Page 64 of White Noise

No Silas, or static.

There's nothing.

By the time they finally tell me officers have been dispatched to an address associated with the account, I’m sitting on the floor with my back against the bed, staring at nothing.

They find him.

The confirmation doesn’t come directly. Nobody calls and says, Yes, Saga, the man you just watched die is definitely dead.

They don’t need to.

An officer calls me back almost an hour later asking for a formal statement, and his questions change halfway through the conversation.

Past tense.

When did I last speak to the victim?

Had anyone threatened him before tonight?

Did I recognize the attacker?

Was there any chance another person had been inside his apartment before the call began?

I close my eyes.

“I saw him.”

“Who?”

“The man who killed him.”

There’s a pause. “Can you describe him?”

Tall. White hair. Black eyes. Scar across his eye that surprise, I put it there myself after he crawled out of a fucking television.

“He was tall,” I say instead. “Very tall. Light hair. Tattoos.”

“Did you see how he entered the residence?”

My grip tightens around the phone.

I look at my television.

“No.”

The lie tastes like shit, but the truth sounds worse. They ask for the recording, and so I send it. Then I sit there while someone else tells me what’s on it. Void alive. The call running normally, then, interference.

Static. Corrupted audio.

Then nothing usable until the final portion of the feed.

No Silas stepping out of the television, not a single clear image of him standing behind Void.

None of the things I watched with my own fucking eyes.

The officer asks whether there could have been another entrance outside the camera angle.

I almost laugh. Because you have got to be fucking kidding me.