Dead air on the dial.

The blood was the loudest part.
Not the sound of it—because spilling blood is surprisingly quiet, a soft, wet hiss against the hardwood floor—but the sheer, overwhelming volume of it. Brenta never knew a human body could hold that much. It pooled around Erik’s head, soaking into his light hair, turning the pale rug a deep, angry maroon.

He lay twisted between the kitchen counter and the refrigerator, his eyes wide and glassy, staring at nothing. The heavy iron skillet Brenta used was still in her hand, her fingers locked around the handle so tightly they were bone white.

It wasn’t planned.
It was a flash of pure, claustrophobic rage.
Another toxic argument, another night of him trying to twist her mind until she felt insane, another shove that finally went too far.

Brenta didn’t make the rules of survival; she just followed them.
And according to her own personal code, Rule Number C was absolute:

Don’t be the first to start a fight,
but be the one to finish it.

When the skillet hit his temple, the world cracked open.
The third strike had stopped his screaming forever.
She had killed him with kindness — and a heavy blunt object to the skull.

Brenta didn’t cry.
She didn’t panic.
Her heart felt cold, solid, and utterly empty.

She had too many kids sleeping upstairs — Zoee, Kayla, Hayden, Roman, Alex, Dominic, Abel, Rune, and little Cyndle — to lose her mind now.

She had to protect them.

She spent two grueling hours dragging Erik down to the cellar, his concrete-scraping heels leaving faint trails. She wrapped him in an old canvas tarp, bound it tight with heavy duct tape, and pushed him deep into the crawlspace behind the water heater. It was dark, tight, and smelled of damp earth.

He belonged there.

By midnight, the kitchen was scrubbed clean.
The bleach fumes burned her throat, but the wood was spotless.
She stripped off her stained clothes, threw them into the furnace, and took a shower so hot her skin turned raw.

She needed to drive.
She needed the open road, the dark Maine pines, and the empty highway to clear the chemical smell out of her lungs and the ghost of him out of her head.

She got into her old Buick Grand National, the engine turning over with a ragged cough. The dashboard clock glowed 2:14 AM. The silence inside the car was suffocating, heavy with the phantom weight of Erik sitting in the passenger seat.

To drown it out, she reached over and flicked on the radio.

Static exploded from the speakers.
A harsh, white-noise roar that made her wince.

She hit the seek button.
The digital dial scanned through the frequencies.

89.1…
92.3…
95.5…

Nothing but an empty hiss.
She was too deep in the boonies, surrounded by hills that swallowed signals whole.

Brenta was about to turn it off when the scanner stopped dead.

109.4 FM.

That frequency didn’t exist.
Commercial FM radio ends at 108.0.

But the scanner sat there, locked onto the impossible number.

The static on 109.4 wasn’t normal white noise.
It sounded wet.
A low, rhythmic, bubbling sound, like someone trying to breathe through a throat full of fluid.

Her hand froze over the dial.

Then came the tone.
A sharp, piercing emergency broadcast whine that vibrated through her teeth.
It cut out abruptly, replaced by the heavy, crackling distortion of an old microphone.

“...test...” a voice whispered.

The blood in Brenta’s veins turned to liquid ice.
The voice was distant, warped by a terrible digital echo, but she knew it.
She knew the slight drawl.
She knew the cadence.

“Testing... one, two... is this thing on?”

It was Erik.

Brenta slammed her foot on the brake, the tires screeching violently against the empty asphalt. The Chevy skidded to a halt in the middle of the dark road, the headlights cutting a lonely path into the black wall of trees.

“No,” she breathed, staring at the glowing dashboard, her hands shaking so hard she could barely hold the steering wheel. “No, no, no.”

“Hey, babe,” Erik’s voice crackled through the front speakers.
The sound was accompanied by a wet, sickening pop — the distinct sound of a broken jaw resetting itself.

“I know you’re listening. You always turn the radio on when you’re scared.”

“You’re dead,” Brenta screamed at the dashboard, her protective mother’s instinct turning into pure, raw terror. “You’re down in the cellar!”

“It’s really dark down here,” Erik said.
His tone was casual, conversational — the exact same voice he used when he was laying on the couch, playing his psychological mind games.

But beneath the casualness was a wet, choking rattle.

“The tarp is tight, Brenta. The duct tape is pulling at my skin. And it smells like old rust. You didn’t clean behind the water heater very well.”

A burst of static ripped through the car, loud as a gunshot.

When it cleared, the background noise had changed.

Brenta could hear something dragging.
Canvas sliding over rough concrete.
A slow, heavy, thumping sound.

“The reception is better out here in the hall,” Erik’s voice was closer now, panning from the left speaker to the right, wrapping around her head.

“I found an old baby monitor in the junk box. I didn’t know it could broadcast this far. Did you know that, Brenta? Did you know dead things could make a signal?”

Brenta slammed her palm against the power button.
The radio display went completely black.

The voice didn’t stop.

“Turning it off won’t help, babe,” the speakers hummed, the volume rising entirely on its own, vibrating the plastic of the doors. “I’m already in the wires. I’m in the alternator. I’m in the battery.”

She reached under the dash and frantically yanked at the wires, tearing them loose until her knuckles bled. The radio unit pulled completely out of the dashboard, hanging by a thread, its screen dead and dark.

From the hollow, empty cavity of the dashboard, his voice kept pouring out, raw and acoustic, as if his mouth was pressed right against the air vents.

“I’m at the edge of the driveway now,” he whispered, the wet bubbling sound in his throat growing louder, heavier, frantic. “The iron skillet really did a number on my head, Brenta. My eye won’t stay in the socket. But I can still see the road. I see your taillights.”

Brenta threw the car into reverse, her foot slamming the gas, a sob finally breaking through her throat. The car roared backward, the headlights swinging around, illuminating the empty, foggy road behind her.

There was nothing there.
Just empty pavement.

“Look closer,” the dead voice giggled from the air vents, a sickening, broken sound. “I’m not behind you, Brenta. I’m a recording. I’m a broadcast from ten minutes in the future.”

The car engine spluttered.
The headlights flickered, dimmed, and died completely, plunging her into pitch blackness.
The dashboard clock blinked out.

In the absolute dark of the car, the air vents hissed with a final, crystal-clear transmission.

It wasn’t static anymore.
It was the sound of a car door clicking open.
The squelch of a wet, heavy canvas tarp dragging across the backseat.

And then, right next to her ear, a wet, cold breath.

“Thanks for driving me home.”