That's how it started.

The sort of announcement that puts minds in a panic ... another 911? another earthquake? another global atrocity? act of terrorism? nuclear accident?

It was a badly-lit hand-held close-shot of a boy's hand gaffer-taped to a filthy butcher's table top. Though neither the lighting nor resolution were great, you could see scraps of meat here and there; smears of blood furring in the heat. There was no sound. The shot opened up like a revolting stink flower showing that both of the boy's hands were gaffer-taped to the filthy butcher's table top. The boy was strapped to a wood-worm-destroyed school chair. He moaned every now and then as if in some dream land, a black line of blood from his nose wriggled down over his mouth, there was a small cut on his forehead that had healed. The chair creaked as his head lolled forward. His shoulders racked as the sobs began again.

The video camera was placed on a tripod and realigned to frame the boy. The camera's auto-focus found its subject. Then the camera zoom was adjusted again so that the shot was a little more intimate, while still giving a good overall view of the scene. The sound was clicked on and a rhythmic noise like a small generator, or some wife doing her domestic chores or someone mowing a lawn, could be heard in the background. There were noises all around.

A tall youth in a hooded jersey, his breathing loud and rasping, could be seen moving around in the shadows. Not skulking like some melodramatic silhouette, just there, assessing the scene; working out what would go nice with what. Where. When.

The youth in the hooded jersey turned to the camera but the hood, the terrible lighting and resolution of the image conspired to conceal his features. He made sure he was in shot then turned to the dozing boy. He pulled his right arm back and slapped the boy awake. It was like a bolt of lightning had shot through the boy. He saw the youth in the hooded jersey and tried to back away in conditioned fear. Struggled against his bonds. Couldn't work out where he was. Tried to release his soft little hands from the filthy butcher's table top. Something hit him then. A smell. A sensation. He puked onto the floor beside his chair, the creaks and groans of his puking counter-pointed by the equally raucous noises from the chair and the bindings.

The youth in the hooded jersey made a short sharp sucking sound through his teeth, the sort of sound you'd make to attract the attention of a family pet. The boy looked up obediently, a string of puke-slime dangling from his gaping mouth. He was breathing hard, panting. One wonders if there was anything in his stomach to puke up. There was no saying how long he's been here, awaiting this performance. There's no saying how long it is since he'd been fed.

The boy didn't bother begging for his life - he was too tired and too resigned to his fate.

The youth in the hood spoke then. His voice like cold metal down the spine. Across the west coast of America whole families would have shivered to hear that voice. It was surely the voice from another world, ripped by years of sexual abuse, constricted by years of stress and agony or maybe some drug; a fake accent: a fake Chinese. One could imagine the youth with those big plastic teeth of the corny Chinese idiot.

He said, "So happy you could join us Kevin."

Kevin was crying.

"Now Kevin tell all the nice viewers in pantomime land where you live and why I'm going to kill you."

Kevin shrieked and screamed again until his eyeballs went bloodshot red and one of the veins in the white of the eye tore, spilling blood all down his left cheek. The youth in the hooded jersey looked across at the camera with a sinister grin on his face. He took hold of the boy's lower lip with a pair of pincers and tore it away on the right side. A squirt of blood spat from his torn mouth. The boy screamed again as his teeth and gums were exposed on that side, but this time because of the pain. He was all out of anger, pain had won again. What an easy battle it was some times, thought the youth in the hooded jersey. Pain always beats anger in the game of Top Trumps of Torture.

"What was that, little Kevin? You want your mommy?"

The youth pulled back the hood of his jersey and smiled into the camera. Across America stunned viewers saw the swollen eyes and the leering smile of an absolute psycho. There was no laugh like you'd get from some Hollywood nutter. This was pure hissing madness as you might expect from a head-slapped cobra. This mad person wasn't doing anything for show. It was all deadly serious to the point where he had tried to hide his identity by letting two trapped bees sting him, once on each cheek so that the eyes had swollen up to grotesque pseudo-Oriental proportions. Tears streamed down his face constantly from the weeping swollen eyes. He stuck out his tongue, revealing a swollen plum throat.

"Kevin is a little camera shy, ladies and gentlemen of the jury."

The youth in the hooded jersey had a hammer in his hand. In his mouth were a line of 8 nails. He positioned one of these nails onto Kevin's fingernails as the boy kicked and screamed for help until his voice cracked like an old glass.

Still the boy hissed out his pain, kicking out with his legs, trying to make the chair tumble over, and nothing had even happened yet.

The youth in the hooded jersey spat in Kevin's face then. Got him right in the eye.

Kevin fell quiet. He wasn't breathing. The sound of piss trickling down onto the stone floor could just be heard on the playback.

"You finished?" the youth in the hooded jersey asked before hammering in, one by one, all eight nails, one for each dainty little blood spitting finger. For some reason, the twisted fuck left the thumbs untouched. He hammered the filthy butcher's table top though over and over in a mad happy dance. He lifted the hammer over his head, swinging it this way and that. The eyes of the boy were popping out of his head. The veins of his neck and shoulders and arms and hands bulging. The skin of his hands turned blue as the blood spilled from the gaping fingers forming thick red pools under his hands. No matter how hard he pulled, no matter how much acid entered his muscles from his terrified exertions, there was no escape. The shoulders would dislocate before he'd be able to free himself. There was no escape from fate.

This is how it ended.

The youth in the hooded jersey with the puffy bee-stung eyes approached the camera and went in and out of focus until the infra-red trap of the camera had his range.

"That boy will never forget me. And neither will you." The face that looked out from millions of TVs across the Western States was a puffed up mask from (as the expert witnesses from the path lab would attest) probably multiple bee stings administered to the youth's face and tongue. The facial swelling and vocal disfigurement would certainly have worn off by now and the person would be untraceable. It was in many ways a perfect plan. A perfect disguise.

The thing is, this hasn't been broadcast yet - I am the youth in the hooded jersey, popular modern icon of social oppression. I am just now making my way up to the editing suite of NBCnews. I have sprayed my way past security. I walk into the editing booth and spray the staff before they can raise the alarm - the can of knock-out spray gasps its last as I douse the last technician. She falls to the ground. I place the tape marked YOUNGER BROTHER ON A CHAIR into the broadcast slot and leave a pile of other tapes in clear view so nobody can miss them. They are marked by the names of their performing apes.

Having done the deed, I don't care that they'll catch me. I mean, what's the point in running away from fate. Fate will always be able to deliver its riches - that's fate's job. I am going to be a superstar after tonight's broadcast. Reported and researched for years to come. I'll fight my diminished responsibility plea through years of mental torture of the world. They will never understand what I am or why I did those things.

The Evening News will never be the same again...