Central Inn, South Town

"Yo, Jimmy. What's up?" He was surprised to hear from him so soon.

"A whole bunch of murders over at Whitechapel, that's what." Jimmy's voice on the other end of the line was grim. He didn't even bother beating around the bush for this one.

"Whitechapel? Really?" Paul shook his head, nonplussed. "At a bar?" The irony was not lost on him when it came to the bar's name, but he was still surprised. Especially at that place, which was known to frequent tough bikers. Fights were one thing, but he figured at least, if someone tried to raise problems there, a biker gang could have sorted one man out.

"Right inside the joint. A lot of bikers ended up on the kill count this time. Funny thing, though, was that he didn't chase anyone else who left. And the bartender's still alive."

"No shit?!"

"Yeah, I said the same. He's shaken, to say the least, and I'm pretty sure he's going to move very far away from this place when it's all said and done, but yeah, he's still alive. A bit of a mess, but it ain't his blood."

"Well, okay then. We got something to go on? Did they see the killer?"

"Yeah, but my contact hasn't let me in on any of that yet. Interviews are still ongoing, and they're still trying to pick up the pieces at the place. Hopefully I know something soon.."

"Damn."

"Have you found anything yet?"

"Still looking. Just got here, to be honest, so I haven't really had a chance to settle. Need to do some digging, and fast. My father left behind some notes that people over at the Pao Pao Café tend to know a lot about what's going on around here, so I'm gonna head there first."

"Great! Call me back. I'm gonna talk to my guy on the inside. Meanwhile, I'll get you in touch with George Brighton when you get back. I'm sure you'll learn a lot from him."

"Thanks, Jimmy. And be careful. Don't be a hero."

"If I see a guy running at me with a bunch of butcher's gear, I'm running far in the other direction. Even with my leg. Just watch me. Don't worry."

"Okay. I'll call you back if I get something juicy." Hanging up his phone-he had invested in a portable phone some time back, when they started becoming more ubiquitous, and he found that he did not regret it one bit.

Having dropped off his carryon at the hotel he grabbed. He made sure to take Jimmy's advice and got one of the better ones, near the city center, in what was considered a "Nice" area. He was considering trying to find some nearby diners or restaurants as well, to at least get acclimated with the neighborhood.

The first thing on his agenda, though, was to chase this one lead he had. He had heard that Tyrant had become a music producer himself, seemingly not minding working around the medium, but putting the days of actively being in a band behind him.

Checking the map he had pocketed on the way over from the airport, he found the Pao Pao Café. Checking his watch, he decided to leave now, before it got too late. He didn't fancy his first night in South Town being one where he was lost in one of its neighborhoods.

Moving out of the hotel and following the fairly ample map, he managed to thread the streets easily enough-staying within the busy, lighted areas-until he saw the glowing lights of what seemed to be the Pao Pao Café. Thankful that the place was close-he had only been walking for about fifteen minutes or so-he made his way down to it, the ambience actually getting a lot livelier as he grew closer. He saw a few patrons moving in and out, and he paused to look around at the door and the decor. Nodding at one of the bouncers who didn't pay the average-looking man much mind, he stepped inside and smiled at the decor. It was certainly different from the rest of South Town, standing out almost as its own little island getaway.

He was snapped out of his own mind for a second when he heard a couple of voices at the bar.

"Hey Richard! Bob! Give us two more down here!"

"Hang on! Y'all are drinkin' so fast tonight."

"Duckie! Here's your beer!"

Until now, he had seen pictures of the place-well, a couple in his father's notes-but didn't think it was as big or out there as it was in real life. Its music was something folks could groove to, and it was quite crowded. Behind the bar were two men-Richard and Bob, apparently-serving up a colorful bunch of apparent regulars. It was later than he would've liked, but he felt pretty safe in this part of town. He didn't really see anything troublesome.

"How's the kid, Bogard?"

"He's good. Loves to train. Maybe a little too much," he laughed, rubbing his side, where the 'kid' apparently planted a few good kicks. "He has a ways to go, though. But he's learning so fast."

"Nikaido, what are you having?"

"Hmm. Give me a minute." The very handsome, more high-class looking gentleman seemed to be looking over a menu.

"And don't ask for something from one of your ritzy model parties."

Making his way to the bar, looking around at the folks sitting around, he sat down. He admittedly looked a bit unsure, but the big blond fellow in the red vest sat off to the side, waving his hand toward the bar.

"Have a seat," he said. "You look like a tourist. You're fine here, don't worry."

The younger bartender-a dreadlocked man who appeared somewhere in his twenties-walked over to him as he wiped a glass.

"What can I get you?" he asked.

"What do you have on tap?"

"Richie, what do we have tonight?"

"Let me see," the older man-with a neatly trimmed beard-replied. "Do you like dark beer?"

"Yeah, definitely."

"Alright. Try this one."

Paying for the beer, he took a sip. It was rather good indeed. This fellow looked a bit older-someone who might've known stuff that went on in the eighties. "It is good. Thanks."

"Anytime. Where are you from?"

"Up north. Hollisfield, Massachusetts. Here on business. Reporter for the Hollisfield Daily."

"Ahh, we get plenty of you guys around. Here for one of the tournaments?"

"No, mostly asking about an old heavy metal band. From the eighties."

"Hmm. Can't say I follow that too much, but one of these guys might know." A helpful fellow, he nodded over toward them. "They're younger, but a couple of them might know more about that kinda thing." He walked over for a moment. "Hey, Terry!"

"Yeah?"

"Fellow here has a few questions about something."

Terry Bogard-a man who actually looked somewhat familiar to Paul, but he couldn't remember where he had seen him-walked over and nodded.

"Hey there. What's going on?"

"Hi. Paul Burton. Hollisfield Daily."

"Terry Bogard. Don't think I've heard of Hollisfield."

"It's in Massachusetts. I'm down here on some business, and need to ask a few things."

"Sure. I've been around the Northeast a little bit. Philadelphia, New York…I've stopped by Boston once. Travel a lot." He adjusted his hat. "Not sure if I can help you with Hollisfield."

"Well, it's about a band from here. Band from the eighties, called Phobia. More on the underground."

"Phobia…" he thought to himself. "I like rock, but I don't know the more underground stuff. But the name sounds familiar." He looked over, nodding toward a fellow with a mohawk. "That's Duck. He works as a DJ sometimes. He might have heard something at some point." He turned toward his friends. "Hey, Duck. Know of a band called Phobia?"

Thinking for a few moments, he rubbed his chin. "Sounds familiar…Wait. Wasn't that the one who had half the band die about ten years ago?"

"Ohhh yeah! That was it. I knew I heard the name somewhere."

The other blond man-apparently named Nikaido-looked between them. "Looks like I'm not the only tourist here, then."

"Nope," Paul replied with a chuckle.

"Yeah, Beni doesn't come around often. Once in a while in between tournaments to say hi. He's somewhat of a celebrity in the modeling circles." He turned back around; the man with the mohawk-apparently nicknamed Duckie or Duck-went back to his drink, chatting with the fellow next to him. "But yeah. I was young then-maybe fifteen or so? But I remember hearing about a band breaking up due to a lot of violence."

Paul thought for a second, seemingly at a dead end…until he remembered something. "You…wouldn't know where any recording studios are in South Town, would you?"

"Recording studios? Yeah, there's a couple. It's a big city. There's one near Sound Beach and another that's near…Port Town?"

The reporter jotted down the two names. "Hey, thanks. I can find out the names later, I just needed a lead on where one was. One of the old members became a producer that stuck around here."

"I would imagine those wouldn't be bad places to look, then." He looked back over at his group, holding his finger up. "I'm going to get back to them. They're bugging me for some gambling."

"Oh, go right ahead. I think I got what I needed."

Terry stuck out his hand; Paul immediately liked the large fellow; he had a charisma that made him immediately very trustworthy. He took his hand and shook it in a firm grip; he almost had to shake it afterward. This guy was clearly tough. "Good luck on your search. I might not know what's going on, but I know what it's like to search for something."

"Thanks. Take care." He nodded toward the rest of them, who waved, as Terry went back over to the bunch. He noticed for a second the slender, muscular man with the long hair did a trick that made him seemingly stand his hair up; he didn't quite know what happened, but he felt the hairs on his own neck stand on end when he did it.

Blinking, he shook his head and went back to the rest of his beer, making a point to check out the phone book when he got back to the hotel.

My old man was right. This is one interesting city.

Studio, Sound Beach, Sunday, Oct. 28th

"Tyrant?"

The man looked up, turning toward Paul. He chuckled, shaking his head.

"That's a name I hadn't heard in awhile. These days, I go by Greg." He walked toward him, holding out his hand. "Greg Nelson. Not as menacing, I know."

"Paul Burton. Nice to meet you." He shook the man's hand. The years had been quite kind to Greg; he had only been about twenty-one during his stint with the band-a lot of bands in that genre started quite young, usually-so he was barely older than Paul was now. He still wore his brown hair long, and there was no gray to be seen, though it was pulled back in a nicer ponytail these days. His T-Shirt and jeans weren't torn up, either. Old tattoos stood out on his arms, but he still looked younger than his thirty-four years would have let on.

"You…look like you aren't here to ask about a recording session."

"No. I'm just a reporter from Hollisfield, Massachusetts." He rubbed his head. "I…hope you don't mind. I was surprised you were open on a Sunday:"

He shook his head. "Can't say I've been there for some time. No, it's one of those things that you get used to. I still work with heavy metal musicians, after all. Young ones, like we were. A lot of people ask about it, who know who I am. I imagine Zack hears much less about it, given he doesn't work around it these days."

"That's…"

"Demogorgon." He smirked at that. "He still listens to the stuff sometimes, but he works as a computer technician these days."

"You guys still talk?"

"Not too often, but once in a while we catch up over a couple of beers at the Pao Pao or something when he visits his family. He lives in Cali now. More tech stuff out there, but he's got some family still around here."

"Is South Town still getting your kinds of acts?"

"Believe it or not, yes. I considered moving out West at some point as well, but just enough folks keep coming through. And I suppose I'm nostalgic for the place, even if I feel safer carrying a knife."

"I got that impression. My father told me about the place."

He rubbed his chin, leaning against the soundboard. "Wait. Paul Burton. Hollisfield Daily. That means…"

"Yeah. Vincent Burton. My old man."

"I remember now. He talked to us right after…you know."

"That's why I came down. It's not to ask about that night, but has anything weird been happening here, by any chance?"

"Well, besides the normal, everyday South Town shenanigans, which…tend to become normal after you've lived here awhile, I can't say I have? There was a street fight about a block from here last week, but that was Tuesday." He chuckled. "Literally. I'd be surprised if I didn't see a week where a fight broke out somewhere. There's even regular tournaments."

Paul liked this fellow; he seemed pretty easy going about everything. "Alright. We've been having some weirdness up north, and I decided to ask." He rubbed his head, a little uncomfortable at the next question. "I hate to ask this…but has…uhh…" He coughed. "Has…Grinder's resting place been at all…defaced?" He had to learn the stage names of the rest of the band before coming.

Greg cocked his head to the side. "Well, I haven't been there for a couple of years. I admit, I don't really visit the place yearly or anything. One of those once in a while things. Michael, by the way," he said. "Or Mike. But yeah, that was Grinder. Sometimes at the beginning it would get a few marks on it from fans, but I guess a lot of them grew up by now, or moved away, or whatever else South Town had in store for them." He looked curiously at Paul. "Why do you ask?"

"It seems that someone has broken into Freeman's resting place up there," he said. "So on the down-low, my supervisor said it might be a good idea to look to see if there was a rash of these."

"That's another name I hadn't heard in awhile." Surprisingly, Greg didn't look incensed, or even angry. He only looked somewhat sad. "No one could ever figure out what happened that night. It was still one of the most bizarre things. Like, we went on a Halloween tour. Perfect for a gore-screaming death metal band. Zack and I came back the day after Halloween as half a band, and our songs had come to life in a bit of a too on-the-nose fashion, one might say." He took a cigarette out. Paul offered out his lighter; the man handed him a smoke, as well. He motioned for Paul to come sit over at a table at the side, which he did. "I could tell you where the grave is, though, if you'd like to go see if it's been messed with. Surprised they sent reporters."

"Well, one could say our officers aren't…the most…on point." He snorted laughter.

"Oh, we know that all too well," he said, glancing outside. "They're either stretched thin, or on the take down here. Same for Second Southtown."

"What is that, anyway?"

"That's sort of a sister city. That's actually where Freeman was from. Or, well, he was originally from London. He joined us after our old bassist quit. Learned the songs fast. Good bassist. Great backing voice. And he was a scrapper, too. Which is…well, I guess where it all went wrong." He took a drag of his smoke. "I suppose, when I look back after all this time, we felt like something might have been weird about him from the first day we met him. He was always distant, even with us. I remember when he arrived at the studio with the slip of paper from the tryout flyer."

"The good old days."

"Yep. Paper flyers for if you needed another band member, trading tapes, all that good stuff. I think I might still have a few of our old flyers. I do like to hang on to some of it. As much of a mess as that night was, I guess I try to remember the good times before. I mean, bands still throw flyers around a store now and then, but it's moving more and more online these days."

Paul nodded. "So I guess after that, he joined up."

"Yeah. Like I said, he could play the stuff, he wasn't really that hard to get along with…he really didn't say anything. He was, like I said, really creepy, but when you're that age, playing death metal, that's a bonus, not a flaw. The street fighting was a bit weird…but like I said, South Town. We figured it was just a way for him to make ends meet. Dude didn't look like he had many ties here, and coming over from London, he probably wasn't finding too much work. You can make okay money if you're good at bashing people in this town. So long as he didn't bring any fights to the studio, we didn't care. We didn't even care that no one knew his real name. He only told us Freeman. We dunno if it was his last name, a nickname, or what."

"I heard he was a fighter, yeah. And I recall reading in the old reports that it was like you said just now, he was distant with most others. Though interesting he never really gave you much more of a name."

"Yeah, that guy did not share much with us. He'd usually just go off on his own after gigs. We didn't know why he came in the first place. He had some sort of strange amnesia about his old life. We thought it was some sort of trauma, but none of us knew for sure." He crossed his leg over, fiddling with one of the switches on the large board. "But yeah, he was…different. A bit of a masochist, for one. Mentioned how the best fights took him to the brink." He took another drag of his smoke. "Another thing about that guy-he was freakishly strong. Like, it was the weirdest thing. We heard rumors in street fights that he literally tore some guys apart…but this is South Town. You hear lots of things. And stuff gets embellished. A lot."

"In hindsight, it might not have been as embellished as you thought, I guess."

"Yeah. We started to believe the rumors after that night, when you look back at everything. But when we asked him to start doing band security, we saw him fling dudes around like they were ragdolls."

"How did that come about, again?"

"Well, besides us not believing the killing stories until after that Halloween, we were spending most of our money on beer and paying what road crew we had, so we got the guy who could actually kick some ass to act as security." He laughed. "You know, that was another thing. He didn't drink much. He'd usually take a couple of shots of bourbon and disappear after. Went to the practice space, backstage, wherever. Or somewhere else. Possibly to go fight someone."

"Did any of you guys actually hang out with him, besides on stage?"

"Sometimes after a gig we'd talk a little about music or horror movies, which he also seemed to like," he said. "Nothing too personal, though. He never really asked anything personal about us, either, so we kept it at that. Didn't bother us at the time."

Paul nodded at that; he seemed easy to talk to. This was good. "I admit, there's another reason I came down here to ask. Besides the grave desecration…for one, someone snatched his corpse after the break in."

"Wait, they took his body?"

"Someone did, yeah." At least, it's not there anymore . He left out the part about the bloody claw marks, and by all reports it looked like the grave was opened from the inside.

"Damn," he said, shaking his head. "Fans get weird, but holy shit."

"I know. But…on top of all of that, right now, we also have a copycat killer." At least, we hope it's a copycat killer.

Greg blinked, looking surprised. "Now that's something. I mean South Town sees at least one murder every day, but that place seemed awfully…quaint. I do remember we were attracted to it due to the stories. We stayed at that one hotel…I forgot the name?"

"The Magistrate. Oh, you guys actually stayed there?" He looked interested; this wasn't mentioned in any of the notes.

"Yeah, we had two gigs planned in that town; Halloween Eve and Halloween Night. We never did get to do the Halloween gig." He chuckled. "As soon as we heard the history of that place, of course we had to go stay there. Our road crew refused to. Place gave them the creeps. They bailed and went to find some place in the center, even after we had the reservations."

"What did you think?"

"I admit, I even felt a little uneasy there. I dunno how Mike or Zack felt-they didn't say anything when the road crew wanted to leave, though, as if they understood. Freeman seemed to love it, though…in as much as he could love anything. Which meant he smiled once in a while." He looked up, his face seemingly deep in thought.

"Huh. That place has a reputation there. Or it had. It closed down after that night."

This caused the producer to laugh. "Damn, centuries of alleged curses and incidents, and it gets shut down by a death metal band from South Town."

"I was eighteen at the time. I still remember my old man running out to cover it." He looked at him. "Do you remember why he attacked your drummer… Michael, right? But not you two?"

"He tried to stop him. We didn't."

"Huh."

He got a distant look in his eyes for a minute, thinking back to what was, indeed, a hell of a night. "We remembered hearing about all the stuff in the hotel. After we got there…look, I'm gonna sound kinda silly saying this stuff…"

"After everything that's been happening, I'm all ears."

"He not only really liked the place, but…Freeman changed after the first night there," he said after a moment. "A little bit. At least, it felt like it. He was always kind of quiet and distant, like I said. He could get violent, though never to us or the fans, save for the few drunks he'd toss away or boot off the stage. But after we stayed there, his dark side felt almost amplified. In a way where we started to think that maybe those rumors of him tearing those guys apart down here weren't just embellished bullshit."

"Something about the way he started acting?"

"Something like that. Where til then, he just was like our weird bassist…he felt…colder after a night there. When I asked him what was up the next morning, he mentioned having a weird dream that 'made him think.' I didn't quite know what he meant by that. Never did find out, but all I know was that night was when everything went down."

"The manager."

Greg rolled his eyes. "He was a grade A scumbag. I can't lie, and luckily I'm an atheist since I don't believe I'm gonna burn for saying this, but that motherfucker isn't missed, especially after the other sleazy stuff about him came out. In hindsight, I wish we had never taken him on, but we were young, needed management, you know how it is. I mean I think Freeman was one of the oldest in the band, and he was only in his early twenties himself-no more than twenty-three, and he had no desire to make any decisions in the band…he just followed us. Zack was your age at the time, maybe a year older. Mike was twenty. We played clubs around South Town. We didn't really know shit, and got dragged into sleazy management. I heard he got in trouble with a few protection rackets around here before that, and did some other nasty stuff under the table."

"I heard that kinda thing is common here."

"Yeah, some of those guys around the Pao Pao Café try to fight against it, as little as they can do. Though I did hear one of the bigger crime lords died a couple of years ago." He finished his smoke, stubbing it out in the ashtray. "The manager was skimming off the top. We all knew he was. We had been touring for that month, and we were starting to get a little tight for just daily necessities. So, yeah, we just told Freeman to scare him. We knew that he might have been involved in some of those nasty things…but we didn't think he'd go that far. But…that was after that weird shit in the hotel."

"My dad…in his old notes, wrote that he felt like there was something weird going on with the place."

"I feel like I might have had some weird dreams, too? But I don't remember any of them. I mean, it's been thirteen years as it was, so who knows what I forgot in that time. We did party a lot in our twenties," he chuckled. "Even though we split up, I kept working in music. Zack did for about a year, but then decided he wanted to get into tech."

"Did you remember having any weird fans? Like obsessive ones?"

"Can't say I did. We weren't that big of a band. We released one full album in early '86, one demo in '84, and one EP right after that, which was sort of considered our first album. We were basically kids when we formed. Zack was fifteen. He used to have to come after school." He chuckled. "This was in '83. We had local fans and some up and down the east coast-you probably don't know, but Florida and New York death metal used to have sort of a rivalry. So we'd tape trade and everything with the guys up there. A lot different than nowadays, when people just send me MP3s."

"Was talking to Jimmy-that's sort of my supervisor at the paper, a guy who worked with my dad-he's still getting used to the new stuff."

"Yeah, I think we all are," Greg replied. "But if we had any crazy fans, they either came much later or never showed themselves to us."

"Alright, thanks. I hope you guys don't, of course, but I couldn't think of what else it could be."

"It is weird," he said. "It's almost thirteen years to the day, and the guy goes missing. And then the copycat killer. We've been looking for a guy with equipment that can copy those wound patterns. Or at least, the cops have." He didn't mention how he and Jimmy were getting the sinking feeling that they were looking in the wrong direction.

"I see why you came down here, now. I really wish I could help. But…you know what, I'll at least take you to Michael's grave, just to take a look to make sure it's alright. I wouldn't mind seeing for myself at this point."

"If you want to, that'd probably be easier than me trying to figure out where it is."

"Yeah, South Town's major cemetery is…pretty big, as one might guess." He stood up. "I'm ready when you are. I don't have to do any recording until this evening."

Paul stood as well. "Let's go, then. I need to be back up north in a day or so."

Central Inn, Later that afternoon

Having had a pretty uneventful time at the cemetery, Paul was back in his hotel room with some fast-food take out for an early dinner and his notes, scribbling a few things out. He was going to call Jimmy soon with anything he had found out.

The grave, it turned out, was perfectly fine. No one had been there. Apparently this Michael hadn't had much family left here; occasionally a fan would drop a beer can there, or some such thing after it happened. The headstone had been a normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill headstone. Greg had told him that there hadn't even been graffiti there for years; he imagined that a lot of those old fans had grown up and not done such things anymore. Eventually, they became one of many split-up bands in the underground, that more hardcore fans try to find albums of, especially ones who like their stuff less mainstream, or the ones who liked to collect real-life horror memorabilia and they knew the story about the band.

He had thanked Greg for his time, and apologized for if this sort of thing bothered him. The man had no issues with it; while that night itself had certainly been a nightmare and a half, after almost a decade and a half and a new life, he found it easy enough to talk about. He wished Paul luck on finding what he needed, and hoped that whatever was going on up in Hollisfield would sort out, and soon. Paul left his card with him, asking him that if he had remembered anything at all, to not hesitate to get in touch.

Getting to hear a little more of the history was interesting, and to be frank, possibly helpful as well.

Freeman had apparently always been a darker individual, most likely even going as far as to kill people violently during street fights, but knowing that something 'changed slightly' after staying at the Magistrate brought him back to his father's old writings-which he mostly had back up in Hollisfield at the moment, but he remembered a few things. He remembered all of the stories about the place-how a lot of instances had situations that ended in the death of one or more individuals. He was going to have to talk to George Brighton as soon as he returned-he knew that fellow was going to have all of the historical info he needed to match it up.

And he didn't even like what he was seeing now. It was getting harder and harder to deny a potentially strange, wicked pull in that place. Even if it was subtle. There was a lot he had to ask Brighton about any old instances-like, for example, if anything was known about the killers over all the time stuff went wrong.

Sighing, he went back to his investigation, considering running down to the little kiosk at the lobby to grab a large cup of coffee to keep him running. He decided to head back up tomorrow morning-a Monday. Halloween was Wednesday, and he felt like there was something closing in. He had a feeling that the killer might end up going full force by then, and while he wasn't sure he had any answers for stopping him, he'd at least do what he could.

Paul had also started to get the feeling that he and Jimmy were doing far more than just reporting on this thing.

Jim Beatty's office, Hollisfield

Jimmy rubbed his eyes and adjusted his glasses, checking out a few of the reports that his contact had managed to send to him. He said he had a few more coming, once he managed to clean a little more information. With things extremely chaotic down at both the station and the coroner's office, he knew he'd be mostly working on his own for the day or so that Paul was down in South Town. It was late, but he knew Paul would be coming back in the morning, and they would be likely sharing a lot of info. He had also gotten in touch with George, setting up a meeting between the two tomorrow afternoon, or as soon as he returned from his short trip.

The picture collection was a few things from the gnarly, awful crime scenes. Lots of blood, gore, and mangled bodies were around; he was still trying to figure out how this man didn't leave one murder weapon at the scene. Also sent along were a couple of reports-mostly just from the coroner's office, saying absolutely nothing that came as a surprise.

None of the people who had called the police from the night before were able to be found; they called anonymously and seemingly wanted nothing to do with things. The bartender, however, was able to give a sketch artist a description of the killer, which was groundbreaking.

When Jimmy turned the page to see the sketch, he practically felt his blood freeze in his veins.

Staring at him was a spitting image of the young man from thirteen years ago. Grabbing the photo he had gotten from one of the photo shoots from that time that they had managed to dig up, he looked at the bassist…and back at the picture.

That was him. The hair, the expression-down to the malevolent eye.

He gulped, looking over at his counter and seeing the whiskey bottle. Standing to pour himself a double shot, he drank half of it down and exhaled.

It's not only a copycat murderer, someone took this man's appearance, too. Crazy.

Looking back at the photo, he tried to shut up that tiny voice in the back of his head…

…You really don't believe that, do you?

A/N: This chapter was brought to you by Talking Time(tm)!

So does Freeman have a 'type?' Maybe he does. I guess I like the idea of some movie killers having somewhat of a type. Even though that type is…rather broad, lol. "Tries to Fight Back" admittedly paints a pretty broad brush. I wouldn't say it's so much for a noble reason as it's just the masochistic side of him thinking it's not really any fun to go after prey that doesn't at least attempt to fight.

Anyway, CAMEO TIME! I mean, this IS a Fatal Fury AU, so of course I had to fit a few fitting characters in. Now, granted, this AU timeline might seem a little weird. Mark of the Wolves took place in 2004 or 2006-it didn't happen yet in this timeline! Maybe Movie Monster Freeman decides to enter at some point…we don't know. I admit I hadn't thought about that part, but I thought that would be a good way of at least somewhat tying it together. Or not. I dunno, it's just an AU horror story. But I even decided to throw some KOF cameos in, too, for fun. Thought it would give the story a more 'homey' feel, plus I sort of like to shout out all the horror movies I watch that ALSO like to use cameos. Like Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock showing in their own work, among countless others, or just big names playing small roles.

Since this takes place in '99, Geese is likely dead from '95 or '96 on(which is about when his death happened in the FF timeline-look the FF timeline is pretty hard to figure out.) ANYWAY, Terry would've been taking care of a young Rock at this point in time, who'd probably be about twelve or so by now. The comment about hearing 'one of the big crime lords dying' is indeed hearing about some Geese rumors.

Anyway, a rather calm chapter, but it's getting closer to Halloween, and stuff promises to maybe get bloodier…