Tick Tock Read Free Page A

as if some cataclysmic tide had inundated broadcast studios the length of the West Coast.
    When he attempted to turn off the radio, the sound continued undiminished. He was certain that he had hit the correct button. He pressed it again, to no effect.
    Gradually, the character of the sound had changed. The splash-patter-gurgle-hiss-roar now seemed less like falling water than like a distant crowd, like the voices of multitudes raised in cheers or chants; or perhaps it was the faraway raging babble of an angry, destructive mob.
    For reasons that he could not entirely define, Tommy Phan was disturbed by the new quality of this eerie and tuneless serenade. He jabbed at more buttons.
    Voices. Definitely voices. Hundreds or even thousands of them. Men, women, the fragile voices of children. He thought he could hear despairing wails, pleas for help, panicked cries, anguished groans—a monumental yet hushed sound, as though it was echoing across a vast gulf or rising out of a black abyss.
    The voices were creepy—but also curiously compelling, almost mesmerizing. He found himself staring at the radio too long, his attention dangerously diverted from the highway, yet each time that he looked up, he was able to focus on the traffic for only a few seconds before lowering his gaze once more to the softly glowing radio.
    And now behind the whispery muffled roar of the multitude rose the garbled bass voice of… someone else someone who sounded infinitely strange, imperial and demanding. It was a low wet voice that was less than human, spitting out not-quite-decipherable words as if they were wads of phlegm.
    No. Good God in Heaven, his imagination was running away with him. What issued from the stereo speakers was static, nothing but ordinary static, white noise, electronic slush.
    In spite of the chill that continued to plague him, Tommy felt a sudden prickle of perspiration on his scalp and forehead. His palms were damp too.
    Surely he had pressed every button on the control panel. Nevertheless, the ghostly chorus droned on.
    “Damn.”
    He made a tight fist of his right hand. He thumped the flat of it against the face of the radio, not hard enough to hurt himself, but punching three or four buttons simultaneously.
    Second by second, the guttural and distorted words spoken by the weird voice became clearer, but Tommy couldn't quite understand them.
    He thumped his fist against the radio once more, and he was surprised to hear himself issue a half-stifled cry of desperation. After all, as annoying as the noise was, it represented no threat to him.
    Did it?
    Even as he posed that question to himself, he was overcome by the irrational conviction that he must not listen to the susurration coming from the stereo speakers, that he must clamp his hands over his ears, that somehow he would be in mortal danger if he understood even one word of what was being said to him. Yet, perversely, he strained to hear, to wring clarity from the muddle of sound.
    “…Phan…”
    That one word was irrefutably clear.
    “… Phan Tran …”
    The repulsive, mucus-clotted voice was speaking flawlessly accented Vietnamese.
    “… Phan Tran Tuong …”
    Tommy's name. Before he had changed it. His name from the Land of Seagull and Fox.
    Phan Tran Tuong.
    Someone was calling to him. Far away at first but now drawing closer. Seeking contact. Connection. Something about the voice was… hungry.
    The chill, like scurrying spiders, worked deeper into him, weaving webs of ice in the hollows of his bones.
    He hammered the radio a third time, harder than before, and abruptly it went dead. The only sounds were the rumble of the engine, the hum of the tires, his ragged breathing, and the hard pounding of his heart.
    His left hand, slick with sweat, slipped on the steering wheel, and he snapped his head up as the Corvette angled off the pavement. The right front tire—then the right rear—stuttered onto the rough shoulder of the highway. Sprays of gravel pinged and rattled against the