes just ended up sad.

I almost died in a bathtub once.

I said, chuckling, even if it wasn't all that funny.

Daniel seemed unsure if he should laugh or not.

Okay, now this actually is me and you, because there's multiple times on the show where I'm like, oh, here's a little lighthearted whimsy, and you're like, yeah, so my grandfather shot my dog trying to kill me.

It's like, oh my gosh.

I was shit-faced, and I felt terrible, so I wanted to take a bath.

Ended up passing out almost the second I got in, and Jennifer found me after I had apparently flipped face down.

She honestly thought it was a suicide until they got me breathing again and found out I was still just hammered as when I went in.

That time I laughed, but Daniel didn't.

I even knew it wasn't funny, but I was desperate to grab at straws just to find a reason to take it lightly.

When I saw the severity of the frown on his face, my smile disappeared and I suddenly felt like a child being scolded.

How long have you been sober?

I didn't need to question how he knew it was an ongoing thing.

After all, he had seen enough of my computer to know most of the truth by now.

I felt a tightness in my throat and a breath I took and the next was shaky and uneven.

My first sober day was the day I came into work a few weeks ago.

I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from letting it tremble.

Putting it into perspective felt pathetic, reminded me of just how soon it was.

The only reason I'm not drunk right now is because the fucking grocery guy only brings me cheap, shitty iced tea.

That time we both laughed, but it didn't last.

In a second, amusement turned to tears as I unwittingly felt a sob escape me.

Both my hands covering my face.

With my eyes squeezed shut, I only felt Daniel's hand pat between my shoulders and remained there until I uncovered my face.

I refused to let myself cry out loud.

Those thoughts and feelings would push back down as my eyes returned to the fog at the edge of the forest.

I watched it move and swirl, many eyes and many shapes moving and twitching as waiting eagerly to be allowed further.

The shed was so close to the edge.

Too close.

I like, um...

So earlier there were little mentions of her looking sickly.

Mm-hmm.

And like, because I kind of forgot about the alcohol thing.

And there were mentions of her looking sickly or sad or depressed.

And I was like, oh, that must be the fog taking a toll on her.

But no, that's probably just because she's, you know, getting over an addiction.

Yeah, that really is a nice touch.

A familiar pair of eyes stared back at us then.

Up in the tree, free from the fog, hopping near to tap its beak at the window, sat Tam Bird again.

I looked at it closer this time.

Its eyes were hazel.

Now I found myself wondering less where it came from and who it had borrowed those eyes from.

What did you see?

I heard Daniel's voice, but didn't process it at first.

With a deep breath, I wiped away the tears from my face and turned to him with a hmm of confusion.

At the graduation party, you were in the woods and you saw something, didn't you?

The word graduation in itself made my stomach sink.

I looked away from Dan again, squinting as I struggled to bring those thoughts forward again.

Somehow, just looking for the memory caused an eternal pain.

I didn't know there was anything fucked up about the woods back then.

I told you that I left here, right?

When I was a little kid.

My dad died, my mom remarried, so

we moved in with him out of town.

Then I came back the week of graduation with a bunch of people I used to know as kids, and they all said this woods got creepy since I left.

Bits and pieces were still missing from my thought process, but I was piecing them together in the moments I paused and kept silent.

It was some terrible puzzle slowly coming into view, and it made my face turn to a grimace.

I wandered off.

Probably because it was loud and everyone was acting like an ass, but out in the woods, I heard something.

It was a growl, I I thought at first.

But now that I remember that sound,

it was a voice.

A low, gravelly, painful groan.

This animal stepped out of the bushes, and I thought for sure it was some kind of cougar or wild dog, but its face.

God, it had this face, yellow eyes like a wildcat, but the nose and the mouth were different.

human and familiar.

He looked at me and I saw his mouth move, trying to say something, but all that came out was this terrible rattle.

Like it hurt to breathe.

It sounded like he was suffering, like it took everything he had just to say a single word.

I ran back to the party and I drank and I drank and I fucking drank it till I couldn't remember that thing's face anymore.

And it worked for a good

long time too, but now,

now that I'm sober, All it took was thinking about it once for it to be stuck in my head again.

Dan gave me an apologetic look, as if he had some reason to feel sorry about it all.

His hand fell on my back again and he opened his mouth to speak.

I'm sure it would have been some great words of wisdom or encouragement, but he never had the chance.

There was a flash of lightning and a deafening crack as it struck one of the poles standing around the station.

The thunder blended into the sound of the crackling radio for a split second before the lights went down.

The sound stopped and we were plunged into a dark, thick silence.

All I could see in the dark were Dan's eyes, illuminated by the flashes flashes of light as he watched the forest edge.

The fog twisted and moved in patterns of rolls, tumbling over itself like a living beast as it crawled towards us.

It was almost too dark to see, but my eyes could make out blots of shapes inside the fog.

Arms, legs, bodies, all of them eager to inhabit the land they had been barred from until now.

The mists swirled around the stilts of the tower, creeping upwards before we had a chance to make a split decision.

Daniel turned on his walkie-talkie, testing it by holding it up to his mouth.

I could hear the crackle of his voice come through fine, even just a few feet apart.

I'll let you know when I've got it going.

I told him sternly, jumping up to my feet.

I was about to push open the fire escape with no hesitation, but I felt a rough hand grab the back of my shirt before I had the chance.

Stay in here so you can get the radio going.

No,

I answered flatly, refusing to follow that order.

There was a scowl pulling at the edges of my lips as I glared at him.

I wasn't there when you got hurt, and I couldn't help Jennifer either.

So let me do this.

Let me do this.

We stared at one another for almost too long, but I could feel him slowly letting go of my shirt.

His arm dropped, giving back my freedom to move and he nodded his head once in silence.

Daniel, if you're reading this, you snooping bastard.

Thank you.

The door took a heavy burst, but I shoved it open and was surprised for a moment when I didn't hear an alarm.

Of course, it didn't take long to remember that the power outage had taken everything, not just the lights and the radio signal.

The fog was already rising, covering the ground and crawling upwards over the sides sides of the building.

It was only moments before I was trapped inside of it, not sure whether to run for my life or take it slow to stay hidden.

It would have been no use.

They knew I was there already.

I held my flashlight in shaky hands to illuminate the steps of the fire escape.

There were no vines, no slimy, mud-covered appendages, and nothing waiting there to trip me.

Still, I didn't trust that the fire escape was unoccupied.

I could hear a faint clank from the bottom as if something was trying to pull itself up to the open door behind me.

The sound in the fog was maddening.

The amalgamates were suffering inside of themselves, parasites eating off of one another and groaning in some constant pain.

The ones that didn't moan and cry in their torment were voicing aggressive growls or rattling breaths as they searched through the fog for another living thing to tear apart and add to their collection of stolen bodies.

My flashlight caught a glimpse now and again of milky white eyes or the glimmer of rain-soaked skin or fur.

I didn't dare look back, but I could hear and feel the crash of weight against the fire escape as if something was trying to crawl its way up underneath a section as I passed.

Once the end of the stairs was in sight, I made it my goal to run to the shed as quickly as possible and lock myself in immediately until the generator would start.

The problem would be getting out.

My light caught the end of the step and there I saw what had been making all that noise.

A woman's face stared up at me with dead, pale blue eyes.

She was dragging herself, her upper body struggling to leave the ground and crawl its way up as her lower half was weighing her down.

This half of a woman, one I remembered seeing sprawled over the branch of a tree, was being engulfed in roots and bark.

The living plant her corpse had been fused with pushed itself along the ground but clumsily, as if it was too heavy and too scattered in its movements to make any progress.

Her arms, however, were still moving and capable of grabbing me if I got too close.

The worst part was how pleadingly she looked at me, as if the human part of her was begging for a way to get out.

I couldn't help but feel that the aggression was fear, but it didn't tug on my hardstrings quite enough to convince me to stop.

I jumped over the edge of the stairs, falling only a couple of feet from the ground and making a straight line to the shed.

Keys in my pocket jingled and slipped between my fingers as I tried to find the right one, all the while far too aware of every shadow and every glimmer of eyes creeping closer.

The fog was too thick to see well.

My flashlight only served to show me there was nothing directly in front of my eyes, but it was perhaps a blessing that the creatures hunting in the fog were stuck in it just as much as I was.

I still sensed that they knew I was there, searching and struggling to catch anything in their grasp.

I even heard the shriek of one, like the sound of a whining animal in pain as it was caught in the clutches of another larger and likely more terrifying beast.

I felt the surface of the wood in front of me, whispering words of relief as I padded along the edge of the shed until the door was at my fingertips.

A pair of keys were fished from my pocket, and my clumsy fingers struggled to swiftly find the one small bit of metal that I needed.

Just then I heard a crackle.

It was the walkie-talkie connected to my hip, Daniel's voice on the other end.

Did you find it yet?

I would beat Daniel to death with my bare hands.

He's kind of coming in at the worst moment.

Just

sneaking around.

You hear the cries, the shrieking, then it's like, um, Earth, hello, it's your best friend, Earth to Captain Tom.

Are you there?

Just kill him.

Just just be like, hey, everyone, he's up there.

Go that way.

He asked, but I felt my stomach tie up in knots when his voice rang out over the silence.

I wasn't the only one to hear him.

Heavy grunts and stomps of feet like hooves digging into the dirt surrounded me.

I could hear the shriek of something vaguely avian mixed with a human-like scream and bellowing roars that shook my skull from the inside.

I was in a rush to open the door, trying every key as I blindly searched for the right one.

Finally, as I prepared to swing the door open, I could feel the vibration in the ground as something heavy and tall landed by my side as if jumping from the tops of the trees.

In the blinding fog, I could see brown and gray fur spotted with blood.

It smelled like rotten flesh and mold, its joints cracking and groaning as it bent down to my level.

I could see its eyes in the periphery of my vision, at least six of them, pale, stained with flecks of jaundice yellow, sitting above an elk-like snout.

Its antlers scraped the side of the wood with a terrible jaw-clinching sound.

I felt a touch to my back and recognized it immediately.

The spider-like appendages that had brushed my arms on the last fog weren't the legs of some giant spider, but this thing's fingers.

It breathed in, then out with a rattle, and the stench of blood and death was warm against the side of my face.

When I told Daniel that almost drowning in a bathtub was the stupidest thing I had done, I meant it.

It was the stupidest thing I had done yet.

But this day, I changed all of that.

I threw the shed door open, stepping out of the way to let the heavy wooden plank hit the hulking beast beside directly in the nose.

Moving quicker than I ever had in my life, I slipped into the shed and jammed the door shut behind me, locking it up tight and throwing anything I could find in front of it as I heard the beast bellow more in annoyance than in pain.

My light shone on the generator, but this thing's so big it's just gonna lift the shed off the ground.

Well, yeah, it's huge, right?

Just hurl her into the next area, code.

Which, by the way, like I've good action scene, all that.

The monster design sounds sick.

Like amalgamations of eyes on like a

head and like the woman whose upper half is mixed with the tree she was in and stuff.

Very cool.

Yeah, I love the like very,

I like that it's a mixture of the force itself.

Like that's just a lot of fun.

My light shone on the generator, but I had to work quickly.

I felt a tremble in the floor as whatever stood outside knocked against the door so roughly that it caused dust and debris to fly into the air.

I fumbled with a can of oil, spilling a bit onto my shoes and my pants, but still managing to fill the machine as the thing outside rounded the edge of the shed and only two large steps.

It pounded on the roof, big enough and powerful enough to cause the wooden beams above my head to crack bit by bit.

I threw the nearly empty oil cans to the side and tried to find every button and switch in order before the ceiling collapsed under the weight of that thing's fists.

I flipped the first switch, then the second, knocking my fist against it as I impatiently waited to hear it spring to life.

Dan!

I yelled over the walkie-talkie.

I've almost got it.

You have to get ready to switch the breakers, though.

They're downstairs.

Go!

I heard his voice, but it was muffled, and his words weren't making sense over the endless crackle.

God, I hoped he heard me.

I felt a pain in the back of my head as a bit of wood from the ceiling fell with another forceful hit.

Suddenly, I could see a pale light from above as the foggy sky became visible.

A hole had been punched in the ceiling, but in moments, it was blacked out by the multiple eyes of that tall, decaying abomination from the woods.

I flipped the last switch and the generator began to rumble.

It was a success, and regardless of whether or not I survived to escape this crumbling wooden hazard, the station would have power in moments.

I staggered back, clothes and hair smelling like oil, staring up at the pale eyes of the roof with frightened defiance.

The shed rattled, another hard punch or kick hitting it from the side where I stood.

It was enough to push me forward and knock me onto my hands and knees, but it didn't last.

I could hear it before I saw it.

The lights outside buzzed as they all came alive one at a time, bathing the entire clearing with a yellow light.

That's when I heard my device crackle again, Daniel's voice speaking clearly on the other side.

I can't get the radio started, told me in a panic.

It's there's not enough power to run it, It won't work.

It seemed like a failure at first, but then I remembered that stupid, laminated piece of paper I had been staring at for the last month on my desk.

Rule number one, when the radio is down, activate the bell.

Oh, I completely forgot about that.

Same.

Wow.

Good callback.

I was only pissed that he'd be the one to push it after that button had been tempting me since my first day.

See the button on the wall?

The one behind the case?

Push it.

I shouted back to him sternly.

Don't hesitate, just push it.

I could hear him on the other end, fiddling with the case before he did exactly as I said.

The next thing I heard was surprising.

Nothing.

Didn't hear a damn thing.

At least, not from the speakers on top of the radio tower.

Instead, I heard Dan let out a pained yell and fumble around the room before a small mechanical whine and a clatter followed.

Later, I would learn what that was.

It was Dan throwing his hearing aid across the room.

It'd be really funny if he hits it and it just explodes.

Like, it just

nukes the whole site.

The creatures outside didn't disappear.

Rather, they became noisy in their pained and agitated sounds, rumbling past and dragging themselves away in any way they could.

They were retreating to the forest, bothered by some sound that my ears couldn't pick up.

A drone, perhaps too high or too low for my ears to hear, was driving them off.

The bell, just like every other tool around here, was solely there to control them all along.

Or rather, to control the forest itself.

My eyes disappeared from the hole in the ceiling, and I could hear the hulking creature above me slowly stomp away, resigning itself to return to the mountain.

My legs felt like jelly, and my head was pounding, but I still managed to find the door and push my way out into the fresh air again, just as a glimpse of a giant, mud-covered hoof disappeared into the tree line.

Daniel had propped open the fire escape when I came back, slowly and exhaustively forcing my way to the top.

The lights were on, the radio was off, but we were safe for the time being.

The first thing my co-worker did was pull me into a hug, lifting me a few inches off the ground and saying these profound, thoughtful words to me.

You smell like petroleum.

I wish I could say that was the last time anything weird has happened here, but as you can guess, a day or two has passed and everything is still bullshit.

The sink doesn't cry anymore, but we still get some weird calls.

And Dan told me that it rained pebbles the other day.

I told him I was pissed off that he didn't collect any for me like a baby otter.

I'm sure things will always be weird around here and there will always be some story to tell.

For now, I think I'm going to focus on doing my job and lasting a bit longer than employees 1 through 27.

But I'm sure if you don't hear from me, Dan will be sneaking on my laptop again someday.

And I could change my password, but nah.

This is Evelyn at the 104.6 Emergency Broadcast Station.

And in case you were wondering, that bird's still out there.

Daniel decided to name it Bartholomew.

I hate Bartholomew.

And that is the end of season one

of.

Kind of.

It's end of the part one because season one's technically the other parts and stuff.

So

end of the end of the big first part of

Accounts from a Lonely Broadcast Station.

You know what I liked about this first rundown of like quote-unquote season one, blah, blah, blah, is that you got a run through of every rule.

I thought that was kind of nice it wasn't like a glaring like remember rule two it was like only the one time when it's like oh fuck yeah the bell like i thought that was yeah i forgot about it until the end yeah yeah that worked really well I always like these stories, you know, like the voodoo shop, Tales from a Gas Station, all that stuff, where it's these little excerpts where it's not necessarily like a full encompassing story, but little vignettes of somebody's time in this thing.

Like, I'm glad it didn't, you know, I'm glad that this season didn't end with like, they killed the thing that was in the thing, you know, they figured it out

like moment of like and we we saved the city, you know kind of thing.

I will say that I like how it was written in such a way where like you said it never gave too much but it kept calling back and making references to stuff mentioned earlier

And then I feel like that was a pretty good account from the broadcast station

Because then I'm reading the stuff that Kel Byron has written afterwards.

The future parts go to like different perspectives within the small town or like different things around the radio station and stuff like that.

So it's like, okay, we've told a pretty good story there.

Now we can kind of look at it.

Cause I was going to say before I saw that, the one thing I wish we got was maybe some more stuff about what's life like in the town or like, what, what, what about one of the hikers?

What do they see stuff?

But it seems like the other accounts give that.

My immediate first thing was I would love like just one part.

It doesn't need to be a huge thing, but if one of the parts was just the guy that delivers the groceries Yeah, yeah, like that'd be a lot of fun, which I'm sure there is something out there for that and I'm glad that there's more to it as well But I can see how people can latch onto this and be like oh, yeah, I'm number This or that you can kind of like make your own if you wanted to it really leaves it open and I think that's what uh win dingus or uh is it kale what's what's what's what's their name again

It is Kel Byron.

Kel Byron.

That's one thing I think Kel did really good is create a universe where it's just like they are writing this specific thing, but it's very easy to jump in.

And I think with this kind of format of like internet open writing and creepypasta, it's fun whenever it's an idea that, you know, anybody can just kind of hop in and you kind of understand the rules and you can kind of just make whatever amalgamation into the woods or put your own kind of stuff into it.

Cause we got a lot of fun.

It's also so much like fun little vignettes like the guy that delivered groceries.

It's just like, yeah, there's just a guy that carries stuff out here.

Think about all the stuff he's seen.

And we see him once and that's it.

And there's little moments like that.

There's so much you could go with but it's just like no for this first part we're just sticking with these two characters this is our story and there will be more about those other people later there's got to be way more way more with daniel too i mean i think that like

i think the police or the local government whatever it seems like they specifically let certain people in on this job i i mean it kind of seems like it's like well if you're willing to do it but it just seems like uh I don't know.

I'm curious if there's more development of like how and why they let people

run this thing.

And it seems like I'm curious to see like what's the average length people survive.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So who knows?

All in all, really fun story, though.

I would really, really highly urge people to go and

just get some of these, the physical books.

I mean, like, we read this parts one through nine.

There is a full novel that's reimagined and contextualized to be a novel.

So if you really enjoyed this.

Everything we read is just the first part.

Then there's the second part, which is titled

We're Always on the Air at 104.6 FM and some standalone stories.

And then like I said, this is going to be a trilogy.

So all that stuff is just book one.

And then there's book two that has a bunch of other parts.

And then there's a book three coming out.

So we'll have their stuff linked in the description.

Like I said, there's an audio book where they have like Mr.

Creepypasta narration and stuff like that.

That's like 10 hours long over book one.

So there's a ton more content linked below if this story interests you.

Highly recommend you check it out.

Yeah.

And also thank you to all the audio listeners that stuck with us today on Spotify and Apple Podcast and give us a good rating there.

And to all of the patrons who support this channel and just get all the little bonus content as well.

We appreciate you.

And for anybody interested, be sure to check out the website in the description or in the link below.

Go to creepcast.store if you want some merch from us, get some nice, fun fabric.

We have a lot of cool shirts this time around, I'm stoked.

So, be sure to check that out.

It's a lot of uh, a lot of fun stuff.

But, other than that, I hope you all have a great rest of your week, and we will see you in the next one.

Stay creeped.

Stay creeped.

Uh, this was a really good story.

Uh, it would have been better if Dan tried in a dad tragic elk/slash fall/slash impalement/slash explosion

incident would have made it cooler, but you know, it's good for good for what it was, I guess.

Bye.