The county road bled into gravel, then into dirt that had not seen grading in years. Pine roots bulged through the surface, making every step a gamble with balance. They carried the jerrycans in relay—two forward, two back—switching hands every hundred steps so wrists didn't cramp and betray them with clatter. The weight pressed their spines down, forced their lungs into smaller spaces, but nobody complained. Complaints were lessons. Lessons became sermons for things that weren't meant to preach.
The reservoir stayed on their left, vast and black, its surface flat as a photograph. The early light spilled across it in thin layers, painting the water the color of cheap steel. Here and there, fish broke the surface, tiny circles widening, swallowing sky. The ripples should have been comforting. They weren't.
"Feels like we're walking beside a mirror that hasn't made up its mind," Madison muttered, shifting cans between hands.
"Don't look at it," Margo said. "Reflections are stutter. Stutter draws eyes."
Riley glanced anyway. She stopped short. "Wait."
They followed her gaze.
Out on the water, thirty yards offshore, something bobbed. At first it looked like driftwood, dark, half-submerged. Then it righted itself. A human head. Pale. Too pale. Eyes wide, fixed, unblinking. The mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. The head stayed afloat without arms moving, as if the water itself cradled it.
Madison swore. "Is it alive?"
The mouth opened wider. Sound drifted across the water. Thin, distorted, stretched by distance. A word, bent but whole.
"Wait."
Riley clutched her bag. "It heard us."
"No," Margo said, her voice razor-flat. "It practiced us."
The head tipped back, exposing a throat pale as wax. Then another head surfaced beside it. Then a third. Six in all, rising in a ragged line like buoys. They opened their mouths together.
"Wait."
The word slapped the water and returned doubled, echoed against the dam wall.
Margo's hand snapped up. "Move."
They picked up pace, steps still even but faster, shoulders burning with the pull of fuel weight. The heads drifted closer to shore, carried not by swim but by unseen hands beneath. Each repetition grew clearer, less distorted, as if practice and echo were partners.
Gavin tightened his grip on the cleaver's hilt. He wanted to look back, to measure distance, but the rule was burned into him: looking taught them. He kept eyes on the dirt, boots steady, each step a refusal.
A half-mile ahead, the road bent into a causeway where the reservoir narrowed to a throat. Steel guardrails leaned drunkenly into the water, rusted, bent by old impacts. At the midpoint of the causeway rose a structure: a maintenance shack, squat, windowless, with an antenna sprouting crooked from its roof.
As they drew closer, they saw the shack door stood open. Inside, a green light pulsed.
"Signal," Riley whispered.
Margo's jaw clenched. "Not ours."
From the antenna, a faint hum tickled the air—static, but deliberate, pulsing in a slow rhythm: four beats, pause, two beats, pause. Over and over.
"Code," Gavin said.
"Imitation," Margo corrected.
The heads on the water drew nearer, voices carrying clearer now. "Wait. Wait. Wait."
Riley's hands shook. She pulled a brick from her bag and turned it on. Static rushed out, filling the air around them with ocean. For a moment, the voices faltered. The heads bobbed in place. Then, horribly, they adjusted—speaking between the static, fitting their words in the gaps.
"Wait."… hiss …"Wait."… hiss …"Wait."
"They're learning the spaces," Riley said, her voice breaking.
Margo snatched the brick and cranked the volume. The hiss roared, masking everything, even their own breath. She dropped the brick in the ditch, let it hiss behind them like a flare. The voices shifted focus, circling the sound, fascinated by the endless sea.
"Run," Margo mouthed.
They did—not sprinting, but a steady, brutal march up the causeway. The shack loomed larger. The green light inside pulsed faster now, almost eager.
At the door, Gavin stepped first. The room reeked of mildew and old wires. A generator squatted in the corner, silent, unplugged. The antenna cable snaked down to a jury-rigged console—circuit boards nailed to plywood, coils scavenged from radios. At the center, a screen glowed faint green. Lines scrolled across it, jagged, erratic. Letters formed, broke, formed again.
WE WAIT.WE LEARN.WE LISTEN.
Madison's breath caught. "Jesus Christ. They're typing."
"No," Margo said. Her voice was steady but her hands trembled. "They're echoing."
Riley stared at the screen, her eyes wide. "Then who typed first?"
The console beeped. Loud. Sharp. One word appeared, centered, solid:
READY.
The reservoir answered in voices. A hundred throats, from water, from trees, from unseen shadows.
"Ready."
The word rolled across the causeway, echoed in steel, doubled and redoubled until the shack itself vibrated with it.
Margo killed the screen with a fist, smashing buttons until the glow died. Sparks spat. The antenna outside whined, then sagged into silence.
For three heartbeats, blessed quiet.
Then, from the reservoir, the voices spoke again. Not echoing this time. Leading.
"Come."
The word crawled over the water and sank into their bones.
Margo's face went white. "We leave. Now."
They snatched up the cans, slammed the shack door, and pressed into the northern trees as the water behind them began to boil with pale shapes rising, not swimming, not wading, just coming.