Evil One

Before his face was horribly scarred, Kyle had just been a run-of-the-mill juvenile delinquent. As a bored teenage boy in an affluent Colorado town, the son of a prominent minister and a beloved school teacher, Kyle was a terror. Stealing grocery money from his mother’s purse. Drinking his father’s liquor cabinet dry. Sneaking out of his bedroom window at night to break into cars. One night, he crossed the line. On his sixteenth birthday, Kyle managed to steal a car, speed across town, run a red light and crash into a woman driving home from work. Fortunately, the woman wasn’t hurt but Kyle was severely burned and ended up with a face and body resembling that of an old box turtle. At first, the minister and his wife hoped their son had learned his lesson. But even with the pain and his ghoulish face, Kyle just laughed and insulted the people who visited him in the hospital. His physical transformation into a monster seemed to have no effect on the boy’s nasty personality. In fact, he became more bitter, angry and resentful. So after months of putting up with the impossible young man, his parents finally kicked him out of the house. The town librarian noted Kyle reminded her of a picture of the Japanese reptile demon Kappa she saw in a book. From then on, everyone called him Kappa.

After being kicked out of his home, Kappa continued on his path of destruction. Using the laptop his parents gave him for his birthday, he managed to hack into the county computer network and bring down the town’s website. He announced his plan to break into the website of the local Catholic church and implant nasty messages from “Jesus.” Kappa was no dummy and prided himself with coming up with bigger and better pranks. But unlike the most prominent hackers like Snowden, Kappa had no higher purpose. In fact, he prided himself in his lack of morals. Snowden was a wimp. Collateral damage was par for the course. Kappa didn’t care if who he hurt.

No one dared to scold him. Everyone was afraid that if they did, Kappa would turn on them next. He was free to do as he pleased. Without the boyish handsomeness of his youth which excused him before the car accident, Kappa was now not only heartless - he was ugly. His physical defects – a bird-like beak instead of a mouth, and scaly green skin, repelled even the most soft-hearted townspeople. He made no effort to hide the unattractive bald spot on the top of his head and his long fringe of dark, greasy hair.

His pranks grew deadly. Kappa emptied an old widow’s life savings and made it look like her own son had taken the money. The tears of the heartbroken old woman and the devastated son only made Kappa laugh with delight. One of Kappa’s favorite pranks was when he posted a embarrassing video of the local high school cheerleader (it was actually someone who looked very similar to the girl), getting drunk at a party – all over the internet with the teenager’s name and the title “our local slut.” At first, many were fooled into believing the video and demanded that the girl quit the squad. When the poor girl committed suicide, he actually taunted the mourners at the funeral by scattering notes everywhere that said, “You Suckers!” Kappa did his mischief purely for the joy of creating havoc and pain.

With each increasingly horrible crime, Kappa dared the authorities to catch him. He even announced that he moved. Using all the money he had stolen, he now lived in the radioactive grounds of the former nuclear weapons manufacturer which had been shut down years ago. The Sheriff asked for help to apprehend Kappa. FBI agents outfitted with HazMat suits and weapons scoured the bleak, dry grounds but found nothing. Reward posters for the capture of Kappa were put up all over town and the internet - $5 million but no one was able to come close to capturing him. In fact, Kappa delighted in posting videos of several bounty hunters who came looking for him. He could see them but they couldn’t find him.

Kappa’s hidden cameras captured the exact moments when he committed the ultimate insult to the community. Using a state-of-the-art sharp shooter’s rife, he shot the captain of the high school football team, who was trying to track him down. Then Kappa broadcast the video clips to the horror of thousands of viewers who were brave enough to watch. The government demanded the immediate removal of the videos from online sites. Television programs such as America’s Most Wanted even warned people to no longer approach Kappa.

It was the middle of July, the weather was suddenly hot and dry after a series of monsoon-like rain and hail. Late afternoon, after the worst of the heat had passed, a white-haired Asian woman drove up to Kappa’s home on the desolate grounds of the former weapons manufacturer. Ruth was an elderly Japanese-American writer with a small but devoted following, on a book tour when she heard about Kappa at her last reading at the local bookstore. Ruth also happened to be a Shinto priest. She borrowed her host’s car, a rusty Subaru sedan covered with bumper stickers― tie-dye color peace signs, the “Why can’t we just get along?” quote, and I ♥ earth, among many others too faded to read. Ruth pulled up to the gates of the deserted nuclear weapons plant. There were warning signs on the gate, Wanted posters of Kappa. She ignored the signs and drove onto the rutted, gravel road into the desolate grounds. No one guarded the plant anymore. The nuclear weapons manufacturer had long gone out of business, radioactivity had driven any neighbors further away, and the reward for capturing Kappa wasn’t enough to lure any more takers. The old woman shifted gears and the Subaru’s shock absorbers squealed as the car bounced over the potholes in the dusty road.

Kappa lived alone in the midst of this semi-arid land with only jackrabbits, coyotes and grasshoppers for company. Ruth stopped the car at the top of a bluff and stepped out into the hot sun. She shielded her eyes with a wrinkled hand adorned with a large jade ring. No trees were in sight. Only a few birds flitted across the view of the bleak landscape.

The old woman cupped her hands around her mouth. “Kappa! Kappa!” Her voice died in the hot air. “Kappa Kappa!”

Kappa woke up and looked at his monitor. What was that old woman doing out here? The microphone picked up her frail voice. She was calling him. Over and over. Who was she? Although it would have easy enough to take her out with a single bullet, curiosity grew. It had been a quiet day so this might be a good time for a little fun, Kappa thought. He took his rifle and crept out of his lair and approached the old woman. As soon as his ugly face and scaly skin was visible, the old woman was sure to run screaming – like all the others and he could hunt her, like a coyote after a rabbit. But when she spotted him, she waved and smiled.

Kappa pulled out his rifle and aimed it straight at the old woman’s white head framed by a large floppy hat. She made no move to run and simply waited for Kappa to come closer. He glared at her through the lens but she kept her eyes on him. It was disconcerting to see her gazing directly at him. Especially with her smile.

Her voice was soft. “Kappa, I want to talk with you. May I ask you a question?”

Kappa stopped. No one had ever asked him to talk. He saw that the old woman was waiting for his answer. Why not? He had nothing to lose by talking with this woman and it would be easy to eliminate her if she did anything he didn’t like. He lowered the rifle and approached the woman. The sun dipped behind the red rocks that jutted out west of his desolate home. Kappa could suddenly see the old woman clearly in the growing shadows. She must be at least 80 years old and weigh less than 120 pounds.

She motioned for Kappa to come sit near her on a boulder. Kappa approached and sat down. The old woman also sat down on a smaller rock, took off her hat and faced him.

She spoke again. “Kappa, tell me. Please tell me why you do these things,” she asked in a gentle tone.

Kappa took a deep breathe. This was the first time in his life that someone had asked him such a question. He knew that this woman was not interested in hearing about the thrill he got from hurting people. She was not interested in debating him. She really wanted to know what drove him to do the things he did. Why did he do these things?

He blurted out the first thing that came to his head. “I’m lonely.”

“Lonely?” Ruth said.

“Yes,” said Kappa. “Nobody wants to be with me. They run every time I come near. At the same time, none of the animals want me either. I’ve tried raising them, even lizards. But they all run away, or they die on me.”

The old woman looked into Kappa’s eyes and he felt her grey eyes examining his very soul.

“You don’t want to be alone?” she asked.

“No.” Kappa said and surprised himself when he felt a tear trickle down his scaly cheek.

The old woman said, “Would you like to hear what I think?”

Kappa nodded.

“The only way you will be able to no longer be alone, is to do something which benefits others…without asking for anything in return,” she said.

Kappa felt his anger rising. What sort of bullshit was this?

Ruth got up and walked back to her Subaru. She started the car and slowly headed back out of the Flats. It would be so easy to blow out one her tires, then shoot her in the back of her old head― but Kappa just watched the dust plume of her car fade in the growing darkness.

That winter was coldest one on record. Minus ten, then minus twenty degrees below zero. When power lines began to break under the weight of heavy branches, men rushed out to repair the lines but they weren’t fast enough to keep up. Water lines frose and burst. People were trapped. A terrible report of an elderly couple found frozen in their beds. Desperate families turned on portable generators to keep their homes warm. One morning a family with five young children were found dead. They had all died in their sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning from the fumes of their portable heater. The radio station in the middle of town became the only source of information as television, internet and cell phone access disappeared along with the electricity. The cold snap turned into weeks and months. Marge, the owner of the radio station, dedicated herself to keeping the radio station going with an emergency generator. She broke into the vending machine for food and slept bundled up on a cot beside the radio microphone.

Marge tried to comfort her invisible audience every morning. “Goood Morning, Antartica!” she shouted. “Marge here to give you the latest, hottest, and honest news on our very own Ice Age.” She played upbeat pop songs, even hip hop on air in between regular announcements of all the news she received. She decided that the people deserved to hear everything, even about the gruesome deaths of the five children, the food shortage, and the inability of the authorities to help.

Snowplows and supply trucks could no longer get through the roads when thick sheets of ice formed on every surface. People tried to keep dark thoughts away by huddling together around their portable radios and Marge’s voice. Dining room furniture, pianos and books were being sacrificed to keep the fires going when the firewood was gone. The Governor declared the region to be in a state of national emergency but there was little the rest of the country could do to help. Even if the supply planes were able to land at the local airport’s icy landing strips, there was no more gas to fuel the trucks to bring the food to the people.

Kappa also listened to Marge's broadcasts from his cozy cave which was safe and warm with the power generated by his portable generator. His food and fuel supply was more than enough to last him through the winter. After two weeks of the disaster, early one morning Kappa put on his coat, boots, and gloves and trudged outside. He got on the snowmobile he kept for such weather and zoomed into the middle of town. The loud noise of his motor alerted every one of his arrival.

Marge was the first to spot him as she gazed out from her radio station. “Well, what do you know. We’ve got a visitor in town. Maybe he’s here to enjoy the weather..wait. I can’t believe it! It’s Kappa!” she announced on air.

As soon as people realized who it was, several men came out into the cold brandishing baseball bats and one had a rifle. The one with the rifle shot the snow mobile, stranding Kappa in the town park with a frozen duck pond. All of the men who came out into the cold had suffered from Kappa’s pranks. One was the dead cheerleader’s father, another was an outraged parishioner of the Catholic Church that had been shocked by the blasphemous messages from Jesus, and one was the heart-broken brother of the football captain who was brutally killed in one of Kappa’s videos. The angry men pulled Kappa off of his snowmobile and began beating and kicking him.

Marge was horrified but she kept to her promise to report on everything. “Kappa’s been dragged off of his snowmobile. It looks like our men are beating up Kappa pretty bad. All I can see are their swinging bats and Kappa getting hit on the ground. Oh, my God. What are they doing to him?” Everyone in town was glued to their radio.

As the men kicked Kappa and hit him with bats, they cried, “Kappa’s come to try something again!” “Let’s kill him!” “He doesn’t deserve to live after what he did to my family!” But no one wanted to shoot him. That would be too easy. Instead, they stripped Kappa of his coat, his pants, his boots, gloves and even his underwear. Kappa put up no resistance as they beat him and tore everything off of him. The blood from his wounds froze before it dripped off of his scaly skin.

The men left Kappa on the ground and went back to their worried families. Kappa no longer heard the angry men and lifted his bruised head. He spit out a broken tooth. The air was so cold it burned his lungs. He painfully sat up, then got up on his bare feet

“Daddy, look!” cried Emma, a ten-year old who had been watching the beating from her kitchen window.

Soon everyone, thanks to Marge, witnessed Kappa limping onto the pond. “He’s hurt but he’s going out to the middle of the duck pond. He’s stopped. He’s looking up into the sky. What’s he looking at? He’s gotten on his knees. He’s got his hands up in the air. What’s he doing? He looks like he’s … praying!”

At first, everyone laughed. What was Kappa up to?

Marge opened her window and reported, “He’s saying…’Please, God. Help these people. Please, God. Help these people.’ It looks like Kappa is really praying. I don’t know what he’s up to but he’s going on and on.”

After a couple of hours of his beseeching the skies, a few people bundled up and ventured out to get a closer look. Sure enough, Kappa was praying. Marge even managed to stick her microphone out of her window and catch Kappa’s voice, growing weaker and weaker.

He said, “Help these people. Help these people. Take me as payment. Please. Help them.”

For the next three days, without clothing, food or water, without stop, Kappa remained kneeling on the frozen pond, praying. Little Emma decided to copy Kappa in his prayers and she knelt in front of the window where she could still see the miserable figure kneeling on the pond. Marge and many of the listeners also began to pray alongside Kappa and Emma. “Please. Please help us.”

On the morning of the fourth day, Marge reported, “Kappa has stopped praying. It looks like he’s dead.”

When the men who had beat Kappa earlier went out to the pond, they confirmed that Kappa was indeed dead. Frozen with his hands still in prayer against his bloody head. They brought the body back and covered it in a box to be buried later. The ground was too hard to dig. The anger the men felt earlier had burned away and they felt a mixture of sadness and confusion.

Later that same day, the clouds burned away and the sun began to shine. The ice began to melt. The temperature rose. Marge announced, “Spring is here, folks. It’s above zero!”

Soon it was warm enough for the power lines to be repaired, the water lines patched up, and the roads cleared. The freeze was over. The people would survive.

That summer, Ruth, the writer stopped by the town again on another book tour. That evening at her reading at the bookstore, she heard the story of the winter freeze and how Kappa had died praying out on the frozen pond.

The next day, Ruth went out to the radio station to talk with Marge and told her how she met Kappa the previous summer and their conversation at the grounds of the former weapons manufacturer. Marge broadcast Ruth’s story to the town.

The townspeople met at the minister and school teacher’s home to discuss their impressions of the terrible Freeze and how Kappa prayed on that frozen pond. How they were all haunted by that image of the battered and bloodied Kappa on his knees murmuring “Help these people. Help these people. Take me as payment” until he froze to death. What was in Kappa’s heart as he was beaten, stripped and tortured?

Ruth’s story compelled the brother of the killed football captain to announce a plan. The townspeople agreed this was what needed to be done to relieve their collective conscience. Money was collected and a statue of the Kappa was built to stand in the middle of the duck pond. Most visitors and children thought the statue was just that of a whimsical make-believe creature but the locals knew the truth. Although reincarnation was not part of the Christian teachings, the minister told his congregation to watch for signs of Kappa to come back to join their town, this time, to be welcomed back into the community.