The Night Wire
"The Night Wire" is a short story by H. F. Arnold. It was first published in Weird Tales in September 1926.
Plot summary
The narrator, Jim, is working overnight in a news bureau in a skyscraper in an unspecified Western seaport town, where he and his colleague John Morgan are transcribing stories transmitted from a wire service over a telegraph via Morse code. Morgan - known to his co-workers as a "double man" due to his ability to type out two stories simultaneously without error - complains of feeling tired, then of the room being stuffy. Throughout the night, Jim sorts through the stories Morgan has transcribed. These include a series of dispatches from Chicago over the second wire concerning "Xebico", a city Jim has never heard of before.The first dispatch announces that an unusually heavy and impenetrable fog had settled over Xebico at 4 PM the previous day, stopping traffic, and is growing heavier.
The second set of dispatches state that the fog has continued to grow, shrouding the town in darkness and emitting a "sickly" odor. They include an account from a sexton who claims that the fog originated from a village graveyard. The sexton claims to have seen something moving in the midst of the fog; as he fled, he heard screams from the homes next to the graveyard. A rescue party has been dispatched to investigate.
The third dispatch states that the rescue party has failed to return, and a larger party has been sent after them. The fog has continued to grow thicker, with an odor of decay. Cries are heard from the outskirts of the city.
After reading the third dispatch, Jim looks out of the window of the skyscraper, imagining that he sees a faint trace of fog below.
The fourth and final dispatch states that neither rescue party has returned, and that the author of the dispatches is cut off. The author speculates that the cries they hear are the death cries of the residents of Xebico, and notes they are growing closer to the center. As the fog reaches the city center, the author of the dispatch - looking down on the streets from a room on the thirteenth floor - states "The fog is not simply vapor -- it lives! By the side of each moaning and weeping human is a companion figure, an aura of strange and vari-colored hues The prone and writhing bodies have been stripped of their clothing. They are being consumed -- piecemeal." The author then states that "The whole sky is in flames. Colors as yet unseen by man or demon. As I look, they are swinging closer and closer, a million miles at each jump. The lights are coming closer. They are all around me. I am enveloped. I..."
After the dispatch terminates abruptly, Jim contacts Chicago, who advise that they have not transmitted any messages that night. Assuming that they have been hoaxed, Jim shakes Morgan, only to find that "His body was quite cold. Morgan had been dead for hours." Jim wonders "Could it be that his sensitized brain and automatic fingers had continued to record impressions even after the end?"
The story closes with Jim vowing never again to work overnight for the news bureau. Jim notes that Xebico does not appear in the atlas, stating "Whatever it was that killed John Morgan will forever remain a mystery."