Free Between the Spark and the Burn by April Genevieve Tucholke

he found the radio.
    Luke, Sunshine, and I rubbed sleep from our eyes, sat up, and then shivered as our shoulders hit the cold. We moved our sleeping bags even closer together, and Neely threw another thick branch on the fire.
    He started fiddling with the dials, but Luke just stared at the radio and shook his head. “I’m not listening to that show again. Not here, in this creepy house in this creepy town. I won’t do it.”
    Sunshine was glaring at the radio too. “That stupid radio show is the reason we’re sitting here in this cold house in this nightmarish town, instead of drinking hot chocolate in the Citizen. Wide-Eyed Theo can go to hell.”
    â€œShut up, you cowards,” I said, because, damn it, I wanted to listen to Theo, so help me God. I owed it to him. Without Theo, I would still be home, staring at the sea, about ready to scream at the silence and the boredom and the waiting, waiting, waiting . . .
    Neely looked from Luke, to Sunshine, to me, and smiled. He spun the left knob—
    . . . of the mad and true. It’s Wide-Eyed Theo. I’m here. You’re here. And it’s the witching hour. Time for your daily dose of
Stranger Than Fiction.
    Neely sat down next to me and cuddled up close in the cold.
    So . . . anyone out there find Inn’s End? Any reports on the devil-boy and the ravens? Please call in. 1-800-EYE-THEO. Keep Theo in the loop, kids.
    I did hear back from one brave, loyal follower. Jason H. called in from, quote, “an ominously quiet corner of Washington State” to report on that kid who claimed he was talking to a dead boy in his attic. This ghost told him to start digging a four-foot-by-four-foot hole in his backyard . . . and the boy eventually dug up the remains of a small child. Police are looking into it. Thanks for the closure, Jason. A Wide-Eyed Theo Kit is coming your way, complete with an EMF meter and apocalypse-ready hand-crank radio.
    I have three new stories tonight for you greedy little bastards. This first one comes out of Maine, a town named Riddle. Two young sisters are claiming that a teenage boy is living in an old, unused barn buried in the woods behind the sisters’ farm. The boy only comes out at night, and disappears whenever anyone but the sisters are near. The girls have been leaving him apples and chocolate. But now the boy wants the sisters to come into the barn to, quote, “see something they will find meaningful.”
    They want to know if they should follow this boy into the barn. Well, believers? What do you think?
    My other two stories both come out of North Carolina. Apparently the residents of some small island off the North Carolina coast have started a sea god cult. They worship a boy who commands the ocean and demands virgin sacrifices to appease his violent appetite.
    Take that as you will, believers. My source called in late last night—she seemed confused and possibly drunk. She lost track of what she was saying by the end of our conversation, and didn’t remember who I was, or why she had called in the first place, so I didn’t get the name of the island. But if any of you listeners find it, well, do let me know. All I could get out of her was “Wild Horses,” whatever that means. Could be the name of a hotel . . . or the name of a beach. Not sure, not sure.
    My last story, as I said, is also out of North Carolina, though I didn’t catch where before the caller hung up. It involves a haunted fisherman’s shack. Teenagers go in and don’t come out again. That’s all the details I have. And if this sounds like pure urban legend, then perhaps it is. But it is our job to believe, and so we must.
    It’s Wide-Eyed Theo, signing off for the night.
    Go forth and find the strange.
    â€œRiddle,” Luke said, staring straight at me. “That’s only thirty miles from Echo.”
    â€œI know,” I replied. Riddle