Rematch

"It isn't fair! It shouldn't end this way!"

I was about to separate David's head from his body, and he just couldn't accept it. Aaron had spewed vicious insults through gritted teeth as I bludgeoned him in the ritual room and ran him through with the Traveler's blades. Pinned to the wall and bleeding out, he spent his final moments telling me he'd see me in Hell. I respected that. Not David. He whined more nasally with each step I took toward him. I lifted the Dagger of Judgement in both hands.

"WAIT!" David shouted. "FACE ME AGAIN!"

He slapped the power button on the console. The game vanished. Snow flickered and static hissed in its place. It was the worst sin a gamer could commit back then.

"You've got to be kidding me," Aaron said, dropping his controller with disgust. "You're going to be a coward all your life if you don't man up and take what's coming to you."

"You ganged up on me!" David shouted. His lip started to quiver.

"We didn't mean to upset you," I assured him. If we pushed the issue, he'd involve his religious parents who didn't know we were playing Brutal Chain, a violent video game about demon-warriors and one of the most controversial interactive media pieces of the late '90s. I didn't feel like hearing how much we needed Jesus tonight.

"I don't want to play anymore," David declared. He popped the cartridge out of the game system and snapped it into its case from the rental store up the street. Aaron clenched his fists and his face turned red. That's when David decided nobody else could sleep in his room and locked us out.

The family's two Great Danes snored on the sectional sofa in the cramped living room. Aaron was nearly hyperventilating with rage, still staring at the locked door. "I'm going to knock this door down and kick his ass," he said. I knew he would do it. I had to think fast. "Maybe I have another idea," I said.

By the time I explained it to Aaron, we could already hear David snoring in his bed. He was a famously heavy sleeper. He started keeping his bedroom window unlocked in his younger years so teammates could wake him up for baseball games without dealing with his parents and barking dogs at the front door.

While David's family slept, Aaron and I ducked out the front door and into the rainy night. We could have just walked home, but I worried Aaron needed a creative outlet for his rage or he might come back and burn the house down. We crept around the corner toward David's window.

Aaron produced the plastic bag from the video store and we shoved fistfuls of sloppy mud inside. He watched the street while I slowly slid the window open. I climbed back into David's room, then took the bag from Aaron as he hoisted himself over the sill to get in.

"Do it," I whispered.

We each muddied our hands and set to work on his eggshell-colored drywall. We started with simple streaks, but Aaron quickly graduated to obscenities. This felt too aggressive, so I gave him another idea.

"Make symbols like in the game!" I whispered.

Across David's walls and right over his gospel grunge posters we copied the weird pseudoglyphs from Brutal Chain's ritual room. I marked the crude shapes of the Traveler's blades and the Dagger of Judgement over his dresser to celebrate my stolen victory. When we stepped back to appreciate our handiwork in the nightlight's glow, I had to admit it looked creepy as hell. It was too much, but there was nothing to do for it now.

"Let's go," I whispered to Aaron.

He slid the cartridge back into the console and flipped the game back on in defiance before heading for the window. Rain and thunder covered our exit while David sawed logs.

"See?" I said, trying my best to sound lighthearted. "I'd say we're even."

"Almost," Aaron said. He was fixated on something near the road. He walked to the sidewalk and reached down to pick up a dripping, mangled wreck of a dead animal I couldn't even identify. He walked back in my direction, now focused on the window over my shoulder. I fought back the urge to dry heave. "Hold on, dude. You can't." "Get out of the way," he warned. I knew we left the line of insanity far behind us, but I also didn't want to know what he would do if I didn't move.

"This is too much, man," I insisted. It was all I could do not to gag as he opened the window again. He chucked the carcass in like a gore grenade, pulled the window shut, and turned to leave like nothing happened.

We never saw David again.

I snuck by his window one night a week later. His parents were home, but he was gone. The walls were scrubbed clean and the posters were torn down. Dust covered the floor where the furniture used to be.

Then the rumors started.