The Last Broadcast

Prologue: The Broadcast

October 31, 1992. 11:47 PM.

The static hit first—a jagged rip across the screen during WKZB’s late-night horror marathon. Then the cameras cut to Studio B, where veteran news anchor Daniel Reece sat slumped in his chair, his tie crooked, his face slack.

A shadow moved behind him.

The figure was tall. Too tall. Its limbs bent at impossible angles as it stepped into frame, its face a blur of shifting static.

Then it reached out—

—and the screen went black.

The station never signed back on.

Chapter 1: The Tape

Present Day

I shouldn’t have taken the job.

But $500 cash to inventory an abandoned TV station’s archives was too good to pass up. Especially since my grad school bills were starting to look like phone numbers.

The building was a time capsule. Dusty film reels. Broken teleprompters. And in the basement, a single Betamax tape labeled "10/31/92 – FINAL BROADCAST – DO NOT AIR."

I slid it into a rusted playback machine.

The footage was grainy, but clear enough to see Daniel Reece’s face as the thing approached him. Clear enough to hear his final, whispered words:

"It’s in the signal."

Then the screen filled with a scream—not from Daniel, but from the camera itself, a metallic shriek that made my fillings vibrate.

The tape ended.

And across the room, a monitor flickered to life.

Chapter 2: The Signal

"You shouldn’t have watched that."

I spun around. The voice came from the TV—a flat, digitized rasp.

The screen showed Studio B. Empty.

Then the camera panned left.

And I saw myself, frozen in terror, reflected in the glass of the control booth.

Behind me, something stood up.

I bolted.

The hallways twisted like a funhouse, doors slamming shut as I passed. By the time I reached the lobby, my phone was buzzing—a notification from a dead app I’d never installed:

"LIVE BROADCAST RESUMING IN 15:00."

Chapter 3: The Watchers

The security footage told the real story.

Not just of Daniel’s death, but of the others. Six technicians. Two janitors. All lured to the station on Halloween night over the years, all vanishing into Studio B just before midnight.

And every time, the cameras kept rolling.

I found the tapes stacked neatly in a storage room, each labeled with a date and a name. The most recent was blank except for two words:

"YOUR TURN."

Chapter 4: The Feed

Midnight.

I barricaded myself in the master control room, but the TVs kept turning on by themselves, screens filling with that same pulsing static.

Then the whispers started.

"It’s easier if you don’t fight," Daniel’s voice crackled from a monitor. "It just wants a story to tell."

A shape moved in the hallway.

Not walking.

Glitching.

One moment at the far end, the next six feet closer, its movements skipping like a corrupted video file.

The countdown on my phone hit zero.

And every screen in the building lit up with two words:

"LIVE NOW."

Epilogue: Dead Air

They found my camera the next morning, still recording in the empty control room.

The footage shows me standing perfectly still, facing a wall of static-filled monitors.

Then I turn—too fast, joints popping—and smile at the lens with teeth that don’t look human anymore.

The video ends with a hand reaching out.

And the sound of something laughing in the static.