The Island Hour - Part Two of Two
A Ferris Island Hallowe'en Tale
Greetings, Talebones Readers!
At long last, here is the concluding second part of The Island Hour! (A little later than Hallowe’en, but hey…it’s still Samhain, right?)
The creative gears have been turning kind of slowly around here (thanks, Daylight Savings 😂), but I’m excited to bring you the conclusion of this creepy little radio tale!
Read Part One here!
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“So. End of Hour One. How are we feeling?”
Yvette stood in the doorway between booths, arms crossed. The ON AIR light was unlit and a pre-recorded advertising jingle played over the speakers.
Tommy tilted the headphones backward so that they rested on the back of his neck. He was quivering, but the nerves were gone; it was all verve, now. All thrill.
Shit, I’m good. I’m good at this.
“I feel amazing,” he said, giving the producer a double thumbs-up. “Like super good, like awesome. Is it sounding okay in there?”
Yvette shrugged, noncommittal, but allowed herself the luxury of a small smile. “I wasn’t sure at first, but it seems like you’re finding your rhythm. Just keep doing what you’re doing and this second hour will be a breeze.”
“Yeah, okay. I can do that.”
“Top of the hour starts with another ad-read. Next paper in your pile. I’ll cue you. Ready?”
“Hell yeah. Let’s do this.”
As Yvette vanished back into the production booth and closed the door with a smart snap, Tommy put the headphones back on his head and picked up the paper with the ad copy. He gave it a quick glance as the peppy pre-recorded ad drew to a close.
Lewis.
He saw the name on the page first, out of all the other words in the copy. It grabbed him by the throat, his eyes drawn to it like a magnet.
Lewis.
The jingle ended. There was a pause, a shiver of dead air as Tommy stared at the paper in his hand. He glanced up to see Yvette cueing him with a stern, pointed finger. The ON AIR light was lit, bright red.
“Oh,” Tommy said, then cleared his throat against a sudden dryness, wishing he had thought to go out and get some water from the fountain during the break. “Welcome back to the Island Hour on thirteen-thirty AM, KVFI. I’m Tommy Hughes, your guest host for tonight. Thanks again for such a warm welcome. We’ll get back to the calls in a moment, but first, a word from Lewis Appliance Sales and Repair.”
He looked down at the paper again and started to read the copy.
“With the holidays right around the corner, are you certain that your old stove and refrigerator are up to the rigors of the season? None of us wants an oven that quits in the middle of roasting the Thanksgiving turkey, or a dishwasher that picks Christmas Day to up and die on us—”
Up and die. Tommy swallowed.
“After twenty years of operation as a family-owned business in downtown Port George, Lewis Appliance Sales and Repair is closing its doors permanently at the end of November. That means that everything must go, folks. Now’s the time to get that washer-dryer you’ve been dreaming of, that new freezer for the garage, or spare parts for the generator. Prices have never been this low, so don’t wait! From the Lewis Family to yours, Happy Halloween and thanks for twenty years of love and support, Ferris Island. We will miss you.”
The Lewis Family. Tommy glanced up again at Yvette. The producer’s expression was solemn over her magazine. It could have been because of his dead air faux pas, or it could be because everyone knew what had happened to the Lewis family that summer. It was all over the news, headlines screaming: Local teenager found dead in Fort Ferris State Park; authorities suspect freak accident.
Tommy set the copy down.
And now they’re closing. Maybe even moving off-island. Starting over.
Reinvention. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe that’s all anyone wants.
Tommy tried to shake off the feeling of dread that had risen in him from the toes up. Hour Two, Hughes. You got this. Just keep it rolling. What would Cliff Keeley do?
He smiled, hoping the smile would travel through the microphone. Unbothered, focused, ready to roll.
“Let’s go to the phones! Who’s on the line?”
In his ear, Yvette said, “Next up is Cal, calling from Portview.”
“Hi, Cal. What’s on your mind this evening?”
There was another pause, like the brief slip of dead air from earlier. But it only lasted for a moment before there was a sound. It was faint at first, but rhythmic, like the tide. Like waves whistling and hissing against the rocks as they dragged themselves in and out with clawed hands. In, out. In, out.
“Cal?” Tommy said.
But then there was a click, and the call ended.
“Oh,” Tommy said. “Sounds like we lost Cal. Bad connection, I guess. Try again when you can, okay Cal? Who’s next.”
“Next is Tabitha, in Orchard Beach.”
“Hi, Tabitha. What’s on your mind?”
“Oh hello, young man,” said the reed-thin, shaking voice of an old woman on the other end, sweet as pie. “Hello. Yes. I just wanted to call in and remind everyone to be real careful this Halloween. I was out walking my dog Bosco last night and I saw some lights in the sky that certainly weren’t planes. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen them this time of year. Back in nineteen thirty-seven—”
Out of the corner of Tommy’s right eye, a flicker of movement. As if someone had passed the small window that looked out into the dark hallway. He turned quickly, but saw nothing but a square of gloom.
“—and that’s how I knew it couldn’t be an airplane, because—”
Tommy blinked, trying to tune back into the old woman’s words. Yvette was supposed to keep all of the wingnuts out of his hair. Did this not count?
“Uh. Are you talking about… UFOs, Tabitha?” he asked.
The bluntness of his question threw her for a moment. In the other booth Yvette looked up, sharp.
“Well, yes, I suppose so. Just letting everyone know to be careful, is all.”
“Oh. Okay. Good. Yeah, that’s…that’s good. Thank you.” Tommy kept his eye on the window, looking for any other movement in the dark beyond, but nothing came. “Next caller.”
Yvette frowned and raised her hands, palms up—What the hell, man?—but ended the call and said, “We’ve got Cal again. Portview.”
Then through the glass she mouthed to Tommy, silent, one word: “Relax.”
Tommy nodded, took a deep breath.
Get it together, Hughes.
Then he said, “Cal, you’re back with us! What’s on your mind tonight?”
The sound was still there: the push and pull of a tiny sea, a tremulous pulse, as if Cal stood on the beach with the phone receiver in his hand, as if the wires of the telephone stretched across the rocks, spiral coil tangled in the seaweed and the carcasses of dead shellfish.
It was only when the voice finally filtered through his headphones that Tommy realized what he was listening to. The rhythmic sound was not the sea at all, but the hiss of labored breathing in a constricted throat.
“I know…what you did,” said the voice on the other end, rasping and breathy, harsh with the effort. “I know…I know…”
Another prank call. It had to be another prank call.
Please God, let it be a prank call.
“Well, Cal—if that is your real name, which I’m guessing it’s not—my suggestion is to stop wasting everyone’s time tonight with these stupid pranks. No one’s laughing.”
Tommy gave Yvette the “kill” gesture and she dutifully hung up the call.
But just before she did so, Tommy thought he heard—faint, underscoring the harsh breath—the chittering, rustling sounds of night-noises in the quiet woods.
“Halloween’s got all the local teens in a playful mood, I guess,” Tommy said, trying to keep it light. Keep things moving. Don’t be boring. “Sorry about that, folks. Who’s next, Yvette?”
“Next is Bruce, in Port George.”
“Hi, Bruce. What’s on your mind?”
“Hiya. I’m selling a couch,” Bruce said. His voice was aggressively normal, the harried sound of a man trying to check a task off of a long list. “It’s barely used and in great condition, we don’t smoke or anything. It’s been in our living room for ages but we don’t really sit in there much because my wife picked off-white carpet in there and so you can’t eat or drink your coffee in there, so we don’t really do much sitting in there. You know what I mean? And our TV is in the rec room, so the living room just ends up being like a museum exhibit where my wife keeps all her knick-knacks and stuff. So anyway she doesn’t want this couch anymore cuz she says it’s too retro but it’s not a big deal to me, still works fine. I mean, it’s a couch, so what else do you want, right?”
Tommy nodded, deeply relieved at the pure normalcy of the call. “A couch for sale! What color is it, Bruce?”
“Oh, I dunno, I don’t really pay attention to this stuff. Uh…it’s kind of a…green? Pea green? Oh, wait—”
A woman’s muffled, impatient voice in the background, from another room.
“Oh. The wife says it’s chartreuse. I don’t…I don’t know what that means.”
Tommy didn’t either. “How much are you asking for it?”
“Well, it’s a loveseat, but it’s pretty generous. Seats three if you squish. I’d like one-fifty for it. Like I said, it hasn’t been used much.”
“One-fifty,” Tommy echoed, hollow. He was distracted by the sound that had seeped up in the background of the call; night-sounds in the middle of the woods, the racket of crickets and frogs, the rustling of underbrush. “Bruce, are you out on your deck or something?”
“What? No, kid, I’m in my kitchen. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Yvette cocked an eyebrow at Tommy through the glass. He shook his head. “Sorry, nevermind, I just…thought I heard something. Probably just static. One-fifty sounds like a steal for such a nice couch. Folks, if you’re in the market for a…char…chartre…for a green loveseat, please call in so Yvette can connect you. Thanks Bruce. Yvette, who’s next.”
She shook her head at him. “Let’s take a quick five.”
“Oh. Folks, my producer is telling me we’re going to take a quick break, see if we can’t clear up the static issue. We’ll be right back.”
The ON AIR light blinked off, another pre-recorded message played over the speakers, and Yvette opened the door between booths, arms crossed tight over her chest. “Hey, what the hell is going on?”
Tommy blinked fast. “I don’t…I don’t know what you mean…”
“You hang up on a sweet old lady, you ask a guy just trying to sell an ugly couch where he’s calling from…what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry,” Tommy said. “I’m really sorry, it’s not on purpose, I just…the Lewis thing kind of threw me, and the prank calls—”
“These are the kinds of things you have to roll with, Tommy.” But Yvette’s face had softened a little at the mention of the Lewis thing. “Did you know him? That kid who died?”
Tommy shrugged. “We went to school together. I saw him around.”
“That was an awful thing. Awful.” She sighed, checked her watch. “You’ve got a few minutes until we’re back on. Go out and get some water, take a beat, then come back ready to roll. There’s only forty-five minutes left of the hour. You’ve got this.”
Tommy took off his headphones with shaking hands and left the booth, stumbling out into the dark hallway, shame creeping through his skin. How did this go so wrong? He turned right to the water fountain, just outside the small restroom. Over his head the speakers played the bouncy jingle of a big toothpaste company, reminding everyone to brush their teeth well after Halloween fun.
The water was too cold. In between gulps, Tommy breathed deeply. Only forty-five more minutes. He was so close to being done. Lewis. That’s what had thrown him, but he wasn’t going to let it ruin the second hour. He had been doing so well.
Tommy leaned down for one more drink.
At the end of the hallway, a piece of the darkness shifted.
He turned, but there was nothing there. Just a corner where the hall ended in some small offices, now completely unlit for the night.
Get a grip, Hughes.
He backed away from the water fountain, heading for the glow of light spilling from the window of the booth, when it suddenly went out, along with the piped-in speakers. All that was visible was the crimson glow of the ON AIR light, bathing the interior of the booth like blood.
Tommy reached out for the booth’s doorknob, swallowing hard. He turned the knob, but it was locked and would not turn.
“Yvette?” he called out, but felt stupid immediately after. The booths were all sound-proofed. She wouldn’t be able to hear him from out here anyway.
He went to the windowless door of the production booth and knocked. Tried the knob. Nothing.
Into the sudden quiet, a sound, quick and fervent. It came from the other end of the hall, back toward the lobby and the empty reception desk.
“Hello?” Tommy called out. “Yvette?”
Utter silence. Dead air.
Tommy crept down the hall toward the desk. The lobby was empty, and the station manager’s office was still closed and locked. In the front window, the dancing skeletons were frozen in their silhouettes, the ghosts swaying lightly on their strings.
On the reception desk, the plastic Jack-o-lantern was on its side, rolling slightly, as if someone had just knocked it over.
“Hello?” Tommy called out again.
And then it hit him, suddenly, what this was: another shitty prank. It had to be.
“Nick? Streeter?” Tommy shouted it, loud. Ferocious, like he was ready to punch someone’s lights out. “You dipshits don’t scare me, okay? If you think this is funny you’re dumber than I thought, and that’s saying a lot, because I already thought you assholes were pretty dumb—”
All of a sudden, the piped-in sound came back, loud.
Tommy shrieked and jumped backward, hands flailing in defense.
The sound was breathing. In, out. In, out.
The sound was the woods, eerie and lonely.
“Tommy…”
He heard his own name in the voice from the phone, echoing all down the length of the hallway. A mournful sound and heaving, painful breaths.
“Tommy…I know…what you did…”
Tommy froze. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. All of his thoughts orbited around one single, horrible realization: This could not be a prank. Because no one else knew. No one.
“Caleb?” he said, and it came out a squeaking whisper.
The voice over the speakers was replaced by the empty woods, the night-noises.
“Caleb,” he said, terror holding his throat in a strangle, “I’m…I’m sorry. It was so stupid. It was an accident.”
And it was. Or at least it would have been.
A summer camping trip, Tommy and his friends pitching tents in the state park, their last summer before senior year. Caleb Lewis was the odd one out. All through high school he had been invisible, and then right before senior year something changed. He was just kind of perfect; he had gotten better looking over the past year, and always got good grades. He had been given a scholarship to Northwestern, Tommy’s dream school. All the girls liked him, especially one girl in particular—
So let’s play a prank. Why not? Let’s scare the shit out of Caleb. It’s just what stupid kids do. It’s just what friends do. What’s the harm?
And there might not have been any. Except Tommy knew the one thing about Caleb that no one else did. He knew the one thing that would turn an innocent scare-prank into an accident, the kind of accident that everyone calls “freak” because no one assumes any different. No one would guess that a group of teens could be that cruel.
Caleb Lewis died alone in the woods.
“An accident,” Tommy whispered, again. But the silence condemned him.
After it happened, Tommy’s friends had no idea why their prank had gone so wrong. They all kept the secret, not knowing that Tommy had his own.
One more year. Soon, college. He just wanted to start over. Get as far away from Ferris Island as possible. After that, no one would ever suspect him.
Reinvention.
It took Tommy a moment to realize that the harsh breathing was no longer over the speakers, but instead behind him, in the lobby. He couldn’t bring himself to look, shivering as the temperature in the station plummeted.
“Look inside…” the voice murmured. The impossible voice of Caleb Lewis.
The Jack-o-lantern sat on the desk, on its side, leering at Tommy. Even from a few feet away he could tell that the candy was gone, and there was something else inside. A small object, covered in dirt and moss and mud.
“Look inside…” Caleb’s voice said again.
So Tommy reached in and pulled it out. Even as his fingers closed around its unique shape—a small “L” mechanism, button and cartridge—he knew what it was, but still lifted it into the dim light of the lobby to be sure.
It was an inhaler.
A violent tremble of terror passed through Tommy Hughes. He wanted to explain, but he couldn’t. He wanted to beg, but no words would come out. He remembered holding this very inhaler in his hand, stealing it from Caleb’s backpack and chucking it into the woods. It had never been found. Better that way, at least for Tommy.
An accident, they all said. A freak accident.
Caleb Lewis died alone in the woods, unable to breathe.
“Caleb—” he whispered, but the word choked in his throat.
He felt his arm raise, a force not his own, and he watched as the grime-encrusted inhaler closed the distance, reaching his lips. He couldn’t stop it.
Whimpering, with shaking fingers, he pressed the button…and inhaled.
*******
The booth door opened and Tommy entered, giving Yvette a thumbs-up and sitting down in the chair. He picked up the headphones and put them back on his head, savoring the feel of everything, not wanting to miss a single sensation. The feel of the headphones on his head, the feel of the chair underneath him, the feel of the inhaler safe in his pocket…
“All good?” the producer asked, in the doorway between booths. Her face was hopeful. She suspected nothing.
Tommy Hughes smiled up at her. It felt good to smile. It felt good to breathe again.
He would get used to it. To this body, these lungs. It would take a little time, but it was worth it.
Reinvention. Isn’t that what anyone wants?
“Yeah. Feeling good, Yvette. Thanks for the break. I really needed it.”
“You had me worried there for a minute.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, well…it’s like you said: it’s just local radio. It’s not life or death.”
He winked. She rolled her eyes.
“Okay. Let’s do this, then. No more hiccups, no more dead air. Promise?”
He nodded. “No more dead air. Promise.”
Yvette closed the door between the booths, gave him his cue.
The ON AIR light came alive, bright red.
END
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O.m.g. Did not expect that twist.
Hoho! Some excellent retribution for Caleb. Love a twist that turns our hero into the villain!