Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 10 - The Message

The hours after the pulse felt like borrowed time.
Everyone moved softer, talked quieter, like even sound could break the thin shell of calm we were pretending to live inside. The kids slept in a pile of blankets against the far wall. Dave and I took turns watching the gates. The blue storage tanks shimmered under the floodlights like they were trying to breathe.

Mateo sat by the radio with the headphones around his neck, staring at static like he expected it to blink first.

At 2:47 a.m., it changed.

A low tone bled through the speakers.
Then a woman's voice, thin and tired, crawling through the static like it had to fight its way in.

“This is FEMA regional broadcast channel… repeating survivor identification feed for verified rescue zones along the Missouri River collapse corridor…”

Everyone looked up.

Mark moved closer. “Turn that up.”

Mateo's fingers shook as he nudged the dial. The voice sharpened into something almost clear.

“Alaina Singer, Carmen Alvarez, Dennis Rourke, Drew Hawkins, Eddie Morales, Evan Stackhouse, Hal Burns, Jaxon Boro, Nicholas Prince, Ryan Wolf, Sarah Bell, Song Neal, Jenna Cruz, Jesse Lin, Jonas Lee, Kevin Holt, Lisa Han.”

Silence.
Just the hum of the generators filling the space between us.

Alex whispered, “Survivors.”

The voice repeated.

Names we knew.
Names we didn’t.
Names that mattered.

When it looped back again, Mateo’s breath caught.

“They said her name,” he whispered. “Carmen Alvarez.”

His voice cracked.
“They said her name.”

But not Junior.

Not my boy.

Alex stepped forward. “Mateo, that list was short. It doesn’t mean anything yet.”

He shook his head. “They said survivors. They said survivors.”

Then the radio clicked once and died.

The room stayed frozen.
Even the generators sounded quieter.

That was when Sharon lifted her head.

She had been slumped against the pipe for hours, wrists tied, breathing shallow.
Now she sat upright, neck moving too slow, too deliberate, like it had to remember the steps.

Her eyes opened. Clear. Wrong.
Her pupils fluttered like a heartbeat that wasn't hers.

A low vibration rolled through the floor.

She turned toward Mateo.

Her lips trembled once, then shaped sound.

The voice that came out was not hers.

“They’re not in the water,” she whispered.

The tone was layered.
Static.
A low hum under the words that did not belong to lungs.

Her mouth twitched into a thin smile that showed too much gum.

“They’re one of us now.”

Mateo staggered back a step.

Sharon’s head tilted right, slow and jerking, like a marionette pulled by an unsure child. Something clicked in her jaw. Alex winced.

Sharon leaned forward against the restraints.

“You can join us,” she breathed.

Her pupils contracted to pinpoints and then fluttered again.

“If you just listen.”

The last word was barely audible.
It vibrated more than it sounded.

Mateo broke.
Completely snapped.

He grabbed the wrench by the toolbox.

“Mateo!” Alex yelled.

Too late.

The wrench cracked against Sharon’s temple.
Her body didn’t fall so much as collapse inward, like her bones were folding into themselves.

She landed on her side.

And kept smiling.

Her right eye drifted.
Her left eye twitched like it was following something across the ceiling.

Her lips moved without sound at first.

Then a faint whisper slipped out.

“Li… sss… en…”

Her fingers curled like she was holding invisible hair.
Her smile widened by a fraction, just enough to show a sliver of teeth.

Dave knelt beside her.
“She’s gone.”

But her face didn’t look gone.

It looked… expectant.

Mark stepped forward. “What the hell did you do? She flickered before every pulse. She was our early warning. You just killed it.”

Mateo shook, staring at the body.
“She said things… about my son. Things she couldn’t know.”

The room stayed silent.

Alex pressed a hand over her mouth.
Dave stared at the monitors.

Outside, the fog pressed against the glass like a living thing.

A faint vibration started somewhere in the field.
Low. Rising.
A familiar hum building toward something worse.

I looked at the radio.
It crackled once, a hollow ghost of a sound.

Inside, the air thickened.
It felt like the world itself was holding its breath again.

And Sharon’s dead smile stayed fixed on her face.

Like whatever had been looking at us through her eyes…

…was still listening.