Page 115 - Hunter - The Vigil

Network

Zero

The Secret Frequency

The invisible voices weren’t so invisible anymore, were they?
The van lay on its side on the shoulder of the deserted highway, and Vani-
da felt all turned around — the van had been torn open, the driver-side
door removed entirely, and the howling spirits whose bodies seemed one
reached in, keening, wailing, whispering, gibbering. One swiped at her
and she ducked it, clambering toward the back where their tendrils could
not reach. The sounds bored straight into her ears. She felt a wetness
dripping down the side of her neck. Blood?
From the passenger side, Becky screamed. Hanging out of the driver side
with a camping machete was Blake, swinging into the awful specters, the

blade refusing to fi nd purchase in their phantasmal fl esh.
Earlier, Vanida had thought, I’ll just take the crew, we’ll bring out gear, see
if we can’t fi gure out just what’s trying to talk to us. Maybe we’ll get some
EVP. Maybe we’ll catch something on video and post it to the Net, hope it
goes viral. Maybe we won’t fi nd shit. Usually, it works out okay. The voices
tell her something. She captures it. Sometimes she even passes the mes-

sage along to those who need to hear it — the living left behind.
And then this happened. They came out of the forests. Specters with open
mouths and empty eyes. The cell bolted. The creatures pursued. And
knocked the damn van on its side. But that was then, and this was now,
and right now, the things were shrieking. Pale, diaphanous hands peeled
the metal sides of the van further back like the tin top of a sardine can.
Blake cursed. Becky had stopped screaming and had begun babbling.

Vanida took a deep breath. A distant thought occurred to her:

Am I going to die tonight?
It was a dark thought, but not nearly as strange as the one that followed:
Maybe I will, maybe I won’t, but at least it’ll make some bad-ass footage

for YouTube.
Gritting her teeth, she swung the camera up and turned it on.

Showtime.

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