Numbers Station
by admin on Mar.01, 2010, under Flash Fiction
(This story reuses a character from Field Circus and Sick Leave. Particularly proud of those stories, perhaps you’d be kind enough to take a look?)
No one asked why Deputy Connors was wandering around the backwoods with an analog radio in the passenger seat and a notepad on his thigh. Ever mile or so, he would stop and make a note:
“louder”
“louder”
“slightly louder”
“louder”
“quieter”
“quieter”
He turned back, after that second note and drove two miles, and turned off onto a dirt road that meandered through the woods, and down away from the hills.
After attempting to flick a cigarette butt out the window only to have it land in his lap and cause him to almost swerve into a tree, he resolved to stop smoking in the car. At least he wasn’t wearing his uniform, explaining that to the staff, and the sheriff, would have been problematic.
At least he didn’t have to go into work today. He didn’t even have to get out of bed after the incidents with the infanticide church and the amateur surgeon. They’d taken away his gun.
But there was something that had been bugging him the entire time he’d been here.
“Slightly louder”
“quieter”
“quieter”
He sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose, before breaking his ten-minute-old resolution.
As he lit up, he turned around the car and headed back to the intersection, up into the deep hills.
It gradually grew louder.
Immediately after it began to quiet, he threw the car into reverse and looked for any way to turn off the road. Seeing none, he pulled off to the side of the road, locked up, and took the radio with him.
His cigarette dropped, and he watched it, before stomping it out in the grass. He could see the bruise-dark circles beneath his eyes when he looked down.
No sleep. Just the hallways. “Navidson Syndrome,” they called it. He was one of three cases in the past fifty years. Lucky him.
Going to the trunk, he removed the brown paper bag and removed the cap of the forty with his teeth.
Nearly an hour later, the signal was deafeningly loud. He adjusted the volume, taking it down to almost nothing. Still the volume increased.
Above the trees, he could see the girders of a radio antenna. He drew closer, and could see the concrete structure that the antenna rested on. There was no fence, and the rusted metal door hung open.
When he entered the clearing, he dropped the bottle and its paper bag.
Pressing forward, he reached the structure, and pulled out his pocket knife. Opening it, he looked into the door: he could see the flickering of candle light inside, and a large switch on the opposite wall.
He opened the door, and looked around the room. Old equipment, damaged by rain and exposure, but not inoperable. Lights flickered, and an oscilloscope danced.
But in the middle of the room was a plywood box with a black cloth draped over it. Two skulls sat on either side, candles on the crown of each.
In the middle of the two was a small statuette of a skeleton in a white robe.
