I spent a good two days in the hospital just learning how to navigate around the world with only one eye. In case you weren’t aware, getting used to lowered perception of depth is absolute, unadulterated bullshit.
Yes, this is Evelyn. And I’ll be honest with you. For a bit of time there, I actually considered giving up trying to tell my story. Then I remembered that Daniel could have quit the day he lost his hearing and still showed up to work a day earlier than expected. Call me stubborn, but I am not going to let that nerd show me up, since I’m pretty sure I’d never hear the end of it. So, here I am, back at the radio station and with more of a tale to tell.
I may have lost an actual part of my body, but I’d argue that Daniel got the worst of it. He was unconscious for two entire days after the ordeal in the woods, and when I was well enough to get out of my own room and visit him, they told me he was lucky that his spine hadn’t been cracked. He had fractured ribs, a ton of bruising, a pretty serious concussion, and needed stitches on the side of his head. As for me, the lost eye was the worst of it, and the rest of the bruises around my neck just made it look like I was into some seriously kinky shit.
The morning we were both free to go, we took a quiet, awkward taxi back to the radio tower. The drive was long and dreadful, seeing the mountains and trees come into view. Being in the hospital sucked, sure, but something about being in a different town around different people was almost like a vacation once we got over the horror and injury aspects of it all. When we arrived, we found Finn at the controls, looking tired but not necessarily unhappy to see us. Apparently the ordeal on the night of the wedding had been punishment enough for how much responsibility we dumped on him.
“You both look like garbage.” He said. Straight-to-the-point, honest, brutal. I appreciated that. I watched him scrunch his brows together, looking at me before pointing to his own eye. “When can you get that bandage off?”
“No idea.” I shrugged, then used one finger and a hollow cheek to make a ‘pop’ noise out of the corner of my mouth. “Scooped it out like a melon ball.”
Finn visibly cringed at that as he turned back to the desk. I heard a quiet murmur of ‘sweet Jesus’ under his breath, and I’ll admit that I was a little proud to get a reaction. I was sick and tired of crying and moping about it. If I couldn't make a joke at my own expense, who was I anymore?
“Anything happen while we were gone?” I asked.
Finn sat back down, though I half expected him to be in his car and halfway down the driveway as soon as we arrived. “A few things.” He said casually. “I got a nice complaint from the police chief for still carrying a gun to work, even though it saved your asses. So that’s confiscated now. Ugly bird won’t leave. There was some earthquake on Tuesday, caused a weird sinkhole out by the treeline that took down a security camera. I put it back up somewhere else though. We got some phone calls. Local news wanted to interview you both about Bernard. Police intercepted the plans and said ‘no’ to that idea though, and left it as a write-up in the paper about a bear attack or--”
“Who the hell is Bernard?” I interrupted.
Finn raised his brows, peering over one shoulder. “The three-year-old you chased into the woods.”
I shook my head, slumping down into the second chair while Dan busied himself starting a pot of coffee. “I feel bad for the little guy.”
“Why?” Finn asked. “He hardly had a scratch on him. You did good, kiddo.”
“No, because his name is Bernard. Have you ever met a Bernard that wasn't fifty five and balding? Or who fought in the goddamn civil war? Let's ask this toddler if he remembers the industrial revolution. And don’t call me kiddo.”
Finn pushed himself out of his seat with a chuckle, leaving me alone at the controls. “Good to have you back. Kiddo.”
I scanned the screens in front of me. The security cameras were up and running with nothing weird to see. All of the tabs on the screen were minimized in a perfect grid, and Finn had even mathematically timed a list of songs to fit each 30-minute block down to the goddamn second. This guy was better at my job than I was.
“You going home already?” I saw him walk away, but instead of grabbing his things and heading out the door, he was just strolling towards the kitchen.
“No ma’am,” he told me. “I’m getting overtime to relax and drink coffee while you do all the work this afternoon.”
Daniel appeared in the doorway then, two generic white cups in his hands. He passed one over to Finn with a grimace of apology. “The water’s rusty. I put extra creamer in it though.” He handed me the second cup, and I looked into the oddly orange-tinted liquid with some hesitation before realizing I had probably drank worse tasting and more harmful things. I gave it a sniff, and something about it made my stomach churn.
“It smells like iron.” I said, taking the smallest possible sip. “Bleh. It tastes like how biting your tongue feels.”
Finn was avoiding ingesting even a drop from the cup at all costs, giving it a scrutinizing look instead. Sure, rusted pipes weren’t pleasant, but I had been here long enough not to be picky about that sort of thing. He apparently didn’t agree.
“I should, uh … check the plumbing, probably.”
Daniel took Finn’s chair when the latter of the two disappeared through the kitchen door. We were back to where we used to be, just the two of us sitting in front of these headache-inducing screens, headsets sitting next to us and waiting to be used. The last few days had dragged on for so long that it felt surreal to be back, as if we had been away for months. I didn’t like this sense of newness that it brought, like sitting down behind the desks for the first time all over again.
“We’ve got some time to waste,” Daniel said, setting his coffee cup to the side of his keyboard. It always made me nervous how closely he placed it to our delicate technology. “There’s quite a lot of those cassette tapes to get through. Do you need a break from the creepy shit or do you want to put one in?”
My gaze left my coworker’s face and wandered to the corner of the room underneath one edge of the look-out window. The cassette player was sitting there neatly, the tapes stacked around it. “We’re never gonna get a break from the creepy shit,” I told him, marching over to the pile of tapes and searching for the next one on the list.
This recording was a relatively short one, but I still think it merits transcribing. Here’s everything Eric, or Number 7, had to say:
“It’s December Fifth, 2012. I’ve been told time and time again that we’ll find a Number Eight soon so that I can get some time out of this broadcast tower, but it hasn’t happened. I’m starting to think I’ll be waiting much longer than they make it sound.
One of the officers from the police station stopped by today, giving some information on Number Six. The executive decision was made to never tell his family how he had died. Instead, they told his wife and two sons that it was an animal attack - not entirely untrue, I suppose - and that the condition of his body would make a swift cremation preferable. Thankfully, they agreed. No one ever had to see him or the parts they didn’t recover, except for those of us here.
Our conversation was interesting for other reasons, however. The officer, whose name escapes me but started with an ‘F’ if I recall correctly, was curious about my time working in wildlife conservation. In turn, he told me an interesting fact about this location and what it used to be for.
At first glance, I could tell that it was supposed to be a firewatch or a ranger’s outpost of some sort, as the building is much older than the radio mast that reaches above it. He told me that there’s been an outpost in this exact location for almost a century. Before the radio was built, this entire area was blocked off. About two decades ago, fences were places all around the town to discourage people from going into the woods, though a few kids probably still tried. The watchtower itself was occupied by local law enforcement, but when the fences didn’t keep people from snooping, they had to disguise the tower as something more simplistic. Something they would trust, where they’d never question what was happening up there. A radio station.
According to the officer I spoke to, the first known solution to our unique problem was a tower that was built here before this building ever existed. Members of the town council would take turns keeping watch in the towers, and would ring a bell to chase off anything that came out of the woods, seeing as they hated the sharp sound that it made. It sounds like a rotten solution to me, considering they would have to ring it constantly to avoid anything coming through undetected. I’m glad our technology is more sophisticated today than it was back then. Still, an interesting fact.
It’s another fog day. I’m prepared this time, thankfully, and I don’t intend on ending up like my former coworker. The only thing distracting me is this bird sitting near the window. It’s the same bird from yesterday, sitting almost in the same exact spot. Something about its dark, beady eyes makes me feel uncomfortable. Maybe by tomorrow, it’ll be gone.”
Of all the recordings, this was probably the least traumatic of them all, but somehow the most useful. When it was over and the tape was left with nothing but empty space, I ejected it from the machine and set it aside, both elbows on the table and a crinkle in my brow.
“It makes sense,” I remarked, eyes scanning the wall until they fell upon the red emergency button. “I guess that’s why we still call it ‘The Bell.’”
At that point, I was just about to put my headset on and get ready for a news broadcast when a pair of heavy footsteps began to stomp towards us from the kitchen. I recognized Finn’s various walks: sometimes he marched around like a herd of buffalo, sometimes he was quieter than a shadow on the floor. This time, his feet raced quickly towards us with more urgency than anger.
He grabbed both of our coffee cups, his own expression looking sick. I lifted one ear of my headset to hear him babbling on his way to the kitchen.
“The water’s not rusty. You don’t want this.”
I took off my headphones fully. “What?”
“I said, you don’t want this.” I could hear him pouring the coffee down the sink, both cups at once. Now, I know I should have just assumed that our sink is always going to be fucking weird, and left it at that. But curiosity tore me away from the comfort of my rolling chair and into the kitchen doorway, where the sight of the mess made my gut churn.
The sink was bubbling again. Large bubbles of thick red liquid popped and left splatters on the edges of the basin. Finn’s hands were covered in it, leaving fingerprints on the coffee cups he had stolen away from us. He turned to me, a scowl of disgust on his face, and showed me the red stain on his fingers.
“Smell the water.” He demanded.
“...No?”
“Smell it.”
“Let me clarify this time. Fuck no.”
Before Finn could further pressure me to inspect the scent of the dirty red sink, a large bubble popped and sprayed droplets across the side of his face, causing him to squint one eye and grimace as a shiver went down his spine.
“It’s not water.” he told me, wiping his face. “It’s blood. And it’s warm. Have you ever seen your sink do this before?”
I didn’t answer him right away, too busy wishing somehow I could wipe the taste off of my tongue. God, I drank that. I actually put that in my mouth. My own, actual human mouth. I was busy trying not to gag and all that Finn could ask was if this has happened before.
Strangely, the answer was yes. That fact made me want to rip the sink right out of the kitchen and chuck it into the woods.
“Ugh … uh, yeah. It has. Once, on the night I called you. While Elijah was here for the first time.”
Months earlier, when I spent my first few weeks here in the tower, I wondered how on earth a voice got in the pipes. Jennifer’s voice, specifically. What I still assume was some creepy parlor trick meant to scare us brought a new level of disgusting to light when I thought about where the water in our taps came from. The ground beneath us, the soil we shared with the forest, was as rotten as the roots that had squeezed the life out of my friend.
“We’re drinking bottled water from now on.” I announced, my voice a quiet rattle in my discomfort. “The cheap shit. I don’t care.”
Was it ever a wonder why this place was making everyone sick? I never slept, I hardly wanted to eat, and now the forest had taken a piece of me for its own. I was positive that I wasn’t the first person to feel like trash just from spending too much time here. And now there was blood coming up from the ground and into the water supply. God, this place was fucking unlivable.
I was sick of this kitchen, turning my back just to get away from it. There wasn’t any time to sit down, however, as a sound surprised both Finn and I: it was a knock on the door. Through the small glass window, just big enough to peek a face through, I could see someone on the other side, anxiously waiting to be invited in. Elijah was back, just when I thought we’d never see him again.
“Oh shit, it’s him again.” I whispered hoarsely to Finn, who was inspecting a partially-bruised tangerine from the kitchen. He put it down on the counter to peer around and catch a glimpse of our visitor from behind the glass. “Finn, stick around in case he tries any shit. Dan … don’t get punched in the nose again.”
I watched Elijah lift his fist to knock on the door again, but I had grabbed the handle and forced it open before he could. Before I could even get a word out to say ‘hello’ or ‘what the hell do you want?’, he was inside the station and pacing back and forth with his hands dug deep into the pockets of his sweater. It was July. He didn’t need a sweater.
“I had to come back. I can’t stop thinking about it.” He was speaking fast, one hand removed to gesticulate wildly as he spoke. He circled around the room, passing me and then passing the window. When he rounded the end of the table where Daniel sat, my coworker actively moved a few inches to keep out of his way. “I can’t fall asleep anymore. When I do, I … I see her every single time, as soon as I start to dream. I leave all the lights on, the television, the radio, anything to keep me awake.”
He stopped walking, having ended up next to the kitchen doorway. He leaned against the wall with his forehead pressed against it, one arm limp at his side.
“It doesn’t work. I look out my window and I see the woods. The trees. Every photo of her doesn’t look like her anymore. It looks like…” He was unwilling to say it, but I knew. After seeing her dead, it was hard to imagine her alive anymore. “Goddamnit, I can’t even turn on the radio without remembering it. I hear this broadcast, I hear you, and the sound makes my brain fucking itch!”
“Elijah,” Finn spoke sternly with a hand clapped down on the other man’s shoulder. “You need to relax. You need to talk to someone about this.”
Elijah laughed. He laughed and he shook his head as he pulled away from Finn’s grasp, resuming his quick stomp to the front of the room and out of reach. “I am!” He shouted, and when he would shout it a second time, he threw both hands up in the air. Inside his pocket, he had been carrying a semiautomatic pistol, which he waved up above his head.
“I am! I’m talking to you,” he pointed it at Finn. “And you, and you!” The gun faced Daniel and I both one at a time before centering back on the former police officer, who had changed his mind immediately about stepping forward to grab him.
The three of us were frozen in place as Elijah’s eyes darted, waiting to see who would move first. I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t stupid enough to get closer knowing that I couldn’t defend myself against a gun. However, I also never knew when to keep my mouth shut.
“You’re acting like a fucking idiot. Now please, put that down!” A tone of voice that I thought was demanding only earned a laugh from him.
“I’m the fucking idiot, huh?” It was chilling, the way he managed to laugh, grimace, and now shed tears all at the same time. His tired eyes were wet and his hand shook when the gun was pointed my way. “I’m the idiot, because I’m the only one looking for justice? How much did you hate her, Lyn? Enough to let her die and then sit up here like it never happened? We don’t even have a body to bury anymore and you’re up here talking about the weather, just fucking peachy!”
As soon as his finger began to twitch near the trigger, I could see Finn begin to move. He was side-stepping across the room from one end to the other, both of his hands up. But even as he inched closer, Elijah didn’t take the gun off of me.
“I didn’t hate her.” As my voice trembled, I became aware of Daniel’s hand now tightly gripping my own. “How could you think I wanted her to die? How? Elijah, I miss her so goddamn much, you don’t even realize! I want her back too.”
His trembling finger began to steady. The shake of the gun no longer rattled as loudly as it did before, his lips pursed in a thin frown. He was glaring, unblinkingly, taking heavy breaths through his nose.
“Then act like it.”
After he said those word, I expected the next loud noise to be the shot of the gun, but instead, an ear-piercing alarm cut into the open air, shrieking in the cramped space. I covered my ears, Daniel fidgeted with his hearing aid, and Elijah’s concentration broke long enough for him to drop the gun and put both palms on the sides of his head.
Finn had been circling around the room with a purpose. He had pushed open the fire escape door, which sounded the blaring alarm now tormenting all of our ears. As the siren continued, I watched Daniel as he released my hand and raced across the room, kicking the handgun across the floor to sit at Finn’s feet. He stooped to pick it up, releasing the magazine and shoving the now unloaded gun into his belt loop. With the same hand, he pulled out a ring of keys, using one of them to disable the alarm box next to the door.
I was instantly pissed that Finn had a copy of those keys, but somehow they never gave me one.
“Get out.” The former officer said, gesturing towards the fire escape. “You’re going to sit on the stair, both hands on the railing, and I’m going to watch you until the police get here. If you so much as move two feet, I’ll have this thing loaded and aimed before you reach the first landing down. Now go.”
Without his weapon, Elijah’s confidence seemed to drain. It was like watching dirt wash away under a water tap, there one moment and gone the very next. He had no words to speak, only a tremble in his breath as he followed Finn’s orders and left the room, his anger turning into what looked like shame, embarrassment, maybe disappointment.
“Wait, wait.” Daniel stopped Finn from closing the door behind Elijah, slipping through the crack just as it was about to latch. When he was outside in the sun, easing himself down next to the same man who just pointed a gun at him, Finn and I both exchanged looks.
“Your part-timer’s a dumbass.” He said to me.
And I agreed.
With the fear of danger in the room somewhat dissipated, I joined the party huddled around the fire escape, sliding through the doorway and leaning there against the outside wall. Finn had propped the door open with one of our chairs, making some distance while he used the phone.
Elijah wrapped his hands tightly around the railing. His eyes were squinting as he looked out across the treetops, blinded by the sunlight.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse as he spoke to Dan. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just hate this place and everything it’s done. I hate that I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Daniel didn’t attempt to touch him or even sit close, but there was compassion somewhere in the way he looked at him. We both understood, I think. The part with the gun was a little over-the-top, sure, but I think at one point or another, we both wished we could just leave and never think about the radio station again.
“What’s keeping you here?” Dan asked.
I saw Elijah shrug his shoulders after a moment of thought. “I don’t know. It’s where we lived together, it’s where we’ve been all this time.”
Daniel shook his head. “No. No, that’s a shit reason. If you hate it and the memories just hurt now, there’s no good reason to stay. You can take the good memories with you, you know. No one ever said you had to leave those behind.” Elijah rested his chin on the railing, eyes focused up at the clouds. When he didn’t answer, Dan spoke again. “You need to get out of town, Elijah. You don’t have to come back.”
Sometimes, I think living in a small town makes it seem impossible to leave. You forget that there’s more outside of the village limits and that those long, endless roads surrounded in woods or corn fields or abandoned barns actually go somewhere. We were sitting in a world of complete isolation, but it wasn’t forever. It only reached so far.
Elijah wiped his face, a few stray patches of tears having collected on the surface of his skin. One hand reached into his pocket, but he pulled it out quickly, a box of handgun bullets slapped down on the floor of the fire escape.
“Keep it.” he said, sliding the box towards Dan. “Keep the gun. I don’t need it and I don’t want it, but you might.”
Daniel’s silent thank you came in the form of a nod as he picked up the box, setting it in his lap. Moments later, Finn was at the doorway again, moving the chair out of the way and gesturing towards Elijah to stand up.
“I made the call,” he said. I expected him to follow it up with a warning for Elijah’s arrest, and I think the others did too. “I told them the alarm went off by accident. No one’s coming out. But you have to leave, Elijah, and you can’t come back. Can you promise me that?”
Elijah stood, his hands dropping from the railing and releasing the white-knuckle grip. “Yeah,” he said with a nod, glancing towards Daniel and then towards me. “I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that.”
The gun and bullets were stored safely in one of the desks between where Dan and I sat. Elijah left, getting in his car and disappearing down the gravel road. I stood outside to revel in the fresh air for just a few minutes, and realized something that felt strange to me. This was probably the last time I’d ever see Elijah again. I hope so, really. I hope he listens. I hope he finds something better.
But I wish he could have taken us with him.
This is Evelyn at 104.6FM, and the gun in the desk is giving me an idea.
---
Credits
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