I was the only customer, nursing a warm beer. The owner, Don Tacho, a man whose face looked like a cracked adobe wall, didn’t seem surprised. He just pointed a gnarled finger at the glowing machine.

“The man who owns that voice.”

“Who?”

And outside, the rain stopped. Because the dead were already inside.

And in that silence, a voice—neither young nor old, but timeless—whispered directly behind my ear: