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Send to FriendBecause of his terminal acne, which spread like a pox all over his face and all the way down to his backside, the texture and hue of his pudgy face was like that of a pizza. His pimple scars were deeply etched his cheeks and forehead and for every zit he popped, two or three more replaced them, sometimes leaking pus and blood when he picked at them, leaving a waxy feel to his skin, like that of the greasy slabs of pizza they served at the school cafeteria.
His lanky, disheveled hair could easily have been a cause to his acne problem. His hair was nearly always sodden with grease and perspiration, sometimes so much so that it appeared in a mist of dew along the tip of each follicle. His hair was one thick, dense, damp bush with a putrid odor, which someone could easily mistake for a dead animal lying upon his scalp.
His poor diet could also be attributed as another cause.
Yet aside from puberty, the biggest culprit of all would have been his poor hygiene. Josh rarely ever washed his hands except after taking a massive dump and never washed his face either. He only showered once a week, or perhaps twice at the most, leaving his pores brimming with dirt, aging sweat, and bacteria, and he didn’t even bother to wear deodorant to combat his body odor. Thus he sat in his own filth, his body emitting a vile, noxious stench that could be picked up from thirty feet away, while his mouth reeked of morning breath, sour eggs, and spoiled milk because he frequently forgot to brush his teeth as well.
Not all of the offensive odors Josh emitted were his fault, however. He had overactive sweat glands, and among other things it prevented him from wearing a white shirt because if he did, thick yellow stains would dampen around the armpits. He also had bad gas and belched and farted almost constantly. But the most embarrassing of all was that even now he occasionally soiled himself, though that was thankfully becoming less of a problem as he got older.
Because he filled himself with junk food throughout the day and got so little exercise, he went from being on the chubby side at age eight, to becoming fat around age eleven, and could now be considered morbidly obese, weighing well over two hundred pounds at age fourteen. The simple act of walking across the room left him winded, and going up and down a flight of stairs left him standing hunched over, wheezing, as he struggled to suck air into what felt like collapsing lungs, while his heart thumped so rapidly and strenuously that he feared it might tear open from the high stress. Standing and touching his toes was now an impossible feat for when he bent forward to attempt such a feat his flabby arms only dangled a fit off the ground, he had spasms along the small of his straining back, and his small hump became more prominent upon his back. No longer could he see his shriveled genitals while standing without the aide of a mirror. His nipples sagged like breasts upon his chest. Within another three to five years, he predicted that he would be so fat that he would be bed-ridden and barely able to move, though he supposed that might not be such a horrible fate, for he was loath to go outside because of the cruelty of his peers and even his teachers, and people in general.
His peers at school could be so cruel most of the time. Being a freshman guaranteed a certain level of abuse, particularly from the obnoxious and elitist seniors, who everyone--teachers and students alike--worshiped as though they were gods simply because they had been in high school the longest and would soon graduate. Yet even the other freshmen thought Josh was pathetic and disgusting. The girls tried to avoid him altogether, shunning him as they cringed overtly in disgust when in his presence. And the guys made his life a living hell, beating the shit out of him when none of the faculty were looking, taunting him, spitting on him, tearing off his pants, and humiliating him in the worst ways possible. Physical education was the absolute worst and got so bad that Josh sometimes skipped it altogether and would then be suspended for cutting class, which wasn’t bad at all and was in fact a blessing since he hated school so much. It wasn’t as though he were doing particularly well in any of his classes anyway. He tried to fight back against the bullies, to stand up for himself, but they only laughed and beat his ass harder. He wasn’t nearly as fast to get a punch in or block their strikes and being clumsy mad fighting even more difficult. Since punching Josh in the stomach barely fazed him, the bullies pummeled his head and groin instead, and all he could do was to try
to run away, crying and feeling sorry for himself.Life at home wasn’t much better either. Josh never met his father, for Josh was the result of a one-night stand; his father promised to stay to take care of the baby, yet disappeared shortly after Josh was born and was never heard from again. Josh’s mom had to slave away sixty hours a week to support herself and her child and was never adverse to reminding the boy just how hard it was for her or how badly it was wearing her out. She was never a doting mother who showered her child with love and attention and the contact they did have was usually bitter and hostile. She never nagged him about his weight (for she was overweight herself, though not as much as Josh) or poor grades, but instead rubbed his nose in all she had to suffer because of his existence, seeing him not as a precious child to be loved, but as the bane to her existence, a burden that she couldn’t wait to be rid of.
The Internet was his only respite from the merciless world that he hated with every fiber of his being. There were other things that brought him happiness, but the Web filled him with a sense of power and self-esteem that he lacked in the real world. These days Josh spent most of his free time as a hermit inside his room, surfing the net on his dial-up connection (so long as the piece of shit worked properly). Josh was never computer literate (or very bright, period), and at first only knew how to send and receive email (to himself through multiple email accounts since he had no friends or anyone else to send it to). But over time, he gradually learned what he had to do to surf the net and had been having loads of fun with it ever since he figured out how to view and post on message boards.
Josh was a message board troll and when it came to stirring up shit and starting flame wars (perhaps the only talent he actually had), nothing was sacred and no one was safe from his wrath. While he lacked the skills or motivation to make a site of his own, he had no qualms about spending hours at someone else’s site and then flooding their guestbooks and forums again and again, going on about how stupid and pointless the site was just for the hell of it. He went to Christian boards and bashed them, telling them how stupid they were for believing in such bullshit, while going to anti-Christian boards and preaching the Gospel, or what little he knew of it. He went to equal rights groups and called them all niggers and race traitors and berated them with other racist propaganda, while seeking white power groups and referring to them all as a bunch of ignorant, Nazi redneck hicks. He went to animal rights groups and went on about how he loved to fuck animals and even posted a few links to bestiality porn, and then went to rape counseling sites and posted rape pictures and links to rape sites. The best was when he went to forums that offered support and counseling for depression and suicidal people and urging them to go through with the act. He would encourage them by going on about how worthless they were, how they were such horrible people, how shitty their lives were, and how they truly would be better off dead, as well as how much better off the world would be in general without them around to defile it. If even one person heeded his advice, his heart would swell with pride and joy.
The room was dark as Josh was now up to his usual hyjinks and the only source of light was from his computer monitor, which cast a dim glow over his face as he grinned, feeling a renewed sense of power and exhilaration sweep over him with each scathing word of venom from a tongue that cut like a knife. There were some who were all too eager to point out how stupid he truly was and that he wouldn’t be nearly as bold face-to-face as he was hiding behind a keyboard. They were right, of course, though Josh would never admit it to them and continued to flame until he was finally banned from the board. It didn’t matter that they would easily beat the shit out of him in a fight, because it would never happen since those assholes lived hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles away and therefore couldn’t get to him or know for sure of what kind of a loser he really was.
He had long ago lost track of how many message boards he had been banned from and felt a sense of swelling pride in the knowledge that he had offended the people at those boards so badly and they hated him so much that the administrators and moderators were willing to ban an entire range of IPs (since his was a dynamic IP and changed each time he logged onto the Internet) just to keep him away. Perhaps a rather pathetic accomplishment by most people’s standards, but it was still all he had to make him feel important.
Josh now headed over to a forum known as Route 666, which was a message board geared toward people of all ages and walks of life who either related to the Satanic lifestyle, particularly that as laid out by Anton Lavey, or those who wanted to learn more about it. Most of them were probably a bunch of pathetic kids, Josh surmised, who wanted to get into Satanism just so they could look and feel evil, sick, and shocking and get in tune with the dark side. Josh took great pleasure in putting these pussies in their places. Route 666 had a flame wars section, but Josh never bothered with that and instead did all of his flaming elsewhere throughout the board. After all, following a bunch of shitty rules took all the fun out of trolling, and even if his posts were deleted fairly quickly, some people still had seen them; therefore he must’ve sparked some kind of reaction from these losers.
He logged on as “The Elite One” and there immediately appeared a pop-up alerting him to a new private message. The private message had been from Death Crypt, the board administrator, and it read as followed:
For the life of me, I can’t understand why someone would spend weeks at a forum they don’t like just to bash the people there, but if you must flame me and the rest of the people here, could you please do so only in the flame wars board and not fill the rest of my forum with that crap. This is an intelligent community and I want to keep it that way. I stated in the rules not to flame anyone except in the flame section, and I’d appreciate it if you could respect that, as I’m getting sick of deleting all your posts. I’m asking you nicely to please play by my rules or leave. Thank you.
To which Josh replied:
Fuck you and your fascist rules, you gay-ass fag! I’ll post whatever I want, wherever I want, and if you don’t like it, you can fuck off and die!
After having sent that private message back to Death Crypt, Josh went to the General Discussion board and composed a new message directed at the entire community. After he finished typing his message and clicked the SUBMIT button, Josh awaited with eager anticipation and pride for the server to process the information so it could be posted publicly for all to see and admire him for how much balls he had in putting a bunch of losers in their place. This message read as followed:
Wow! I can’t believe you threatened to ban me just because I broke one of your fascist rules, Death Crypt. You people are a bunch of whiny losers and this forum is run by a fascist dictator. Fuck you and your rules; I’ll post whatever I want and if you don’t like it, you can kiss my ass. We all know I’m better than all of you put together anyway.You’re all just a bunch of goth losers anyway. Don’t like what I got to say so now you gotta all gang up on me? Well fuck you! I tell it like it is and you people can’t handle the truth or rationally dispute my logic, so you all just gang up and shoot some lame insults. What a bunch of unintelligent losers! You should all bow down and kiss my feet because of my superior intellect and insight.
Satanic Cheerleader, you’re nothing but some fat slut who likes to flirt with rejects online because in the real world most respectable guys wouldn’t give you the time of day because you’re so ugly that most people puke when they look at you. Do the world and yourself a favor and slit your wrists and fucking die, you filthy whore!
Death Crypt, I bet you’re really just some pathetic loser with no friends and you probably can’t get laid either, you fucking fag! I’m so glad I’m not such a fucking loser faggot like you! Why don’t you get a life, loser, or better yet just die, pussy!
LOL! What a bunch of dumb shit losers! You have no idea how hard I’m laughing right now! Bunch of gay goth fags. LOL! You’re so dumb you can’t even recognize greatness when you see it!
Fucking fags.
~The Elite One
Josh grinned with pride in reading over what he had just posted. Most of his messages were not that long and a lot of his posts were just a few cheap schoolyard insults slung around, spanning no more than a few lines of text, but he got his point across. For the next hour he hijacked every active thread in each board with his banter and sometimes posting complete gibberish in random keystrokes or messages with only two-words repeated a thousand times, while other times he attacked other members completely unprovoked. He was like a swarm of locust, completely trashing the forum and annihilating any semblance of intelligence and integrity the forum had previously possessed. For some, what he did might seem like a tedious process if one were not as meticulous as Josh was, yet for him it was loads of fun and he never got bored with flame wars either.
Perhaps he might download one of those instant messenger programs and harass a few people one-on-one; make it a bit more personal, or as personalize as it could get considering that he saw online communication as merely text on a screen rather than interaction with real people. While he couldn’t imagine himself getting that infatuated with anyone, perhaps he could play the part of the cyber stalker and send some sweet girl over the edge. The dumb bitch could put him on ignore all she wanted and he’d just come after her with a different ID.
Oh the fun he could have when--
“So you’re the ‘Elite One’?” someone scoffed from behind.
Josh turned and saw the apparition of a man in his mid thirties standing before him, his eyes baleful as he snickered to himself. As the apparition materialized, Josh saw that he was dressed in black jeans and a black Slayer tee-shirt. His face was pale, yet stern, with black stubble over his cheeks and a bushy mustache and goatee over his face. He had piercings over both ears, as well as his eyebrows and tongue. On his left forearm was a tattoo of an upside down black cross with the words DEATH TO CHRISTIANS in Cyrillic lettering beneath, and his right forearm was tattooed with the words HAIL SATAN 666 in flames.
“Death Crypt,” whispered Josh in disbelief as he rose to his feet and his mouth hung agape as he absently kicked his swivel chair away. Josh recognized this man from the photo he used as his avatar on the Route 666 message board.
“You’re pathetic,” grunted Death Crypt, “but I’m not at all surprised, since that’s mostly the case with trolls who hit my forum.”
“How…how did you get here?”
“Astral projection,” answered Death Crypt and his grin widened. “It’s my other interest, besides Satanism.” He chucked quietly. “You really shouldn’t fuck with people on the net, you know, especially when you don’t know what they’re capable of.”
Yeah, and you’re going through all this trouble over what some asshole said about you on the net! How pathetic is that? Josh would have said now, had this been on the Internet, but the meeting was now face-to-face, and all courage fled him as he stood there, trembling and afraid, while his stomach coiled into a tightly wound knot and his heart hammered away inside his chest. His clothes were drenched in perspiration. His eyes widened, flooded with tears, and his bladder unleashed a pint of hot urine that poured down his legs.
“I asked you nicely to stop, but you wouldn’t,” Death Crypt went on, his voice rising in contemptuous anger. “You just kept going, pissing on my forum like you pissed in your pants just now. Talkin’ tough, like you can strut into my place and shit all over it. Think you’re so fuckin’ tough behind a keyboard, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” Josh sobbed and whimpered as he shat his pants.
“Oh you’re ‘sowwy’,?” Death Crypt said, mimicking Josh’s shrill whine. “You turn my forum into a clusterfuck of idiocy and now you’re ‘sowwy’? You know how much of a pain in the ass it’s gonna be to clean up you’re mess? You think ‘sowwy”’s gonna fix that?”
“I—I won’t come back anymore…I promise,” Josh sniveled as he wiped thick mucous from his nose with the back of his hand and swallowed.
“Look at you. Absolutely disgusting! You bash Satanic Cheerleader for being fat, and look at you, ya fat fuck!”
“I’m sorry,” Josh blubbered again as tears spilled freely down his face. “I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t mean to—please forgive me.”
“‘When you are outside and someone bothers you,’” quoted Death Crypt, “‘ask them politely to stop. If they persist, destroy them.’” He grinned wryly. “I asked you nicely to stop, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“I’ll stop! I’ll stop! Please--”
“Too late.”
Josh’s fatty stomach wobbled as he tried in vain to pivot out of the way, but as with the bullies at school, he was much too slow to maneuver safely. Too late, Death Crypt had said, and the words rang all too true.
Death Crypt moved swiftly as he lifted his knee yet appeared to be moving in slow motion as time ceased. He threw his leg out, landing it firmly between Josh’s legs and Josh cried out, his shrill voice like that of a frightened old lady, as the instep of Death Crypt’s foot smashed hard against Josh’s testicles. Josh’s face turned dark red as he doubled over, clutching his hands to his balls, which swelled painfully as though they might rupture open, and his knees bent slightly. He winced and hissed in pain, gritting his teeth as his watering eyes squeezed tightly shut.
As he gasped, his eyes fluttered open and he saw Death Crypt’s tightly clenched fist rushing toward him right before the knuckles slammed against his nose and mouth. Josh’s head jerked back from the momentum of the punch, forcing his back to arch sharply; his spine ached from the sudden pressure this put on it as well as from his immense weight now toppling over. His legs fumbled from the strain and collapsed beneath the swaying weight altogether, kicking outward. Josh fell on his ass upon the hardwood floor of the bedroom, with the shit in his pants cushioning the fall, squishing into the flesh and crack of his ass as his buttocks slammed against the hard surface.
Josh sat there, trembling, with his legs splayed in a wide V and his palms resting against the floor. Blood trickled in crimson threads from both his flaring nostrils as well as from his lips, gushing down his chin. He no longer cared about the cooling dampness around his crotch or the way his ass itched madly from the feces clinging to his skin and the tiny hairs of his buttocks. In his growing panic, he barely noticed that he was crying hysterically. His balls still throbbed painfully and his nose ached dully but his mind remained keenly focused on Death Crypt, who still towered over him with a contemptuous smirk.
“Still think you’d beat me in a fight if we ever met?”
Josh shook his head frantically. “No! No way!”
Death Crypt sighed and shook his head incredulously, appearing as though he almost felt sorry for Josh. “Hard to believe that this whiny little baby was the one that acted like such a badass on my forum.” He rolled his eyes. “Ain’t it always the way.”
“Okay, okay, I’m not a badass,” Josh sniveled, hoping that saying this might convince Death Crypt to show him mercy. “I’m nothin’. I’m less’n nothin’. I’m a pussy-ass fag!”
Death Crypt threw his head back with an uproar of derisive laughter. “Ya like callin’ people fags, don’cha?”
Josh opened his mouth but could only stutter incoherently.
“Well, lemme show ya just how gay I can be!”
Panting and wheezing, Josh tried to flail his hands into the air to deflect Death’s Crypt’s next strike. Yet his arms seemed too heavy, as though his bones were lead, and his shoulders could only lift them slightly, as if to give a sluggish shrug, before Death Crypt moved in once more. There was an audible click as the button of Josh’s jeans was undone and his fly was jerked apart, leaving his red and white polka dot boxers exposed. Death Crypt’s hand sank inside Josh’s boxers, and Death Crypt was seemingly unmindful that the fabric was sodden with urine. The grin on his face widened. His pincer-like fingers closed around Josh’s penis and scrotum and squeezed tightly. Josh squeezed his watering eyes shut, grimacing and writhing in agony as the crushing pain gripped his testicles. He swallowed as the tint of his face turned purple and runners of tears lined each of his cheeks. The flesh around his crotch stretched beyond the skin’s elasticity and then tore until his genitals were painfully separated from the rest of his body.
Death Crypt bared his teeth in a savage grin as he held Josh’s severed genitals in a tightly clenched fist. The penis hung between his index and middle finger, dangling limply between the knuckles, while the scrotum remained hidden inside the palm. Blood dropped thickly from his fingers and covered his entire hand like a scarlet glove, and rained down upon his black leather boots. Without saying a word, he devoured Josh’s genitals and chewed with his mouth open, leaving a clear view of his teeth mauling and mangling the genitals, as well as the droplets of blood and spittle, which flew every which way inside and outside his mouth. He swallowed and rubbed his hand in a circular motion over his stomach. “Delicious!”
Josh stood there, speechless and in utter disbelief at what he had witnessed. In shock, he no longer felt the pain around his crotch, which gushed blood thickly upon the floor and deeply stained his pants and boxers. A wave of vertigo hit him just then as his vision dimmed and grayed. Death Crypt’s nefarious laughter echoed throughout the room. The son of a bitch was laughing at Josh the way all the bullies at school laughed at him after beating him up. But never had they beaten him up this
severely, nor taken any body parts, least of all his manhood!“Stay away from my forum, you pathetic fag,” Death Crypt hissed, drooling blood that coated his lips and teeth and ran all the way down his chin. A few crimson droplets spattered with each word he spoke. “If you cause anymore trouble on my board, then this will seem like heaven compared to the hell I’ll put you through next time.” With that said, Death Crypt vanished, his body transforming into a blue flame that quickly imploded until it was extinguished altogether, without so much as a billow of smoke left behind.
For a long time, Josh sat there, perplexed, afraid, and motionless except for the rise and fall of his chest. The events that had transpired with Death Crypt replayed again and again in his shattered mind, but he remained unable to fathom how they could even have been possible. He told himself that the entire ordeal had merely been a hallucination, but while Death Crypt was gone, so too were Josh’s penis and scrotum, and in place was torn, bleeding, urine-soaked flesh; this tattered flesh was all that remained to indicate that a limb or body part had been once attached.
This can’t be happening, Josh thought frantically, breathing heavily as his slowing heart rate picked up speed once more. The Internet’s not real. It’s just text and pictures on a fucking screen. The people online aren’t real either, just fictional personalities put there for me to take out my aggression. They can’t hurt me because it’s behind a fucking screen and they’re not real at all! This shit’s not supposed to happen, goddamn it!
Slowly and with great struggle, Josh emerged to his feet, trembling as he leaned against his computer desk for support, while the edge of the desk dug painfully into the small of his back. His pants and boxers fell to his ankles and inside his boxers rested a pile of feces with a distorted mold of his ass. Blood poured in torrents from between his legs and matted his pubic hair to the bottom of his abdomen, just above the tattered flesh of his crotch. Lightheaded, Josh’s head lolled drunkenly over his shoulders and he wondered idly how much longer before he bled to death.
Josh took a staggering step forward and tripped over the pants around his ankles. His head thrust forward as his body lunged, toppling forward, and waves of fat rippled and swept across his belly like ocean currents during a monsoon. He fumbled across his bedroom until his hands grasped a firm hold upon the windowsill and his cheeks pressed tightly against the windowpane.
Outside, a full moon glinted brightly amid a clear night sky. As Josh peered through the window, his head bowed as his shoulders leaned against the pane, he saw a pair of headlights cutting through the darkness and then saw the station wagon behind those headlights pulling into the driveway. His mother had returned from work at her second job.
As the headlights of the station wagon blinked out and the silhouette of an overweight woman exited the vehicle, Josh wondered his mother would react once she saw the condition her son had been in. Ideally, she would be filled with shock and concern, as the latent maternal love she held for the boy would finally surface during his most dire hour, and she would frantically rush him to the hospital and do everything in her power to save him. The more likely scenario, however, was that she would look upon his condition with cold indifference, seeing it with the same apathy she always seemed to feel toward the wellbeing of her son. Likelier still was that she would deride a perverse pleasure in watching him bleed to death, seizing upon this golden opportunity to be rid of him once and for all.
The End
June 29, 2004
July 11, 2004