Chapter 8 – The Final Encounter

We stood there in the light of the fourth monitor blaring static at us. The others now displaying nothing. The door to whatever “studios” the Sages had been through was firmly closed and we were stood, staring up at the door in the far corner Mathias had hastily run through.

“Controllers Office/Filming Studio” in faded letters hung above the door, rumbling could be heard up above.

We didn’t delay; we didn’t spend any further time mulling over the past or wondering what could’ve been. Battered, bruised and defiant, we nodded to one another and opened the steel door, heading up the long staircase.

The air was hot and filled with a scent of ammonia intermixed with something not dissimilar to cinnamon, but the further we went up, the more it reeked of chemicals that burned the nose and stung the eyes. I held a hand over my mouth, digging my feet into the thick blue velvet carpet with every push upwards. We must have been ascending for some 5 minutes before I saw the light from the hallway, faint and pulsating, it acted like a pilot light for us to follow. We reached the summit and took a moment to breathe.

Warren: Jesus, I thought that’d never fucking end.

Millie: Someones outta shape, did the shit JJ put you through not wear you out? Even Preston is doing better than you!

Preston: Ah, I just have adrenaline, it helps. What the hell did you guys see through that door?

There was a pause, Warren leaned back and stretched his arms, wincing as his face throbbed. He rubbed it when he spoke.

Warren: That psychic lady from the old show, JJ made her look like my mom. But it wasn’t… she died a few years ago. Cancer got her. Strongest woman I knew though, never stopped working out until her dying day. I guess that’s why the thing wearing her skin felt so strong, but I took care of it. What about you guys?

Preston: I ended up in the basement of the house from Hanks show “Name That Anomaly”, I still don’t know WHAT was down there, but I got to speak to Hank, snap him out of what was going on. I don’t know if I changed anything, but I somehow feel like he went out on HIS terms, not JJ’s. And maybe that’s enough.

Millie: Yeah, I ended up in that fucking barbaric nature show with the wannabe David Attenborough and the life-sized Mantis. But, they tried to force me into an impossible choice and I did what I always do. Made my own. I set fire to that fucking tree and watched it burn until the way out opened up.

I looked at all of them. Beaten but unbowed, unafraid and proud of their progress. I was too.

Fay: Man, I had it easy. Just a deranged Mathias making me dictate it all before strangling me.

I rubbed my neck, realising the bruising was already showing and then chuckling.


Fay: All it took for him was one biiiig fuckin’ headbutt. I took a page outta Warren’s book. 

I winked at him and smiled before I remembered something I wanted to ask.


Fay: Did you guys hear that noise too? Right before you got the upper hand?

They looked around at each other and shook their heads. I could’ve sworn they heard what I did?

Warren: Nah, I felt a surge of adrenaline, but that’s it. What did you hear? 

Fay: I thought I heard… well, I DID hear Tristan. He called out to me and when the song played, it just spurned me on to fight back.

They looked confused, but didn’t question it. We’d all seen enough strange shit. I shook my head.

Fay: Doesn’t matter, I don’t think it’s worth explaining right now.

“Oh, I think it does. I know EXACTLY what you experienced, Fay.”

We turned on our heel to see a still bleeding, groaning Mathias stumbling towards us. The same glow now emanating from the large glass paned window behind him, casting him in an eery light and accentuating his already twisted features. When he smiled, black gums and rotted teeth jutted out.

“You saw what lays Beneath The Static, Fay. You saw where Tristan, Dallas and HE resides. You saw the truth behind it all.” He laughs uncontrollably, flecks of blood and spit flying everywhere as he hacks and coughs. “I knew you were special, but I NEVER imagined this much. It makes it all that more a shame that I have to defy what I was told and kill you.” He clenches his fist and ties his hair back, the smallest semblance of who he once was flickering for just a moment before receding to let the sick beast back out when his face morphs into utter cold malice;

“You’re making me do this, Fay. This is all your fault.”

I looked at him. TRULY looked at him for the first time since this all began. I stared at the tortured, twisted soul that was one of my former best friends. The nerdy scientific kid who crushed on me from a distance but never ceased in being my friend or helping me with my problems. The person who I thought saw me for ME. 

I realised I was looking at a corpse, nothing more. I handed my dictator to Millie and wrapped her hand around it, hugging me for a moment.


Fay: Keep this safe, it’s your job to finish what Tristan, and I started, in case this goes wrong.

I look at Fay, her tired eyes shimmering with determination and her vivacious smile promising all the trouble in the world. She was a woman who would not be denied.



Millie: If what goes wrong?

She smiles and turns on her heel, the distance between her & Mathias is about 100ft. She walks slowly towards him as Warren begins striving to stop her. I hold an arm out and shake my head. He protests, but sees the gait in her step and backs down.

Fay: You know, Mathias. Maybe in another life we could’ve moved past all of this, made amends and lived amicably.

Mathias stands upright, surveying the situation with curiosity and a hint of fear.

“Oh? Domestic bliss, you say? It’s all I wanted from you.”

Fay: No, you wanted a fantasy with someone you could never have. You’re no different to your sick fuck of a family and boy oh boy was I happy when they were found dead! 

She laughs and picks up her pace, Mathias’ fists balled up and his legs shaking. Was he scared?

“D-don’t talk about them like that! They did wrong, but they shouldn’t have had their lives RUINED over it! People make mistakes… I make mistakes, but we’re good guys under it all, don’t you see that? I just want my happy ending!”

Fay: No. And I never will.

Fay pulled off her Jacket, taking something out of it before flinging it in front of her and over Mathias’ head. He panics and begins flailing around to remove it. Her left hand holding a black can of hairspray and the other a lighter. My lighter that she’d pickpocketed from me as she gave me a hug.

She doesn’t hesitate in her movements as she pushes on the spray and flicks the lighter, the bright orange flame blasting from her and igniting the still indisposed Mathias as he screams in pain.


She looks back at us and smiles before running full kilt and grabbing Mathias, taking him through the glass and into the studio behind. The drop was some 20ft and though we run to stop her; we arrive before the thud. Looking over the balcony we’re situated on, we see the countless shards of glass piercing Fay’s back and arms as she lays there face down and motionless, a small pool of blood forming by her face.


Mathias, however, was very much active. The flames on his body had climbed up his arms and chest as he removed the jacket and in a frenzy, began moving around the room in a panic, unable to find any respite he simply drops to his knees and screams as the searing hit bubbles his flesh.

“Oh, my boy. This will not do. You are spoiling the great reunion!”

For all of us, this was our first time seeing him in the flesh and it was every bit as horrifying as seeing him on the TV. He crab walked behind Mathias, sank his torso to the ground and let his body snap up like a corpse rising from a coffin. He was so tall, towering at over 7ft easily. His neck snapped up last and the eyes that were too wide with the lips that were too thin bore down on us even from the studio below. His voice every bit as saccharine and uncannily professional as before. He clapped his hands and whooped at us.

“Bravo, Sages! You fought through your adversities and your de facto leader did the same! Boy, she really took a TRIP huh!” As if on cue, laughter pumped through the room. Slow, methodical, mechanical laughter. It made my hairs stand on end. “I guess we’ll see her next FALL!” He winks at a camera in front of him, not a soul is operating it and the unseen laughter booms again. 

This creature did not react once to the pained screams of a still-burning Mathias directly in front of him. He smiled up at us and without breaking his smile or stare, let one of his eyes dart down to the shape on the floor in agony.

“Mathias, my boy, you got greedy. I showed you so much and gave you the tools to get what you wanted. But look where it’s gotten you.” He wagged a finger in front of him before reaching a hand out and touching his scorched face, showing no signs of pain himself.

“You are a colossal waste, no different to your family.” He pulled at a strip of Mathias’ skin and peeled it off, dangling it over his mouth as his jaw grew slack and he swallowed it, licking his lips.

I don’t know if it was watching this man eat our former friend or the fear he’d move to Fay, but we immediately dashed for the door next to the window and descended some short stairs before we came to a sliding door with a red light on above.


“Do not enter when red light is on, recording in session!”

Warren: Fuck this. We’re going.

He pulled the door until the latch snapped and we stumbled in. Darkness enveloped us save for a single light, but it was not the glow we’d seen in the hallway. I felt a sea of large cables around my feet that I deftly moved through, fumbling in my pocket for something I hoped would help me.


It was a burning Mathias, sat in the wicker chair he’d seen from his nightmares and still screaming. JJ looming over him and making the most vile chewing sounds I’d ever heard. When he turned, I could see an empty eye socket, lips chewed and a piece of Mathias’ nose hanging in his mouth, which he slurped up while making unblinking eye contact. 

He was eating his face piece by piece.

“Well, I’ll give you this much, the catering for the reunion is divine, and it tastes like chicken!’

The laughter, now a chorus of shrieks, blasted into the room as JJ stood with his arms outstretched, feeding off of their energy.

“THIS is what the channel is fuelled by. Pain. Suffering. Revenge. Every single laugh you hear is a viewer. Past, present, and future. They all had something they wanted, something they lost and something they desired to see befall another person. They get brought here and they become a part of my audience. Whether they like it or not.” 

Warren took a step forward. We could barely see in front of us save for the fire, but he was undeterred.


Warren: What the fuck does that make you then? Are you just a more ambitious member of the audience? A god? The devil?

The laughter turned to hateful boos and threats from all sides, JJ giggling as he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and adjusted his bowtie, clearing it of blood and viscera. The fear in the air was palpable, it felt like we were watching a predator stalk us in its territory, my knees were shaking.

“I am the arbiter of it all. I am the manifestation of every negative emotion brought into human form.”

He looks up and sighs, smiling.

“I don’t know when I got here or how, but I remember the first thing I felt as that camera switched on and a terrified family stood in front of me.”

He clicks his fingers and the area we’re standing in lights up. We’re on a stage with an unending mass of faces locked in fury, teeth bared and arms reaching out for us from feet away. JJ walks through them effortlessly as he grows taller, the arms dragging on the floor as his joints click and grow sharper, his skin cracking and dropping off to reveal a black, shimmering carapace lined with more teeth. His eyes blackened and his perfect hair grew down his back and along his shoulders, ripping his suit in various places.

He was ready to kill us.


“I remember the instinct to feed. And I’ve never stopped eating.”

He lunged forward and the three of us dodged, Preston getting the least amount of distance as JJ’s sharpened claws dug into his heel and ripped at the muscle underneath. Preston wailed in pain and JJ threw him against a far wall. He fell limp and the audience began rushing towards him in desperation and hunger. Warren tried to rush to help him, but JJ was already on him. With one clenched fist, he pummelled Warren in the stomach and draped his unconscious body over the knuckles before leaning down, drool running down his chin.

I didn’t even think about what I was doing. I just felt the instinct to act, that desire to DO something I’d never done when I watched Tristan and Fay suffer before, I refused to let that happen again. Pulling my pen-knife out of my pocket, I severed a live cable and jabbed it into JJ’s back.

He shrieked and his body shuddered, but he didn’t go down or stop his rampage. He simply turned towards me and gripped me in his fist, the pressure on my chest threatening to crack my ribs and pierce my lungs.

“You were the one with the fire in your belly. Perhaps the audience would enjoy seeing me dig it out of you. Perhaps that would make your old sage LiveWire happy?”



“Hey, fuckface.”

He turned and saw a bloodied Fay standing by something too dark to make out. She was dragging a leg and spitting up blood, but she was smiling through red teeth.

Fay: His name was DALLAS!

She pulled, and the spotlights blasted in the studio room. The audience receded and JJ dropped me, gripping at his eyes and howling.

My back aching and my breath shallow, I stumbled over to rouse Warren while we shouted to Preston, who thankfully was already coming around. We could see the trail of blood Fay had left as she crawled during the commotion to find a way to help us. There were several small machines littered around the room with large cables connecting to a slew of cameras and a master control dial. Fay shouted at the top of her lungs and I swear I could hear another voice in unison, a male voice.

Fay: Grab a cable and PULL like your life depends on it!

I pulled Warren up, and on unsteady legs; we ran for a console. Darting underneath the towering mass of nightmare fuel that was JJ still stumbling around blindly was not easy, but we each made it to our assigned machines. The cables were thick and attached with small clamps that would release when pushed on while pulling the main bulk. I looked over at the others and saw them at the ready; I pulled hard and felt the strain in my muscles as they threatened to tear, but I refused to stop.



Millie: If I can survive my brother, I can survive THIS!

The cable pulled free, and the lights flickered, JJ pulled his hands away from his eyes and his form began to shrink.

“Do not touch those cables, you have NO idea what you’re doing! This was not the reunion I had planned!” He bellowed, swiping for me and smashing the console in the process, catching my left leg and pulling me off balance. But the damage was done.

Warren: You’re the arbiter of SHIT. I am not the fuck-up I was; I am better than this. Better than you.

Warren ripped the cable from his console and the lights dimmed for a few more seconds, JJ’s form now retreating to that of a slightly tall man, his hair growing grey and his suit starting to hang off of him.

“Folks, we’re experiencing some technical difficulties, but it’s nothing ol’ JJ can’t handle!” His voice was shaking and his teeth were yellowing, standing on unsure footing.

Preston took the unorthodox route of pushing in each clip gently and wrapping both arms around the cable to pull in one fell swoop. He was calm, collected and not a single ounce of fear as he looked the fragile monster he’d feared all his life in the eyes.

Preston: I got to help Hank carve a new path. Now I can do the same for myself.

JJ held onto his head, the skin growing pale and his body shrinking. He was growing older in front of our eyes; the energy sapping from him.

We each smiled, cautiously optimistic as we walked towards him. He was holding up a frail hand to deter us from coming closer. We looked to Fay to pull the final cable, but she was slumped over it, bleeding profusely and breathing heavily.

She’d taken so much damage, it hadn’t occurred to us that she might not have the strength. 

We darted over and put our hands over hers, pulling the cable together as JJ weakly screamed at us to stop.

“I’m begging you, we have a PURPOSE here. The reunion was meant to be your joining the audience, to be a part of the cycle and help new people grow and change. Haven’t I done that? Haven’t I helped you all grow?”

Fay: We grew because of what happened, not because of you. You took my family from me and I swore I’d make you pay.

We pull the cable free and JJ screams as he drops to the floor, on his knees and staring up at us as we surrounded him, Fay held up by myself and Warren.

She looks deep into his eyes before pulling the knife from my hand.

Fay: And that is exactly what I am doing.

With no hesitation, she drives the knife into his neck, the rubbery skin offering no deterrence as she puts both hands on the hilt of the knife and pulls across. No blood sprays out, no liquid of any kind.

Instead, a low gasp escapes around the room, the sounds of the audience fading away and the whites of JJ’s eyes growing brighter.

“You’ve all grown up. You’ve all looked Beneath The Static” he breathed, choking as he spoke. “But I promise you, there will always be more who come looking. More who will be hurt and seek to hurt others…”

He grabs Fay’s wrist with shaking hands and that sick fucking smile ripples across his face again.

“Don’t worry folks, ol’ JJ Watson will be around for years to come. More will tune in, more will entertain us. They will all join Tristan and Dallas as a part of my audience. JJ Watson signing o-“

Fay screams and drives the knife into his skull.

His eyes grow blank and his head tilts back.

He was finally dead.

Fay breathed heavily, wiping blood from her mouth and staring down at the crumpled, unmoving figure that once plagued our nightmares, half expecting him to leap up and flash that grin again. But he remained still, and when it became apparent it was over, Fay dropped to her knees and sobbed. We gathered around her and held her tightly.

It was over.

That is, until we saw the still-burning form of Mathias limping over from the wicker chair. His face a torrid mess of pulpy flesh and charred meat, the expression of hatred painted across what remained human.



“If I can… get to him… we’ll start again…” He hissed, trying to gain traction but stumbling over as he did so. 

Warren: Let it go, Mathias. It’s over. We can get you to a hospital and you can pay for what you did, though I don’t know how we’re gonna explain this to anyone…

But Mathias was beyond words, logic and reason. He abandoned them long ago when the guilt of what he’d done as a child as well as his part in Dallas’ death overtook him and the influence of JJ creeping into his ear left him a shell of a man driven by base desires. Now, with his body withered and his mind failing, all he could do was laugh as his seared body was being lapped up by the flames he’d stoked so long ago.

“If I can’t get to him, I’ll bring you all with me. One big blaze to send us all back to the start. The static will be with us!” He screamed, reaching for one of the exposed cables we’d pulled out.

Before any of us could even react, however, there was a bright spark that arced from the control station across the room and went straight to Mathias’ back. He screamed for a moment before falling still, the fire on his back now nothing more than a black smoulder.

“Guys… guys, can you hear me?”



That voice… oh my god, that voice.


Helping to carry Fay, we moved to the monitor above the control desk and saw a blinking light indicating the feed was active. Pushing it, the screen came to life and staring back at us…

Was Tristan. Not ageing a day since the night he was taken from us. His background was blurred and he looked like he was struggling to focus, but it was him.

Tristan: Hey, guys… Been a while, huh? I see you fought the bad guy without me and it even had some cool fight scenes, kinda unfair if you ask me…

Fay looked up, bloodied and exhausted, but managed to say something between pained sobs and lapses in consciousness.

Fay: Took you long enough, dork.

She slumped back and Warren gently propped her against the wall next to us.

Preston: How is this even possible? We watched you… I mean, you…

Warren: We watched you die, man. JJ shot you, we mourned you.

I felt the tears in my eyes and my voice cracking as I spoke. I’d dreamt of this moment for 10 agonising years.

Millie: We missed you both. SO so much.

He smiled and shrugs his shoulders.

Tristan: Well, you didn’t have to look very far. I was always just beneath the static, as they say. But it’s a little more complicated than that.

He looks above us, sighs, and shakes his head.

Tristan: When people are taken by JJ and put on display for this show. They don’t… well, they don’t “die” in the traditional sense if they are killed here. I’m not sure if JJ was the only part of this station that doesn’t conform to what we understand about the world we live in.

Preston: Right, he said people became a part of his audience.

Warren: Well, we killed that fucker, so now we can just find a way to get you out the same way WE did and we’re home-free, right?

Tristan gave the most sobering of smiles, that kind you give someone when you have to let them down gently or break some harsh news to them. I felt a lump in my throat.

Tristan: That’s one way of it happening, yeah. The other is; you simply get stuck here. No way to move on, to die. Just stuck within the network. I don’t know how to explain it. I only kept track of the time because I wasn’t on my own and we can glimpse the outside world through channel flicking.

He pauses and I hear a break in his voice as the tears well up.

Tristan: In the end, got to watch you all grow up. Even at a distance. But that brings me to what I need to ask you to do.

He looks at all of us and wipes his eyes before asking the hardest question of all, with a smile on his face;


Tristan: Shut this place down, let it burn to ashes and take me with it. I want to move on.

There was a chill that ran through us all, right to our bones. I looked at Fay, still out cold. Preston in disbelief, Warren in resigned sombreness and finally to my own shaking frame as I grappled with what I had to do.

Millie: What do we have to do?

He points towards the frayed cables, some still sparking on the floor where we’d ripped them out.


Tristan: One good spark oughta do it. The whole place will go up in flames and whatever powers this building will go down with it. If there’s anything left standing in the morning, burn that too. I stopped Mathias from doing it because the fire will spread rapidly, trapping anyone else left here.

Warren: And you wanted to say goodbye, before we closed the book on this whole fuckin’ saga.

He nodded and chuckled.

Tristan: Hey, when the hell did you get taller than me?

Warren looked at himself before laughing heartily, tears in his eyes and choking back sobs.

Tristan: Hey, Preston. You look a lot more confident now, did you finally get yourself a man?



Preston welled up and nodded, showing him the ring. Tristan laughed.


Tristan: Man, we knew you’d get there one day. I’m so proud of you.

He turned to me and his eyes glazed over; the lips trembled and I felt my knees go weak.

Tristan: Mil… I wish we’d had more time. I wish we’d gotten to figure things out and see where this went. I think you were the first girl I ever really liked. It’s a shame I’ll never get to see where that takes us.

I knew what I wanted to say, but I was so scared to say it. I clutched my lucky cat’s paw and spoke from the heart.

Millie: I’ll stay here with you. I may not have had the chance back then, but I do now… I thought of this moment for 10 long years, I’m not ready to let go.

He smiles weakly at me, Warren and Preston protesting. But I shook my head. Grabbing the lighter from the floor, I looked over and saw the exposed cables. I smiled at them and told them to leave.

This was my moment, my time to be with him. A moment in time had come and I could even hear a song playing me out.

“Hey, Mil… you’re kinda stepping all over my moment here.”

Fay stood up against the wall, her body wracked with cuts and bruises, face littered in blood and sweat, but still a picture of beauty.

Millie: Fay, you need to go. You have a life to live; I spent mine waiting for him.

Fay laughed and choked as blood spilt from her mouth, pooling over her hand and waving off Warren’s help as she composed herself.


Fay: C’mon, Millie. You barely had a kiss from the guy. You’re a beautiful woman who spent 10 years living in the shadow of the what ifs and what could’ve beens. You denied yourself any chance at happiness beyond this, beyond him, threw yourself into your work and never stopped to look at what makes YOU happy beyond anyone else.

She walked over and put a shaking hand on my shoulder, taking the lighter from my hand.

Fay: It’s time for you to find that out. I spent 10 years repeating the same mistakes and wishing for nothing more than being by his side. I know you love him, Mil. But… he’s my twin. He IS my heart. I’ve never been complete without him. Body damaged by abuse and now the phantom fucker himself has done me in… there’s no way i’d make it outta here anyway. My place is here. By his side.

She held up a shaking hand and looked towards Preston.

Fay: Hey, toss me that hairspray and I’ll give you something in return.

Confused, tired and distraught, Preston obliged and threw it to her. She placed it in front of her before pulling out a snack and throwing it to him.

It was a bagel bite. The exact type and flavour he’d given me when we met.

Fay: Warren, you better name your next kid after me, or I’m gonna come back and beat the shit out of you and become the NEW dad of the house. Got it?

He stared, refusing to break down but tears flowing freely as he nodded.

Lastly, she turned to me, hugging me and tapping on this dictaphone.

Fay: Use your voice. Finish the story. Go out and fucking LIVE.

We held her for a moment as Tristan looked on, before we walked away from the main studio room and up to the window pane Mathias had been smashed through.

She looked back at Tristan and cocked her head to the side ever so slightly.

Tristan: You hear it too? 

She laughed, grabbing the can of hairspray and the lighter as she walked towards one of the cables. The main camera JJ used to film with was inexplicably charged, but still standing. Pointed directly at her.

The perfect shot.

Fay: I never stopped, not since the day you left. I’ll see you soon.

In an instant, the spark was ignited, and the blast engulfed the room, knocking us back and against one of the walls.

Dizzy and my head pounding, I saw the flames begin to rise and the smoke billowing through the halls. Before I could regain my composure, Warren pulled me up, and we dashed down the stairs, the fire nipping at our heels.

We barrelled through the office door and slammed it shut, grabbing anything we’d left behind before making a bee-line for the back door that lead down to the reception area.

But before I could go, I took one last look at the monitors.


Each one was lit up and showing a piece of the basement.

Fay & Tristans basement.

In the top left monitor, we could see Fay walking down the stairs, her 17-year-old self again and stopping short of the final few steps to stand and stare, hands clasped over her mouth.

In the top right stood Tristan and their mother. Arms outstretched and a slew of all her drawings plastered across the walls with a “welcome home” banner adorned atop being displayed in the bottom right corner. She ran over and embraced them, hugging and weeping into their shoulders.

After a moment, she leaned her her up and looked to the left, emotions overcoming her as she mouthed one word before running over to the bottom right corner;

“Dallas.”

As she went to hug him, the fire roared and began eating away at the foundations. Wanting to stay and understand but the entire building coming down around us, we made the decision to run and escape for the night air.

We stood and sobbed as the building came down. We watched until the morning to make sure there were no ashes left.

When daylight swept over the once foreboding structure and confirmed that nothing remained, we held each other one last time and promised to stay in touch. Each of us getting on a different plane and leaving the town behind.

There were still many questions, many unexplained things. But for us, the ordeal was done. There was nothing more to explore.

Beneath The Static was no more.

It’s been a week since what happened and I’ve spoken to the guys a couple of times since then, just to check in and touch base that they’re doing as well as can be expected.

We made sure that Fay was buried next to her mom and Tristan, a small plot not far from the local cemetery. The home was foreclosed and sold to a relative who vowed to keep it as it was. It doesn’t matter, the memories are always going to be there long after the building is dust.

Mathias was mourned in an unmarked grave. Not the man he became but the man he once was. There was SOME good in him, I have to believe that, we all do.

We made sure to visit Dallas’ grave alongside that of his mother & fathers before we left for the station and our final encounter. It was a sobering moment that reminded us of everything we’d done to get us here. I’m so glad I know he’s finally at peace and most importantly; not alone.


Preston vowed to continue his business with renewed vigour, resolved to marry Zachary sooner rather than later, much to the families chagrin. They had a shotgun wedding, and I attended over Zoom. He looked so happy.

The first thing Warren did was lay some flowers at his Mom & brother’s grave. Said he spent a long time processing everything, before he took his family on an immediate vacation. He broke the news a few days later that he was having a baby. He said it was too soon to know if it was a boy or a girl but he said he’d keep his word and name it “Fay” if it was a girl, but that he’d be worried she’d be even more of a handful than he or the original. He loves his family so, so much, and he’s better off for it.

As for me? Well, I got the details for Fay & Tristans account and vowed to finish the story for them. I’ve done just that.

Now, I’m going to do exactly what I promised I’d do; live my life. I’ve decided to pack up my practice and take it on the road, help out animals and people wherever I can, find whatever the hell I’m looking for as I go. And I won’t be lonely, at least, got my foster dogs as constant loving companions.

I think I’ll be okay.

But JJ did get one thing right; I don’t know for sure Beneath The Static will be gone forever. There are always people out there looking for revenge, for a sick thrill and a way to impart suffering on others. We see it in viral videos, the dark web, social media and any place where people can capitalise on the suffering of others. 

It’s these places where I worry a new JJ Watson and a new Beneath The Static will one day rear their heads, like a tumour growing back with bigger roots to corrupt more souls.

But, I’m also confident that if that day comes, people will be safe.


Because there’s two twins and one insane motherfucker that will always look out for us, always watching.

Always lurking just Beneath The Static.