September 27, 2007
Dent, Missouri
He'd been careless. That was the only explanation. He'd been running for damn near four months without so much as a handful of close calls (he'd always been good at disappearing), but this one was different. For the most part it had been fairly easy. Hide among the homeless, joining other families of runaways for maybe a day, maybe a week or so. He'd sleep anywhere that looked both protected and warm, under bridges, in fields, occasionally in the back of an old wrecked car. Once or twice he had taken refuge in homes with owners who had gone on vacation. Those were the nicest hideaways, at least in terms of amenities. Having grown up in the circus, the boy was used to worse places. Hell, he thrived off of them. The worse the place, the more fun things tended to be. You had a lot of options with a place that was in pretty crappy condition. The houses he stopped off in... well, they were best if only for a ready meal. They were risky. Dangerous.
But he was a dangerous boy. That was what they were calling him, right? They called him a maniac, a psycho killer. Had the boy seen these reports before his involvement in the Battle Royale he would have laughed mercilessly at them. That was when he would have classified himself something of a pacifist. Violence never really seemed to get the greatest results in the world. If anything it seemed to make them more messed up than ever. What had any of America's recent wars accomplished? What had the Scandinavian Campaign Against Terror ever actually managed? And the Battle Royale... what was the true purpose of the Battle Royale? Senseless mayhem, TV ratings, merchandising deals... the boy was disgusted by it. Disgusted by it, but sadly used to it.
Hell, he was used to a lot of things; things that made far more sense to him than the violent trend America had taken and less sense to pretty much everyone else. Almost since he could walk he had been into acrobatics. He learned to fly on a trapeze before ever learning to ride a bicycle, and by the time he was old enough to drive he could throw knives, spit fire and fight bulls (though this was not part of the public show, he had learned from one of the stunt riders who had been a matador back in Spain) with the best of them. It was an odd set of skills to have learned by the time he was eighteen, but Otis Shylock didn't mind. They just made things all the more fun. And they came in handy too, there was no forgetting that. They made taking risks a lot easier, if complicated at the same time.
It certainly made escaping from a Battle Royale easier. To know a fear of death going in, to know how to circumvent that fear, that just made everything easier to deal with. When he could get rid of the fear, it was all too easy to start wrapping his mind around the problem of escape. He would not try to focus on it visually, no, that would make them liable to want to try something against him. So he messed with them, gave bizarre running monologues into his microphone that would make them think he was a lunatic instead of someone with any level of calculation behind their actions. He would break cameras to test response times of the repair crews and hide out of view of them to catch sight of their blind spots. It was surprising really, having seen a Battle Royale or two in the past he had expected their camera coverage to be quite extensive. They could really use a few ground crews following us around like the real reality shows do. Then again, they'd make pretty good targets with cameras on them, wouldn't they?
So he ditched the belt. Getting a weapon was difficult (having been assigned a coffee mug), but dumb luck managed to help that one out. Five minutes after ditching the belt he had run into Marley Tatum, a.k.a. Girl # 14, and was able to catch her unawares. He did not want to hurt the girl any more than he had to, and it did only take one punch to knock her down and take the rifle away. He hated to be damaging someone else's chances that way, but it was the only way escape would work. Besides, she lasted pretty long anyway, it's not like she'd have had anything to complain about.
After that it was pretty easy. Piss off the cameras enough for them to send out a clean-up crew, take them out with the rifle. Grab their guns and hydrofoil. Take off across the glades. Ram through the electric fence they'd set up. Keep speeding on out before they can get a full response team in order. Kill a few more guys who got in the way... and then it was life off the grid.
He'd been careful. He'd been good. No, he'd been amazing. They hadn't been able to find him. Hell, they almost never had even the slightest idea of where he'd been hiding. Living off the grid wasn't easy, but it was fun. Stealing food and hideaways. Making friends with more of the homeless and drifting class that America refused to acknowledge. Brushing up on his Spanish with a crew of day laborers in Texas for a while (how he managed not to get caught down there was beyond him). Every time his name would come up in the news they'd be way off about his location, and every time he would laugh. It was amazing to see that the United States government, supposedly the most powerful entity on Earth (if you don't consider the Greater Republic of East Asia of course), could be outsmarted by a single teenager. Sure, there had been close calls and he'd had to kill a few people to clean things up then, but those were the exceptions to the rule. Until then, he'd had them beat.
Hell, Otis loved to hear about how much better than them he was.
But this time he was not good enough.
"Otis Shylock, we know you are in there, come on out with your hands up and we will not have to resort to violence," the voice outside his grim little farmhouse had shouted. Whoever it was didn't know how to use their megaphone all that well (only every other word seemed to make it through), but it wasn't hard to get the gist of it. They'd caught him somehow. But you were careful, so careful! It must've been at the store. Didn't cover yourself up enough with the hat, or maybe they just got suspicious. Shouldn't have grafittied the sheriff's office. Should've just let it go, but he looked like such a tool. Someone put two and two together? Can't keep underestimating these hicks.
There was no easy way out, not from this one at least. They'd cut the power and the phone lines. The oven still seemed to work (natural gas), and until they had cut the power he'd had a pretty good pot of oil boiling. It would've made some pretty damn decent fried chicken too, but no, they had to come. Seemed to have the place surrounded too. The harsh light of a half-dozen cars' headlights shot through every window. There were maybe, what, thirty guys? It was impossible to be sure without being out there, and there was no way that Otis was going out without a fight. Could bring the fight out to them. Just balls out find whatever you can get and start taking them to pieces. They don't look like much, do they?
They didn't really. What brief glimpses of them that he could get were more than enough to tell the boy that they were local. Probably not even badges (no colored lights); most of them were wielding bats, ax handles and torches. These were just a bunch of drunken dumbasses who were looking for the reward. Thinking that thirty or so of them would be able to take down one roustabout teenager rather easily. A few of them had guns, but he was certain that they would only use those as a last resort. The guys up top, the big wigs, they wanted him alive. They wanted to make a public demonstration out of his execution, and these guys wouldn't get paid if he was dead. Fight how you need to, force them to get a gun close enough to you... yeah, now we're talking. Make this fight hard, force them into the narrow corridors of the house and then start taking them apart. Now *that* sounds like a plan.
And so the boy set to quickly organizing a plan. He liked plans; things made sense when you had a plan. Tall and skinny with a mane of shoulder-length blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and a half-assed scruffy beard, he was hardly the visually imposing type. They would not know his true strength, they would underestimate him. That was what Otis was counting on.
As for a battlefield, he could not have hoped for a better place. The house was a simple, classic American farmhouse. Two stories with bedrooms up top, more functional rooms on the bottom. Living room, foyer, den, dining room, kitchen. The hallways in between were narrow and the rooms themselves full of furniture. Enough for them to stumble over. The men outside were big, burly and carrying large weapons. They would not have the speed or the skill to fight indoors properly. Perfect.
Working with purpose, the boy quickly began opening drawers and pulling out anything that looked promising. A hefty butcher's knife down the back of his belt. Several more laid out on the table. Toss in a corkscrew with them. A few pounds of butter in the fridge, tossed it in with the boiling oil. Spray paint can in his pocket. A massive meat tenderizer, heavy, jagged on one end. That could do some damage. Cleaver, dull and chipped in some places. Taking a quick swing he watched with a certain amount of pleasure as the weapon cut into the solid wood butcher's block on the counter.
"Beautiful."
"Otis Shylock!" the megaphone shouter called again, "Throw down any weapons you have and come out with your hands up and you will be granted mercy!"
"Come on in and get them you homos!" If the loud cursing and sound of shattering beer bottles was any indication, the plan had worked. If you want to piss off a bunch of southern macho men, call 'em gay.
Otis smiled.
Almost immediately the small kitchen window burst in with the tinkling of glass as an unseen attacker smashed it in with a torch. Otis acted quickly, whipping the spray can from his pocket and blasting it directly at the torch bearer. The can's propellant met the torch, acting as a flame thrower that viciously burned the torch-bearer's face. The man outside screamed, withdrawing the torch and falling to the ground in a heap. One down.
The front door was kicked in with a resounding crash. Like a torrent the men began pouring down the hall wielding their crude clubs and looking for Otis' blood. It would take them three or four seconds to reach the kitchen. Plenty of time.
Three of them quickly filed through the kitchen doorway. He downed each of them quickly with thrown kitchen knives. Two in the chest, one in the belly. None of them seemed to be dead if the sounds they were making were any indication, but that was OK. He didn't need them dead, he just needed them out of the way. Guys yelling, some screaming angrily with what they had seen. More filling the doorway. No more knives on the table. Reaching to the stove, the boy grabbed the pot of boiling oil and butter by its handle. It was heavy, awkward. A small splash fell out and hit the floor with an angry sizzle. With surprising strength, the boy hurled the pot and its contents at the three new men standing in the doorway. Although it was too dark to see the true effects of the scalding grease hitting the three men, the fierce sizzling sound of their flesh melting and their own high-pitched screams of agony were more than enough to tell him that he had found his mark. That's, what, seven down? That's enough to take the battle to them.
With the cleaver in one hand and the meat tenderizer in his other the boy made his way through the doorway, jumping on each of the downed, writhing and dying men so as to avoid slipping in the massive lake of boiling oil. More men were filing into the living room from the front door, trying to make their way down to the kitchen and take him out. More started crashing in through the back in an effort to surround him. Gotta take it to the guys in front before they get the drop.
Forcing his way into the hall, Otis kicked the first guy he could find in the crotch. The man went down howling, and with a quick kick to the head he was knocked unconscious. Another kick to make sure. The rich smells of blood and human misery filled the air. The men still on their feet were shouting, trying to rally themselves into being able to take on the boy. Someone dropped a torch in the living room, the place was beginning to go up in flames. They were converging, in front of Otis, behind... It was going to be bad. He was going to have to be bad. This wasn't the Battle Royale. He had no gun. They were closing in faster. Weapons high, what faces he could see filled with a murderous rage. They would show him no mercy. With this much provocation, they would probably rather see him dead. They want you dead. Why not return the favor?
Raising his weapons high, the boy beckoned the men on.
"Bring it," he muttered.
As it turned out there were exactly thirty men. In the beginning that had been a problem, but with them all dead, well, it seemed damn near perfect. There were just enough... just enough to do what needed to be done. Well, it didn't need to be done, but it was what had to be done. They needed to know what he was capable of. They needed to know what they had driven him to do. They needed to know what he would do if they went after him again.
So, in a way the massacre was for the best really.
The battle had been fierce, and for a while he was worried that they were going to take him. He could chop with the cleaver all he wanted, he could break bones with the tenderizer, but if any of the guys with guns had tried to get in in that first wave, well, it would have been the end. But they held out too long. Far too long. After the slaughter in the kitchen he'd had to kill six men to make his way outside, most with the cleaver (easier to slice into a head or belly than you thought, isn't it?), but a few with the tenderizer as well. He only needed to break the knees of one man to make him completely useless before moving onto the rest.
Outside, well, that's where things would get tricky. When it still looked like the house was going to burn down (the flames didn't go beyond the couch the man had dropped his torch on thankfully), he'd thought that his best tactic would be heading outdoors. Instead it just put him out in the open.
But he'd made do. By throwing the severed hand of a man he'd killed indoors at the guy with the rifle standing in the back of one of the pickup trucks, he'd been able to distract him long enough to kill him. After procuring the rifle, well, it was all pretty easy after that. One by one the men tried to attack, and one by one he'd shot them down. Some tried to hide behind the house, others inside. They were the biggest pain, they were the ones that he'd had to actually hunt down. But they died with the rest.
They were all dead. There was a time a matter of months ago that Otis would have been appalled at the sight before him. He would have been disgusted that this had happened by his hand. Now he was glad for it. They had driven him to this existence, and he was going to show them what horrors they had wrought.
Thirty men. Thirty heads. Enough to make a perfect pyramid. One on top, four on the second level, nine on the third and sixteen on the bottom. Simple math. The cleaver was ideal for cutting through flesh and bone, it separated the heads from their bodies rather effectively. There were some who he hadn't quite killed in the first attack, they pled, they begged, but the cleaver took care of them simply.
In what little formal education he had been forced to sit through, Otis distinctly recalled the history of the Mongol Empire. Though their reputation was fierce (and with good cause), Otis had always admired their ability to unify what would have otherwise been dozens of warring tribes throughout the Asian continent. They were ferocious if you got in their way, but if you didn't put up a fight, they wouldn't give you a hard time. But if you did... well, they were known to use many terror tactics in a form of intense psychological warfare to force stubborn enemies to surrender. One of the most popular was the pyramid of heads (about as grim an image as Otis could imagine), with one particularly ambitious general making one with 90,000 heads.
He didn't have 90,000, but thirty would do. It would send the message. Thirty heads in the bed of a pickup truck, stacked in a pyramid. He was exhausted, sore from the battle and covered in blood. But he was done fighting for the moment. How long do you think it'll take them to find this? House is pretty far out in the boondocks, may take a day or two unless these guys called in for backup. Probably should light the house on fire, they'll find it sooner that way. But first...
Pulling a magic marker from his pocket, he began to write on the side of the truck's cab.
'MY NAME IS OTIS SHYLOCK. IF YOU FOLLOW ME, YOU WILL DIE. IF YOU TRY TO FIND ME, I WILL KILL YOU. I DON'T WANT TO, BUT I WILL IF I HAVE TO. MAKE BETTER DECISIONS THAN THESE ASSHOLES DID.'
Not very eloquent, but it'll do. Gets the point across. Now clean up, grab a truck, and get on the run before-
A twig snapped behind the boy. Rifle high, he swung around. He didn't expect the laughing. The clapping. The massive figure walking through the tree line and into the moonlight before the boy.
"Well you certainly meet your reputation rather nicely Mr. Shylock," the man said with the faintest Eastern European accent. Although he clearly had a pistol in a holster across his chest, he made no motions for it. Otis was confused, but chose not to lower his rifle.
"Who are you?" Otis asked hesitantly.
"An admirer, who has come here representing even more admirers," the large man with the accent said as he approached even closer, "And let me say for the record that you are quite the hard man to track down Mr. Shylock."
"That was kind of the idea," Otis replied.
"Of course, of course. You are incredibly skilled in these ways, but so are we, and please don't take me as overly arrogant for saying that we are considerably better at this than you. How else do you think we were able to track you down?" the large man continued.
"Well that's great to know and all, but if you're an admirer you should know that I'm not the most popular guy in the world right now," Otis responded, "I've gotta clean up and get going before what you see here gets worse than it already is."
"Certainly. I mean not to hold you up or keep you from getting away. If anything I mean to help."
"Help how?" Otis asked.
"If you keep going about things the way you are, you will get caught again. Next time it won't just be a bunch of your American yokels with sticks and a few guns coming after you, it will be the police, the military. They will kill you on sight, or kill just enough of your body so that they can execute what little is left living on live television. I am offering you anonymity. If you come with me, I will help you disappear off the government's radar. You join my people, and we will continue this fight as it needs to be fought," the man with the accent said with a wide smile that showed frighteningly wolf-like teeth. Otis didn't know what to make of the man. If he'd wanted him dead, he'd have killed him already. Of course there was always the chance he was a bounty hunter, maybe some other low-level government searcher out to bring him in alive, but he wasn't getting that vibe. The boy didn't know what to make of the situation.
"Who the hell are you?" Otis asked as he loudly cocked the rifle. This didn't seem to worry the man standing before him in the slightest.
"I was born Bram, but now they call me Swamp Harrier. I come representing The Raptors Mr. Shylock, and we need your help."