Hey there, fellow horror geeks and monsterphiles! Prometheus here with the first round of our Random bracket! Today we have two very different competitors facing off for your entertainment! One is an undead, overpowered, maniac of a force who enjoys nothing more than hurting people! He goes by the name of Victor Crowley (Hatchet)! The other, by the name of Aaron Boone (Nightbreed), is a mild-mannered, yet mentally unstable accused serial killer, who really isn’t looking for anything but acceptance. Until pressed…
If you are new to the series, check out the rules here!
Now let’s take a look at our fighters!
VICTOR CROWLEY (Hatchet)
If you’re unfamiliar with Victor Crowley from the Hatchet series, let me just say this… the guy is a total brute! Not too many could stand toe to toe with him and survive, let alone take him down. He has superhuman strength and is invulnerable to most attacks.
Born out of an affair his father had with his sick mother’s caretaker, while she was dying from stomach cancer, Victor never had much of a chance. His chances became much slimmer when his mother found out about the affair and placed a curse on him while still in the womb.
Born with a monstrous deformity, his father kept him hidden from the world at their bayou home. Of course, some kids from the town decide to be dicks, and show up at the home shooting off fireworks to lure Victor outside so they see, and bully him, but end up lighting the door of the home on fire.
Victor's dad comes home and tries busting down the door with a hatchet, not knowing his son’s face was pressed close to it. Victor dies from his wounds, and his father lives out the rest of his days in depressed isolation. Except… Victor was pissed. In fact, he was so pissed, that he decided to hang around as a vengeful spirit, haunting the bayou with a hatchet and becoming a local legend. If daddy could only see him now!
AARON BOONE (Nightbreed)
Oh, Aaron, where to begin…
Aaron Boone is an odd fellow. He had dreams of a city called Midian, where monsters are loved and accepted. This creeps out his girlfriend who convinces him to see a shrink by the name of Dr. Phillip Decker. Decker, in turn, convinces Boone that he is a serial killer, responsible for the deaths of several families.
In actuality, Aaron is no killer, but Decker is. Decker uses LSD disguised as Lithium to help mess with Boone’s mind, and tells Boone he needs to turn himself in. Before he can though, he is hit by a truck and taken to the hospital, where he meets an insane man also seeking Midian.
After obtaining directions to this mythic city, Boone escapes the hospital and finds Midian. After one of the Midian’s senses his innocence, he is attacked and bitten but manages to flee the city. He runs into Decker, who is with a bunch of cops and of course, Boone is gunned down.
Due to the bite, he returns to life in the morgue and heads back to Midian and is initiated into their society and anointed with the blood of Baphomet. Now blessed with near-immortality, he is forced to drink blood. He also has superhuman strength and invulnerability.
FIGHT!
Seems like as good a place as any, he thinks to himself as he stares out over the swampy bayou. If it’s up to him to rebuild Midian it might as well be somewhere quiet. Out of the way. Somewhere where no one would go just for the sake of going. This is it. It’s perfect.
Fog rises from the surface of the swamp and into the cool air of the night like the smoke from a still-lit cigarette carelessly left in the ashtray to burn. Thin clouds veil the moon, but only slightly as the light reflects off the thick condensation, causing it to dance. Tomorrow, he would go back and tell the others that he found the spot, the new Midian. It’s time to rebuild.
“Hey, there.”
The voice surprises him, and he spins around quickly.
“You lost, or something?” The stranger smiles. His Cajun accent is thick and the closer he gets, the stronger the smell of Jack Daniels becomes. His stride is staggered and slow, yet deliberate.
“No. Just admiring the beauty.”
“I’ve heard this place called a lot of things in my day, hell, I never heard it called beautiful.”
“Well,” he shrugs his shoulders. “To each their own.”
“Name’s Hebert Landry Boudreaux.” The stranger sticks his hand out in greeting. “The third.”
“Boone,” he replies as he shakes the man’s hand. “The first.”
“We don’t get too many visitors this way. Not this far out. What brings you here, Boone?”
“Exactly that. It’s what my family needs. The peace, the quiet and the fact that you can be left alone.” He cuts Mr. Boudreaux a look, hoping he’ll pick up on the hint. He doesn’t.
“Yeah, plenty o’ that around here. If you can stand the swamp life. It’s not for everybody, no sir.”
“We’ve seen worse, we’ll be okay.”
“You aren’t concerned about the stories?” Mr. Boudreaux cuts Boone a look this time, as if dropping his own hint.
“Stories? What stories?”
Mr. Boudreaux snarks, revealing a crooked and more mischievous smile this time. The kind that’s more pronounced in the eyes. A glint that says, you might want to listen up. “The kind people only tell in the back of a dark tavern after too many beers, spoken in whispers to fall only upon the ears of those willing to listen.”
“Campfire stories?” Boone smiles, brushing it off entirely. “I’m not concerned with children’s tales. I’ve seen real nightmares. I live with them, every day.”
The Cajun’s face becomes sullen, revealing cracks in his worn, leather-like skin. The friendly tone in his voice shifts to ominous. “I’m not talking about children’s tales here, son.” He looks around, as if suddenly nervous and then takes a step closer, lowering his tone. “Hell, I’m not even talking about nightmares. I’m talking about,” he lowers his voice to just above a whisper, “Victor Crowley. Ol’ Hatchet Face, himself.”
“Hatchet Face?” Boone laughs. “Look, I’ve been here all day and haven’t run into anybody, but you. I haven’t even seen anyone else.”
“Well, if you’ve been here for any length of time, I guarantee he’s already seen you. You’d be best to just head on home. Before you can’t.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A threat?” The Cajun smiles again. “No. Just a friendly heads up. Not the type of thing you don’t tell a fella. Wouldn’t feel right.”
“Thanks. I’ll take it into consideration.” His tone is dismissive and mocking.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Enjoy your stay, Boone.”
As the man turns and walks away, Boone calls out to him. “Hey, you live here?”
“Here?” Mr. Boudreaux stops only momentarily, not bothering to turn around. “Nobody lives here, they only die here, son.” He continues down the dark dirt road and disappears, never looking back.
After a few more minutes of taking in the scenery, and solitude, Boone heads the same way. The sun will be coming up soon and plus, he couldn’t wait to tell the other Nightbreed about the story the Cajun shared with him. They should get a good laugh out of it, at least. Hatchet Face, he thinks to himself. That’s a good one.
As he makes his way slowly down the dirt road, preoccupied with his thoughts, his foot kicks something heavy and it rolls a few feet ahead of him. “What the hell?” Looking down, he sees the Cajun’s unmistakable smile greeting him. His eyes are cold and dead. The cut at the neck was jagged, rough, and far from clean. His head wasn’t severed, it was ripped off.
He backs up, bumping into something. Spinning around startled he sees the Cajun’s headless body. His legs are hanging two feet off the ground. A large hunting knife is plunged straight through his chest and into the tree, holding him in place. Blood flows from the wounds in rivers, and the smell is overwhelming. Boone begins to pant, then salivate.
His Nightbreed form takes over and as he feasts on the blood of the dead, a large man steps from the shadows. Boone looks up, the blood forming a Kool-Aid smile around his mouth. He wipes his arm across his face, smearing it. “Did you do this?”
Victor Crowley stands there, looking at him with a rusty hatchet in his hand.
“You must be Hatchet Face…”
As if angered by the name, he charges at Boone, raising the hatchet into the air and bringing it down so fast that he’s just barely able to roll out from under it. Before he can get up, the hatchet swings again and this time, connects with the soft part of his stomach.
Victor pulls the hatchet back out with an audibly wet, ripping sound as Boone looks down, still trying to comprehend what’s happening. Victor steps back, and with all his might, swings again. The hatchet buries itself into his chest, and Boone staggers before falling to one knee.
Crowley approaches slowly, his deformed and mangled face shaped into a snarl.
“What the fuck do you want?” asks the Nightbreed, as his assailant approaches once more.
Victor bends down and grabs the handle of the hatchet and yanks on it, tearing it from the chest cavity. Without hesitation, he slams the hatchet down into Boone’s skull, splitting the bone. Without even bothering to remove the hatchet, Victor turns his back and walks away.
“Hey…”
Victor stops in his tracks, surprised to hear the man still alive.
“Hey, Hatchet Face! You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Crowley turns around slowly, his back and chest going in and out as he breathes. His eyes laser-focused on Boone. The Nightbreed stares back, holding the rusty hatchet that sat in his skull only moments ago. Victor walks over to the Cajun’s mangled body and removes the hunting knife from his chest. The headless man falls to the ground hard and he kicks it out of the way.
Before Victor can react, Boone sinks the hatchet into his back, and immediately pulls it out, spins him around and slams it into his chest. He tries removing it again, but Victor lifts him in the air by his throat.
“Don’t you get it?” His voice is choked and strained. “You can’t kill me.”
Crowley throws him to the dirt.
“Hell, I can’t even kill me,” he says as he tries to catch his breath. As he gets to his feet, the sun begins to rise, just barely off in the distance and a small beam of light seeps through the trees hitting Boone’s shoulder and burning into his skin. He jumps back into the shadow as Victor cocks his head to the side. “Come back with me.”
Crowley takes a step forward.
“There are others like us. We could use a guy like you.”
Crowley keeps coming, unabated by Boone’s coercion. Reaching down, he grabs Boone by the shirt lifting him to his feet and drags him into a small patch of sun. It burns through Boone’s shirt and right into his skin as he screams and tries to fight back.
Crowley is too strong and overcomes Boone easily. He lifts him in the air by the neck, slams him back first into a tree and plunges the hunting knife through his chest leaving him pinned up like a poster. He then moves behind the tree and grabs a hold of both of Boone’s arms and pulls, keeping him in place as the sun slowly climbs above the trees.
With his arms pulled behind him, the sun hits his body first, and after a few moments, it turns entirely to ash, leaving Crowley holding a pair of useless arms. He tosses them into a patch of sun and watches them dissolve. Then, after picking up his hatchet, he heads off into the swamps.
VICTOR CROWLEY
Well, there it is. I just couldn’t see a way for Boone out of this. Victor is too brutal and once he found out Boone’s weakness, it was a wrap. What do you think out there? Could Boone have pulled an upset? Yell at me in the comments and let me know! I’ll see you next week for round #2, ANACONDA VS BRUCE (Jaws)
Until next time, keep on geekin’ on, my friends!
Joshua “Prometheus” Scafidi
