"Accounts from a Lonely Broadcast Station"

*Accounts from a Lonely Broadcast Station* is the first major arc in the Pinehaven series, written by Kel Byron. It was uploaded in 2018 in the /nosleep Reddit forum under the username 'Wendingus'.

## Summary

Evelyn McKinnon returns to her mountainous hometown of Pinehaven after a brief stay in a rehabilitation center, having secured a new job as a radio DJ. However, she quickly learns that her new place of employment is at the center of a supernatural conspiracy. Alongside her new co-worker, Daniel Esperanza, Evelyn is tasked with guarding the border between the living and the dead, protecting the townsfolk from amalgamated horrors and monstrous abominations that creep out of the forest when the fog rolls in. Her worst enemy, however, is the madness that haunts her sober mind when memories come flooding back.

## Timeline of Events

1. Evelyn describes her first few days at 104.6 FM. After a week of strange but mundane uneasiness, she encounters her first Fog Day. While she's distracted by the fog, the radio stops and she receives an angry call from the director of the station. As the fog envelops the tower, she turns the radio back on and watches it retreat. She notices a bird with human eyes.
2. Daniel arrives at the station for his first day at work. Evelyn hates his guts. They receive a creepy phone call from an old woman named Rose who describes apocalyptic visions, and that prompts other villagers to call with their own dreams. When Evelyn leaves the room, Dan answers an incoming call. What he hears is so powerful that it bursts both of his eardrums simultaneously. He sees his own blood and faints, and Evelyn takes care of him until an ambulance arrives.
3. While Evelyn is alone at the station, she receives a call that replays one half of an argument. She recognizes the voice, then begins to feel sick. When she gets to the bathroom, she starts choking and spits out a stone that had been lodged in her throat. She flushes it down the toilet, but it reappears outside on the stairwell, with the words "Class of 2017" painted on it. She notices that the bird with human eyes is making a nest.
4. Evelyn reports the morning news and learns that her ex-friend, Jennifer, has gone missing. Dan returns to work and the duo encounter another fog day. This time, Evelyn is outside. She tries to relocate the bird's nest, but finds a pair of human fingers inside. As the fog rolls in, unbeknownst to her, she is dragged away by sentient rose vines. She ends up stuck in the fog, where she is stalked by The Amalgamate for the first time. Daniel gets the radio running again and the fog subsides.
5. Evelyn goes into the woods looking for Jennifer. She tries calling her phone, and it leads her to her corpse and the bodies of two other people from the village. Jennifer is stuffed into a tree with her hand outstretched, holding the cell phone. They walk home, and her and Dan bond over the shared realization that they're way in over their heads.
6. Evelyn has been taken into custody for questioning after Finn and his partner at the police station collected evidence of Jennifer's death. While she's gone, Daniel finds information about Evelyn's past on her computer. He sees someone named Elijah harassing her on social media, asking about Jennifer. He then notices someone standing at the treeline and recognizes it as the man who delivers their groceries. When Daniel goes down to greet him, he sees Jennifer's shambling, broken corpse walking toward him. He rushes back inside and gets as call from Evelyn, who warns him that a huge storm is coming.
7. Evelyn fills Dan in on what she learned while she was at the police station. The Chief of Police revealed that he is the man who hired them, and that the radio tower is actually an emergency broadcast station in disguise. He explains the nature of the forest and why the radio frequency is so important for the safety of Pinehaven. Evelyn learns that she is the 28th Operator, and Dan is the 29th.
8. The storm arrives. While they watch it roll in, Dan and Evelyn have a heart-to-heart about how they both ended up in this situation. Evelyn admits that she's a recovering alcoholic. When the power goes out and the fog starts to roll in, Evelyn rushes outside to start the generator. They're swarmed by creatures from the forest, including The Amalgamate. She locks herself in the shed while The Amalgamate tries to get in and grab her. She starts the generator and Daniel activates The Bell, which finally pushes back the horrors of the woods. The bird with human eyes comes back, and in the closing words of the story, Daniel decides to name it Bartholomew.