54) INCOMING CALLER REPORT // ROUTED THROUGH LAST SIGNAL RADIO

[HOST – spoken, male vocals,voice jittery, delighted] OHHH, look what the storm coughed up— a live one on the line! Caller, caller, little voice in the wires— tell Uncle Nobody what’s crawling in your cornflakes tonight… [CALLER – spoken, female vocals, shaky voice, female, mid-40s? Local static interference suggests northern sector, former Montana or Dakotas] I— I don’t know if this is coming through. Your signal... it keeps splitting like there’s more than one of you talking. But I gotta report what I saw. If anyone’s still mapping these things, you need to log this. [—creak of breath, then a low thud, like he’s bracing a door—] [CALLER – spoken, female vocals, shaky voice, female, mid-40s] It was near what used to be Billings. Out past the black tree line. The ash’s still knee-deep in places, but the snow sits on top of it now, like frosting on a corpse. My group— we were tracking something, thought it was scavengers or maybe one of the empty-eyed townsfolk, but this… this was new. I first heard it— not saw it. Like a clicking sound. Not claws on rock, more like... like bones being tapped together, almost polite. We killed the lanterns, didn’t want attention. But the snow was glowing. Not bright, but like the light was coming from underneath it. [HOST – spoken, male vocals, delighted gasp] Ohooo, buried glowworms wearing grandma’s bones? [CALLER – spoken, female vocals, ignoring interruption] Then it stood up. It had been lying flat, maybe waiting, maybe listening. Tall— seven feet at least, maybe more since it was hunched. Couldn’t see skin. Just this… soot-black shape like it was made of cooled lava. But parts of it were still molten underneath— tiny cracks, glowing orange. Like veins. I thought it was rock until it tilted its head at me. No face that I could see— just a long ridge where a mouth should be. Then the mouth split. Not open— SPLIT. Sideways. All the way across its head. [Caller pauses. Wet noise. Possibly crying or gagging.] [CALLER – spoken, female vocals, shaky voice, female, mid-40s] And it spoke. But the sound didn’t come through the air— it vibrated inside my molars, like a tuning fork made of nightmares. It said: ‘WE REMEMBER THE HEAT OF YOUR NAMES.’ Not in English. But that’s what my brain told me it meant. One of us fired. Stupid. The thing didn’t bleed. Didn’t flinch. The shot just turned to dust before it hit. Like the air around it rejected metal. Then those cracks in its body— brightened. And the snow melted five feet around it in seconds. It didn’t chase. It didn’t need to. It just watched us run. But when I looked back… it was sinking into the ash like the ground opened to swallow it. Not burrowing— just gone. [HOST – spoken, male vocals, manic whisper] Oh-hoh, a magma mourner! A cinder saint! One of the Beast’s little shadow children! [CALLER – spoken, female vocals, whispering now] There’s more of them. I saw others moving under the snow. Shapes. Long arms dragging. The ash isn’t dead— it’s pregnant. Don’t go near the fault line trails. They’re nesting in warmth zones. Please. You gotta tell people. [HOST – spoken, male vocals, gleeful shriek] You heard the man, wasteland wanderers! If the snow starts to glow and the ground sighs your name— don’t worry about running! Just start making peace with your teeth, because that’s the first thing they’ll take!” [—Caller tries to speak again but the line cuts into a roar of static, then three distinct knocks from the transmitter side.] [HOST, spoken, male vocals, whispering to himself] Mmm. They’re learning the phones again. Delicious and unnerving.