Walkthrough
Chapter Eight
game over
“You too, Aggie?”
I had made it to the turnpike service-plaza, before buckling under the pain. What I had learned about my parents’ fate was so much more than I could take. I cried loud gut wrenching sobs. Wade had sacrificed my father just so he could fucking play god in that damned dungeon. He made my mother suffer in ways that I can’t even imagine, videotaping it all, hundreds of videotapes, each one four hours long, four fucking hours of degrading and humiliating shit that is so horrific it’s unmentionable. A little voice inside my head kept repeating, you asked for this; you had to know, mom tried to warn you. We could be having Chinese takeout, cold beer, and hot sex. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
“Aggie… I don’t know what to do,” I said, still crying, with tears rolling from my eyes.
quest Save Kiko: Ghost Mountain
watch second video
you will need: phone, dog food, 16 feet of steel chain, voltage tester, bolt cutters
Aggie then opened up a topographical map of Babcock Ridge, West Virginia, showing a secluded homestead hidden at its base, with a truck and a barn. This was the home of stepfather number 2, Charlie Briggs.
Unable to look my mother in the face, I leased a room in a seedy little motel on the other side of town called the Chieftain Inn. It offered hourly, daily, and monthly rates. During election years, the mob sacrificed the Chieftain, making it appear that real headway is being made against crime in the city. Otherwise, it’s a safe-house for smugglers, product, traffickers, and hookers.
I booked a one-month stay at the illustrious Chieftain as Mr. Virgil Branson of 69 Lois Lane, Cherry Hill, NC. I got my key and mailed off an ‘I love you’ card to mom with my rent. Then I begrudgingly sat down to peruse video number two.
The scene began with a handheld shot on the tarmac of an unknown airfield. I could make out palm trees behind the concertina wire fence. The camera and the subjects were all moving. In the lead was Wade Smith twirling a set of dog-tags.
“What the hell you gonna do with those, you sick fuck?” said James.
“I’m gonna hang ’em on the bedpost so the missus can look at ’em while I’m whipping her ass.”
“That’s low, man.”
“Fuck you James. I didn’t see you complaining when Too Blue and the Red Maid sucked your damned dick. If I remember right, Green Bean was holdin’ your Hennessey. Two White women going down on your junk while your wife holds your drink. Tell me another brother that’s got it that good?”
“I’m just saying you don’t have to do that, man, that’s all.”
“Hey, when it’s your turn, treat her ass like the Queen of Sheba for all I care. Me? I wanna watch that bitch cry.”
“You’re sick, man.”
“Hey! What are you men doing back here? We’ve got mudhens inbound,” said an unknown voice in the distance just before the screen went dark.
The scene changed to an area that looked like a garage for helicopters with corrugated metal on all sides.
“What the hell have you got in the bag, Charlie?” asked the cameraman.
“Don’t you know? That’s his new wife, so he can join the gang,” said Wade.
“You’re shitting me,” said the cameraman.
“Come here,” said Wade, putting his cigarette in his mouth and wrestling the bag from Charlie.
Carelessly Wade let the bag hit the floor, and it lurched as he opened it to reveal an Asian face with duct tape over its eyes and mouth.
“Are you sure it’s a girl?” said a voice off camera, getting a good laugh from the crew.
“I know a goddamned girl when I see one,” said Charlie.
“Yeah, this is a standard dating technique in West Virginia. Charlie’s too damned ugly to get married any other way.”
“Shut the fuck up, Wade.”
“It was either this or marry his sister.”
“Fuck you, Wade.”
“Only trouble is, his sister is uglier than he is,” said Wade, as the crew roared in laughter.
The small person in the bag must be Kiko. I’m only five minutes into video number two and already my stomach is turning.
“I can’t do it, Aggie,” I said, turning off the video.
I must be in shock. I’ve just watched Wade Smith hours after murdering my dad, happily playing with my father’s dog tags. It’s like it’s not real. I’m sure the rest of this video will be one brutal scene after another starring the as of yet, unknown, Kiko…
video number two has important information for Ghost Mountain quest
“NO!”
video number two has important information for Ghost Mountain quest
video number two has important information for Ghost Mountain quest
“Fuck! Alright, I’ll watch,” I said, yelling at my phone. While pressing play, I accidentally advanced the video. The shot began inside a dark cinderblock building.
“You inbred retard! She doesn’t fucking speak English! Do you know what happens when you program someone in the wrong fucking language? I’ll tell you what, nothing, that’s what. Den, Yellow, Wa,” said Wade to the small woman strapped to the chair. She, too, gave the appearance of a switch getting flipped off in her head. “Yellow San, would you like a drink?”
The girl didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.
“Well, we can teach her English.”
“You’re as dumb as a box of rocks, Charlie. Teaching her English now won’t fix her!”
Then I saw it again. Wade pulled the twelve-drawer roll-away tool cabinet into the frame. My blood ran cold, as I had seen the torture devices it contained in the other video. I knew exactly what was going to happen next.
“There’s only one way to fix this mess now, Charlie… the hard way,” said Wade.
“That’s it! I’m not watching another minute of this shit,” I said to Aggie, turning off the video again.
After tossing and turning in bed for hours, I decided I might as well drive to Ghost Mountain because I can’t sleep now. Hopefully, I’ll be awake enough to save Kiko.
Charlie lived easily 10 miles from his nearest neighbor. His house was on a forest service road at the foot of Babcock Ridge, a 4 mile long rock-wall, jutting straight up over 200 feet. I parked at the pullout for the unmarked road at 4 in the morning and promptly fell asleep.
It was afternoon when I woke up and a hell of a lot later before I got to Charlie’s place. Aggie’s walkthrough turned into an augmented reality. It showed that Charlie had loaded the trees with hidden booby traps, and an automatic gun turret on the roof covered the driveway. It also showed the trip wire Charlie used, rigging the front yard with explosive charges. The two pens, on opposite sides of the property, were full of dogs, and Kiko supposedly locked inside the barn.
The plan was easy enough: short out the electric, take photos for blackmail, feed the dogs, and free Kiko. First, I had to ground the electric fence, by throwing the chain across the conductors. A loud crackle and a quick check with the voltage tester let me know it was safe to go inside. I found a gap between the woods and the right-hand trip wire away from the motion detector of the gun turret.
As soon as I got to the middle of the yard, the dogs went nuts. I thought the dogs had caught on to me, but it wasn’t me they were excited about. My ex-stepdad, Charlie Briggs, in gumboots, overalls, and a yellowed shirt, was carrying a bucket of dog food toward the nearest pen. I watched as he plopped a heaping ladle of slop into a dirty plastic bowl.
“Smile Charlie!” I said, taking his picture with my phone.
“Todd?” said Charlie, jumping straight up in the air. He nervously looked over his shoulder at the rifle leaning on the fence 15 feet away.
Who the fuck carries a gun to feed their dogs?
tell Charlie Briggs you know about the playroom
“Yep, I’ve been out to the general’s playroom. And, I’ve only got one question. Did you kill my dad, Charlie?” I said, still recording Charlie.
“Bullshit! I don’t believe you!”
“Ping, Green, Pong, the first one is free, courtesy of the Dead Soldiers Gang. I’ll get the rest when I level up.”
“No sir, you listen here, Dearborn. I ain’t never missed a meeting and you ain’t never been invited!”
“That’s what I saw on the damned video tapes, you inbred idiot! I’ve copied three video tapes from the playroom. In the first one, Wade told the major that he had brainwashed the major’s wife just before he handed the DUMPY over on a leash. The second one happened in the hangar just after you kidnapped Kiko. Do you remember kidnapping Kiko? She couldn’t speak any English. I’m guessing she’s locked up in the barn. Am I right?”
“Anyway, I’ve left those copies with my lawyers, Charlie, along with the names and addresses of the members of the Dead Soldiers Gang, to be made public if I don’t return from Ghost Mountain. So, let’s try this again… Did you kill my dad?”
It looked like slow motion. Charlie dropped the bucket of dog food, and Aggie started flashing.
FALL DOWN NOW
Charlie and I simultaneously fell to the ground. I landed at the base of a half buried, rusted out pickup truck and Charlie landed chest first on a homemade land mine at his feet.
I lay on the ground, thinking that nothing had happened. Then an enormous blast silenced my world as Charlie rained down in a gory mist and a shower of chunks, along with about a ton of West Virginia top soil.
I think I would have been a little more sentimental about the passing of Charlie Briggs if my head didn’t feel like it was about to implode. I’ll revisit my feelings when my ears stop ringing. Right now, with the dragon dead, it’s time to save the damsel in distress.
I stood back up to see a smoldering hole and no sign of Charlie. I left staggering to the barn in my silent world.
“Kiko? Kiko, are you in there? My name is Todd Dearborn, Green Bean sent me. She’s worried about you,” I yelled at the building. I don’t know why because I couldn’t hear her if she answered.
The blast must have jarred something, because when I looked at Aggie, the augmented reality was gone.
don’t do door it got bomb
I opted to crawl through the mud in the gap beneath the door. Once inside, I inspected the C-4 and detonator strapped to the door latch.
“Oh my god, thank you Aggie.”
The muddy hallway had a boardwalk across the worst parts and suspicious looking piles of hay in the feeding rack… of a barn with no livestock. I checked them with my phone, hoping the augmented reality feature had returned, but no. I carefully put weight on the boardwalk.
“Kiko, Charlie’s dead. That big boom was him getting blown to Pennsylvania.” I took another cautious step. “Kiko? Kiko, you’ve got to trust me. I’m here to rescue you. I’m Rita’s son. Charlie and his buddies killed my dad and have taken turns… using my, my mom.”
Fuck more waterworks? I’m supposed to be the hero, not some fucking crybaby. I tried wiping my eyes, but the mud on my hands just made things worse.
stop! stop! stop! don’t walk on sticks
Sticks? Got bomb? Aggie? Oh my god, Aggie’s translating Kiko, I can’t hear her, but Aggie can.
“okay, do I step here?”
no, no
“Walk here?” I said, pointing to the mud.
yes! all god’s children got feet of clay
That’s definitely some Bible-thumping shit that the kidnapping, rapist-murderer, Charlie Briggs, would say. As I stepped off the boardwalk, Kiko put her chain through the slats in the door.
do you have keys