The Last Broadcast
July 20, 2025
The emergency siren screamed across the valley.
It was the third one this week, and yet again, there was no explanation. No earthquake. No fire. No flood. Just that same, hollow voice on every frequency:
“This is not a test. Stay indoors. Do not answer the door. Do not look outside.”
Riley sat alone in the tiny WZXN radio booth, headphones on, mic off. He hadn’t spoken in three minutes. He didn’t dare. Something about the silence outside the booth didn’t feel natural.
Through the station’s soundproof windows, the lights on Main Street flickered like a dying pulse.
He reached for the switch.
“WZXN Radio, 102.7,” he said slowly. “This is Riley Kincaid. If anyone out there is still listening… send a sign. Any sign. I’m still here.”
He paused, waiting.
Only static replied.
Three days earlier, the power went out across town at 3:17 AM. Everything—streetlights, homes, even backup generators—cut out in perfect unison.
At 3:18 AM, the siren began.
Riley, a night-shift DJ with insomnia and nothing better to do, had been in the studio. The generator kept his equipment alive.
He thought it was just a power outage.
Until the siren came back the next night.
And the next.
Each time, the voice followed.
“This is not a test. Stay indoors. Do not answer the door. Do not look outside.”
The strangest part? There was no town emergency system. No official broadcast frequency. Riley had worked in radio for six years. He knew every scheduled signal in a fifty-mile radius. This voice came from somewhere else—somewhere wrong.
By the fourth night, the town was empty.
Phones stopped working. The internet died. Cars sat abandoned in the middle of the street. A neighbor’s porch light flickered for hours, even though Riley knew the man who lived there—Mr. Delacroix—had vanished the day before.
Now it was just Riley, the hum of the booth, and the distant siren still playing like a broken lullaby.
Then:
Tap. Tap.
The sound came from the glass window separating the booth from the main studio.
Riley jumped. His heart pounded like a bass drum in his throat.
“Hello?” he called out.
No answer.
He stood slowly, pulled the door open, and stepped into the dark studio.
Empty.
But the window had a handprint. Greasy. Wrong. The fingers were too long. And there were seven of them.
He backed away. Closed the booth door. Locked it.
The siren stopped.
The radio static cut out.
For the first time in days, there was silence.
Then the voice returned. But it wasn’t through the speakers.
It came through his headphones—inside his ears.
“You are not alone, Riley.”
He ripped the headphones off and threw them across the room. They hit the wall with a thud.
“No,” he muttered. “Not listening.”
The station lights dimmed. The air grew colder.
He turned to the control board and flipped every switch off.
But the mic light stayed red.
Recording.
Broadcasting.
“Do not look outside,” the voice whispered again.
But Riley did.
He approached the booth’s window and peeked through the blinds.
The world was wrong.
The street was still there—but it twisted upward like a spiral staircase into a starless sky. Houses stretched like wax. Trees pulsed with slow, breathing movements. Shadows crawled across surfaces that had no light.
Then he saw them.
Figures.
Dozens.
Tall, thin, impossible. All facing the radio station. All still.
And then one waved.
Not with a hand. With a twitching limb that uncoiled like rope.
Riley collapsed to the floor.
When he woke up, the studio was dark.
The emergency siren blared again.
“This is not a test. Stay indoors. Do not answer the door.”
He groaned, pulling himself up.
The headphones lay on the floor where he had thrown them. But now, they whispered.
He picked them up slowly.
“Say something, Riley. Tell us what you see.”
His mouth was dry. His heart beat painfully in his ribs.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
Silence.
Then:
“You called out. We answered.”
“You are the broadcast now.”
The mic light flickered.
He stared at the red bulb, breathing heavily.
Then a knock.
Three knocks. Sharp. Deliberate. At the booth door.
He turned slowly.
A silhouette stood beyond the window. Its head scraped the ceiling. Its limbs coiled in too many directions.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
He reached toward the microphone, trembling.
“WZXN… Radio… 102.7,” he whispered. “I… I don’t think I’m alone anymore.”
Outside, every radio in the town turned on at once.
They all played Riley’s voice.
And in every abandoned house, in every empty street, speakers whispered in unison:
“This is not a test.”
“You are the broadcast now.”
“Do not answer the door.”