jueves, 25 de octubre de 2018

The clown story

Kenneth Chase was born in 1932 by a difficult labour, which his mother wouldn't survive. This event drove a rift between him and his father that never closed. As the boy grew, so did his father's resentment, and his drinking habit. By the time Kenneth was at school, they lived mostly separate lives.
Academically, he was unremarkable, coasting by on his significant athletic prowess. He grew tall and strong, excelling at track events, but shunned any attempts to coax him into team sports.
On his walk home from school, he would often find feathers on the ground and he soon began a collection, keeping them in a cigar box under his bed. With his father either at work or in an alcohol-induced stupor, Kenneth had hours to spend alone, transfixed by the regularity of the feathers' barbs and the feeling of softness as he ran them over his lips. Watching the birds that came to the feeder in his garden, he imagined how soft they must be and resolved to catch one. He ingratiated himself with the local dentist, soon procuring some anaesthetic. Using this, he rigged up a trap on the feeder, that he hoped would knock out a bird long enough that he could touch it.
After a few failed attempts, he managed to trap a robin. As it lay in his hand, he felt a sudden rush, of a life at his mercy. He had planned to release it once it recovered from the anaesthetic. Instead, as its eyes flickered back into consciousness and it began to struggle, his grip remained firm. His fingers slowly tightened around its throat, squeezing until its chest feathers were finally still. He disposed of the body, keeping just a feather, with which he started a new collection, discarding the others as "fake".
By the late 1940s, Kenneth had left school and started working as a busboy at a local diner. He had also escalated to larger prey, like squirrels, raccoons and dogs, becoming skilled at customising the anaesthetic dosage for each.
In early 1954, a young man went missing and the town was turned upside down in the search. A few months later, Kenneth's father, while doing some work in the crawlspace under the house, found a cigar box. He broke it open and saw, to his horror, that it contained feathers, animal paws, and a man's finger.
Returning from work, Kenneth saw his father leaving the crawlspace with a cigar box in his hands. He turned on his heel and never went home again.
After a few weeks of living rough, he encountered a travelling circus and, with his prodigious strength, was hired to work the ropes. He assumed a new name: Jeffrey Hawk.

The Huntress

As soon as Anna was able to walk, her mother started teaching her how to survive a harsh, solitary life in the northern woods. Living in such an extremely remote and dangerous area required skill and resilience. When sunlight became too dim for productive activities, they would take refuge in their house, a sturdy old cabin constructed to resist the toughest winters. Close to the hearth’s warmth, Anna would rest in her mother's arms, surrounded by the few wooden toys and masks she had crafted for her. Drifting off to sleep with stories and lullabies, she dream happy dreams, ignorant of the events that would soon change everything.
Anna and her mother were stalking a great elk through the woods. They knew it was dangerous prey, but it had been a particularly difficult winter and they were almost out of food. The specter of starvation frightened them more than any forest creature. Without warning, the elk reared, bellowed and charged at Anna. She was paralyzed with fear as the whole world seemed to shake under the immense beast’s pounding hooves. The elk was close enough for Anna to see the murderous fury in its eyes when her mother threw herself in its path, axe in hand. A bloodcurdling scream escaped from her lips as the elk impaled her upon its antlers and hoisted her into the air. With all her strength, she brought her axe down on its head again and again while it tried to shake her loose. With a sickening crack, the antlers snapped and Anna’s mother was free. The beast collapsed.
Anna was too small to move her mother’s broken body, so she sat with her in the clearing where she had fallen. To distract her from the dying elk’s cries, Anna’s mother held her and hummed her favorite lullaby. They stayed like that, the huntress and the elk getting quieter and colder, until Anna was alone in the silent forest. Eventually she stood up and started the long walk back home.
Still a child, she knew just enough about life in the frozen forest to survive. She followed her instincts and became one with the wild. She got older and stronger and practiced her hunt. As she grew into a dangerous predator, her humanity became a half-remembered dream.
She widened her territory and lived off her hunts. She worked her way up through squirrels and hares and mink and foxes. Eventually she grew tired of them and hunted more dangerous animals like wolves and bears. When unsuspecting travelers came through her woods, she discovered her new favorite prey: humans. Unlucky souls who strayed into her territory were slaughtered like any other animal. She liked to collect their tools and colorful garments and especially toys when there were little ones. But she could never bring herself to kill the little girls.

miércoles, 24 de octubre de 2018

The Cannibal

Whether killers perform their heinous acts by the compulsions of their diseased minds, or if they are forced into them by external pressures, has long been a matter of debate. But for one killer, nature and nurture are inextricably linked.
Leatherface kills not from a desire to exert his will over others, to satisfy carnal urges, or even to quiet the voices in his head. He kills because he is scared. Scared that others will hurt him; scared that his family will be displeased with him, scared that their shared willingness to eat human flesh will be discovered.
He does as he is told, his family loves him and that is all that matters. Outsiders are a threat, and threats need to be dealt with.
Like those kids that came into the house, uninvited. Walked in like they owned the place. Looked around the house, trying to find out his family’s secrets, no doubt. But Leatherface deals with them, protects his family, just as he’s been taught.
He is not just protector, he has many roles, and each role has its own face. He serves dinner, cares for the family, dresses well when they eat. His Grandpa and Ma used to care for them all, but Grandpa he is old now and she has been still for a while, so Leatherface and his brothers had to take over. Family is everything to him. Family is security and safety.
But, even though he did his best, one of the kids got away. He tried to stop her, chasing after her as fast as he could, but she had help: another outsider, driving a truck. The evil trucker killed his brother, ran him over like he was a possum. In a fury, Leatherface leapt at him, the saw ready to avenge his family, but the trucker was too quick. He knocked Leatherface aside and turned his own saw against him.
As he watched the outsiders driving away, the rage, grief and pain combined with the worry about what would happen to his family now. They would surely return with the police, and the police would take his brothers, his Grandpa. Without them, what would he do? Without their commands, he would wither and die.