September 10, 2025

Transmitter
​by Nick Porisch

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast.



This text is a series of open letters written to the citizens of Manitou Falls, Wisconsin by Walter J. Sundquist, published in the Manitou Telegraph between February 9th and March 31st, 2025.

Feb. 9, 2025.
Has anyone else found their morning commute disturbed by the hideous shrieking of a long-dormant god’s sycophantic acolytes? Particularly, on the corner of Barstow and Clairemont. You know, between the Hardee’s and the Evenox Motel. 

My name is Walter J. Sundquist and, as many of you may know, I manage Bradley’s Ace Hardware on Grand Street. I’m reaching out to you, the public, in the hope that we may be able to mount some sort of petition for the city to take care of this terrible problem.
 
I know what you might be thinking; if the shrieking is such an issue, why don’t I adjust my route to work to avoid it? See, after my wife passed away and my daughter left for college, I downsized into an apartment in Cannery Heights and, the fact of the matter is, there’s just not another convenient way to get to Grand Street without passing through the Barstow and Clairemont intersection. Especially with that horrendous construction by the middle school. Not to mention, the shrieking is taking up quite a large bandwidth on public radio space and that really ought to be the city’s responsibility to take care of.
If you’ve also noticed the unearthly wails and guttural howls near the Hardee’s on Clairemont, please let me know if it was prior to the date of January 3rd, 2025. That was when my sonic encounters with this quasi-religious group began.

The sun was still beneath the horizon as I drove from Cannery Heights to Grand Street. I was listening to music  through my car’s speakers, thanks to a device that my daughter, Hailey, gave me during her Christmas break. It was a small, plug-in transmitter that she explained would connect to my smartphone via Bluetooth and then emit a short-range FM signal that I could tune my car’s radio to.

Hailey told me that the transmitter was finicky and only certain FM channels would get a clear signal. I eventually narrowed down a very small handful that work well with the transmitter and are usually vacant, so my music isn’t disrupted and so that I’m not disrupting the transmissions of others.

However, when I pulled to a stop at the traffic light that bridges the gap between the Hardee’s and the Evenox Motel on the morning of January 3rd, my music began to shudder and warp, interrupted by harsh spikes of static. I tuned my radio a few clicks to the right, and heard the first whispers of the acolytes broadcasting their sermon from the corner of Clairemont and Barstow.

They spoke in strange ancient, tongues, older than anything Indo-European, older than Persian or Hellenic or Egyptian, maybe older than Sanskrit. Words that you don’t hear so much as you feel in your stomach. 

They spoke, and I understood. I understood that there is a great beast under the lakes and the hills of our land and it’s hungry… so hungry. That it carves its way beneath our roads and buildings with the great ambivalence of something that was here before the first stone of human invention was cast and will be here long after the final nail is hammered into the final coffin. That its stomach quivers and its maw salivates with an eager, insatiable gluttony for everything we love and hold close.  That it wants, or maybe needs, to be starved until the day arrives when it can resurface and feast in all the decadent pleasures of our world. I understood, without a doubt, that our souls will be the first course.

Then the light turned green and I arrived at work four minutes later. I can’t help but think that my encounter with the disciples’ prophecy at the traffic light contributed to my generally grumpy disposition for the remainder of the day, which in turn may have affected our daily sales at the hardware store.

On days when I’m lucky, I meet a greenlight at the acolytes’ intersection and catch only a small sliver of their cursed broadcast. A single beat of a thundering drum, one verse from a esoteric tome. Other days, I am subjected to up to three minutes of mind-warping chants that taunt me with omens not meant for the human mind to consume.

So, if your morning commute has also been disrupted by the occult ravings emanating from the corner of Clairemont and Barstow, please reach out to me so we can organize some kind of action in city hall and put a stop to it. You can see my contact information below, or come find me at Bradley’s Ace Hardware on Grand Street.

Mar. 19th, 2025.
My name is Walter J. Sundquist and, as many of you may know, I am the now infamous “FM transmitter guy.” Last month, I submitted an open letter in this newspaper that outlined my experiences intercepting the sermons and prophecies of an ancient, evil religion centered somewhere between the Hardee’s and Evenox Motel. Apparently, this was a somewhat unique experience. However, the February 9th issue became a record-breaking sales hit for the Manitou Telegraph and they have graciously allowed me to publish another letter begging anyone out there who may have shared these experiences to reach out.

For decades, the radio in my pick-up remained completely and totally silent. Many of you knew my late wife, Mary C. Sundquist, before she passed away last Spring and, if you did, you would know that she was the finest singer in the Ojibwa River Valley. She was a concert soloist, a music teacher, and an avid member of First Lutheran’s choir. During the thirty years I shared my life with Mary, there was never a need for a radio because she was always there to fill the air with music. When my daughter, Hailey, gave me the FM transmitter, she said that Mary would want my life to still be full of music.

I’ve started to hear her voice again, at the traffic light between Clairemont and Barstow.
Her singing — that gentle, beautiful singing — is woven into the moans of the acolytes echoing there. In between their encantations and curses, her gentle melody injects a dose of golden ichor.

I decided that I must find the source of the signal myself. By tweaking my position and tuning the channels of my radio, I slowly triangulated the emanation of my wife’s voice to be from inside the Evenox Motel. I don’t know what is inside that building, but, next week, Hailey comes home for spring break and I’ll tell her what has been happening here in Manitou Falls.

Please, please, if you have shared any of these experiences, help me convince the Manitou Police Department of this situation’s urgency, before it’s far too late.

Mar. 31, 2025.
My name is Walter J. Sundquist and, as many of you know, there is something powerful beyond our capacity for understanding inside the Evenox Motel at the corner of Clairemont and Barstow.

I write this as an email attachment that I will send to the Manitou Telegraph from the cab of my pick-up, in the parking lot of the motel. My radio is tuned to the shrieks of the acolytes.

Earlier this week, Hailey returned from university in Northern Michigan. I told her about these experiences and, when she asked me to show her, I brought her to the traffic light where I’ve heard the slumbering god’s worshippers. I waited with apprehension as their rumbling whispers cut through the radio’s static… and Hailey smiled.

“She’s waiting for you.”

Hailey explained that this has all been for me. She said she met some people, deep in the North Woods, who showed her old, powerful things and told her that they were everywhere, even in her own hometown. They could help her find things that were lost. People who were lost. Hailey said that the transmitter was designed to guide me to this channel that only I can hear, at this exact place in this town that I love. Hailey says that I’ll find Mary at the signal’s source.

So, now, I’m here in the parking lot at the corner of Clairemont and Barstow. The cultists’ prayers shake my cochlea and send horrific vibrations through the canals of my grey matter. I see great waves of thunder and lightning descending upon Manitou Falls and figures with purple, bruised skin emerging from the woods. I hear the interminable, deafening call of the great beast within our earth and our hearts. I feel the end boiling beneath our feet.

Something is waiting for me inside the Evenox Motel. Mary is waiting for me inside. The beast is waiting for me inside. 

None of you can help me.
​
I open the car door and turn the radio off.

                                                                     💀💀💀

Nick Porisch is a writer based in the Northern Midwest. Most of the time you can find him just sitting around someplace, potentially writing genre fiction and screenplays but usually just sitting. On the rare occasion he’s not sitting around, he might be rock climbing or running. But most likely he’s just sitting somewhere.