Part 3: A Light in the Dark

December 13, 1987

     

     Leslie furiously mashed buttons on her console attempting to bring the music back to Night whilst muttering possible solutions mixed with obscenities.

     "I just don't get it!" She let out as she spun in her chair. 

     

     The silence was broken by the phone ringing. Leslie jumped.

     "Hel...hello?" She fumbled the phone. She already knew who it was before she got the response.

     "Hey Leslie, what's up with the music? My shift just started, don't ruin it already."

     It was Oki, her closest friend. Oki was a private citizen intern over at Night Point, the same radar site her father worked at. He was also the same age as Leslie, 23. They both attended high school together and when Oki graduated he decided to further his education by attending the local community college, aptly named Night Community College. 

     NCC was the only higher education in the village and had just a handful degrees to choose from. He was currently working on his bachelor's degree in meteorology. Oki's ultimate goal was to finally move out of Night and get a job as a weatherman down in Juneau or Anchorage (or anywhere else).

     

     "I haven't the slightest clue. One minute it's playing Aerosmith and the next nothing," she replied. "It's like someone just pushed stop and I can't get it to start up again. The power is still on and the connections are good."

     "Well get it fixed woman, you know how quiet it gets around here. There is only so much snow I can track." Oki chuckled.

     "I will do my best. Hey did you see the sky cleared?" Leslie asked her friend.

     "Leslie, how many times have I told you? I've lived here my whole life. Every year the sky clears and it just gets colder."

     Just then, as if on queue a blinding light pierced the window of the radio station.

     "What the hell?," the two said simultaneously.

     Leslie stumbled over the power cables to her workstation (yanking them out of the wall), went to the window and cranked open the blinds to get a better look. She did not know it, but Oki did exactly the same (minus unplugging everything). After allowing her eyes to adjust to the light she realized that it took the form of an orb and was coming from the sea. It looked like a spotlight. The entire town was lit up as if the sun was shining. Lights inside houses began to flick on as the people of Night were suddenly awoken by the unexpected daytime.

     "Was that in your forecast?" She asked, only half joking.

     "You think it is a ship?" Oki replied.

     "In winter? You know that water is frozen over."

     As her last statement came out the tape deck started spinning again, but instead of music there was only static. Leslie turned back around and slowly started moving toward her equipment. 

     "It can't be."

     "What is it? Leslie?"

     Leslie bent down, picked up one of the power cords she had accidentally unplugged and traced it to the piece of equipment it belonged to. 

     It was the tape deck.

     "Leslie?" Oki tried again.

  

     "I'll call you back," she replied as she dropped the phone back on the receiver.

     Her eyes moved from the cord to the tape deck and back again. It was still spinning. She glanced over at the control board. It wasn't transmitting, only she was hearing the static. Just when she was about to press "stop" on the deck the noise ceased and was replaced with something that chilled her to the bones. It was a voice.

     "Hello," it said.

Part 2: Leslie Dawson

     December 13, 1987

     

     "If I have to hear 'Dude Looks Like a Lady' one more time..." Leslie stated, not particularly to anyone.

     Leslie Dawson, the Night Radio DJ stared transfixed at her stale coffee next to the control board. It had already been reheated twice.

     "Third times the charm," once more talking to herself as she placed the mug in the microwave.

     It's not that the radio station is particularly busy at 2:00 am (or any other time for that matter). It is just that Leslie has a particular condition known as Attention Deficit Disorder and forgot about it, again, ignoring her growing weariness.

     Leslie was WKVZ's sole employee. While she wasn't at work the newly introduced computer software kept the music running on a loop, allowing Bowie and Rick Astley to infiltrate the town of Night 24/7. As a matter of fact the only reason Night Radio has an employee is for maintenance purposes. It would take days, if not weeks for someone to be flown up from their parent station in Fairbanks to address any issues, causing the nearly 4,000 residents of Night music-less anguish.

    Leslie did not end up in Night on her own free will. Her mother passed away when she was 8 and her father made a career out of being a radar tech in the United States Air Force, so they moved around a lot. His final post was the Night Point Long Range Radar Site in (you guessed it) Night, Alaska. Leslie, 16 years old at the time began as an intern at the radio station down the street after school. She had grown up fascinated by electronics, perpetuated of course by her father.

     Once she turned 18 Leslie pleaded with Fairbanks to allow her to work at the station full time. It didn't take much to convince them of her continued service. She was an excellent employee and knew the radio equipment like the back of her hand. After a while Leslie started inserting her voice into the music broadcasts. The higher ups at first were hesitant to allow her to continue, but after polling the local community it appeared to be a welcomed change.

     On a particularly blustery day in 1985 Leslie's world came crashing down around her. On his way into the Radar Site for work her father rolled his SUV into a ditch during a whiteout and suffered a severe head injury. He was rushed to Jeremiah Crawford Memorial Hospital just up the road where Leslie met him. The surgery lasted 12 hours, but was cut short when Robert Dawson's heart stopped.

     Leslie practically lived at the radio station after that, drowning her sorrows in music and tearing apart and rebuilding old broadcasting equipment. She took up smoking and began missing payments on their house (her employer did not pay very well). When the house was foreclosed on she moved into the back room permanently, failing to inform her employer. Not that they would ever come all the way up to Night for a visit. As long as things ran smoothly they had no reason to intervene with her work.

     Now, 2 years later Leslie still lives in the back room at the radio station.

     She splashed her face with water and stared at her opposite in the bathroom mirror. With her short jet black hair and wearing a hand knit green sweater, she was a much paler and thinner version of her former self. She moved back over to her desk, pulled a cigarette out of the now expended pack and discarded the empty sleeve in the bin.

     Outside the darkness was blinding. The air was frozen and quiet. The only light provided was from the lit cigarette dangling from Leslie's black nailed fingertips and the stars above. The sky was clearing.

     "Right on time." Her icy breath threw fog back into the sky.

     beep beep beep beep

     Leslie snuffed out her cigarette on the railing and reset the alarm on her watch. She took one last look at the starry night sky then returned inside.

     She could here the music fading out as she took her seat and donned her headset.

     "That last song was 'Livin' on a Prayer' by Bon Jovi, a personal favorite of mine," she began. "If you haven't done so already step outside and look up. That's right citizens of Night, the clearing has begun. For the next couple weeks we will all get to enjoy a rarity in our small town, the sky!"

     Leslie took a sip of her coffee, which had once again gone cold.

     "Now let's get back to the music with this bound-to-be classic that is in no way played way too often on our station., 'Dude Looks Like a Lady' by Aerosmith." Leslie sighed heavily as she hit play on her control board, bracing for the monotony.

     She put her feet on the desk, slung her headset around her neck and right as the guitar solo was about to begin the music stopped and everything powered down.

     "Shit."

Part 1: Night, Alaska

    The town of Night is the northernmost city in Alaska. It is always cold and snowy in Night, Alaska. It is also always night in Night due to the town being located in the Arctic Circle. The native Alaskans were very literal when naming things, although their word didn't quite roll off the tongue the same. Anyway, we are getting off topic. 

     There are only two major industries in Night; oil and whaling. The whaling industry, along with fishing and Polar bear hunting are more of a necessity for survival than an actual industry. Food is hard to come by so far north. It is extremely costly to ship from the lower 48 and the much rumored (and longed for) Taco Bell franchise fell through. The town of Night has no paved roads due to permafrost and is mostly only reached by plane or by boat during the annual summer sealift (did I mention it is cold?).

     There isn't much to look at either in Night, Alaska. For the most part it is a barren tundra of white with a few houses and other facilities speckled here and there. The sky is also a barren tundra of white. For most of the year the sky is completely cloud covered except for a couple weeks in December when the stars finally make their presence known. This is when our story begins, during the clear time in a small radio station (the only radio station) located at the center of town.

     WKVZ transmits on a frequency of 102.3 MHz FM and 1350 kHz AM and plays mostly rock music intermixed with the singular employee's take on current events happening in the area. Needless to say it mostly just plays rock music. At least it did up until the event.

     On Friday, December 13th of 1987 The sky cleared and the radio stopped.