The patrol road north of Libby was empty, just ruts and gravel, the pine trees whispering like old friends. The sun hung low and amber through the branches, and the air smelled faintly of sap and rain. Thane walked alone that morning—no reason to expect company, no reason to expect discovery. He’d done this route a hundred times. The world beyond Libby was quiet now. Quiet, and slowly, mercifully healing.
Half a mile out, something caught his eye through the trees. Metal—faded red, jagged and tall. At first, he thought it was a broken windmill, another rusted relic left to rot. But the shape wasn’t right. It was skeletal, geometric, too symmetrical. He slowed, stepping through the brush until the full silhouette emerged from the mist.
A tower.
Thane blinked, ears flicking. He hadn’t seen one like it since before the Fall. Steel lattice, maybe two hundred feet high, a faint glint of old warning lights along its spine. The wind carried a soft metallic hum—almost like it was remembering a job it used to have. Beneath it sat a small building, square, low-roofed, and mostly intact. A sign above the cracked door read KLMR-FM — 98.7 The Pulse of Montana. The words were faded, but they still had pride.
A radio station.
Thane froze at the threshold, his chest tightening with something that felt like memory. He pushed the door open. It creaked loud in the silence. Inside, dust floated through slanted light beams. The air smelled like paper and machine oil. A half-full coffee mug sat on the counter beside a microphone. A calendar on the wall read April 2026 — the month the world fell apart.
He stepped into the control booth. The console was still there—rows of sliders, a cracked monitor, the red ON AIR light above the glass window. CD racks lined the walls, hundreds of jewel cases still alphabetized like someone thought they’d be back after lunch. He reached out and touched the fader. Dust came off on his finger.
Mark would lose his mind over this.
By morning, he did.
“Holy hell,” Mark breathed when they arrived the next day. “You’re telling me this has been sitting here all this time?”
“Waiting for us,” Thane said simply.
Gabriel let out a low whistle as they stepped through the doorway. “It’s like walking into a time capsule. Look at this—actual discs!” He plucked one off a rack. “Man, rock radio. These people had taste.”
Mark ran a claw along the console, reverent as a priest at an altar. “Analog mixing board. Tube amps. She’s old, but solid. These were built to last.”
Thane smiled faintly. “So were we.”
They set to work. Mark popped open panels and cleaned contacts while Thane dug through the generator shed. The unit was rusted, but not dead. Diesel still pooled in the bottom of the tank, long since gone stale. He siphoned it out, refilled it with fresh fuel from their reserves, and pulled the cord. The machine coughed, shuddered, then settled into a steady, familiar rumble. The vibration rolled through the dirt and up into his bones like an old heartbeat restarting.
“Power’s up!” Thane called. Inside, lights flickered—then steadied. A soft amber glow filled the room.
Gabriel grinned like a kid on Christmas morning. “Gentlewolves, we have life.”
Mark looked up from behind the console, grease on his fur, eyes shining. “If this transmitter still fires, we can actually broadcast. You realize what that means? Music again. Voice. Reach.”
Thane nodded. “A howl for the world.”
They weren’t alone long. The forest rustled. Three shapes stepped from the trees—gray and lean, eyes bright with curiosity. Sable led the way, cloak of fur catching the sunlight. Behind her, two young wolves followed, heads cocked at the hum of the generator.
“What is this place?” Sable asked, sniffing the air. “It smells of metal and lightning.”
“Radio,” Thane said, still tightening bolts. “We used to talk to the world this way.”
Sable frowned, glancing up at the tower. “Talk to the world? But how?”
He smiled. “We speak here, and that tower carries our words through the air. Anyone listening can hear it.”
Her eyes widened. “A howl that rides the wind,” she murmured. “Without lungs.”
Gabriel chuckled. “Exactly. Think of it as… an electric howl. One that never dies.”
Sable tilted her head, thoughtful. “Strange magic.”
Thane finished reconnecting a cable and wiped his hands on a rag. “It was just technology once. Now it’s hope.”
He stepped aside as Mark flipped switches in sequence, each click echoing like a heartbeat. The console hummed. The old transmitter light blinked green for the first time in years. Static whispered from the speakers. Gabriel nearly jumped out of his seat. “She’s alive!”
The wolves startled at the sound, claws flexing. Sable’s ears flicked back. “What was that?”
“Noise,” Thane said, smiling. “The sound of the void. Give it a second.”
He turned one of the knobs. The static softened. A faint hum emerged—clean, pure, electric. He nodded to Gabriel. “Pick something.”
Gabriel looked through the CD rack, holding them up like sacred relics. “Hmm… what says ‘resurrection of rock?’ Ah.” He held up one. “This’ll do.” He slid it into the tray. The player clicked shut.
Thane moved behind the mic. The red ON AIR light glowed to life.
He pressed the button, his gravel voice rumbling low and steady.
“Good evening, survivors. This is K-L-M-R, Libby, Montana. Back on the air for the first time since the world fell quiet. If you can hear this… you’re not alone.”
Gabriel hit play. The first guitar chord exploded through the speakers—raw, defiant, glorious. Mark adjusted the fader, smiling like it was oxygen. The music filled the room, poured out through the open doorway, rolled into the forest, and climbed the mountains.
Down in Libby, people looked up from their work. A farmer in his field froze as his battered old radio crackled to life. A mother washing clothes in the creek laughed through tears as her children danced to the faint rhythm echoing from the old general store’s speakers. Someone shouted, “It’s music! Real music!” Others ran outside, radios pressed to their ears, smiling like they’d seen the sun for the first time.
In the woods, Sable and her pack stared, spellbound. The sound was invisible, yet everywhere—vibrating in the ground, trembling in their ribs. “You bring the pack together with sound,” Sable said quietly. “A howl they can’t see.”
“That’s the idea,” Thane said.
As the hours passed, the wolves settled in, sitting on the floor as the three men traded stories through the mic. Mark read old PSAs just to hear them spoken again. Gabriel cracked jokes between songs and dubbed himself “DJ Fang,” earning groans from both of them. Thane’s voice remained steady, a calm anchor between tracks. “If you’re tuning in tonight,” he said, “this one’s for everyone who ever thought silence was forever.”
When he turned the mic off, the room glowed with quiet pride. Even the ferals seemed calmer, eyes half-closed, swaying to a rhythm they didn’t understand but somehow recognized. The night stretched soft and safe. For once, the forest wasn’t listening for danger—it was listening for beauty.
By midnight, the generator began to cough. Mark sighed, leaning back in his chair. “We’ll need more fuel if we want to keep it running.”
“Tomorrow,” Thane said. “Let it rest.”
He powered down the board, each switch clicking off with reluctant finality. The hum faded. The room settled back into stillness—but not silence. The air felt different now. Lighter.
They stepped outside together. The tower light blinked red against a sky full of stars. Gabriel stared up, hands on his hips. “Man. That light… it’s like a heartbeat.”
Thane nodded slowly. “It is.”
Sable stood beside him, fur silver in the moonlight. “You’ve given the wind a voice again,” she said softly. “A howl no pack alone could make.”
He looked out toward the horizon where the signal was still traveling, bouncing unseen across the valleys, carrying their voices into places no one had been in years. “We just reminded it what one sounds like.”
Sable smiled faintly, her tone low and reverent. “You’ve built more than a town here, Thane. You’ve built an echo.”
He didn’t answer—just watched the blinking red light trace the rhythm of a pulse too old to die.
Far below, in the valley, the faint sound of rock and laughter still rolled through open windows. For the first time in years, the night didn’t feel empty. The world had found its heartbeat again.