Wraith Killers was the best game of 1993, according to the nerds at my high school. You’ve probably never heard of it because it was the last batch in a defunct shareware group run out of a garage and never ascended to internet immortality like most games. I think that was intentional.
I secretly liked video games too, but it wasn’t cool back then to talk about them in public. You would be grouped with the nerds if you did, and while I certainly wasn’t popular, I had worked hard at being left alone through exercise, weights, diet, and a cold, hard stare.
The last thing I’d learned from my uncle. He said there were few people who could endure being stared at for long, so if anyone got in your face, just try going quiet and staring. If there’s an ounce of doubt in them, they’ll go away.
I’d done it a couple of times since starting high school, and nobody fucked with me. I’d overheard a girl once say I was the most mysterious guy at Buchner Collegiate. Felt pretty good to hear that.
But I also really liked video games.
So when I heard those nerds talking about Wraith Killers, I had to try it myself. I considered it a happy accident that their lockers were in the same part of the school as mine.
I’d just stand there, listening to their conversations until they noticed me staring. They’d get meek and figure I was just a higher caste flexing rank because I could.
As soon as I had my stuff that day, I booked it to the computer shop and dove elbow deep into the bin of random discs.
The bored cashier perked up a little.”Wraith Killers?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
He shrugged and held up a battered envelope containing a CD. “This is the last copy. Are you on the web?”
“What?” The internet wasn’t widely available until later in the 90s.
He sighed and I gave him the stare, which he didn’t seem to notice. High school kids are not as intimidating as they often believe. “Plug your phone line into your computer. Follow the prompts on the screen.”
Sounded easy enough. I didn’t understand why I’d have to plug my phone cable into the computer but was too excited to stand around talking tech crap with some older nerd. I paid five bucks for the game.
My parents were not fully understanding of my gaming habits. It was new to them and confusing. Why would anyone stare at crude graphics and hard to read text for hours?
But there were some upsides to gaming that sold them. First, I was home, and not running wild on Tour Hill like my older brother. Second, I basically learned to read from video games and read more books now than when I didn’t have my computer and Nintendo console.
Still, I didn’t want to explain Wraith Killers to them. Video games as a medium were in an infancy stage; the content they put out was often violent, sexist, racist, or just disturbing. In other words, I had no idea what a game like Wraith Killers might contain.
And if there was anything vaguely satanic in it, they’d freak out. The satanic panic was in its last days of stupidity, and so too my parents’ adherence to such nonsense. But that didn’t mean they didn’t believe in the reality of demons and a spiritual war upon mankind.
I waited for night. It took awhile to install and figure out the prompts. Once I had, however, the game began, and I think my mouth fell open. The graphics, primitive by modern standards, blew me away.
The colour palette was rich and the character selection screen held several options. Each pixel looked carefully placed and smoothed. I beheld different categories of creatures from the afterlife. I could choose to play from the following list: Poltergeists; Phantoms; Shades; Vengeful Spirits; Banshees; Spectres.
Their appearances and abilities varied greatly, but it was the last choice that appealed to me the most: A Wraith.
I’d just finished the Lord of the Rings the previous summer. Another personal activity I told no one about. I loved the way the hobbit homes gave me a cozy, safe feeling as the Ringwraiths, cloaked agents of the Dark Lord, lurked outside in the cold night.
The wraith in Wraith Killers looked much the way I imagined they would. Essentially, they were ghosts wearing black cloaks over their invisible bodies. Their description in the game was something like, “Walks in perfect silence, immune to most weapons, including bullets. High resistance to most magic but sensitive to fire.
Without understanding how the game worked, none of this information mattered. I made my choice and the game loaded a pixelated street at night.
I moved the wraith along the sidewalk, avoiding the pool of illumination cast by the streetlight. There were other crude sprites, non-player characters (NPCs), populating the screen.
One searched a garbage can for food. Another leaned against a wall smoking a cigarette. The neon sign above them read Bugby’s, the name of a real bar in Bridal Veil Lake.
After a few more steps I realized I was looking at a meticulous recreation of Tour Hill.
“Incredible,” I remember whispering to Bill, my cat. She continued sleeping on my bed.
Naturally, I kept guiding the avatar along and continued to be astonished. How had this game not been a smash hit? A real place - the place I lived in - had been made into a video game. Again, I was just astonished, and I didn’t even know what I was supposed to do or what I could do.
After some experimenting, I discovered I had a dagger, and some kind of energy attack. I wandered down a narrow alley and discovered more sprites behind a restaurant. Three of them were gathered around a small fire, sharing a bottle. The animation of them passing the bottle was so fluid.
As I made the wraith approach, a wind stirred the pixelated fire. Making realistic looking flames had been a challenge for programmers for the longest time. The people behind this game had figured it out.
The homeless characters stopped moving as I crept closer; the one holding the bottle seemed to shiver. I moved behind him and tried the dagger. In a flash, the dark steel tool entered the sprite’s back, and he audibly gasped through my computer’s speakers before falling over. A pool of blood spread beneath him. The other two characters ran from the alley.
I tried using the energy attack as they retreated but it only put out the fire. That was its power; I could darken lights. I went back to the street and it worked on the Bugby’s neon sign too.
Another ghostly looking character suddenly appeared beside me. I’m not sure what type but it looked like a skeleton surrounded by mist.
Words appeared above its head: Blood pleases Baal.
I recognized that name from the Bible. Our pastor said it was a demon. My parents would freak out if they saw this.
It wandered down the alley and I followed to see what it was up to. A skeletal hand reached out and over the body of the homeless person I’d killed and an orb appeared a little above it before disappearing.
“Blood for Baal,” the words appeared above the ghostly character. “Souls for Berith. Flesh for the Mother of Cambions. Hosts for the Perfect Ones… Whom do you serve?”
I saw no prompts for a response, then realized I could type it out.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh,” it said, “You’re new. Wraiths usually go with the Perfect Ones or the Mother.”
“Are you a player? Like a person?”
“ROFL,” they said. “New to the net, huh?”
“ROFL?”
“Rolling on the floor laughing.”
“Oh. This game is amazing.”
“It’s more than that,” they said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll figure it out.” My screen flashed brightly and suddenly their avatar was gone.
“Aw,” I typed. I had so many questions. This was my first introduction to what would become the internet and it felt so unreal. I could feel my adrenaline pumping. I took my avatar back on Tour Hill and started wandering, finding the casino populated with dozens of sprites but no other players.
I tried my light sucking power on the many neon signs but it had little effect and the nearest sign just flickered before going back to normal. I stepped into the light and flinched in my computer chair as a sprite shrieked and ran away.
I could be seen in the blocky pixel light but didn’t know if it mattered until a number of sprites began to surround my avatar. Their shouting was gibberish mostly but I caught the drift: “What the hell is that?!”
I took off into darker places, finding another alley to hide in, and chuckled as some npcs hesitated by the entrance. This was such an immersive game, and I was hooked. I knew I wouldn’t be going to sleep tonight.
There was another exit to the alley. I left and wandered through familiar sights around Bridal Veil Lake. I saw other players and tried to interact but they quickly fled, which made me wonder if I could attack them. The idea of killing other avatars was thrilling. How had this company gone belly up?
On a whim, I decided to find my neighborhood. I was certain the game designers hadn’t included the more residential areas but I was wrong. The screen kept scrolling and suddenly the wraith was on my street.
“Whoa,” I told Bill. “This is nuts. The streetlights, the cars parked on the street, even the houses were accurately placed and coloured. My elation diminished quickly, however, when I brought the wraith to the digital version of my home.
There were no pixelated lights on, but there were flashes from a window of the second floor. My bedroom window, to be exact, where I was playing the game being depicted.
I refrained from telling Bill about it but this was impossible. Removing my hands from the mouse and keyboard, I leaned back and looked at my actual window. If I moved the wraith into the light would I be able to see it, like really see it out my real window?
I started to panic. Of course I couldn’t see it in real life. This was a game, not some cautionary tale about satanic dangers within enjoyment.
Whether or not I was crazy or an idiot took a back seat to the appearance of three other ghostly characters approaching from the other end of the rendered street. These were clearly players like me.
One looked like the skull wisp thing I’d followed down the alley where I’d killed the hobo. Another flitted across objects, a shadow carrying a scythe. The last was a wraith with a long sword. These were higher leveled characters, I think, though, even if they weren’t, they still outnumbered me.
I moved my wraith away from the street light and behind the large tree on the front lawn.
“You sure he went this way?” said the letters above the wraith’s head.
“I’ve been following him this whole time,” said the skull. “If we didn’t go back for Matt, I’d still be with him. We’d know his address.”
“Don’t blame me,” said the shadow guy, his form cast on the red car my neighbour always parked at the curb.
“We need a shade to get us inside,” the wraith said.
“And scout,” the shade said.
“Phantoms are better,” said the skull fog, a phantom I’m guessing.
“Shut up,” the wraith advised. “He could be nearby and watching. We go in now. It’s probably this one.” He guessed my house correctly.
“Kill that asshole,” said the phantom.
“Yeah, teach him to fucking stare at us,” the shade added, revealing their identities: The locker nerds. They’d set me up. With a video game? Some kind of lethal video game?
No time to mention again the impossibility of such a thing because they started advancing across the screen, the digital street. In my bedroom, I shrieked and stood up, not daring to look away from the computer.
“It’s a video game,” I said. I looked to Bill to back me up. Her head lifted before a knock fell against the front door of the house. “It’s a video game.” I wrung my hands as I moved closer to the screen.
The enemy wraith’s hands manipulated a miniscule doorknob in the game, my doorknob. It rattled from my speakers. It rattled in real life. The doorway, both, opened. They were coming.
Bill finally, cautiously rose, and her tail began to puff.
My bedroom door was already closed. Thankfully, my parents let me have a simple hook and loop lock, so long as I only used it conservatively. It wouldn’t stop anyone slamming into it for long and might tear like paper against whatever crept up the stairs.
I couldn’t hear them but Bill could. She leapt off the bed and wisely retreated under it, cat eyes glowing as they faced the oncoming threat from relative safety. The thought of cramming in beside her was appealing.
Instead, I glanced again at the computer and wraith still tucked behind the tree. One of the three passed briefly by the game’s version of the stairway window. They were close.
Beneath the real bedroom door crept the soft blue light of the phantom. The skull appeared through the door, no longer graphically crude. No one had made this creature. It existed long before Wraith Killers and video games and humans too. The hatred in the stirring black pits of its socket eyes said it was so.
The skull retracted and the blue light under the door dissipated; the phantom resumed invisibility. Nothing followed for an agonizing length of time.
Bill didn’t move, so neither did I, until the shadow appeared in the narrow space between the door and lintel. A shadow hand slid behind the hook, popping it out smoothly, quietly. The door swung open on a dark and empty hallway.
They were there alright. Bill began to hiss.
“I’m sorry, alright?” I don’t know why I was whispering when I should have been screaming my head off for my parents. They would rush from their rooms and… I thought about the homeless npc I had so easily killed.
Did that mean? Had I? Oh God.
The spirits lingered, yet unmoving, perhaps unsure what to do next or who should make the kill. I couldn’t see their conversation because my avatar wasn’t near them.
My avatar.
I’d like to tell you, Mr. Cleriot, that I had a sudden, electric inspiration to hop on my computer and use my wraith to save the day, but that’s not quite how it happened.
Moving to the chair, bending to manipulate the mouse and keyboard felt like wading through cemented air. At any moment, I could die, and the thought, strangely, made me tired. They had me. I was an animal on the cusp of accepting my fate.
My wraith entered the house as silent as the enemy. The hallway was dark; the graphics portrayed this by only displaying the floor and the outline of a wall. I couldn’t see them and I hoped they couldn’t see my avatar.
I positioned my back to block the computer screen from their view. In retrospect, I realize they were only seeing my room as a video game. They were watching the sprite version of me sitting at my computer, playing this game.
They had no idea if I was truly aware of their presence or just sensed something was off. Even when the door opened, it might have appeared as if I hadn’t noticed because they would have only seen the crude npc go and sit at the computer.
I don’t know if they heard my apology. The homeless guy had made an audible sound on my speakers.
The enemy wraith stepped into the light of my open doorway on the screen. If I looked over my shoulder, away from the screen, I don’t know what I would have seen. I am sure, however, I would die.
Eyes straight ahead, I snuck my wraith up behind the dark cloaked player and activated my knife attack. It pierced his back and he shrieked as a health bar appeared and depleted by more than half. I spammed the attack, over and over, closing my real eyes, hoping for the best.
The stabbing sound came from behind me, not the computer speakers. A loud shriek followed and I felt wind sweep my hair. I opened my eyes and the phantom and the shade were both ineffectually attacking my wraith.
Their associate was gone, and I think I had advanced a number of levels or something by killing his avatar. I don’t really know. With a single thrust, I dispatched the phantom. Recognizing the predicament, the shade stretched across the floor, and swept claws at me. Me, the real me, felt burning fire across my back. I yelped but got my wraith to dispose of the shade, again, with a single, overpowered knife attack.
I sat still for a long time until my dad leaned in the doorway, looking groggy. “You still up? Time for bed. Church tomorrow.”
He was wrong. It was only early Saturday morning, but I didn’t disagree, and shutdown the computer immediately, which made him suspicious.
“Everything okay?”
I nodded. It wasn’t. I didn’t know how to explain, and I never did. Bill and I lay awake in bed until midmorning. I uninstalled Wraith Killers and destroyed the CD, tossing the pieces in the garbage at the 7-11. I watched the news with my parents, which earned me some strange looks. I had to know if a body had been found in that alley off Tour Hill. It hadn’t.
As far as I knew, no one found him. I tried unsuccessfully to delude myself into believing I hadn’t killed anyone.
The nerds confronted me at school Monday.
“Nicely played,” one said while the others nodded. “You’re the most powerful in the game now.” When I gave them my practiced stare, the nerds scowled in unison. “You didn’t even know.” He shook his head. “You absorb all the experience points and powers and items of players you kill.”
I gave them nothing. I stared.
“Look,” he said, “you can be the leader. We need to make new characters, but it’s really hard to gain levels without a higher leveled player’s help.”
I had many questions. I didn’t ask one. I stared.
The lead nerd reddened, visibly angry. “Fine. But don’t forget, we know where you live.”
I grabbed him by the throat and pushed him against the lockers. “I know where you go to school,” I said before releasing him. He slunk away, his lackeys in tow.
I only saw them a handful of times around school after that. I don’t know for sure if they kept playing the game but I think so.
They abandoned their lockers, but I’d see them every so often through the years of high school. They gained a reputation too: [Weirdos, Satanists, future serial killers] (https://youtu.be/tC_7PGjXSK4?si=6wnQuOMhz9s1hory).
None of these labels quite described what they were or what they’d become.
They didn’t walk the stage at graduation. I don’t know what happened. Picturing them hunched over their keyboards - sad, psychotic, middle aged men - was all too easy though.
The taint of Wraith Killers impacted me differently. I couldn’t bring myself to play another video game. It was difficult to sit at a computer to do school work.
I turned to sports, and religion.
My parents were proud of me.
Somehow that’s the hardest thing to bear.
Proud of me.
Proud of their son, the Wraith Killer.