Transmission: A Supernatural Thriller

by Ambrose Ibsen

Kenji massaged his temples and stood up, stretching. “I could use a break, I guess.” He yawned, cracking his knuckles and resting his hands behind his head. “What do we have to do to set this up? I don't want to waste too much time on this, mind you. I've got a lot of reading to do yet.”

  “What've you found in there so far?” chanced Dylan, wincing like he wasn't interested in the answer.

  “Not much, yet,” replied Kenji. “Nothing that seems to have anything to do with Agnes going missing, anyway.”

  Reggie worked through the hypothesis once more. “So, Agnes died ten years ago. Maybe got murdered or had some unfinished business, and we found her in EVPs or what have you. Now that we're here, she wants us to make contact. Let's get the radio going.” He motioned to Dylan. “Do it just like they did in those videos ya saw.”

  Dylan laughed, shaking his head. “I don't think this is smart. We're just going to scare ourselves. Most of those videos I saw were fakes, I'm sure-- people hearing gibberish and interpreting it as something profound.” He stood before the radio and glanced at the numerous buttons. Finding the power button, he clicked it. A red light flashed on, and the unit powered up, spitting out a discordant hum of radio static. Turning the volume down and looking not a little spooked for the sudden burst of sound, he tried to voice his reservations one last time. “It looks like the radio works, but... guys, I don't think we oughta mess with this.”

  Reggie slurped some coffee from his thermos and plopped down into one of the chairs, crossing his legs. “Worst case, we don't hear nothin'. Best case, I'm right and we make contact with her. Nothing to lose but a little time. And we got plenty of that, young man.”

  Kenji reluctantly agreed. “It's worth a shot, if only to finally put this to bed. You think she's a ghost, well, let's see if she wants to talk.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Dylan busied himself with setting up the radio. He lifted it from its dusty perch on the desk and sat it on the floor. The cord was just long enough to extend to an outlet nearby, and the three of them plopped down beside it, sitting in a semi-circle.

  So far, everything Kenji had read in the book gave him bad vibes. It wasn't that he believed in magic or ghosts or anything of that sort; he'd always been something of a skeptic, rather even-headed where matters like these were concerned. Perhaps it was merely the strange case he'd found himself wrapped up in-- that of Agnes' disappearance and all of the strange happenings surrounding it; or maybe it was the frightful and graphic artwork that was found in every chapter of that book that opened his mind, however slightly, to the possibility of a supernatural influence. The book spoke of rituals whose currency was human blood. Sacrifice, it seemed, could bestow a devoted killer with myriad benefits if only they knew what to do with the payload.

  Among the most unsettling rituals Kenji had read was one roughly translated as The Forbidden Sustenance. Its execution was rather simple; one needed only to recite a certain passage from the book, a prayer, and to drink an equivalent to three pints of blood from the body of a freshly-sacrificed victim. This, in turn, would grant the practitioner something like ten years of additional youth. The consumption of human blood as medicine was not unheard of in the myths and legends Kenji knew from around the globe. He was reminded of vampires, chiefly.

  There was a troubling thread that seemed to unite these various rituals and incantations, however. One character, called only “The Dark One”, appeared repeatedly. His name was to be uttered during the cryptic proceedings and was to be spoken, it was noted, with the utmost caution. This “Dark One”, it was written, was always listening. From whence it listened, or what it was, he hadn't yet found an explanation. Kenji figured that this was a nod to some ancient Romanian deity or demon. Though he didn't put much stock into it, there was no denying that this “Dark One” was an integral figure to the mythos of the Carte de Umbra Lungi, and to the magical horrors it claimed to facilitate.

  The Dark One had not been depicted in the book so far. Drawings of torture, of executions and primitive diagrams featuring body parts or rare ingredients were plenty, however the core figure behind these strange rites was never pictured. It was just as well; among the most disturbing things Kenji had read in the volume were descriptions of the Dark One. It was written that the entity could take the shape of a man, but that it was, in reality, a beast. Of its shape only vague things were noted. The writer of the book had taken liberties with the description, rendering the Dark One in eerie, poetic language. It was said to possess a gaseous form like “the smoke of a funeral pyre”, and yet on the same page, there was reference to the thing boasting “a thousand and more searching legs, like those of a spider.” The descriptions were varied, but that the author had intended to describe a creature sordid beyond all imagining was clear.

  Further into the book, Kenji noticed a couple of pages that sat apart from the rest. They looked thoroughly dog-eared, as though they'd been referenced a good deal more than the rest by a previous owner. He wished to skip further ahead and have a closer look at this section. Something told him that it was a chapter of particular interest to Agnes, but Dylan's insistence on holding a makeshift séance had distracted him from that goal. The book would have to wait.

  Appearing somewhat deflated, Dylan slowly explained the procedure he would be following in conducting the séance. “The way I saw it performed required a continuous scan of the frequencies. We'll use the AM signals exclusively, and we'll scan them in reverse. I don't know why, but several experts agreed this works better for some reason.” Studying the stereo, Dylan allowed his finger to rest on the power button. “Before we start, we have to announce our intent to speak to the dead. That way, any spirits in the area will know we're tuning in.” He cleared his throat, lips quivering, and fought to summon the words. A few moments passed however, and he couldn't muster the nerve.

  Eventually, Reggie spoke up, holding his knees and letting his deep voice boom through the pervading stillness. “We're reaching out to anyone out there who's listening-- especially you, Agnes. Agnes Pasztor, if you're listening, we want to have a chat.”

  Without even thinking about it, Kenji felt compelled to add, “And the Dark One, too. If you're listening, we want to speak to you.”

  Reggie and Dylan looked over at him curiously, but said nothing. Returning to the radio, Dylan switched it on and set it to scan the waves in reverse. Out here in this remote spot there were not many signals to lock onto, but the crackle of static and weak, far-off transmissions did begin to turn up. The noise was unpleasant, and he wrestled with the volume knob, settling on a reasonable level that would minimize the more grating screeches coming through the dusty speaker. He then sat down, legs crossed, and dropped his hands into his lap. “Now we wait a bit.”

  The trio waited in silence, listening to the radio scan the frequencies over and over again. Once it had cycled through four or five times, Dylan nodded.

  Kenji took this as his cue. Licking his lips, he leaned forward and spoke towards the radio as if it were a microphone. “Hey, is... is anyone there?” The crackling of the speaker startled him, and he loosed a little gasp before feeling suddenly ashamed of himself. Once more, he asked, “We want to make contact with the spirits. Is anyone there? We wish to speak to Agnes Pasztor.”

  With every passing minute, while the three of them listened closely for any answer, Kenji felt more and more like an idiot for participating. This is bullshit, he thought. His time was better spent working on translating the old book.

  Dylan spoke up next, his voice half-trapped in his throat and almost unintelligible. “Agnes, are you there?”

  For some minutes they sat, but only the occasional pop of distant radio stations met their ears, coming through in one instant and vanishing the next. “This is pointless,” said Kenji, starting to stand. “Let's shut it off. I want to get back to the book.”

  Reggie urged him back. “Nah, sit down. Let's give it a real shot before we throw in the towel.” Leaning towa
rds the radio, Reggie spoke. His voice boomed through the cramped shack like the howl of a high priest in some night-shaded shrine of old. “We wish to speak to the spirit of Agnes Pasztor. Are you there, Agnes?”

  The three of them sat, waiting for a reply. Kenji's gaze returned to the book on the table. The silvery cover beckoned him; the key to everything was in that tome somewhere. He felt sure of it, though he couldn't say why. This séance was a fool's errand, the kind of thing that bored conspiracy theorists engaged in. The sort of experiment that charlatans posted to the internet in order to rack up more page-views and ad revenue. When a minute went by without a discernible response, Kenji stood up and snickered. “This is crap, guys. Let's quit it.”

  “Now wait a minute, young fella--” began Reggie.

  “For what? What more do we need to do? If Agnes is really listening, what more could she possibly ask for?” Kenji shook his head. “You really believe this crap, Dylan?”

  Dylan shrugged. “I mean, I saw people do it online. It worked for them...”

  “Oh, right. Because everything you see online is real, right? You know, it's probably not working because we forgot to draw an upside-down pentagram on the floor in pig's blood, or chant 'Bloody Mary' into a mirror.” Kenji returned to his chair and sighed.

  Reggie opened his mouth to reply, but the voice that entered the shack just then didn't come from his mouth. A breezy, slightly androgynous voice broke the tension and threw the room into a panic. It was only a single word:

  “YES.”

  Kenji, Dylan and Reggie froze in place, their eyes fixed to the radio. The unit continued its reverse auto-scan through the frequencies. Some burst of sound, like something at the tail-end of a radio advertisement sounded, then disappeared just as suddenly. They all knew what they'd heard, however. It'd been very clear, clearer than any dialogue through the old radio speaker should have been.

  “Y-you guys heard that, right?” asked Dylan, panting. He grit his teeth, looking at the radio narrowly.

  “Agnes, is that you?” chanced Reggie, reaching up and taking Kenji's arm. He pulled him back down to his spot on the floor.

  Kenji didn't need guiding; he returned to his spot in front of the radio and listened closely.

  In the next instant came a flicker of a reply. It was the same voice, a hoarse whisper this time. “YES.”

  “Holy shit,” muttered Kenji. “Did we... did we really make contact?” He pondered the other possibilities. Was this just some voice they'd caught on the waves, some speaker being interviewed about current affairs or fashion trends on an AM radio talk show? He watched the display as the channels skipped by in reverse. Somehow, he didn't think it was just a coincidence.

  “I think we did,” replied Dylan.

  The three of them hovered near the radio on the floor of the old shack. And through the speaker there came a fourth participant in the conversation:

  Agnes Pasztor.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  A long time passed before any of them found the nerve to speak again. Kenji put his skepticism on hold and stared at the radio in abject disbelief. Dylan or Reggie were messing with him, they had to be. It wasn't really possible to make contact with the dead this way, was it? Moreover, the fact that Agnes might be a spirit-- that their target in this search was a deceased woman, filled his blood with ice. Suddenly, prior events seemed less strange to him. The transmission Agnes had sent out, relaying the coordinates to the shack, was clearly something that only a powerful supernatural manifestation could explain. But for what purpose had the three of them been gathered there? Why had Agnes cast her net so wide to begin with?

  Kenji ran a hand through his hair and spoke up. “Where are you, Agnes?” He looked at the other two, whose eyes betrayed disbelief. It'd been due to their urging that Kenji had participated in the séance at all, but they apparently hadn't expected to actually make contact in this way. Now that they'd encountered something, there was no smugness in their expressions, no pride or hints of “I told you so” as they looked back at Kenji. Only fear.

  The radio crackled with a fresh wave of static as the channels passed one by one. A burst of noise broke the silence soon thereafter, but it was a muddled mess. If it was a reply from the other side, then it was too garbled to make out. The trio sat in silence for a time, each of them wondering whether they should ask again or simply turn the thing off.

  “Agnes, are you still with us? Where are you?” asked Reggie, breaking the ponderous quiet. He brought the thermos to his lips with a trembling hand but did not drink. The steam rose from the inside of the vessel in a steamy tentacle, which teased the tip of his nose.

  A burst of static prefaced the ghostly reply. It was only a single word, a command passed down by the croaking, androgynous voice. “DIG.”

  A collective shudder passed through the room. “What do you think that's supposed to mean?” asked Dylan, his voice low. “Do you think... that this is even Agnes we're speaking to? It doesn't sound like her.”

  Kenji shrugged weakly, keeping one eye on the radio all the while. “It's hard to say. Did it just tell us to dig? Why? And where?” He folded his arms and rocked from side to side. “And if it isn't Agnes, then who could it be, man?”

  Reggie pointed a finger Kenji's way, bobbing his head. “You said something else there, earlier, didn't you? You reached out to someone else when we started all of this. The Dark One, ain't that right? Who's this Dark One?” He arched a brow.

  “It was... it was something I read in that book, that's all. I was just fucking around, guys. It's not like we made contact with something... else. It has to be Agnes-- we asked just now and it told us it was Agnes. It wouldn't lie, would it?”

  Dylan chuckled to himself. “I don't know about that. Some of the articles I read suggested that one should never fully trust the voices that come through. You never really know who you're talking to. You might've called up someone... or something... completely different.” He gulped. “We need to make sure this is Agnes somehow.”

  Returning to the radio, Kenji spoke once more. “Agnes, is this really you? What do you mean, 'Dig'? Where do you want us to dig?”

  The three of them were startled when the reply came furiously through the speaker. There seemed to be an echoing, muddy quality to the voice, as though the reply were issuing from some tightly enclosed space. The speaker repeated, “DIG. DIG. DIG. DIG.”

  Even as Kenji and the others exchanged puzzled glances, the voice on the radio went on, becoming ever louder and more frenzied with each repetition.

  DIG.

  DIG.

  DIG.

  Losing his nerve, Reggie reached forward and shut the radio off. The shack was plunged into perfect quietude once again. “That's enough of that,” he said, panting. He struggled to stand. Sipping from his thermos, he clutched the handle till his arm shook. “We need to leave here. Never look back,” he declared.

  “No, hold on a damn minute,” interrupted Dylan. He switched the radio back on, quickly setting the unit to auto-scan in reverse once again. “We didn't sign off. Whenever you have a conversation with a spirit you have to sign off-- cut the link-- otherwise the channel between our world and theirs remains open. You can't... you can't just shut this shit off and pretend it never happened, man!” Red in the face, Dylan cleared his throat. “Agnes, are you still there? Agnes?”

  They waited several minutes, but their repeated requests for Agnes went ignored.

  “Goddammit, we blew it,” said Dylan, yanking the power cord from the wall and shutting down the radio. He shoved it across the floor, beneath the desk, and fell into a heap. Balling himself up, he placed his head between his knees and gave a shuddering sigh. “We fucked up. Shouldn't have done that.”

  “Come on, man,” said Kenji. “It's not that big of a deal, right? We got what we needed. We made contact.”

  Dylan shook his head fervently however. “No, you don't get it! We were supposed to follow a certain proc
edure. We needed to sever the link. Now for all we know the spirit we were talking to is in the room with us; watching, listening...”

  Reggie's lips quivered. “You don't really mean that, do ya? You're just telling stories now, right kid? I don't need you messing around like this after everything we heard on that radio, so cut the shit, you hear?”

  Dylan looked up at him gravely. “I'm not messing around. We may have just shot ourselves in the foot.”

  “Look,” interrupted Kenji, rising to his feet, “I'm pretty sure that was Agnes we made contact with, and her message was clear. She wants us to dig. Think about it. The two of you thought she might be a ghost, a murder victim. Well, everything's fallen into place now. I can picture it clearly. One day, about ten years ago, Agnes gets murdered by someone. The murderer brings her out here, buries her in this remote patch of land where no one will ever find her. In her final moments she uses whatever psychical energies she's got to reach out to the world of the living. She announces the coordinates of her final resting place in the hopes that someone will find her down the line and reveal what actually happened to her. Think about it! It all makes sense!”

  Dylan nodded, but made no move to get up off of the floor. “Maybe so,” he said, “but we don't know where to dig. And beyond that, we still aren't sure who it was we were just speaking with because you just had to go and run your mouth in the beginning. What the fuck is the 'Dark One' and why did you think it was a good idea to name-drop him?”

  “So maybe we were right about Agnes getting killed. I dunno about you fellas, but I don't think it's my job to go digging up bodies,” added Reggie, slumping against the wall. “We need to get the police involved.”

  “Sure, and tell them that a ghost guided us to her own remains?” replied Kenji. “They'd laugh us out of town. Or maybe they'd consider us suspects. Anyway, we should hold off on contacting the authorities until we actually have a body to work with.”