The Radio That Broadcasts the Dead

The first call came at 2:07 a.m.

Mara Lane, the new host of “NightPulse 103.3”, had just settled into her third week behind the mic. It was the dead hour—midnight to 4 a.m.—the time when truckers, insomniacs, and the unhinged called in with conspiracy theories and lonely thoughts. She wasn’t expecting much. She never did.

The studio was dim and quiet, the only light a neon “ON AIR” sign above the booth door and the flicker of her soundboard monitor. Outside the glass, rain whispered against the windows. Perfect ambiance for a quiet, forgettable shift.

Then the phone line lit up.

“NightPulse, you’re live with Mara,” she said, brushing back her headphones. “What’s keeping you up tonight?”

Heavy breathing.

Followed by static.

Then a voice—barely audible, a whisper straining through interference.

“H-h-help… They’re coming… burning... can’t breathe—”

Mara’s heart tripped. She sat forward.

“Hello? Who is this? Where are you?”

The voice crackled. “Fire… no exit… help me, please—”

Then, silence.

The line cut.

She stared at the board. No callback. No trace. Just a void where a voice had been.

Her producer, Nolan, buzzed in through the intercom.

“You okay in there?” he asked.

Mara blinked. “Yeah. Just a prank call, probably.”

“Creepy one. Listeners are already blowing up the chat.”

She glanced at the show’s message board on her screen. It was blowing up:

“Was that real?”

“Someone call 911!”

“That voice… it sounded familiar.”

One user posted a name: Lori Eddings.

Another: Isn’t she the girl who died in that warehouse fire last month?

Mara’s breath caught.

She searched the name.

Confirmed. Lori Eddings, 24, died in a warehouse fire downtown. The blaze had no survivors.

That was two weeks ago.

The time of death? 2:07 a.m.

Exactly when the call came in.

The next night, she was ready. Half-expecting it. Half-hoping it was just a coincidence.

She opened the show with her usual line: “Welcome to NightPulse—where the lonely hours speak the loudest.”

At 2:07 a.m. on the dot, Line 4 lit up.

Mara swallowed.

“NightPulse, you’re on the air.”

This time, it was a man.

“I—I think I’m dying,” he wheezed. “The water… I can’t get out. No light. I can’t find the surface…”

“Sir? What’s your name? Where are you calling from?”

“I didn’t mean to fall—I didn’t mean—” he gasped. “Please tell my son I love him—”

Static.

Gone.

Mara jumped to her search bar.

Man found drowned in flooded underpass.

Name: Tobias Green

Time of death: 2:07 a.m.

She stared at the timestamp. Her skin prickled with ice.

By the fifth night, she didn’t bother pretending it was a prank.

Every night at 2:07 a.m., the calls came in.

Always a different voice. Always the same desperation. Always someone who had already died—moments earlier, or in some cases, weeks ago.

Sometimes they described the moment of death in terrifying detail. Sometimes they begged for forgiveness. Once, a woman screamed for her child for thirty straight seconds before vanishing mid-word.

Mara started recording everything.

Nolan, initially skeptical, was now fully in the loop.

“I checked the logs,” he whispered one night, white-faced. “These calls—they don’t exist in the system. There’s no incoming number. No time stamp. They’re not… real.”

“They’re real enough to haunt me,” Mara whispered.

She started tracing patterns.

Each caller had died in a violent, unresolved, or isolated way.

Each was trying to communicate something, as if the last breath had been trapped somewhere—and was bleeding into her broadcast.

She pulled up the archived audio, ran it through filters, slowed it down.

That’s when she heard it.

In the background of every call—beneath the voice, below the static—a whisper.

Faint. Repeating.

“She’s next… she’s next… she’s next…”

Then the calls got personal.

Caller #9 didn’t ask for help.

He just said: “Mara, it’s not your fault.”

She froze.

No one knew about the accident. The one she never talked about.

A year ago, her fiancé, Jason, had died on their anniversary. They were supposed to meet at a bar. Mara had stayed late at her old job. He took the shortcut through the interstate—hit by a drunk driver.

She’d never told anyone that she asked him to meet her there instead of going home. She’d never forgiven herself.

Now a dead man was saying it wasn’t her fault.

The next night, the whisper behind the static grew louder.

This time, it said: “Room 302… she’s next…”

Mara didn’t sleep.

She looked up every hotel, hospital, and address connected to Room 302.

Only one stood out.

The broadcast tower.

NightPulse’s transmission tower had an old equipment room on the third floor—labeled Room 302.

It had been sealed off since a tech was electrocuted during repairs six years ago.

She confronted Nolan.

“I thought they sealed it off.”

“They did,” he said. “But the maintenance guy says the lights have been turning on again. And the old monitor? It’s glowing red.”

That night, Mara took a flashlight and went in.

Room 302 smelled of dust and rust.

Old consoles, defunct screens, miles of tangled wires, and in the center of it all—a radio receiver, ancient and humming softly.

She approached.

The dial spun on its own. Stopped at 103.3.

Her frequency.

The receiver hissed.

Then a voice emerged—not one in pain.

Her own.

“I’m Mara Lane,” the recording said. “And I’m sorry.”

Then static.

Another voice followed—Jason’s.

“You kept me waiting…”

Mara staggered back.

The screen of the monitor blinked. One word, in blood-red text:

“BROADCASTING.”

The next night, 2:07 came.

No calls.

No lights on the phone board.

Silence.

Then, her own voice again, through the headset.

But she wasn’t speaking.

She was listening.

And her voice was crying.

Nolan burst into the studio ten minutes later. “You’re not gonna believe this—someone sent us a clip from last night’s show.”

He played it on his phone.

It was her.

Screaming.

Begging.

Calling her own name over and over again.

“Mara, help me! I’m still here! Don’t let them—”

Then, silence.

He looked at her.

“You didn’t air this. Did you?”

She shook her head.

But her hands were shaking.

Later that night, the chat board exploded again.

“Did anyone else hear her scream?”

“What’s going on with NightPulse? That wasn’t a caller—that was HER.”

“I heard her say ‘don’t let them take me.’”

Mara stared at the screen.

Then down at her soundboard.

Line 4 lit up.

But this time—it wasn’t red.

It was white.

She reached for the mic. But something else grabbed her hand.

Cold. Invisible.

She turned.

In the glass of the studio booth—a reflection.

Her reflection.

But it wasn’t mirroring her.

It was mouthing one word, over and over.

“RUN.”

Mara bolted.

Out of the studio. Past the sound booth. Down the stairs. Into the night.

She didn’t stop until she was home, hiding in the back of her closet with every light on.

She didn’t go back to work.

Didn’t answer Nolan’s calls.

Didn’t sleep.

But at exactly 2:07 a.m., the old radio on her shelf turned itself on.

And her voice filled the room.

“I’m Mara Lane,” the radio said, calmly.

“And I’m already gone.”