Excerpt from a local Newspaper:
OMINOUS UNKNOWN KILLER IS STILL AT LARGE
After weeks of unexplained murders, the ominous unknown killer is still on the rise. Using uncharacteristically vivid detail for a news article, a young boy bravely tells his story of surviving an encounter with the ghastly criminal.
"I woke up at midnight," says the boy. "I saw that for some reason the window was open, even though I remember closing it. I shut it once more, then crawled back under my covers, putting on Repo Men, the movie starring Jude Law and Forest Whittaker which I fall asleep to every night. That's when I had a strange feeling, like someone was watching me. I looked up, and nearly jumped out of my skin. There, illuminated by a thin ray of moonlight, were a pair of dark, ominous eyes. They were bordered in black and... just plain out terrified me. That's when I saw his mouth. A broad, horrendous smile that made every hair on my body stand up. The figure stood there for a long time, watching me. Finally, in a way only a madman could speak, he uttered a phrase I will never forget.”
"'Wanna know how I got my scars?'”
“I blinked. My parents had never taught me how to react when a killer was trying to make conversation with you, much less one who looked so grotesque. But there he was, staring down at me with inhuman eyes, face split into an uncanny grin. Unable to think of any better ideas, I replied timidly, ‘Uh, sure.’”
The man’s smile grew impossibly wider, and he began his tale.
—
Jeff and his family had just moved into a new neighborhood. His dad had gotten a promotion at work, and they thought it would be best to live in one of those "bourgeois" neighborhoods. Jeff and his brother Liu couldn't complain though. A new, bigger house, with a large basement that was perfect for studying the blade. What was not to love?
As they were getting unpacked, one of their neighbors, Barbara, came by to introduce herself. She and Jeff’s mom chatted for a while, and Barbara invited them to her son Billy’s birthday party. Before Jeff or Liu could protest, their mother agreed.
"Mom, why would you invite us to some kid's party?” Jeff whined, after the woman left. “You know I don’t associate with filthy casuals."
"Jeff," said his mother, "You can’t just spend your entire life chopping up watermelons with a katana and arguing about the modern Sherlock Holmes films on Reddit, you need friends. Now, we're going to that party, and that's final."
Jeff started to say something about how that reference would date this story a lot later than he thought, but he was stopped by a sudden weird feeling. Not so much a pain, but... a weird feeling. He dismissed it as just some random feeling, then finished unpacking and went to bed.
The next day, Jeff walked downstairs to get breakfast and sharpen his katana before school. As he drew his blade along the whetstone, he once again got that feeling. This time it was stronger, gnawing at his insides. As he and Liu walked out to the bus stop and waited for their school bus, Jeff tried to stuff the feeling down, distracting himself by watching Repo Men on his phone.
All of a sudden, some kid on a skateboard jumped over them, only inches above their laps. The kid landed and turned back to them. She kicked her skateboard up and caught it with her hands. "Well, well, well,” she said, pushing up her shutter shades and taking a sip of her blue Icee. “Looks like we got some new meat." Suddenly, two other kids appeared. One was skinny and the other was pudgy. "Since you're new here, I'd like to introduce ourselves, over there is Drake." Jeff and Liu looked over to the skinny kid. He had a stupid face you would expect a washed up child star to have. "And that's Josh." They looked over at the pudgy kid, who actually looked pretty healthy for a child star, and wasn't that pudgy now that they thought about it.
"And I," said the first kid, "am Miranda, but most people call me Randy. I handle everyone’s bus fare, if you catch my drift."
Liu stood up, ready to punch her lights out, when one of her goons pulled a knife on him. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way." Randy walked up to Liu and took his wallet out of his pocket. Jeff got that feeling again. Now, it was truly strong; a burning sensation that compelled him into a violent rage, despite Liu’s protests.
"Listen here you little punk,” Jeff said, thrusting a finger in Randy’s face, “give back my bro's wallet or else."
Randy put the wallet in her pocket and pulled out her own knife. "Or what?"
Just as she finished the sentence, Jeff popped her in the nose. He then grabbed the hand holding the knife and broke it at the wrist, sending the knife clattering across the pavement. He tossed Randy, still clutching her face, to the ground, then leapt after her goons, who were pulling out their own weapons. Jeff didn't waste any time—he knocked the knife out of Drake's hand and stabbed him in the shoulder, then punched Josh in the gut so hard he fell and puked all over Drake.
Liu watched silently, eyes wide. "Jeff, did you just beat the shit out of the cast of Drake and Josh?" But they saw the bus coming and knew they'd be blamed for the whole thing, so they fled.
Jeff and Liu didn't dare tell anyone what happened, because snitches get stitches. Liu just thought of it as his brother beating up a few kids, but Jeff knew it was more. It was something, scary. A powerful, primal urge to just, hurt someone. And it was delightful. The strange feeling from earlier went away, and he went through the rest of his day riding the bliss. When he got home his parents asked him how his day was, and he said, in a somewhat ominous voice, "It was a wonderful day."
Next morning, he walked downstairs to find two police officers at the door, his mother glaring back at him.
"Jeff, these officers tell me that you attacked the cast of Drake and Josh. That it wasn't regular fighting, and that they were stabbed. Stabbed, son!"
“To be fair, we were looking for Drake anyway,” one of the officers clarified. “Not sure how he escaped prison. But the other two didn’t deserve it.”
"Mom, they were the ones who pulled the knives on me and Liu," Jeff tried to explain.
"Son," said one of the cops, "We already know that, but if we want this plot to move along, we have to pretend it’s all your fault instead of bothering to actually gather evidence. Now, call down your brother so we can wrongfully arrest him and give you a motive for any crimes you might commit later on."
“Here!" Liu exclaimed from behind Jeff, running down the stairs. “I even made it easier for you to frame me.” He held up a knife, and rolled up his sleeves, showing cuts and bruises. "This is the weapon I used, and these are all the injuries I got from the struggle."
The officers pulled out their guns and aimed at Liu. "Son, we appreciate you committing to the bit, but you have to drop your weapon," said the officer. “If you don’t, we’ll shoot you, and because we’re cops we’ll probably face no consequences for it.”
Liu dropped the knife and let the cops take him away to Juvy.
"No! Liu, tell them it was me!” Jeff pleaded, as the cops shoved Liu into their patrol car. “Tell them I was the one who beat up those kids!"
"Jeff please, you don't have to lie,” said Jeff’s mom, putting her hands on his shoulders. “We know it's Liu, and we’re going to continue to gaslight you about it until you shut up." Jeff watched helplessly as the cop car sped off with his brother, sirens blaring for no discernable reason.
A few minutes later Jeff's dad pulled into the driveway. He saw Jeff's face, and instantly knew something was wrong. "Son, son what is it?"
Jeff couldn't answer. His vocal cords were strained from crying. Instead, Jeff's mother walked his father inside to break the bad news to him as Jeff wept in the driveway. After an hour or so, he walked back into the house and down to the basement, unable to look at his parents. After a few hours of chopping Dr Pepper cans in half with his katana, he decided to try and move on. He put on Repo Men, then crawled into bed, hoping he could sleep off his guilt.
Saturday came around, and Jeff realized with disgust that he would have to go to the neighbor kid’s birthday party later in the day. His mom was excited about it for some inexplicable reason, and every time Jeff told her he didn’t want to pretend everything was fine after Liu took the fall for him, his mom started gaslighting him again, to the point where he just gave up. He got dressed and walked down the stairs.
“Jesus Christ, Jeff,” his mom said when she saw him. “What are you wearing?”
“My party clothes,” he deadpanned. “The fuck else would I wear to a party?”
“I’m not letting you greet our neighbors wearing a banana suit and elf shoes,” his mother replied. “Now go to your room and find some fancy clothes to wear.”
“You people don’t know how to party,” Jeff grumbled as he marched back up the stairs.
He rooted around in his closet, eventually finding a pair of black dress pants he had for special occasions. He was still feeling petty, however, so he paired them with a white hoodie, specifically because he knew it would stain easily and his mom would get pissed about it.
"You're wearing that?" his parents said as he re-emerged. His mother looked at her watch, then groaned. "Oh, no time to change. Let's just go."
She herded Jeff and his father out the door, and they crossed the street over to Barbara and Billy's house. When they arrived, Jeff saw that Barbara, just like his parents, was way over-dressed. So this must be what my dad meant when he said “bourgeois neighborhood,” Jeff thought.
"The kids are out in the yard,” Barbara said. “Jeff, how about you go and meet some of them?"
Sensing a transition into the third act of this story, Jeff walked outside to a yard full of kids. They were running around in cowboy costumes and shooting at each other with plastic guns. Suddenly a kid came up to him and handed him a toy gun and hat.
"Hey. Wanna play?" he said.
"Guns are for cowards," Jeff replied. “A real sigma male like myself uses a sword.”
“I think guns are cooler,” the kid replied.
Jeff looked down his nose at the insolent child. “That just makes you a beta cuck.”
The kid pouted, giving Jeff puppydog eyes. "Please play with us?"
"Fine," said Jeff. “Let me just get some Go Juice in me first.”
He slammed six shots of fireball whiskey, wiped his lips, then put on the hat and started to pretend-shoot at the kids. At first he thought it was ridiculous, but then he started to actually have fun. It might not have been true sigma male behavior, but it was the first time he had done something that took his mind off of Liu. So he played with the kids for a while, until he heard a noise. A weird rolling noise. Then it hit him. Randy, Drake and Josh all jumped over the fence on their skateboards. Jeff dropped the fake gun and ripped off the hat.
Randy tossed her shutter shades aside and glared at Jeff, her eyes burning with hatred. "Hello, Jeff," she said, her bruised nose scrunched up into a snarl. "We have some unfinished business."
“I think we're even, actually,” Jeff replied, his voice a little slurred from the whiskey. “I beat the crap out of you, and you got my brother arrested."
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Randy grinned maliciously. "Oh no, I don't go for even, I go for winning. Now sit still while I rip your balls off and shove them down your throat."
She rushed at Jeff and raised her skateboard high, winding up to bring it down on Jeff’s head. He dodged, and her skateboard snapped in half when it met the ground. Randy swung her broken skateboard again, mouth foaming with rage. Kids were screaming and parents were running out of the house.
After several repetitions of this, Drake and Josh realized embarrassingly late that there was a fight happening, and pulled out guns. "No one interrupts or guts will fly!" they said.
Randy pulled a knife on Jeff and stabbed it into his shoulder. He screamed and fell to his knees, clutching the wound as blood gushed over his fingers. As he keeled over in pain, Randy grabbed a bottle of vodka off a nearby picnic table and swung it at Jeff’s head. It made a thunking noise but didn’t shatter—as it happened, vodka bottles were quite difficult to break—and after a few more fruitless attempts, Randy gave up and unscrewed the bottle, pouring the vodka all over Jeff instead.
“What’s the matter?” Randy taunted. “Are you scared?”
As Jeff sat there curled up on the grass, dazed from all the blows and approximately 24 ounces of fireball, he got that strange feeling again. It mounted within him, until his vision went red with bloodlust. He didn’t just want to hurt Randy anymore. He wanted to kill her. He wanted to kill everybody.
“There, there, Jeff,” said a smooth, melodic voice. “The sun will shine on tomorrow.” A beacon of light shone down from heavens, piercing through Jeff’s murderous rage. He looked up at the source of the light, to see a silhouetted figure standing over him. The figure stepped out of the light, and his face became visible.
Jeff’s lip quivered, as he stared up at the visage smiling down at him, encircled in a golden halo. “J…Jude Law? Is it really you?”
“Yes, it is I,” Jude Law said, in the soothing tones of Lemony Snicket, his character in A Series of Unfortunate Events (the Nickelodeon one with Jim Carrey, not the good one on Netflix). “I have come to you in your hour of need.”
“I-I don’t understand,” said Jeff, trembling in awe as he knelt before this divine beacon of hope.
“You have great potential, Jeffrey Woods,” he said. “You’ve studied the blade well, but I can help you become so much more.” He reached out to Jeff. “Take my hand.”
Jeff took Jude Law’s hand, who then helped him to his feet. Randy and her goons, who had all been standing there looking stupid for this entire exchange, backed away slowly as Jeff followed his new mentor out of the neighbors’ house.
Jude Law took Jeff to a large, pristine building on the edge of town, with the words “Jude Law’s Martial Arts Academy” emblazoned on the front. “This is my life’s work,” he said to Jeff, gesturing to the building. He opened the front door, which led into a dojo, where 40 or 50 young men just like Jeff were congregated, arranged in formation and drilling martial arts exercises. “Here, I instruct special children like you in the way of Wing Chun, the martial art I learned from Robert Downey Jr on the set of Sherlock Holmes.”
“I always told everyone on Reddit that you were the best part of that movie,” Jeff said, “but they never listened.”
Jude Law looked down at him, smiling serenely. “I was listening, Jeff.” He then gestured towards the stairwell. “Upstairs are your dormory and the cafeteria, if you need to eat. I imagine you could use a bit of eggs and toast, after drinking all that fireball.”
Jeff looked up at Jude, eyes sparkling with wonder. “Thank you, Sensei.” He did as Jude Law recommended, eating, cleaning up, and settling into his dorm. At night, when he put on Repo Men and crawled under the covers, he felt more calm than he had been in the past few days. But as his eyes began to close, that same weird feeling came back to him. It was faint, but it was there, clawing at his subconscious.
Jeff improved quickly. Jude Law even told Jeff many times that he was his greatest student, and could even be his right hand man one day. After many long nights of training, Jeff no longer needed a sword to cut Dr Pepper cans—he could chop them in two with his bare hands. At night sometimes, he would lay awake wondering what happened to Liu, or maybe getting that weird feeling again, but it always went away during the day as Jude Law helped him hone his combat skills.
On the eve of the solstice, after a long day of training, Jude Law called Jeff to meet him in his private study. The room was covered wall to wall in bookshelves full of scientific manuals, atlases, obscure texts, and DVDs of Jude Law’s entire filmography. All of the furniture was vintage, ornately carved mahogany. Jude Law sat behind his desk, tracing an antique brass protractor along a faded map.
Jeff approached. “You asked to see me, Sensei?”
“Yes, Jeff.” He put down the protractor and looked up at Jeff, taking his spectacles off and stowing them in the inside pocket of his tweed tailcoat. “It’s time I let you in on my larger plan.” He stood up and turned to face the back wall, scanning his shelf. “You recall the film Repo Men, yes?”
“How could I forget?” Jeff said. “It’s my favorite movie. The critics were unfair, and it should have made far more at the box office than it did.”
“I agree,” said Jude Law. “But I think even the directors of that movie could never have known its true potential.” He pulled out a book from his shelf, and there was a loud clunking noise. With lots of labored creaking, the shelves parted, revealing a hidden passage. Jude Law stepped into it, beckoning for Jeff to follow him.
“Organs aren’t cheap,” Jude Law explained as they walked down the hall, “nor are they easy to get. But…” he stopped in front of a door on the right and opened it, gesturing inside. “...It’s considerably more efficient to clone them.”
The room was a massive lab. Jude Law led him further inside, showing him rows of suspension tanks full of human organs at various stages of growth. “These are our early attempts,” Jude Law explained, “but we found that they couldn’t last long enough on their own.” He gestured across the aisle at a table where two scientists were working on something.
Jeff peered at their table, but when he saw what it was, he reeled back in horror. “Is that” —he swallowed— “is that a cybernetic heart?”
“Yes,” Jude Law replied. “We’ve been able to produce them using the technology from my cybernetic implants, which they gave me for my role in AI: Artificial Intelligence.”
“Didn’t you play a male prostitute in that one?”
“That’s not important,” Jude Law replied. “What’s important is that we can make Repo Men a reality.”
Jeff blinked. “Wasn’t the whole point of that movie to show how playing with people’s lives like that has very bad ethical implications?”
“But there’s so much more to it than loaning out organs,” Jude Law continued, as if he hadn’t heard Jeff’s response. “We can use the genetic science we’ve learned to rule the world, to make an army of people with superior strength, agility and intelligence. With unlimited access to cybernetically modified organs, I—we, could even achieve Immortality (1998)!”
Jude Law stopped in front of a large elevator at the end of the room, pressing the button. The doors slid open, and he gestured inside. “The time has come, Jeff,” he said, with a hopeful, albeit somewhat deranged smile. “You are ready to join our Order.”
Jeff stepped inside, riding down the elevator in silence. What had he gotten himself into? Over the past few months, Jude Law had been a better father to him than his own parents had been. But this was just…too much.
The elevator came to a halt, and the doors opened. Jeff followed Jude Law out into a vast room that looked like a large cave converted into a hideout, with a very similar aesthetic to Pitch’s Lair in Rise of the Guardians (complete with a black globe as a centerpiece). Jude Law gestured out into the courtyard, and Jeff’s jaw dropped at the sight. “Behold,” Jude Law said. “All the King’s Men (2006).”
The courtyard was filled with hundreds of young men, each wearing black Gis, staring up at him with cold, ruthless eyes. He turned back to look at Jude Law, who was grinning triumphantly. “Join me, Jeff,” Jude Law said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “And together, we can rule the world.”
Jeff stared out at the army of supersoldier teens for a long time, his thoughts racing. At last, he stepped away from Jude Law, brushing his hand off his shoulder. “No,” Jeff said, with a defiant glare. “This is wrong. I will have no part in it.”
Jude Law’s grin morphed into a snarl. “If you refuse to join me,” Jude Law growled, “then I have no choice but to strike you down.”
With lightning speed, Jude Law grabbed Jeff by the collar and yanked him forward. Before Jeff could register what was happening, he was flying through the air, compelled by Jude Law’s superhuman strength as he tossed Jeff into the middle of the crowd of supersoldiers. “Repo men!” Jude Law bellowed, addressing his army. “Destroy him!!”
Jeff whipped out his katana, standing at the ready. Hordes of other psychopathic teenagers rushed at him with murderous intent. But Jeff had spent his entire life studying the blade, and they were all outmatched. He hacked and slashed his way through the crowd, blood spattering across the ground and severed limbs flailing through the air. That weird feeling, which he had pushed down and ignored for so long, broke free, imbuing Jeff with killer instincts that outmatched every one of his assailants. Within minutes, all the hundreds of super killers were now dead, reduced to mangled piles of corpses.
Jeff turned back to face Jude Law, who was sitting on a marble throne that Jeff had somehow missed before. The steps, and his shoes, were slippery with blood, but he marched up anyway, ready to face his mentor in combat.
“There is one thing I never got to show you, Jeff,” Jude Law boomed. “The true power of our technology to transform a man into a killing machine.” An eerie grin split his face. “I know you still wonder about what happened to your brother.”
Jeff froze. He stared up at Jude Law, a dreadful mix of rage and terror coiling within him. Did Jude Law have Liu? Had he been hiding Liu from him this whole time? The realization came like a knife in his chest. “What have you done to Liu?!” Jeff demanded.
“See for yourself!” Jude Law said. He pressed a button on the armrest of his throne, and a large cage descended from the ceiling. It landed on the ground, then with the hiss of hydraulics, several layers of locks began to open. The doors slid open, revealing the massive silhouette of a creature…no. Not a creature.
It was Liu.
Half of his body was now coated in cybernetics, blinking lights and wires visible between sleek metallic panels. What remained of his skin was raw, covered in stretch marks from rapid, intense muscle gain. His face, once so full of life, was now scrunched into a perpetual visage of rage.
The Liu cyborg lurched out of its cage, groaning and dragging a massive buster sword behind it, which made sparks as it scraped across the stone floor.
“Liu, it’s me,” Jeff pleaded, holding back tears. “It’s me, your brother.”
The Liu cyborg snarled, flecks of spit flying out of its foaming mouth. It swung its sword at Jeff, the massive blade sweeping out in a semicircle and taking a gust of wind with it. Jeff leapt back, narrowly dodging a strike that would have snapped his spine. He ducked and dodged as the feral monster continued its ruthless assault, calling out to whatever remained of his brother and begging it to stop. But it didn’t listen. At last, Jeff realized he couldn’t stall any longer.
He would have to kill his own brother.
Jeff vaulted off Liu’s cage, doing a spinning backflip in the air and driving his sword downward towards the Liu cyborg’s head. It tried to dodge, but it wasn’t swift enough, and Jeff’s sword buried itself in the beast’s shoulder. He pulled the blade out to wind up for another strike, sending a spray of blood through the air. But before he could begin his next attack, he heard a squelching noise. He looked at the beast, and realized its wound was healing itself, tendons rebinding and pulling the flesh back together again.
The Liu Cyborg spun around and stared Jeff down, an evil, inhuman fire behind its eyes. Air began to swirl around it, and then it launched itself upwards. It lodged its buster sword into the ground, then balanced on the hilt in a ninja pose.
Jude laughed wickedly from behind Jeff, shifting in his seat and interlacing his fingers. “Wait until you see the true power of my creations,” Jude Law said, an ominous timbre to his voice.
The Liu Cyborg brought its hands together in front of it, and began to make motions with them. When it finished, it aimed its hands at Jeff, then bellowed: “Katon: Firebleach no Jutsu!!”
A huge blast exploded out of his hands, sending a comet of fire and bleach blazing towards Jeff. He tried to dodge, but the blast was too big, and it quickly engulfed him. The burn was excruciating, the bleach sucking all of the color out of his skin as the fire melted and morphed his flesh.
In the middle of this agonizing pain, staring up at the hideous genetically-altered cyborg beast that was once his brother, now bombarding him with a hail of flames and oxiclean, something within him broke. In a world where life was so mundane, so expendable that an ordinary man could tamper with it any way he wished, there could never be any significance to it. Humanity was little more than an arbitrary idea, a lie we tell ourselves to distance us from the brutality of nature. And in that moment, whatever part of Jeff that still hung onto that lie, finally let it go. All that remained was that strange feeling which always lay in the back of his head. The primal instinct to kill.
Jeff screeched and launched himself into the air, sending a flurry of strikes raining down on the beast. The Liu cyborg tried to dodge and swing its buster sword around to give its wounds a chance to heal, but Jeff’s strikes were too swift, each slash tearing a new hole in its flesh. As he hacked away at the beast, bathing in the blood of the creature that was once his own brother, a smile started to form on his face. It grew and grew, until his lips tore at the seams, and still he kept smiling.
One final slash was all it took. Jeff sliced open the Liu cyborg’s throat, spraying blood everywhere. Jeff stood directly under the fountain of red gushing out of his brother’s throat, letting it quench the fire and cool his bleached skin.
Jeff turned slowly towards the throne, eyes wide and smiling maniacally. Jude Law’s face paled, and he started get up. But before he could run away—before he could even get out of his seat— Jeff dashed up to the throne, towering before him. “You leave me no choice, Jude Law,” Jeff said, grinning maliciously. He raised his katana, with pure bloodlust in his eyes. “I’m going to Jeff the Kill you!”
—
“‘...And that’s how I got my scars,’ Jeff the Killer finished.”
“I stared at the pale-faced man for a long time, shifting uncomfortably beneath my covers. ‘Did you break into my house just to tell me your life story, Mr. Killer?’ I finally asked.”
“‘No, I broke in to kill you,’ Jeff the Killer replied, ‘but something about you reminded me of—’ he paused. “Ah, it doesn’t matter.” He tousled my hair. ‘Take care, kid.’”
"I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and before I could say anything else, Jeff the Killer yeeted himself through my window, shattering the glass. My father came in and we both stared out the window, watching the pale-faced killer vanish into the distance. I can tell you one thing, I will never forget that face. Those cold, beady eyes, and those weirdly plump, glossy lips curled into an eerie grin. I know for sure that they will never leave my head. Or my name isn’t Jared Leto."
Police are still on the lookout for this man. If you see anyone that fits the description in this story, please contact your local police department.