Monkey Knife Fight Review - Daily Fantasy Prop Bets

Episode 2 – Quid Pro Quo
Clickity Clack, Clickity Clack, Clickity Clack. Fucking Trains.
I sat next to the window, in what I guessed, to be the next to middle carriage. Right temple leaned against the glass, watching the British midlands fly past.
Birmingham was just 2 hours away. I’d spent the bus journey, from Moss Heath to Leeds train station, thinking about the discussion that I'd had with the man on the end of the phone call.
I closed my eyes and recalled the previous day's events.
‘Hello?’ I answered blankly.
A distorted voice responded. ‘Where are the phones?’
‘Where is Nathan?’ I reframed from saying the word ‘brother’, I was playing that card close to the chest for now.
‘He’s been looked after.’
I swallowed a lump. ‘Is he alive?’
‘No comment.’ The voice said, coldly.
I mustered up some confidence from deep within. ‘Well then, I guess I’ll hand these phones in at the local police station. I’m sure they will find and return them to the correct owners.’
The extremely brief pause between my response and the callers, seemed like an hour. My heart was in my mouth. I’ve never had the balls to respond to a threat like that. Wow, what a fucking rush.
‘Surely, you know what happens to anyone stupid enough to grass on us?’ I sensed a restraint in the voice, despite the distorting device. He was rattled. Scared, even. Now, resorting to fear and intimidation to restore the psychological advantage over me.
‘What I know is, that these phones have a lot of info on them. Lots of interesting numbers at significant times. The ‘H’ and ‘Cr’ phones have been going like the clappers, I must say! 07715434307 wants to know if he can meet at the usual spot for his weekly pick up? I told him there's going to be a delay unfortunately. 07969400329 wants 2g for 200, usual spot. 07707949325 wants half an oz of the black tar.’
‘OKAY!’ The man snapped. I exhaled heavily away from the phone. I wanted to remain in control.
‘We need them phones back. You’re holding 50k a week revenue in your hands.’
‘Yeah, I guessed they were valuable. However, you’ve got someone valuable to me, in your hands.’
The recipient knew what I was suggesting, by my innuendo. A group discussion ensued on the other end of the phone. The sound of a door opened, a few footsteps and the sound of something being yanked off an object.
‘Wha-Where-What the f-’ a voice murmured. ‘SPEAK!!!’ someone commanded. ‘Hello?’ a voice said weakly, yet hopeful. It was Nathan. I knew that lazy, stoner student mumble, anywhere.
‘Nathan?? Are you okay?’ I heard the same noises in reverse. The replacement of the item that was yanked, the footsteps retreated and the door slammed shut again. The distorted voice returned and interrupted me as I continued to ask Nathan about his well-being.
‘See?? Your boy is fine. Tell me where our phones are?’
‘I want Nathan returned to me, alive and in a position to heal from any current injuries suffered. If I get this, I will give you the location of the phones.’
‘How about we cut a piece off your boy, for every hour we don’t get our phones?’
My heart sank, I felt like I was going to be sick. I couldn’t show emotional attachment though. If they knew we were related, they would either torture him while I listened until I gave over the phones or they wouldn’t have to think hard to realise Nathan shared a room where these phones were likely hidden and they would pay me and my mum another visit.
‘If you want to do that, then that’s up to you, I guess. I’ll just hand the phones in to the police. You’ll spend your time wondering if the phones can be used as evidence, in what I have no doubt is an ongoing investigation. Your lives will be made more difficult and not only that but you can kiss ¼ of a million pounds a year, in drug revenue, goodbye while you're at it!’
The voice, paused. The breathing intensified in anger.
‘Or... we can make an arrangement.’ I played my card.
‘What arrangement?’ The voice asked.
‘Let me know a time and place for me to come get Nathan. You’ll get your phones; I get my associate. Quid Pro Quo’
The call hung up, before I got an answer.
My hands were shaking, my mouth was dry, my genitals had shrivelled up inside me, from what felt like an overdose of adrenaline coursing into my veins. I felt like a god.
The phone in my hand spat out a jingle. ‘New Message Received'
I opened it. It read ‘Unit 4b, Kingsgate industrial Park, Birmingham, B11 4WS. Noon, tomorrow.’
I opened my eyes, as the tannoy alerted that my stop was next.
My train pulled into Birmingham around 10.30. I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I had the phones concealed in my bag. The SIM cards however, not so much.
I made my way out of the train station along with the rest of the passengers. I tried my best to blend in and remain inconspicuous. Who knew if this group had people scouting those coming into the city, carrying bags? They could abduct me and kill me before I have a chance to negotiate Nathans release.
Walking out into the City Centre was quite overwhelming. All the cars, people and buildings. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Moss Heath anymore.
I didn’t know where to go or how to get there. I dug into my pockets and pulled out the 40 quid I’d lifted from my mother's purse earlier this morning as she laid passed out on our living room floor. The empty sealer bags that lay at her side and the smell of booze and fags on her mouth, told me she wouldn’t even know me or the money, we’re gone.
I walked over to a city council registered taxi cab and shot the driver a thumbs up, which frankly was directed more as a question. He answered back with a nod. I jumped into the back seat and I began to fasten my seat beat and make myself comfortable, whilst the driver started to pull onto the Highstreet and make his way through the traffic systems.
‘Where to, mate?’ The driver said with a strong ‘scouse’ accent whilst making stern eye contact with me by staring into his rear-view mirror. His question was welcoming and friendly. He seemed a real salt of the earth character and like a guy who knew what was what.
‘Yeah, I've got a job interview. I need to be at this address. 4a, Bravo Eleven, Four Whiskey Sierra.’
He began to tap in the post code into the Sat Nav while probing my business in the city some more.
‘Job interview? No offence buddy but you look like you should be handing your geography homework in right about now. You look about 15 ha-ha.’
I just chuckled and smiled.
‘Yeah, I er- I get that a lot!' - Being an actual 15-year-old.
The address of the postcode populated in the taxis GPS tracker. The toney voice informed us that the destination was 17 minutes away. I checked my watch and was pleased to see I would arrive with 10 minutes to spare. I looked up at the driver's rear-view mirror, to find he was staring back at me again. This time, with genuine concern and bewilderment.
‘What is your business at that place, lad?’ He wasn’t really asking.
‘What business is it of yours?’ I snapped back.
‘Just tell me or you find another driver.’ I looked out the back window. No longer by the Taxi rank adjacent to the station. It would be half hour before I could flag one down.
‘I’m making a trade.’ I stated.
‘Making a trade, in there?’ He asked as if he’d missed something.
‘Yeah. I am involved in a- in what you might call a dispute of ownership. I have something that belongs to the people who work there and they have something of mine. We are going to make a trade.’
He looked at me, gone out. Visibly torn, wondering if he should do the smart thing or the right thing. They aren’t always the same thing.
He sighed, as he made his decision.
‘Jesus... look, I- I had a man- right, in my cab last year. Gave me the same address you did. Said he had to meet this bloke; about an item he’d bought. Summat like that, anyway. Said, he was going to ‘sort a conflict of ownership out’.’
Don’t like where this is going. I let him continue, allowing him time to battle with himself mentally.
‘Anyway, it was meant to be a return fare. Told me to pick him up, same spot, in 2 hours. I came back at the specified time. He didn’t show. I waited for 40 mins. Beeping the horn, ringing his mobile, the job lot. On around the 6th call, the line just cut off- cut off early, like and when I tried again, the operator told me the phone was no longer in use.’
I could tell by the tone of his voice, that this wasn’t the end of the story.
‘So, what happened to him?’ I asked, one eye on the sat nav. 7 minutes away.
‘Whoever or whatever you’re going to that place for, right... YOU MENTION THIS TO NO ONE.’
He pointed his finger at the mirror, angrily. He needed reassurance but he had something he thought that I should know.
‘I’d like to grow up and be someone who's word is their bond. I respect people known to stand by their promises.’ I looked him in the eye as I hammered it home. ‘You have my word.’
He analysed my gaze, trying to read my mind. He seemed to gain at least some satisfaction and gave me a nod.
‘Ok then – So, I got worried about this guy, yeah?- ‘cause he had assured me that if he got a ride back to the train station, he’d call to cancel. Seemed a genuine bloke. He was worried about me being late as he needed to catch this certain train back to Bristol. I told him I’d be there on time and I would wait for him- even if he was a little late! When he didn’t show, I got worried about him and the way his phone cut off... (sigh) I called the police.’
I REALLY didn’t like where this was going. ‘Okay...’
‘They told me they’d look into it. I gave my name, number and asked for them to contact me if they heard from him. After I hung up, I decided to have another look in the Unit. I was peering through a window, and I saw two men putting what looked like a big leg of lamb, in a chest freezer. I banged on the window to get the men's attention. They seemed shocked by my presence so they retreated into the back room. I waited for them to come back out- I was looking up at the CCTV camera and waving to it and everything. Just hoping someone would come out. They never did so I left and got on with my life. However, the next day, I gets a call from this detective. DS Neill, his name was, I think. From the city's Organised Crime Task Force. He asked me if I could come in to make a statement as the man's family had reported him missing and they hadn’t heard from him for two days. I said I would, as I’d seen something suspicious that may help with their enquiry. I should have known not to get involved as soon as I heard the words Organised Crime. Gangs run this city.’
‘Did you ever find out what happened to the man?’ I asked, genuinely.
‘Yeah, I did unfortunately. I was due to give a statement 2 days later, on my day off from cabbying. The night before I was due to go in, I’d just about finished my shift at around 10.30 and I get this text from my wife yeh? Saying there was an emergency and she needed me home ASAP. Course well ya know, I bloody rushed home as she was up the duff at the time.’
He gulped heavy, biting his lip. ‘I walked through the door, hung my coat up and shouted for my wife. She called out from the kitchen, letting me know she was in there. So, I makes my way in, expecting to find her holding her stomach with a pool of water at her ankles. Instead, I find- (sigh) I find her sat at the kitchen table. Knife to her neck and 3 huge men with dark balaclavas, stood behind her.’
Jesus fucking Christ.
He was in full swing; I didn’t want to interrupt but I noticed my eyes were wide and my mouth was catching flies.
‘They told me, if I told the cops anything about the men I saw, that day at the unit then, I would go down for the man who was in my cab’s murder. One of them pulled out an old Sony Ericcson and showed me a video. It was the man, who was in my cab. He was tied to this old looking chair, in this dark, industrial type of room. 3 men in similar attire to the men who we’re in my kitchen, we’re stood around him. Fuck me, mate. I don’t know what he done, but Christ! They were wailing on him something chronic, with these baseball bats. It was hard to watch stuff and I really didn’t want to look but they threatened to ‘cut the baby out of my wife’ if I didn’t look. It was hard to make out with the poor camera quality and the lighting but, his skull looked like a smashed watermelon afterwards.’
‘Oh my god’ I quietly gasped.
‘When the video finished, one of the men pulled out a dented and splintered baseball bat, covered in dry blood and hair, out of this duffel bag. It was in a large plastic bag, like what the police use for evidence. He opened it up and slid out the handle of the bat. He told me to grip it, otherwise they’d turn round and use it on my wife while I watched.’
Imaging the fear and helplessness, that the man felt – I had to work hard to fight back a tear.
‘I didn’t know what else to do. I just wanted them to leave. So, I grabbed that bat as hard as they wanted me to and then, I begged them to leave me and my wife, alone. They smiled at me and replaced the bat into the bag. Thankfully, they took the knife away from my wife’s neck and she shot away from them and flung herself into my arms. One of the men took out an old pay as you go mobile and handed it to me. They told me that ‘they would be in touch’ and If I mentioned anything of significance to DS Neill then that man's body would be taken out of cold storage and left in a ditch, with the bat, for the police to find. They said it would be assumed that he didn’t pay his fare, I chased him into the unit, with a weapon and things got ‘out of hand’.
He held up the same pay as you go mobile from his tale. As if to use it as a prop, to validate the horrific story that he was telling me. ‘Now, I have to run the local scum all over this city, while they dropping their drugs and checking on the working girls, being a getaway driver for lads who have stuck a blade in some rival dealer. I have to give them all a free fucking ride and they all treat me like shite! They swear at me, spit at me, call me names – Dirty black grass, monkey, fat nigger and I just have to sit and take it because their bosses have told them I made the mistake of talking to the police and now, they had me by the bollocks! Every drug dealer, pimp and thug who works for them has my number. Day or night, if you need to drop a brick of coke off in the estates, call Omar. Need to go stab some rival gang members? Call Omar. Need to dump a murder weapon? Call Omar. These bastards take up more than half my nights earnings, every fucking night! and I can’t refuse them, I can’t hit them, I can’t throw them out or just defend myself in anyway ‘cos if I do, I’m finished.’
I was speechless.
‘I may have saved my wife and baby's life that night but, Christ- I can’t even afford to support them with where I’m at. It’s a matter of time before we are either out on the streets or I put a bullet in my own head so she at least can collect my pension and insurances.’
Don’t cry. You can’t go into this meeting looking like you have emotion. Hold it.
‘I guess I’m telling you this because I only know two people who’ve been to that unit in my whole life and one of them is dead and the others life is also over, just in another sense. So, if there isn’t a good reason that you’re going into that place, lad. Fucking don’t!’
I looked at his reflection, dead in the eye. ‘They have my brother.’ I said, bluntly. That good enough reason?
He shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’ He stopped discouraging me, immediately. Family is everything to most people.
The car pulled into the car park. ‘That’s the unit there, with the camera above the door.’
I nodded and gave a subtle smile. ‘Thanks, Omar. Not just for the ride. Pick me up in 1 hour.’
‘Full marks for optimism, young ‘un. How about you just give me a call if you need me.’
‘Sorry, don’t have a phone. Pick me up in one hour. If me and my brother aren’t stood waiting for you in 60 mins, then I wish you well and hope things get better.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you in an hour then... Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?’ He said tilting his head.
‘Will. Will Cassidy.’
‘Omar. Omar Obama.’
I smirked, raising an eyebrow.
‘Yeah, I know. Leave it out.’ He said, smirking back.
I jumped out the car. I looked at the clock on Omar's dashboard. 10.57am.
‘See you at 12 hopefully.’
‘Good luck, lad.’
I slammed the door shut and made my way over to the unit. It looked like an old MOT garage. Large shutter door with a large window to the right of it. It was cracked and looked like it had a few hard years. The door was a purple shade of blue, with the paint peeling off a large portion of the wood.
I stepped into the sight of the camera lens. I held up the bag of phones, opening it wide so anyone watching could see the goods.
I heard the buzz, as the lock was released electronically. I turned and gave Omar a nod. He drove away. I turned back, gulped and stepped inside the building.
Two men were stood in the hallway, ready to ‘greet’ me. Big and Bulky, Balaclavas, Gloves. Not a good sign.
They patted me down for weapons and recording devices before roughly escorting me into the garage area. As I was being forced into the room, I was greeted by two old looking folding chairs.
The same from Omar's tale. Fuck.
There was a man sat in one of them. There was another 5 large men lingering around, also all dressed in dark clothing and wearing balaclavas.
I did a risk assessment as I was being seated. 8 strong men, two potential exits, no one in screaming distance. Two of the men armed with baseball bats. No guns in sight. All weapons are close-range. If this goes south, I can make enough distance between me and them, avoid hand to hand combat and beeline for the exits. Aw, who am I kidding? This goes south, and I am dead.
I was violently forced down on to the chair, opposite the man in the other seat. I noticed one distinct variant between the man in the seat and the other guys. They wore sports coats, bomber jackets, jumpers etc. The man in the chair wore an expensive suit. Imagine Harvey Specter from ‘Suits’ with a black woolly ski mask, and you’ll have a good idea of what sat opposite me.
The man held out his hand. ’You got my phones?’
I handed over the bag. Not that I had a choice. ‘You got my brother?’ I countered.
The man scoff and smiled through his face mask. ‘You’ve got two choices. Either, we kill you and your brother for crossing us or we put your brother down, put your prints on the weapon and you do as your told, otherwise you go down for his murder. Another sibling jealousy killing. More common than you think.’ He began to open the bag of phones and check everything was there.
Show time, Will. Let's do this.
‘You forget about the third option.’ I barked, confidently as the man checked the bag of phones.
The man's gaze rose from the bag, his smirk had vanished and you could now make out a scowl, underneath the mask. The two men with bats, began to advance forward with intent. The man held up a hand, ordering them to halt. They obeyed, Immediately.
‘As I was saying, there's a third option. Where me and my brother, both go home and you get your phones. AND Your sim cards. I imagine the phones are pretty useless without them.’
One of the henchmen with the bats stormed forward.
‘YOU SNAKEY LITTLE MUG, I’LL CAVE YOUR FUCKING HEAD-’
A loud bang shattered the atmosphere. The man hit the floor soon after. His brain hanging out of the smoking, singed balaclava. The men who stood nearby, coldly wiped the splatter off their clothes, whilst another two grabbed the corpses legs and dragged him into another room.
I never even saw the suited man, pull the gun from his jacket.
‘I can’t stand disobedience. So, you can imagine how furious I am, that I told you to bring me my phones and you’re giving me the run around.’
‘I didn’t disobey. I brought the phones. The SIM cards, however, are with an undisclosed person at an undisclosed location.’
Literally, in a sock, in my underpants draw.
‘And, if this person doesn’t hear from by 12pm, today, when I call from my taxi drivers' mobile phone. They will mail the SIM cards to Detective Mark Neill at the Organised Crime Task Force.’
I took a huge gamble name dropping the detective that Omar mentioned but given how he was desperate to get his statement, I assume he was a pain in the neck of this lot. The way the man in the suit looked, I could tell the gamble paid off.
‘However, if you give me my brother and we walk out of here and you pay for our taxi home, then I will tell my associate to mail the sim cards to this address. So... What’s it going to be?’
I have never felt adrenaline like this. My veins are going to explode.
The man stared blankly at me. The other men looked on in what I guessed to be anticipation. Waiting for the order to pulverize me.
‘Get the kid.’
OH MY GOD. I DID IT.
The two men who carted off the dead guy, lingered by the door of the room, they dragged him in to. They entered the room again, and twenty seconds later. They returned with Nathan.
I had to look twice to know if it was actually him. Twenty times more like, his head looked like a rotten tomato.
‘Jesus Christ, Nathan are you ok? What the fuck have you done to him?’
The man snapped. ‘Your brother lost us 20 grand worth of gear. You think we we’re just going to slap him on the wrist.’
Nathan could barely speak. His jaw was clearly broken, eyes swollen shut, the way he winced when I tried to support his weight indicated his arm or ribs were broken, probably both. I would have to represent him.
‘How did that happen?’ I asked the man. I knew ignoring that statement wouldn’t help his mood.
The man began to mock Nathan. ‘LISTEN BRUV! I GOT KIDS WHO ARE MAD FOR THIS SHIT UP IN MY ENDZ! YOU GIVE ME PRODUCT AND A LINE AND I’LL MAKE YOU P.’
His voice went back to his default. ‘Typical wannabe. All hype. He told us there was no competition for product up in Moss Heath. Told us, he could make us a lot of money.’
‘He wasn’t wrong. Moss Heath, Well It’s-It’s a fucking shit hole but, as far as I know, there's only one dealer.’
‘Well that dealer and his little high school brother, jumped this little prick. Stole his- OUR money, and OUR gear. What kind of amateur carries the whole stash with him, to a drop? If he’d lost those phones too, then you both wouldn’t be here now. Trust me.’
Christ Nathan, you idiot. What have you done?
‘But, i’m going to be honest, lad. I like you. You got bollocks like beachballs. Unlike, your sibling here. You came in here and made yourself untouchable. I’ll be honest, we were going to take the phones and kill you. Yet, here I am about to get you a taxi home. Luckily, we have a guy for taxi rides, he’ll take you home for nothing. I’ll call him.’
‘Omar Obama?’ I asked sternly.
The man squinted. ‘What of it?’ He also replied in a stern tone.
‘No, you’re going to pay him time and a half for the fare. And, you're going to dump whatever hold you have on him.’
‘Listen, mate. I said I liked you but, you’re really pushing your fucking luck. Threatening to hand us over to the filth? Grasses don’t last long.’ He said with venom.
‘That’s my final term. Either you grant, or you kill me and Nathan now and those Sim Cards, go to the OCTF, faster than you can say ‘Evidentiary Value’. I imagine they’ll be of huge interest. And this is no different than you threatening to hand Omar in to the police, if he doesn't ferry your racist scumbags around all night. I’m just playing your game.’
Nathan with what little strength and will, that he had left, was pulling me in the direction of the exit and groaning in disapproval of my tactics.
The man in the suit looked around at his henchmen. He nodded at two of them. They wheeled in, the chest freezer from the other room. I looked at it with a pit in my stomach.
One wrong move and I could have been in there, myself.
After one of the men lifted the lid, the other heaved a large lump of meat out of it, that was heavily wrapped in clingfilm. The other man also reached in and retrieved a couple of other similar wrapped objects.
Head. Torso. Limbs.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ
I look down, at what the group of men have laid at my feet. Where was the bat? I look back up the men. ‘How did he die? I’m sure it wasn’t natural causes.’
‘Yeah. Well, we will get to that. If you want this little scenario, you’ve orchestrated here, to play out to the end... then, I want something from you.’
Ahhh, so close.
‘Go on...’ I asked wearily. The man reached down and picked up the bag of phones, from beside his chair and slung them across the garage towards me. I caught them in a cradle against my chest. I looked at him, confused. I shot him a querying expression.
‘You can’t be any older than 15 years old, yet you’ve come down and stormed in here, like ‘Billy fucking big bollocks’, leveraged the situation in your favour and made yourself untouchable. You’ve held your nerve when I turned the screw and you’re now making me fork out for your taxi home. I want you to keep the phones, and the SIMS.’
What he was saying began to sink in. The memory of me telling Omar that I had a job interview, flashed in my head. The Irony.
‘If you want me to give up Omar and his free taxi rides around the city as well let your brother off getting our gear nicked, then I want YOU to work for ME. You take over the Moss Heath line.’
‘Me?! I don’t know the first thing about drugs, or dealing!’ I spewed in bewilderment.
The man chuckled softly. ‘I bet if last week, someone told you that you’d be strong arming a bunch of armed men in Birmingham, you’d have told them to jog on, too. Listen, kid. I get lads coming to me all the time, giving it the big ‘un, going on like ten men, saying they can run a line and make it big. I’m sure you know the types, bet theres a few in Moss Heath. Don’t get me wrong, they are good bodies to have, they’ll get their hands dirty if need be but let's be honest, that’s about it. They aren't in it for the money or the power. They are in it for the rep and street cred and, it’s only a matter of time before it gets to their head, they start taking too many risks and they eventually end up inside.’
He took a pause and stared at me dead in the eye. ‘But that’s when the filth gets to them, start offering deals, less time...immunity... and then well, decisions have to made, don’t they?’
The innuendo of that rhetorical question wasn’t lost on me. Snitches get stitches.
‘But you, mate... You’re different. You’re clearly an intelligent lad but not just in an education sense. You knew how to get in here but you knew how to get out, too. The last bloke who came in here, thinking he could dictate terms to us, is in that duffel bag that I’ve given you. You’re 15 kid, you came in here with a pair of 5s and got me to fold. You’re born to do this.’
‘What if I refuse?’
‘Then, you and your brother walk, Omar stays working for us... and you owe me 50k. Pay back for the drugs and the loss of business’
‘Do we look like two people who have 50 grand?’ I asked, pleafully.
‘No. You don’t. You could be, though. The lads told me you live in a shit hole. They said when they broke in and trashed your mums house up, well it- it barely looked any fucking different. I look at you and I see someone who’s probably bullied by bigger lads with half a brain cell. I see someone who knows he’s special but hasn’t found his passion to really realise his potential. Today, however, I see you. I saw the look in your eye as you stuck my balls in a vice and started to tighten the clamp. You fucking loved it.’
Can this psycho actually read my fucking mind. ‘Orite, Dr.Lecter. You’re right, about everything. That’s half the issue, though. I might be clever but the fact remains, I do get bullied, I do get pushed around. How do you expect me to fare any better than Nathan did?’
‘Look at me. Do I look like I’m fucking Superman? These lads behind me here, they could kick seven shades of shit out of me, if they all decided but, they don’t. Do you know why?’
Cause you’ll fucking blow their brains out for swearing?
‘No, why?’ I asked out loud.
‘Cos I’m like you. I look at the big picture. I think outside the box. I make what we do, safe for everyone. I further everyone's interests, not just my own. I put things in place that make me untouchable. If one day, someone decides to take a shot at me. Hit or miss, that same night, that same person will be walking the street. Before he knows what's happening, he’s getting dragged into a van. He’ll wind up in a place, not too dissimilar to here. He’ll be held in place while his wife, kids, parents or whoever is closest are tortured, right in front of him. When that’s over, he’ll be nailed to a wooden chair. Fingers and toes cut off with bolt cutters. Eyelids pulled off with pliers. Then we’ll get a great big sledgehammer and crack his kneecaps then spread his legs and swing it hard and pop his bollo-’
‘I GET IT-.’ I cut him off before the harrowing images entered my head. ‘-I get it. People are scared of you.’
He cackled. ‘Fear keeps me safe, indeed. Respect, on the other hand, makes me god.’
I raised an eyebrow. I was genuinely intrigued. The guy wore a mask but I wanted to know more. I did admire him.
‘I started as a run about, for someone who ran his lads with an iron fist. He’d have us working the estates, 18 hours a night. If you we’re a few quid short, you’d have one of your fingers broken. He’d pay you absolute dick. If you grassed, he’d be as ruthless as anyone, in making sure that you suffered.’
‘And what? You gunna tell me, you’re not like that?’ I questioned in a mildly sarcastic manner, flashing a glance to the trail of blood leading into other room.
He cackled, again. ‘You think that was really just about today? He’s been a loose cannon for a while. Too many problems caused, simply because he can’t play in a team. I’ve been looking for an excuse for a while now. You see that’s where me and my old gaffer were different. He ran people with fear, no respect. No one would grass on him but, people we’re queuing up to put a bullet in him. No one had loyalty to him or respect for him. Wasn’t long before people noticed that I had a brain for this stuff and that I would be a better leader. I knew what we should sell and where we should sell it, what crews we needed to work with, which crews we needed to eliminate. Guys like him, they play checkers; People like me and you... We play chess.’
I looked at my watch. 11.58am. I looked the man in the eye. I slowly began to nod. Finally, I am seen.
‘Does that bag have the murder weapon in it?’ I asked.
‘Depends. You haven’t given me an answer, yet? He countered.
The answer to my question, if the same answer to yours. Your move.’ I gave the ultimatum.
The man grinned with satisfaction. He snapped his fingers, triggering one of the heavies to fetch another item from the chest freezer. The baseball bat. He opened the Duffell bag and slid the plastic evidence bag, holding the bat, in. The suited man then picked up the bag and sauntered over to me and dropped it in my free hand. He pulled an envelope of cash from his inside pocket. I guessed it to be around 500 quid based on the thickness. He then slid that, into my jeans pocket.
‘I’m glad we could make this happen. This should cover the taxi fare.’
‘Yeah, and the rest! it’ll be only 80 quid.’ I began to count out 4 twenties, as to hand back the rest to the man.
‘Give that whole amount to Omar. Call it a retainer for the next few days.’ The man said, as I heard Omars car horn beep loudly through the air. 12pm.
‘What do you mean? What’s happening over the next few days?’ I asked, taken back.
‘Get yourself and your brother, home. Rest up and I’ll text you a place and time in next 2 days, on the same phone as before. When you get that text, you call Omar. He’ll bring you to us. I’ll give you your product. I’ll also walk you through how this is going to work and what you need to do, to get started.’
I nodded. ‘I look forward to hearing from you.’ What the fuck, I actually did.
I supported Nathans weight, and together, we limped towards to garage door that was being opened for us. I was giving him quiet encouragements as he squirmed and winced, in agony.
‘Oh, and Will...’ I don’t remember telling him my name. Creepy. I turned to face the man, one more time.
‘...I don’t need to tell you that if you take Nathan to a hospital... He was never here. Understand?’
I nodded, again. I let our gaze, linger. Just in case, there was anything else. There was...
‘Would be a real shame if you made me do something I didn’t wanna do. You can be bright, brave and as impressive, as you want... but, if you grass... nothing will save you.’
‘I understand. You have my word.’
I went my way, the men turned their backs. ‘Oh...one more thing!’ I shouted. The suited man turned. ‘What happened to your old boss?’
The suited man chuckled. ‘I think you know.’
I nodded. I did.
I walked out of the unit. Bag of life sentence in one hand, battered older brother in the other. Omar, once spotting me, rushed out of the taxi and ran to grab Nathan off me.
‘Bloody hell, lad. I won’t lie, I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again. I think, we best get this one to a hospital?’
I pulled out the £500 and slapped it into Omar's hand. ‘Number 23, London Park Estate, Moss Heath, West Yorkshire. Keep the change cause you’re going to be bringing me back down soon.’
He looked at me, gone out. It had clearly been a while since he’d seen that sort of fare. I handed him the Duffell bag. I knew that he knew, what it was immediately, by the disbelief on his face. I noticed his eyes glass over with the first outbreak of tears of relief. He brought his face up, from the bag, to meet my gaze. I gave him a friendly smirk.
‘You owe me. So, you work for me, now.’

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Recruiting, Easy, Quick Money, Please Provide Info Below

When a company's called Will of The Dead (WotD from now on), anyone smart would probably stay far, far away from it.
But as you will notice throughout this post, I was (still am) a being filled to the brim with premium, top-quality homegrown organic idiocy, rivaling those typically displayed by horror movie protagonists.
"What's so strange about it?" Dusky scowled, huffing his cigarette and putting his legs on his table, "We're just helping the elderly, see? Not everyone's willing to carry out their often too strange wishes once they're gone. We're here to make sure they're carried through properly, for a fair price as well, if I say so myself, not that they'd care how much they had to pay anyway. They're dead."
The recruiting manager of the company was definitely a strange man; his every remark was carried out with quick wit, but also tinged by jaded sarcasm, as if he'd gone through the routine a million times. Another day, another gullible, desperate man looking to make quick money.
"So I just take whichever case I want?" I scrolled through the company page on the phone they just gave me, the company logo of a smiling angel cartoon holding a cardboard box staring right into my soul. There were thousands of entries, each with details regarding the clients and their needs.
"Yes," Dusky said, "Try to click it. You do own a smartphone? I hear not everyone does these days. Anyway, here, see, you can see the rewards we're offering once you've completed the request. But some may not be suitable for you. Ugh, like this one, 'Take Care of My Cat', or 'Deliver Flower on My Wife's and Children's Birthdays'. These usually offer you monthly payment, but binds you to a long term contract, see?"
"And 'Delete My Internet History' will seriously net me two hundred bucks?" I scoffed cynically.
"Ah, yes, we do have some of those, especially from the younger, impulse-fueled, prohibitionally-disabled clients trying to be funny. You might be surprised, though, it's often quite a hassle to get access to a dead person's gadgets or computers."
"I see. Most of these are very doable, though, I think I might try it after all."
Dusky smiled and shook my hand. He knew he's got me, and damn did he get me good.
I started out nice and easy with a shit-ton of 'Deliver a Letter', feeling like I was a level one adventurer starting out in the fantasy world that was the outside of my bedroom. Just gotta pick 'em up from the company and mail 'em. Couldn't believe they wouldn't just do it themselves, but then again these probably gave the smallest rewards. Still gave me more than my previous job, though, and once I verified that the payment I received was legit, I moved on to the bigger cases. 'Cover My Neighbor's House With Dogshit' was easy and satisfying. 'Publish My Autobiography' turned quickly into a shit-show as the book was literally just a thousand page of "why I killed myself" and "why everyone around me is complete human garbage". Probably the hardest I had taken so far was 'Destroy Evidence of Affair'; I had to pull so many strings, even investing my personal money to get sets of hired, specialized professionals to help me acquire all the evidence that the client's mistress had made a billion copies of. I was proud of completing this one without a hitch, and satisfaction washed over me as five thousand bucks rolled into my account.
But you aren't here to hear about these silly, mundane cases.
You see, months passed, and as I amassed what I thought was quite the fortune for myself, Dusky called me to his office.
"You look slightly better than a homeless person now." He stared at me, eating a bag of chips as he gestured for me to sit.
"Did I actually look like a homeless person before?"
"No."
"Oh."
"You looked worse."
"Oh, shut it."
"Aren't you glad you're doing better?"
"I guess." I shrugged.
"Yeah," He shrugged, "You need about, hmm, what was it? About sixty-thousand bucks more to barely get out of medical debt? Nearly there, I'd say."
I probably turned red inside out. Regret and poor decisions of the past came crashing down right on me like a waterfall. That is, if waterfalls were made of shit.
"Wait, how do you know this?" My voice cracked.
"And a personal loan of about two hund-"
"Stop, I get it. What the fuck do you want from me? I'm grateful you gave me a job, but I don't owe you anything, man."
"Sssshhhhhhhhhhhh," He shushed me far, far too long than I would've liked, "Papa Dusky's here to help. Here, gimme your phone."
I felt slightly violated, but gave him the phone anyway. He tinkered with it for a bit, and threw it right back at me, almost hitting me right in the face. I cleared my throat as loud as I could.
"What?"
"Never mind. What'd you do?"
"Gave you access to an unofficial subsidiary of our company. Take a look." He said, mouth full of chips.
I clicked at the company app, and was greeted with the familiar list of cases. Only now, there were millions of them. Realization hit me hard as I read them, revealing to me the true face of the company. I bet Dusky enjoyed watching me shake, cold sweat immediately drenching my newly-bought shirt.
"Dusky, y-you know that nearly all of this is just straight-up murder, right? You're joking, obviously. Haha, good one, Dusky, got me real good there."
He stared at me as if I was an extraterrestrial chicken with 63 IQ.
"Click any of 'em."
"Uh...sure?"
I was immediately greeted by a six figure number. The company logo had changed to a devil cartoon holding a cardboard box full of money. And guns.
Oh shit.
"You're serious."
"Wouldn't you know it, people feel less lonely walking down the highway to hell when accompanied by their most hated enemies." He yawned, as if unimpressed at how long it took for me to process it all.
"You're insane. You guys are insane, People are genuinely taking these cases?" I mumbled, slightly light-headed.
"Oh, sure. I mean, you get to travel the world as well if you pick overseas cases, you know? After all, we're an International based company. Doesn't it sound fun? Who wouldn't take it with such meaty payoff waiting for you? Meanwhile, I'm stuck here in this shitty office all fucking day. Ugh."
"Listen, some of the stuff I was doing was barely legal, and this is...this is too much. I-I don't think I can, Dusky."
"Legal?" He scoffed, "Is that what you're scared of? You just gotta make sure the job's done. You don't even have to worry about the legal mess afterwards, even if you get caught. We have specialized departments to take care of that, see?"
No, goddammit. I'm not gonna accept. Calmly, politely refuse, and walk away.
"I-I'll need time to think about it."
"Sure, buddy, go on ahead. Also, just a small tip from me, try to sort by 'Old' if you're bored. Might give your adventurous spirit a small incentive." He winked knowingly.
--
That night, I tossed and turned countless times on my bed, anxiety assaulting me in full force and making me want to vomit acid continuously. Should I report this to the police? They wouldn't believe me, would they? What would I tell them anyway, that there was an organization consisting of millions of people who would murder because the dead had paid them to do so? I would have sounded like a lunatic, like one of those conspiracy theorists screaming out half-baked arguments with evidence out their ass to back them up. Dusky made it obvious they had connections with the authorities anyway, there was truly nothing I could have done. Except quit. Resign, drop the whole thing, find honest work, get out with my life, and never look back.
But I didn't. I kept scrolling down through hundreds of pages like I did before I took this job, but when I previously was looking for funny cat gifs or exciting stories to escape my miserable life from, I was now staring at a genuine hit-list, with the only exceptions being 'Torture, But Don't Kill Indefinitely', 'Euthanize My Children', and 'Drug My Family'. I was horrified. I wasn't immoral; I knew what was right and wrong, but that damn devil kept on grinning at me with his stupid cardboard box. I tapped on it furiously, and it kept making a cha-ching noise as green cash rained out of it.
If only I could find one that was least horrible, if only I could do just one, then I could probably actually get out of debt and had a real shot at a decent life. Maybe, just maybe...
Dusky's voice popped in my head.
Dare you to sort by 'Old'. Yeah, you won't.
There was no harm in just knowing, was there? I'd just read what they were about, and leave sleeping dogs be. I sorted and clicked the top-most result, a case no one had taken for three years. Rubbing my eyes, I refreshed to make sure I wasn't miscounting the zeroes that were staring at my dumb face. I wasn't.
Ten. Million. Dollars.
This was way more than I needed at the time, so why even bother? I was immediately overcome with uneasiness, but come on, would you tell me you'd just leave if even the possibility of obtaining this much money was presented so conveniently? I'd literally never have to work a single day the rest of my life. I had to keep on reading.
'Need Someone With a Huge Appetite'
Come to my mansion for a feast of the Heavens, an out-of-the-world supper I personally curated for you.
For more info, please contact my Butler, Brian Enoch, at (xxx)-xxx-xxxx
-- C
Wait.
That was it?
How terrible, for someone to have offered so much, yet be so cryptic about it. It was normal to leave only an initial as to be anonymous, but the job description typically contained many more details regarding what it was that needed to be done. I convinced myself I was not about to give up until I knew for sure what I had to do to get the ten mils. Part of it was curiosity, and part of it was wishful thinking that I might succeed. I scribbled down his number, and without thinking twice, dialed in at two in the morning.
The world stopped turning as the other line picked up.
"Hello." A raspy, calm voice.
"Hi, this is Joseph, calling from Will of The Dead."
"Ah, yes. It is unfortunate what happened to your previous colleagues, but are you perhaps willing to take the job? We are still looking indeed."
My heart sank. He clearly meant that there were people who had tried the job, and all died as a result; even more so, Brian clearly did not care, as he'd take as many volunteers as possible, as long as the job was carried out. It now made sense why the job was still available after three years, even with the absurd reward. At least Brian didn't sound forceful, though, so I felt it'd be okay to ask.
"Could I have details regarding the job, if you don't mind?"
"Of course. We need you to consume a series of dishes and items, most of which would not be considered to be a staple of the human diet, though all of it are, of course, edible. It would be very preferable if you were not someone with a weak stomach, as I'm afraid that if you were to vomit, you would instantly fail."
Psh. How hard could it be? I'd been to Asia before. I had eaten roasted cockroaches, grilled duck embryo, and pickled baby rats. I could handle this.
"Do forgive me for being rude, but the reward does not seem to mirror the job description?"
He gave a long pause before answering.
"Ahem," He coughed, clearing his throat, "No, it is only right of you to say that, and it is only right of me to inform you that the job does come with a very high risk. I suggest purchasing a decent life insurance if you do decide to take it."
"...What risk, if I may?"
"Unfortunately this is something only to be talked about between closed walls."
My brain spun. Could this just be bait for a serial murderer wanting to poison his victims? It was certainly possible. Would I end up in his fridge, my limbs chopped up and my brain pickled in garlic and soy sauce? But there was something strange in Mr. Enoch's voice, as if it was finding its way to the deepest parts of my brain, stealing all of my rationality away. Hell, maybe it was just the ten million dollars. Or maybe it was the alcohol.
Fuck.
"I accept."
I could see Dusky grinning at the back of my mind, his sly laugh sending shivers down my spine.
"Perfect. I will arrange for someone to pick you up. Please provide the location, and I will provide the preferred time."
--
At the very least, I did buy life insurance. Said my sorries. Kissed my cats goodbye, totally did not cry for hours on end. Sent a package of glitter-covered dogshit bomb to Dusky. Confessed my sins, had one last church service though I'd forgotten literally all of my prayers. Granted, I was drunk, but I thought that it'd make me feel like I'd have nothing left to lose, you know? That somehow this was going to strengthen my conviction.
Still didn't stop me shaking as I took off my blindfold, got out of the car and saw what I was getting into.
A gigantic mansion surrounded by an absurdly thick forest, icy moonlight bearing down and revealing hundreds of men and women of all ages covered in cloaks, all kneeling down as I stumbled my way through the garden, passing under huge, eerily lifelike statues of figures I could not recognize. They mumbled a strange chant, repeating them in a low voice as I reached and climbed the needlessly long and wide staircase leading to the entrance.
The ornate, antique doors opened, and a well-groomed man bowed at me. Brian was what I had imagined him to be, an aged man of perfect stature and manners. His suit was lined with strange symbols, distinguishing his status from the rest of the employees (?) at the place.
"Glad you could make it, Joseph. Please, if you would," He gestured at me to come in.
I froze for two full minutes. I knew that once I entered, there was probably no leaving. I looked back, the crowd's stares boring a deep hole in my skull as they kept on chanting. Tch. What a horrible final sight. I took a deep breath, stabilizing my jelly legs. Lied to myself that it was going to be okay. Pictured my cats at my side.
I marched in.
Brian smiled at me.
"I have high hopes, sir Joseph."
"Yeah, I've had those all my life. I've learned my lesson. Actually, maybe I haven't."
"Would you like to prepare and calm down with a cup of hot tea? Perhaps a brief rest to calm your nerves. I imagine it would be hard to handle utensils or properly chew with how violently you are trembling."
"I-I'm fine! I'm sorry, Mr. Enoch, for my rudeness, but really, I just want to be done with it."
"Then please, follow me." He bowed, leading me deeper into the mansion.
I remembered my consciousness fading in and out as we headed to the dining room, my conversation with Brian somewhat blurred by the sound of my thumping heart. It was a strange sensation, my body stubbornly moving forward, my soul desperately trying to leave, and both knowing that I'd probably die tonight. I noticed strange portraits lining the walls in the mansion, foreign inscriptions and dates underneath them, and some rooms in the mansion that were heavily guarded. Other than that, I don't quite remember anything else.
I found myself in an unnaturally large chair and in front of a long wooden table, a bell resonating in my ear as Mr. Enoch signaled for the maids to bring the dishes in. I shook my head and slapped myself a few times, and my eyes were finally able to focus back to reality.
"Shall I explain the procedures of the trial, sir Joseph?"
"Please."
"You will be presented with a number of items that you have to consume. At no point during the meal are you allowed to regurgitate. As there is no time limit, it is suggested you take your time through the night."
"Sure." I gulped.
"Anything else you would like adjusted? The temperature, perhaps?"
"J-just, dim the lights, maybe. These damn lamps are giving me a headache."
"Very well." He clapped, and the iridescent lights were immediately gone. He brought candles in instead, which was better themed for the occasion, if anything.
"I will now serve." He said, bowing.
A beautiful crystalline glass was prepared for me, and Brian put it to my side. He pulled up what seemed to resemble a decanter filled with wine, but by the way the liquid inside it was flowing, I knew it was no wine. I immediately retched as the viscous fluid entered my glass. Was it a human's? Was it an animal's?
"You are free to wash down any food with this, sir Joseph. You are not required to finish all at once, but you are required to have drunk all of it by the end of the meal. Do you understand?"
"S-sure..."
"Now, for your appetizer."
He served a small plate, covered with a metal dome, as if to tease my weak heart even further.
"Oh, for Christ's sake," I moaned, "Ditch the metal covers. For the other dishes, too. I can tell this is going to be horrible and I'll hate being surprised every single time."
"Very well." He chuckled, removing the cover of the first plate.
"Oh, fuck!" I nearly yelled.
A frog. I rubbed my eyes. Yup, that's a dead frog. Raw and skinned, but at least it wasn't rotting. Yes, I realize that this is a very sad thing to say. There were black speckles all over it, and I tried to look closer.
"Are those..."
"Various winged insects, yes. Very nutritious." He smiled.
I poked at it with my fork and retched. Again. Some of the flies were still crawling, their wings flapping weakly. Wait, did I just see the frog's muscles twitching? Or was that its glistening eyes that just moved?
"D-do I have to...finish all of this up? Can't I just take a bite?"
"There is no point in undertaking a trial unless you fully overcome the challenges it presents, sir Joseph. May I suggest you eat the whole thing at once? Its bones are quite soft and delectable."
"If-If you say so..."
I hesitantly stabbed it and dangled it in the air for a bit, its arms and legs flailing. I'm not sure what it was I wanted to happen. You know that feeling you get when you don't really want to do something, but you know you have to do it anyway? And then you start procrastinating for some unknown reasons doing fuck-all hoping to forget your responsibility, eventually disappointed at yourself for having wasted so much time? Yeah. I wish I could've just stared at the frog's innocent corpse for hours. Kind of like how I don't really want to recall what's about to happen, but I'll stop digressing here.
Sorry.
I put it in my mouth, and immediately chewed. It was rather mild and somewhat tasteless, but its meat was unbelievably slippery, falling apart, yet sliding around as if the goddamn frog was still kicking and fighting my teeth. When my tongue felt the wings and the antennae of the flies and the other small insects, I had to stop myself from vomiting. I'd prepared beforehand and learned of how to suppress the gag reflex, but oh my lord did I nearly fail in literally the first one. I kept munching, and the soft crunch of the bones mixed with the slimy, fishy eyes absolutely placed the frog in my nightmares to come, if I were to survive this ordeal.
Somehow I pushed it all to the back of my throat and swallowed.
I looked at the glass, tears already flowing down my hot eyes. Grabbing the glass, my hands started shaking again, and it seemed to take forever for the blood to flow and finally touch my lips. I took a sip, and nearly slammed the glass down; I wasn't sure how I was going to finish this disgusting fluid, but I could worry about that later. At least it made me forget about the frog.
"How was the appetizer?" Brian smiled, amused at my reaction.
"It can't get much worse. Get on with it."
"Very well."
He served the second dish, and the smell immediately assaulted me. This was literally a rotting piece of raw meat, a layer of skin covering it still intact and covered with lumps. I pushed my fork against the lumps, and white pus came right out of it.
I took the glass and had a larger gulp. Compared to what I was seeing, the blood surely tasted alright. The thick, sharp liquid still made me gag as if my body was rejecting it, but it made me realize that I could just pick the less horrible one of the two and progress slowly like this. I cut a small piece of meat and ate it.
As expected, the lumps popped out, covering my tongue and the roof of my mouth with pus. Strangely, among the horrendous mix of rotting smells, I could taste a hint of sweetness, which screwed my brain over and made the entire thing even more disgusting. I washed it down quickly with blood, struggling to swallow all of it down. The pieces made their way up my throat and back down several times before finally settling. My esophagus was burning with acid. Fortunately the human body adapts quickly to smells. I cut another, drank more, cut another, and drank even more. My eyes and nose were leaking, and my brain felt like it had inhaled a dose of toxic fume, but I did it. I cleaned the fucking plate.
He poured more blood from the decanter.
Brian chuckled and gave me a handkerchief. I barely cared to wipe my face.
"I must admit that this plate troubles even me every single time."
"What, you lot regularly eat these for dinner?"
"Once a week, for those who are devoted members of the organization." He nodded.
"I'm...not even gonna ask." I grimaced.
"This is one of my favorites!"
He served the next dish, a small bowl with an ice cube in the middle of it, cold smoke radiating outwards. He lit a match, brought it close to the bowl.
"Wait, what are you--"
The ice cube caught the blue fire and lit up like it was made of alcohol.
"So...how exactly am I supposed to eat this?"
"Whole thing in your mouth!" He flicked the match off.
"You realize this will burn me and probably seriously injure me?"
"Oh, nothing so serious. Not if you're quick, at least. You can smother the fire with a swift tongue."
I mean, it made sense. I've heard that without oxygen, fire won't burn, right? Just gotta shut my mouth tight and finish the damn ice cube, which was probably the best thing on the menu so far. I picked the bowl up, and dumped the whole thing in my mouth.
Let's just say that taste was never going to be a problem to me the rest of the trial.
And the rest of my life.
"Oh dear," Brian said, stroking his beard, "this rarely happens."
I shook my head and gestured for the next dish.
The next plate seemed simple enough, with what seemed to be a mountain of grasshoppers in it. I recalled that grasshoppers were common as snacks in some regions, and were quite delicious lightly salted and roasted or fried. Unfortunately these were alive.
"A word of warning, sir Joseph," Brian said, "This is where nearly all of your colleagues fail. It is best you prepare yourself. We're nearing the end, it would be a shame if you were to fail here as well."
As a gesture of spite, I immediately grabbed a bunch of them with my hands and shoved them down my throat, viciously munching their squirming exoskeletons. It wasn't until I nearly finished the plate that I realized what was happening. They were still alive inside me, nibbling at my digestive tracts. The insides of my throat were slit by tiny blades more times than I could count, and I could feel some of them even trying to fly back out, and some even through my nose.
I was exhausted and in tremendous pain that I was once again phasing in and out of reality. I could have given up, let go of the light, and let the darkness embrace me. Why was I trying so hard, anyway? I've always had a shitty life. Just let them out, and let them kill you. Let all of this fucking end.
But at this point, I was also angry. Furious, in fact, that I was going to lose all this because I simply couldn't chew properly. That my idiocy was going to cost me my life, and render all this suffering pointless.
I propped my jaw fucking shut, and shoved a knife down my nose, squishing all those bugs for good and snorting them back down violently with my snot. With what little blood left (surprisingly), and because it didn't fucking matter how it tasted anymore, I gulped and gulped until I could feel them drown down to my messed-up stomach, where the acid slowly churned them.
It was about half an hour before the struggle was over, but I had a strange, fucked-up satisfaction when I got through it.
That's gotta be it, though, right?
Didn't he say that we were near the end?
I finished the glass, threw it hard across the table. Its shatter was satisfying to hear.
"Oh dear," He said, "Unfortunately, we're not done, sir. I would, however, like to congratulate you for being the only one to have made it this far in recent years."
Oh, come the fuck on.
I raised my hands, trying to convey the question of what else it was that needed to be done. I must have looked like a monkey.
"Have you noticed something with the dishes you have consumed so far, sir?"
I shook my head.
"Blood, frog, lice and flies. Diseased livestock and boils. Hail and fire. Locusts?"
Okay?
Something about plagues of Egypt, so these guys were definitely religious lunatics. I was Catholic only in papers, and had zero knowledge of biblical events and their significance.
"You have conquered most of God's trials and proclaimed your will to stand against Him. If you recall correctly, however, we still have two trials left. I realize this is not stated in the contract, but I can not let this chance go. After all, our great father would have to wait for who knows how many more years if I let you go here, and that is simply unacceptable. Guards, if you would."
At my confusion, the guards came in and restrained me, tying me up against my chair as Brian pulled up a small knife from his pockets.
"The ninth trial, total darkness." Brian whispered.
With a definite force, his knife plunged deep into my eyeball, and one side of my vision immediately disappeared. An unholy, guttural scream escaped me as warm fluid streamed down my cheeks, and I had most likely tore my voice box when he was done gouging out my eye with frightening precision. What was left was a bleeding socket, burning with intense pain that he, of course, promptly cauterized with a candle. Unfortunately for me, this was not "total" darkness. Soon my other eye followed, and I think I must have also blacked out for a couple minutes as I completely lost my vision. After all, there was a limit to how much pain a human could handle, and I'm glad I could not remember most of it.
I think I was force fed my own eyeballs afterwards, but I wasn't sure.
The guards released me, and I could somehow feel Brian gleaming with satisfaction as I fell to the floor and whimpered for mercy.
"Finally. A vessel fit for father. Karina!"
"Yes, brother, we are ready." A woman responded a little too quickly in the background; I could hear excitement in her soft voice.
Brian pulled my hand and put something in it. It felt like the knife he was using earlier to stab me, still wet with sticky bodily fluid. I stood back up, clutching the knife tightly.
"The final trial. Death of the firstborn."
He guided my hand to his chest, drawing an X there.
"It will be over soon, sir Joseph. I'm sure this part would not be difficult, as I had just blinded you for life. Please, carve my heart out of my chest, and let me serve my purpose for the great father. You will have completed the contract after this, and will receive suitable compensation."
Funny.
After all I'd gone through to make sure I wouldn't be doing something that would guilt me the rest of my life, the last thing I had to do ended up being murder anyway. You know what else is also funny?
That I had no single fuck left to give.
I swung, and I swung. Once it stuck, I could feel him giving me a hand, pushing the heel of the knife deeper without any shred of doubt. Again, I could almost feel him smiling; that eerie, empty smile he always had since the beginning. Even in the end, he never screamed, nor uttered a word of farewell. We were both just tools, disposable and without meaning in the grand scheme of things, our arbitrary morals powerless against the absurdity of the world.
"This is how you do it." Karina's lilting voice caressed me as her delicate fingers forcefully guided my hands with accuracy, severing flesh and vessels around Brian's heart efficiently, warm blood spurting all over us.
Feeling the thumping slow down to a stop, my world spun as something cold washed over my entire body.
I couldn't move.
Ancient voices flooded my head.
I had lost myself.
--
A man stood beside me, a bloody stone in his hand. Before us was the body of another man.
"Thank you," He smiled at me. Somehow I could understand his language.
"Uh...you're welcome?"
"Do you know who I am?"
"I'm near illiterate about religion, but I can pretty much figure out who you're supposed to be."
"Yes." He looked down, an intricate scar lining his arm.
"Why'd you kill him? Was it really just jealousy?" I looked at the disfigured man on the ground; strangely, his corpse seemed to be smiling.
He laughed heartily.
"No such thing. We loved each other."
"Then why?"
He shrugged.
"I don't know. It's just the way the world was created. Water and land. Day and night. Good and evil. One of us had to be it, and I chose to cut my brother's suffering short."
"I'm not sure I get it."
"This mark," He pointed, "Prevents me from ascending. No matter how many times I die, it's etched deep into my soul and tethers my existence to this land."
"Yikes."
He laughed.
"Indeed. If one of us were to get it, I'd prefer it was me. After all, my little brother would have long lost his fragile mind had he got this mark. One of us is bound to go down rotten in history."
"It's still fucked up what your cult is doing."
He smiled, the exact same smile Brian had given me time and time again.
"Oh, you've yet to see what is to come. You think I'd stay still after being shackled to this abomination of a world for so long?"
"Great. Can't wait." I rolled my eyes, making him laugh.
"I rather enjoy your company. You certainly remind me of my brother. It's too bad this may be the last time we converse with each other."
"What, is my body not good enough for you?"
"Uh...Strange way to phrase it, but no, unfortunately," He shook his head, "Your body serves only to capture my soul, and would disintegrate in a short time. My descendants have prepared a more appropriate vessel, one that is much stronger and would last for a few centuries. Thank you for assisting in this transference."
"Sure."
He pat my back.
I regained my consciousness.
I could hear voices around me, thousands of people cheering and rejoicing as they chanted songs and prayers.
A baby was crying.
I heard Karina's voice as she lifted the baby.
"We offer our body to the great father! Long live the king!"
Long live the king!
--
I was back in Dusky's office, months after hospitalization, a shit load of drugs, and what seemed to be endless sessions of therapy. Mostly because my cats seemed to have forgotten who I was; I'd cry, but, you know. It's nice that this time I didn't have to worry about my bills, and I'd hired a supposedly beautiful, big breasted, and brilliant blonde lady to be my assistant. Got a haircut, and bought a pair of nice sunglasses.
Hey, I deserved it.
"Ugh," Dusky sighed, "I don't appreciate the shlitter bomb, but I can't believe you actually did it."
"Well, I did." I shrugged. His cigarette smell seemed even more pronounced; I suppose it's true that when one of your senses is taken, you get so many more stimuli to focus on.
"You know you probably just initiated what would come to be the end of the world, right?"
"Oh, who fucking cares."
He clicked his tongue and inhaled sharply.
"With this, you don't have to take any more requests for a while, I guess. Why are you here?"
"I want out."
"Excuse me?"
"Out. Forever. No more ties to this place. No more jobs, no more requests."
"Huuuuuuuhh?" He sneered, "You've read the fine prints. That's a no-can-do from me, boy. Like, come on, you get to take a near twenty-year break from that. Plus, do you really think the ten mil's gonna last you long enough with you not knowing how to manage the slightest bit of money anyway? Look, that damn bimbo's probably gonna suck the shit out of all your savings!"
"Oh, shut the fuck up, Dusky." Molly said. I gave her a thumbs up. Just like we practiced.
"Yeah, shut the fuck up, Dusky. I just finished a job no one could do in three years. I'm sure you could pull some strings for me. Or do you want me to call the Enochs and let them know where their precious little Dusky is?"
He seemed surprise. As a parting gift, Karina had told me a way to get out of the company, and of Dusky's real identity. But this is a story for another time. He grunted for a solid minute, grumbling here and there to himself. He made a few phone calls, every once in a while giving me the finger.
"Fine, you asshat," He closed his phone, "On one condition."
"What is it?"
"You get us replacements. For your spot. And more, if possible; you know we--ahem, they're always in need of more members."
"Deal."
And so here I am, with complete honesty, extending my hand out to those in need of help.
I swear that all that have happened here is a unique case, all a result of my own recklessness. Most of the employees working here have had excellent experiences, and some of the honest works are very rewarding. You don't have to get involved with things that are...dangerous.
I won't mislead you like Dusky did, and will properly explain the fine prints regarding getting employed by the company. We will get you started on a job immediately.
So please, do provide your info in the comments, or contact me directly.
This is your opportunity, your chance to travel and change your life for the better.
Come on, I'll even write your stories down and post updates on your well-being from time to time so your families don't have to worry!
Give it a try.
You don't want to miss it.

Fanfiction: Tales from Fredbear's: One Large Anchovy

Rating: T for graphic violence and gore, humiliation, mild swearing
Setting: Fredbear's Family Diner, 1981, prior to all of the tragedies
Summary: Willing to do anything to humiliate and degrade his business partner and their long-time worker, Will Afton is infuriated when his scheme backfires. That same night he finds he is also willing to go to any lengths to seek revenge.
Author's Note: It was recently announced that a new series of FNaF books is on its way, each containing short stories set in the game universe. This was written in anticipation as one fan's attempt at such a story. Specifically, this one speculates what might have pushed an already-unstable William Afton to cross the line to pure evil.
Five Nights at Freddy's and all canon characters, settings, etc. are the property of Scott Cawthon.
You are free to use any original concepts, headcanons and characters from this fanfiction in your own work (fanfiction, art, etc.) if you'd like.
Views expressed in this fanfiction do not necessarily match the writer's, especially those of Afton, because he's a first-class jerk in this one.
"I swear, the very next time a worker pulls a no-show," seethed William Afton, scooping up a ladleful of tomato sauce, "I will hunt him down and end him." Pressed into service in the kitchen of his business enterprise, a family diner and children's party venue, he slung the sauce onto an empty pizza shell with pure fury, hearing cries of annoyance from those working on either side of him.
"C'mon, Will," sighed Henry, frowning down at the flecks of red that had spattered his favorite flannel shirt. Eternally calm and laid back, he stood in sharp contrast to his friend and business partner's fiery and spirited nature. "We knew there would be some setbacks like this when we went into this line of work, and that we'd have to pick up the slack ourselves from time to time. Still, it is admittedly a tough break to have both our food prep guys and our delivery driver leave us high and dry on the same night, again. No matter who we hire, why do they always seem to quit in groups?" He returned his attention to his own pizza creation, applying a generous sprinkling of mozzarella with much more care than Will. Just the same, I hope we haven't gotten in over our heads with this late-night delivery schtick after the dining area closes for the night, he silently fretted.
"Alright, so it's hard to find good help, but how tough should it be to hire some local flunkie kids at minimum wage and actually keep them on?" groused Will, clearly not done yet as he glared down at the haphazard mess of a pizza on the table before him as if it represented every questionable business decision he had grown to regret. "We're talking complete no-talent jobs here that any fool could do." The sound of someone clearing his throat interrupted his ranting.
"I-I'm right here, Sir," protested their young worker, finally finding his voice even if it was far less self-assured than Henry's. Clyde hadn't fared any better than Henry against Will's sauce-slinging tirade, and removed his eyeglasses to stare in dismay at them, finally opting to wipe the lenses on the cleanest area of his uniform shirt he could find.
"Present company excepted!" Out of habit, Henry was quick to apologize on Will's behalf, sending a look of unmistakable pity Clyde's way. He means well, he mouthed, although he knew that wasn't exactly true of his abrasive partner. Will may have been a shrewd businessman whose decisions had kept their fledgling enterprise afloat through its first lean years, but he made few attempts to hide his inner mean streak, especially when it came to the frequent mistreatment of anyone he could easily manipulate. While even Henry was at times intimidated by his own friend, Clyde offered far less resistance and had found himself Will's preferred target as a result.
"Well, at least you're loyal, I'll give you that," Will conceded, adding under his breath, "but last time I checked, getting enlisted for food prep is a promotion from scrubbing dishes and mopping the floors." He was inwardly delighted when Clyde's shoulders fell at the insult he'd fully meant for him to overhear.
"Here." A short while later, Will shoved the warming bag containing the stack of pizza boxes against Clyde's chest so hard he was forced to take a step backward to avoid sprawling on the tiled kitchen floor. "You're delivering these, and remember, fifteen minutes or it's free and it comes out of your pay. Hope that beater of a car can even get there that fast." Crestfallen but ever obedient, Clyde wasted no time hustling out the back door, while Henry watched in silent disapproval.
I halfway wish that kid had the self-esteem to quit, he thought in dismay, but I doubt he ever will. He's destined to be a "lifer" at Fredbear's just as much as I am.
Having been deputized as a delivery driver on previous occasions, Clyde strongly preferred the coveted job because it at least let him escape Will's surly temperament for short stretches at a time, plus the tips supplemented his meager wages. Yet when his Datsun hatchback slid to a stop by the curb in front of a sprawling mansion where a wild party was in full swing, his heart sank.
"Oh no." Though he hadn't recognized the address Will had written on the delivery slip, upon arrival there was no mistaking exactly where he had been dispatched. Everyone knew the estate, settled on its large expanse of manicured lawn on the far edge of town and owned by a local business tycoon, who while far more successful than Will, was his undisputed equal when it came to ruthlessness.
The double front doors of the stately home swung open and a crowd of youthful and rowdy partygoers spilled out, joining those already filling the wide-columned front porch that ran the length of the building. The host of the party stepped to the front of the crowd, crossing his arms over his chest and regarding the scrappy car and its driver with a malicious gleam in his eye.
Well, here goes nothing, thought Clyde. Awkwardly scrambling out through the driver's side window since both doors had been jammed shut after a minor collision years before, he retrieved the pizzas from the warmer and made his way up the path, then froze halfway in startlement when he caught sight of the man's expression.
"Oh, uh, hi, Jerry," he stammered, forcing himself to smile as he greeted the former classmate who had relentlessly bullied him throughout high school. Maybe he's changed, he fervently hoped, though the sneer plastered across Jerry's face suggested otherwise.
"Hey guys, look who's delivering pizzas for Fredbear's now!" the priviliged scion of the richest family in town jeered, and snickers broke out among the crowd. "Just two years after graduation and he's already put us all to shame with his career ambitions. Talk about moving up in the world, and here we all bet he wouldn't amount to anything!"
Clyde clutched the cardboard boxes tighter, deeply uncomfortable at being harshly scrutinized by the former "in-crowd."
"That'll be fifteen dollars, Jerry," he said tersely through gritted teeth. "And get bent." His nemesis clapped a hand to his mouth in mock disbelief.
"Why Clyde, I'm shocked! Such a filthy mouth. Guess it matches your overall look," he said, making the delivery driver suddenly self-conscious of his uniform shirt and knockoff-brand jeans, both of which bore traces of flour and pizza sauce, betraying the fact he also labored in the restaurant's kitchen.
"It's high time you cleaned up your act, dirtbag. Allow me to help you with that one." Jerry snapped his fingers, an apparent cue to someone just inside the house, and Clyde halted in confusion, hearing a mechanical clacking noise. To either side of the narrow walk he stood on, small metal disks were rising like mushrooms from the lawn in a grid-like pattern.
He realized Jerry's intentions all too late when the sprinkler system kicked on in full force, and dropped the pizzas as he brought up his arms to futilely shield himself from the drenching spray, cursing a blue streak all the while at being tricked. Blinded by the torrent of water, Clyde turned to sprint in what he hoped was the direction of his car, only to trip over a sprinklerhead and sprawl face-first on the soggy lawn, all to the tune of laughter from his audience.
The sprinklers abruptly stopped, and Jerry strode triumphantly over to his adversary as he pulled himself to his feet, looking rather pathetic as he readjusted his glasses and ballcap that had been knocked askew by the force of the spray.
"Just as cool as ever," he taunted, "and you can forget about your fifteen bucks. You really didn't catch on that this was all a set-up, and a hilarious one at that? I mean, maybe you didn't see it as such, but--"
"Oh yeah?" Clyde interrupted in an unexpected display of defiance, both hands on his hips. "Fine, then, have it your way." Stalking out to the hatchback, his sodden tennis shoes squishing with every step, he reached inside the open window, pulling out a corded telephone handset.
"Hello. Hello?" he practically shouted into the mouthpiece, yet keeping his voice level. "Yeah, that delivery order on Washington Avenue? We're dealing with a refusal to pay here."
"Fredbear's gives their drivers car phones?" Jerry gasped in disbelief, for he'd been expecting Clyde to meekly accept defeat and drive off in shame.
"...Okay, got it, standard protocol. I'll let him know!" Clyde dropped the phone back into the car, then returned to the path. Something in his changed demeanor left his nemesis with a sinking feeling.
"That was my boss, and 'fraid to let you know, but at Fredbear's Family Diner, we don't take the theft of goods and services lightly. He said you've got five minutes to pay up in full or I'm to report the theft to the cops." Grinning smugly, Clyde gestured with a dripping, muddied arm across the property, which was liberally strewn with the detritus of a celebration run amok. "Think you could clear out all your guests and clean this up in the time it would take the fuzz to arrive? It's your choice, pal." The former high school bully gaped at him in open-mouthed shock before reluctantly pulling out his wallet.
"You snot-nosed, scrawny-ass little punk," he hissed under his breath, pressing three five-dollar bills into Clyde's hand. "You wouldn't dare." Somebody on the porch behind him let out a low whistle, breaking the silence that followed, and Jerry shot a glare back at his guests.
"Actually, I would dare," Clyde shot back. "And I believe a tip is customary?" Leaning in close, he ignored the inner voice warning him not to press his luck. "Fifty bucks and I'll let bygones be bygones and forget any of this ever happened. Your old man would sure be sore if word about this got back to him. I may be delivering pizzas at twenty, but at least I'm not throwing house parties behind my dad's back like some overgrown high-school kid."
"This is blackmail!" Jerry wailed, already digging in his wallet for more cash and knowing the delivery driver had him.
"Damn straight it is," said Clyde, making a show of tucking the bills in his shirt pocket. Tipping his cap to the awed crowd, he cheerfully added, "Have a nice night, and thanks for choosing Fredbear's Family Diner!"
I can't believe he got one over on me! Jerry fumed, stomping a foot on the walkway in utter frustration. That officially wrecks this party.
Although Clyde pulled away from the scene of the crime with a defiant squeal of his tires, it wasn't until he'd put some distance between himself and his aggressors that he dared to look in his rear-view mirror, ostensibly to reassure himself he wasn't being followed. He was almost startled at the reflection greeting him, that of a guy who may have taken a few hits but had gotten his own back for once and whose eyes had a spark of mirth he had never noticed before. Twisting the dial on the car radio, Clyde drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as the strains of The Sweet filled the hatchback's tinny interior, a suitable match for the adrenaline rush that promised to continue surging through his body for the rest of his shift.
He grinned down at the handset on the passenger seat. Far from a functional and high-tech car phone, it was nothing more than a broken piece of office equipment from the pizzeria, and it had been Henry's idea to take it along on deliveries to fool pranksters into believing the police could be called on the spot if they refused to pay. I can't believe I actually pulled that one off!
"What the hell happened to you?" Will demanded when Clyde returned to the kitchen, soaked and filthy. "Did you get in a fight or something?"
"Yeah, sorta, but you should see the other guy." The delivery driver beamed as he flicked some stray blades of grass off his shirt, then plunked the hard-earned payment for the pizzas down on the countertop in front of his astonished boss while keeping silent about the extravagant tip he'd extorted from their customer. Despite his deplorable appearance, he felt on top of the world.
"Forget the other guy; you look like a drowned rat," Henry said with a smirk, knowing Clyde was hardly the type to instigate a physical altercation. "At least go to the supply room and borrow a spare uniform shirt for the rest of your shift, and then you owe us a full account of whatever went down." After the way this night started, it's nice to see him positively glowing for once, he thought.
From the time Will and Henry had started the laborious process of building their innovative business concept from the ground up, they had quickly fallen into roles that suited Will just fine. As the charismatic, outgoing half of the duo, he handled the legal issues over zoning of the property, disputes with vendors, and of course the publicity, often with a great deal more aggression than necessary. Henry was content to toil unobtrusively behind the scenes, designing, programming and testing the animatronic characters that would bring joy to their future young patrons, all the while with a serious demeanor but a secretive smile on his face, for he held a true passion for his work.
If Will relished the control over the business itself, he absolutely thrived over subtly controlling Henry, outright dismissing many of his suggestions as inane and trashing some of his finished work, even after it had been done to his exact specifications. Having known his more reticent friend for years, Will still gained a secret thrill when he had nearly reduced the man to tears of self-doubt, but he cautiously maintained just enough restraint not to push him too far to the point where Henry might feel threatened enough to quit the partnership.
Clyde had been their very first hire, barely out of high school. Watching with grim amusement as he stammered his way through an awkward job interview, Will had lost no time in hiring someone clearly as unsure of himself as Henry, only even more compliant. What he hadn't expected was that Henry would take their new lackey under his wing and find a kindred spirit in him that left him feeling like the third wheel. Of course they would find common ground; they were both intimidated by him, only by different degrees.
It wasn't long before Will would find the duo on their lunch breaks, enthusiastically discussing new routines for the animatronics' song-and-dance numbers or skits for their on-stage banter, both animated with the child-like wonder they held for the characters Henry had created.
Henry had been his to control, his to direct. Will had been envious enough when his partner had found love against all odds and married several years before, but at least Henry's wife was mostly sequestered at home with their toddler, and to his credit, Henry had never used his new fatherhood as an excuse to cut back on his work hours. Despite this envy, Will also had to begrudgingly admit that in a business with an incredibly high turnover rate, Clyde may not have been their most competent worker but he was the only other one who was loyal to a fault and had stayed on since the beginning, so it would be a poor decision to fire him without cause.
If Will had started the night in a foul mood, coaxing the story of the prank-turned-revenge out of Clyde and seeing his withdrawn employee slowly discovering his self-confidence only stoked his temper. To make matters worse, Henry seemingly couldn't leave the kid's side, lavishing praise on him for standing up for himself and leaving Will deeply disgruntled. The last thing he wanted was for Henry to get ideas and start rebelling against the way things had always been since the start of their partnership. It soon struck him that driving a wedge between the two, post-haste, would be necessary if he wanted to maintain the status quo.
"The kid hardly deserves a medal, you know," he complained to Henry once Clyde had retreated out of earshot to the front desk to take another delivery order. "So he got payment from a difficult customer, big deal! I liked it more when he just shut up and did his job, but now he's annoyingly chipper, and he's going to be downright insufferable to deal with if this keeps up."
"Maybe for you, but I like seeing him self-assured for once, and I can relate." Henry rolled his eyes. "Heaven forbid a worker at a children's party venue, of all places, show any inkling of joy or enthusiasm, right?"
Will's eyes narrowed and he tried a new tactic, one he had been holding off for until just the right moment. There was a time for fighting clean and fair, but in his eyes the situation no longer called for self-restraint.
"Just the same, haven't you noticed that when it comes to you, Clyde's gone a little beyond respect for his superiors on the job, and even beyond hero worship?" He delighted when Henry, no doubt suspecting exactly where the conversation was headed, blushed deeply. "It's so obvious he's got a crush on you; where'd that come from?!"
To Will's chagrin, his conservative, quiet partner did not recoil in absolute disgust as he had expected, but broke out in a reluctant yet knowing grin.
"I-I noticed that a long time ago, Will," he said in a hushed voice, his face still reddened as his gaze darted toward the doorway and the front desk. "And it's flattering to know that someone thinks that highly of you." Henry paused for a moment, scrutinizing the tray of breadsticks he had cut in even lines from a sheet of dough. "I'll admit he didn't do the best job of hiding his feelings, but I admire the way he respected the fact that I'm a married man by never acting on them." He shrugged. "Besides, he's young and still figuring this stuff out. I've noticed he's also taken a shine to Cindy, y'know, the prize counter girl?"
Will exhaled sharply, irritated that his attempts to undermine his coworkers' friendship had utterly failed. You knew all along, and it didn't drive you crazy, working right alongside him after you found out he was hung up on you? He was still fighting the urge to seize Henry by the shoulders and shake some much-needed sense into him when Clyde's voice carried into the kitchen.
"Look, I already told ya, we can't deliver after dark to an address that's not a home or a business," he informed the caller, firmly and with a rare hint of annoyance in his tone. Will stalked out to the lobby to find Clyde with the phone in one hand and tracing along a map of the town with the other, his finger settling on a location that appeared to be a large field of green.
"You're asking me to deliver to the abandoned pool, down by the ballfields? Sorry, no can do, it's almost midnight and that place isn't well lit at all. There's the 24-hour Gas'N'Grub a half-mile away; meet me there and you can have your pizza--Hey!" He yelped when Will snatched the telephone forcibly from his grip.
We need the money, his boss mouthed before returning to the call. "'Ello? Sorry for my delivery driver; he's a bit skittish." Will waved away Clyde as he shrugged in frustration at the insult. "We normally don't deliver to secluded locations, but give me the exact time to meet you and I'll let it slide this once."
"Fair enough, so long as the kid actually shows up. He afraid of the dark or something?" The husky voice, measured by heavy breaths, already enticingly confirmed Will's suspicions.
"Beats me, but he'll be there. Now whaddayawant?"
"Got it, and I'll see that he brings change for that...fifty that you have." Will's voice hitched in anticipation, especially at the unusual request that suddenly didn't seem so out of place.
After preparing the order himself (one large anchovy, thin crust, precision-cut into eight uniform slices) the businessman shouldered the warming bag, peering around the doorway just in time to witness some shared joke between Henry and Clyde, the former of whom clapped his hand across the other's back and left it there just a moment longer than necessary.
He wanted almost nothing more than to usher his delivery driver out to what promised to be his second set-up of the night, this one with potential consequences for being a smart-aleck that were far worse than the short-lived humiliation Clyde had emerged from, annoyingly unscathed. Yet Will's desire to direct the chain of events he had orchestrated reigned supreme over all else, and he had not authorized this new plot twist.
Clyde's discarded uniform shirt was still dripping forlornly into the utility sink, and William's actions went unnoticed as he extricated a ring of car keys from the pocket. He also found the limp bills he had expected, palming them one smooth motion and confident his worker wouldn't dare report the theft of his ill-gotten gain. Lousy amateur blackmailer. He doesn't deserve this!
The gaunt figure stood with his jacket flapping in the warm night breeze, towering over a sea of overgrown grass that grew in scrubby patches around equally-neglected shrubs. It had been nearly a decade since children had spread their beach towels over this same lawn, sunning themselves and perhaps enjoying an ice cream bar during the designated adult swims. Nature had swiftly reclaimed the forsaken property, and now the morass held rotted baseballs, errantly struck there by players who were too leery to venture out into the wasteland in search of them.
The man kicked at one such ball, watching the core burst from its leather shell and roll into a clump of grass. The sour smell of the pool itself, still partially filled with brackish and discolored water, wafted from behind him. In the dead of last winter a whitetail had stumbled over the thinly frozen ice, its nearly-unidentifiable remains surfacing months later during the thaw. Every now and then some concerned parent or homeowner implored the town's recreation board to fill in the gaping hole with cement, decrying it as an attractive nuisance. Yet whether for lack of funds or a delusional belief the pool could somehow gain a second life, nothing had been done aside from installing more padlocks on the gate of a fence that had already been bent and cut through by trespassers.
Rather appreciating the anarchy of the location, the man emerged from the shadows, patiently waiting once the hatchback pulled to the curb. Behind the windshield, an orange speck bobbled, and the observer smiled, picturing the harried kid inside lighting a cigarette and trying to steel himself for the exchange he would just as much avoid, maybe even shaking his head at the sorry state of the pool he no doubt had enjoyed as a youth.
"You're not him." The customer's voice came in a hiss once William Afton had almost comically hefted himself through the window of the jammed car door, alighting on the cracked pavement with pure fury.
"No kidding," the big man scowled, his voice tinged with piss and vinegar, but absolutely no trepidation at meeting a stranger in a dark wasteland. Stepping forward, Will noticed the street tough rock backward on his heels just noticeably, a surefire sign that he was trying hard to hide his growing fear. "It was past his bedtime," Will said, his joke answered by an stilted guffaw from the other party.
"How much?"
"Isn't that my line?" scoffed the customer, scarcely hiding his irritation.
"I was hardly asking about the price of the pizza, which is seven-fifty, by the way," Will said, shifting the cardboard box propped on one palm so that the grinning visage of Fredbear printed on the lid was directed toward the thug. "I want to know how much that rich prat coughed up for you to reclaim his fifty from my driver."
"Wh-what are you goin' on about?" The man shifted his weight from one foot to another now, tense and still indecisive about whether fighting or fleeing was the more judicious response. Will stepped yet closer, and when the man withdrew a blade easily five inches long from one of the many pockets on his jacket, his crazed smile only widened in response.
"Really, what was your cut?" Will pressed on. "How much were you willing to whore out your services for, thirty?" His adversary's eyes narrowed in hatred -- and unmistakable affirmation that Will had struck sensitive territory.
"Twenty, even? The hired goon market must not be so lucrative right now, if you were ready to jump my driver, maybe even cut him up a little, to get back less than half of his take." Will's taunts had their desired effect as he caught his reflection leering back at him from the blade of the brandished weapon.
"Then again, maybe this was all a mistake on my part, and we should both forget it ever happened. You'd be better off paying for the pizza--"
Before Will could finish, he found himself rushed, and he thrust the pizza box toward his attacker, the formidable knife he had borrowed from the restaurant's kitchen concealed behind it. For one blissful moment, the two men were suspended in a grapple, and Will took note of details he had missed earlier: the dying thug was a few years older than Clyde and Jerry, so he had not been a classmate, there were old scars ghosting across the weathered flesh of his neck, and his malicious grin, frozen on his face, was crooked, even before a thin stream of red spilled from its corner.
Revolted, Will shoved the slain body away from himself the moment he felt its legs buckle, and it landed supine in the wind-torn grass, the pizza box overlaying its chest. From the lid of the box, Fredbear still grinned back vacantly in monochrome ink, unaware of the gaping knife wound that had punctured through the cardboard right between his cartoonish eyes.
"Your choice," the delivery driver said coldly, shrugging at the corpse of the first individual he had ever dispatched to the hereafter. He bent stiffly, one hand methodically wiping the blade he clutched in his right hand onto the grass, as though he had done this before, while his left rifled through the jacket of the fallen man, locating a slim wallet and sliding it to his own pocket.
The expected rush never came. Will kicked the pizza box, hard, watching without interest as the anchovy-laden slices pinwheeled across the lawn, landing in a trail that seemed to point back accusingly to the victim. The box itself came to a rest upended, its halves parted like the open jaws of Pac-man himself. Sets of eyes glared from the shelter of a nearby stand of trees. Scavengers, he knew, most likely raccoons, and impatient for him to be on his way so they could get at the discarded food.
Dragging the body under the shelter of the trees and giving it a kick for good measure to ensure it was concealed beneath the lowest branches, Will caught his breath, grinning without pleasure. Now that's how you deal with someone who crosses you, he fantasized himself instructing Clyde. You don't scam him for a few bucks in a cheap hustle and then duck and run, all the while trying to convince yourself you ended up on the better end of the deal.
For all he imagined himself saying in a ridiculously hypothetical situation, though, the freshly-minted killer was stunned to find he had gained little more satisfaction from the act than he had from the cigarette still dangling half-forgotten from his lips. Grinding the stub in the ashtray once he'd returned to the car, he sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and gazing out into the darkness.
Where was his thrill? He might as well have swatted a fly pestering him back at the food-prep counter. Will bit his lip. He certainly hadn't gone through with this to protect his lowly worker; heck, he'd briefly considered telling his customer to go pound salt and then dealing with Clyde, only slightly less roughly, himself. Just enough to ensure the thought of future insurrection would never cross his mind...
How much, indeed? Will cracked open the wallet, removing a crumpled twenty-dollar bill and staring at it a while before tucking it in his pocket, alongside the cash he'd lifted off his scheming employee. Entirely uninterested in the driver's license encased in a plastic sleeve, he pitched the wallet out the open window, hearing it land with a muffled thump somewhere among the pines where its late owner rested.
As the car sputtered to life and pulled away from the curb, Will let the raccoons have at their pizza feast, wondering how long it would be before they turned their appetite to the corpse itself once that ran out.
Maybe a random and unplanned killing wasn't the correct route to take, he mused. The notion had long rested in Will's mind that one day, someone would spark his ire enough to earn an inglorious dispatch to the hereafter, a fate the victim would fully have deserved and he would not begin to regret. It had never been something to trouble him or cause any need for deep self-reflection of his morals, but had been a likelihood he'd coolly accepted just as much as his own eventual death.
Clyde and even Henry had occasionally ventured perilously close to that territory, yet something had always caused Will to hold back. He had asked himself more than once whether the need to feed off the balance of power against his underlings outweighed any satisfaction he would gain from taking one or both of them out. Since the limit he could push Henry emotionally was finite, for fear his partner could quit and leave him, he had chosen to extend his mistreatment as long as possible before making any final decisions over Henry's ultimate fate.
Still, tonight's unexpected outcome had thrown a monkey wrench in Will's meticulously-laid plans. Sometime before, while on the golf course with Jerry's father he had casually inquired as to his son's latest doings, then the two men had laughed and compared Jerry's accomplishments to his former classmates', such as the one lost cause still slaving away at Fredbear's and mistakenly believing being sent on deliveries was a massive step up on the career ladder. Chortling rudely, Jerry Senior had then boasted of his upcoming business trip and half-joked he hoped his son could be trusted not to level his estate before he returned home.
From there, it had been easy for Will to discretely fire the food prep team and the regular delivery driver without notice and press Clyde into service, assured Jerry could be trusted to take care of the rest. To hear Clyde's stories of his former classmate, Jerry was brilliant only in the cruel schemes he had carried out against his enemies, and Will couldn't fault him for his humiliation stunt. It hadn't been Jerry's fault that Henry had conspired to carry a fake car phone in their delivery vehicle, but his greed had been his fatal error, when he had rashly hired a local, small-time thug to get his money back.
The next time, Will vowed, gripping the steering wheel in white-knuckled determination and quite certain there would be a next time, I'll be sure to strike far closer to home. It needs to hurt. Hurt deeply.
"See? I told ya so." Months later, Clyde let the newspaper he had breathlessly rushed into the pizzeria with drop to the food prep counter, where Henry promptly snatched it up, ever concerned about contamination and safety. The business owner's eyes widened at the headline.
"I knew that delivery spot was bad news," Clyde persisted. "Now they found a dead guy there, after the neighbors complained about the smell for six months."
Seven, William mentally corrected him, showing no emotion. "Isn't that something. I'll bet the cops assumed it was another deer that met its doom in that sumphole that used to be a pool."
"Says here he's completely skeletonized, with scraps of clothing and a wallet nearby. The cops don't have a formal I.D. yet, but I guess if there's a license or any other cards in the wallet they'll have an easy time of it." Clyde took off his ballcap and scratched his head, looking for all the world to Will like a clueless teenage detective from any number of formulaic Saturday morning cartoons. "Weird that we don't have any missing persons around town, though, huh? I mean, I'd hate to disappear and not have anyone catch on I was gone. I can't even imagine--ow!" He rubbed the back of his head where an exasperated Will had clapped him, hard.
"Then let that be a lesson, since you were so pissed I borrowed your car that night," he said sharply before softening his tone, alarmed at the panicked look on his worker's face. "It seemed only fair that if I insisted we deliver there against our own policy, then I should be the one to handle it myself, not risk your hide."
"Yeah," agreed Clyde, blinking in surprise. "Guess I owe ya one, and your customer probably had no clue some guy was gonna die right where he wanted to pick up his pizza, just a little while later that summer." He shivered abruptly, rubbing his arms to ward off the chill that overcame him and accompanied a disturbing thought. "We don't even know how the guy died. Maybe your customer offed him."
"So he could what, steal his pizza? Brilliant deduction, Encyclopedia Brown. Why don't you quit the sleuthing thing and stick to what you do best, scrubbing baked-on cheese off the pie pans?"
Abashed, Clyde obediently returned his attention to the dishes in the sink before him, grateful the cloud of steam rising from the piping hot water hid the deep blush he could feel spreading over his face. Will angled his face away from Henry before allowing himself to break out in a lopsided smirk. This was a far better power trip, meted out in measured doses, than letting his fury overtake him with fatal results against his work team.
When he glanced back at Henry, he was surprised to see his partner, a quietly religious man, with his head bowed, his lips moving noiselessly.
"Are you honestly praying for the poor sod?" Will sputtered, barely hiding the disgust from his voice. "For all you know, he could've had it coming, been a horrible person."
Henry looked up, startled, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Regardless of who he might have been, Will, it's not my place to judge his departed soul." He sighed deeply. "Things like this just make you want to hug your kid even tighter, y'know?"
No, I don't know, Will thought, unable to recall when he had last embraced any of his long-estranged children, unlike Henry who was openly affectionate with his young daughter. From the deepest cesspool of his polluted mind, the darkest idea imaginable emerged and his gaze turned to the kiddie-sized table set up in a corner of the kitchen, it surface strewn with the scrap papers and chubby crayons Charlie used to create her undiscernable portraits of the restaurant's mascots.
"Maybe you're right," he was quick to correct himself. "It always hurts worse when things like this strike...close to home."

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Analysis of the 1st Trailer (Jan 2021) of Raya and the Last Dragon

|It began with the River Market|

|Kumandra|

|"My Daughter.."|

|"I wish to join this fellowship of butt-kickery!"|

|"We'll have to watch our backs... We're not the only ones looking."|

|"Oh, Mighty Sisu!"|

|Raya and Namaari, Face to Face|

|"I just shape changed!"|

|Additional Trivia|

Behind County Lines - Luke Hemingway. Episode 2

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