Page 59 of Come Find Me
The second thing I see is a man sitting in front of a massive display of computer monitors. Cables running over the desktop, and a few larger unknown electronic things set up around the room. I realize the fact that I refer to them asunknown electronic thingsmeans I am probably not cut out for this endeavor. But the signal was coming to me, and so here I am.
The other man turns around, looking over all of us. He looks eerily similar to Joe, as if there’s some dress code that people here have to adopt. Or maybe it’s just because they’re friends. But they both have this overlong hair, not quite professional. And this casual way of dressing. And they’re both skinny, with angular faces. But Joe has darker hair, more like Kennedy. And he seems older in the way he acts. Maybe just because he’s had to, as guardian to a teenager.
“Everyone here now?” the other guy asks.
“Yes,” Kennedy says. “This is Nolan.”
I wave. The man doesn’t wave back.
Kennedy sighs. “This is Joe’s friend, Isaac. He said he found something in the readout.”
Isaac swivels his chair back and forth, chewing on an overlarge piece of gum, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “Look, I don’t know exactly how this was set up.”
“My brother did it,” Kennedy says, and the room changes. Isaac looks quickly off to the side, and Joe shifts on his feet, and I remember that her brother, Elliot, was a student here, while her mother and the boyfriend were both professors. It’s a tragedy that has affected the entire campus—teachers and students alike—with everyone looking for some sign of what was to come, in hindsight.
“Right.” Isaac scratches his head, sliding his chair in closer. “I’ll just get right to it, then. It’s an audio signal?” Except he says it like a question, which doesn’t instill the greatest confidence.
“What?” Kennedy says, and Joe steps closer to the machinery.
“What does that mean?” Joe asks quietly.
“Like, radio signals. There’s plenty going right by us all the time. I don’t know what happened with this one, why it’s displaying like this in the program, but anyway, it’s really broken up.” His hands fly over the keyboard. “But I pieced it together.” He gives Joe a meaningful look, which could be interpreted as a warning.
“Do you want me to play it for you?” he asks.
“Yes,” Kennedy answers before Joe can get a word in.
Isaac takes a deep breath and turns back to the computer. A second later, the sound fills the room.
There’s some static first, and then we hear a voice.“Is anyone there?”
My head jerks up. The air chills. It’s Kennedy. It’s her voice, except faster, higher-pitched. Panicked.
All the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The whole room narrows to a point, and that point is Kennedy. She tenses, becomes a statue, her eyes empty.
The static cuts in and out.“Can anyone hear me?”Then it’s just the sound of her breathing, like her mouth is pressed too close to a microphone. Then movement, like things are being slid across a table, or a floor. More static, and then her voice again.“Something’s happening in my house. Something terrible. Help us. Please—”The transmission cuts off, and the sound of static fills the room, until a robotic voice gives the time stamp in stilted syllables.“December fourth. One-oh-three a.m.”And then it starts back up again, on a loop.“Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?”
“Turn it off,” Joe says, his tone furious.
Isaac presses a button, and the room falls silent. We remain silent. Isaac turns in the chair, looking at the floor. “Did your…uh, was the setup, did it have, like, a radio transmitter?”
“I don’t know,” Kennedy says, speaking in a whisper. She’s practically out the door already. I think she’s going to be sick. I wonder if this is what I looked like when Abby told me about the email.
Isaac continues, like it’s not a big deal. Notenormous,the size of the universe. “Was there, like, you know, an antenna…?”
No one answers him. I’ve seen the antenna on the top of the shed, though. I’m guessing the answer is yes.
Isaac takes a deep breath, moving the gum to the side of his mouth. “What I’m guessing is that you transmitted a signal. And this is the bounce back, playing.”
Joe steps toward her. “Is this some sort of joke?”
Isaac frowns. “Depending where it was transmitted, it could bounce back off the moon. Or off something closer. A satellite, even, the atmosphere…I don’t think this was intentional….”
Her eyes are wide, panicked. She shakes her head, but she doesn’t speak. There’s something familiar, like a sense of déjà vu, itching at the back of my head.
“December fourth?” I ask. “Are you sure?”
“That’s why I called you in,” Isaac says to Joe quietly. “It must’ve been transmitting on some sort of loop.”
