The Midnight Test

Bluestone Bay had the kind of summer that looked like a postcard left too long in the sun: bright water, creaking docks, the sweet sting of mustard from the hot-dog stand on the corner. The town was small enough that everybody knew everybody else, small enough that secrets never really stayed buried. They just sank for a while and came back up when the lake got restless. The high school radio room sat on the top floor, tucked beside the equipment closet that nobody ever bothered to lock. Inside were the relics of a different decade: an old analog board from the eighties, a cassette deck that liked to eat tapes, two tired headsets, and a narrow window facing Cedar Lake.