I backed away from the Millers, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. Their open mouths didn't look human anymore—they looked like dark, bottomless pits emitting that horrific, high-pitched whine.
I turned and ran toward the old creek, the only place where the houses ended and the woods began. My ears were ringing so loudly I could barely hear my own footsteps. Just as the purple glow of the streetlights began to fade, a hand reached out from the darkness of a dense thicket and grabbed my jacket.
"Don't scream," a gravelly voice hissed. "Unless you want to become another speaker in their choir."
I was pulled forcefully into what looked like an old, rusted shipping container hidden among the trees. The door slammed shut, and for the first time in an hour, the screaming static stopped.
The silence was so sudden it was painful.
The interior of the container was lined with shimmering copper mesh, pinned to every square inch of the walls and ceiling. Shelves groaned under the weight of old vacuum tubes, copper coils, and glowing green oscilloscopes. In the center sat an old man with thick glasses, his hands shaking as he adjusted a dial on a massive, prehistoric-looking radio.
"Who are you?" I gasped, leaning against the copper-lined wall.
"I'm the man who told them this would happen," he said, not looking up. "Name's Arthur. I spent thirty years at the valley station. We were supposed to be monitoring deep-space pulses, but we found something else. Something closer."
He turned a knob, and a soft, rhythmic thump-thump sound filled the room. It sounded like a heartbeat.
"The Dead Air isn't a ghost, son," Arthur said, finally looking at me. His eyes were wide with a mix of terror and obsession. "It's a predatory frequency. It's an intelligence made of sound. It needs a 'vessel' to vibrate through because it has no shape of its own. It starts with your electronics, then it moves to your mind."
"My father," I whispered. "I heard his voice. I saw him."
Arthur shook his head sadly. "It wasn't him. It just used the remnants of his voice caught in the local airwaves. It's bait. It lures you in until you open a door—or a window—and then it pours itself into you."
Suddenly, the shipping container groaned. A heavy thud struck the outside wall. Then another.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
The copper mesh on the walls began to glow with a faint, violet light.
"They followed you," Arthur whispered, reaching for a heavy headset. "The Signal knows we're in here. The mesh will hold for a while, but it's like a dam holding back an ocean of noise. If we don't find a way to jam the source, this whole town is going to become one giant, screaming mouth."
Outside, a hundred voices began to whisper my name in perfect unison, vibrating the metal walls until the air itself felt like it was humming.