Chương 67: [A Whisper from the Dead]

The curtains were closed but light leaked in around the edges, a thin grey line along the top where they didn't quite reach the rail. Jake hadn't bothered opening them. He'd been lying on his bed since half nine, phone face up on his chest, the small television on the dresser playing to itself. The reporter on screen was standing outside a cordon. Behind her, nothing. Just a field where a road used to run into town.

— investigations are still ongoing, with authorities yet to rule out the possibility of an underground gas event, though some experts have raised questions about whether the scale of the disappearance is consistent with any known geological or industrial cause. Meanwhile, residents displaced from surrounding areas have begun the process of resettlement, with temporary housing now established across four neighbouring towns.

Families of those missing are being urged— He pointed the remote at it and the screen went black. A month of that. Every few days a new theory, another expert, another press conference where someone in a suit said they were doing everything they could. He still checked. Every morning, first thing, before he was properly awake. Some part of him expecting to see a headline that said they'd found something. Anything. A month on and there was still nothing. No bodies. No wreckage. No explanation that made any sense.

He put his phone face down on the mattress and closed his eyes. The voice came without warning. Jake. It's Dad. He sat up so fast the phone hit the floor. His heart was going before his brain caught up, some animal part of him reacting before he understood what had happened. He pressed himself back against the headboard and looked at the room. Empty. TV off. The thin grey light around the curtains. He sat very still. I'm alive and safe. This is real. Tony is getting a message too and he's going to call Olly.

Take the call. We're all okay. I love you both so much. Stay strong. More soon. His dad's voice. Not a recording. Not a memory. Present tense, right there, like someone had spoken in the room with him. He picked his phone up off the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. He turned it over in his hands without looking at it. He thought about the woman who'd come to the house three weeks ago, a friend of his grandma's, a therapist she'd got through someone she used to work with at the hospital.

She'd sat in the front room with him and Olly and said it was normal to experience vivid auditory sensations during periods of prolonged stress. His dad had said Tony's name. He sat and waited. Four minutes later the bedroom door opened and Olly leaned in, phone held out.

"Jake. Ren's dad is ringing. Asking for you for some reason." Jake looked at him. Then at the phone.

"Yeah," he said.

"I'll take it." Olly's eyebrows went up but he handed it over and stayed in the doorway, arms folded. Jake pressed it to his ear.

"Jake." Tony's voice, tight, controlled.

"Were you expecting this call?"

"Yeah," Jake said. He heard Tony blow a long breath out. A pause. When he spoke again something in him had shifted, like a man sitting down after a long walk.

"Holy shit," Tony said quietly.

"I don't — right. Okay. What did you hear?"

"My dad. He said he's alive. Said to wait for your call."

"I heard Sam," Tony said.

"Same thing. They're all alive, all of them. He said he'd message his mum in a few hours when he could, told me to contact some people first." A pause.

"I need to make more calls. I'm setting up a group chat, everyone who got a message. I'll add you. Just — sit tight, alright?"

"Yeah," Jake said.

"I'll be in touch," Tony said, and hung up. Jake held Olly's phone for a second, then held it out. Olly hadn't moved from the doorway. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"What the fuck was that about?" Olly said.

"Why does Ren's dad need to talk to you?"

"Sit down," Jake said.

"Jake—""Olly. Sit down." Olly sat on the end of the bed, his jaw set, eyes already defensive.

"About five minutes ago," Jake said, "I heard Dad's voice. Clear as I can hear you now. He said he's alive. He said Tony was getting a message too and that Tony would call you." He watched his brother's face close.

"Before you say anything — I know how it sounds. But he said Tony would call, and five minutes later you walked in with Tony on the phone asking for me."

"Are you fucking sick in the head?" Olly said. His voice had gone flat.

"Is this actually a joke to you right now?"

"I'm not joking."

"Jake—""I heard him, Olly." Olly looked at him for a long moment. The anger was still there but something else was working underneath it, the same thing that made him check the news every morning, the same thing that had made him sleep with his bedroom light on for the first two weeks.

"Tony got a message too," Jake said.

"He's calling everyone who did. He's making a group chat. We can both join. Dad said he'll send more when he can. I think you'll get one next." He looked at his brother.

"I don't know how. I don't know what's happening. But Tony didn't call here by accident." Olly said nothing. He was staring at the turned-off television.

"Yeah," he said finally.

"Okay." He looked over his shoulder.

"Do we tell grandma about this?"

"No. If she finds out before we have more proof she's gunna kick off or try to take me to a mental hospital or something. You know what she's like. We'll tell her soon, but for now let's see what this group chat has for us."

"Yeah. She would totally do that." He sighed.

"Even with the group chat she's not gunna believe it until Dad gets her a message."

"Yeah, well he said he'd send more soon so I'm sure he'll let her know."

Tony had been sitting at the kitchen table for forty minutes with his phone in his hand and a list on a scrap of paper in front of him. Six names. Lines through five of them. He dialled the last number. It rang four times before she picked up.

"Hello?"

"Sue. It's Tony. Tony Richards, Sam's friend." A pause.

"Tony." Her voice was careful in the way people's voices got when they'd learned to be careful.

"Is everything alright?"

"That's actually why I'm ringing." He turned his pen over on the table.

"This is gunna sound strange, and I need you to hear me out before you say anything. About an hour ago I heard a voice. Sam's voice. In my head, clear as day. He told me he's alive, that they all are, that something moved the whole town. He said he'd message you himself in a few hours when he could, and he gave me some names to call first." The line was quiet for long enough that he checked the screen to make sure it hadn't dropped.

"Sue."

"I'm here," she said. Her voice had gone very small.

"I'm here, I just — sorry. What did he say exactly?" Tony told her. Word for word, the way he'd been telling everyone. When he finished she didn't say anything for a moment and he could hear her breathing, slow and deliberate, the sound of someone holding themselves together through sheer effort.

"The others heard them too?" she said.

"Every single one. Leo's lad got a message from his dad. I called him first. Luka's mum, Phil's mum, Parmo's brother." He looked at the lines through the names on his list.

"All of them, Sue. Same thing. They're alive and they'll send more when they can." She made a sound that wasn't quite a word.

"I'm setting up a group chat," he said, keeping his voice steady.

"Everyone who got a message, everyone I've spoken to earlier. You can talk to the others yourself, hear it from them. I'll add you in the next few minutes."

"Okay," she said. Then, quieter: "Okay. Thank you Tony." He told her he'd be in touch and ended the call. He put the phone down on the table and left his hand flat on top of it. The kitchen was quiet. Outside the window the street was still bright, mid-August sun sitting high over the rooftops, a neighbour across the road pulling a bin back up the drive. He heard Lisa at the front door before she came through, keys on the counter, the sound of her coat.

She pushed into the kitchen with a half smile already on her face that dropped the moment she saw him.

"Just dropped them off," she said.

"Georgia's already claimed the good bedroom apparently." She crossed to the table and looked at the list, then at him. Her hands settled on his shoulders.

"We're still going out, I've booked the table. But you look terrible. What's going on?" Tony looked at the scrap of paper on the table.

"This is gunna sound weird," he said.

"Okay."

"I need you to just let me get through it." She pulled out the chair beside him and sat down, her hand moving from his shoulder to his arm.

"Go on then."

"Earlier, about an hour ago now, I heard Sam's voice." He held up a hand before she could speak.

"I know. I know what that sounds like. But it wasn't a memory and it wasn't me being daft. It was him, talking to me, telling me they're alive. Telling me what happened." He turned to look at her properly.

"Something moved them, Lisa. The whole town, all three thousand of them. He didn't say where or how, just that they're somewhere else and they're okay." She was watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.

"He told me to call people," Tony said.

"Gave me names. People the others had sent messages to. So I called them." He nodded at the list.

"Every single one of them heard the same thing, from their own person. Leo's lad heard Leo. Luka's mum heard Luka. All of them, within the same hour." He looked at her.

"I've just spent forty minutes on the phone to five different people who all heard a voice telling them their family is alive, and every single one of them believed it." He exhaled.

"I'm not having a breakdown. I'm not making this up. It's real." Lisa looked at the list on the table for a long time. Then she looked at him. She didn't say anything. She just took his hand and held it, her thumb moving back and forth across his knuckles, and they sat there in the quiet kitchen with the bright August light through the window and the whole impossible weight of it sitting between them like something neither of them knew how to lift.

"What do you do now?" she said finally. Tony picked up his phone.

"Make a group chat," he said.