Speaker 1: My name's David. I'm not sure if that's my real name,
but it's possible. I decided to use David a long
time ago. I like it because it's forgettable. They're countless
David's in the world. They try my best to be invisible.
Life's better that way. For as long as I can remember,
I've always been plagued by horrible nightmares. I'll wake up
in a state of panic, shouting and flailing around in
the dark, but I can never remember why. As soon
as I'm conscious, the dreams crumble and fall away. For
many years, I could never recall what was happening in
those dreams. Oh, I would wake up screaming, how about you?
Do you remember your dreams? Do you recognize the faces
in your nightmares? Speaking of life, it's probably safe to
say mine's been a lot different from yours. I have
no driver's license, no insurance payments, no credit score, none
of that stuff. That live wherever I can, for as
long as I can. For the past six months, I
was squatting in the offices of an abandoned warehouse. The
office space was my domain, and the rest of the
buildings belong to the wildlife. It was much better than
my last home. Place had running water, power and heat,
and the ceiling didn't link. All in all, that was
probably the best home I've ever had. So hoping I
could stay there for a long time, just me and
the raccoons, I could stay there forever. I have no
idea what will happen next. All I know for sure
is there'll be strange places, sinister faces. Beyond that. Your
guess is as good as mine. When I first moved
into the warehouse, I found an unexpected windfall. In the
break room, they left a full size refrigerator behind, along
with a hot plate, the microwave, and a coffee maker.
In the cupboards, I found an assortment of dishes and
cooking utensils. They even left several full tins of coffee,
along with five containers of coffee whitener and a box
full of sugar packets. It almost brought a tear to
my eye. Small comforts of the bedrock of civilization. Toothbrush,
sticky deodor it, a hot cup of coffee, the small
comforts who would make us human. They also left behind
a portable stereo. I don't really listen to music. I
don't understand it to be honest, but I always have
talk radio playing in the background. Whenever I turn it off.
How I can hear is the faint buzz of the
florescent lights. I even have it playing softly when I sleep.
Find it comforting to hear a voice that isn't mine.
I don't really speak to anyone, and for the most part,
no one tries to talk to me. AM radio is
a safe and easy substitute for social interaction scratches a
primal itch to be a part of a group without
all the mess and danger that comes with the real deal.
Having a stable housing situation allowed me to develop a
morning routine coffee, restroom, breakfast, then a workout. My workout
takes roughly two hours, and I did it every morning
without fail. It's the best part of my day. I
use plastic jugs full of gravel for weights. I'd lift
until my entire body was burning with exhaustion. She finished
off the workout with jump rope and working the heavy bag.
Jump rope was literally an eight foot length of rope
I found in the warehouse. The heavy bag or the
patchwork creation of canvas fishing line. I filed it with
roughly one hundred pounds of dirt from the empty lot
behind the warehouse. Found the tarp flapping around in the wind,
and it's the shipping yard. And the fishing line was
a score from a dumpster behind a strip Mall the
gloves I used to protect my hands also come from
the dumpster. A few stitches with the fishing line, and
they were as good as new. We live in a
throwaway society. We throw away food, material objects, and we
even throw away other people into the trash. They go
wasted and then forgotten. I guess there's a metaphor in
there somewhere, but I don't know what it is. I
don't really understand metaphors either. Sometimes I don't get it
and someone's joking with me, And even when I do
get the joke, I don't know why I should laugh.
My understanding of my environment is purely practical nature. I
understand warmth, comfort, I understand cold and pain. My hobbies
are working out, scavenging from dumpsters, and avoiding contact with
other people. Everything else in this world is alien to me,
falls outside the realm of my experience. I would punch
and kick the bag until I was gasping for breath.
Then I'd do it some more. After my workout, i'd
head to the restroom to take a bath in the sink.
This is the worst part of my day because I'd
have to look at myself in the mirror. The man
who stared back at me was a ghost. It was nothing.
He drifted around on the fringes of reality, unseen and unheard.
His existence was meaningless. I've never been sure what it
means to be a good person. I think most of
us fall somewhere between half decent and horrible. Sometimes we
choose to do good, sometimes we choose to do evil.
I can go either way, and sometimes an action that
would ordinarily be considered evil is actually and not positive
for good. Personally, I have no problem with telling a
lie for my own benefit. I'd admit that I'm also
something of a thief. On occasion, I've taken things that
weren't mine to take, and just recently I started murdering people.
It all started with the dead body. The first time
I saw him, I was rooting around into a dumpster
behind a seven to eleven variety store. I turned around
with a stale loaf of wonderbread in each hand, and
I found myself looking at a very young boy dressed
in only a grimy pair of denim overalls and a
T shirt and a cold winter night. He was barefoot
on the frozen concrete. He was painfully thin. His skin
was pale, ashy blue. In the glow of my flashlight,
he looked like a ghost. The boy pressed a skinny
finger against his lips to silence me, and he beckoned
me to follow him. I watched in disbelief as he
drifted around the corner of the building and disappeared. I hesitated,
and then I dropped my scavenged loaves of bread. Chased
after him. I was convinced the boy was some kind
of hallucination. But no there he was trudging around with
the soles of his feet against the concrete. I shuffled
after him on stiff legs despite the bitter cold. I
started sweating under my jacket. I felt an uncomfortable pressure
in my chest, suffocating mixture of fear and dread. But
I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop following him. I felt
like I was no longer in control. It soon became
apparent no one else could see the dead boy. People
would shuffle aside to avoid crossing his path, but they
wouldn't look at him. A lot of them had vaguely
uneasy expressions on their face as he passed by, but
no one looked at him. Eventually, the boy stopped in
front of a pizza parlor. He beckoned me with his
finger again, his expression blank and empty. Reluctantly, I shuffled closer.
My heart was hammering in my chest. He pointed to
a customer through the grimy window. I didn't recognize him.
It was just some older guy eating his pizza, a
random streat, minding his own business. The boy pushed something
into my hand. It was my own knife, a folding
blade I found in the dumpster behind a sporting goods store.
I had to replace the rivet, and then it was
good as new. The business end was almost five inches long,
and I kept it very sharp. The dead boy stared
at me, his skinny arms dangling at his sides. I
looked around to make sure no one was watching. There
was no one else around, just me and my unsettling
new companion. I quietly asked, who are you? Are you real?
I don't think you're real. The boy silently pointed at
the customer through the glass again, and then he was gone.
I was standing by myself with my pocket knife in hand,
watching a stranger through a window. I spun around and
hurried away into the night. I went straight home to
the warehouse, and I hid under the blankets for a while.
I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't
want to know. I just wanted to be left alone.
It took a long time to fall asleep. As usual,
I jolted awake in a state of raw panic. However,
something was different this time. I could remember the final
moments of my nightmare. I clicked on the lamp beside
my mattress, and I scampered down the hall to grab
some office stationery. I jotted down everything I could remember
in point for him. I wrote, I'm outside sometime during
the summer months June through September. I'm running away from something.
The grass is long and full of weeds. It's a
meadow or a bonyard. There's a building to my right,
big red. It might be a barn. There's crop growing
in a field to my left, tall green, probably corn.
And that was all I could remember, just a brief sliver,
hardly more than two blinks in a heartbeat, but it
was something I laid back down on my mattress, cradling
my precious new memory close to my heart. I didn't
sleep another wink that night. I just stared up into
the darkness, my heart thumping too fast in my chest,
and I waited for sunrise. I met Christy a few
nights later. Interacting with other people really isn't my thing,
but I felt like I needed to stop her before
it was too late. She was trying to kill someone
in broad daylight. I heard a disturbance of screech and
cursing on my way home from my dumpster rounds. I
could hear it from three blocks away. As I drew
closer to the source of the ruckus, I got ready
to cross the street. I already mind my own business,
and I hope others would do the same. It's better
that way. Round the corner and saw two young women
pounding on each other in the middle of the street.
Both of them were punching with one hand and trying
their damnedest to rip out a chunk of hair with
the other. A couple of old drunks were standing nearby,
wheezing with laughter and egging them on. There was a
chaotic scene, and I wanted no part of it. One
of the women managed to drag the other to the ground.
She hit her head against the curb on the way down,
and she instantly went limp. The victor cried out in triumph,
and she scrambled on top of her fallen opponent. She
landed a few sloppy punches. She grabbed the chunk of
pavement off the road. She screamed, that's what you get,
and she hammered the unconscious girls square in the face.
I'm honored, ah shit, and I pulled the victor off
of her soon to be murder victim. She wriggled in
my grasp like an alley cat, bellowing at me to
fuck off and let her go. I dragged her a
short distance away and tried to reason with her. I said,
if you stop now, no one will care. If you
don't stop, you'll go to prison. The girl roared, I
don't give a fuck about jail. She tried to bite
my arm. I shoved her away and prepared myself for
a scuffle. As I expected, she immediately charged at me,
so I planted my boot in the narrow midsection. She
flew back and went down in a tangle of limbs
on the street. The drunks howled with demented laughter. It
was the greatest thing they'd ever seen. When I'm stumbled
over burbling a stream of boozy nonsense. As he reached
from my shoulder, I slapped his hand out of the
air and grunted fuck off. Even though he was pretty
much obliterated, the drunk was still wise enough to do
as he was. I turned back to the girl and said,
you one, so leave it alone. Don't lose your freedom.
The girl shot me a smoldering look through her tangled,
greasy hair, and she gasped that bitch stole from me.
It gave her a tired nod and sign go ahead,
then do what you gotta do. I'm leaving. I heard
a patter of scurying footsteps as she came running up
behind me. I turned and got ready for another attack,
but the girl held up her hands and gasped, no,
I'm just I'm not gonna. I just like, yeah, you're right,
she's not worth it. I gave her a slight nod
and muttered again, it's good. Take care. They started walking away.
She scrambled to catch up over stuffed knapsack balancing against
her back with every step. She panted, Hey, wait a sec,
where are you going right now? I snapped, I'm going
home and kept walking. I was sincerely regretting my decision
getting involved. I didn't want this interaction, or any interaction
for that matter. I wanted to be left alone. The
girl started jogging to keep up to me, her face
pale and strained. She said, you're lucky. You know, I
could have pulled a gun on you or something. Right
and then what? I curtly answered, but she didn't, and
I stepped up the pace. The girl wheezed, holy shit,
how do you walk so fast? Slow down, man, listen.
I'm sorry I came at you like that. I was
just mad. You know, you're right, you did the right thing,
like you, you know, a good samaritan, you know, being
a good citizen and all that shit. Hey, come on,
I want to talk for a second. It tersely replied
no thanks, and kept plowing onward. The girl cursed under
her breath and grabbed my arm, digging the heels of
her sneakers into the sidewalk as an anchor. Her face
was a mask desperation. I disengaged myself from her clutching
hand and I firmly shook my head. No, I don't
have any money. I don't have any drugs, no meth,
no crack, no fentanyl, no drugs at all. I don't
have what you need. She waved her hands in the
air and stammered, No, no, no, it's nothing like that.
I just I really need a place to crash tonight.
You know, I got like kicked out of the motel
because I couldn't pay, and I don't have anywhere to go.
I've been on the street for like three days, and
I'm cold, I'm tired, and I'm broke. She hesitated, and
then added, we could talk about it, you know, if
you are like, maybe you want something, I could I could,
I could do something for you. I shook my head
again and told her, no, I don't want that. Look,
you don't know me. I don't know you. Let's keep
it that way. She clutched for my arm again and chirped,
my name is Chris, how about you? What's your name?
Against my better judgment, I answered it's David. She wrote, there, see,
now we know each other. Man. I'm in a beat
spot right now. I promise I won't mess with you.
I won't do anything shady. I'm not like that. I
just need to be inside somewhere. I need to get warm.
I grimaced and rubbed my temples. What a nightmare, I asked,
What about the shelter. She looked down at her feet,
and in a listless tone, she replied, shelter kicked me out.
I really have nowhere to go. I opened my mouth
to say no again, but instead and I heard myself
ask are you hungry? Christie's face flushed red with a
bleak mixture of gratitude and shame. She whispered, Yeah, I am,
I'm really hungry. Thank you. My heart was pounding. I
felt nauseous. This was all wrong. I couldn't have a
stranger in my living space, especially not some wildcat lady
off the street. But I knew what it was like
to be cold and hungry. I knew the dread of
not having a place to go. And I honestly didn't
blame her for trying to kill the thief. It's hard
out here. You have to enforce your intention to stay
alive by any means necessary. That's just how it is.
She was holding my sleeve. That shook her hand off
and muttered, come on, then, let's get you something to eat.
Christie claims she was twenty years old. She looked like
she'd been anywhere from fifteen to forty, hard to tell.
Her eyes were sunken and hollow, and her teeth were
starting to turn brown. She was deaf, an addict of
some kind. As part of town is littered with them.
They steal, rob and sell themselves until they're all used up,
and then they die. Happens every day. Her name and
age may have been false, but Christie wasn't lying when
she said she was hungry. She devoured a large can
of tomato soup, two peanut butter sandwiches, and an entire
sleeve of stale crackers. She washed it all down with
several glasses of powdered milk. When she was done, she
gave me a faint smile and said, I was good.
I needed that, man. This place is fucking awesome. I
gotta find a place like this. Hell, yes, squatting is
the best way to go. Is this sweet deal? Darkly?
I mentioned well last forever, but yeah, I like it.
No one knows I'm here. Christy drew her knees up
to her chest. It wrapped her arms around them. It
made her look like a child. I pitied her myself,
wishing I could help her. But this would never happen
in the real world. I knew she'd probably be dead
within a year or two. It was inevitable. Christy saw
me studying her, and she gave me a shy little smile.
She said, no one knows except me. I'm special. Don't worry,
I won't tell anyone. Her expression turned somber. She sat
straight up in her chair and asked, Okay, so we're
good here, right? You said you don't want anything like
you know. The shiver raced down my spine. Then I
fent a gurgle of nausea in my stomach. I fear
close contact of any kind. If someone's close enough to
touch me, i'd start to panic. I grunted, No, none
of that. I don't I don't like that. The look
of relief spread across her narrow features. She said, good,
I don't like it much either. Cool. I got up
to wash the dishes, and Christy lapsed into a brooding silence.
I could hear the feet of her chairs sliding around
on the floor as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Finally,
she blurted out, Hey, where's the bathroom in this place?
Is it somewhere down the hole out there? I nodded,
and she said, awesome, I'll be right back a few
minutes past, then a few more. I knew what she
was doing. When she came back. She had a glassy
sheen in her eyes. She made it halfway across the
break room, and then she gave me a cross eyed
look and mumbled, I just I got a Her eyes
fluttered and her dopey smile melted away. She started to
lean forward at the waist, her scrawny arms dangling like
wind chimes. I left her standing there and went out
to the warehouse to round up and packing materials for
a makeshift bed. She was still teetering around in the
same spot when I came back. I set up a
nest of cardboard inserts and bubble wrap in the corner
of the break room. Then I went to bed. I
hope she'd be gone in the morning, just a mild
bump in my road of solitude. I didn't want to
know her. People are poisonous. If you ingest limited amounts
over a period of time, you might be okay. Over exposure, however,
can prove to be fatal. That night, I suffered through
another intense nightmare, as per usual. When I woke up,
I realized it was the same dream as the night before,
and this time I could remember even more details. I
grabbed my stationary pad and added these points to the list.
I'm sitting at a large table with a bunch of kids.
It's too a dult, a man and a woman. Everyone
has a plate, but the man and the woman are
the only ones eating. The rest of us are starving. Now.
I'm running outside, just like the last time. The building
is definitely a barn. It's very early in the morning,
or maybe just after sunset. I'm running away from a fire.
There's smoke in the air. I'd hear the fire blazing
behind me. I can feel the heat on my back.
I didn't understand what any of that meant, but I
knew how it made me feel. It made me feel very,
very bad. It was the same feeling I had while
following the dead boy down the street, a sense of
impending doom. Something was going to happen. An epiphany was
looming on the horizon, and I knew it would be
explosive and horrendous in every possible way. I patted down
to the rest room and I used the urinal in
the dark. But I was done. I poked my head
into the break room to check on Christie. She was
snoring away in her bed of packing materials. Even though
she was dead asleep, her brow was still creased with
a slight frown. I wonder if she knew the demons
that haunted her sleep. In the end, it wouldn't matter
either way. They would soon drag her to the underworld,
I thought to myself, and then I'm next. I felt
sick to my stomach. I didn't want this girl in
my life. She made me remember that I'm human, and
I resented that deeply. I didn't want to be human.
I just wanted to exist. I murmured, go the fuck away,
and I tiptoed back to my bedroom. I didn't think
i'd fall asleep again, but I was out like a
light in no time, and this time I didn't dream
at all. I slept like the dead. In the morning,
I found Christy nursing a mug of coffee in the
break room, patiently waiting for me to get up. I
cooked us both breakfast on the hot plate, but she
barely ate anything. She was already high. She nodded off
for a while as she watched me and do my
workout from a corner of the room, sitting on the
floor with her legs crossed beneath her and her eyes
could focus again. She mumbled, you're like, you know, like
freaking Batman over there. Were you one of those MMA
fighters or something. I put my hands on my knees
and gasped something like that. It was a long time ago,
truth is, I honestly didn't know where I learned to fight,
or when or how she's like my real name. That
information was lost in the fog of the past. When
I caught my breath, I told her it's time for
you to go. You can wash up in the restroom
before you leave if you feel like it. Honestly, you
don't smell very good. I'll give you a towel you
can keep it when you're done. Her cheeks flushed pink
with embarrassment. She looked away and muttered, I've been on
the street for a while. What do you expect? Yeah, okay,
thank you. When she was done, I hearded my unwonted
guest to the back exit. She gave me an unhappy
look and grumbled, this is it, huh. I clapped my
hands together and briskly replied, glad I could help. Now
it's time to go. I pushed the door open and
froze like a statue. The dead boy was standing on
the crumbling sidewalk. He was still wearing the same T
shirt and filthy overalls. The boy's ghostly feet were shockingly
pale against the oil stayed concrete. His gaunt, shriveled features
were modeled with splotches of purple and blue. Looked like
he had suffered a terrible beating before he died. The
dead boy drifted closer. He held up his hand, his
palm facing me. Then he gravely shook his head. The
message was clear. He wanted to let her stay. Christie
lightly touched my arm and asked, hey, you okay, man,
what is it? Look kind of freaked out. I jerked
away from her touch and I slammed the door shut.
I let out a shuddering breath and croaked, yeah, yeah,
I'm okay. Look, I just changed my mind. You can
stay for a while if if that's what you want,
it's fine. Christy was clearly bewildered by this turn of events,
but she was also very relieved that she wasn't going
to be tossed onto the street. She clapped her hands
together and SHIRRP. That's awesome, man, You're a lifesaver for real.
You know that's why I followed you yesterday. I could
tell you were like you know that you were okay.
I gave her a distant look and grunted, I'm not
sure about that, but yeah, you can stay. Just don't
rob me. Okay. Almost everything I have came from a dumpster,
but I still hate to lose it. She scoffed and said,
I fucking hate thieves. That's why I got booted from
the hotel, because that bitch stole my money. I'd never
steal from you, I swear to god. I gave her
a stiff nod and said we'll see. I led her
back to the office, and she immediately disappeared into the
restroom again. That was fine. Her addiction was none of
my business. Frankly, I had bigger things to worry about.
My heart was still slamming in my chest. I was
hoping the first incident was just a brief, unexplained break
with reality. But I was wrong. The dead Boy's presence
felt like the weight of ten thousand sins, a mountain
evil that would crush me into the ground. My haze
of blissful ignorance was in peril. I was afraid of
what would happen when that fog lifted. I was very afraid.
Five days later, I committed my first murder. I just
said goodbye to Christy, who was on her way to
work her usual corner. She woke up sick that morning,
and there was only one thing that could make the
sickness go away. It stirred something in my heart. But
reality isn't pleasant on the side of the city. There
was nothing I can do for her. I told her
to be safe, and then I had it off to
check out the dumpster behind the dollar store. After we
parted ways, the dead boy stepped out from behind the
street light, then as a rail, gray as ashes, he
motioned for me to follow him. Once again, I was
compelled to obey his silent command. He led me down
the street for a few blocks, walking corpse who was
invisible to everyone but me. He stopped in front of
a liquor store with bars on the windows that he
waited for me to catch up. I already knew who
was inside. My stomach did a slow, sickly roll in
my gut. I wasn't prepared. I wasn't prepared for this
at all. I stood there for a minute or two,
shivering in the cold, as the dead boy stared up
at me, his face slack and expressionless. I knew I
should just turn around and run away, but I couldn't
force myself to move. And then my target came bustling
through the door, clutching a bottle in a paper bag.
As he headed down the street. I pulled up my
hood and leaned against the wall as he passed by.
I was just another bit of flotsam and the vast
ocean of a less fortunate, unknown and unseen. He didn't
even look at me. I turned to speak to my
troublesome spirit, but he was gone. I whispered, what fuck,
and I started following the guy at a distance. It
had to happen. I didn't have a choice. I got
my opportunity when the guy ducked into an alley to
relieve himself against a garbage can. I crept up behind him,
my knife already in hand, and I pressed the tip
to the side of his neck. He let out a
artled squawk and twisted away by reflex, squirting piss and
an arcing slash across the decaying brick wall. I shoved
him face first into the wall, knocking over the garbage
can with a loud bang and a clatter of empty cans.
I snarled, don't turn around, be quiet and do as
you're told. He quavered, do it, don't do anything crazy, Okay,
take it easy. I took a breath to steady myself.
I felt like I was about to faint. I leaned
in close behind him and breathed, who are you? What's
your name? My hostage stammered, what do you look? Look
you to my wallet and go man, it's in my
back pocket. Whatever I got in there, it's yours. I
fished it out of his pocket with one hand, still
holding the knife against his neck. With the other one,
I flipped it open and squinted at his driver's license
through the grimy plastic window. He wheezed, I got like
I ate bucks in there. Take it. I won't tell nobody,
I said, Stanley Mortimer Garland, that's your name? Yeah, let
me look at you. I spun him around and pressed
the knife under his eye. I studied his face carefully,
but I still didn't recognize him. I ground, do you
know me? Stanley? Do you know who I am? His
eyes began to water, and he blinked the tears away.
He gasped, No, I don't know you. Look, man, I
don't even. He trailed off, and a flush of red
spread across his broad acne scarred face. He choked, Oh,
holy shit, how the hell are you still alive? I
felt a spike of adrenaline slam into my heart. I demanded,
do you know who I am? I was a kid
at the time. Right, It was on a farm, There
was a cornfield, at a barn. I poked the knife
into his skin for emphasis, and a fat drop of
blood oozed a trail down his stubby cheek. He croaked,
you don't remember, that's look. That's probably for the best. Okay,
you get me. You don't want to know, Just just
let it die. I felt a flare of rage, and
I seized it with desperate hands. I needed that anchor
or my nerve would break. I would simply flee into
the night. I hissed, I'll let you die, motherfucker, right
here in this alley, right now, frozen in a puddle
of piss, with your deck hanging out. Tell me what
happened on that farm, Stanley, tell me everything, you know.
His eyes were wide and wet. I'm terrified, He murmured.
I didn't agree with what was going on in there.
It was it was just a job. I mean, that
didn't That don't make it right. But I never agreed
with it. After the fire, I stopped associating with those people.
I swear to God, my face was burning hot in
the bitter cold. I gassed yeah, a fire. I remember that.
I remember running away from a fire. What was going
on in there? Stanley? I can remember sitting at a
table with a bunch of other kids, and we didn't
have anything to eat. There were two adults, a man
and a woman, and they were eating, but the rest
of us had nothing to eat. An empty plate. Was
that you? My hostage blinked away more tears. He begged,
just forget about it, man, please, just it's over. You
know you're alive. Let let it go. I suddenly became
aware he was slowly easing something out of his coat pocket.
It was almost too late. I grabbed his arm and
the bullet pinged off the wall behind me. I shoved
his gun hand into the air and drove my knife
into his fat, sagging stomach. He screamed, are you crazy, pastard?
And the gun went off a second time. I dragged
the blade upward, opening his guts, and I rammed my
head into his nose. He went down hard, the pistol
tumbling from his nerveless fingers. I kicked him in the face.
His skull made a dreadful crunching sound as it bounced
off the wall, and then he was still. His intestines
were oozing onto the filthy concrete, riding on a slop
of yellowish fat curds, dark steaming blood. My mind was
a roaring tornado of panic. I was shaking all over.
I groaned, Oh, fucked me. I grabbed his wallet out
of the puddle of piss and blood at my feet.
I wiped it off on his coat, followed by the
blade of my knife, and I ran away as far
as I could. I ran until I couldn't run anymore.
My sides and my lungs were on fire. My mind
was on fire. I killed him, This man who I
couldn't remember to save my life, and I was glad.
It felt good to kill him. It felt like coming home.
The jittery high I got from murdering MI Sir Stanley
Garland was extremely intense. By the time I got back
to the warehouse, I was almost hyper ventilating from a
rush baronoia. Was I losing my mind? He admitted that
he knew me, and he admitted he was involved in
my past somehow. But what if none of that actually happened?
The dead boy, the memories disguised as nightmares Stanley's veiled confession.
What if it was all in my head? What if
I just killed an innocent stranger and took his wallet.
It briefly crossed my mind that even the murder itself
could have been delusion. With the blood on my pants
and my jacket said otherwise. The second I stepped to
the door, I stripped naked and shoved everything into a
garbage bag. I felt a stab of regret and losing
the coat and the boots. It was hard to find
stuff like that in good condition. I scrubbed myself at
the sink of the restroom head to toe. After I
got dressed, I thoroughly mopped all the floors. When it
was all done, I forced myself to stop panicking. For
better or for worse, it happened. There was no going back.
Now it was time to figure out who that guy
was and what role he played in my forgotten past.
I sat down in the break room and went through
the contents of his wallet. Stanley had both a regular
driver's license and also a commercial driver's license. His full
name on both licenses was Stanley Mortimer Garland. There were
also a jumble of cards in there, along with some
old receipts, neatly folded check stub, and eighty dollars in cash.
Among the pilot cards at his wallet, I found a
business card for a local contractor. His business was called
Paul Stephen's Contracting. A line of text beneath the company
name read fences, decks, landscaping, and a whole lot more.
The Czech stub was from the same company. After deductions,
Stanley had netted ten thousand dollars in a two week period.
I scribbled down some notes on one of my trusty
stationary pads. Then I tossed the wallet into the garbage bag.
I intended to burn it to ashes in the shipping
yard sometime after midnight. In a better area of town,
this kind of activity might draw a lot of attention.
I didn't have to worry about that in my neighborhood.
In my neighborhood, the police only came to track a
chalk outline around another dead body. It was a dystopian hellscape,
but it was home. I didn't know anything else. Christy
came back a while later with a half a pizza
and a few cans of beer. I declined the beer.
I devoured the pizza. I didn't have it very often,
so it was a rare treat. She sipped a beer
and complained for a while about her clients. I absently
nodded along, letting her voice wash into the background as
I listened to the local AM radio station during the
eleven PM news bullet and they briefly mentioned a dead
body that had been found in an alleyway. I felt
my stomach titan, but I remained calm. There was a
decent chance they were talking about a different body. Murder
is almost a daily occurrence in the side of town.
Christy came back from the restroom and she knotted out
at the table Eventually she mumbled something and lurched away
down the hall. When she was gone, I took the
trash bag outside and I burned it in the bonfire
of broken palettes. I stared into the flames and considered
my next move. The contents of his wallet had produced
a few leads, and I tended to follow up on them.
They watched as the fire wound down to a pile
of embers, and then I turned in for the night.
I woke up just before dawn, with the scream lodged
in my throat. I grabbed my notepad and I wrote.
Stanley was driving us somewhere on a school bus. He
looked a lot younger, maybe twenty or thirty years There
was another man standing at the front of the bus.
He was holding a gun. I was taken to a
large room. There was a bunch of chairs set up
and rose, and there was a big cage in the
middle of the room. I tried to run, but the
man with a gun caught me and dragged me back.
I put the notepad down. I turned off the lamp,
and after a half an hour, staring into the darkness,
I murmured to myself, get ready, misster Stevens, I'll be
seeing you real soon. Before I did anything else, I
wanted to have a look around Stanley Garland's place of residence. Unfortunately,
I didn't have the presence of mind to search his
pockets for a set of keys. I had no choice
except for it to do it the old fashioned way
and break in. I would have to whip up something
of a disguise. Sanley lived in a much better neighborhood,
and I was going to stand out like a sore thumb.
I looked like a vagrant, and that would not do
at all. I carefully trimmed the good six inches off
my beard and I took the clippers to my hair.
A few swipes of the razors and eating things up,
and now I almost looked like a normal citizen. I
zipped up a pair of blue coveralls over my clothes,
and I put on a greasy baseball cap I found
in the boiler room. The final touches to my disguise
were an old clipboard with a stack of shipping documents
and my tool bag. I was no longer a homeless
dumpster pirate. I was a maintenance man and I had
a job to do. I used the money from Stanley's
wallet to pay for bus fare. Twenty minutes later, I
was casually strolling up to the front entrance of the building.
I could see an elderly woman perched on a chair
in the lobby to staring at me, her phone in
one hand in an unlit cigarette in the other. She
made eye contact and her face wrinkled with a distrustful scowl.
I gave her an absid minded wave as I frowned
on my clipboard. I pretended to check the address again,
then PLoP the bag down so I could flip through
my imaginary paperwork. The old woman tottered over to the door.
She pushed it open a few inches and then stuck
her face in the narrow gap. She squawked, are you
here to fix the light in the hallway? I frowned
some more and my clipboard and muttered, yeah, I think
that was on the list. Where was that again? Let
me see? The old woman's eyes lit up with excitement.
She pointed up above her head and exclaimed, second floor,
The damn light's been buzzing and flickering for almost a week,
striving me crazy. She held the door open for me,
apping a stream of complaints as I stepped inside. My
heart was slamming around beneath my oiled stained overalls. I
honestly didn't think it was going to work, but it did.
I was in I gave the old gall a friendly
smile and said, oh, I'm sure it's been a huge pain.
I'll take care of it. I turned my attention back
to the clipboard and hurried away. I was just a
maintenance guy, and I was here to do my maintenance
guy things. Stan lived up on the third floor. It
was eleven in the morning and the hallway was silent.
Most of the residents are probably at work. This was
helpful because I was about to make some noise. I
didn't know the first thing about lock picking. If you
don't care about making some racket, and there are many
ways to get through a locked door. I used a
half inch drill bit to make a hole between the
dead bolt and the knob. The hole was a starting
point for a rough circle, which I caught with a
stolen reciprocating saw. A few seconds later, I was reaching
through the hole to unlock the dead bolt. The entire
process took less than a minute. It quickly became obvious
that Stanley Garland was an alcoholic. Judging by the used
needles that were scattered throughout the apartment, stan was also
an addict. This would explain why he'd been regularly visiting
my sketchy little corner of the city. You won't find
any banks or strip malls there, but drugs and prostitution
were literally everywhere. Like most people who struggle with substance abuse,
stan wasn't much of a housekeeper. His floors were mostly
buried in piles of dirty clothes, fast food containers, and
random items of every description. There were stacks of dishes
on the corner, and an army of broken bottles littered
every surface. Overall, it painted a picture of a man
who was deeply mired in both addiction and depression. Stanley
had no drive or energy to keep his life in order.
It was probably a struggle just to get from one
day to the next. I started methodically searching through all
the chaos and clutter. I soon discovered an old pile
of check stubs amongst the jungle of crap on his desk.
They were from a bus company that supplied transportation for
school kids. It appeared that Stanley used to work for
this company five days a week, but judging from the
dates of the stubs, he hadn't been employed by them
for quite some time. I could see that his employment
with the mysterious Paul Stevens was far more lucrative. That
he simply quit the bus company and jumped ship for
a better paying job was another question that needed to
be answered. If on a gun in his nightstand, along
with a few boxes of ammunition, I put them in
my tool bag and I kept searching. In the back
of his bedroom closet. I unearthed a shoe box of
polaroid photographs. They were all pictures of boys, all them
taken in front of a white background. Most of the
boys were smiling, but some of them had a watchful expression,
as if they knew something was wrong. There were dozens
of these pictures in the shoe box, so on the
back of each picture someone had written a name and
a date. Jeffrey October seventeenth, Doug June third, Ricardo March
twenty eighth. As I flipped through the photographs, that occurred
to me that one of them might be me. A
film of sweat suddenly popped up on my forehead, and
I was racked by a violent shudder. My heart was
pounding wildly, and I felt like I was going to
pass out. I sat down on stands rumpled, smelly bed
and I focused on controlling my breathing. Something awful was
swimming up from the murky depths of my subconscious dark
Leviathan rising to the surface after a long and restless slumber.
There was nothing I could do to stop it. The
memory exploded into my mind with a flash from a camera.
Stanley Garland was smiling at me from behind the tripod.
He said, all done, Now follow the nice man over there. Yeah,
go on. Next a nice man led me down a
hallway with fading wallpaper. He ushered me into a large
room that was full of bunk beds, row upon row
of them. There were a bunch of other kids in
the room. They were all appeared to be between nine
and eleven years old. As who came walking in, they
stopped what they were doing and stared at me. I
was suddenly afraid. I asked mister nice man if I
could go home, and he answered with a ferocious slap
across my face. It knocked me to the floor. I
was shocked into silence. I blinked at him through a
film of tears and he smiled at me. He said,
this is your home. Now, you aren't going back. The
doors slam shut behind him, and I heard a dead
bolt slide into place. I immediately started bawling my eyes out.
All the other kids gave me a look of disgust,
and they turned away from me. The kid with a
crew cut came strolling over. He dragged me by the
arm to an empty bunk. He pointed at it and said,
this one's yours. I collapsed onto the hard mattress and
I continued to cry my heart out. After a while,
the kid on the top bunk leaned down to have
a look at me. One of his eyes was cold
and indifferent. The other was bloodshot and puffy from a
fading shiner. A deep split in his upper lip had
been stitched close. In a matter of fact tone, my
new bunk mate told me you're not gonna make it.
You're gonna die in there. I felt a tap on
my shoulder and I jumped to my feet with a
strangled yelp of terror. It was the dead boy. I
was back in the dripping with sweat and shaking all over.
My ghostly companion drifted over to the window and pointed
down the street. Two burly cops were climbing out of
a police cruiser. We started heading up the walkway to
the front entrance. It's time to go. I shoved the
hat and the cover alls into my tool bag and
I scrambled down the fire escape. By the time the
cops who were approaching the door to Stanley's apartment that
was already hailing a cab down the street. Cabby dropped
me off five blocks from the boundaries to my squalid neighborhood.
He refused to drive any closer. I paid the fare
and I melted away amongst my people parade of broken
souls with no clear motive or direction. My field trip
to Stanley's residence had unveiled more questions than answers. It
appeared Stanley was involved in a human trafficking operation. Was
the mysterious Pulse Stevens also involved? And what was the
significance of that giant cage. More and more questions kept
popping up, and I was determined to find the answer.
When I got back to the warehouse, I found Christie
sitting in the break room. She looked like she'd been crying.
There was a newspaper spread out on the table in
front of her. I asked, what's wrong, and she stabbed
the page with a trembling finger. She croaked, this guy,
I knew this guy. I leaned over her shoulder and
saw a grainy picture of Stanley Garland's smiling face. The
headline blared, police asked for public's assistance in murder investigation.
My heart lurched in my chest, but I kept my
expression neutral. I said, I'm sorry for your loss. Christy snorted, no,
not lost. He was a piece of shit. I didn't
know his real name was Stanley. Everyone called him Morty.
Christie wrapped her skinny arms around herself as she stared
down at his face. She quietly breathed, My dad wasn't
a bad guy, but he was like, you know, I
wanna be biker, just to hang around. Sometimes they'd pay
him to these stuff they didn't feel like doing themselves.
I guess it wasn't much money because we were always
broke anyway. So this morning guy, he moves in down
the hall from us and they start hanging out. He
was a bus driver, but he was into a bunch
of other stuff too, you know, like organized crime. I
guess she paused to order her thoughts and then continued. Anyway,
So Morty when he got my dad involved in something
and things started to get better for us sudden we
got new furniture and new clothes, and there's always food
in the fridge. She gave me a crooked, miserable smile.
So we have all this cool stuff now. But Dad
was always in a bad mood. He was always angry
all the time, moody, intense, and I'd catch him staring
at me sometimes and he'd have this really like sad
look on his face. And then he went on for
a year or so, and then one day he just
he just disappeared, left the apartment for work, and he
just never came back. Me and Mom are pretty fucked
after that, because Mom didn't have access to his money,
and he had a few hundred bucks bashed around the
apartment and that's all we had. Anyway, Morty came knocking
on the door maybe three weeks after Dad disappeared, and
Mom talked to him for a while, and she didn't
seem very happy with what he was saying. He saw
me peeking at them from around the corner and he
whispered something into her ear. I don't know. I don't
know what he said, but Mom, she lost her shit
on the guy and she started screaming at him like
a freaking banshee. Right as she pushed him into the hallway.
She was like, really upset, you know. She kept me
home from school the next day and every other day
for the rest of the week. I don't have to
go anywhere. I just watched TV. My mom was chain
smoking and watching the door. Christy tapped the picture of
a Morty's smiling face with a ragged fingernail. She said,
whatever he said to her, it freaked her out. She
ended up selling all of our stuff to other people
in our building, and the new couch, the big TV,
our dressers, our beds, everything gone in two days. And
then and then we're riding a greyhound bus across the
country to live with my grandma. Just like that. I
stayed quiet as I absorbed this new information. I let
it swirl around with the other fragments of the big picture,
and I waited for her to continue. Christie folded the
newspaper to hide his face, and she pushed it away
with a trembling hand. She muttered, he got my dad
into something heavy, you know, something really bad, and I
think I think he was going to snitch on them
or something, so so they killed him. I asked if
she had any pictures of her dad. Christie dug around
in her backpack and she pulled out a crumpled photograph.
She smoothed it out on the table and said, it's
the only one I have threw his pictures away when
she got serious with a new boyfriend. Took it out
of the trash and I hid it in my room.
I examined the picture, and another piece the pustle clicked
into place. Christie's dad was the guy who was standing
at the front of the bus in my dream. He
was the one who dragged me back when I tried
to run away. I realized I was gritting my teeth
and I forced myself to relax my jaw. Let me
guess your mom decided to shack up with the new
guy and it turned out to be a bad move.
Christy plucked the photograph out of my hand. She tucked
it into the breast pocket of her jacket, close to
her heart, and she croaked, yeah, she did. He's the
reason I ran away. There's a creep we both lapsed
into a brooding silence. As we sat there thinking our
dark and troubling thoughts, the dead boy suddenly stepped out
from behind Christie's chair. He stood beside her and stared
at me. Christie frowned and leaned away from him, even
though she couldn't see him, as she could sense his
presence on a primal love. She rubbed her temples inside.
Oh fuck it, that's whatever at this point, right, just whatever.
She pushed her chair back and stiff reannounced I'm gonna
head back out for a while. I see you later.
I looked up at her shriveling, miserable face, and I
knew she wasn't long for this awful world. Christie was
trapped in a nightmarish waltz that would never end. She
worked the corner to score the drugs, which told her
senses enough to work the corner again. Her entire existence
was a grim two step dance of corner to dope man,
dope man to corner, over and over again. There wasn't
any light behind those sunken, bloodshot eyes. She was running
on autopilot. There was nothing but fumes in the tank.
I quietly asked, what's his name. Christy wrapped her arms
around herself in a protective circle and quivered his name's
Greg Thomas. I fucking hate his guns. Well, maybe something
will happen to him someday, Maybe he'll end up like Morty.
Would you like that? Christie went silent for a while,
her eyes glittering with a film of tears beneath a
harsh fluorescent light. A ghost of a smile touched her
lips there and gone in the blink of an eye.
She gave me a slight nod and whispered, yeah, I'd
like that a lot, And then she was rushing down
the hall, and the exit door swung shut behind her
with a metallic clunk. I was left by myself, with
the radio blurbling away in the background. As usual, there
was another news report. The news was mostly bad. Someone
had once told me nothing is fair, and even though
I couldn't remember who said that to me, I knew
they were right. Safety is in illusion and justice is
a lie. The dead boy was still lingering at the table.
He was looking at me with an air of impatience.
I pointed at him and snapped, I used to be invisible.
I was happy that way. I didn't have to think
about anything. I didn't have to know anything. I didn't
have to commit felonies and put myself in danger. I
just had to stay alive, one day at a time.
You took that from me. Do you understand? Leave me
alone for a while. The dead boy drifted out into
the hallway and turned to look at me. I groaned,
don't fuck yourself. I couldn't disobey his wordless commands. My
own body wouldn't allow it. I got up from my
chair and followed. He led me to the large mirror
in the restroom. He pointed to my reflection, and I
was forced to confront my image. My fresh haircut had
revealed the ragged stumps of my left ear. I stared
at the network of scars on my face, the leaning
slant of my nose, and another piece of the puzzle
clicked into place. For many years, I had been unable
to grasp the concept of myself as an actual human being.
I had never asked myself, who am I? Why is
my face all messed up? Why am I so afraid
all the time? Why does my entire body clench like
a fist if someone is standing too close to me?
My days were a dream, and my reality was trapped
in my nightmares. The past had no meaning, the future
was unknowable. The only certainty was a lonely death, and
with any luck and eternity of silence in a pauper's grave, solitude, silence,
and a blissful void. My image in the mirror gave
me a stern look and said, wake up, seventeen. You're
asleep on your feet. Put your hands up and move.
Beads of sweat started rolling down my forehead. I couldn't
Breathe leaned against the counter and gasped, I can't do this.
I want to stay asleep. My reflection round. No, it's
time to wake up. It leaned forward and poppy with
a left hook to the chin. My knees unhinged. I
fell into the past. I was now inside the cage
from my dream. A man was standing over me, his
hands planted on his hips. I didn't know his name.
No one had a name at the farm. The boys
were numbered from one to third, and our trainer was
known as the Director. We weren't allowed to speak unless
we were spoken to first. The punishment for talking was
a swift beating. There weren't any second. Chances of the
farm only repercussions. I was number seventeen. The old seventeen
had died shortly after my arrival, and I was his replacement. Calmly,
the director said, you try to lean away from that hook.
You would have been better to roll under him. Get
up and try again. All the other boys were surrounding
the outside cage, silently watching the lesson unfold. I squared
up again, and this time I almost managed to avoid
his fist. He glanced off the top of my skull
and I was dropped a second later. The director watched
with a look of serene indifference as I struggled to
get up, his hands clasped together behind his back. My
head was ringing like a bell. If you bet your
knees a little more would have missed. Try again. I
dodged the third swing, and the director awarded me with
a kick to the liver. I went down hard, and
I stayed there. He looked around at the other boys
and said, if the first strike misses the mark, there's
probably another one coming right behind it. Be ready for it.
He held up three fingers and said, remember these three words, gentlemen, anticipate, evade, retaliate.
These words might keep you alive. I saw his foot
rise into the air, and I rolled away just in
time to avoid a stomp on the head. The director
clapped his hands together and called out, seventeen needs a break.
Who's next, No volunteers, get in here. Six, It's your turn.
The director hauled me off the floor with one hand
and tossed me through the door like a bag of trash.
When I got to my feet, I found myself standing
in the present again, alone in the restroom of an
abandoned warehouse. I finally understood something. The dead boy wasn't
a ghost. It was my stolen innocence. I was no
longer asleep. I was waking up, and it was time
for a reckoning. Christie didn't come back that night. She
didn't come back the next day either. The day after
that I went looking for her. I spent hours coming
the neighborhood, but she was nowhere to be found. She
was just gone. It gave me an uneasy feeling in
my stomach. Why would she abruptly stop coming back? Where
else would she go? It was about every dime Christie
ever made on the corner went directly into her arm.
She didn't have the money to rent a room somewhere.
It was the middle of winter. She was all very troubling,
including the depths of my anxiety at her app since,
even if she didn't know it, we shared a dreadful
bond from the murky days of the past. Wherever she was,
I hope she was okay. That night, another nightmare came
to me in the darkness, and another fragment of the
past dropped into place. I was doing physical training with
the rest of the captives. This happened every day after breakfast. However,
we didn't have any breakfast on this particular morning. We
didn't have any breakfast the day before either, nor any
lunch or supper. One of us had committed some vague
transgression against the rules, and now we were all being starved.
The director referred to this punitive measure as a time
of cleansing. There was a common punishment at the farm.
They could last anywhere from one missed meal to several
days of hunger and misery. The director would usually keep
us confined to the bunk room during a time of cleansing.
On this occasion, Christie's dad came and ordered us to
get ready for a work out. He hearded us outside
a gunpoint, and we were marched into converted barn where
the fights took place. It was known as the arena.
This is where we did most of our training, with
the cage looming behind us like a neolithic monument to bloodshed.
The director was already waiting for us. He announced that
anyone who failed to make it to the end would
be taken away. The workouts were always intense, but this
one was absolutely brutal. At this point, we hadn't eaten
in at least thirty six hours. One by one, the
other boys started dropping like flies around me. Whenever someone
hit the floor, the director would order Chrissy's dad the
drag him out of the building. We would hear a
muffled gunshot from somewhere out in the barnyard, and then
he would come back alone. The workout dragged on and on.
Every minute fell like an hour. My sight was fading,
my ears were ringing, and I was shaking from hunger,
but I grimly forced myself to continue. I performed endless
push ups, sit ups, chumping jacks, and squats, shaking like
a leaf from exhaustion and terror. Before long, there was
only eight of us left, and then four, and then two,
and then it was only me, trembling and sweating as
I struggled to squeeze out another push up. I barely
managed to get my arms fully extended. Screeching and anguish
as I trembled my way up to the top, I
knew I wouldn't be able to do it again. I
fought with all of my heart and soul to push
myself up a third time. I wasn't going to make it.
It was over. The director suddenly blew the whistle. My
arms instantly gave out, and I smacked my face into
the cement floor. Blood came gushing out of my nose
in a torrent. I rolled away from the puddle and
tried to stand up. With my legs would no longer
support my weight. I promptly collapsed in a heap. I
was barely conscious that I was alive. I won, or
so I thought. Someone dragged me like a sack of
potatoes all the way back to the farmhouse. As I
crawled through the back door, the smell of fresh baking
hit my nostrils. My stomach immediately started growling. I climbed
the stairs on all fours groaning with every movement, and
I crawled the hall to the bunk room. There was
a folding table set up in the middle of the room.
It was loaded with freshly baked pies and pastries from
the kitchen downstairs. There were five pictures of cold lemonade,
as well, full of ice cubes and dripping beads of
condensation down the outside of the glass. No one was dead.
The other kids were all eating and drinking, with a
look of absolute rapture on their faces. It had all
been just another grotesque mind game to break our spirits.
I should have been furious, but I didn't care in
the least. I was stuck harving and there was food.
I forced myself to stand up, and I started lurching
over to the table. I was swiftly shoved to the
floor by a foot on my back. I rolled over
and looked up in a daze. I saw the director
standing there. His hands were clasped behind his back in
a scholarly fashion. He shook his head and dragged me
away from the table by my foot gently. He said,
not you, seventeen. They'll sit on your bunk until everyone
here is finished. I stared at him without comprehension. All
I knew was pain, exhaustion, and the maddening smell of
food in the air. I croaked, I'm the only one
who made it to the end. He shrugged at me
and replied, not the end until I say it is.
Go to your bunk. I was devastated. My eyes teared
up against my will. I whispered, it's not fair. No
one else made it to the end. I won. He
gave me a vague smile and replied, what end. There's
no end here, you thick headed idiot. Has anyone ever
been fair? Of course not. There's no justice in this world.
Seventeen There's only dominance in misery. Haven't you figured this
out yet? He turned to Christie's dad and told him
take seventeen outside, put him on the steake. You need
some time for self reflection. I couldn't walk very far
on my own power, so I was dragged across the
ground once again, to the edge of the cornfield. An
eight foot length of chain was locked around my neck.
The other end of the chain was attached to a
wooden pole in the ground. Receiving time for self reflection
was another common punishment on the farm. There was no
predicting the length of a punishment. It could last an hour, No,
it could last for days. On end. I was too
exhausted to bear the weight of the chain, and as
soon as it locked around my neck, it dragged me
to the ground. I curled up in a ball and
I started to cry. Christie's dad rubbed his palms over
his eyes. He glanced over the farmhouse across the barnyard,
and then he knelt down beside me. He quietly said,
listen to me, kid, I'm gonna get you out of here.
I'm working on it. He shushed me with a raised
finger and hiss. No, you can't know anything yet. Don't
ask questions. I don't have the answers yet. Anyway. All
I know for sure is that we can't go to
the cops. The people involved here they got more money
than you can imagine. Everyone is in their pocket, the cops,
the lawyers, the judges, the politicians, everyone. We have to
get the message directly to all the regular people. That's
our only chance. He hushed me again. When I tried
to speak, he whispered, You've got to go to the newspapers,
the magazine's TV stations, on the TV if we go
to the cops first, will disappear. His eyes darted back
to the farmhouse as he fished something out of his pocket.
He said, I this in the bunk room somewhere, and
forget it exists. Don't even tell yourself about it, don't
til it's time to use it. He dropped a shiny
object in the grass between us, and he turned to leave.
I reached for his pant leg and croaks, what if
I can't make it that blug Christie's dad gave me
a bleak stare. He looked like he hadn't caught a
decent night's sleep in a long time. He murmured, I
think he got a better chance than most of them.
Just take it day by day, do whatever you gotta
do to stay life. I waited until he was gone
before I started searching for the object he dropped on
the ground. The barnyard hadn't been mowed in a while,
so it was lost somewhere in a green void of
weeds and long grass. I had to clamp down on
a scream of frustration and keep methodically searching inch by
inch until I found it. I pulled it out of
the grass with a trembling hand, and my heart skipped
a beat. I was holding the key. A vague feeling
of warmth spread across my chest. For the first time
since the day of my kidnapping, I saw a faint
glow at the end of the tunnel. I'd kill whoever
I had to kill in order to make it to
the light. If necessary, I'd kill them all. Nothing mattered
except my freedom. A cold hand gripped my shoulder, and
the memory shattered into pieces. I have expected to see
the Directors and there when I opened my eyes, but
it wasn't him. It was the dead boy. He put
a finger to his lips and pointed at the door.
I was instantly wide awake. I whispered, who is it?
The dead Boy drew a line across his neck with
his finger, and then he melted into the shadows. I
tiptoed across my makeshift bedroom in the dim red glow
of my alarm clock. Morty's revolver was clutched in my
sweaty hands. I held my breath and listened at the door.
After a few seconds, I heard the faint squeak of
a rubber soul against the hallway tile. My stomach dropped
like an elevator. I had a fleeting hope it was
Christy out there, both alive and well, but I knew
it wasn't true. It was them. They had been looking
for me, just as I was looking for them, and
they found me. The stealthy footsteps paused in front of
the door. I waited until the knobs started to turn,
and I fired three rounds through the door at chest height.
He was painfully loud in the enclosed space of the bedroom.
I jumped to the side, barely avoiding getting shot numerous times.
In return, the air buzzed with the whine of ricocheting bullets.
It struck my digital alarm clock and it exploded in
a spray of plastic. I could hear the rattling and
gurgling of a sucking chest wound. I hit the light switch,
illuminating the intruders in a glow of fluorescent tubes. Overhead,
he was struggling to push himself to a sitting position
against the wall. I kicked him in the face hard
enough to put the back of his skull through the drywall.
I did it again, and what's more, for good measure.
From what I could see of him, he looked like
a typical hard case, a goon for hire. Behind that,
it was hard to discern anything about his facial features,
along with the repeated kicks to the face. One of
my bullets had struck him square in the mouth. He
had nothing in his pockets except a space magazine for
his pistol. I dragged him into my former bedroom and
closed the door. It was now my former bedroom because
I could no longer stay in this place. When his
assassin failed to report back to him, Paul Stevens would
undoubtedly send more of them. This place was no longer safe.
It was time to move on to the last stage
of my awakening. I went out to the warehouse to
grab a Jerry Canni old gasoline the previous had left behind.
I left the side door open so the raccoons could escape,
and I splashed the gas on anything flammable for the
office side of the building. I had tears in my
eyes as I twisted up a cone of office paper.
This place was the closest thing to a real home
I had ever known. Safety, security, and a sense of belonging.
All of it gone. I swung the exit door shut
on the flames, and that was that. The time of
high for my past year was over. I knew about them,
they knew about me, and one of us was going
to die before the end of the day. The sky
was starting to get lighter in the east. I walked
from many blocks until I found that all night donuts shop.
He sat in a corner and brooded over a paper
cup of watery hot chocolate. There were sirens wailing in
the distance, the swan song to my broken life. My
home was gone, my possessions were gone. My only companion
was missing. I had nothing and I was nothing. I
slowly became aware of someone watching me through the window.
It was the dead Boy. As we stared at each
other through the dirty glass, the long dead and never living,
I realized I still had one possession left, one beautiful
and precious possession. I had the ability to kill. I
felt my eyelids grow heavy, and the hushed atmosphere of
the coffee shop. I let myself drift into the mist
that lies between wakefulness and sleep, and I waited for
the sun to dawn. On my last day as an
aimless nomad, I had a purpose. Now. My rage was
the spark, my misery was the fuel, and the evil
men who destroyed my life would be consumed in the
resulting inferno. I might burn along with them, but that
was okay. We could all burn together, and in the
smoldering aftermath I would find peace. Paul Stephens Contracting was
located in a decaying industrial block, the mirror image of
my own form our neighborhood. It was all potholes and
cracking concrete, empty parking lots and rusting billboards. The buildings
were sandwich between two abandoned factories, both of them riddled
with broken windows. The entire property was surrounded with a
barbed wire fence and the gate was locked with a
heavy chain and a padlock. This time, my disguise was
simply me as myself, a homeless looking guy and ragged
clothes dad to the effect, I was holding an empty
bottle in a paper bag, just another drunken bomb in
the street, idling the frigid hours away with a cheap
bottle of booze. I sat in the cold for nearly
an hour and scouted out the property from across the road.
A large man in a bomber jacket was patrolling the
grounds every twenty minutes or so. The level of security
seemed a bit excessive for a contracting company. Also that
want me work trucks or cargo vans in the parking
lot instead, there was a handful of expensive luxury cars
huddle clothes to the front entrance, including a Mercedes in
a BMW. I had a feeling that Paul's contracting work
was of the more illegal variety. There was only one
way to get past the fence. I'd have to somehow
coerce the security thug into unlocking the gate. It was
only one way that would happen. I'd have to make
him angry enough to come after me in the street.
I weaved across the street with a belligerent stagger. The
guard slowed his step and watched as I leaned against
the fence and started unzipping my pants. He pointed at
me and yelled, hey, get out of here, go to
your business somewhere else. I hollowed back, I'll go fuck yourself,
and proceeded to urinate on a support post. Paul's security
goon came storming over to the gate, his eyes shining
at the prospect of violence. He growled, No, you don't
tell me to go fuck myself, you dunk piece of shit.
Get the fuck out of here, go on. I zipped
up and gave him a nasty grin. Swaying around with
an alcoholic sprecarious lack of balance, I slurred, why don't
you make me leave? I bet you won't. I bet
you won't do shit. The guard kicked the fence between
us with a size fourteen boot. He snarled, last warning,
get moving. I responded by hurling the bottle at the
fence between us. It exploded against the frigid metal and
a spray of glass. I spread my arms wide and slurred,
make me bitch. Mister security henchman was done with my bullshit.
In a flash, he unlocked the gate and came thundering
outside with his fists clenched. He was a good five
inches taller than me, and he was built like a refrigerator.
A lightning bolt of adrenaline slammed across my nervous system,
hot and sizzling. I knew this feeling very well. It
was simultaneously the best and worst feeling imaginable. My heart
rate jumped into high gear and my senses became painfully sharp.
It felt like I was ascending to a higher level
of consciousness. It was overwhelming, terrifying, and exhilarating all at once.
It was like being reborn. Above all, it was familiar.
I had been in this exact same situation many many
times in the past. I was about to fight, and
the outcome would be either victory or death. My reality
abruptly fractured in two. Here in the present, I was
circling away from an opponent on a cold, wintry street.
At the same time, I was circling away from a
different opponent inside a massive steel cage. It was oppressively
hot in there, and the noise of the crowd was disorienting.
It was my first fight, and I was scared out
of my mind. How slated to face my bunk mate
that night. The kiddy told me I'd soon die in
the cage. His number was fourteen. This was his tenth fight.
The house was taking wagers as usual, but only a
few of the spectators bothered to place a bet. According
to the digital screen high up on the wall, the
odds against me were one hundred to one. Before the
match began, the director strolled into the cage to have
a quick word with fourteen. My bunkmate nodded at his
words as He stared at me over his shoulder. There
was a predatory gleam in his eye. When he was
done talking of fourteen, the director ambled over to my
corner and grasped me by the arm. He said, do
you see all these people out there? He came to
watch you die. I started to hyperventilate. I wiped the
sweat out of my eyes and gassed yes, sir, I know.
The Director's eyes were as blue and serene as the
midsummer day. He said, mercy doesn't exist behind these bars.
One of you was gonna die tonight. Remember everything I've
taught you, and maybe you come out of this alive.
The director turned away from me, raising his hand at
someone in the control room as he headed for the door.
There was a sharp clang as he swung it shut
behind him, and he locked it. Fourteen was shadow boxing
and jumping, a sweat glistening on his skinny torso. His
expression was blank, but his eyes were burning in their sockets.
The lights above the crowd went dim, and the announcer's smooth,
deep voice came echoing out of the sound system. Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen. Our first match tonight features number seventeen,
the newcomer in the red trunks. He's facing ten time
veteran of the cage. He savage with the heart of
a lion, So please put your hands together for number
four team. There was a tidal wave of cheering in
the audience. Fourteen raised his fist in the air. He
was already a crowd favorite. They all wanted to see
him win again. I could feel their collective disdain for
me and their applause. They were excited to watch me die.
The announcer bellowed, fighters, get ready, four three two and go.
As soon as the shrill whine and the buzzer filled
the smoky air, Fourteen came boiling across the cage at
a dead run. I jumped to the side and narrowly
avoid being tackled to the floor. Fourteen rolled to his
feet in a nimble somersault, and he charged at me again.
I dodged away from a storm of windmill punches, and
I ran for the opposite corner. My endless hours of
training had flown out the window when the buzzer went off.
I was too scared to fight back. I was too
scared to think. All I could do was run. I
was relentlessly chased around the cage as the crowd screamed
abuse at me. I stumbled when I was trying to pivot,
and he nailed me with a hard shot to the
back of the head, and I went down with stars
exploding behind my eyes. The audience hollered their approval. I
tried to roll out of the way, but fourteen landed
on me with all of his weight, cracking two of
my ribs on impact. He pinned my flailing arms to
the floor with his knees, and he leaned down to
bite my face. I twisted away from his snapping teeth
as he clamped down on my ear instead burned like fire.
My agonizing wails made the crowd go wild. My opponent
spat at the un of my mangled ear across the cage.
Then he went back in for a piece of my nose.
I smacked the top of my head into his mouth,
breaking his front teeth in the process. I yanked one
of my arms free and grabbed the back of his head,
pulling him down to latch onto his cheek. I shook
my head like a dog, and his flesh tore open
between my teeth. Hot coppery blood spurting into my mouth.
Fourteen let out a scream and grabbed my testicle, squeezing
them with both hands. A wave of agony jolted into
my stomach, and I released my bear trap on his face.
He battered my face with some wild punches, and then
I bucked him off to the side. He tried to
jump on me again, and I pummeled him with a
few donkey kicks to create some space. We both gained
our feet and fourteen came at me with a blizzard
of wild punches. I tagged him with a hand jab
to the nose, and then I laid him down with
a right across the chin. My opponent hit the floor
and I jumped on him. He immediately dug his thumbs
into my eyes. I shut my eyelids tight against the
assault and grabbed his thumbs, bending them backwards until they
both snapped. I dragged his arm down by his broken
digits and pinned them to the floor with my knees.
I was dimly aware that we were both screeching at
the top of our lungs, but our cries were lost
beneath the a static roaring of the crowd. Reality had
been reduced to spurting blood and rancid sweat. Pain inflicted
and pain received. The fear was gone. There was only
murder in my heart. I felt a feral species of
joy had the look of terror on his face. I
would kill him for hurting me so terribly. I destroy him.
I started driving my elbows into his unprotected face. His
nose exploded, his cheekbones snapped, his eye sockets shattered. That
I wasn't done yet. My mind was lost in a
tidal wave of violence. There was no crowd, no cage,
nothing at all except the brutal task in hand. Fourteen
was unconscious at this point, but I still wasn't done.
I broke both of his arms, and then I repeatedly
stomped on his head. His body went stiff from the
resulting brain trauma, but I still wasn't done. I started
jumping on him like a trampoline. I felt his ribs
cave in beneath my feet. When the director finally came
into pulled me off. I was trying my best to
rip away his lower jaw. He thrust my arm into
the air and the buzzer went off. It was over.
My opponent was dying on the floor and I was
the victor. The entire arena was on their feet, bellowing
and delirious with bloodshed. In the dim, smoky atmosphere of
the arena, they looked like a horde of demons, screeching
and flailing their arms in an ecstasy of murder lust.
The pa thundered to life as the announcers shouted, and
the winner is ruthless Rookie, the child beast with the
killer instinct number seven ty I yanked my arm out
of the director's grasp. I leapt up to cling to
the bars of the cage. Lord back at the mob
with blood smeared mouth, and they were absolutely wild. As
the director dragged me away from the cage in a
wrist lock, the audience was chanting seventeen seventeen, seventeen and
mindless fury drained away. By the time he got back
to the dormitory, leaving me in a dreamlike state of shock.
The bunk above mine had already been stripped of its sheets.
There would soon be a new fourteen to replace my
fallen opponent, and the cycle would begin again. The director
brought out a first aid kit. He started disinfecting, snipping,
and stitching at my wounds with his usual air of
calm detachment. There was a horrible and painful process. By
the time the director was finished patching me up, I
was trembling all over. He leaned down to look me
in the eye, and I cowered away from him. I
was expecting a punch in the head for being unable
to hide my pain, but he didn't hurt me. Instead,
he quietly murmured, that was impressive, Probably the most impressive
debut I've ever seen. The director paused to let that
sink in, and then he added, you have the potential
to become a great fighter. Seventeen damaldell here take this.
You've earned it. The director gave me a hint of
a smile as he pushed something into my hand, and
then he left me alone in my bunk. As soon
as the door closed behind him, my entire being clenched
like a fist and started sobbing into my pillow. When
the tears ran dry, I remembered the object that was
clenched in my hand. It was a candy bar. I
curled up in my side and cradled it to my chest.
My heart. My heart was broken, but it was also
boiling with hatred. I hated the farm, I hated the
armed guards who watched over us. I hated all the
other captives, and I hated the spectators who paid to
watch us kill each other. But most of all, I
hated the director. He'd beaten me, tortured me, and starved
me on many occasions. Mere wounds could not convey how
much I hated him. But I still hate the candy
bar and that made me hate him even more. I
vowed I'd face him in the cage someday. The last
thing he would see before his vision faded to black
would be the flame of defiance in my eyes, the
flame that he failed to extinguish with his cruelty. And
when his last breath came rattling out of his chest,
this filthy world would become just a little bit cleaner.
The memory drifted away like a puff of steam into
the cold air, leaving me standing in the middle of
the road with a corpse at my feet. His face
was a mess. The heel of my boot had left
a horrible dent between his eyebrows. I dragged him into
the narrow gap between the crusty snow bank and the fence,
and I slipped through the open gate. I came bursting
through the door of the front entrance with Morty's gun
in my hand. I pointed it at a middle aged
woman who was sitting at the reception desk. I told
her to keep quiet and show me her hands. She
looked up from her computer screen and met my gaze
with a complete lack of concern. She said, we've been
expecting you. It's pretty sure I knew this woman. She
was older now, but her face was familiar. I know you. You
sat at the table, you watched me starve. She gave
me a polite smile and replied, yes, I did. My
name is Rosemary. I was the housemaid out of the farm.
Now I'm a bookkeeper. You have to adapt to stay
relevant in these days. I demanded, where's Paul Stevens. She
made a vague gesture with her hands. Well, she said quietly,
he's standing behind you with a gun pointed at the
back of your head. Something cold and hard tapped against
the base of my skull. A familiar voice said, don't move.
Wrap your weapon. Can't get away from you. Good. Now,
put your hands in the air. My hand searched through
my pockets. I confiscated my knife, my notepad, and a
half a roll of duct tape. The voice instructed me
to walk down the hall and keep my hands in
the air. Two men were waiting for me at the
end of the hall. One of them put a gun
against my ribs, and they took me to an empty room.
I was tied to a wooden chair and left alone
for a while. There was only the chair, a tarp
covering something on the floor, and a single naked light
bulb dangling from the ceiling. Large patches of the concrete
floor were stained a murky reddish brown color. I spotted
a drain in the middle of the room, and I
stared at it with mounting the apprehension not good. I
craned my head around to have a look behind me.
I saw a coil of garden hose attached to a
faucet on the wall behind me. Not good at all.
After a long agonizing weight, the door swung open and
a man stepped into the room. My heart lurched in
my chest. It was him, my kidnapper, my tormentor boogeyman
that haunted me and my forgotten dreams. He was holding
my notepad in one hand and a pistol in the other.
He gave me a placid smile and murmured, it really
is you. I can hardly believe in you recognize me.
My name is Paul Stevens, but you knew me as
the director, I interjected. He raised an eyebrow at the
venom in my tone. He waved the notepad in the
air and said, I gave you a gift. You've been
wasting it living like a bum in an abandoned warehouse.
Such a shame, I responded. Everything is a shame. The
entire world is a shame. How did you find me? Oh,
it wasn't too difficult. After I got the news about Morty,
I had people out knocking on doors. There are cameras
everywhere these days, and you're involved in that sort of
business I specialize in. It pays to be paranoid that
we narrowed down your location. We eventually made contact with
street walking House. Guessed she told me everything I need
to know. He looked slightly amused. Now imagine my surprise
that I discovered who her father was. The universe works
in mysterious ways. She'd know about this unique connection between us.
All I can understand why you didn't tell her it's
about a story, isn't it. He gave me a questioning glance,
and at it. She says, you talk to an imaginary
friend sometime. She says, she thinks you're a bit mentally unstable.
Not uncommon for someone in your circumstances. I suppose that true.
I kept quiet and waited. Paul waited along with me.
After a while, he saw that I wasn't going to
answer the question, and he waved it off and plowed onward. Well.
As I was listening to her talk, you know, I
kept thinking to myself, is it seventeen? Is that even possible?
I look for you for many years, never found you.
I assumed you were long dead. But here you are.
I'm glad you're still around and everything's happened. I think
we both need some closure. He held up his hand
and said, I'm not angry about Morty, by the way,
he was on his way out, regardless of your interference.
The booze, the drugs, self loathing. It's a vicious cycle.
That's the thing about Gil. It's a spiritual cancer eats
your inner strength. I probably should have done it myself
a long time ago. The sound of my old name
was setting on edge. I'm not a number anymore. By
the way, my name is David, Paul snorted, What nonsense
I created you. Your name's whatever I say it is.
You're terrible at breaking and entering, by the way, saw
in a hole to the door. That's ridiculous. You can't
pick a lock. Should have just popped it open with
a pride bar. It was my first time. Give me
a break. Didn't create me, by the way, you stole me.
Paul leaned down to look me in the eye. And
who were you before you were stolen? What would you
have become? I doubt the outcome would have been much different.
Do you remember anything about your life for the cage? No,
it's because you didn't have one. You were bouncing around
the foster care systems since you were toddling. No one
cared about you. You were disposable. The director waved my
notepad in the air. Then he slightly swatted me across
the face with it. You want to take revenge on me,
don't you me? The man who scooped you up from
the rabble turned you into a warrior. A child's like
a fresh lump of clay waiting to be molded into
whatever you wish. But not all clay is created equal. Seventeen,
you were special. I can still remember your first time
in the cage. You you froze up in the beginning,
when you finally snapped into reality of your situation. Oh
that was impressive. I can remember thinking to myself, this
one was born to fight ninety nine fights undefeated. In
the entire history of the operation, only one fighter had
more victories than you. Paul started aimlessly walking around the room.
You're not the only one who's been living under an
assumed identity, he said in a casual tone. Paul Stevens,
isn't my birth name. I had no idea what my
birth name was. No do I care at all. Just
like you, I was a neglected child. I never knew
my father, and when I was nine years old, my
mother traded me to a stranger for drugs. He took
me away. Do you know where I ended up? He
go to the top of the floor with the toe
of his shoe. I ended up at a farm in
the middle of no where. I started crying. Big rough
looking man walked over, slapped me to the ground. He
knelt down beside me. He said, forget about the outside world.
You're never going back, and from that day on I
started training to find the cage. Paul was amused by
the look of shock on my face. Why are you surprised?
I think I was born with a silver spoon in
my mouth. Every hardship you experienced at the farm, all
the pain, all humiliation and suffering, I had once received
the exact same treatment. I learned at the feat of
a master. I was speachless and watched him wander around
for a bit and tried to process the new information.
Finally I croaked. You were a victim, and then you
you turned around and became the oppressor. I just shit, man, why,
Paul snorted, That wasn't a victim. I was a lump
of clay, and it became something much better. I was
different from the rest of them. I didn't break. I adapted,
and then I started to thrive. There was a gleam
of wistful yearning in his eye, as if he felt
nostalgic for the good old days. He smiled up at
the ceiling and said, I look forward to stepping into
the cage. I won fight after fight, over and over again.
No one could beat me. After a hundred fights. The
director took me aside and said that was the last one.
You aren't making us money anymore. People are starting to talk,
they're starting to wonder about you. Some of them think
you're not a regular human being. They say you're immortal.
And after that day, I was no longer a captive,
Paul said, with obvious pride. I took my place the
director's side, and he taught me how to run the operation.
Paul turned to face me. His expression was pallid and neutral,
but his tone was thick with emotion. I became a man.
I decided it was time to take over. The director
was getting old. There was nothing more he could teach me.
I knew I was stronger than him. I was faster
and better in every way. So I challenged him to
face me in the cage. I told him when it
takes all. He agreed to the fight. Then he tried
to flee the country. I sent his own man to
grab him at the airport. Why didn't you let him go?
Wouldn't it have been easier that way, well, Paul said,
you'd probably think so, but no, and that's for a
very good reason. He knew too much. Names dates, financial details,
all kinds of dangerous information. Someone in that position has
to be accounted for every single day of their life,
right up until they die or certain people start getting nervous.
So these people must understand what they're doing is wrong.
Then Paul chose to ignore me. He continued his story
with great distaste. He said the man was a fraud.
He was begging for mercy this year. Hypocrisy of his
whining and crying, good Lord, drove me into a rage.
I ordered all his men to gather around so they
could witness the fate of a coward. Paul smiled fondly
at this memory. And when I was done with him,
I told my men bury him in the cornfield with
the rest of them. That's exactly where he went, with
shallow grave between the rose name was forgotten or rotten
in the And from that moment on I was the
new director. A dark shadow passed behind his eyes. He
suddenly pointed the gun at my head. My heart was
slamming in my chest, but I kept my expression neutral.
Paul cleared the tightness from his throat and said it
was more than just a business to me. Seventeen. The
cage was my altar people would travel from all corners
of the globe to worship at that altar and the
rich and powerful arom My congregation. When you, when you
ran off and you burned it down, you ruined me
in every conceivable manner. I spent a fortune to bury
the investigation. Everyone came along with their hand out. I
wanted to kill you back. I couldn't find you, asserts
high and low, but you were nowhere to be found.
As the last sentence was leaving his mouth, my reality
split down the middle. Christie's dad was whispering in my ear.
It happens to night. Listen for that clock to chime
four times at exactly four a m. It's time to go.
Use that key I gave you to unlock the door
of the bunk room. I'll take care of the rest.
Come outside and I'll be waiting. But something went wrong.
His now was watching the director beat him up. Behind
the farmhouse. A group of his henchmen was cheering him on.
Mordy was one of them. When the director knocked him
down for the last time, Morty spat on him. As
I was crawling across the floor of the bunk room
in the darkness, the key was clutched in my sweaty hand.
The bunk room was locked with a dead bolt that
had been reversed so they could be locked from the
outside without a key. No one had ever gotten around
a block in the keyhole on the other side. It
was terrified the key wouldn't work, but it did. I
was free. This was followed by a slideshow of extreme
violence against the unsuspecting guards. He was the dead hours
of a long, boring night shift. He was sleepy and complacent.
None of them were prepared for a stealth attack. From
inside the farmhouse. I watched myself bash a guard and
the skull with a paperweight. I grabbed a carving knife
on my way through the kitchen, and I buried it
straight up to the handle in another guard's neck. I
encountered the last one out in the back porch. He
was slouched on the top step with his back to
the door. I could see a cigarette smoke curling lazily
in the glow of a kerosene lamp. He heard the
door open and asked what's up over his shoulder. I
crossed the space between us in a second. There was
a brief struggle, and then I was clinging to his
back with my arms around his neck. The guard fell
backwards to crush me against the creaky planks beneath us.
I tensed myself against the impact, and I grimly held
on right before he lost consciousness. He started kicking his
legs wildly, and the kerosene lamp went flying in a
shower of glass, fuel spilling across the old wood, and
the flames roared to life. I quickly released the hold
and scuttled off the porch. A few seconds later, the
guard woke up to his legs on fire. The fabric
of his kerosenes splattered jeans was melting into his skin.
He bounced to his feet and ran down the steps,
screeching like a banshee as he tried to pull them off.
His shirt also caught fire, followed by his long, greasy
tangle of hair. Instead of rolling to smother the flames,
the guard panicked and sprinted in the direction of the
irrigation pond. He was a human candle lighting up the
darkness of the barnyard as he ran into the night.
He collapsed into a blazing heap long before he reached
the pond. Behind me. The entire porch was now engulfed
in flames. It was old and explosively flammable. Fire was
already lapping at the side of the house. My eyes
were drawn to movement at a window on the second story.
It was the bunk room. Hands were pounding on the glass,
but it was in vain. The glass was several inches thick,
and it was shatterproof. With a nasty jolt, I remember
that I had locked the door behind me when I
snuck into the hallway. The rest of the kids were
trapped in there, and they were going to burn to death.
I scrambled around the side of the house to the
front door. I tried to bash it in with various
objects on hand, including a cinder block and a log
from the woodpile, but it was useless. All the doors
had been reinforced with still plates. I hurled the log
in a window and it was almost flattened when it
came bouncing back at me. At this time, the fire
was enveloping the entire back of the house. The heat
was becoming too much to bear. I knew that a
mob of the director's goons would soon be racing the
scene very shortly, probably also the director himself. There was
nothing I could do for the kids who were trapped upstairs.
I had to go. I was aware that Paul Stevens
was still yapping away in the background, but I couldn't
hear what he was saying. I was looking down at
Christie's dad in the flickering light of the house fire.
He had been chained to the steak and the far
reaches of the barnyard. His face was a lumpy, swollen
mask of dried blood. I thought he was already dead,
but one of the eyelids fluttered open, revealing a murky,
bloodshot eye. The other eye socket was now an empty,
gaping hole. It was starting to smell bad. My would
be savior reached from my shoe with a trembling hand.
His lips skinned back from his broken teeth, and he gasped,
spurning up the others make it out. I mutely. He
shook my head. I couldn't bring myself to tell him
what happened. It was too horrible to speak out loud.
He rasped, God, have mercy on us all. What a mess.
I didn't tell him anything. He beat me up and
tortured me. I wouldn't talk. He dug my eyes out
with a spoon. I wouldn't talk. I said, let me
keep the other one so I look for you in hell.
Told him he's a little life piece. Shit. That was all.
Christie's dad clutched his belly and grown their hurts. Look
forget about all the other shit. You can still get
out of here, just like we planned it. Run through
the cornfield, cross the road, run through the next one.
They'll be waiting for you on the other side. I asked,
what about you, and Christie's dad coughed up a gout
of thick red blood in response, I ain't going nowhere, kid.
Listen to me for a minute, Okay, I want you
to know something. I want you to know I'm not
actually a bad person. I'm here because I needed the money.
I can't work a regular job on him. I'm a
fuck up. I've always been that way. I know that
with us fuck ups, we've got families too. I have
a wife and a little girl. Her name is Kristen.
He paused to cough up some more bloody phlegm, and
I realized that I could see him more clearly now
dawn was coming. He struggled to take it a breath,
and he said, you ever cross her path. Tell her
your daddy loved you very much and he's sorry. Promise
you'll do that for me. He waved me off and
wrapped get out of here for the leave you behind.
And then I was running through the cornfield as fast
as I could. The overgrown grass was dragging at my
feet behind me bright orange flames who were stretching up
to me the sky. I plowed through the outer row
of cornstalks and kept running. The leaves were dripping wet
from the morning dew. I put my arms up to
keep them from slapping me in the face, but I
was still getting soaked. The water was hitting me in
the face and I was almost choking. I snapped back
into the present and I discovered I was being sprayed
in the face with a garden hose on the wall.
Paul released the trigger and said, you left for a while, seventeen.
You're having a conversation with thin air. I guess Christy
was right, you're not well. And I was done coughing
up water. I choked where she I want to see her.
I have something I need to tell her. Paul strolled
over to the tarp that was heaped in the corner
of the room, he said, now she's under here, sure
you want to see her. I fought an immediate surge
of rage. I strained against the ropes that were binding
me to the chair and yelled, why you horrible? He's
a shit. You didn't have to do that. Paul gave
me a sterning monk, and he replied, but I did
have to do that, so she saw my face. Honestly,
it's your own fault. Happened because you came back to
poke the hornet's nest. Happened because you refuse to let
sleeping dogs lie. Closed my eyes against the tears that
wanted to flow. I was done crying. Never helped. Your
victim mentality makes me sick. You know, I think we
all done catching up here, don't you just a few
more questions? We can wrap this up now. This has
been bothering me. So you went missing for eighteen years,
no sign of you, no trace, It all just gone.
So where did you go? The dogs lost your scent
at the side of the road. Someone must have been
waiting for you in a vehicle. So who was it?
Why do they choose to get involve in the first place?
Where do they take you? What happened after that. Really
loved some answers here seventeen helped me out slowly, I responded,
I can remember seeing a car when I came running
out of the corn, a blue sedan of some kind.
Back door popped open. I got inside. That's all I
can remember. Paul could see I was telling the truth.
His lips pressed together in an angry line. He poked
his head out into the hallway and shouted, hey, someone
come bring me another tart. It gave me a somber
look and said, there's no point in drawing this out
any longer. It's a shame. Ninety nine victory is under
your belt. It's so very very close. He shook his
head at knee, a gesture of sorrow and regret. Timing
of your appearance in my life. It's all very strange.
It turned up just as I was preparing to start
the operation again. In today's world, eighteen years is a
long time. No one even remembers that fire. The rumors
are long dead. The new arena puts the old one
to shame. It's too bad you're a shall we say
broken Gonna use someone like you to assist a training
the new batch of fighters they faintly murmured, Yeah, you're
broken too, you just don't know it. Paul's lips twisted
upward with a slight grin. Me. No, no, not at all.
I'm a complete and entirely cohesive trinity of mind, body,
and spirit. You, on the other hand, are a colossal
waste of potential. You could have been something remarkable, but
now now you're just nothing. The two burly, shovel faced
thugs hurried into the room, both of them carrying them
folded up tarp in their arms. One of them rumbled,
we brought you to of them, just in case. Paul
didn't answer him. He was watching me instead. His smug
grin faded as my own lips curled in a wide,
hateful smile. He waved the gun in my face and grunted,
what what's so funny? Seventeen? My smile got even wider.
I said, I don't think anything's funny. I don't really
understand humor. I'm smiling because you're wrong. You think my
story is over, but it's actually just beginning. Paul gave
me a look of disbelief. The hell are you talking about?
Are you completely detached from reality? Why? Why am I
tied to a chair soon. It's because you're full of shit.
That's why you say you're immortal. But you're scared of me,
and you should be scared because I can take you.
Paul's eyes went narrow. What did you just say to me,
I'm scared. I'm not scared of anything under the sun,
you pathetic idiot. I coughed up some harsh laughter and
snorted bullshit. I could recognize fear when I see it.
I'm something of an expert. My entire life has been
dominated by fear. It's been that way for as long
as I can remember. The director started to curse me out,
and I barked, be quiet. You think you're some kind
of unstoppable super villain because what you've won a hundred
fights in the cage. Well, I'm right behind you. I
just need one more kick, if a can. You want
to revenge me too, ass also fight me in the cage.
Paul stiffly replied that's pointless. I'm like, I'm not gonna
do that. I nodded to myself and replied, yeah, thoughts,
so well, if you don't do it, you're a coward
and your men will never respect you ever. Again. For
someone like you, respect is everything, isn't it. You rule
by intimidation. If you lose that respect, why would they
take orders from you? Why wouldn't they just kill you
and take over the operation? Look behind you, they're all watching.
The two lackeys with the tarps had been joined by
at least ten others. They were huddled together out in
the hallway, observing on a conversation unfold with great interest.
Paul turned to stare at them, and they all stared
right back. Their faces were neutral, but their eyes were
bright and watchful. Paul grunted. Someone got him out of
the chair and take him to the arena. As he
stormed out of the room, I called out, watch him.
If he runs from this fight, he'll go straight to
the Feds and cut himself a deal. It's the only
way he could stay alive. And he'll throw you all
under the bus without a single thought. He's a coward.
Paul whirled around his hands bawled into fists, and shouted,
you'll suffer for that. I repeated, watch him, fellas, and
I chuckled to myself. When they all started following him
down the hall, one of them stayed behind to cut
me loose from my chair. He grudgingly said, he's got
more guts than me, Bud, give you that one square
up to that guy. He's killed more people than I'm known.
I stood up and rubbed the pins and needles, feeling
away as the blood rushed back to my hands. I
asked him, what's your name? He reluctantly answered, my name's Larry.
What's it to you. I looked him in the eye
and said, that's what's gonna happen, Larry. I'm gonna kill
your boss in that cage. I'm gonna walk out of here,
and after today, you and all the rest of those
dirt bags are gonna change your ways. You're gonna fly
the straight and arrow for the rest of your lives,
because if you don't, I'll come back for you and
I'll kill you. Larry aimed his gun at my chest,
as if to assure himself he was still in control
of the situation. Not gonna happen. You're already dead. Yeah,
I agreed, this is true. Absolutely. Larry took a couple
steps back, creating a little more distance between him and
my strange, humorless grin. If I myself wondering about the
nature and number of crimes this lumbering ogre had undoubtedly
committed in the past. Where's the line between understandable unforgivable?
And how far past that line can someone tread before
murder is the only solution. Larry jerked his head in
the doorway. Get moving, hang a left, keep going, try anything,
I'll pull a trigger. They marched me at gunpoint to
the warehouse portion of the building, muttering a stream of
tough guye blusterings as he trailed behind me. The warehouse
had been converted into a new version of the old arena.
The folding chairs had been replaced with theater seating and
an incline, but everything else looked exactly the same, including
the cage. There was a circular tier of private booths
along the back of the arena, luxurious seating for wealthier
patrons who might wish for a more discreet viewing experience.
The cage itself was twenty feet long on all four sides,
and it towered at least ten feet in the air.
The wall behind the cage was dominated by a giant
screen with a crisp, high definition picture who was displaying
the arena from different angles. The hidden cameras switched to
a view of me walking down the aisle, zooming in
for a close up shot of my face that looked
haggard and exhausted. My eyes were dark and hostile, but
there was a bewildering look on my face, as if
I didn't know where I was anymore. This wasn't a lie.
Reality had split in two as soon as I set
foot in the arena. Half of me was in the present,
a grown man whose footsteps were echoing across a vast
and empty space. That the other half was a frightened
and traumatized child. In the present, the room was empty,
but in the past the seats were full of strangers
with rough voices and empty eyes. Some of them wanted
to watch me die. Others wanted me to survive so
I could fight for their amusement another day. All of
them wanted me to suffer because our suffering was the
main attraction. The money they lost or won from their
wagering was secondary. They wanted us to bleed. They wanted
us to cry and scream and sob for our mothers
with our last gasping breath. Our suffering was like a
drug for them. It made them feel alive. The director
was waiting for me at the cage. His men were
all sitting in the front row, muttering amongst themselves as
they waited for the action to start. We glowered at
each other for a moment, and then he asked, are
you sure about this bill? It would be faster, wouldn't
feel a thing? I replied, yeah, I'm sure. Stop trying
to get out of it. There was a stir of
murmuring and whispering amongst the hired thugs in the front row.
They had never seen anyone talk to their boss like
this before. No one would ever dare He growled, I
gave you a chance. You're gonna regret that. You're gonna
regret your entire existence. I already do. I sighed and
started pulling off my boots. You know the rules, no shoes,
no weapons. I piled my coat and with my sweatshirt
on top of my boots. Paul did the same. He'd
grown a bit of a pot belly in his middle age.
There was still a heavy layer of muscle rippling beneath
the extra padding. I pointed at the dragon tattoo on
his chest and said, I think it should have been
a vulture. Instead. Paul's lips curled into a snarl, but
he ignored me, swinging open the door of the cage,
after you seventeen, I looked forward to this calmly. I replied,
you know the rules, Paul, no weapons. Empty your pockets.
I don't have any pockets. Who's stalin now? I crossed
my arms and waited, staring at him with a faint
smile on my lips. Finally, he muttered a curse and
pulled my knife from his back pocket. He tossed it
onto his pile of clothes and grunted, must have forgot
about that. I said, sure you did, and I entered
the cage. The adrenaline overload was starting to thrumb and
pulse across my body in waves. My heart was pumping faster,
my breathing more rapid. I looked out into the seats
behind the director's men and was unsurprised to see they
were now occupied by restless spirits. They had once cried
out for mercy, but no one heard their screams. They
had wept a collective ocean of tears, but no one
gave them comfort. They were the dead, the silence to
the forgotten. Their light had been extinguished for the amusement
of evilnes men. They were hundreds of them out there,
and almost all of them were children. There was row
upon row of gaunt faces and dark, mournful eyes. There
were so many of them they filled both of the
aisles and were lined up three deep behind the last row.
I saw Christy out there, standing beside her father, and
then I spotted the child version of myself in one
of the aisles, standing motionless and silent. Re locked eyes,
and he gave me a very slight nod of approval.
It was time for justice to be served. Paul entered
the cage with an arrogant swagger. There was a nasty
smirk on his lips. One of his goons locked the
door behind him, and we stared each other down from
across the cage, I called out, do you see them
out there in the stands, Paul. They've been waiting for you.
They've been waiting a long long time. Paul's smirk faded
a bit. He shot a glance out of the seat,
shifting his weight uneasy from one foot to the other.
What are you talking about, he demanded, Who's watching? I replied, dead,
And I started shuffling closer. They're here to claim their revenge. Oh,
by the way, winner takes Saul If I walk out
of here, this operation's mine. That sound fair. A primal
scream tore out of his throat, and he lunged at me.
I slipped under a right cross and drove my shoulder
into his stomach. Paul staggered back, but he quickly wrapped
his arms around my torso and flipped me into the air.
I instinctively rolled when I hit the floor, barely avoiding
his trademark stump to the head. He tried to jump
on me, but I kicked him in the stomach with
both feet. Paul stumbled back with a grunt of pain,
wind milling his arms to keep his balance. He had
a startled look on his face. No one had hit
him back in a long long time. I popped up
to my feet and we started circling each other, both
of us looking for an opening to attack. You won't
walk out of here. No one can beat me. I
responded with a flying kick to his chest. He bounced
off the wall of the cage and I took him
to the floor. I tried to shove my thumb into
his eyes, but he caught my wrist and sank his
teeth into my forearm. He had my other arm trapped
against his side, so I battered the back of his
skull with my forehead until you let go. We rolled
on the cold cement, both of us struggling to gouge
an eye or bite off an ear. Paul's teeth scraped
the bridge of my nose, and I chomped down on
his lower lip. He let out a shrill scream as
I stretched it to the point of tearing it, and
he clamped his fingers into my sides, twisting and pulling
with savage ferocity. It hurt like hell. I let go
of his mangled lip, and he shoved me away with
a forearm to the throat, who scrambled to our feet again,
both of us panting and leaking blood on the floor.
Our audience of cutthroats and gunmen had all left their
seats to crowd around the cage. Some of them were
yelling encouragement to their boss, and others were yelling for
more bloodshed. In general, nothing mattered except their desire for
We clashed again, exchanging a quick barrage of punches and kicks.
I kept the pressure on, striking hard and fast, and
I steadily drove him backwards. My opponent was emanating an
akward stench of desperation. He got his nose broken with
a jab, followed by a glancing shot across the jaw.
He tried to shoot in for a takedown. I stepped
aside and threw him across the cage. He hit the
floor hard and rolled into the steel bars with a
tremendous bang. As he pulled himself to his feet, one
of his men handed him something through the bars. When
he turned to face me, light shimmered from a reflective
surface in his hand. He was holding my knife. I
dodged a stab to the heart that would have been fatal,
and then I was on the run. Paul stalked me
from one end of the cage to the next, relentlessly
attempting to herd me into a corner. His breath was
snorting in and out like a bull. One of his
eyes was swollen shot, and his face was a mask
of blood. He looked like Christie's dad in the last
minutes of his life. Beaten to a pulp and chained
to a pole by his neck, I panted, it's not
fun when you're on the other side of the stick
his it. I skipped away from another jab, but this
time my bare feet slipped on the blood spattered concrete.
I went down in one knee. The tip of the
blade sliced across my cheek as I fell back, releasing
a thick curtain of red blood. He dropped on me
with all of his weight. The knife poised a stab
through my chest. I squinted my eyes against the rain
of hot blood and rancid sweat that was dripping off
of his face, and I concentrated on controlling his knife hand.
He wheezed, he comes, here, comes to darkness. I finally
managed to twist to the side, forcing the knife point
away from my chest, and at the same time I
ran the top of my head into the shelf of
his chin. I heard a sharp pop as his jaw
fractured and the knife came tumbling out of his hand.
Paul slumped over with a fresh spattering of crimson drizzling
from his mouth, and I threw him off. He fell
hard onto his unprotected face, and the impact smashed his
already broken nose into a shapeless mess. I hunkered on
my knee and struggled to catch my breath, watching as
he squirmed towards the door of the cage. He left
a trail of smeared blood in his wake. Just as
he reached the destination, I dragged him back to the
center of the cage by his feet. He promptly curled
up into a fetal position, his hands copped over his
face to protect his skull. Get up, I commanded, and
slapped his hands away. Fight isn't over till one of
us is dead. You're still breathing. Get up. Paul refused
to look at me. He raised a trembling hand and
a ward off gesture, and he whispered. He went, this
is done. I told him that's not how this works,
and he started crying. His men watched this undignified scene
unfold with sullen displeasure. He tried to crawl for the
exit a second time, and once again I dragged him
back to the middle of the cage. I rolled him
over with my foot and plopped down on his stomach,
pinning his arms with my knees. I looked down at
his bleeding, mangled face and I said, you messed me up.
You sung of a bitch. You messed me up really bad.
I put my memories to sleep so I could hide
from my own pass but now they're waking up, and
I can't hide anymore. I have work to do. It's
probably quite painful for him to speak, but Paul managed
to say, you won't get away with me. You've made
a horrible mistake seventeen. I screamed into his face. My
name is David, and I slapped him across his broken jaw.
I'm not a number. Do you understand I have a name,
and that name is David. Say it David, and I
nodded in agreement. That's right. You're gonna give me some names,
mister director. You're everyone who was involved with running this
operation of yours. I want their names. Paul tried to
bit a wat of bloody mucus at me. It plopped
onto his own chest, directly over the head of his
dragon tattoo. Mmm. He gurgled, No, go find yourself fair enough,
and I wrapped my hands around his neck. I could
have used my knife and ended it much faster, but
he didn't deserve a quick death. I wanted him to suffer.
Paul squirmed and struggled as he kicked his legs and
drummed his heels against the floor. His face began to
turn a deep shade of red. It darkened into an
ugly purple, and his tongue started to protrude from his mouth.
At the end, he voided his bowels into his pants,
and I released my grip on his throat. It was done,
My boogey Man was no more. At that instant, I
heard a high pitched shriek from outside the cage. It
was Paul. He was trying to run from the crowd
of spirits, but they caught him in one of the aisles.
Paul screamed in agony as they surged over him, and
he was torn to pieces. As soon as his cries
went silent, I heard a panic shout echo from the
far side of the room. Was Paul, again, desperate for
a way to escape. The crowd pursued him once more,
and they ripped him limb from limb, But then he
popped up yet again. His body made a whole mere
seconds after he was dismembered. This time, he made it
up the stairs to one of the exit doors. The
spirits caught him out in the hallway, and the process
repeated itself. Again and again and again. I looked around
at Paul's former employees. Then I saw that none of
them could perceive what was happening to their dearest departed boss.
No one could see or hear it but me. That
was probably for the best. I rattled the door and said,
I'm the boss around here. Now let me out. We've
got stuff to do. They all exchanged uneasy glances with
each other. Larry cautiously shuffled over to the door's pistol,
gripped tightly in both hands. Yeah, we're not gonna do that.
Be serious here, which and no one in their right
in mind would even consider. Larry was interrupted by a
large metallic ping. The dead bolt abruptly fell to the
cement pieces. He scuttled out of reach. As I swung
the door open. There was a look of sheer terror
in his eyes. He stammered, how did you do that?
I calmly replied, I didn't do anything. It was the
dead They want me to finish where it started. I
looked around at the rest of the former director's hired guns.
Every single one of them avoided looking me in the eye.
Like I just said, I'm the new boss around here,
and I'm shutting this down. You're all fired. Get the
hell out of here. Be good, or I will come
looking for you. Larry started to respond. I said, get
the hell out of here, Larry flinch, dropping his pistol
in the process. There was an immediate stampede up the aisles.
Fifteen seconds later, I was standing by myself in an
empty room, breathing heavily, as blood dry and in a
tacky crust in my skin. I got dressed and I
left the arena. I grabbed my knife and Larry's fallen
pistol before I headed up the aisle to the exit doors.
My first stop was a restroom, where I cleaned myself
up the best I could with hand soap and paper towels. Overall,
I came walking out of the cage in decent condition.
The bite of my forearm had barely torn the skin,
but the cut on my cheek was very bad. If
it had gone any deeper, my gums and teeth would
have been exposed. It needed stitches as soon as possible,
for it had become a problem. Next, I called nine
one one on the phone at the front desk. I
told the operator there were two murder victims in the
building and they'd find a third outside. When she started
asking for more details, I hung up the phone. I
wasn't going to be around to cooperate with first responders.
I had other plans. As I turned to leave, a
bullet whiz passed my head and punched a hole for
the wall. It was Rosemary. She had been hiding in
a cubicle at the back of the office, waiting for
me with a gun in her hand. Her second shot
hit me in the shoulder, and then I blew a
chunk out of her skull with Larry's pistol. My ears
were ringing and my shoulder was burning. Blood was already
soaking through my coat. I reeled out the front door
and lurched under the parking lot. My head started swimming
and my legs felt like they were going to buckle
beneath my weight. I could hear sirens approaching in the distance.
I gasped, now, fuck, and fell to my hands and knees.
I started to crawl towards the open gate, panting and
groaning like an injured animal. It wasn't fair. I didn't
want to die yet. I had so much work to do,
so many wrongs to right, and now it was. It
was finished before it had even got started. My shoulder gave
out and I collapsed on my side. This is how
it ended, bleeding out in the parking lot beneath the
gray winter sky, and evil would once again prevail, and
they could easily find a new director for their ghastly
murder games, and all my suffering would become meaningless. Just
it wasn't fair. As my said enzins began to fade,
I became dimly aware of a vehicle that was speeding
down the street. It crashed into a partially open gate,
flinging it violently against the fence, and it came to
a screeching halt in front of me. I thought to myself,
the cops got here just in time to watch me die.
And then I realized it. It wasn't the police at all.
It was a blue sedan. The back door popped open,
and a deep voice urged me to climb inside. I
summoned just enough strength to crawl into the back seat,
and then we were peeling away with a screech of
smoking rubber. I tried to make out the other occupants,
and I say it was too blurry for blood loss
to make out their features. My eyelids weighed fifty pounds,
and a patrick of darkness was creeping around my vision.
All I could do was hope for the best, and
then I was out cold. When I opened my eyes,
I was lying in a narrow cot with an IV
tube in my arm. An older man with graying hair
was sitting beside me in a plastic chair. When he
saw that my eyes were open, he put his book
down on a TV tray and patted me on the hand. Said,
welcome back, David. Just take it easy and relax. You're
safe here. Do you remember me. I was too exhausted
to speak out loud, so I shook my head and
mouth the word no. He patted my hand again. I'm
an old friend. Close your eyes, get some rest. We'll
talk again soon. I had just enough time to register
that I wasn't in a hospital, and then I was
out again. I dreamed of nothing at all. It was
pure bliss, And with that, I think I'm done talking
for it today. The story of what hap happens next
we'll have to wait for another time. All I can
tell you is that I have a purpose. Now. I
am at peace with who I am. My name is David,
and officially I don't exist. I have no driver's license,
no social security number, no credit score, no work history,
none of that. I am a small blip at the
edge of your reality. I have no ego to speak of,
and I don't require all the lavish comforts of a
material world. I could sleep in a tent and eat
from a dumpster for months at a time. I don't
need human contact. I actually prefer the company of the dead.
I have much more in common with the spirits than
I do with the living. I'm not a number anymore,
but I'm not a regular person either. I'm a shadow,
a rumor, and I hunt those who believe their status
was shield them from justice. My name is David, and
I'm nothing. I was asleep for many years, but the
dream is over. I'm wide awake now and I have
work to do. Hey, they're kids, it's me, mister Creeppasta,
And before we say goodnight, I just wanted to say
thank you so much for watching tonight's video or for
listening to tonight's episode or the podcast. As always, I
want to give a very big thank you to everybody
who supports me on Patreon, Patreon dot com, slash mister Creepasta.
That is the main place you guys are able to
support me. If you guys want to be able to
support me, which you absolutely don't have to do, but hey,
thank you for you know, doing that. If that's something
that you do, and if it's not something that you do,
hey please help me. In all seriousness, I really appreciate
it if you guys could be able to help me out,
if you guys are able to give anything even to
one dollar a month, and especially if you guys like
you can become one of the wonderful people whose names
I mispronounced, people such as Diana Kraus Asset System, Benjamin
two thousand and three, Blake Bratler, Bottal cooland Brandon Mendoza, Caltuna,
Cory x Kenchrim, The Code Best, Daniel Polson, John taking Kay,
Enchanted Buns, Eric Anthony Caruso s to be in fifteen
Squirrels on a Trench Coat, Galaxy Gremlin, his nephew, Himo,
Jerry Hour Minute, Second Time, Jay Kearns, Jed's Pet, lu Cipher,
Nick mc flant, piss Red Shadow Cat, Remember the Sun,
Salty Surprize, Sa Marilyn Scary Stories, Fuel Me thirty two
Seclude Simbers, Bloody Mojo, Sky, Harper Smiley, the Psychotic Sully Man,
Cally Sue, Tim Leo seventy six, The Chab His Brothers,
the Ginger Bros, Tommy Walters, Vice, Roy Scorn, William Wellington,
x Reepert sixty nine x X, Lucky Cat xx, Zibol,
Shadow Gardens and Peaceful Pudhah. All these really great guys,
as well as all the folks you see in the
description down below or everybody that you see scrolling across
the screen. Hey, I want to say thank you so
much for supporting me, Thank you all so much for
being here, and as always, sweet dreams.