Rain sliced through the night as Jack Mercer stumbled toward the radio tower, Emily's locket thumping against his ribs like a heartbeat. The woods hissed around him, branches snagging his jacket like bony fingers trying to hold him back. His phone buzzed again with the same unknown number.
DON'T TRUST THEM.
He shoved it into his pocket, the flashlight beam bouncing off the tower's rusted frame ahead. The symbols carved into its base glowed faintly as if soaked in moonlight. Break the chain, the message said. But how?
A shadow moved at the edge of the tower.
"Emily?" Jack whispered.
The figure stepped into the light. Not Emily. A woman in a tattered the 1950s dress, her hair streaked with gray and her eyes hollow. Evelyn Carter.
"you are … dead," Jack said.
"we are all dead here," Evelyn replied, her voice crackling like an old recording. "The tower is not a leash. It's a bridge. They used it to feed Revenants. To make it stronger."
Jack's throat tightened. "Walter said—"
"Walter lies." She pointed to the symbols on the screen. "These are not bindings. They're a invitation. Every sacrifice, every voice broadcast through the hall… it is a prayer to it. And now it's almost free."
Thunder rumbled. The ground trembled.
The Sheriff's Trap
The headlights speared through the trees. Jack ducked behind the tower as Sheriff Dalton's truck skidded to a stop. Walter stumbled out, hands bound, face bloodied.
"Where is he?!" The sheriff roared, shoving Walter to his knees.
"I don't know!" Walter choked.
Dalton then cocked his pistol. "Last chance, old man."
Jack's grip tightened on a loose metal rod. He thought of the idiot hero complex as he stepped into the light. "Let him go."
The sheriff grinned. "Knew you'd play hero." He aimed the gun. "But we need a new offering, he said. And you're… volunteering."
Evelyn's ghost flickered behind Dalton, lips moving in silent warning. Distract him.
Jack lunged, swinging the rod. It clanged against the truck's body. The sheriff fired—a deafening crack—but Walter tackled him and the shot went wide.
"Run!" Walter barked.
Jack didn't argue.
The Ritual Chamber
Evelyn led him to a hatch beneath the tower, hidden by thorny brush. Inside, the bunker reeked of mildew and burnt wires. A control panel hummed, covered with dials and switches. Faded posters lined the walls: MILLHAVEN RADIO – VOICE OF THE VALLEY, 1947.
"This is where they channeled the sacrifices," Evelyn said. "The transmitter amplifies fear. The Revenant feeds on it. To break the chain, you must destroy the heart."
"What heart?"
She pointed to a rusted grate on the floor. "Below. But it's guarded."
Jack pried the grate open. A ladder descends into the pitch blackness. The air wafting up reeked of rot and copper.
His phone buzzed. DON'T GO DOWN.
He went down.
The Heart of the Curse
The chamber below was active.
Pulsing veins of black sludge coated the walls, throbbing like arteries in the dark. At the center stood a grotesque altar—a fused mass of radio equipment, bones, and old microphones. Chained to it was a skeletal figure, its hollow eyes flickering with green static.
Emily.
Or what was left of her remains.
"No…" Jack staggered in disbelief.
Her head lifted, and her jaw unhinged with a metallic screech. "Jack… it's too late…we're part of it now…"
The walls moved. Shadows peeled free, becoming hands, faces, all the sacrifices—Lucas Hodge, Mrs. Riley, Tommy, the sheriff's son. Their voices overlapped in a deafening mantra:
"Join us. Feed us. Join us."
Emily's bony fingers pointed past Jack.
The Revenant stood behind him.
It was taller than before, and its form solidified into a gaunt, humanoid shape with antler-like horns of twisted wire. Static was poured from the mouth.
"MINE."
The Choice
Jack scrambled back, grabbing a rusted fire axe from the wall. The Revenant lunged, its claws raking across his arm. Pain seared—cold, not hot—as the frost spread from the wound.
Emily's voice cut through the crowd. "The heart! Destroy it!"
The altar pulsed. Inside the pile of radios, a glowing orb throbbed like a sick heart. Jack swung the axe.
The Revenant screamed. The axe bounces off an invisible force.
"Blood… needs blood…" Evelyn whispered. "The curse began with blood. It ends the same."
Jack stared at the axe. At the Revenant circling him. At Emily's hollow face.
He raised the axe and brought it down on his own palm.
The altar was splattered with blood.
The orb shattered.
The Unraveling
The chamber exploded with light and noise.
The Revenant howled, dissolving into the static. The walls bled black ooze, and the sacrifices' faces melted into screams. Emily's skeleton crumbled, and her locket clattered to the floor.
Jack fell to his knees, clutching his bleeding hand. The tower groaned above. The metal screeched as it collapsed inward.
He crawled up the ladder as the bunker caved in. Evelyn's ghost waited at the hatch.
"Go. It's not over."
"What?"
"You broke the chain here. But the curse spread. Listen."
Distant screams echoed through the town.
The Sheriff's End
Jack limped into Millhaven as dawn bled through the fog. The streets were chaos. Townsfolk ran, clutching their bleeding ears and wild eyes. Sheriff Dalton staggered from his truck, spewing static from his mouth.
"What… did… you… DO?" he gurgled.
The Revenant's voice boomed from every radio, every phone, and every speaker in town.
"FREE."
Dalton's body was convulsing. His skin cracked, glowing green light bursting through before he collapsed, hollow as a shed snake skin.
Walter emerged from the diner, face ashen. "It is in the air now. The static… the hunger. You didn't stop it. You unleashed it."
Jack picked up Emily's locket from the dirt. "Then I'll find another way."
Walter grabbed his arm. "There is no way. Run. Before it learns your name."
The Broadcast
Jack returned to the town hall. His equipment was still on the splintered table. Blood dripped from his hand onto the microphone when he turned it on.
"This is Jack Mercer. If you are hearing this… stay off the radio. Stay off the phones. It's in the signals. It's in the static. And it's hungry."
He hit send. The broadcast blared from every device in Millhaven.
And far, far beyond.