The Whisper Code

The Whisper Code

Every night, her radio speaks in her dead husband’s voice — giving her coordinates she shouldn’t follow.

The rain hadn’t stopped for three days. The air inside Mara’s small apartment smelled of damp wood and loneliness. Her husband, Lewis, had been dead for almost a year, and yet the old shortwave radio on her nightstand had started to hum again.

It began innocently — a faint crackle, a whisper, then static. But on the third night, she heard it. A voice. His voice.

Mara... are you there?

She froze. Her coffee slipped from her hand, dark liquid spilling across the table. The sound wasn’t just familiar — it was impossible. The tone, the pauses, the way he used to say her name when he thought she was asleep.

Lewis? she whispered, her throat dry.

You need to listen carefully, the voice said. Write this down.

Then came the numbers. Six digits, followed by a click. And silence.

Mara scribbled them on the back of an unpaid bill, her hand shaking. Coordinates. She typed them into her laptop. A patch of forest, two hours north. A place they used to camp, long before the sickness took him.

The next night, it happened again. The same time. The same frequency.

You have to come tomorrow, Mara. Don’t bring anyone.

Her pulse quickened. The logical part of her brain screamed that grief could make the mind hallucinate. But another part — the part that still smelled his cologne in the morning — wanted to believe.

At dawn, she packed a flashlight, her old recorder, and the radio. The road to Blackpine Forest was slick with mud, the trees bending under the weight of the rain. When she arrived, mist hung low, coiling between the branches like smoke.

She turned on the radio. Silence. Then static.

You came, the voice said. Good. Go to the clearing.

Her heart pounded. She followed the trail, guided only by the faint pulse of the signal. Then she saw it — the clearing where they used to camp. But something was different. The soil looked disturbed, freshly turned.

Dig, the voice said.

She dropped to her knees, clawing at the dirt with trembling hands. After a few inches, her fingers struck metal. A box. She dragged it free, brushing off the mud. Inside was a small cassette recorder and a note written in Lewis’ handwriting.

If you’re hearing this, it means I failed to stop them.

The tape hissed, then played a message — his real voice this time, worn and urgent.

They used me, Mara. The research, the neural transmission experiments... it wasn’t about saving lives. It was about mapping consciousness. They copied me. I’m not dead — not exactly. I’m trapped in the signal. They’re coming for you too.

The transmission cut out. But the radio beside her crackled to life again, this time with multiple voices — whispering her name in unison.

Mara dropped the box and ran, branches slapping her face, mud swallowing her boots. When she reached the car, the radio in the passenger seat flickered.

Mara...

The headlights burst into life without her touching the keys. The car doors locked. The dial on the radio spun on its own until it stopped on one frequency: her heartbeat.

She screamed as the sound grew louder, merging with the whispers until it filled the cabin.

When the park rangers found her car two days later, the engine was running, but she was gone. Only the radio remained — still humming softly, whispering one phrase over and over:

Signal received.

About the Author:

Alex Mario writes psychological science fiction with a human pulse. His stories explore technology, loss, and the quiet corners of the mind where fear and love meet. Each tale is a reflection of how far we’d go to reconnect with what we’ve lost.