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Back Bad Apples Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
  1. 1
  2. 2
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  11. 11
  12. 12
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  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
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  34. 34
  35. 35
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  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
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  48. 48
  49. 49
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  65. Acknowledgements

‘Hell, no, you crazy? You seen the mosquitos out there? Besides I’m not in any hunt team. It’s all political bullshit run by the Edlund family.’

He tears the crust from his pizza and chews it with his mouth open.

‘And the later levels?’

He looks coy. ‘I dunno, your readers aren’t going to understand if they start reading about that stuff.’

I sip my Coke. ‘Okay then. Off the record.’

He looks excited, his red eyes widening. ‘Shit gets real after a while. The hunters turn on the hunt leader, then on each other. Do or die. Kill or be killed. You need to make or find shelter. Fires are good, they recharge your energy levels, but they can also give away your position. There are crossbows and hammers and chainsaws, not just guns. Knives. Machetes. Hand-to-hand combat. Using each other as human shields. Last night when I was playing I couldn’t kill a zombie bear until I gnawed the nose clean off his face. Once you get down to five players in one forest there’s cannibalism, the collecting of certain animal and human bones, antlers, human skulls. All inside the forest. In hunting towers and by bonfires. You can’t get out of the woods. It’s all pine trees and hollows and Swedish road signs. Realest shit I ever played in my life.’

‘My dad used to warn about ultra-violence,’ I say. ‘Talked about A Clockwork Orange.’

‘An orange?’

‘It’s a Kubrick movie. Dad used to say that you can get hungry for more and more extreme things. Like an addiction. At some point you have to say no. Draw a line. Realise that it’s enough.’

‘Don’t you dare tell my customers that,’ says David, yawning, some gooey cheese coating his tongue.

‘Arne Persson ever game in your place? Ever play Hunted 2.0?’

David shakes his head. ‘Not welcome.’

‘Why not?’

David swallows and then leans closer to me. ‘He never had no kids of his own, so he went after other peoples’. You know what I mean?’

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it.’

He eats more pizza and then drinks a mouthful of Coke to swill it down.

‘Small town, back country. Folks don’t talk to people like you.’

‘What are you saying he did?’

‘He was the scout leader back in the day. Back when Daniel and I were kids. You know the kind of man who wants to be a scout leader, right?’

Actually I don’t.

‘People used to say he preferred the blue-eyed boys. Never did a thing to me but my brother was convinced he was a monster. Whole town knows about it.’

Ragnar Falk walks past the window.

‘Poor old fool,’ says David, nodding at him. ‘First his daughter gets killed and then you steal his newspaper.’

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