BASED ON A TRUE CRIME PODCAST
CHAPTER ONE
"Dad, do you think ghosts are real?"
Xander's gaze remained fixed on his soggy cereal, milk pooling around the edges of his bowl. This wasn't one of his typical ADHD-sparked questions that ricocheted around our breakfast table like stray bullets. I glanced at Cynthia, watching as she methodically packed lunches, her obsidian hair cascading over one shoulder, occasionally catching glimpses of her jade eyes as she worked. Even in these mundane moments, she had a way of stealing my breath.
"That's a complicated question, bud—"
A sharp ping from my laptop interrupted us. The subject line sent ice through my veins:
"URGENT: The Hallows' Whispers - More Lives at Stake"
On any other morning, I'd have dismissed it as another piece of digital detritus cluttering my inbox. I'd earned my reputation as our household's resident skeptic—forever searching for rational explanations behind the inexplicable. "Not everything needs a scientific explanation, baby," Cynthia would tease, usually moments before something occurred that defied my carefully constructed logic.
But after last night's episode of Love and Luminol—our true-crime podcast that plays on our surname, Lumin, and the chemical that illuminates blood at crime scenes—I couldn't simply ignore it. The unexplained interference that had sliced through our recording at precisely 3:33 AM, the crystalline whisper we'd captured—too pristine to be random noise, too distinct to be imagination—still echoed in my thoughts: "The hallows know your names."
I'd spent hours trying to find a technical explanation. I'd checked the wiring, searched for interference patterns, even interrogated the boys about potential pranks. Yet nothing explained why our quartet of cats had simultaneously snapped to attention, their fur bristling as they stared, transfixed, at that empty corner of our recording space.
"I know that look," she murmured, her silver pentagram catching the morning light like a trapped star. "Still can't figure out what happened last night?"
"Someone's got to be the voice of reason around here," I replied with a half-smile as she traced another protection symbol in the air.
Ben slouched into the kitchen doorway, his gangly teenage frame awkwardly propped against the wall, backpack dangling from one shoulder. "What're you guys talking about?" he asked, grabbing the final piece of toast. Upstairs, Casey and Tyler's voices rose in their typical morning argument.
"Nothing important, honey," Cynthia said, though her fingers instinctively sought her pendant. Her eyes met mine, a silent warning passing between us. "Just stuff for the podcast."
After Ben's footsteps retreated upstairs, I opened the email. The timestamp made my stomach lurch—3:33 AM. The message was sparse:
"You heard us. We've been trying to reach you. The Hallows' Whispers isn't just a legend - it's a warning. Many families have vanished in Johnson. Families with children. If you don't help us, yours will be next. Check your latest recording again. Listen for the names."
"Babe," I whispered, "you need to see this."
She drifted behind me, her palm warm against my shoulder as she leaned forward. The attached image showed our Victorian home from across the street. At first glance, nothing seemed amiss, but the longer we stared, the more wrong it felt. The brass numbers above our door read 333—not our actual address of 2947.
Each window—the boys' bedrooms, our recording studio, even the unused circular attic window—contained pale faces pressed against the glass. They weren't merely watching; they were anticipating. Their features stretched and distorted in ways that defied human anatomy. But the recording room window chilled me to my core: there we were, hunched over our equipment, while behind us, seven translucent figures formed a perfect circle, their ethereal hands reaching toward our oblivious forms.
Her grip tightened. "Look at the boys' windows..."
I zoomed in, my hands trembling slightly. The faces weren't random apparitions—they were our sons, but wrong. Their features were twisted, eyes transformed into bottomless voids, mouths stretched into impossible grins. "Christ," I breathed.
"Mom! Can't find my shoes!" Casey's voice shattered the moment, jarringly ordinary against our mounting horror.
"Check by the back door!" Cynthia called back, her voice steady despite her grip betraying her fear. "Baby," she whispered, "I know you don't believe in this stuff, but..."
"I believe what I'm seeing right now," I said, quickly shutting the laptop as thundering footsteps announced the arrival of our brood.
They filtered into the kitchen—Tyler helping Casey with his shoelaces, Brayden pushing his glasses up while quietly spooning cereal, Xander still hung up on my unanswered question about the supernatural. Seven families had disappeared in Johnson. Seven families just like ours.
Maybelle, our aging matriarch of a cat, suddenly erupted in a low growl, her matted fur rising like a gray tide. The other three quickly joined her chorus, all fixated on the same empty corner of our kitchen.
"Dad?" Xander's spoon hovered between bowl and mouth, his emo-styled hair partially obscuring his orange and black frames. "About those ghosts..."
Cynthia's fingers intertwined with mine beneath the table. "Let's talk about it after school, okay?" she said to Xander, though her attention remained locked on the cats' focal point. "You guys need to get going."
"But—" Xander protested.
"Baby," I interrupted, squeezing her hand as the kitchen air grew inexplicably frigid. "Can you help Casey with his shoes while I finish up the lunches?"
She caught my meaning instantly. The boys didn't need to witness Patches, our rotund orange and white tabby, arching like a Halloween decoration, or Penny, our perpetually irritated ginger, retreating beneath the table, or even little Nala, our black and white princess, bristling at some unseen presence.
"Alright, time to move it," she announced, managing to keep her voice light as she herded them toward the door. "You're gonna miss the bus." Her smile, usually bright enough to light up the room, looked strained at the edges, worry creeping into the corners of her mouth.
I continued packing lunches, trying to ignore how my breath now misted in the kitchen air. The numbers 3:33 pulsed in my mind: the email's timestamp, the whispered message's arrival, the impossible house number in that unsettling photograph.
A thunderous crash from our recording room shattered the moment. Equipment toppling, though we'd meticulously secured everything after last night's session.
"Just gotta check something real quick!" I called out, trying to sound casual. "Have a good day at school!"
"Love you guys!" Cynthia added, still shuffling them toward the exit. A chorus of "Love you too!" and "Bye!" mixed with the usual chaos of zipping backpacks and scuffling shoes. The moment the door clicked shut, she appeared beside me.
"Baby," she said, moving toward the recording room. "Tell me that wasn't—"
Another crash interrupted her, followed by the distinctive hiss of static—identical to last night's disturbance.
"Maybe it's just the cats," I suggested weakly, though Maybelle remained frozen in her corner vigil, while Patches and Penny huddled by the back door. Nala had vanished entirely.
"Right," she replied, clutching her pentagram. "Because cats love messing with recording equipment."
The static intensified, more aggressive than before, as if fighting to break through some unseen barrier. As we approached the recording room, the temperature plummeted further.
"Got any science for this one, baby?" she asked, her voice wavering. I reached for her hand.
The recording room door stood closed—we'd left it open the previous night.
"Maybe we should—" I began, but then we heard it. Through the static, voices emerged. Not a single voice this time, but many, overlapping like a ghostly symposium. Beneath them all, barely perceptible but unmistakable, were children's voices.
Our children's voices.
"They just got on the bus," I said, more to convince myself than anything else. Through the window, I watched the empty street where the bus had pulled away moments ago.
"Something's in there," she whispered, her free hand still gripping her pendant as she mouthed protection rituals. For once, I didn't question her beliefs. I welcomed any shield against what awaited us.
The whispers ceased abruptly. In the deafening silence, we heard our recording equipment activate with a decisive click.
"The hallows know your names," the voice from last night repeated. Then, in perfect synchronization, every screen in our recording studio blazed to life, each display flashing the same haunting sequence:
3:33