I work the night shift at a small, independent radio station tucked into the edge of a dying town. WZLP 104.6—“Whispers After Midnight.” Most people don’t even know we still exist. The studio is a prefab box from the 70s, a creaking fossil covered in flaking acoustic foam and haunted by the smell of stale coffee and cigarette smoke no one’s admitted to smoking.
We don’t play much music anymore. Management decided last year we’d do “community engagement,” which basically means open phone lines, local announcements, and occasionally reading weird chain emails from lonely locals. No one listens. That’s what I used to think.
Until the night we got that call.
It was late October. Wind was clawing at the siding, and I had just come back from a smoke break. The world outside was black—true black, not suburban orange-black. The kind of black that swallows you. Only the tower’s blinking red light broke it.
I was settling in, flicking through a few dusty CDs for filler music when the phone line lit up. Line 3. That was weird. We never used Line 3. It was technically disconnected.
The LED flashed insistently.
I picked up.
“WZLP, you’re on the air,” I said, not bothering to hide my yawn.
There was a pause. Then a voice—hoarse, but polite.
“Hello. Am I coming through?”
“…Yeah. Loud and clear.”
“Good,” the voice said. “You have to listen.”
The air in the booth dropped ten degrees. I could feel it in my teeth.
The man—at least, it sounded like a man—spoke with precise enunciation, like someone who’d rehearsed their lines.
“I’m calling from outside,” he said.
“Outside what?”
“Outside everything.”
I almost laughed. Figured it was a prank. College kids, maybe.
But the voice didn’t laugh. He went on:
“Do not stop the broadcast. Do not cut the signal. You’re the last. The others are gone.”
My finger hovered over the “End Call” button. But something—something in his tone—stopped me.
“Gone where?”
“Out,” he said simply. “Beyond the dead air.”
The booth was quiet, except for the low hum of the tower equipment and my own pulse thudding in my ears. I leaned forward, instinct overriding reason.
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s something in the silence,” the voice said. “Something listening.”
The line crackled. Not static—whispers. Like hundreds of mouths moving, just out of sync. Not saying anything, just breathing syllables into the dark.
“Who are you?”
There was a pause.
“I was like you. I broadcasted and spoke into the void. But the void spoke back.”
I sat in stunned silence, adrenaline starting to spike. The voice continued:
“They came to my station first. Through the gaps. Through the quiet. I tried to warn others. But the signals are corrupted. They ride the noise now. The static. The silence. They need hosts.”
A long exhale hissed through the line. Then, softer:
“You need to keep talking. Or they’ll come.”
Click.
The line went dead.
I didn’t sleep after that. Didn’t even blink. I played every track I had. Read every old news brief. Started describing things in the booth just to fill space: the red “ON AIR” light, the way the desk vibrated when the tower surged, the dead fly trapped in the edge of the mixer.
I checked the transmitter log. Line 3 was still disconnected.
But someone had called me on it.
The next night, I came in early. Checked every wire, every port, every inch of cable. Everything was fine. Normal. Dead quiet.
Until the show started.
At 12:03 AM, the phone lit up again.
Line 3.
I answered it, heart in my throat.
But it wasn’t the same voice.
This time it was… wrong. Too clear. Too smooth. Like someone imitating speech, not speaking. Like someone who had never needed lungs or teeth or a tongue, but had learned to mimic the sound of a man.
“Hello,” it said. “This is WZLP, correct?”
“…Yes.”
“Then you are next.”
The voice dropped, like the ground fell out beneath it. The sound spiraled—deep, looping frequencies that didn’t belong on the AM dial. Then a burst of white noise. Then silence.
The signal board lit up red. The tower power surged. Then dipped.
Then I heard them.
Not through the headphones. Not through the speakers.
Through the walls.
Whispers. Thousands of them. Pressing in. Like air forced through rotten cloth. Shapes in the foam padding. Eyes behind the glass. My reflection flickered—not matching me.
I scrambled, flicked the mic back on, and started reading anything—anything. Weather reports. Baseball scores from ten years ago. I made up traffic jams. Described clouds I couldn’t see.
The whispering pulled back. Faded.
That became the pattern. Every night after midnight, I had to speak.
Had to broadcast.
I couldn’t play pre-recorded content. It didn’t work. It had to be me. My voice. My breath. If I paused too long—if I stopped even for a second—they pressed closer.
The silence is a door. And every night, I was the lock.
Some nights, I could feel them just behind the drywall. Not scratching. Not banging. Just waiting. Listening.
Once, I blacked out for a moment. When I came to, every dial on the board was turned to zero. I hadn’t touched them.
Another time, I looked out the booth window and saw… myself. Standing in the parking lot. Staring back. Motionless. Smiling.
It didn’t leave until sunrise.
I tried quitting. I tried.
Packed a bag. Drove three towns over. Slept in my car. But the static followed me. The radio in my dashboard turned itself on at 12:03. No station ID. Just whispering.
“Come back.”
I did.
It’s been three months. I haven’t seen the sun in weeks. I sleep in the supply closet. I’ve grown used to the schedule.
Midnight to six. Talk until dawn. Fill the air. Block the silence.
Others have started calling. Not listeners. Survivors.
They whisper from dead towns. Empty booths. One guy from Maine said his building had collapsed, but the phone line still worked. Said the creatures couldn’t cross the cables.
Another was hiding in an old Navy radio bunker. Said the things couldn’t cross salt water.
None of them are alive anymore.
The calls stopped.
Tonight, it’s getting worse. The dead air is pressing in earlier.
11:48 PM and the static’s already seeping through the feed. The temperature is dropping. My fingers are stiff. The glass is fogging from the outside.
They’re coming closer.
I don’t know how much longer I can hold them back.
So I’m broadcasting this—my last story.
Not for ratings. Not for recognition.
For you.
You who stumbled on this frequency. Yes… You who stayed up too late. You who heard the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Don’t turn off the radio.
Please, don’t stop listening.
Don’t let the silence in.
[End Transmission]