Have you ever watched a typical horror film and wondered how it would play out if a complete and utter badass came along and absolutely fucked everybody up?
Well, I'm writing this to quell that suspicion, because it just so happens that I am actually a complete and utter badass. I'm also funny. And yes, I'm also an arrogant prick.
So, on that note, I better introduce myself. My name is Krzysztof Volkov. If you are from a bitch country that can't pronounce complex names, Krzysztof is pronounced Chris-Tough, which is also an excellent description of me as a person.
My family come from Russia. As a matter of fact, I was also born there, but moved over here when I was too young to remember. I spent my days as an adolescent looking after my sick mother whilst my father was overseas on some bullshit KGB operation. I didn't know which of my parents would die first. I still don't, considering they haven't managed to die yet.
Father trained me up as his protégé. I had no intention of joining the army, but I had the skills to do so in a heartbeat. I was trained proficiently in Krav Maga, thanks to my father’s skill set. I was also trained proficiently in firearms, thanks to America’s non-existent gun laws. My father wasn’t particularly happy with my lack of enthusiasm towards joining the forces, and we had a falling out. So, I moved out of Florida and began travelling the country.
The life of a skilled, but jobless foreigner was not an easy one. I still harboured some of my accent from my parents, and outside of the big cities I was nothing but a dumb foreigner to rest of the Americans. I had to make a living somehow.
I guess this is where I’m supposed to tell you how I dug myself into a hole by making a living as a criminal. But I’m a badass, not a bad-arse. I instead decided to join the entertainment industry. It was hard for people to take me seriously, so I decided to make the most of that. I became a comedian. I travelled through towns and performed at local pubs, hotels and comedy clubs. To be fair, I don’t know if people were laughing at my accent or my jokes, but whatever it was, it was earning me money.
Eventually I made it to the stage, and people were sending me invites to perform at their venues across the state, which was Texas at the time. I am a man of opportunity however, and one invite gained my interest more than the rest. It was an invitation to a comedy festival in Vermont – half the country away. Intrigued by the mysterious invite, and keen to see more of the country, I took the group up on their offer.
And this is where our story begins.
Now I probably shouldn’t name the city in which these events took place, but Vergennes was a nice place. It was quiet and quaint, and it kind-of creeped me out. The people were just strange, but I supposed it was because they were a little too close to Canada.
Anyhow, the show was more of a contest. We could come on for ten minutes, joke about whatever we wanted, and in the end the audience and judges would allocate awards to the funniest comedians, which annoyed me a little because now my $5000 cash payment was no longer a guarantee.
I must say that the performances were excellent though. Some of the comedians were hilarious.
There was one guy, Travis, who insisted everyone's jokes were not of good enough quality.
Then there was Dix Jokes, who couldn't seem to stop talking about penis. "Why was Travis trying to put his dick into an ATM machine? Because it said please insert your PIN!"
Some people had to leave the room when Jay came out with his assortment of sick and dirty jokes that captivated the entire audience despite their disgusting nature.
There were other people I can’t remember the names of; some gentleman with a top hat, a man with a werewolf mask, a British guy with a cow fetish, a transvestite obsessed with Tim Curry, a real laid back dude who thinks there are demons in Antarctica, and a Canadian fellow who called himself Silly Spaghetti or something like that…
I was the final performance of the night, and even though I’m fucking good at what I do, I couldn’t help but feel worried for my success. I might have a high opinion of myself, but I can also have high opinions of others too, especially when their performances were going to be challenge to beat.
I thought I’d start my show with what I considered to be my funniest and dirtiest joke.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen! If you are wondering who I am just look on your event sheet at the list of the performers. I’m the one with the fucked-up name.
“I’d like to begin by telling you a story about an old friend of my fathers; his name was John. Well, it wasn’t but for simplicity sake we will call him John.
“When Dad joined the army, John joined the navy. That was the end of their friendship.
“John would spend months at a time out at sea. This means that, unless he was gay, he couldn’t get any sex for months. But one day John returns from half a year at sea, and he decided that it was about time he had some sex, seeing as it had been such a long time.
“So, John hurried off to the closest brothel he could find. He ran up to the Madame and asked if he could have a young, beautiful busty woman that he could go down on, because he really loved that kind of thing. Luckily, there was a girl available for him. So, John hurried to her room, took off her panties and got down to business.
“He was eating her out like a champion until he felt something on the end of his tongue. ‘What’s that?’ he wondered to himself. Upon investigation John spat into his hand a little green pea. But you see, John was really enjoying himself way too much to worry about it, and he continued his work.
“Eventually, John felt something else on the end of his tongue. ‘What could that be?’ John asked himself. Sure enough, he spat out another item. This time it was corn kernel. A little, fresh piece of corn, slightly chewed.
“But you see, John was enjoying himself too much to care, so he flicked away the corn and continued to do his dirty business. That was, until he felt something on the end of his tongue. ‘Disgusting!’ John exclaimed. ‘What is that?’ he coughed and spluttered, and spat out a glob of cheese.
“That was enough! John had given her enough chances. ‘Three strikes and you are out honey!’ John yelled. ‘I was just enjoying myself but instead I’m finding peas, corn, cheese and who else knows what lurks in there! What’s going on? Are you sick down here?’
“The prostitute looked at John innocently. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘But the last bastard was!’.”
The audience erupted in laughter at my priceless joke. It wasn’t that clever, it was just dirty. But they seemed to love this kind of thing, the creepy bastards.
“If that’s too dirty for you, I have a more family friendly joke,” I continued. “There was once a man, and this man had a really good friend. As it happens, this man’s friend was actually a giraffe.
“So the man and the giraffe plan to go out one night and get drunk, as everybody should do countless times in their lifetime. So, they turn up at the nearest pub, and get absolutely hammered. I mean, they drank more piss than a public toilet. They were literally blind. As a matter of fact, the giraffe was so drunk that it passed out on the floor.
“The man, having seen that his friend was down and out for the night, decided to go home. But, as he goes to leave, the bartender called out to him. ‘Hey, you can’t leave that lyin’ there!’ he said.
“The man looked at the bartender, and with a rather displeased look on his face, he says; ‘That’s not a lion! It’s a giraffe!’”
Again, the audience burst out laughing.
Even the terrible one-liners got a few chuckles.
"A snake walks into a bar. The Bartender says, 'How did you do that?"
"My Dog has been getting really bad at chasing people on bikes. It's gotten so bad, I had to take the bike off him!"
"I met my girlfriend at an African language class. We just clicked."
There was laughs and joy all round for all of my jokes, and I think I even went over the allocated time slot. Nobody stopped me.
After my act the judges casted their votes and proceeded to collect the audience votes so that they could award both a judge’s choice and a crowd choice winner. We all waited eagerly whilst the results were tallied, until a tall and slender man walked up to the judges and whispered something into their ears. One of the judged furrowed his brow and rubbed his nose in frustration, before picking up a microphone. “Unfortunately the audience’s choice will be disregarded this year as it has come to our attention that the voting system has been abused. Some of the members of our audience have casted multiple votes, whereas our rules clearly state that we do not allow people to cast multiple votes to boost their favourite acts.”
There was a slight murmur amongst the crowd, and the other comedians sighed and mumbled how typical it was, and how they also abolished the comedy festival’s online chat group because internet trolls were bullying the fans.
“So we have decided to crown Mr. Banning as our winner for the contest this year. Congratulations sir!”
I don’t know how I didn’t win. There must have been some kind of conspiracy against me, because I was Russian. Damn those judges and their incredibly ridiculous standards! I can tell you this, comedy has changed so much over the years, and that is one festival I won’t return to!
Afterwards, the audience were allowed to mingle with the comedians for a short time before we departed. An old couple came up to me, presumably to pour salt in my wounds because I didn’t win.
“Sir, I must say we were quite displeased with your performance. My wife and I, we come here every year to see these shows and we almost had to leave due to your vile and horrendous joke.”
“Ok,” I said, “Please be sure to extend those thoughts with over half of the comedians who couldn’t help but share their thoughts on dicks, cancer, shit, piss, clowns and other edgy topics.”
The old couple stared at me with their eyes and mouths wide open, as if the mere mention of such things had shocked them to the core. I could have punched them both in their throat for their ignorance, but that might have been a little extreme. I’m sure they didn’t deserve to die, even if they were long overdue.
“I can’t remember those jokes,” said the elderly woman, rubbing her head in confusion.
“You might be getting that bad memory disease,” her husband said as he comforted her.
I rolled my eyes, “It’s called Alzheimer’s!”
Again, they both looked at me in shock, “Alzheimer’s? That’s a bad memory disease, why the hell would you mention that for?” The husband snapped at me before he and his wife hurried away to the more christian audience members.
We departed into the underground car park to find a large bus. It was a massive, silver coach with tinted windows and curtains pulled across the glass to stop people from seeing inside. Or perhaps it was to stop people from seeing outside?
“It’s the mystery bus tour!” yelled the gentleman with the top hat, pulling a fine steel flask from his jacket pocket and taking a swig from it.
“Mystery Bus Tour?” I asked, confused.
“It’s where we get onto a bus, and it takes us to an undisclosed location where we can get blackout drunk and have a good time,” said Travis, as he pushed his way to front of the line. “This is an annual thing for all participants in the festival!”
“I’m taking the back seat!” yelled the top hat man in an incredibly eager voice that really didn’t suit his classy demeanour.
The dicks guy pulled a $400 bottle of scotch from his suitcase and proceeded to drink from the bottle as if it was water. He had obviously come well prepared. How did everybody except me know about this party?
“I didn’t know there was an after-party,” I said to the man as he finally took the bottle away from his mouth.
“Me neither,” he said.
“I wonder why they didn’t tell us earlier,” I wondered. “I could have brought my own alcohol.”
The man paused for a second and looked at me sternly. “That is not the question you should be asking,” he said in an eerie tone. “The real question you should ask is; will I finish this bottle, or will this bottle finish me?”
He burst out laughing like it was the only joke he had heard all night. But now was not the time for jokes, it was the time for drinking.
Off we went, on our little adventure. Little did I know that I was heading towards quite a lot of death and despair.
The Bus took us to an old clubhouse on the outskirts of the city. There was a bar inside, a dancefloor, a stage, a garage, and some other rooms that aren’t all that important to the story.
Now, to be honest, that’s all I remember of the night. I’m sure you can relate – and if you can’t, then you are a really boring person and I hate you.
I woke up on the front lawn, wet from the light rain and morning perspiration. The sun was only just coming up, and in the distance, I could hear the traffic and industrial sounds of the nearby city.
Groggy and hungover, I pushed myself to my feet and headed back to the clubhouse so I could see if I could find something to quench my thirst.
Nobody was there.
The bar was completely empty, save for the vomit and rubbish sprawled out across the floor. Even the bar had been emptied of all alcohol. “Perfect,” I muttered to myself and I flicked the beer taps on and off, trying to fix myself something to drink.
I ended up quitting my quest to find myself an alcoholic beverage and instead decided to try and find another person. But that was as futile a task as there ever was.
I searched the bathroom, the dance floor, the stage and change rooms. Not a soul was in sight. The entire complex was abandoned. Even the Mystery Bus had left the garage, presumably with all the people I was drinking with the night before.
Yeah, I know. It must have been a wild night for me.
There was something eerie about the whole situation. Strangely, I couldn’t find a reason why they’d all just leave without me, especially when I was such an entertaining fellow. I wasn’t even that far away from the clubhouse. They outright ghosted me.
I’d have called an Uber, but my phone had been dead since just after the festival. I guess I can thank apple and their inferior battery life for that.
So there I was, stranded in an empty clubhouse, the city a few miles away, and thick forest all around me. Every time the wind blew through the trees, it made an eerie whistle. If you listened carefully, it almost sounded like a distant scream.
But, when the wind suddenly came to a halt, the sound could be heard again. A high-pitch squeal, almost like somebody crying for help.
No. Exactly like somebody crying for help.
When something like this happens, you will bring about a fight or flight response. If you're a flyer, then you are also a bitch. If you are a fighter, you better be goddamn sure you can fight.
I can.
And when my fight response kicked in, I ran like a spetsnaz warrior into the bush, crashing through trees, branches and anything in my road. I was going to save that person, and rain holy hell on whatever poor soul was doing them harm.
It was dark all around, as if it was still night-time. Even with all my training, and all my arrogance, there was a strange feeling I got as I pushed my way through the thick bush. Dread. Despair. Like when you have been drink-driving, and the police pull you over. You know that feeling you get between the time you pull over and the time the officer knocks on your window? Or even worse, when you are told somebody is terminally ill, or when somebody close to you dies? Those instances where you get that sick, dreadful feeling in your stomach where you know, that no matter what lies you tell, what skills you possess, or what god you pray to – you know it’s going to have the same, dreadful result. There is nothing you can do about it.
I had that feeling, and to be honest, it still hasn’t left me. When I arrived at the source of the screaming, I was too late.
In a small clearing, there were a small team of what seemed to be young adults. I couldn’t tell for sure, as they all wore what seemed to be pantyhose over their faces. There were two cars parked next to each other, doors open, a few coolers placed in between with a picnic blanket and some food. However, in front of the cars were a set of cameras, like the ones they use in shooting movies. They were sat up on tripods, with a man standing behind them, monitoring their status, adjusting them when they needed to be. What they had filmed was in fact horrendous, and for my own sake I am glad I didn’t arrive sooner to see the carnage that had ensued.
Strewn through the grass and dirt were blood and intestines, with crude, dirtied weapons like rusty maces and machetes placed around. Judging by the amount of gore caked on them, I assume they had been recently used. In the center of the clearing stood four men, gathered around a hole with a bloodied heshen bag dumped into it.
“I’ve never seen so much blood!” the smallest, and evidently youngest of the group said.
“Don’t worry, my raven,” the largest of the group said, as he placed his hand on the raven’s shoulder. “We have all been through this ritual before. You have done us all proud, and you finally have something to be proud of. You finally have somewhere to belong.”
“Mithras!” the rest of the group chanted ominously.
Touching as it might have been for those involved, I couldn’t imagine anywhere that young boy would belong other than the ground.
“Mithras!” the group chanted again.
“I’ve never seen so much blood!” again, the boy repeated what he had just said.
“Don’t worry, my raven,” they were repeating what they had just said. Why? This group was absolutely fucking mental. Murdering somebody in the seclusion of the woods, and filming for their own amusement. Not only that, but they kept repeating themselves like a broken record. How many people had they killed? Were they planning on killing more?
Would they kill me? Of course not! But would they try to?
“Tomorrow there will be another,” announced another one of the group. This one had a skeleton necklace and big, fat goth rings on his fingers. He looked like he was trying too hard to be edgy.
“There will be indeed,” agreed the large one. I concluded that he must have been the leader, on account of his authoritative tone and the way everybody seemed to look up to him, both literally and figuratively. “As a matter of fact, I think we could find another victim in this very forest. Who knows? It could be a woman, man or even an immigrant!”
Fat chance of that. If they planned on finding another victim, I’d make damn certain they were left disappointed. The hunter was soon to become the hunted.
“I hope so!” yelled a skinny runt of a man from the back, whose hair was so long it ran down his back like a mangy mullet.
Quickly and quietly, I navigated my way around to the cars through the vegetation. The cultists were too busy chanting their strange chant and burying the heshen bag to even notice me. It was a piece of cake popping the hoods and cutting the battery cables with my pocket knife. They weren’t getting anywhere until I was done with them.
But, in my carelessness, I had forgotten about the cameraman.
“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” yelled the cameraman. The cultists looked up in confusion and curiosity, wondering what the hell had happened. “You have no idea what’s going on here? Do you?” he proceeded to yell, before grabbing me on the shirt and pushing me back into the car.
Now, the thing is, people seem to think that grabbing somebody on the shirt is a good idea in a fight. Wrong. He had accomplished nothing less than giving me full control of his arm.
In one quick, effortless movement, I held his wrist tight in my hands, and turned it the opposite direction. This twisted the cameraman’s arm so that his elbow was facing upwards. Using my control over his limb, I pulled the man down to his knees. He began to wince in pain, unaware that the worst was yet to come. Still with a firm grip on the man’s wrist, I brought my foot up high, and stomped down on his elbow, snapping his arm in half like a stick.
The man screamed, and his voice began to break as he fell to his back in pain and shock. Using the knife, I drove it directly into his solar plexus. Almost instantly, he began to cough blood.
The cultists stood in shock for a moment, as if my actions had somehow surpassed their viscous, murderous fantasies.
“Please,” coughed the cameraman in his last moments of life, “Call me an ambulance!”
“You’re an ambulance,” I replied before high-tailing it back into the forest.
From a distance, I could hear the cultists screaming in despair.
“No!”
“Call somebody!”
“We have no service!”
“Take him to the hospital!”
“Fuck! The car won't start!”
“You two run and get help!”
“Fuck that! Let’s go after the cunt that killed Mike!”
I guess I should have been frightened that they were coming after me. A bunch of psychopaths chasing you through the forest isn’t exactly peaceful, but I had to stop them.
I had to kill them before they killed again.
As I ran deeper into the forest, I found more evidence of their crimes. Decomposing skeletons hang from the branches. The word “Mithras” was carved into almost every tree trunk. I had crossed over into their domain. I was now behind enemy lines, and I didn’t like it.
I found a small creek to hide in, just off the beaten path. Now was my time to shine, using my survivalist expertise and incredible skill; I was going to pick these guys off - one by one.
The older boys eventually ran past, winded. Unfit. Typical youngsters. They didn't even notice me hiding in the nearby shrub. Eventually the younger boy; the raven, trudged past nervously. "Hey guys!" he called out. "Where are you? I'm not walking back to town with a killer out here, we should do that together. It's not safe!"
"You're damn right it's not safe," I said as I rose from the bushes.
"Oh my god! Please don't kill me!" He screamed, pathetically.
"Did your victim make the same plea, satanic scum?" I boomed. "You've learnt what it feels to take a life, it's only fair you now learn what it feels like to have life taken from you."
"Oh god I'm going to die," he whimpered, before turning to run up the trail.
I grabbed the young boys ankle and dragged him to the ground. He was tough for a teenager, he kicked and screamed and struggled as I dragged his body down towards the creek. I quickly silenced his screams as I dunked his head into the water and held him there for a moment.
The water was cold, and he was giving up quickly. He had only just let out his breath when something hit me from behind.
I fell into the water as something tackled me from behind, holding my head underwater in a sorry attempt to drown me.
"Run! Go back to the town and get help!" ordered my assailant.
"What will you do?" asked the Raven.
"I'll give this bastard a taste of his own medicine," he growled as his grip tightened around the cuff of my neck.
The water was very cold, and I had to act quickly before his other friends came and finished me off. I struggled for a moment and let some air out before going limp. Playing dead. It was the oldest trick in the book, and it worked. The boy loosened his grip on me for just a moment, and I shot up with such force that he went spiralling into the mud. I could have finished him before he rose, but I was beginning to enjoy the battle, and I would face this scum in a fair duel.
He stood up and called out to his friends before shaping me up with a worrisome look on his face. “Why would you kill Mark?” the boy asked me in confusion. He couldn’t have been more than 19 years old. “Mark was a good man! Why did you kill him you sick fuck! He never did anything to you!” The skinny boy pulled a rusty little switchblade from his back pocket and pointed it towards me. “Guys! I’ve fucking got him!”
I pointed at the shiv, nonchalantly. “What’re you going to do with that?” I asked.
“I’m going to kill you with it!”
“No you aren’t,” I laughed. “I’ve already had my tetanus shot.”
The boy lunged at me. He was quicker than I anticipated and the blade managed to nip the side of my hand as I deflected the blow. Luckily I wasn’t lying about that tetanus shot.
“We were just doing our thing man! Why’d you have to kill him!”
He lunged at me again, this time swinging the blade high, aiming for my face. I moved back just enough to evade the blow, and when the blade passed striking range I brought my fist down like a hammer onto his hand. He recoiled a little and dropped the blade. I followed up by throwing my left fist hard into his throat, and just for equal measure, my right fist into the same place. There was a pop as the boy fell to the ground and began to wheeze heavily, now struggling to breathe after I caved in his trachea.
“W-w-w-why?” the boy asked in confusion.
“Save your words for the satanic beast whom you worship," I said coldly.
The boy lost consciousness and seceded to breathe. He would be dead in minutes.
“He got Aaron!” yelled the goth boy as he charged towards me.
I wasn’t ready for the fat chunky emo to tackle me, and so I can admit that I ate some shit when he did. I fell hard into a log. I was winded, by back was jarred, and this sad, stinky mess of a man was on top of me.
I reached up to grab his hair, but only succeeded in pulling the pantyhose from his head. “Was this your mothers?” I asked with a grin on my face. It was a genuine question.
My answer was a right hook to the face, which knocked a tooth loose and split my cheek wide open due to the fact this guy was wearing enough rings to turn his fist into a knuckle-duster.
I tried to push the fat mess off me, but he was a little too large for that. I wasn’t exactly a large guy myself, and this guy was half my age and twice my size. Again, he punched me in the face. This time it rocked me a little, and it was about time I started to defend myself.
I reached up and pushed my thumbs into his eyes. He screamed, and without hesitation stood up and blindly backed away. Now that I could properly breathe, I could inflict some pain.
I assumed my fighting stance and lined up another strike to the boys throat.
But something hit me in the back of the head. I fell to the ground hard, blood gushing from my split noggin. I turned my head to see the leader standing behind me with a mace. “Fucking psychopath!” he yelled as he brought the mace down onto my back again. It hurt a lot, but it didn’t draw blood. It must have been blunt. Unlucky for their last victim, but lucky for me.
I fell to the ground again and rolled onto my back, facing the leader as he stepped forward to deliver the coup de grace.
But before he could deliver his final blow, I delivered a kick to the front of his kneecap. He lost balance and fell forwards, where I swung my other foot up into his face.
Almost poetically, I rose to my feet as my other two attackers recovered. It was now two against one.
"You really want to take the two of us on?" The ringleader said, confidently. "That seems a little unfair."
I chuckled. "You are right. You should have brought more to help you."
The fat emo tried to grapple me from behind, much like he has probably grappled many other men. I used his weight to my advantage, and rose both of my feet up, kicking the leader in the chest.
“Hold him still Garry!” yelled the leader, as he lined up another shot with his mace.
This time, when he swung, I stepped to the side and moved Garry into the path of the blow. The mace connected flush with the back of his head, and a crunch could be heard. I swung my head back as Garry’s came forward, connecting with his jaw perfectly. The oversized menace convulsed a little before falling to the ground.
I turned to face my attacker, who was clearly in shock. We both looked at the goth for a minute, watching him hyperventilate and throw up all over himself, before choking on his own vomit and dying. “I'd like to take credit for that, but I think that was mainly your doing.” I said to him.
The leader just stood there, too shocked and frightened to do anything about it. He turned, and groggily walked away before falling to his knees and crying.
“You are fucking pathetic,” I yelled, “Look what you’ve done out here, why is what I’ve done so bad in comparison?”
“We were just having fun,” he cried. “They were my friends. We just wanted to make our dreams come true.”
"Killing people and summoning evil demons from hell is your highest aspiration in this life?" I asked.
"You don't understand," he cried. "We wanted to be famous."
"Well that is one way to do it. Look at Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy!" The boy looked up at me confused for a moment. "Fuckin' millenials." I muttered under my breath as the boy burst into tears again.
I wish I could have left him there to live in his own guilt and defeat, but that never works in the movies. He would have continued his craft, and more people would have died. Hell, he might have even come for me in the future to enact his revenge. I couldn't let that happen.
Let me just say that there was one last body added to the trees that day…
Anyway. I think that about sums up my story. The youngest boy got away, presumably to get help. I escaped, got back to my apartment and made a coffee. I’ve spent the whole night writing this account. Why? Because when I become famous, and the world hails me as a hero for what I have done, I want the story to be told my way. I don’t really want the media to twist it into an emotional hero’s journey when it was simply some killer comedy and a night out drinking, followed up by a trained professional just doing what he is best at.
UPDATE:
Um, it’s the morning after I wrote my account. I know many of my fans have read this and I regret to inform you that my story was not exactly the heroic act of justice I wanted it to be. It's hard to explain, but I just received this newspaper. I'm sure the rest of the news will fill you in on the details.
Dear God, what have I done?
