Post by reganvoorhees on Oct 20, 2022 22:43:11 GMT -5
 Lighting cracked and rain trickled. The Faceless looked at the static on his television screen, eyes searching for some hidden answer in the distortion. He looked back to his bag of VHS tapes mournfully, hoping that the next tape would have what he was looking for, but terrified that it, and all the tapes to follow, would not. A flash of lightning shook him free from the static’s spell, and he fumbled for another VHS. This one was marked in pink scotch tape, stenciling out a crude pig face. Almost lovingly, he placed the tape in the VCR and waited for its spell to transport him once again. The screen turned from static to black, and seabirds seemed to call out from within. A title card displayed: Battle Royal: Hawaiian Style Regan’s arrival on the island was not particularly pleasant. Prior to the non-cruise charity cruise event, she hoped to unwind with a private whale-watching tour onboard a catamaran that was a particularly pleasing shade of cerulean. But it seemed a foul plot was afoot. After being shoved off the boat by its captain(who took advantage of her mild buzz following three Blue Hawaiis), she managed to make the swim on her own, avoiding the native moray eels, box jellyfish and sea urchins that made Hawaiian waters so deadly. The exertion was enough to purge her system of alcohol and replace it with adrenaline, but the swim still left her every muscle aching. The island was a welcome sight, but as she left the waves behind and dragged herself up the beach, she found herself in a state of near-death hysteria. It was enough to make Regan vomit up quite a bit of seawater, before fainting face down into that same seawater and the sand that seemed too repulsed to soak it up. The sun hung high overhead when she awoke. Noon, mostly likely, as her whale-watching excursion was an early morning one(her mother would have opinions on Regan drinking that early in the day). She stumbled wearily to her feet, her sandals abandoned in the Pacific, jeans and shirt drying from her time in the sun and sand. There was a dock leading from the beach to the ocean, with what appeared to be a meager welcome center alongside it. Next to them was a billboard, welcoming visitors to the island. WELCOME TO MAKEHUNA The name stuck in Regan’s brain, tickling memories of late-night jaunts down the deepest of internet rabbit holes, curiosity and appetite for human misery both spurred on by alcoholism. Makehuna. The forgotten(some even argued its existent) island in the Hawaiian archipelago. A tiny sliver of Pacific real estate about fifty miles northeast of Oahu. Too small and out-of-the-way to support any sort of economic development or attract tourists, it was rumored to house the most neglected of the fiftieth state’s leper colonies, before the government evicted those residents in the 1940’s so that the island could host the American equivalent of Unit 731 during World War II. “That’s troubling..” Regan said to herself, walking up the beach to find grass, jungle beyond, and a number of poorly maintained dirt paths. And then she learned she was not alone. “Hello, Miss Voorhees,” said a voice. She turned to see a quintet of men, their sizes ranging from stout and diminutive to gangly yet gauntly muscular. Their wardrobe was the stuff of high-end military surplus gear, if not entirely custom, and they each carried an assortment of weapons. The leader had a rifle on one shoulder that was mercifully pointed at the blue sky. But their faces were obscured by ornate masks, painted and bedazzled with hints of gold and jewels. There was a goat, a peacock, an ant, stag, and – to Regan’s great offense – a pig. In spite of her offense, Regan kept her tone flat and even. “Hello, don’t suppose you could give me a ride back to Oahu?” The leader, the pig, adjusted his rifle. “Not quite, Miss Voorhees. The whale-boat captain was with us, you know the drill I’m sure. The bored and the exceptionally moneyed, seeking the ultimate thrill after we’ve tried literally everything else. This year, we’re hunting a person. The trick is finding a person nobody will miss.” Regan cursed to herself. This is what she got for making Atticus the figurehead of her company. Even Jill, loathed by millions as she might be, was definitely too famous to kill on a murder island. But in the unsettling situation, as always, Regan shielded herself with snark. “Yes, I’m familiar with the plot of The Most Dangerous Game, Battle Royale, the Hunt, Confessions of a Psycho Cat, Run for the Sun, The Pest and Tremors: Shrieker Island.” “You should probably start running now,” the pig man said, taking aim with his rifle. “The hunt starts in ten minutes.” Rolling her eyes, Regan sighed. “Fine.” And then she fled into the jungle. (▼✪(oo)✪▼) The stag man screamed from the trapping pit, held off the ground by a series of sharpened sticks. The sticks pieced his shoulder, abdomen, and groin in what looked to be especially painful yet nonlethal ways. Regan was fortunate enough to spot the trap during her initial sprint and doubled back stealthy to catch her pursue off-guard, cracking him in the mouth with a tree branch that sent him tumbling into the pit intended for her. She smirked at him. “That looks… unpleasant.” The man continued screaming as Regan reached down and snatched his mask away, hitching it to her belt like a grim trophy. “You’re rather plain looking,” she said, then considered the situation. “You know, this would be a golden opportunity for me to finally take a human life. I did always want to try it, but the heart only ever seems to want what it can’t have.” She could not imagine facing Atticus after staining her hands with the blood of another living creature, aspiring killer or otherwise. With a single twitch of his snout, Atticus would smell the murder on her, and he would be disappointed. No more happy oinks. The man kept screaming. “Do you mind?” Regan said. “I’m contemplating.” Apparently he did mind, as the screaming continued. And then Regan heard the voices of his fellow huntsmen. She grabbed a sharpened stick from the pit and fled deeper into the jungle. (▼✪(oo)✪▼) The other four tried their best to pursue her as a group, but she knew their kind. Each wanted the glory of the kill for himself and soon enough, they would splinter off again. A bit of mud was enough to hide her pasty complexion and increase her stealth rating. Soon enough, the ant lagged behind and Regan saw her opportunity Her makeshift spear was primitive, but effective enough if she hit the right spot on her quarry. And in that moment, fate extended her a guiding hand. There was a pile of animal feces at her feet, and she plunged the tip of her stick into it. Staying low, she approached from the shadows and jabbed the shit-smeared stick into the butt cheek of the unaware ant man. He screamed, and the man in the pit screamed back, like a pair of morbid birds calling out to each other. The ant man dropped to the jungle floor, and Regan pressed her foot onto his knee, applying pressure until she heard a pop and his leg bent in the wrong direction. “Best of luck with the impending infection,” she said, motioning to the ant man’s ass wound. “I’m sure the tropical climate will make it spread so much faster. Ta-ta.” She collected another mask and vanished back into the jungle. (▼✪(oo)✪▼) The goat man hung upside down from the branch of a koa tree, swinging back and forth from the rope that had ensnared his ankle. Regan was quick to snatch his mask. “You’re all very bad at this,” she said. The man made a sexist remark, so Regan jabbed her thumb into his eye. That seemed to be enough to silence him, but before she left him to dangle, a feral goat emerged from the trees and met her eyes. “Nice horns,” she said. The billy seemed to take exception to the man stealing his likeness, dragging his hoof across the ground in protest. Then he lowered his horns. Regan tittered to herself as the goat launched itself at the hanging hunter, the animal’s horns catching him across the jaw and chest. The impact increased the art of his swing, which the goat seemed to see as a challenge. It charged again, as the sound of cracking ribs echoed through the jungle. While the hunter moaned in agony, the goat readied itself for a third charge. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Regan said. (▼✪(oo)✪▼) The peacock seemed to have more honor than his cohorts. He pulled a pair of combat knives from his belt, then tossed one to the ground in front of Regan. He motioned to it with his eyes, and Regan snatched it up by the handle. “An old-fashioned knife fight,” she said. “I can appreciate that.” The peacock advanced, his knife at the ready, and Regan gripped the blade of her own. She launched the knife at her attacker and it went spinning through the air, end over end. The line of its motion stopped suddenly when it stuck in the peacock’s groin. The impact left the handle wobbling as it stuck out from the peacock’s ruined crotch, and the man collapsed into a sobbing heap. “Stop crying, you fucking baby,” Regan said, as she collected the peacock’s knife and his mask, then yanked her own out of him as he yelped in protest. “An hour ago you were practically creaming your pants over the idea of hunting a person. Best of luck buying a new dick.” The man’s wound was worse than she initially thought. She squinted at the blood and gore seeping out. “Is that...?” she asked herself, examining a body part that appeared to tumble free from the peacock’s ruined scrotum. He grabbed pitifully for it, but Regan’s hands were too quick. “Relax, you still have another one.” (▼✪(oo)✪▼) Hunting a human seemed to have lost its appeal for the pig man. His rifle still slung over his shoulder, he jogged along one of the dirt paths, eager to reach the trawler docked by the old welcome center. His friends could fend for themselves, he decided. A cold voice stopped him. “You wearing that mask offends me,” Regan said. The man turned, halfway up the dock already. “I mean, obviously, so did being hunted. But I can’t help but feel like the pig mask is an especially personal fuck you.” “Hunt’s off,” the pig man said, leveling his rifle. “I’m leaving.” In a display of mock surrender, Regan put her hands in the air. Both held combat knives. “Understandable. Doesn’t seem to be going well. Did I mention my dad bought me a set of throwing knives on a trip to Gatlinburg when I was nine? On top of that, you’re holding your rifle incorrectly. No way to absorb the kickback, your shot will go wide and then I’m going to splay you open like a Thanksgiving turkey. I wanted to see a humpback whale today, so as you can imagine, I’m in a bit of a mood.” Regan could see the panic in the pig man’s bloodshot eyes, and she launched her first knife. He flinched as it soared at him, dropping his gun to the dock. The knife left a gash on his hand, the wound was minor enough for him to ignore, as he grabbed for the gun again. Regan took the opportunity to close the gap, but he fired an elbow that caught her across the jaw. The impact was enough to loosen her grip on her backup knife, and it fell from her hand, tumbling to the edge of the dock and then bouncing over into the water below. The pig man got his hand on the rifle’s trigger, but Regan brought her foot down, snapping his thumb with enough impact to send an errant shot firing into the water below them. Then she reached into her pocket, taking the testicle that was torn free when her knife stuck the peacock man’s scrotum. She knocked the pig man’s mask free, then pressed the testicle into his open mouth to silence his screams of rage. He seemed to savor the taste for a moment, then gagged, as he got back to his feet and pointed the rifle once again. “Spit or swallow?” Regan asked dryly, her hands once again in the air. The pig man spat out the testicle and leveled the rifle, caressing the trigger as best he could with ruined fingers. He stood with his back to the jungle, never noticing the rageful goat that crept toward him. When the goat’s hooves clopped upon the wood of the dock, the pig man finally turned and saw his doom approach. The creature bolted at him with abyssal speed, horns cracking against his sternum, driving the breath from his lungs. The pigman staggered, and Regan snatched his mask away as he toppled from the dock and splashed into the blue water below. The water around the dock had long since been home to a moray eel of especially quarrelsome temperament, even among morays. Though there was nothing he could do to thwart the fight while it was contained to the dock, the commotion(along with the knife handle bonking him on the head) was enough to drive him into a frenzy. And when the pig man sank into the Pacific, the eel found a target for his fury. He attacked in a twisting mass of teeth, contorting around the final hunter. The eel’s own private corner of the Pacific was now a cloud of blood and for the only time he could recall, his thirst for vengeance was quenched. From the dock, Regan examined the eel attack and the resulting expanse of blood in the water. “Technically not my fault,” she said to herself, offering the goat a grateful chin scratch. Their own rages subsided and for a moment the island, the ocean, and the world itself existed in a state of blissful calm. “I really have to get to Waikiki,” Regan said, to no one in particular. She stepped aboard the trawler and was relieved to find a bottle of Four Roses next to the wheel on the ship’s bridge. “Don’t have get there sober, though.” |
