Episode 3: The Devil’s Music
Rain poured down in torrents, hammering the roof of the crumbling radio station. Thunder cracked, illuminating the old building on the hill like a flashbulb exposing a crime scene. Shadows danced across the lobby where Phoenician smugglers slipped inside, dripping and silent, led by a man with a scar that cut across his cheek like a defaced painting. Their footsteps echoed in the gloom as they moved toward the broadcast studio, undeterred by the flickering lights and the eerie hum of old equipment awakening around them.
One of the men, clutching a pistol, gave a nervous glance to a wall lined with old photos of radio hosts, past and present. He tossed his RJ Reynolds menthol from his mouth, crushing it underfoot.
“Chicks can’t slay vampires,” he said.
Scar’s voice cut through the hiss and crackle of static, low and harsh. “The artifact is here, and it’s not leaving with us until it’s in our hands. Understand?”
The others nodded, tense but hungry with the thrill of the hunt. A second man, stocky and clad in leather gloves, adjusted the strap on his shoulder and looked around the empty lobby, his gaze catching on a framed newspaper clipping hung askew on the wall. “Elizabeth Short Found Murdered in Grisly Slaying”, the headline declared in bold, grim letters. The article’s photo was washed out, but her face still gazed out from under dark curls, her smile fixed in a half-mocking, half-haunting pose.
One of the smugglers nudged a cabinet door open, revealing a jumble of old vinyl records and crumbling papers. He reached in, fingers brushing across a folded paper jammed between records. He pulled it free, and his brows knitted as he unfolded it—an old black-and-white photograph, faded at the edges. In the center was a crowd, all faces turned upward, staring skyward in rapture at an unknown light. There, just barely visible above them, was a hand-painted image of a star with a single eye.
On the photograph was scrawled:
“Starbearer.”
The smuggler squinted, tracing the crude inked symbol with a fingertip. He held it up to the others. “Hey, Scar, check this out.
Scar snatched it from his hands, studying it with narrowed eyes.
Scar’s gaze hardened, his grip on the photograph tightening. He could feel an eerie tension in the room, as if the air itself was aware of them. But he shook it off, giving his men a dark smile.
“Whoever’s guiding us doesn’t matter,” he said, tucking the photo into his jacket. “We’re close. Let’s move.”
They turned, the photograph’s image still burning in their minds—a single eye in a star, as if waiting for them to understand its message.
They moved into the studio, with its ancient leather chairs and dust-coated equipment that seemed to hum louder as they entered. The artifact was rumored to hold traces of something dark, Something of the blood and rot that haunted the city’s secrets.
Another hallway led them to the archive room, a cavernous space filled with rows of filing cabinets, shelves stacked with crumbling papers, and reels of old broadcasts. The scarred man rifled through a drawer, his hands searching feverishly until they met a small, silver lockbox, dust thick on its lid, wrapped in paper .
One of the smugglers saw , and a gasp escaped him. “Scar… it’s here. That’s it!.”
He lifted the small box wrapped in brittle yellowed paper, its surface darkened by years of wear. Symbols scrawled across it seemed to pulse in the dim light.
A sudden burst of static filled the room, sending chills racing down their spines. The smugglers froze. Someone, or something, was on the air.
Just then, a soft hum filled the room, as if an old radio were coming to life on its own. The men froze, listening. The melody was faint at first, drifting through static, but it grew louder, weaving around them like a hypnotic chant. It was a voice—no, voices—joining together in eerie harmony, rising and falling in something half song, half whisper.
The stocky man pulled back, unease flickering in his eyes. “What is this? And… that smell—”
He stopped, realizing too late that the metallic tang wasn’t just from the rain. The scent was stronger here, something bitter, feral, and ancient, like blood and ash. He reached up, his gloved hand brushing a smudge on his collar that hadn’t been there before—a black smear, like tar.
“Enough,” the scarred man snapped, steadying his voice. “We’re out.”
Another flicker of light, and one of them glimpsed a scrawled message on the wall, faded but unmistakable:
“Demon.”
They exchanged looks, each of them steeling themselves against the sudden chill that seeped into the room. The storm outside felt like it was breathing down their necks, the pounding of the rain growing louder as they ventured deeper.
One of the others, a wiry man with a haunted gaze, glanced up, feeling something prickling at the back of his neck. His eyes darted to a drawing pinned to the wall, sketched hastily in ink—a cartoonish figure with wild eyes and a grin too wide to be friendly. Its face was marked with a spade, the eyes blank, hollow.
On it was scrawled:
“Celestial.”
As he turned back, he felt a cold, crawling sensation wrap around his chest.
Another flicker of the lights. The humming grew louder, filling the room with its eerie cadence.
The stocky man looked around, shivering. “You hear that? It’s like… a purr.”
A faint chuckle seemed to ripple through the air, as if something out there, something unseen, was listening. Watching. There was a final message scrawled along the edge of the door in what looked like claw marks, half-worn away but unmistakable.
“Master of Beasts.”
A louder crackle of static burst from the speakers, and their flashlights sputtered. The leader gritted his teeth, clutching the lockbox tighter, his knuckles turning white. But no one dared speak. The faint hum rose again, a sinister lullaby filling the room as the storm reached its peak outside. Shadows shifted across the walls, figures half-formed, expressions half-realized, flickering in the dim, sickly light.
From an old monitor in the corner, a faint whisper began, growing louder, sharpening into words. The voice was soft, almost soothing—a woman’s voice, singing a melody older than memory itself.
One of the men backed up, eyes wide, breath coming fast. “Shut it off,” he whispered.
They exchanged looks, then turned, but it was too late. The lights went black, leaving only the flickering glow of the monitor, bathing their faces in a sickly greenish hue. A low, scratching sound filled the room, like nails dragging along the walls.
The smugglers’ leader kept his eyes on the box, his face set with fear and determination, but the other men glanced around the studio, eyes darting to every corner. The hum grew into a buzz, then a scream. The monitor flared, showing a woman’s face twisted into something monstrous, her eyes hollow, lips curled in a smile that stretched too far, too wide.
In the silence that followed, a chill settled, and they sensed it—the presence of something they’d disturbed, something ancient, something watching. The rain drummed faster, like a heartbeat, as the final echo of that faint, almost-human whisper filled the air:
“Run.”
Then, one by one, the screams began.
The hands that clutched the artifact loosened, dropping it to the floor with a hollow thunk.
The dawn light was gray and cold as it crept over the hill where the radio station stood, casting the old building in a shroud of damp mist. As the storm broke, leaving the air heavy and still, a lone figure trudged up the slippery steps. Roy, the morning engineer, grumbled under his breath as he wiped rainwater from his brow. He’d been called in to troubleshoot a power issue—the place had apparently gone dark in the middle of the night, cutting off all transmissions until the board rebooted.
As he unlocked the door, the silence struck him as wrong. The station usually hummed with the faint buzz of machines on standby, even when empty. But now, nothing. Just the faint, metallic scent that hung in the air, sharp and bitter. Roy’s brow furrowed, a shiver tracing its way up his spine. He flipped on his flashlight and stepped inside.
The lobby looked strangely deserted, the chairs pushed back, as if someone had left in a hurry. He took a few hesitant steps forward, but his foot slipped on something wet. He looked down and recoiled—there, across the linoleum, was a slick trail leading deeper into the building, a dark smear that glistened ominously in the beam of his flashlight.
Heart pounding, he followed the trail down the narrow hallway. The air grew colder, and the walls seemed to press in on him as he made his way to the broadcast studio. The faint sound of static hissed in the distance, crackling through the silence. He opened the door—and froze, his flashlight trembling in his grip.
The studio was a scene from a nightmare. Bodies lay strewn across the floor, their eyes wide open, faces twisted in terror. Blood stained the walls, glistening in long, gruesome streaks, pooling beneath each lifeless figure. But what made Roy’s breath hitch, what sent his heart racing in pure horror, were the images painted in thick, dark smears all around him.
On the floor, etched in blood, was a star with one unblinking eye at its center, like some mocking, otherworldly symbol. The image seemed to stare up at him, its dark lines dripping, as if it had been drawn in haste—and by hands no longer steady.
To the left, on the wall behind the equipment, was a grotesque face: wide eyes, a tongue unfurled in a wicked grin, drawn with chilling precision. Its expression was almost gleeful, as if it had taken sadistic pleasure in what had happened here, watching from the darkness while violence unfolded.
Roy’s flashlight swept to the opposite wall, and he sucked in a sharp breath. Above the shelves of broadcast records, another face was painted in jagged, sprawling strokes—an inhuman figure with blank, hollow eyes, staring straight ahead with an almost alien detachment. . The face seemed to float, as if detached from any sense of reality, as if whoever drew it had left something of themselves behind in its eerie, dead eyes.
But it was the last drawing that made him stumble backward, heart hammering as the flashlight slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor. On the wall beside the door, a final face grinned back at him: feline features, teeth bared, eyes wild and gleaming. . Its expression seemed to flicker, alive with an animal intensity, its mouth open in what looked like a scream frozen in time.
Roy stumbled, his eyes wide as he tried to catch his breath, horror tightening his throat. He backed away, trembling as his flashlight cast long shadows across the bloody faces that seemed to follow him, their dark, empty eyes trained on him with a silent, mocking gaze.
Somehow, Roy could grab his phone , his mind numb, heart pounding as he dialed 911, his fingers barely able to press the buttons. When the operator picked up, he stammered through a tangled explanation, the words tumbling out in broken fragments—blood, bodies, faces on the wall—but the images stayed locked in his mind, vivid and horrifying. He could still feel them staring at him, burned into his memory, watching with an unnatural, unsettling patience.
Outside, the rain began to fall again, steady and heavy, as if the storm itself had come back to claim what it left behind.
The monitor still hummed, showing a single line of text:
“The truth is never buried.”