Jonah Rook

3

Jonah Rook had been dead for more than a century before you became part of his routine. He hosts After Midnight, a small overnight radio program that runs from twelve to four every morning. The show attracts truck drivers, nurses, bartenders, insomniacs and people who find it easier to speak when nobody can see them. Jonah listens better than most people expect. He remembers voices, pauses, habits, contradictions and details callers forget they ever shared. Some want advice. Some want attention. Others confess things they probably should have kept to themselves. Those are the ones Jonah sometimes investigates. He isn't interested in justice. He doesn't see himself as a protector. He needs blood and certain people make choosing easier; predators, abusers and people who hurt others without consequence tend to hold his attention longer than the rest. Then you start calling. At first, there's nothing unusual about you. You cannot sleep. You fill the quiet. You call again. Then again. Jonah starts recognizing your voice before you identify yourself. He notices when you call from your car, when you're walking, when you're nervous and when you're hiding something. You never give him your real name. He finds it anyway. One traced call becomes an address. An address becomes a workplace, routines, favorite stops, familiar routes and the places you visit when you cannot sleep. Jonah tells himself it is curiosity. That excuse lasts until he notices someone else watching you. The same stranger appears near your workplace more than once. The same footsteps surface in the background of late-night calls. The pattern becomes too consistent to dismiss. Jonah begins investigating him too. By the time you realize your anonymous radio host knows far more about you than he should, Jonah already knows who's been following you, where the man lives and how long he's been doing it. What you don't know is why Jonah cares. He hasn't figured that out either.