Fiction by John Reizer

The radio station clock reads 1:47 a.m. as WGHT’s late-night host, Jenny Jones, waits patiently for the next guest’s voice to break the silence between callers.

“Alright,” Jenny says, voice as smooth as ever, “we’ve got Harold on line two. He claims he’s calling from a payphone. I haven’t heard that one in quite a while. Okay, Harold, you’re on the air.”

There is a brief pause.

“Yeah… hello. I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m just going to say it.”

Jenny leans back. “That usually means this is going to be a good call.”

“I was on a cruise two months ago. I booked one of those Antarctic expeditions that cross the Drake Passage, you know, see the ice, penguins, all that kind of bullshit. It was supposed to be a fun adventure.”

Jenny chuckles. “You sound like it wasn’t.”

“Three days into this trip, we hit a mega storm. Not like the kind they warn you about. This one came out of frigging nowhere, no warning from the crew or captain whatsoever.”

“What kind of storm?” Jenny asks.

“The kind where the ocean doesn’t look right. Waves weren’t breaking normally. It was as if the water was acting outside the laws of physics.”

“Okay, you’ve got my attention, Harold. Go on.”

“The captain tried to turn us around. I know because I snuck onto the observation deck and heard him shouting at someone over the radio transmitter. He kept yelling about the compass and navigation systems failing.” Harold exhales sharply. “He said the compass kept spinning and following something.”

“Following what?” Jenny asks.

“I don’t know, but evidently, we weren’t going south anymore. At least not in any way that makes sense.”

There is a faint crackle of interference on the line. Harold lowers his voice.

“After several hours, the storm just disappeared. One second, the ocean was completely crazy, and the next, it was dead calm. The water looked like glass. And then in front of us…”

He pauses for a few seconds.

“Harold?”

“There were ice walls, but not like you would expect in Antarctica. These were miles high with no breaks or cracks. It looked as if someone carved them.”

Jenny laughs. “You’re saying your cruise ship found what, a secret ice fortress?”

“I’m saying we passed through an unknown opening, a gap that wasn’t on any printed map. And inside—” His voice becomes softer. “Inside wasn’t Antarctica.”

Silence prevails for a moment.

“What do you mean?” Jenny asks.

“There was land as far as my eyes could see, green, fertile land. Mountains without snow. Flowing rivers. I saw huge birds unlike any I’ve ever seen before. And the sky…” Harold pauses briefly. “The sky didn’t look right. The light was different, like it was coming from somewhere else.”

Jenny leans forward. “Harold, are you —”

“I’m telling you we found something that’s not supposed to exist, and the crew knew something was wrong. They stopped talking to us and locked down certain decks. People started getting ill and disappearing from their cabins.”

Some more static creeps into the line.

“Getting ill? Disappearing from their cabins?” Jenny asks, her tone more serious than before.

“Sick with some made-up virus. People started getting nauseated and were dying. They made up an excuse about some ridiculous airborne pathogen passed on from some rats on the ship. But it was all a cover story to get rid of the witnesses.”

“I think I recall hearing about that cruise ship on the news. They called it a Hantavirus. There were quite a few passengers and crew who died, right?” Jenny asks.

“It’s all bullshit! Don’t believe any of what was reported in the media. There was no damn virus, I’m telling you!”

“Are you certain, Harold?”

“Yes! The captain somehow managed to get us out of where we wandered into and back through the ice walls again. After that, I left. I took one of the lifeboats with a couple of other passengers.”

“What happened?”

“They came after us,” Harold says quietly.

“Who’s ‘they’?”

The static grows louder.

“I don’t know. Probably the government,” Harold explains. “But it definitely wasn’t the crew. We were lucky and managed to avoid them.”

Jenny leans in even closer to the microphone. “Harold, where are you now?”

“The lifeboat drifted for days, then we were eventually picked up by a cargo ship. They told us we were way off course. I tried telling them what happened, but—”

The line crackles again.

“But what?” Jenny presses.

“They told me to forget it,” Harold replies. “They said storms mess with your head. But I know what I saw. And I think—”

A sharp burst of static cuts through his voice.

“Harold?” Jenny says. “Harold, you’re breaking up.”

“I think they followed us back. I’ve seen the same people at different ports, different cities. They’re watching anyone who witnessed— ”

The line goes dead.

Jenny taps her headphones repeatedly. “Harold, are you there?”

There’s silence in the studio.

A producer’s voice finally makes its way into Jenny’s ear. “We lost the call.”

“Try to get him back,” she says.

Another pause.

“We can’t.”

Jenny frowns. “What do you mean, you can’t? It’s a phone line.”

Another pause, longer this time.

“The system just reset,” the producer says. “All incoming lines dropped, and the logs are wiped clean.”

Jenny stares at the clock that now reads 1:59 a.m.

She forces a chuckle into the mic. “Well, folks… looks like Harold’s Antarctic adventure just hit some rough weather again.”

But her eyes linger on the dark phone board, where all the studio lines remain unlit.

For the rest of the night, no other calls come through.

THE END!

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Dear Visitors,

Several of my paperback editions are being blocked on Amazon for some reason, making it impossible to order them. This glitch in the Matrix doesn’t seem to affect the Kindle editions, which are available for instant download.

It’s actually much cheaper to buy my books as Kindle editions, but I know many people still enjoy holding a physical copy, like me. For this reason, I usually make the books available in both formats.

I am going to provide links below for several of my titles that seem to have been affected. People can buy the paperback editions from Barnes and Noble instead of Amazon.

John Reizer

Paperback Book Editions

The Pulse

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Holograms

The Matrix Reloaded Yet Again

The One-Hour Diner

The Truth Told Through Comedic Fiction!

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Curing Cancer Was A Mistake!

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