The Toadman: Origins

Lesler looked around at the pig cop, and the men and women in the room through the glass pane. He smirked his psychotic smirk, struggling against his restraints. Those women had children. Sweet, vulnerable children… He laughed. The onlookers merely gazed, stone-faced.

“Keith Lesler. You have been convicted of thirteen accounts of kidnapping, twenty-four accounts of first-degree murder, two accounts of grand theft auto, and one account of vehicular manslaughter. Of this, you have been sentenced to death by electrocution. Do you understand this?”

Lesler didn’t care. He simply nodded and stared at the executioner, his eyes burning coals of hatred and spite. His hands became fidgety in anticipation. This was a rush for him, almost like the first time he brought the edge of his axe against that girl’s leg. Her screams were music to his ears, and he kept chopping, and chopping, and chopping.

“Have you any last words before the execution?”

Lesler nodded once more. “I do, pig.”

“Get on with it, then. People here are waiting.”

Keith’s grin grew wider. His entire body started to shudder. With his deep, quavering voice, he screamed a haphazard laugh.

“Killing me won’t stop my legacy, you swine! A thousand more at my hand! A thousand more thrown in that river! The water shall turn red by my hand!”

The witnesses gaze turned to rage, and the man in black turned the iron switch, sending 2000 volts throughout the killer’s body. He squirmed and continued his laughing, vomiting and sending sparks outward, only further damaging himself. Finally, after twenty minutes of shrill laughter, his body limp and singed by the heat.

The newspaper headline read that day “Toad Man Killer, 56, Executed”. The state of Montana had a large celebration to commemorate the event. People called it a miracle, an event to be burned into the history books.

But the nightmare was far from over. As they celebrated with alcohol and good times, Lesler watched. He watched from the corner, from the ceiling, from everywhere. He cursed himself for not being able to rip these putrid meat strips to their bones.

But as he had reached his limit of ethereal sanity, he got a sensation. A motion to go somewhere, and he had no idea where. He dove straight down, into the many mineshafts around his hometown of Millsbe. He felt someone there that could help him.

“Hello, Keith.” Said a shadow in the corner of his eye. “How are you? Angry? Confused?” He cackled. “I know the feeling. I can aid you.”

This shadow was fuzzy to Keith, almost indistinguishable, but that didn’t matter to him in the slightest. All he wanted was to get back to slaying. To get back to the sexual joy of amputation and the baths of gore. He agreed to the shadow without speaking a word.

An explosive laugh filled his ears. “Very well! Allow me to explain to you what you will experience. I will give you a mortal, physical form that will appear every thirty or so years. But, in return, you will become a servant to me. All orders I give, you will obey without question. And this will be assured by the removal of every little feeling you have, except the ones for desire most.”

Keith had no time to think or react. At once, he felt an excruciating pain rack his very soul. And after that moment, it was gone. No emotions. No thought. All he had was an undying urge to please his master, and the feeling of an undying bloodlust.

And as he lost consciousness to be sculpted into his mortal form, one name appeared in his mind. The name of his next victim. A young boy, with his two friends. A boy by the name of Abram.