Chapter Four: Forgotten Tapes
1272 Words
Two days had passed since the voices.
Two days since the hum in Jamila’s bones refused to fade.
She had barely slept. The station’s whisper seemed to echo through her dreams, soft and pleading — We’re still here. Even during the day, she felt its pulse beneath every silence, as though the air around her had learned to breathe.
And for the first time in months, the Racy Nights microphone stayed cold.
The midnight show that had once been her sanctuary — a space where laughter and late-night music drowned her grief — now felt like a betrayal. She had renamed it after her father’s death, keeping the time slot he once called sacred. But lately, when the clock struck twelve, she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
The dead were already doing that for her.
Jabir met them outside the station on the third morning — tall, calm, and skeptical as always. His jeans were dusted from the walk, and his expression carried the faint exhaustion of someone dragged into something he didn’t believe.
“So this is it?” he asked, eyeing the crumbling sign above the entrance. “The haunted radio station?”
Aisha folded her arms. “You said you’d come with an open mind.”
“I did,” Jabir replied dryly. “It’s still open. Just… waiting for proof.”
Jamila gave a weak smile. “You’ll get it.”
She led the way through the sagging doorway. The air inside was colder than before. The faint metallic smell of rust mixed with something older — a scent like burnt dust and damp paper.
Jabir clicked on a flashlight. “I see why nobody works here anymore.”
Jamila ignored him, heading toward the control room. The weight of memory clung to every corner — her father’s chair, the shelf where he kept his spare tapes, the poster of Rogo Broadcasting peeling from the wall. It felt like stepping into the hollow of a memory that refused to die.
They began searching the storage closet behind the main studio. The door stuck halfway, and Aisha had to shove it with her shoulder before it gave way.
Inside, boxes towered like forgotten tombs. Dust shimmered in the slanting light.
“Help me with these,” Aisha said, crouching to pull one open.
It was full of cassette tapes — hundreds of them, labeled in the same neat handwriting Jamila recognized immediately. Her father’s.
She reached for one.
“Ade – 05/02/10.”
Another: “Chika – 12/09/12.”
Another: “Tolu – 18/06/13.”
A chill crept down her spine. “These are names,” she whispered. “People’s names.”
Aisha tilted one toward the light. “Look at the dates.”
They were all in the past — years ago. Jamila’s breath hitched when she realized something else. She knew these names. Not personally, but through stories, obituaries, accidents.
All of them were dead.
Jabir frowned. “You’re sure about that?”
Jamila nodded slowly. “My dad used to keep a file of community reports. I’ve seen these names before.”
Aisha ran her fingers over the box label — faint pencil marks that read:
‘Voices — Raw Tapes.’
“Your father recorded these people?” Jabir asked.
“He interviewed them,” Jamila said faintly. “But they weren’t alive.”
They carried one tape — Tolu – 18/06/13 — to the control room.
The air felt heavier the moment Jamila slid it into the deck.
Jabir stood behind her, arms crossed. “Before we start, you know this could just be old broadcasts, right? Maybe dramatized sessions?”
Jamila met his eyes. “Then let’s prove it.”
She pressed play.
At first, only static. Then a sharp click, followed by her father’s voice — calm, professional, unmistakable.
“You’re listening to The Voices of Rogo. Tonight, we have a message from the other side.”
A pause. A faint exhale. Then another voice — shaky, low, trembling.
“My name is Tolu Adebayo.”
“Welcome, Tolu,” her father said gently. “You have something unfinished?”
A long silence followed. Then the voice spoke again, each word drenched in anger.
“He took everything from me. My home. My breath. But he thinks I’m gone. Tell him… I’m still coming.”
Static filled the gap. Jamila’s hands trembled as she adjusted the volume.
“Tolu,” her father said carefully. “Who are you speaking of?”
“You’ll see him soon,” Tolu whispered. “When the lights go out.”
The recording crackled violently, then warped — a low buzzing that crawled beneath the sound.
Aisha flinched. “What was that?”
Jabir leaned closer, studying the equipment. “There’s interference. It’s reacting to the power source.”
But there was no power. The mains had been cut off months ago.
The bulbs above them began to flicker — slow at first, then violently, like the heartbeat of something trapped inside the walls.
Jamila’s stomach turned. “Jabir…”
“I see it,” he said, moving toward the circuit board. “But there’s no connection—”
His words were drowned by a sharp burst from the speaker. Static exploded into the room, making them all flinch. Beneath it, faint voices whispered over one another — indecipherable, layered, desperate.
Jamila stepped back. “Stop it!”
She slammed the stop button. The reels slowed… but the sound didn’t stop.
Jami… la…
The whisper slithered through the static like breath against her ear.
Aisha backed away. “It’s saying your name again.”
Jabir stared at the deck. “There’s nothing running — how is it—”
The lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room whole, broken only by the red recording light flickering weakly on the deck.
Then, through the darkness — a faint voice, trembling but unmistakable.
You shouldn’t have come back.
It was her father.
Jamila froze. Her breath hitched as the voice grew louder, layered with others — dozens, maybe hundreds, merging into a single chorus of distortion.
You opened the door… now listen.
The speakers screamed with feedback. Aisha clamped her hands over her ears. Jabir reached for Jamila’s arm, trying to pull her toward the exit.
But she couldn’t move. Her eyes were locked on the red light. Beneath its glow, a faint shape flickered — the outline of a man’s face forming and dissolving across the glass window separating the booth from the hallway.
Her father’s face.
We’re not done.
The light burst — a sharp pop of electricity — and the room plunged into silence.
Jabir pulled Jamila by the wrist, dragging her toward the door. Aisha stumbled behind, breath ragged. They burst into the open corridor, coughing through the dust.
The air outside was still, almost unnaturally so. No wind. No sound.
Jamila turned back once, her heart still pounding. The red light on the deck had gone dark, but she could feel the hum beneath her skin — that same frequency, alive and waiting.
Jabir placed a hand on her shoulder. “We’re not coming back here,” he said firmly.
Jamila didn’t answer. Her gaze was fixed on the doorway, where faint static still crackled through the air — thin as breath.
She thought of the voice on the tape.
Tolu.
Revenge.
And her father’s words: You opened the door.
Aisha touched her arm gently. “Let’s go.”
Jamila nodded, but even as she turned away, she heard it again — faint, trailing behind them like smoke:
Racy Nights… 12 a.m… we’ll be waiting.
- Writer
