Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Calaruga Shark Media.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to Ghost Scary Stories and the October Records, a
month long Halloween nightmare. This is episode six, Dead Air.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
October sixth, nineteen seventy four. Silas Crane WMIL radio went
silent at midnight last night, dead Air for thirteen minutes.
When it came back, DJ Mike Midnight Johnson was still talking,
but his words they weren't for the living. He was
reading names and addresses, speaking directly to people who'd died
(00:53):
years ago. Missus Patterson nineteen sixty seven. Your children are
waiting at the intersection, mister Chen nineteen seventy one. The
basement door is open, Little Sarah Mills nineteen sixty nine.
The water is warm now, And after each name, the
(01:17):
sound of drowning, not splashing, not struggling, just the slow,
inevitable sound of lungs filling with water. The station manager,
Ted Harper, tried to cut the broadcast. The equipment wouldn't respond.
The booth was locked from the inside, but Mike wasn't inside.
(01:37):
He was broadcasting from somewhere else, somewhere deeper the names
he read. Within three hours, living relatives at those addresses
were found dead drowned in their beds, in their cars,
standing up in their kitchens, all with their radios on,
all tuned to w M I L. The signal is
(02:00):
carrying something, not just sound, something that travels on radio
waves and enters through the ears, something that fills lungs
with water that doesn't exist. Mike finally stopped broadcasting at
six a m. They found him in the booth then,
even though it had been empty all night. He was
soaking wet algae in his hair, lake mud on his clothes.
(02:23):
He'd been broadcasting from the bottom of Miller's Lake, the
lake where he drowned when he was seven. Except Mike
Johnson never drowned. He's twenty seven years old. But the
records show a Michael Johnson, age seven, drowned in Miller's
Lake in nineteen fifty four, twenty years ago. The Mike
Johnson we know who is he? What is he? And
(02:46):
how many others in Millbrook aren't who we think they are?
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I played the sixth recording as thunder rolled over Millbrook.
October storms are violent here, but this one felt different,
electric alive. The rain against my office windows didn't sound
like water. It sounded like static. WM IL is still
broadcasting still at ninety seven point three FM, though the
(03:16):
station moved to a new building in nineteen ninety two
after the original was condemned. No one talks about why
it was condemned. No one mentions the water damage that
couldn't be explained, the equipment that corroded overnight, the booth
where sounds of drowning could be heard even when empty.
The current late night DJ is Johnny MacIntyre Mac to
(03:40):
his listeners. He does the midnight to six am shift,
just like Mike Johnson did in nineteen seventy four. I
drove to the station through empty streets at two am.
Millbrook feels abandoned, as if everyone has agreed to hide
until dawn. Only the street line and the red glow
(04:01):
of the WML tower suggested life. Mac was on air
when I arrived, visible through the booth window, but something
was wrong with the image. It flickered, like looking through water.
One moment he was there, the next he seemed to
be somewhere else, somewhere darker, deeper. The station manager, Rebecca Harper,
(04:26):
Ted Harper's daughter met me in the lobby. She looked exhausted, haunted.
You'll hear about the broadcasts, She said, not a question
what broadcasts the ones were not making. The ones that
come through anyway. Started October first. Every night at three am,
(04:49):
our signal changes. Mac keeps talking, but we're not transmitting
what he's saying. We're transmitting something else. She led me
to a monitoring room filled with recording equipment. Listen to this.
This is what Max said last night at three am.
The recording played Max's voice, clear and professional. That was
(05:12):
blue Monday by new order coming up. We've got the
weather in now, Rebecca said, this is what actually broadcast,
the same timestamp, but different audio static at first, then voices,
multiple voices, all speaking names and addresses, and behind them
that sound drowning, continuous rhythmic drowning. The names, I said,
(05:39):
do you recognize them? All recently deceased obituaries from the
last week. But the addresses, those are their relatives' homes.
And this morning she handed me a police report. Three drownings,
all at addresses mentioned in the broadcast, all found with
(05:59):
their radios on. I want to talk to Mac. He
won't leave the booth during his shift, says if he does,
something else will take his place. He's been in there
for five days straight. We bring him food, water. He
sleeps during songs, but he won't leave. I entered the
booth during a commercial break. Mack looked up and I
(06:22):
saw his eyes were bloodshot, exhausted, but clear, not clouded.
Not yet. You're the librarian, he said, you found Silas's recordings.
How did you? The signal tells me things, Not the
radio signal, the other one, the one that runs underneath,
(06:43):
that's always been there, waiting for October to make it
strong enough to surface. He showed me his playlist log,
but between the normal entries were other songs, songs that
didn't exist. Drowning in Digital by the Forgotten, Underwater to
Him by Patricia Holloway, the Deep Frequency, by the Taken.
(07:05):
These appear at three am. Max said, I don't play them,
but they play, and when they do, I'm not here anymore.
I'm at the bottom of Miller's Lake, broadcasting from the
old station, the one that sank in nineteen fifty four.
The station that sank, the original wm IL built too
(07:28):
close to the lake foundation gave way one October night.
Whole buildings slid into the water. Seven people inside, including
little Michael Johnson, the station owner's son. They all drowned,
but the signal never stopped. People reported hearing broadcasts from
underwater for weeks, until the army came and did something classified.
(07:51):
It buried, it built the new station and pretended the
old one never existed. Thunder crashed overhead, and the lights flickered.
For a moment in the darkness, I saw the booth
differently filled with water. Mac floating, still talking into a
microphone that sparked with impossible electricity. Then the lights returned
(08:16):
and everything was normal. It's getting stronger, Max said. Each
night I slip further underwater. Last night I could taste salt. Tonight,
I'll probably need to hold my breath by Halloween. By Halloween,
(08:40):
what by Halloween, the old station will surface. All the
drowned stations will surface. Radio, television, telephone, Internet, every signal
that carries human voice, they'll all carry the drowning instead,
and everyone listening, everyone watching, everyone connected. They'll drown where
(09:04):
they stand. As if in response, the monitors around us flickered.
Each showed different footage, security cameras, home videos, news broadcasts,
but in each one water was rising, slowly, impossibly, water
was filling every screen. The sixth point, Mac said, WMIL
(09:28):
is the sixth point of the pattern. The communication hub,
the broadcast center for what's coming. And I'm the antenna,
just like Mike Johnson was in nineteen seventy four, Just
like little Michael Johnson was in nineteen fifty four. Always
a Johnson or a McIntyre or a Harper at the
station when October comes. Always someone with the right frequency
(09:52):
in their bones. The commercial break ended, Mack turned back
to his microphone, his professional voice returning, you're listening to
w MIL where the music never stops. Here's a classic
from nineteen seventy four. But in the monitor, I could
see what was really broadcasting, a child's voice burbling through water.
(10:18):
The pattern requires witnesses. The pattern requires voices. The pattern
requires you to listen, to really listen, to hear what's
drowning beneath the sound. When I returned to the library,
my car radio wouldn't turn off, even with the engine stopped,
(10:39):
even with the keys removed, It kept playing static mostly
but sometimes voices, naming names, giving addresses. One of them
was mine. Tomorrow, I'll play October seventh. Tomorrow, I'll learn
about Sunday service at Saint Mary's tonight. I'm unplugging every radio,
(11:03):
every computer, every phone in the library. But I know
it won't matter. The signal doesn't need devices anymore. It's
in the air itself.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Ghost Scary Stories is a production of Caloroga Shark Media.
Some elements of AI may have been used in this production,
but it was written, edited, mixed, and produced by real
Live people. Executive producers Mark Francis and John McDermott.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Sh