Radio Waves of the Macabre [On Hiatus]

Chapter 37 - A Gripping Cold

      He was all alone.

      Inside that station the Ricky voice screamed for help, but no one ever came. Each time that thing, that distortion of his dead brother, pleaded, screamed, and went silent, on an endless loop, and with each cycle Jimmy envisioned his brother struggling against some amorphous monstrosity until at last it killed him, and he could beg no more. Each time this echo of Ricky died terrified and alone.

     Once more in the eerie calm after the echo's final screams, Jimmy banged his head against the boarded up window.  The physical pain eased him, distracting, if only momentarily, from the agony of reliving this moment over and over again. And yet something always drew him back to the terror of the present: a whistle screaming through the wind, a glimpse of the bloody handprints plastered over the boarded window (his handprints from fingers rubbed raw tearing at the barrier that held him back from his brother), or the unnatural chill that dug into his marrow. No matter how much pain he inflicted upon himself, it would never be enough to mask the turmoil that tore at him, clawing away at every open wound that it could find.  

     He banged his head one final time, then stopped.

     "Tag," the Ricky voice began again. "You're it!"

      Jimmy knew the script by heart now, every line his brother's, as if hearing only one side of a phone conversation.

      "I found you," the Ricky voice continued. "No tricks or nothing."

      The same pause returned as always played out here, an absent party playing her part in a vacuum that Jimmy could not pierce; but he could picture it. Jimmy could see Ricky listening in that station somewhere, listening to a cousin who was not there. Jimmy thought for a moment about rising back and trying at the boards again, but he knew that wouldn't work. Neither would prying at the door. He had tried that as well. He needed leverage if he was going to get inside - or bolt cutters. He bit what was let of his nails into his palms, willing himself to stay put and to ignore the impulse calling to him, urging him to find a way inside. Jimmy didn't trust that inner-voice. Somehow it felt foreign, and, worse, malign.

      "And no cheating this time. You have to count Mississippi's."

      After this last line, Jimmy could almost hear his brother retreating scampering over the brush and through the tangle of vines. The silence stretched out and Jimmy fought once more against that siren call, until at last that brother-voice spoke - again after such a momentous pause, this time one that stretched for minutes on end.

      "Tess, where are you?" the Ricky voice shouted. "I can't see. Why is it so dark? I want to go home now."

      Instinctually, Jimmy wanted to call out to his brother, and the strain of restraint bore into him, twisting and drilling at his insides. He dug his teeth down onto his lower lips, the pain of the bite blending with the puncture of his nails into his palms. He would not give in. Not again.

    "Tess, I don't want to be here. Let's go!"

    The pain in Ricky's voice clawed at him. How many times had he listened now, slowly picking at the words, listening closer and closer until the entirety of the script became clear, never faltering, not in a single loop?

    "Tess, where are you? It's so dark, and cold."

    And where had she been? Why had his brother been alone in his final moments?

    "Mom?" the Ricky voice asked. "Dad?"

    The tears flowed freely now down Jimmy's cheeks. It must have been at least a dozen times now that he had waded through this torture, listening but helpless to do anything about his brother's pain.

     "Jimmy?" the voice cried.

     It was too much. Too, too much. Jimmy slapped his hands to his ears pressing tight, a vise closing in on his head - pain and pressure both seeking to oust those final cries.

     "Anyone? Someone help me..."

     Ricky's voice trailed off, but Jimmy knew what was coming. He knew the screams that waited within - that final burst of agony. He pressed in tighter, his iced ears tingling and throbbing beneath the mounting pain as he tried to block out that Ricky-voice. The veins of his neck bulged as his chin angled into his chest, every muscle taut.

     Then the Ricky screams began. Only they were different somehow. There were more of them and the voice wasn't right - the voices. And they weren't just screams, but shouts and pleas.

     "Run! Keep going!"

     "B... b... but --"

     "Just run!"

      The voices were wrong and the sound of footfalls rang clear, not the faint rumor of an echo that he had heard before. No, here he could make out the pounding of each foot against the dirt, and the hurried gasps of panic that accompanied them. Yet it was the cold on his arm that got his attention.

     An icy hand clawed at his wrist, tugging at him and he screamed as he bolted to his feet. From that moment the world lurched into a frenzied blur. The sky shook and that screaming split into him, and Jimmy lashed out, flailing, unable to see through his agony, and as such giving up and squinting his eyes shut against the madness outside.

      "Jimmy. It's us."

      Jimmy stopped. The terrible spinning slowing to a crawl, then ceasing altogether, and at last he eased his eyes open.

      Alex stood off by the chain link fence, ready to flee, but closer at hand Tess held to Jimmy's wrist.

      "Tess?"

      Tess pulled at his hand again. "We have to go," she said, but even as she spoke, Jimmy heard his brother calling to her, calling to his cousin that had abandoned him for dead.