The boy sat alone in the dark for what felt like hours. The Pest had left, and Darkness was all that surrounded him. The lights turned on, blinding. Burning. Finally, he sees clearly around him. The Crown lays at his feet. There is a Water heater in the lefthand corner. A lawnmower rusts away under the stairs, and boxes line the furthest walls. Then a girl's screams sound out from above. She is shoved towards the steps by an unseen force. She takes steps down, and then tumbles. Step. Fall. Step. Fall. Step. Floor. The Pest steps through the frame, mask placed firmly back on his face. He steps down. Reaches. Grabs. The girl is picked up, and suspended from her wrists by chains dangling from rafters. Her feet barely escape the floor's grip. Tears fall from eyes hidden by brown hair. Aaron sees her. Compassion. Signs of the weak.

The Pest walks over to Aaron, and crouches. Shivers. The Monster touches the boy's head. Shivers. Hair tussled. Shivers. The boy has dread. He expects the worst. The worst for him and the girl. She appears posed to cry. The Boy wishes to warn her. The Monster will not tolerate crying. Words cannot be spoken quick enough. A scream. Snap. The neck of the Beast turns to face the girl. Lips. Licked. Fear. The boy is afraid for the girl. The Monster gets to his feet.

Pest:Hello, Aaron. I brought you a friend. She is a bit younger than you are, but I do not suppose that will be an issue. If it is, I can always get you an older friend. One like I had when I was your age. Oh, yes. I was as much a victim of sexual abuse as you will be, and as much as the girls I collect. Would you care to know the story?

He moves towards the girl, and moves her hair from his eyes. A Pest lowers to meet her gaze. Tiny piercing grey eyes. Staring into her brown eyes. Aaron sees her fear, and her youth. The Pest is turned away from the Boy. He shakes his head violently in answer to the Pest's inquiry.

Pest:Aaron, I cannot hear gestures. If you choose to answer me, and not bring pain to this little girl, then you must speak. Word.

Aaron:I don't wanna hear you story. I wanna go home.

Pest:A shame. You didn't listen.

A Pest picks something from the ground. He turns to face the boy as he slides it across the girl's face. Blood. Cries. Pain strikes the pit of Aaron's stomach. He calls for the pain to stop. The Pest brings a chair out and comes face to face with the boy. The Pest removes a remote from his pocket, and dims the lights. He removes his mask and looks at the boy. Their eyes lock. Fear. Shaking. The boy breaks the gaze first. A Pest chuckles.

Pest:So, you wish to learn about me, and the abuse I suffered. Good boy. Let me start by telling you that my mother, the whore that she was, was the victim of rape. She was merely 16 years old when I was born. My father, a lecherous old man, not unlike myself, preferred the company of those his junior. He was in his late thirties. So my mother tells me. You see, he was a Sailor in the United States Navy, and raped my mother. She was a Junior in High School, and he forced himself upon her. I was born of Rape, and Lust. We lived with my grandparents and my mother dropped out of school. She worked as a Waitress to pay for us. Things were normal around our house. Until I turned ten. On the night of my tenth birthday, my mother came into my room while I slept, she was drunk. She woke me up, and spoke to me. Spoke to me about the things on her mind. How I had ruined her life. How I had kept her from finding love. It was ok, though. She was going to forgive me, because I was her prince. And I would make it up to her. She stood up, and turned to face me. And slid out of her dress.

The Pest stops. He pauses. A scream. The girl behind him screams in pain. A Pest had left the object from before on the floor, and her feet had found it. A nail. A single solitary nail, puncturing her sole, and entering her tender flesh. A Pest gets to his feet, and moves the girl. Backhand. Face. Collide. She stifles the noise, and The Monster returns to his seat.

Pest:She slid out of her dress, and forced herself upon me. I was ten, and she, twenty-six. At the end of the act, she sat, naked on the foot of my bed, and cried. I tried to console her, as any son would. Told her I did not mind, I would do whatever was needed to keep her happy. As any boy would. She shoved me to the floor, and began to call me a dirty disgusting boy. This routine would repeat every few weeks for the next three years. Until she met him. Malcolm. Malcolm was a police officer. He met my mother, and they began to date. Soon, we moved into Malcolm's house. The night time visits would slow down, to only when Malcolm worked over night. I began to think of them as normal, and said nothing of them. When my mother was at work, Malcolm would abuse me. He thought it a game to whip me with electrical cords, kick me down the steps. Once, he ran my dog over in front of me, and told my mother the dog had run away. When I told her what happened he beat me for two hours, and called me a liar. The day mother married Malcolm, they dropped me off on the street. That was the day I turned fourteen. I never saw her again. For six months I lived on the streets with an older man, his name was James. He raped me. Repeatedly. He was a disgusting . One night, while he slept, I slit his throat. The next morning, I found my way to an orphanage. I did not last the week, as I was placed into a foster home almost immediately.

The Patriarch of the Foster Home, he was an old Soldier, and spent time in Korea. He had terrors from it, and spent no small amount of my time telling me about them. In between bouts of beating me for little infractions. Foster children, there were 3 of us in all, I was the lone male. Two girls. One of 16, two years older than I, and the other was ten. Same as I when I first felt my mother's touch. Frank, the Soldier, had taken a shine to Mary, the elder of the girls. We all slept in the same room, a basement converted to fit us. At night, when Frank believed we all were asleep, he would come down, and stuff a dirty sock in Mary's mouth, before forcing himself upon her. And when he finished, she would cover herself, turn and cry herself to sleep. Amber, the young girl, would always pretend like she saw nothing. I would swear to fight him one day. Mary begged me not to. On the day of Mary's seventeenth birthday, she hanged herself. At school, so that Frank could not stop her. Amber and I were alone with Frank. He did not turn his sights on her, but she came to me for protection none the less. The mistake was hers. I had watched Amber, and something stirred inside of me. One day, she was outside playing, Frank and his wife were gone. It was just us. I held her down and forced myself inside of her. I raped Amber. She was the first of my victims. She cried, but not much. When I finished, she told me the pain wasn't what made her cry. Only the betrayal.

She called me all kinds of names. None of them kind. The one that hurt the most was when she said I betrayed her. I silenced her. For good. I took a screw driver from the garage, and impaled her. She did not die right away, slowly. Gurgles. She choked on her own blood in the end. I hid the body, in the basement of the neighbor. He left his door unlocked, in case we wanted to watch his TV. Frank did not allow Television. When his wife came home and found Amber's body, they all assumed it was her husband that murdered the girl. I was alone in the house with Frank. He continued his abuse of me, but nothing sexual. He was not a . The War in Vietnam was still raging on, and every day we waited for news of an end. I turned eighteen. The year was 1973. I enlisted in the Marines. Frank told me it was my duty. I just wanted to get away from him.

The War taught me a new kind of evil. It killed me in ways that my mother, Frank, Malcom, and James never could. My first night in Vietnam, I saw three boys, no older than twenty, get mangled. Within my first week we marched on a village south of Hue. No one was there, just these little girls. Their fathers were off fighting Yankees. My squadmates and I executed the girls. But not before we had our way with them. That was my first foray into Asian girls. They were no older than Amber was, and yet it felt like such a mile stone. They wept when we finished. The one Grunt in my squad, Clover, they called him, Clover pissed on the girls when we finished. He then offered a cigarette. The first one to accept, Clover slit her throat. The next. He emptied a clip from his rifle into her torso. The last tried to make her escape. I emptied the clip. She did not die right away. I was not as good of a shot as Clover. She lay there twitching and gasping. On paper, she was the first life I took. Clover set their village ablaze. Life continued this way for another year. Clover eventually found his way onto a Punji stake just outside of Nam Dinh. He did not survive. I watched as the closest thing to a friend I had died in front of me. In one of the most inhuman ways I could imagine. Do you know what a Punji Stake is, Aaron?

Aaron:No.

Pest:It is a sharpened piece of Bamboo covered in human shit. They sharpen these Bamboo sticks into a point, and cover them in shit. Then bury them, hoping we step on them and die. I was lucky. Clover was not. Ironic. Vietnam is where I was given the name Pest. It is also the place where I buried Michael Stevens, and I have never visited his grave. They called the war over. I went home, and was relieved of duty. Found to be suffering from the effects of Chemical Warfare, and the horrors of the Asian Continent. They told me I was sick. I told them I was truly alive. I went back. A twenty one year old American, alone in the Asian Jungles. I survived. I always survive. The girls I met did not. I lived this way for another four years. Until I was found. A group of Americans on Vacation had somehow come ashore to my private Hell. Among them was Malcolm. He told me how my mother perished. I told him how her son had perished. And, as I had promised, I drowned Malcolm in the river. He would not go home. I did, though. To the streets my mother and I once called home. I did not visit her grave. I found a job working as a butcher, and enrolled in College.

While walking home one night, I came across a girl. She was my junior, and she was having dinner with her date. He was apparently bothering her. I stepped in and beat the man. He went home alone, holding his face. I walked her back home. Her parents were both gone to dinner. She offered me a soda if I would stay with her, to make sure she was safe. She was not safe. As soon as the door shut, The Monster struck. The act led to a pregnancy. She was kicked out of her house, and out of the dying kindness in my heart, I allowed her to stay with me. The child was born a girl, a healthy girl. The mother, did not meet the girl. She was 15 when she died. I named the girl for my mother. And I raised her, by myself. When she entered school, I had finished College, and began to work as a teacher. My daughter grew and lived. Every day she reminded me more and more of the woman I learned to hate. She was allowed a pet. She chose a cat. Named him Tiger. Foolish. The Cat kept me up at night. A tiger stalking me, in my home. The Beast struck first. Tiger met the Monster. And the Monster fed the Flesh of the Tiger to his princess.

A gulp. The girl in chains vomited on the floor. The Pest ignored it.

Pest:My Princess turned 13. And I began to visit her at night. As my mother visited me. I waited until she was three years older than I was when she first came to me. My Princess would always ask me why at the end of our visits. I would tell her it was to appease God. On her sixteenth birthday, she told me there was no God. Only the God of Emptiness. And then she leapt. I did not attend the funeral. Instead, I left the grid and began to travel. And torture. I collected girls. 223 in all. Starting with Amber, and ending with Charli. You, you will begin your quest to be like me.

The boy shakes his head. The Pest undoes the ropes ans allows the Boy to stand at his feet.

Pest:You will force yourself upon her.

Aaron:I won't.

Pest:And then you shall suffer, as shall she.

The Pest rises, and collects an extension cord. He brings it down upon the body of the boy. The boy does not curl, he does not cry. He takes it. The Pest swings harder. The girl cries. She does not understand what is going on, but the Pest keeps swinging, and she keeps crying.