The Last Signal

The transmission came at 3:17am. Static first. Then breathing. Then a voice that sounded like mine but older — corroded by something that had no name in any language still spoken.

I had been awake for thirty-one hours when it came through. The receiver was not supposed to be on. I had not touched it since my father died and left me this house, this hill, this silence that sits on the valley like a held breath.

The voice said three things. I will not write all three here. The first was my name. The second was a set of coordinates I later found corresponded to a location in the Pacific that does not appear on any map made after 1987. The third was a question I have been trying to answer ever since.

I drove to the coordinates. It took eleven days. What I found there is the reason I am writing this.

What I found there is the reason I may not write anything else.