Chapter 1
It was a soft, barely audible moan; like hearing someone behind a closed door down the hall cry out in their sleep. But Aaron had no clue just how the sound got on the audio. No one else had been in the cemetery while he did his recording.
Leaning back in her high-backed studio chair, Rhonda opened her eyes, took a sip of tea from her KQAB mug, and tapped a function key. A dotted yellow line appeared across the waveform displayed on the monitor, marking the mysterious sound at the 1:48 mark.
“So…you’re absolutely sure no one else was around?” she asked Aaron, sitting next to her, staring blankly at the screen. “Or that you weren’t just…I dunno, suffering a bad case of gas from some expired hummus?”
Aaron chuckled, and shook his head. “No, no. I’d just finished getting tape of Senator Eldon’s memorial service at the home, right before the burial. I then trudged all the way to the far end of the cemetery for some good, clean ambi. No crowd, no traffic. Just like you said I should. I looked around before I started recording, and there was no one. Not even a squirrel.”
Rhonda replayed the three minute long WAV file, and the two watched the cursor glide across the spiky green waveform. Over the studio speakers, they heard trees rustling in the late autumn breeze, the roar of a distant jet, then finally a church bell ringing in the noon hour.
Both the senior engineer and Aaron leaned in and held their breath as the cursor crept upon 1:48. Rhonda potted up the board just a bit, and then it came: the odd, muffled groan that confused – and creeped out – the pair.
“BOO!”
Aaron and Rhonda yelped, as Tony burst out laughing.
“Jesus, Tony! What the hell!” cried Rhonda, shaking. She clutched her heart, staring daggers at the pony-tailed man.
“Heh, sorry gang,” Tony grinned, with an earnest shrug. “You both just looked so intense. What’s got you both all wound up, anyways?”
“Nothing,” said Aaron. His face turned nearly as pink as Rhonda’s hair. “We’re just doing tweaking the aud---”
“Aaron thinks he recorded a ghost,” Rhonda said, patting him on the back.
“I never said that!”
“Oooh, freaky,” nodded Tony, shuffling further into the studio with an armful of vinyl LPs. He was preparing to produce his weekly Led Zeppelin program (Aaron readily recognized the In Through the Out Door album from his dad’s collection.)
“Well…it was recorded at the cemetery,” replied Rhonda, crossing her arms. “I think someone reached out to our intrepid junior reporter, with an exclusive tip from…the world beyond.”
“Wwwooooooooo,” wailed Tony, waving his hands through the air. “Sounds like some real EVP shit going down, man.”
Aaron crinkled his brow. “EVP?”
“Electronic voice phenomena,” explained Rhonda. “It’s been around since recordings were invented. It’s kinda the parlor game for adventurous audiophiles, which usually means hanging out in graveyards or abandoned asylums in the dead of night with a recorder. I saw it done on one of those paranormal TV shows back in the 70s. Maybe the one Leonard Nimoy narrated? God, he was great.”
“The point,” nudged Aaron.
“Anyways, they had this dude asking questions in the middle of this cemetery, it’s all dark and creepy, and later when he plays back the tape --”
“Voices,” said Tony, turning grim. “Weird, distant sounds of people answering him. Sometimes just nothing but screams. No rational explanation.”
“Well excuse me, but that’s just fucking stoopy,” said Aaron, shaking his head. “I’m guessing they know where to find Jimmy Hoffa’s body too?”
“Hey, who’s to say?” replied Rhonda, pointing at the monitor. “If spirits can communicate through knocking on tables during séances or appearing in relatives’ photos after they’ve died, why not find ways to get themselves on tape?”
“First, we up-and-comers call it ‘digital’ because it’s been a couple good decades since tape went the way of the dodo,” said Aaron, standing up. “Second, we don’t know this little groan is any voice from the beyond. And third, I’m just not one to believe in these amazing tales from the crypt stuff. Not since I left middle school, right? Besides, I’ve had equipment glitch out on me before. One corrupted WAV file can sample any random bit of audio from a totally different recording.”
“Only one sure way to know,” said Tony, with a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Revisit the cemetery.”
“Yeah, sure,” laughed Aaron, walking out with his field kit in now. “You’re a riot, Tony.”
