The Tale of Max Vorigan

Jerry relays a story of an ancient race that was once numerous on Earth, but had dwindled over eons to just one, Max Vonigan. This hunter is by nature a killer and spins his tale to those that wish to hear.

     Kevin Harris wiped his brow in the still humid September heat. His silk suit clung tightly to his skin as the commuter bus brought him closer and closer to the village of Aquela. In his briefcase was his last case before his burnout. A typical murder case, and Kevin had gotten him off justice's sword lightly. When the judge proclaimed the sentence, Kevin's client smiled an open gap toothed grin at him. I will be free one day because of you, the grin laughed at him. When the firm offered him a job to meet with a legal conference down past the border, Kevin took it in a heartbeat. Although Kevin was on official business, the unspoken purpose was to get drunk on the streets of Aquela.
     Aquela's yearly celebration was right before the harvest moon, a celebration of the Goblin King. A character embedded in Aquelan culture, the harvester of the dead and lord of the underworld. Kevin shuddered a little when he saw the little children running around the bus in their skeleton and greenhued goblin costumes. Around the marketplace was the earthy smell of beer, piss, and roasted food. He had been here twice, and the festive morbity of the village always unhinged and excited him at the same time. The throne overlooking the village would hold the person with the best goblin costume, while the villagers danced and wept to the spirit of the dead.
     Kevin's jaw tensed a little thinking about the dead. How many times did he turn away from their cries in pursuit of winning a case? He had lost count. It cost him a couple of marriages, and several kids that were strangers to him. He bought some bottles of rum, and went to check in the only resort in the town of Aquela. The desk worker eyed Kevin darkly while handing him the room keys. The bottles were nearly empty when the phone rang.
     "Hello?," Kevin asked, fighting to sound sober.
     "Are you Kevin Harris of Turndale Law Corporation?," the voice asked over the phone. Kevin hesitated. He was well known in these parts as a lawyer. Too well known. Kevin looked at the half empty bottle of rum, and finally relented.
     "Yes, that's me," he said. He tried to sound professional.
     "This is Sheriff Carlos Marx. We have apprehended someone who gave himself up at a brutal murder scene this morning. He called the police on himself, and specifically asked for you."
     The voice was shaken. Kevin replied he'd be down in an hour. The voice didn't reply, but abruptly hung up the phone. The coffee and cold shower didn't help Kevin sober up too much. In fact he was fighting his nausea when he arrived at the police station. Sheriff Carlos Marx was a large man, with deep lines burned into his tan face. His coal black eyes burned into Kevin. After introductions were icily made, Sheriff Marx told Kevin about the mysterious killer.
     "This morning we got an anonymous phone call. Once there the remains of two local families surrounded this man. I can't even guess how they were murdered. He had consumed some parts of them, and left blood and entrails to form a symbol that could be occult in origin. He asked for you, and hasn't really said anything else," Sheriff Marx said. His voice was charged with emotions, and clenched his large gnarled hands.
     Kevin went over this, and assumed the killer to be one of those poor fools who use ritualistic murder as a way of avenging themselves upon society. He maintained his professional stance when he entered the cell, but his mask fell off when he saw the killer's appearance. Tall, clean-cut with dark hair and a gray complexion. His face was almost soft and childlike with green eyes that stabbed from his face. He certainly didn't look like a killer.
     "I may not look like a killer, but I am," the man said in a smooth musical voice. His intense green eyes bore into Kevin and Sheriff Marx. Kevin had to look away from those eyes. They seem to impale his very soul. The rum boiling and burning in his stomach.
     "Mr. Harris, I am Max Vorigan," the man said smiling an elfin smile as if he was ordering tea in a fine resort.
     "Mr. Vorigan, why did you ask for me?"
     A small sense of dread hit Kevin. He suddenly realized that Max Vorigan might want Kevin to represent him. Max shook his head, and waved his manicured hand as if he knew what Kevin was thinking. His grin was both mocking and sincere.
     "No, Mr. Harris, let me tell you everything. I am not insane. I kill not for lust or revenge, but to sate my race's hunger."
     Max beamed as his eyes sparkled in the humid air. Kevin cursed those eyes to himself. They seem to have a mesmerizing power to them, as they sought out for any weakness at any given moment. He had to be careful of them.
     "Mr. Vorigan, how can slaughtering innocent people 'sate' a race's hunger?" Kevin asked, almost hoping to prove Vorigan's sanity so he could pay for his crimes.
     "Humans are parasites upon the land. Are any truly innocent? As to my race," Max Vorgian sighed, "I am older than this building, this town, this country. I was here when your ugly primate ancestors were still shivering in the cold. I am the last Vorigan."
     Kevin stared back at Max Vorigan.
     Kevin realized that Max Vorigan was utterly insane. Still, his story was strange and unexpected. Even Sheriff Marx looked at Max Vorigan with intense interest.
     "The Vorigan were the last night predators. Our race built up a noble nomadic existence while your race learned to take its first footsteps. Yet even our long life spans could not stave off madness, and we died one by one by our own hands. We were almost gods once eons ago. I am the last one. I kill because it is my tribal function and ingrained into my very blood," Max said as he lowered his eyes.
     "You are the one that hunts?"
     "I am the one that hunts," Max smiled.
     Kevin wiped the sweat from his eyes. Max viewed his past as some important totem. Kevin knew that Max Vorigan was either insane or dammed good at self-delusions. Max Vorigan looked at them with his green eyes of flame. They seemed to burn and scream at the same time.
     "I will escape. I will kill. That is fate of the last Vorigan."
     Sheriff Marx scowled at this determined statement. It didn't seem right, Kevin thought about Max Vorigan's tale and his legal expectations.
     "You didn't want me to represent you in court. You only wanted to tell me you tale. Why?" the lawyer asked in wonder.
     Max licked his sensual lips. He seemed affected by this question more than the others. Max smiled a shy bashful grin. A grin that sent many to Hell, Kevin glumly thought.
     "Yes, I asked for you to tell my tale. I am old, and every century I tell someone my tale. Even the endless feel pangs of loneliness," Max Vorigan said with the first signs of remorse. His face was no longer vexed and cryptic.
     "Loneliness?"
     "My loneliness transcends any and all that use that label. For years untold I have slaughtered your race, yet even the pangs of regret smite even me. I tell my tale to animals that I slaughter."
     "Why?"
     "Sympathy. Guilt, I guess. Just because I kill you primates doesn't mean I enjoy it. Our roles and the ultimate waste of it."
     The air was heavy with tension. Sheriff Marx shook with rage. His face, bejeweled with sweat, made an angry mask at Max Vorigan.
     "You expect us to buy that bullshit! Your fucked up fable isn't gonna save your ass! You're a damn sicko who is going to pay for what he's done!"
     Sheriff Marx included a spit in Max Vorigan's face to show how much he despised him.
     "I completely expect you to think I'm insane. People in the past have always disbelieved my tale. Why not you?," Max said quietly, ignoring the spittle flowing down his face.
     "Bullshit!" Sheriff Marx roared.
     "I am the endless killer of night. I am the boogeyman made flesh," Max said with a sad face. He would say no more.
     Kevin and Sheriff Marx left the cell. Kevin looked back as the door was locked, and found Max Vorigan staring at him with his weird elfin smile again. It was a smile that could be pasted on a Halloween costume. Maybe the rum affected him, but Kevin was starting to believe Max Vorigan's tale. Sheriff Marx and Kevin said their ice-laden good-byes, and Kevin went off to finish his rum.
     Hours later, the Goblin King celebration was in full swing as the full moon made the dancing people seem ghostlike and eerie in their elaborate skeleton and goblin costumes. Kevin looked over the village square from his hotel room ledge. The townspeople were dancing and weeping to the alien sound of their drums. Kevin went over and over Vorigan's tale, as the rum swam idiotic in his mind and the drums increased their fever pitch of urgency.
     When Sheriff Marx called and almost shrieked that Max Vorigan had escaped like magic from his cell, Kevin smiled as if he got the punchline of a very old joke. Somewhere out there, Max Vorigan stalked the night for flesh. Kevin said a few consoling words to Sheriff Marx and hung up. It was now the apex of the celebration, and the people danced and chanted around the throne that held the person with the best goblin costume. The Goblin King looked over the festival, and smiled to the weeping, screaming masses below. It was a smile that sent shivers down the spine. It was the charming, demented smile of Max Vorigan.
     Kevin knew this, and drank the rum to help him forget.

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