As I was getting out of the car, my phone buzzed. It was from José, one of my employees. He had been looking after the shop while I was out “sick.” I hoped that it was nothing, that he just had a simple question, but I had a feeling that it would be bad news.
I read his text: “Hey Dave, I managed to find the Desert Storm cartridge. It was in the supply closet behind a roll of toilet paper. Some gremlins must have put it there lol.”
The timestamp was from an hour ago. I should’ve had service nearly the entire drive over to Modesto, but, for some reason, I was just now getting the text.
I called him. No answer. Called the store. Again, no answer. I texted José back, warning him not to play the game, but I had a feeling it was too late. Frank had surely already gotten to him.
I considered making the nearly two-hour drive back to the store. But I was almost certain that neither José nor the cartridge would be there. The only way of preventing further death was by going into the house and facing Frank.
***
From outside the wrought-iron gate, the house looked relatively normal. Yes, it was decaying; yes, it was painted black, but there was nothing strange about the architecture itself. But as soon as I stepped into the overgrown yard, I began to feel dizzy, for the walls of the house had shifted ever so slightly. There were no more right angles, no more horizontal or vertical lines. It was like I were in one of Ed’s paintings—everything was slightly off.
I hurried to the door, gripping the gun tightly in my right hand. As I was climbing the steps of the front porch, the door swung open. “Come in, David,” a hoarse voice called from far away. “I’m down the hall to the right in the living room.”
As I stepped inside, the door swung shut behind me. I was in an impossibly long passageway that seemed to stretch forever in both directions. Doors lined both sides of the hall and, between them, on pedestals, sat marble busts. Above them, ensconced candles gave off a dim glow.
I debated whether or not to follow Frank’s instructions and head to the right. I doubted it would matter. He was controlling this. No matter what I did, I would eventually meet him.
I went to the right. As I made my way down the corridor, I stopped to examine the busts. They started out normally enough, depicting a variety of subjects, from young men to old women. But as I progressed, the busts became more and more grotesque. Initially, the subjects’ facial features were distorted just slightly, but soon there were three-eyed men and two-headed women. Eventually, the busts stopped depicting humans altogether—there were sculptures of hideous apes and monstrous reptilian humanoids. While the appearances of the statues varied, the same name was engraved on all of them: Edwin F. Schumacher.
I tried all the doors, but none of them opened. Nor did any sound come from behind them.
The corridor was in constant flux. Initially, the changes were minor: the floor would drop an inch or so, or the walls would slightly angle in towards me. But, like the statues, the changes soon became more drastic.
As I was looking at a bust of a jackal-faced man, the candles, busts and pedestals vanished, and the ceiling started dropping. As this was happening, the sound of the skeleton’s laughter began filling the hallway. It seemed to be coming from all directions, even from inside my skull, growing louder and louder as the ceiling continued to fall.
I dropped to the floor, sure that I was going to be crushed. But the ceiling stopped a few inches above me.
I just lay there. I knew Frank was watching me, that he was enjoying seeing me struggle. He wanted to see me crawl through the narrow passageway. I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.
I fired my gun into the abyss. “I’m not playing games with you, Frank,” I shouted.
There was no response but the skeleton’s laughter.
***
I held my ground. After a few minutes, the ceiling rose and the candles reappeared.
“Yoo hoo, the first door to your right,” Frank’s voice cried from somewhere.
As I was debating what to do, the door swung open and a skeleton lunged at me. I jumped back in horror and fired a single shot at its skull.
More laughter filled the corridor. I took a closer look at the skeleton. It wasn’t the specter that had haunted my dreams. Instead of a sorcerer’s hat, it was wearing a filthy blue dress and a gray wig. Attached to its pelvis was a long metal pole. Nothing magical, just a cheap jump scare Frank had concocted.
“Sorry about that,” Frank said. “Try the next door.”
***
It opened into a windowless room. Blue carpet, blue wallpaper, blue furniture. Sitting on a lounge chair by a roaring fire was Frank. He was dressed in light-blue pajamas and was smoking a meerschaum tobacco pipe. Next to the chair was an old-fashioned TV set, showing nothing but static. Resting on the madman’s lap was a book: Danmark by Benjamin Thor Zilberman. The same book that had been depicted in one of Ed’s watercolors.
Frank looked up at me, set his pipe down, and smiled. “Did Aunt Theodora give you a wee fright? I’m sorry about that. She’s been dead for years, but please don’t tell anyone. My cousin Gary still collects her social security checks.”
I pointed my gun at him, but he just laughed.“That’s not very nice,” he said, “barging into someone’s house and threatening its owner.”
“Get the cartridge and throw it into the fire,” I ordered.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave,” Frank said. He started giggling like a little schoolgirl. “Oh, I’m so glad that I got to use that line.”
“This isn’t funny, get the cartridge.”
“I’m being serious, I don’t have it. Ed does.”
“You murdered your brother. The monster you created from that ritual, the skeleton that you are using to kill children, that is not Ed. He was a gentle man.”
Frank laughed again. “Do you really think so? Do you really think Ed was some innocent halfwit? You’ve done well in your investigation, I’ve been following your progress, but you haven’t learned the truth about Ed.”
“I know the truth about you. I’m giving you one more chance. Destroy the cartridge or I’ll shoot you and search this house for it.”
“Oh, Dave. Do you really think you can navigate this house without me? You’d be lost in an infinite hallway for eternity.”
“I’ll shoot you then,” I said. “I think that will be enough to put an end to the skeleton’s rampage.”
“Do you really think so? You think I’m some psychopath? That’s not true, I’m just a scientist, running an experiment, making observations, collecting data. Shooting me is the worst thing you could do. Without me to control the experiment, my brother would run amok.”
“You’re not a scientist, you’re a madman.”
“I can assure you that I am a scientist. But I do not study quantum field theory or particle physics. I study magic—”
“And that’s why you’re killing innocent children? As sacrifices to some ancient gods?”
“No. I have not killed anyone. All the deaths were at the hands of Ed.”
“You killed your sister when—”
“That was Ed.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Frank sighed. “Unfortunately, the records are all sealed, so I don’t have hard proof, but I believe our elementary school yearbooks are online. Go ahead, look at the 1969-1970 edition and compare it to the one a year later. Ed and I are both in the first one, but only one of the Schumacher twins is in the second. My brother was in an asylum outside of Sacramento.”
I didn’t respond.
“Go ahead,” Frank said. “Take out your phone, there’s service in this room. Look it up. You can try ringing the police, but I have a feeling your call wouldn’t get through. You can also check if José ever texted you back. I doubt it though. He’s not dead, don’t you worry, just incapacitated.”
“Let him go. He has two little daughters.”
Frank snickered. “Depending on the choices you make, you will be able to set him free. Now, look up the yearbooks. Daniel Webster Elementary School, named after the beloved statesman. Maybe afterwards we can trust each other.”
I took out my phone and searched for the yearbooks. To my great surprise, Frank was apparently telling the truth. Both of the brothers were in the 1969-1970 yearbook, but in the following edition, only Frank was pictured.
“Now do you believe me?” Frank asked.
I didn’t. “You must have framed Ed for the murder. Or maybe you are actually Ed, you killed your sister and then switched—”
“That would be quite the twist. A most twisty twist. But nope. Ed was a murderer back then. And he is a murderer today. He was always a sadistic child, loved torturing small rodents for fun, but no one thought it would escalate like it did.”
“You’re also sadistic. You’ve been toying with me this entire time. I can tell you take pleasure—”
“It’s just a little harmless fun. You were never seriously harmed, were you? Have a seat, I’ll tell you the true story.”
I remained where I was.
“Or stand,” Frank said with a chuckle. “Standing is good. I believe I read that four hours a day is optimal. If you sit too long, you are more likely to develop a pulmonary embolism, and that would be no fun. But I digress. You’re interested in the story of Evil Ed. After he murdered Sweet Eusapia, he was sent to a home for demented youth. There, he underwent a lobotomy. The procedure was becoming rarer in the early 70s, but it was still practiced. Did it help? Well, sort of. His sadistic nature disappeared, but he became a halfwit. Before he was of average intelligence, not a genius like me, but not a moron. However, after the procedure, his IQ was measured at 73, almost two standard deviations below the mean.
“Ed got released when he turned 18; the authorities deemed that he was no longer a threat. And they were right. At first, I thought that his true nature was just latent, that when he got angry it would reappear, but it had completely vanished. Not a trace of the old Ed was left. Or so I thought.”
“Sadism is apparently a trait that runs in your family,” I said.
Frank shook his head. “No, I’m a scientist, not a sadist. Namely, a scientist of the occult. I was exposed to it at an early age. My Aunt Theodora, who you previously met, was into it. She had this library in the tower, full of works like this one,” he said, pointing to the thick volume on his lap. “I always thought she was loony, and she was. None of her books, to the best of my knowledge, contain any useful information. This volume here, Danmark, by Benjamin Thor Zilberman, is nothing more than the rantings of a madman. He wrote a 17-page letter to the King of Denmark because he thought his neighbor stole three of his apples. Can you believe that? A complete nutter.
“The books were fun to read as a child, but over time I became convinced that there were no answers in them, that it was a bunch of quackery. By the time I was a teenager, my earlier fascination with the occult had been replaced by an interest in the natural sciences. After high school, I went to Caltech, where I studied physics and mathematics. Also got into MIT, but wanted to stay closer to home. In college, I got all As—”
“Are you just bragging, or is this somehow relevant?”
“Oh, it is quite relevant, Dave. I am not one to brag, although Caltech is consistently ranked in the top ten universities in the world. I do not think you can say the same about your alma mater, the University of Spoiled Children, can you? What are they ranked?”
I didn’t respond.
“Come on, Dave,” he said. “Don’t be bashful. What’s their ranking?”
“I went to UCLA,” I finally said.
“Oh, forgive me, what a silly mistake. Westwood. I do love Westwood. There was this little Persian restaurant there, just a hole in the wall, but they had the best eggplant I ever ate. Perfectly spiced. Made the drive over from Pasadena at least—”
“Are you stalling or something?” I yelled.
Frank chuckled. “Relax, Dave. Take a deep breath. Getting angry will do you no good. But please forgive me, I was getting a little off topic. I’ll make you a deal. I won’t get off on tangents if you keep your voice down. How does that sound?”
“Fine,” I said. I had a gun, but Frank was in control.
“Wonderful. Now, as I was saying, I got all As at Caltech, except for one course: Quantum Physics II. This is most germane, I assure you. The professor, Dr. Schwartzsmann, was a mean old German. I had a 94.3 average, the highest in the class, but Dr. S said that he felt no one did A-quality work, so, alas, I got a B. My senior year, I applied to several physics PhD programs, and got into all of them, except Stanford’s. All because of Dr. S. Still a bit bitter about that, to be honest.
“So why didn’t I study physics at some other school? Well, it was because of my ex-girlfriend, Lorna Robinson. She was going to get her chemistry PhD at Stanford and wanted me to follow her there. She convinced me to apply to the mathematics PhD program in case I didn’t get into the physics one. Which is exactly what happened. I said that I could study at Berkeley, visit her on the weekends, but that wasn’t good enough for her. Major red flag, but I was too naive and too in love. So I followed her to Stanford.
“We broke up in October of our first year. A month later she croaked. Do you want to guess how she died?”I didn’t say anything.
“I didn’t kill her, David. No, as I said, I’m not some psycho. She died of a honey bee sting while out hiking. Unbeknownst to her, she was deathly allergic. Tragic. But her story’s irrelevant. Please forgive me for rambling. I had promised I wouldn’t do that.
“Now, Stanford’s campus is quite different than most other colleges. Reminds you of a Spanish mission, with its yellow-sandstone buildings with red-tile roofs. No soaring Gothic towers like you find at many other universities. Relatively new too, founded in 1891. You wouldn’t think a place like that would harbor secrets—would harbor dark secrets—but it did.
“One day, I was in the bathroom of the mathematics building when I noticed someone had etched 400 symbols into the wall of the stall. 20 rows of 20 characters. Intrigued, I jotted it down, thinking it might be some secret code. Spent hundreds of hours trying to crack it—it was a most devilish cipher—but after two months, I finally decrypted it.
“It revealed that there was, uh, shall we say, a secret society at Stanford. Not a silly one, like Skull and Bones at Yale, where they give each other puerile nicknames and have stupid handshakes. More like a research group. A research group that focused on magic.
“Now, you can’t say a bunch of silly words and wave a silly wand and expect to turn a silly rabbit into a silly cat. No, like physics, like any science, it has its laws. And if you try to practice magic without knowing them, disastrous results can arise. There was an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania who had some old grimoire. It had been passed down in his family for generations, but its secrets had long been forgotten. His daughter was dying of cancer, so he tried to utter some spell to save her. It failed, of course. Instead, his incantation resurrected an extinct race of apes. Those simians attacked his farmhouse. In the end, the apes were defeated, but his daughter died and he committed suicide.”
He started laughing maniacally. I wondered if he really expected me to believe that absurd tale.“We weren’t the first to study it,” Frank continued after he regained his composure. “During the 12th-14th centuries, there were several groups working in various cities in what is now Germany. Unfortunately, the Church destroyed nearly all of their volumes. A few survived. In 1964, a mathematics professor at Stanford happened to stumble upon one of these grimoires. He realized that it wasn’t just a bunch of superstitious nonsense and the renaissance began. That research group was where I devoted most of my energy. The discoveries we made (well, it was mostly me who made them, but I try to be humble) were groundbreaking. They enabled me to do what you have witnessed.
“I will fast forward a bit. As you know, Ed had an overactive imagination. But it was the dullest imagination. You read his book, could you imagine something more insipid? Although Ed’s dark side had apparently vanished, I had a feeling it could be reawakened. I wondered what worlds he could dream up. Based on my knowledge, I knew that to restore his dark side, he had to die. Then his spirit—his dark spirit—could be transferred to another world, a sandbox in essence, where he could turn his visions into realities. But it couldn’t be any death. It had to be a painful death, an excruciatingly painful death. And it had to be at his own hands.
“So I set on a mission to humiliate Ed. He always talked about making a video game, so I thought let him make it and let his colleagues laugh at him. I snuck into the studio at night and worked on it with him. By that I mean I told him what to type and he did. Took longer than expected, it seemed like the Nintendo team purposefully made it overly complicated to develop a game for the N64, but after a week, we had a shitty game ready for Ed to demo.
“Unfortunately, his colleagues’ reaction wasn’t enough. A few months later, I arranged for some high school kids to laugh at him, and that almost did the trick. He just needed a little more prodding. Later that day, I mentioned to him how many famous artists—like Rothko, Van Gogh, and Kirchner—killed themselves. But I told him he couldn’t just hang himself, it had to be a gruesome death if he wanted to become famous. In the end, I managed, with the help of some medieval charms, to persuade Ed to dissolve himself in a vat of acid. Can you imagine anything more painful?”
Frank paused for several seconds. Apparently, it wasn’t a rhetorical question.
“You’re a sick man,” was all I said.
Frank snickered. “Thousands of primates die in medical research each year. Do you call those scientists sick? How many monkeys is one Ed worth? Five? Ten? Regardless—”
“You weren’t developing a cancer drug. You just wanted to see kids die.”
Frank shook his head. “That was not my intention. I did not foresee that. The first part of the experiment succeeded, Ed’s spirit was transported to another plane where he could play God. Unfortunately, my brother’s creation wasn’t as exciting as I hoped it would be. It was dark, yes, but still quite dull.”
He pointed to the old TV set. “That’s called an omnivisor. Allowed me to not only view Ed’s world, but your progress as well. Been keeping tabs on you, dear Dave. It’s a device of my own invention, before you had to stare at dishes full of liquid quicksilver.”
Frank picked up his pipe, took another puff, and set it back down. “While I could see the world, I wanted to see if someone could travel there. The ancient texts mentioned various amulets in the forms of brooches or rings being used as gateways between worlds. So I thought why not update this for the 21st century? A Nintendo cartridge, one with Ed’s game on it, seemed like a good candidate.”
“And you sent it out to some kid?” I asked. “You let him be the guinea pig?”
He nodded. “There needed to be some distance between Ed and the test subject. I didn’t think Jason would die.”
“I don’t believe you. I can tell you enjoy seeing them suffer.”
“I know you won’t believe me, but I swear, I didn’t think he would die. The grimoire mentioned people being transported to another world in their dreams and waking up in a village ten or twenty miles from their homes. But it never mentioned someone dying. I honestly didn’t think that it was possible.”
“And yet Jason Statler died.”
“He did. And I shut down the experiment. That’s why no other kids vanished for over twenty years. Jason’s body, along with Ed’s spirit, was stuck in limbo in that other world. I was working on something else, something far greater—something that will, in my opinion, benefit mankind—over the past two decades.”
“And what is that?”
He laughed his crazed laugh. “This isn’t a video game, Dave. We’re not in a movie. The villain, although I wouldn’t consider myself a villain, doesn’t always reveal his plans. That is a secret that will remain a secret.”
“You’re definitely a villain. You restarted the experiment. Or are you going to say that Ed managed to do that on his own?”
“No, I’ll admit it was me. I returned the cartridge to the Statler home and implanted an idea in his mom’s mind that the old video games were just gathering dust and should be sold off. Why did I do that, you ask? Simple—I needed to collect data on the rate of degradation of Ed’s dream world. Based on my calculations, I estimate that after 30 more kids perish, Ed’s world will implode.”
“And you’re going to let 30 kids die?”
“Well, that is unless you destroy the cartridge. I’ve devised another experiment that I’m also interested in knowing the answer to. Depending on the choices you make, the cartridge will be destroyed. I won’t interfere with you.”
“How? By beating Ed’s game? I know what he said during his talk at the library. The last level is unbeatable.”
Frank chuckled. “That was just some silly thing I told Ed, I thought that the kids would laugh at it, but he took it to heart. No, you don’t need to beat that stupid game. You’re going to play my game. Go up to the top of the tower and you’ll see what you need to do. You can also just leave, my brother will not haunt your dreams any longer. You can live the rest of your life in peace, or as peacefully as you can knowing that you were responsible for the deaths of 30 kids. It’s your choice. As long as I’m alive, this house will not be bewitched.”
***
I left the living room. The house was indeed no longer enchanted. The front door was about ten feet away on my left, the stairs to the tower twenty feet on my right. I thought about leaving, but then what? I couldn’t go to the police—they’d think I was crazy. And even if they didn’t, there was nothing they could do. Even if they spent all their resources trying to track down the Desert War cartridge, trying to prevent kids from playing it, it would likely do no good. Frank would surely find other means to ensnare innocent teenagers.
Was Frank telling the truth? Was there a way to destroy the cartridge? Frank probably thought it was impossible, but I had a hunch he was overlooking something. He wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. He had previously messed up—he had gotten busted trying to steal a grimoire from the Berkeley library—and I was sure he had overlooked something here. Nearly all video games have glitches, things their developers couldn’t even begin to envision. If you told the creators of Super Mario 64 in the ‘90s that there were glitches speed runners would exploit that enabled them to beat the game in under two hours, they’d have laughed at you.
I made my way to the staircase and began climbing it. Unlike in Ed’s drawings, the stairs were perfectly level. In the upper room, there was a wooden bookcase, about fifteen feet tall. On its top shelf was that damned emerald green cartridge. In front of it there was a ladder, but I knew enough not to climb it. That’s what Frank expected me to do. Instead, I raised my gun and aimed it at the cartridge. As I was about to pull the trigger, the floor gave way.
***
I fell, for what seemed like an eternity, in utter darkness. But, unlike in Ed’s book, I did not wake up in the magical land of Noosylvania. Instead, I was standing, without my gun, on some seemingly endless plane. There was no texture to this world. The ground was a solid block of light green, the sky a single tone of gray. Far off in the distance, I saw a speck of light on the horizon.
Not knowing what else to do, I headed towards it. The landscape was unchanging, but every twenty steps or so, I would plummet into a pit. The falls didn’t injure me, and getting out was easy—I could just float to the top. All it did was add to the monotony of the journey.
No matter how far I walked, the speck of light didn’t seem to get any closer. It reminded me of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a 1982 Atari game widely regarded as one of the worst games of all time. In it, you wandered around, trying to find three pieces of a phone to call home. But there seemed to be no objective in this world. Had Frank created some 3D version of it to torment me for eternity? If there was a video game hell, that would be it.
Finally, I saw something coming towards me—an old man riding a scrawny donkey. Unlike the rest of this world, he looked like a real flesh-and-blood creature. I called out to him, but he didn’t respond, just rode past me. Was he some NPC, or was it someone else that Frank had managed to trap in this world? I doubt I will ever know.
***Not long after the man passed, I stopped and yelled at Frank that I was done playing his game. Unlike in the hallway, nothing happened. Seeing no other choice, I resumed my journey.
After a few more hours, Frank must have finally gotten bored with watching me on his omnivisor. As I had countless times before, I stumbled into another pit. This time, as I fell, everything faded to black.
A few minutes later, I emerged in front of the mansion in Modesto. It was not decaying, was not painted black. Instead, it looked like it had in Ed’s watercolors. In the front yard, two children—a boy and a girl—were running around.
“You’re Queen Neigh, you need to frolic,” the boy said.
The girl stopped running. “I’m tired of playing this stupid game, Eddie.”
“It’s not stupid—”
The girl started laughing. “Yes it is. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Just like you.”
The boy’s face turned red.
Fade to black.
Fade in.
A man was leading a group of kids of varying ages into a video arcade. Most of them looked like they had been sedated, the only one who showed any emotion was a grinning Ed, who looked to be about 16 or 17.
“Remember,” the chaperone said. “You each get four quarters. If you spend them all before the hour is up, that’s too fucking bad.”
The kids ran over to a Space Invaders cabinet, the first blockbuster arcade game, released in 1978. Ed reached it first but was promptly shoved out of the way by the chaperone.
Ed didn’t say anything, he just ambled off to a corner of the arcade where there was a claw machine. On top of a pile of junk was a green sorcerer’s hat. On his second try, he won the hat. He put it on and ran back to the chaperone.
“Look what I won,” he cried.
“Good for you, Ed,” the chaperone said. “I suggest that you wear it all the time. Then everyone who sees you will know what a fucking weirdo you are.”
“I’m going to make games like Space Invaders when I’m older,” Ed said, seemingly unfazed by the chaperone’s comments. “I’m going to call myself Ed the Sorcerer.”
The chaperone burst out laughing. “Ed, you are so damn stupid that you don’t even realize how stupid you are.”
Another fade to black.
A purple vase and a bowl of plastic fruit were resting on a wooden table. About fifteen students were drawing the still life, including Ed, who looked to be about twenty. He was wearing that same sorcerer’s hat. An instructor, an older woman in a paint-stained smock, walked around the room. When she reached Ed, she snatched the paper from his desk.
As she held it up, the class burst out laughing. Ed had given the bowl and vase smiling faces and bulging eyes.
“What do you think you are doing?” the instructor asked. “This is a serious exercise, but you’re treating it like a joke.”
“I just thought I’d make them happy,” Ed protested.
The instructor ripped Ed’s work into shreds. “Good art is not happy art,” she yelled. “Was Munch happy when he painted The Scream? Was Picasso happy when he painted The Old Guitarist? Get out of here, no one wants to see your happy ‘art.’.”
As Ed ran out crying, everything faded to black.
Next, I saw Ed’s disastrous demo of his Desert War game to the Gooseberry Games team and his even more disastrous reading of his book at the Palo Alto High School Library. Then, I was in Ed’s old apartment with Frank and Ed.
“I don’t want to do this,” Ed cried.
“You said that you want to be a serious artist, but everyone just laughs at you,” Frank said. “They think you are an idiot. If you don’t do this, you will never be taken seriously.”
The two went back and forth for several minutes, but in the end, Ed reluctantly agreed. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t. I was just an invisible observer, I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. For the second time, I witnessed Ed’s death. This time, I also saw Frank laughing as he watched his brother’s gruesome demise.
Then I was back in front of the mansion. I don’t know what year it was, but the house was starting to fall into disrepair. Unlike before, I was able to move, and I made my way into the house.
I searched all the rooms but found nothing. Finally, I made my way up the tower steps. In front of the bookshelf was an arcade cabinet covered by a black sheet.
I pulled it off. I was expecting a classic like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, but instead, I was looking at Super Locomotive, a 1982 Japanese release. The Japanese love their trains. They’ve developed dozens of train simulation games, and Super Locomotive was the first. Well, it wasn’t really a train simulator. Yes, you guided a train from station to station, but it wasn’t realistic at all. You wouldn’t expect a 1982 release to be. It comes as a surprise to many people, but train simulators are actually more complex than flight simulators.
To make up for the lack of realism, the developers made it a side-scrolling action game. Enemy kamikaze trains tried to crash into you, while planes and blimps dropped bombs on you. Why had Frank chosen this game? I have no freaking clue.
There was a quarter on top of the cabinet. I inserted it and began playing. It wasn’t a very popular release, and I think I only played it a few times many, many years ago. It was a little tricky, there were two screens—an overhead and a side view—you had to pay attention to, but I managed to pick it up quickly. As chiptune music played, I successfully completed the various levels.
Afterwards, the bookcase swung open. Behind it was the cabin of an actual train simulator. The front window showed a locomotive chugging alone through farmland. The graphics were realistic, photo-realistic in fact.
There were only two buttons on the dashboard, one marked ‘A’ and the other marked ‘B.’ Train simulators weren’t my thing—I had never been in one before—but I was pretty sure there was more to an actual train than two buttons.
I sat down and watched the farmland pass by. Nothing happened. Bashed the buttons. Again, nothing happened. Frank seemed to get off on making me wait. After what seemed like an hour, I decided to explore the rest of the house, to see if there was something else I needed to find. I tried descending the stairs. However, it, like the seemingly “endless” staircase in Super Mario 64, had no ending.
I returned to the tower room and began searching through the books when I heard an alarm blaring from the train simulator.
I rushed back in. The face of Ed’s skeleton, wearing his sorcerer’s hat, had filled the horizon. But unlike before he was not laughing.
There was a fork in the track coming up. The right branch led to a small wooden station. Bound to the left branch was José. Surrounding him were several metallic barrels, “FLAMMABLE” emblazoned on their sides. Hovering above him was the emerald-green cartridge.
A large ‘A’ appeared over the left branch, a ‘B’ over the right.
“Dave,” José cried. “Help me, please. Press B, please, please…”
I looked around, tried to find some plug I could yank out, some way to end Frank’s sick game, but there was nothing. The alarm got louder and louder.
“Five,” Frank’s voice yelled.
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“Press B” José begged. “There’s a way, there’s—”
“One.”
I pressed the A button and the train veered to the left. As José struggled against his bonds, the locomotive crashed into one of the barrels and burst into flames. Both José and the cartridge caught alight. Soon after, Ed’s skeleton was also in flames. He started wailing, the same screams that I heard when he was dissolving in acid.
And then everything went black.
***
I was back in the tower room. It’s just a video game, I told myself. José isn’t dead.
On the floor was a pile of ash. Next to it were the burnt remains of Ed’s signature sorcerer’s hat. I looked around for my gun, but it had disappeared.
I headed down to the living room. Frank grinned when he saw me. “Wasn’t that fun?” he asked.
“Where’s José?”
“He’s dead. Body likely charred beyond recognition. Bet they’ll have to use dental records to identify him, just like they did with poor Jason Statler. But the good news is that Ed is also gone. Permanently. He was getting a little uppity. Showed you that montage—that false montage—to try to make you feel bad for him. But I won’t have to worry about him any longer. I’m on to bigger things.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I yelled.
Frank started cackling. “Please Dave, don’t get like that. I had a feeling you would choose to sacrifice José for the greater good. It’s a classic problem in philosophy, the trolley problem. Lots of survey data on it, but, for obvious reasons, no real-world experiments. Until now. I know the sample size is only one, but—”
I charged at the deranged lunatic. He just kept laughing. “This is a shame, Dave,” he said. “We had more to discuss. Au revoir.”
He muttered some incantation in what sounded like German, dove into the fireplace, and vanished into its flames.
***
My encounter with Frank was over two weeks ago. He was seemingly telling the truth when he said Ed is gone, for the string of disappearances has ended. I know for certain that he was telling the truth about José. His charred body was found in an almond orchard outside of Fresno.
His funeral was last weekend. I will never forget the faces of his two little girls. There’s lots of talk around town, insidious rumors are spreading that he was involved with the cartels. I pray that his daughters don’t hear that awful talk. I hope they know he was a good man.
As for Frank, he’s still out there. I don’t know what he’s working on, but I have a feeling that I will meet him again. It might not be for a year, it might not be for ten years, but I don’t think I’ve seen the last of him.
Did I make the right choice? I ask myself that question constantly. I hope I did. I truly hope so…