Looks like the game part was more interesting for everybody... or nobody wants Last Express :)

BUMP

Not in but thanks Novotnus! +1

It baffles me that no one would want The Last Express. I guess we could blame HMDK for giving out one too many :P

nobody want to go through nick kershaws mullet - even to get a ride on the last express! O_o

I'm waiting for Spock :) So, this giveaway remains opened until Spock submits his entry. If anybody wants to try - feel free. If not, the reward goes to Spock :)

Not anymore. Here's my interpretation (finally). Hope you'll like:

It's weird, he thought, how something as seemingly harmless as a song can drive you to the brink of insanity, get under your skin like a parasite larva, enter your brain to be repeated again and again, haunting your dreams with bizarre scenes, while you feel how your sanity slowly disappears, drawn as a moth to the flame that will end its existence.

Not the first time that the demon was playing with his mind. But maybe it might be the last. Maybe this time could end the existence of this hellish being who liked to torture him for so many years reminding the very existence of the song every time he thought he could finally forget it, laughing at his torment, jumping from one body to another, one victim to another, as he destroyed the previous one.

But it wouldn't be easy. Every word of the song had to be repeatedly exorcised with blood, each line with a pound of flesh, every note with excruciating pain, all before the possessed body of the victim died. He shook his head ruefully, recalling his early, tentative attempts to exorcise the demon. How quickly the first people had perished under his clumsy attentions: carelessly severed arteries, clumsily damaged vital organs. Yes, they had died too quickly for their pain to sufficiently weaken the demon, so the irretrievably agony could chain it to the desecrated body until death. The demon always had escaped, to tease him with the same song, sooner or later.

But he had learned meanwhile. It wasn't hard to find information on the Internet: studies on the limits of the human body to torture, books on surgery, anatomy and dissections, even on the topic of practical experiments on prisoners by the Nazis during WWII. He had read and reread each word dozens of times, almost to the point to be able to recite them line by line. And had honed their skills by practicing incessantly on live animals until he got the steady hand and the precision of a master surgeon.

He stared lovingly to his tools, arranged on a cloth on the table, lined up like soldiers in formation: scalpels, forceps, pincers, tweezers, even a drill and a saw to cut bones. He took one of the scalpels and twirled between his fingers, watching the light reflecting off the polished surfaces of the blade. What a difference with the kitchen knife and the rusty ax with which he had begun his task. Funny how something so small like this could be so effective. But the truth is that it could inflict much more pain for much longer.

And with each new attempt, with each new host destroyed, he was closer to the goal, his skills refined and distilled to near perfection. The demon was weakening, he was certain that in the last two times had gotten hurt before its hosts died. What other reason could there be for this last foolhardy gambit, except for trying to make him to commit a mistake? So his sacred mission was exposed to the naive and disbelievers, whom would stop him? No, no one should -could- stop him now. He had the knowledge and means to end this once and for all.

And he already knew who was his next target. It wasn't difficult to find out his real name and where he lived. Whether they know it or not, everyone who uses a computer connected to the Internet leaves a wealth of information on the network, so easy to follow for the connoisseur as the trails an animal leaves for the eyes of a seasoned hunter. And he was a great hunter in both fields.

It was strange. He always thought that the demon chose its victims at random, and that they were unaware of the evil being carried inside. How otherwise explain their protestations of innocence, their heartbreaking pleas, even their apparent misunderstanding of the sin they had committed? But this latest person had told to all how frightening the song was for him in his childhood. Perhaps this host, more sensitive or gifted than the rest, had sensed that the song would be the cause of his death, the terrible agony waiting for him in the future spreading in ever wider circles up to the past, like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond.

Or perhaps the demon had marked its victim since childhood, knowing that that body would be the scene of the final bloody battle. If so, if this person knew, even if unconsciously, the evil that resided within him, surely would express his gratitude before his death, when he felt how the demon was finally subdued by excruciating pain and annihilated from this plane of existence. When the riddle that had haunted both of them, hunter and prey, since so many years was finally resolved with this last human sacrifice.

Surely, the victim would thank to his liberator in that final moment. Not with words, of course (a person with the windpipe torn open and the tongue reduced to a sorry stump can hardly speak clearly, after all), but he was sure the eyes would convey his silent gratitude. He should remember to maintain eyeballs intact throughout the process, of course.

He sat up and began collecting their tools, but stopped with an effort of will. The temptation to get going, with his victim just a few minutes away, was almost irresistible, but it still wasn't the right time. The forum people could suspect about the sudden disappearance of the giver. It would be best to wait until all the prizes have been delivered...

Soon, "Novotnus"...

... very soon...

Mr Spock is the true and honorable victor of the Childhood Creeps part!
Code on it's way!

Woohoo! Thank you very much, Novotnus! :)

... but now we are all waiting for the real reason behind your childhood creeps. ;)

Congrats Thespian, that was a deserved win.
People usually don't think a Vulcan as Clive Barker's ghostwriter.

I'd wish! :D

But thanks for the kind appreciation. :)

Thank you! Good to know my bad English is understandable enough. ;)

Like I said to Novotnus by PM, I doubted whether adding lines of the "The Riddle" lyrics in italic font between each paragraph, to represent the song playing endlessly in the brain of the protagonist.

It would have been a cool additional effect, but those forum members not knowing the song would have been confused. And besides, that would have increased the size of the post from an already TLDR wall of text to the Great Wall of China. :D

It's perfect just as it is, and your English is good:)

You flatterer... :)