Episode 4 — Dead Air: The Haunted Radio Filed under: Dale’s Serial Files — The One Where I Talked to Myself on the Weather Channel By t...
Episode 4 — Dead Air: The Haunted Radio
Filed under: Dale’s Serial Files — The One Where I Talked to Myself on the Weather Channel
By the time I hit Day... well, I don’t know what number, the loop had worn me down to a nub.
The same Tuesday.
The same humid air, thick enough to chew.
Same spaghetti models, same squirrel, same cursed VHS whispering in the corner like it’s sharing secrets with my VCR.
Every time I smashed the tape, it just showed back up—rewound and smug about it.
But the worst part?
The radio.
I hadn’t touched my old emergency weather radio in years—not since it predicted a hailstorm that turned out to be a neighbor’s roof renovation.
But now it was alive.
Not just buzzing or spitting static. I mean talking—in my voice.
It’d click on right at sundown, without me touching a thing.
And I’d hear it:
“Storm conditions remain in effect, Dale T. Doll. You are advised to remain indoors and monitor yourself closely.”
I chucked it across the room.
Didn’t matter.
It powered back up.
Same message.
Worse—some nights, the voice wasn’t just me. It’d warp—stretch—turn strange.
One evening, I finally gave up and sat right in front of it, cross-legged like a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons from hell.
And wouldn’t you know it, Aunt Nettie’s voice cut in—oily sweet, cooing through the static like she was lounging somewhere between the AM and FM bands:
“Told you it’s better to listen, sugar. You’ve got quite the frequency now.”
I grumbled something about curses and defective electronics.
She just chuckled, like I was a toddler learning how to stack blocks:
“Oh, darling. That’s not just a radio anymore. It’s tuned to you. You are the forecast.”
I swear the walls pulsed when she said it.
Then, the broadcast shifted again. This time, it wasn’t my voice.
It was the storm itself—wind howling, waves crashing, distant thunder rolling closer like slow applause.
And somewhere in there… a chant.
Low and rumbling, repeating under the wind:
“Spiral in, spiral out, windward bound and earth devout…”
Same chant from those Buc-ee’s weirdos.
Except this time, I felt it under my skin—like barometric pressure sinking in my bones.
Suddenly, the radio voice asked me a question:
“Where were you when the wind first called your name, Dale?”
The room went cold.
I knew that voice.
It wasn’t Nettie.
It wasn’t me.
It was the wind itself.
I panicked, reaching for the plug—but Aunt Nettie’s voice piped up, playful and sharp:
“Ah-ah. Unplugging won’t work now, sugar. You’re part of the signal.”
That’s when Verity showed up again—no doorbell, no knock, just there, standing calmly in my kitchen like she'd wandered in for coffee.
She was holding what looked like a small, glowing compass—or maybe some alien-looking barometer. It was spinning wildly.
“You’re entangled, Dale,” she said, eyeing the radio with a sort of clinical boredom, like it was just another malfunctioning kitchen appliance.
“These old devices were never meant for recursive metaphysical broadcasts. You’ve become… localized.”
I asked—rather politely given the circumstances—if she could de-localize me.
She simply tapped the radio with her strange tool.
“You must answer it,” she said, almost apologetic. “It’s rude to ignore a direct summons.”
Then, poof—gone again.
The radio clicked loudly. Static cleared.
That deep, howling voice repeated:
“Where were you when the wind first called your name, Dale?”
I swallowed hard, staring at the speaker like it might bite me.
I knew the answer.
“In the attic,” I whispered, “watching the storms roll in when I was a kid.”
The wind shrieked, loud enough to rattle the walls.
The radio crackled out one final message:
“Then it’s time you came home.”
And just like that—blackout.
When I came to, I wasn’t in my living room anymore.
I was somewhere else.
Somewhere inside the storm.
Posts
COMMENTS