In 1990, Staff Sergeant David Carson was stationed at RAF Bentwaters, a United States Air Force base in the English countryside. It was a quiet posting, nestled in the misty woodlands of Suffolk, where the damp fog rolled in early in the mornings and hung in the air until well after dusk. David was a communications specialist, working long hours in a windowless bunker filled with equipment that hummed softly, its fluorescent lights casting an eerie glow over the consoles.
He had been at Bentwaters for three years, part of the routine Cold War watch. The world was changing—tensions between the superpowers were easing, and there was talk of the Berlin Wall coming down. For David, it meant more boredom than excitement. The days blurred together, filled with endless monitoring of encrypted transmissions, routine checks, and waiting for messages that rarely arrived.
But on one rainy September night, everything changed.
David was working the midnight shift, alone in the communications room. The dull hum of the machines was almost soothing, and he leaned back in his chair, stretching his tired arms. The rain tapped steadily against the metal roof, lulling him into a trance. Just as his eyes began to droop, something unusual caught his attention.
The equipment crackled with static, a sound that normally wouldn't have bothered him. But then the static shifted, growing louder and more distinct, as if trying to form words. He straightened in his seat, his heart beginning to pound. It was common to pick up random bursts of interference, but this was different. The pattern was deliberate, almost rhythmic.
David reached for the headset and adjusted the frequency. The crackling intensified, and through the hiss, he could make out something—numbers, spoken in a calm, monotone voice.
"Four. Two. Seven. Nine. Zero. Six. Three."
He froze. The voice was faint but clear enough to send a chill down his spine. It wasn’t a transmission from the base or any military signal he recognized. It was coming from an unassigned frequency, one that shouldn’t have been active.
David quickly recorded the transmission, his hands shaking slightly. He had no idea where it was coming from, but he knew it was something important. The numbers continued for several minutes before abruptly cutting out, leaving the room in an eerie silence.
He rewound the tape and played it again, listening closely. The numbers were precise, spoken by the same calm, robotic voice. But there was something else beneath the numbers—something he hadn’t noticed at first. A faint, almost imperceptible sound, like whispering, hidden in the background.
David’s skin prickled. He couldn’t make out the whispers, but they sent a wave of unease through him. He quickly ran a trace on the signal, hoping to pinpoint its origin, but the results were baffling. The signal wasn’t coming from anywhere within the usual ranges—not from the base, not from a nearby town, not even from a satellite. It was as if it were coming from nowhere.
Feeling the weight of something strange in the air, David decided to report the anomaly to his superior, Master Sergeant Lewis, a no-nonsense career man who had seen it all. He took the tape to Lewis, explaining the strange transmission and the untraceable signal.
Lewis listened to the tape, frowning deeply. After a few minutes, he took off the headphones and sighed.
"David, this is probably some kind of atmospheric interference. Maybe a glitch from one of the old satellites. We’ve picked up weird stuff like this before."
David shook his head. "It’s not a glitch. I ran the numbers through the system. It’s too precise to be random interference."
Lewis narrowed his eyes. "I don’t like this, Carson. I’ll have Intel take a look, but don’t go talking about this to anyone. Understand?"
David nodded, though the sinking feeling in his stomach remained.
For the next few days, the incident weighed heavily on David’s mind. He went about his duties, but his thoughts kept returning to that night, to the whispers beneath the numbers. Then, a week later, it happened again.
This time, the transmission was stronger, clearer. The numbers repeated, and the whispers were louder, almost like a conversation. David recorded it again, this time playing the tape back at different speeds. Slowing it down, he realized the whispers weren’t random—they were in English, but distorted.
"Help… us…"
David’s blood ran cold. He ran another trace on the signal, but the results were just as baffling as before. He checked the logs—no authorized transmissions were being broadcast at that frequency. As far as the equipment was concerned, the signal didn’t exist.
Frustrated and unnerved, David took the new recording to Master Sergeant Lewis. But when he arrived at Lewis’s office, something was off. Lewis wasn’t there, and no one seemed to know where he had gone. It was unusual for him to disappear without notice.
Over the next few days, things grew even stranger. More transmissions came through—each one more intense than the last, with the whispers growing louder, more insistent. The base seemed to be on edge, with rumors of strange occurrences spreading among the airmen—people hearing voices over their radios, strange lights flickering in the sky at night.
David tried to ignore the growing sense of dread, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. He began to lose sleep, haunted by the whispers, by the words hidden beneath the numbers. Every time he closed his eyes, he could hear them.
And then, one night, the final transmission came through.
It was different this time—no numbers, just the whispers. They were louder than ever, clear and direct.
"They’re here."
David felt a cold sweat break out across his skin. He looked around the empty communications room, the air thick with tension. And then, for the first time, he heard the sound coming from outside the bunker. It was faint, like a low hum, but unmistakable.
He stood up slowly, his heart hammering in his chest, and walked to the door. The hum grew louder as he stepped outside into the night. The base was quiet, eerily still, but overhead, the sky seemed… wrong. The stars were there, but they flickered unnaturally, as if something massive were moving behind them.
David took a few steps forward, his breath catching in his throat as the hum intensified. And then, just beyond the trees, he saw them—tall, dark shapes moving silently through the fog.
For a moment, he couldn’t move, couldn’t think. The whispers filled his head, louder than ever, drowning out everything else.
"They’re here."
David ran.
The End.
