Nightmare City by Andrew Klavan

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    Right. Just like before. He remembered that, too. The phone vibrated in his hand as it rang again. He answered.
    He knew what he would hear before he heard it. There it was. That static. Weird white noise coming from an alien and frightening place far away. He listened intently. Next there would be a voice. The voice of that ghostly woman in the white blouse . . .
    It began, “I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
    He could hear her a little better this time, a little more clearly than he’d heard her before.
    “Where are you?” he said, trying to keep his own voice steady and clear. “I need to find you. I need to know where you are.”
    “My address is . . .” Then the static overwhelmed her. Her voice was swept under the crackle and hiss.
    “What’s your address?” Tom shouted. “Say it again.”
    The woman tried again, calling to him from beneath the static. Her voice was now so dim that Tom’s face contorted with the effort to make out her words.
    “. . . school . . . you left my address . . .”
    “At school?” Tom said, straining to hear her. “I left your address at school?”
    Yes. That was right. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew. Her address was at the office of the Sentinel . He had scribbled it on a pad there.
    “Please . . . please . . . you have to . . . ,” the woman called to him—and then, as he knew they would, the two beeps came. He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the readout.
    Connection lost .
    This time Tom didn’t hesitate. He leapt out of bed. He rushed to his dresser. He pulled on his sweatpants and the Tigers sweatshirt as fast as he could.
    A familiar feeling of excitement was coursing through him: the feeling he got when a news story began to come together, when things began to make sense. This was what he loved about working on the Sentinel : finding the answers. And he was beginning to find them now. He was beginning to figure this crazy thing out, beginning to understand what was happening.
    And he knew what he had to do next.
    He didn’t bother to stop in the bathroom this time. It didn’t matter whether he shaved or not. None of that ordinary stuff mattered anymore. He just had to get to the basement as fast as he could. It was a matter of life and death.
    He stampeded down the stairs into the front hall. He paused at the door only a moment to look out through the sidelight. The lawn and the driveway were clear again. No fog. He could see all the way down to the end of the driveway. The newspaper was lying there near the street, just as it had been the first time. And the mist was beginning to gather in the street as it had before, too. Soon, he knew, the fog would move in. It would become thick again. And it would bring the malevolents with it.
    He didn’t have a lot of time. He had to hurry.
    He ran down the hall to the kitchen, to the basement door. As he pulled the door open, he half expected to hear Burt’s voice again, shouting from the TV screen.
    This is your mission!
    But no. It was different this time. The basement was silent. Tom understood. Burt had called to him before because he wanted to get him to come down, to see what was on television, to face a truth his mind didn’t want to face. Burt had reached out to him from an impossible distance and done the best he could to get his message across the gulf between them.
    But this time Tom didn’t need that help. This time he was ready to face the truth on his own. He was scared—he was very scared—but he was ready.
    He went down the stairs.
    He came into the family room. Saw the TV with its dark screen. The silent speakers. Fighting down the anxiety that tightened his throat, he moved to the easy chairs. There was the remote lying on the seat of the nearest chair. He picked it up. Pointed it at the TV. Pressed the Power button.
    It was time to face the facts.
    For a moment, the TV stayed dark. The silence went on for such a long time that Tom began to think he had gotten