It was close to 2:30 in the morning, and I wanted nothing more than to get home after a long day at the warehouse. It was year-end inventory time so it was all hands on the deck for organization, counting, and making sure what was on the shelves matched what the computers said. As I drove, I felt myself starting to nod off. The day had taken everything out of me. I turned on the radio and hit the scan button. It landed on Turn the Page by Bob Seger. I recognized the song from the Metallica cover and sang aloud to keep myself awake.
The only saving grace about working so late was the roads were empty. Usually, I had to contend with rush hour traffic so it was a treat to have a clear shot home. I was the only driver on the road. Solo, in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, which was odd, considering I’d been paying attention to where I was driving, and hadn’t done anything any different than I did on any other ride home. It was incredibly odd. I didn’t recognize where I was.
As I pondered this realization, Turn the Page ended and gave away to a rush of static. Once again, I found it odd. I never had problems with getting clear radio signals out here. Then I remembered, I didn’t exactly know where here was. Without thinking about it, I hit the scan button again, and it landed on station 91.1.
Life hasn’t been the same ever since.
The music playing on station 91.1 wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard before. The word abstract comes to mind, but that word isn’t up to snuff in actually describing it. Maybe experimental is more suitable. Unsettling and unnerving. The noises coming out over the speakers were unlike anything I’d ever heard before. It sounded like something was being played backward, sped up, and then slowed to an agonizing crawl. It repeated itself in a loop with subtle changes to the voices in the background. At least, I thought it was voices I heard in the background. It’s entirely possible my mind was attempting to assign meaning to the static waves in the universe.
In the middle of this, a trumpet blasted. It was startling, to say the least. Then there were these random sound effects played throughout. Metal scrapping against metal. The snarls of animals engaged in a life or death struggle. The screams of the dead and the damned. I don’t know how I knew this. Once again, my mind was searching for meaning in nothing. Or perhaps I was tuned into a radio station broadcasting from the bowels of Hell itself.
It unnerved me to no end. There was something in those sounds my mind, body, and soul recognized as something I shouldn’t be listening to. Everything inside me tightened up with a growing dread ready to spill out into either panic or madness. I hit the scan button again, and the radio went around the full cycle of stations before landing on 91.1 again. I cursed at the radio and hit the button to shut it off.
Instead of silence filling the car, a voice spoke and said:
Not joy
It didn’t sound like it was coming from the song track. It sounded like it was coming from the speakers themselves. A jolt of electricity shot up my hand, and I yanked it back to the wheel. As this all happened, I’d been firmly keeping my eyes on the road, and trying to figure out where I was. Ahead of me, a dense fog filled the road. I slowed to a crawl as I came upon it and saw that it wasn’t behaving like a typical fog did. For one thing, it didn’t spread beyond a certain point in the road. It looked more like a wall made of fog. For a moment, I thought about doubling back and trying to find a different way home, but something inside me pressed me to continue. Wherever it was instinct or the voices on the radio communicating a warning, I’ll never know.
Inside the fog, visibility was close to nothing. Only a few feet ahead of the hood of my car. Wanting to focus my full attention on what was in front of me, I tried shutting down the radio again, and nothing happened in response. As if to tell me this was a bad idea, the fog started glowing a preternatural crimson red.
Must be another car, I thought to myself, and immediately dismissed the idea. Red headlights didn’t make sense. No car had red headlights unless it was a customized job. Even then, there was no practical reason for it. Red headlamps wouldn’t help to see in the dark. As I reasoned this out, the crimson light flashed over and over again making the fog look like a solid wall of blood. It made me feel lightheaded and weak. I wanted to look away from this, but I couldn’t. Crashing into something would be very bad.
The volume rose on the radio, and the music morphed into something that disturbed me deeply on a level that I haven’t since recovered from. It sounded like wind rushing through an empty field of desolation. Somehow, I recognized this from the sound alone. I understood it. It painted a picture in my mind of complete and utter emptiness. The loneliest place in the entirety of existence. Not only void of humanity, but of light, warmth, and hope.
This is Hell, I thought, and I knew it to be the truth. I was more certain about this than my name.
Driven near the edge of madness, I tried to push the button to shut off the radio. It didn’t work. I punched the console, hurting my hand, and breaking the plastic, yet nothing changed. Waves of anxiety, fear, panic, and rage made me feel as if I was about to explode from the inside out. Then mercifully, it stopped.
The voice of a child came on and spoke in a language I couldn’t understand. I’d bet my soul that no one else in the world would comprehend this language either. It was the language the dead and damned only spoke. Mid-way through her sentence, the voice morphed from a child’s to a woman’s and said:
I want the hair all around.
It returned to the child’s voice, except there was a sound in the background all too familiar to me. It sounded like the inside of the warehouse I worked at. Forklifts were beeping. People shouting at each other. Trucks horns blaring.
Then another voice shouted:
STOP TATTLING ON THIS SIDE!
A little girl answered:
I want to be old. No. No. No. No. NO. Tell he that is the sin. Tet. Tet. Tet. Tet.
As the children argued in their forsaken language, the crimson lights darkened in the fog. It was almost as black as the deepest black hole in outer space. Despite the density of the fog and low visibility, I accelerated the car. I needed to escape the madness. I didn’t care if I died. Death would be welcome compared to the sheer, absolute terror I felt. It was beyond a physical response. I could feel my sanity slipping away. A part of my soul rejected being within me in this place of eternal damnation.
The second child stopped arguing with the girl, and it was her alone now speaking to me over the radio. Her voice morphed from a child’s to a woman’s and then back again. It seemed to be using her voice to answer her back.
She died in the constabulary.
Love gets us all.
When was that?
It is no more.
London influenza.
It’s hot. It’s hot. It’s hot As their conversation continued, I felt a sudden pain in my mouth. I hadn’t realized it, but I’d chewed on my lower lip. Blood dribbled down my chin. My teeth were coated in a pink, frothy layer of blood. It was all I could do to stop from falling into the insanity threatening to overwhelm me. It worked better than I imagined. As the pain ebbed, the fog cleared. It went from the void of darkness back to grayish, and soon enough, it disappeared.
The road was clear again, but I still didn’t recognize where I was. I was overwhelmed with giddiness to be away from the fog. I drove onward, accelerating until I was going nearly 100. I wanted to get away as fast as I could from the nightmare behind me. There was only static on the radio now. No music. No voices. No children. Plain universal static.
Thank God, I thought, and relaxed in my seat. A moment later, I passed an exit sign on the road and pulled off the highway. It wasn’t my exit, but I didn’t give a damn. I only wanted to be off the highway, and as far away as possible.
REPENT SINNERS! OR YOU SHALL BURN IN THE FIERY BLAZES OF HELL!
I nearly jumped out of my seat when I heard this come out over the speakers. The Bible-thumping radio host preacher continued spewing onward about the fornicators, homosexuals, and everyone else in the world he feared and loathed. I shut the radio off, and the car went quiet. I drove home listening to the buzz of the engine, fully awake now, and laughing my ass off at the preacher. What did he know about Hell and damnation?
I arrived home close to 4:00 a.m., and I was exhausted. Yet, I couldn’t sleep. Over and over again, the entire episode replayed in my mind. The children arguing. The sound of the wind crying through the desolate field. Everything ricochets in my mind like a bullet that never stops.
For the next three days, I didn’t work. I couldn’t bring myself to drive on that road again. I also hadn’t slept in three days either. There was no way I was getting behind the wheel of a car or operating any heavy machinery at work. I stalked around the house like a zombie, out of my mind due to the lack of sleep, and those words and sounds, and feelings haunt me every moment.
The good news is that after the fourth day of not sleeping, and almost out of my mind with exhaustion, the thoughts finally started to go away. The voices no longer invaded my mind. The music, if you could call it that, stopped playing with the sound of the wind blowing against the house or the ceiling fan blowing overhead.
With the help of alcohol and strong narcotics, I was finally able to get to sleep again. I slept for nearly an entire day. There were no nightmares or thoughts about that night. There were only pleasant dreams of fast cars, beautiful women, and earthly delights. Maybe my subconscious was attempting to reorient itself again with something pleasant. I don’t know.
It’s been a long time since this happened. I don’t work at that warehouse anymore. I quit only a few days later and found employment in another company in the opposite direction of the highway I drove on that night. Not that I think it would have made a difference. Frankly, I don’t think about it much anymore. It isn’t something I want to dwell upon. These days, it is all a distant memory. Like a dream, you barely remember after waking up from it.
I don’t listen to the radio anymore either. I’ve replaced terrestrial radio with podcasts, music, and audio books. No need to go searching for radio stations amidst the static of the airwaves. White noise and other sounds of that variety tend to bother me now. They used to feel comforting to have in the background at times. Now, I’d rather sit in complete silence.
But, of course, I am only human. People tend to tempt fate, even after avoiding tragedy. There are times when I’m driving, and I only do this during the daytime, surrounded by traffic, when I’ll tune into the FM band, and settle upon 91.1. There’s nothing ever playing there. I guess in my area, it isn’t a channel that’s used. I settle upon it and listen for words or music within the static.
And yes, I’ve heard things. Whether it’s my mind searching for meaning in the white noise or I’m still attuned to the broadcast of the dead and damned, I’ll never know.