The Tower
It watches you back.
Night || Tower || Terror
She went back to Hollow Creek Road at midnight Saturday. She told herself it was because Sunday was coming. She brought bolt cutters borrowed from Marcus — she had told him they were for a fence at her cousin’s farm — and a headlamp, and her recorder, and the entirely rational plan of not going inside anything, just getting close enough to confirm the transmitter’s location. Rational plans have a way of dissolving on dark roads in pine forests at midnight.
The bolt cutters opened the padlock in forty seconds. She followed the orange flags through underbrush that caught at her jacket like hands. The tower appeared suddenly, the way tall things do in forests — not gradually growing, but simply present all at once, a steel lattice climbing 200 feet into the clouded sky. At its base sat a concrete building the size of a shipping container, half-consumed by vines. Every window was boarded. The door was sealed with a hasp and padlock — newer than the gate’s, much newer, installed within weeks, she guessed, from the lack of rust.
The signal on her receiver was overwhelming here. Almost unbearable. And the voice — the voice came clearly, finally, full sentences emerging from the static like someone surfacing from deep water: “My name is Gerald Wren. I recorded this message on September 4th, 1994. If you are hearing this, the loop has maintained for— “ A burst of static. Then: “— they don’t know about the second transmitter. The one in the foundation. The coordinates are—” The headlamp died. The forest went absolutely black. And from somewhere beyond the tree line, a second flashlight beam appeared, moving toward her, fast.