BAD Creepypasta - MichaelLeroi's Reckoning

Toby finished typing and looked at his laptop screen intently. He checked it, scanning the last few words, and then announced "That's the next script ready."

"Does it have 'eat a mountain of dicks' in it?" Jacob  asked.

With a nod, Toby replied, "Yes, seven."

Jacob smiled. "Nice one. Can you make it 'eat a great pyramid of Giza of dicks'?"

With a shrug, Toby made the alterations. "What about you, Matt?"

Matt sat in the corner, brooding. He had been sullen that night, growing gradually even moreso over the last few months. "Do I tell the author to kill themselves?" he asked. "That's all that matters."

Toby swallowed. He hadn't liked the idea of including that line in their previous video. Nor of their video before that. But in the preceding months, Matt's insistence that they map out the script for their videos before recording began had allowed for greater flexibility – and, as far as Toby was concerned, more brutality. "Are you sure about this?" he asked.

Turning his eyes towards Toby, Matt rose from his chair. "Am I sure?" he asked.

A thin staccato laugh broke from Jacob. Matt shot him a glance. Jacob fell silent.

"Well," said Toby, his voice wavering uncertainly, "it's just, the author of this creepy pasta, she's only thirteen?"

"So?" snapped Matt. A thin speck of spittle flicked from his lips.

Toby winced. "Nothing" he said. He lowered his head. 

Glowering down at him, Matt fell silent. His gaze burned towards Toby. "Good" he said. He lumbered over to the table, grabbing a bottle of Tesco own brand whisky. He took a swig. "Bitch has to fucking learn."

Instinctively, Toby reached up to his face. The last bruise was still raw on his cheek. He cursed his stupidity. He knew better than to question Matt. 

"Yeah" echoed Jacob. "Fucking feminist."

Toby bit his tongue. Nothing about the girl's story indicated that she was a feminist, thought Toby. If anything, the story seemed to be the product of a troubled young teenage girl. It was the type of story that he had read before – indeed, one that seemed to populate the creepy pasta archives with frantic abandon. It was the tale of a younger, brutalised by a malicious family, tormented by bullies, driven to isolation and then striking back out at those around her. It was called 'Loraine the Killer', and it was utter bollocks. 

But it was harmless, he thought. Just an outlet for teenage angst. Some little child venting into a safe space...

"Put in a joke about safe spaces" perked up Jacob. "Let's remind the cunt that she isn't allowed validation online or in the real world."

Toby nodded. He looked at the script. There was no denying it, their collaborations had grown darker over the years. He tried to remind himself that it was still about the same thing, about exposing how poorly written these little internet horror stories could be. He found himself thinking back, back to their first few videos. Hadn't they had guests with them, then? It seemed so long ago. Where, he wondered, had they all gone? Perhaps those guests hadn't had what it took to become what they were – youtube famous.

Those words brought a smile to his face. Yes, he thought, that's what mattered. That's what he was here for; why he put up with Matt's rages and alcoholism, the alcoholism that had lost him his job and driven his significant other fleeing from his arms. But none of that mattered to Toby. He clicked open a tab on his browser, and found that which mattered to him the most. His beautiful, pristine subscriber count. 

He inhaled. Jesus, he thought, it was fucking beautiful. 

"We're almost at 25,000 subscribers" he announced. 

"How much are we earning?" snapped Matt, as he sunk down onto the small tattered armchair in the corner of the room. 

Toby clicked a few times. "We had another email from that twelve year old kid begging us not to monetise his story again" he said, "but I told him that our right to make money from his work is protected by fair use. That pushes us up to enough for another three crates of beer this month."

Matt snorted. "Told the little bastard off, did you?"

Nodding, Toby leaned back. He had, in the start, questioned Matt about his definition of their work being 'transformative'. It seemed to Toby that it had been a bit underhanded. That is, he had thought, taking things made by people far younger and less intelligent than themselves, mocking it, and earning a profit from it. How much of it, he had asked, were they really transforming? Matt had ensured that Toby would not ask such questions again, and when Toby had been able to walk again without the aid of a crutch, they had pushed on with making the next episode of their show. It was, Toby thought, for the best.

In the corner of his eye, Toby caught sight of a flicker. He looked back, dismissing his thoughts and hesitations. "Hey, guys" he said. "We've got a problem."

Jacob barely looked up, inhaling heavily on his favorate bong. It was his yellow one, which Jacob had merrily called Steve. 

Toby said, louder this time, "One of our videos is gone."

That caught Jacob's attention. "What?" he asked. 

From the corner, Matt finished his drink. "The fuck do you mean?" he snapped.

Toby scanned the page, his mouse wheel creaking as it scrolled. "It's been taken down" he replied.

"Which one?" asked Matt. "Was it that fucking Slimebeast again? Or JC the Hyena?"

"I bet it's those fucking SJWs" replied Jacob, taking another toke.

Toby shook his head. "It's not any of them" he responded.

"They're all fucking SJWs" sneered Jacob.

Toby bit his tongue. Jacob's loathing of SJWs, a term that Jacob had co-opted to mean 'anyone with a different socio-cultural viewpoint to his own', was all but legendary, and Jacob had ensured that everyone on their Facebook post was well aware of his feelings on the matter. "It's not any of those things" Toby said with finality. "The video hasn't been blocked or pulled, it's just gone."

Matt was over beside him in a minute. "The fuck do you mean 'gone'?" he barked. "I fucking swear, you little computer nerd, if I have to take my belt to you again..."

Pulling back in his chair, Toby pointed frantically at the screen. "Look!" he said. "Another one's gone."

Giving Toby a violent shove that sent him hurtling across the floor, Matt stood before the laptop. Sure enough, where once had been their video of Squidward's Suicide and Abandoned by Disney, was now nothing but empty and unoccupied backdrop on the youtube menu.

Matt slammed his palm against the keyboard. As he watched, Jeff the Killer 2015 vanished as well, blinking out from the page as if it had simply jump-cut itself out of existence. "Fuck" he snapped. "Where are they going?"

Pulling himself to his feet, Toby retorted "I don't know."

"Jesus fucking Christ" groaned Jacob. "This is totally harshing my buzz. Fucking fix it, man."

"I don't know how!" snarled Toby.

In a moment, Matt was against him. His meaty fist clenched around Toby's shirt, pulling the man's face closer until it was only an inch from his own. "You'd better find out" he snarled, his words crawling through gritted teeth. "Or you start losing dentures."

"Alright" pleaded Toby, "alright. Let me go."

With a shove, Matt pushed Toby against the table. Toby scrambled, pulling the laptop over to him. In the space of only a few seconds, several more videos had vanished.

"What the hell?" chirpy Jacob. He dropped his bong, which rattled to the floor. "Are the videos really gone?"

Toby gave Jacob an annoyed grin. "Settle down, butt-munch" he said, and started hammering on the keyboard.

Jacob snarled, "Aargh, you settle down, fart-knocker."

Matt pushed Jacob away. "How many are left?" he asked.

"Just one" answered Toby. "And I... wait, I don't think this is one of ours. Did either of you two make a video called 'MichaelLeroi's Reckoning?'"

Gathering around, the trio stared at the screen. There was, indeed, only one remaining video, and none of them recognised it. 

"I don't remember uploading that" said Matt. "Did you?"

Toby shook his head.

"And I can't upload anything to youtube" said Jacob, "not since I contracted chlamydia in my fingers."

Matt leaned forward. He read the name of the video again. MichaelLeroi's Reckoning. "It sounds like a shitty creepypasta" he said. 

Toby nodded, "It's probably been made by someone we made fun of in one of our videos."

"You don't think it was that child we told to kill herself, do you?" asked Matt.

With a shrug, Toby clicked on the video.

At first, the video showed nothing but static. The crackling image continued to play for several seconds. "Well, this is lame for a start" said Matt. "You don't get static on digital media, everyone knows that. What next? Hyper-realistic blood?"

Toby snorted a laugh. It stopped, mid-chortle. Leaning close, he could see a small speck of darkness form in the right hand corner of the video screen. As he watched, the shape seemed to grow, swelling as if burgeoning. It looked, for all he could tell, like a growing droplet of liquid. As his eyes grew accustomed to the static, though, he noticed that the liquid was not black, but a dark red. Slowly, and with syrup-like viscosity, it began to run down the screen, and formed into a tiny pool on the top of the keyboard.

"Fuck" he mumbled. "Well, we've got our hyper-realistic blood."

Stepping back a few paces, Matt swung and drove his fist into the wall. "Christ's sake" he snarled.

"This is definitely the work of a feminist" replied Jacob. He started to pace. "Wait, maybe it's a chick who's doing this? Maybe we're finally going to be able to score!"

With a long stride, Matt stepped over and slapped Jacob hard across the face. "Shut up" he replied. "It's obvious what's going on. Someone's put a hacked game onto the laptop or something."

Toby just eyed the two, wondering at what point his life had gone so completely wrong. A sharp tone crackled from the laptop's speakers, and he looked back. "Guys" he said, "this may be important."

On the screen read the words "Each of you have profited from the humiliation of others"

Jacob snorted, rubbing his cheek. "What does that mean?"

Growling, Matt leaned over the laptop and shouted at it. "Oh, come on!" he retorted to the inanimate object. "If some stupid teenager puts some embarrassing shit on the internet, they deserve to be mocked and humiliated!" His spittle flecked the screen. 

The video cut out, snapping to darkness. And then, dissolving across the screen, another line of words faded into view. "Your own embarrassing pasts will be judged, just as you have judged others."

"You know" said Toby, "for a creepypasta, this isn't very scary. I feel that we need some kind of narrator to tell us that we should be very afraid by this point." 

"Will you shut up?" growled Matt. "I've not done anything embarrassing online in my entire life. The internet is a public forum, just like the schoolyard. There's nothing wrong with bullying if it's done in a funny way."

A loud crash echoed through the room. Matt and Toby turned, and noticed the television set laying smashed and broken in the corner. Jacob was standing by it, his foot still wavering a few inches above the ground. Toby sighed. Jacob had kicked over the television again. "Look," said Toby, calmly, "as long as none of us have done anything as embarrassing as writing a bad creepypasta, we should be fine. Right?"

The three of them looked from one to the other.

On the laptop screen, another image snapped into existence.

Matt and Toby rushed to look. Jacob turned, catching sight of the image, and his eyes grew wide. He ran, scrambled over the overturned chair. "Oh shit" he yelled, his voice rising high with fear. "Guys, turn that off. Turn that off right now!"

Shoving Jacob back, Matt looked at the screen. "Where is this?" he asked.

"I don't know" said Toby. "It looks like a gym room. There's a lot of guys in there."

Jacob flailed his arms, trying to reach the screen. "Fucking turn it off now, you guys! I'm not fucking kidding!"

Toby leaned closer. "Is that you in this video, Jacob?" he asked.

Jacob snorted. "No, it's not. Turn it off. Turn it off now."

"Where are your clothes?" asked Matt, leaning closer to view the video. "In fact, where's everyone's clothes?"

Toby's eyes widened as he watched. "Wow, Jacob!" he said. "How is it possible to stretch like that?"

With a thump, Jacob collapsed on the floor. Tears burst from his eyes. "I was eighteen" he said, "I wanted the money. I wanted the fame. Stop watching it, guys" he pleaded, "C'mon."

"What are you talking about?" asked Matt. "It's just a video of you in a nudist resort doing some gymnastics. You're reacting as if it's gay porn or something."

Jacob sobbed, pitifully. "It's my secret shame" he said. "I'm actually a nudist. And a gymnast. I can do a full still ring vault with a perfect dismount, but only when I'm completely in the buff. I don't want anyone to know because it's not masculine, and I don't want anyone to think that..." he bleated, "that I'm some kind of pussy SJW type..."

Toby glanced at Matt. "Oh-kay" he said. "Right, this is pretty weird."

A soft, crackling voice broke the confusion. "Jacob is the weakest of you" rang the voice, a gentle and youthful feminine tone. Both Matt and Toby turned, their eyes focusing once more on the laptop. "The weakest die first, don't you agree?"

Pushing forward, Matt brought his fist down brutally against the table. "Who are you?" he screamed. "What have you done to Jacob?"

Toby looked over at his colleague. Jacob lay in a fetal position on the floor, sobbing and soiling himself, much as he had done after last Tuesday's party. 

From the laptop's speakers retorted the young girl's voice, "I have shown him his own darkness, as will happen to you both as well. That will be my revenge."

Snorting, Toby nudged Jacob with his foot. "Answer Matt" he grumbled. "Who are you?"

"My name is Hannah" said the voice. "But don't worry. You don't know me. You've never even met me. But you know my work."

The name sounded familiar to Toby. With a snap, he yelled out. "Hannah? You're not Hannah2006skellybones? The author of..."

"Yes!" she interrupted, "the author of 'Loquacious the Killer.exe', the story you performed last week!"

Matt paced back and forth, slamming his fists into the walls with each stamping breadth across the room. "Your story was shite" he barked.

"I was twelve!" crackled the voice. "Of course it was shite. But you ripped it apart nonetheless, and said that I should kill myself. So I did."

Toby's eyes widened. "God" he murmured, "You're some kind of ghost in the machine? A spirit of revenge trapped within the internet, eking out an existence tormenting those who drove you to suicide?"

Matt stared at Toby. "Are you the fucking narrator now?" he asked.

"Sorry" replied Toby. Inhaling, he pointed at Jacob. "But what about him? That was your revenge?" he asked. "Don't think I'm criticising you, being a ghost and all, but if that's your revenge it was pretty weak."

A chirpy laugh fizzed from the laptop's speakers. "You're forgetting one thing" she said. "Jacob's an idiot. He couldn't open a jar of jam that was already opened."

Toby shrugged, "Fair point."

"For the two of you" she continued, "my revenge will be far, far harsher."

With a snarl, Matt's anger exploded. "Fuck you!" he said. "Fuck you. We were in the right to make our video. It was satire."

"Oh" came the voice through the speakers, "satire. Well, that excuses you from all culpability, then. That totally allows you to act like a complete dick."

"You're very sarcastic for a ghost" retorted Matt. "Look, at the end of the day, if you didn't want to be open to criticism then you shouldn't have tried to express yourself creatively."

"Is that so?" she said. "In that case, you will be the next to fall."

With that, the screen went blank.

Silence descended for a moment.

Toby turned, glancing at Matt. His friend was angry, his chest heaving, his knuckles clenched. Toby wanted to back away, to crawl under the sofa. "What does she mean?" he stuttered.

"Nothing" said Matt. "Nothing at all. Fuck her. She's just a stupid dead girl. She's got no dirt on me."

Toby inhaled. What could he do? He looked down at Jacob. A thin trail of saliva ran from his friend's silently babbling mouth. This spirit, he thought, this terrible girl. They had wronged her. They had wronged so many in their time. And all for what? For the fame? For the glory and adulation of becoming Youtube celebrities? For the money? Toby couldn't remember what the reason had been. "What does she know, Matt?" he asked. "What does the girl know about you?"

Matt snapped again. "Nothing! I haven't done anything. I'm not fucking stupid."

"But look at this!" cried Toby. "Look at what we've done. We caused this, Matt!" He inhaled, gasping for air. "Don't you get this? We caused this!"

Huffing through his nose, Matt stormed over to the table, and proceeded to crash his foot violently onto the overturned chair, breaking one of the legs free. "We didn't cause shit!" he said. "She's to blame. She put the story out there."

"Matt," pleaded Toby, "we're blaming the victim here. She's dead. We told her to do it. We didn't think about the effect our videos might have on people. She was just a kid, Matt."

Storming over to the laptop, Matt gave Toby a look through his narrowed eyes. "Fuck that" he said. "Bitch had it coming. They all have it coming. They put their stories online. Well, nobody's going to hear the end of this story!"

He raised the chair leg, ready to bring it down on the laptop.

Just as he was about to bring it down, the screen flickered on. Matt paused, mid-swing. "No" he whispered.

Toby hurried over. Looking down at the screen, he caught sight of a Youtube video. Through the speakers, a soft crackling voice played. "Hello" it said, "and welcome to BAD Creepypasta. Tonight's episode is 'Half Life: Full Life Consequences' by Matt Dixon."

Matt dropped the chair leg. "No" he repeated, louder. "Oh god, no."

Toby stared at Matt. He had never seen him like this before. Gone was the booze-fuelled hulking rage machine that he loved. Instead, Matt trembled – actually trembled, his whole body shaking with fear. "What's happening?" he asked. "What does it mean?"

With a thump, Matt fell to his knees. "It knows" he said, tears breaking from his eyes. "Oh Toby. Toby, it knows. It knows that I am Squirrelking."

Shaking his head, Toby collapsed beside his friend. "No" he said, "No. You can't be. It's impossible!"

Sobbing pitifully, Matt bleated "It's true. I wrote 'Half Life: Full Life Consequences'. And 'Final Fantasy Seven: Story of Rain Strife'." He looked up at Toby, tears streaming from his face. "Oh god, Toby. I even wrote 'Metal Gear Solid: Fight of Metal Gears'!"

Toby bit down on his lip, but even he could feel the tears welling up inside him. It had been a lie. Everything that Matt had done, every ounce of anger at the stories that they had made videos from, it had all been a lie. A lie to hide a past so awful, so shameful... Toby felt sick. Heaving, he turned from Matt and vomited.

"Please" sobbed Matt, "Please, Toby. Please don't hate me."

Coughing on the last splattered remnants of his puke, Toby sobbed. "I can't" he said. "Oh god, Matt. This is... I mean, oh god..." He choked, and vomited again. He knew that it was over. His friendship with Matt had been a lie. Everything the man had told him had been a lie. "I mean" he stuttered, "if you had told me that you were an escaped Nazi scientist and had performed tests on innocent people at the concentration camps or something, I could have still respected you. But this... this! Oh god, Matt."

Collapsing to the floor, Matt heaved, straining to catch his breath. "Kill me" he whispered. "Please, Toby, I'm begging you. I don't deserve to live any more..."

Wiping his mouth, Toby stood up. He turned, facing away from Matt. He couldn't look at him. By the morning, everyone would know his secret.

"But what about you, Toby?" asked the soft, gentle child-like voice of Hannah. 

Toby scooped up the laptop, holding it in his arms. "I've never wrote a story" he said. "And I'm not a sexual deviant like Jacob."

"No" she said. "You don't have any darkness in your past."

"I don't have anything" he said. "All I have is the Youtube channel. I don't even care about the stories, not really, not like Matt."

She sighed. "Oh Toby. Yours is perhaps the cruellest fate of all."

He looked down. "I've done awful things" he said. "Terrible things. I'm sorry, Hannah."

"I'm sorry too" she said. "Had it not been for BAD Creepypasta, we may even have been friends."

He nodded, swallowing back a tear.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

He nodded.

The laptop's screen sprang once more to life.

And listed in bright, full, vibrant colour, were Youtube's newest terms and conditions. 

He read it. Then, slowly, he read it again. Gently, he set the laptop down. Slowly, he repeated the terms and conditions to himself. 

"No money?" he repeated. "No money?"

"People will laugh at Matt" said Hannah, "and forget about Jacob. But you, Toby, poor desperate Toby, you will be remembered as the man who was responsible for causing the destruction of Youtube as we know it."

Slowly, Toby wept. He wept as despair overtook him. Carefully, with shaking fingers, he walked over to the cupboard. Pulling it open, he retrieved his gun. 

This was crazy, thought Toby, loading his gun. He was a Brit, guns weren't common here in the UK. How could he even have such a thing? He dismissed the thought. Pushed it from his mind as he slowly walked over to Jacob. He pushed the barrel of the gun to his friend's babbling, mewling face and pulled the trigger. There was a muffled groan, followed by a deafening gunshot, and the side of Jacob's skull vanished in a plume of crimson.

With unsteady paces, he walked over to Matt, and fired the gun into him as well. A murder, thought Toby. A pointless, senseless murder. That was how his story should end. Something brutal, and something pointless. That was the tropes that he knew, he thought, as he gunned down Matt, firing round after round into the man's twitching form.

Then, with a shaking grip, he pressed the gun to his own forehead. All truly bad creepypasta stories, thought Toby, end with the main character inexplicably committing suicide. And in the end, he decided in the split second as his finger pulled the trigger, isn't that what his life had become?  

Comments • 1

Loading comments...