FEATURE: "The Dead Zone" by Julia Rajagopalan

The legend had seemed cute from the safety of her couch. An eight-foot-tall, half-human, half-elk monster haunted the campground, seen only by the ball of electricity crackling between its enormous antlers. The monster was known as the Dead Zone because, according to myth, it killed electrical devices. Jack had laughed as they submitted the booking, but that had been months ago.

Hannah needed someone to kill her phone. Like picking at a bloody scab, she constantly clicked on his posts. The cheerfully glowing pictures burned her retinas. If she were stronger, she would have killed her phone herself.

As Hannah drove into the campground, a creeping unease slid over her. It was not cute. The afternoon sun filtered through a thick canopy of oaks, unable to pierce the gloom. Across the road from the campground was a lake, a sunny world of sand and water. The campground, a world of leaves and darkness. 

Most of the sites were empty, which was weird in the peak of summer. Hannah parked in an empty site, set up her tent, and quickly started a campfire. The smoky, acrid scent wafted around her as she set out her camp chair. She roasted hot dogs, happy that she didn’t have to get the vegetarian ones. He would have insisted on vegetarian. 

She thought about the other part of the legend, which was not as cute. They said that the Dead Zone killed people by luring its victims into the lake. Several people had died.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” he had told her, and he would have, if she had just stayed. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was insecure. Maybe she was too sensitive. Maybe.

She should have canceled the trip, but the idea of putting her life on hold for him pinched like a pair of bad shoes. Finished with her hot dog, she pulled out a bottle of bourbon. She picked up her phone but set it down, determined to enjoy the woods. A warm breeze rustled the leaves of the ancient biome, but as the sky darkened, shadows spread like mold, and Hannah’s anxiety grew. She found her Bluetooth speaker and began playing jazz music, quietly at first and then louder when the frogs raised their volume in competition. She poured another drink, was it the second or third? and settled in with a book. Darkness crept in, but the fire, that primordial tool, kept it at bay. Maybe she would only stay one night. 

Finally, Hannah banked the fire. She took a too-full glass of bourbon into the tent, where she played movies downloaded to her phone. A little solar light shone from its hook above, and she snuggled into her sleeping bag. She checked Instagram only once. He had a new post, but it wasn't loading, so she closed the app. 

She must have fallen asleep because she awoke to a dry mouth and pitch darkness. She picked up her phone to check the time, but it was dead. Outside the thin fabric walls, the forest droned noisily, like nature's obnoxious DJ, mixing sounds that didn't go together, like the groans of toads and the screeches of spiky insects. The rustling leaves sounded like whispers of gossip. Criticism so sharp she'd bleed out internally, a bloody purple wound filling her chest cavity until it popped like a cyst of pain and misery.

“You’ll always be alone. You’re nothing without him.”

Had the Dead Zone killed her electronics? Probably not, but the whispers returned, and Hannah burrowed deeper in her sleeping bag.

“You are unlovable.”

Hannah grabbed her car keys. She would feel safer with solid metal around her. She pressed the button, but the satisfying click of the locks didn’t come. She pressed it again, but the lights remained off. Had the battery run out, or had the Dead Zone walked by? 

“You didn’t deserve what you had, and you don’t deserve anything else.” She couldn’t quite tell if the voice was coming from outside the tent or inside her head 

“Screw this.” She grabbed the keys and her dead phone and unzipped the tent. She ran to her Jeep, sticks cutting into her bare feet. A crackling noise sounded over her shoulder, and she glanced back. In the distance, hovering nearly eight feet off the ground, a hazy blue light glowed with an eerie, unnatural aura. She couldn’t quite see it, but the crackling electricity seemed to be floating between two elk antlers, held aloft by shadows. Hannah tried to scream, but her voice was locked in terror, and she only croaked. The forest was silent, save for the sound of snapping of electricity and the cracking of twigs as the creature walked toward her. 

Hannah ran. She ran toward the beach, stumbling over rocks and logs. The forest was pitch-black, but she could see a light near the beach. If I can just get to the beach, I’ll be ok, she thought.

“You are nothing. You’ll always be nothing. You’ll die of loneliness.” The whispers filtered through her brain, hurting her more than the rocks under her feet. When she reached the road, she turned. The creature stood between the trees, enormous antlers glowing with blue electricity. Its face was hidden, except for large empty sockets where eyes should be. 

Hannah stared, realizing that the websites had been wrong. The Dead Zone didn’t lure people. It pushed them. She stared at it, so focused and frozen that she didn’t see the headlights of the speeding car until it slammed into her with a crunch of metal and bone. One insidious word zipped through the electrons of her dying brain as she closed her eyes for the last time. 

“Alone.”

Julia Rajagopalan is a writer of speculative fiction who lives just outside of Detroit, Michigan, with her husband and their grumpy dog. 

In 2024, her short story “Ancestor Worship” was featured in the anthology Write, Wrong, or Otherwise, and she has published flash fiction in venues like Every Day Fiction, 365 Tomorrows, and Flash Phantoms.

This year, she has several short stories forthcoming, including “Banquet of the Future,” in NUNUM’s annual sci-fi anthology, Opolis. For a list of her publications, check out her website: www.JuliaRajagopalan.com