Halloween Jack

Context

This character is an original creation. We often call these “homemades” or “homebrewed” – think home cooking or craft beer.

Many of these characters were created to take part in tabletop role-playing game sessions. Others were invented as a creative writing exercise, often as part of a community event.

This specific character was part of our 2014 Halloween themed character creation contest.

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Background

Powers & Abilities

Strength Level

John Boudreau has the normal human strength one would expect to find in a man of his height and build who engages is moderate exercise.

In stark contrast, Halloween Jack possess supernatural strength, which allows him to lift (press) over 1000 lbs directly over head.

Known Superhuman Powers

As a result of the witch doctor’s ritual, Halloween Jack possesses supernatural strength and durability.

In addition, the mystical energies housed within his body constantly rebuild his cells at a heightened rate, granting him the ability to heal from grievous wounds within minutes.

Finally, Jack has the eerie ability to sense his opponent’s fear.

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Abilities

John’s only skill of merit was his skill as a painter and graphic artist. These skills are decidedly atrophied with the loss of his sight.

His Halloween Jack persona is a surprising effective fighter, despite his lack of formal training.

Limitations

Though John and Halloween Jack inhabit the same physical body, John has no access to the mystical energies that course through it. When his personality is dominant, he is blind and powerless.

History

John Boudreau was an up and comer in the art scene when he was in a horrific automobile accident. The accident, which left him scarred and permanently blind, threw his life into chaos. In one moment and because of one stupid mistake (he was drunk at the time of the accident), he lost his one passion in life as well as his family’s main source of income.

Desperate to regain his former life, John began to burn through his savings seeking a cure for his blindness. As each alternative treatment failed, he grew more and more desperate until he heard a modern day practitioner of Voodoo in New Orleans. John went to see the witch doctor, Papa Toungo and begged him to cure him.

Toungo told John that he could heal his eyes, but that there would be a great price. Without pause, John agreed to whatever terms Toungo set. That Halloween, John found himself surrounded by Toungo and twelve of his fellow vodouists.

The group writhed and danced about his still form while they chanted wordlessly to their dark gods, all the while focusing their will and the magic of the Loa through John’s prone body.

Soon John felt a surge of blazing energy racing through his form as the Loa took hold of him, and as his eyes opened in shock he realized he could see. But the elation he felt in his soul was quickly overwhelmed by horror; as the vodouists chants rose to a crescendo he felt himself lose control of his body.

In a start, he realized that the price for his sight was his free will.

Even as John’s mind was enslaved, his fragile psyche shattered and another sinister persona was born. Free of the vodouists control, the new personality seized control of John’s body and used its newfound power to slaughter the vodouists.

Before it exiting the small shop, the persona painted John’s face to resemble a Jack‘O Lantern that it spied in Toungo’s shop.

From there, it rampaged through the streets of New Orleans killing over a dozen victims before the police were able to bring him down in a hail of bullets. The malevolent personality awoke soon thereafter in the back of an ambulance, hale and healthy, and escaped after murdering the ambulance attendants.

Halloween Jack (the media dubbed him that due to his unusual penitent for painting his face as a Jack‘O Lantern) spent the next 6 months on the run from the police and leaving a trail of horror and bodies behind him.

On their travels, Jack and John spent differing amounts of time as the dominant personality in John’s body and even worked out a method by which they could communicate; a battered old flip phone. Though it clearly wasn’t operational, John could hear Jack’s whispers clear as day through the handset.

Eventually John managed to wrest control of his body from Jack, rendering him into nothing more than a disembodied voice in the dark corners of his mind. It was only then that John dared to return home to Canada and his wife Jill.

Looking for a fresh start, John and Jill relocated to Hamilton, Ontario. John took up sculpting while Jill found a job at one of the local hospitals. Despite the calm, routine nature of their life John found his stress levels growing daily. Holding Jack in check within him was taking a toll on him.

One night, on one of the rare occasions that he and Jill actually left their home together, the stress finally got to him when a particularly insistent young man wouldn’t leave Jill alone in the local coffee shop that they frequented. His outburst gained not only the young man’s ire, but also that of his rowdy group of friends. The youths harassed the couple until they left the shop.

Later on that night, while John and Jill prepared to turn in for the night, the youths appeared outside of their small home. While a few of the boys remained outside the home, the rest broke into John’s home with murderous intentions in their mind.

They youths found Jill downstairs and held her captive while they taunted John to come down and face them. John, left with little choice, picked up his battered old phone and begged Jack for help. Though Jack was prepared to refuse John’s request, when he realized Jill was in danger he relented and gleefully slaughtered the youths.

Unfortunately, he also killed the police who had been called out to the house and John’s immediate neighbours as well.

With his murderous rage temporarily sated, Jack once again returned to his dormancy. With Jack gone, John was faced with the unenviable task of explaining to Jill exactly what had happened to him and why. He then asked her to leave with him.

Jill was terrified by the thought of what her husband had become, but thought better of refusing him once he explained to her that Jack would never let her go. Left with little choice, Jill reluctantly helped John hastily pack and went on the run with him. Their whereabouts are currently unknown.

Description

John appears to be African-American male in his mid-to-late thirties. He is of average height, has a thick muscular build and long black hair that he has platted into tight rolls against his scalp.

His looks are nothing special. This is only made worse by his perpetually stressed appearance and thick dark glasses he wears over his eyes. A wicked scar sits prominently on his face, running in a jagged manner across his eyes. When not wearing his shades to hide his eyes, they are an opaque and milky white.

When Halloween Jack is ascendent, the worry and stress melt away from John’s countenance. A twisted grin can be found spreading evilly across his face and he releases his knotted hair into a wild and untamed afro. Worse still, Halloween Jack is obsessed with painting his face to resemble a menacing Jack‘O’lantern.

Finally, Jack’s eyes glow with a golden inner fire all of their own.

Personality

In a similar manner to characters like Typhoid Mary and the Incredible Hulk, John suffers from an acute form of Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality disorder).

While its origins are unknown (DID cases are usually brought on by some form of childhood trauma), John’s condition was magnified by the ritual that was used in the attempt to restore his eyesight.

What makes his condition somewhat unusual, is that he is not only aware of his alternate personality, but the two communicate through the use of a battered old cellphone. Though the phone doesn’t actually work, John believes that it does. Whenever Jack wants to talk to John, the phone “vibrates” and John answers.

As John

John is a gentle man who suffers greatly under crushing weight of the guilt of Jack’s actions. Anyone who speaks to him can immediately tell that he is under a great deal of stress; he is quiet, fidgety, has little to no sense of humor and is meek to the point of appearing cowardly.

Despite his large size, he shies away from confrontation of all sorts for fear that Jack will simply seize control of their body.

John has an intense love of two things: his wife Jill and art. He would do anything for Jill, including letting Jack to have free reign on his victims in order to protect her safety.

As Halloween Jack

Halloween Jack is everything that John isn’t. He’s expressive, sarcastic, and is a homicidal maniac. There is no reasoning with Jack. While he understands the concepts of restraint and mercy, he definitely does not follow them.

He believes in utter mayhem and carnage with all of his soul. He kills without reason or purpose; he simply loves the chaos. Unlike other characters of his ilk, Jack isn’t erratic or frenzied, he moves and acts with an unusual stillness and directness of purpose.

Jack feels nothing but contempt for John, and despises his weakness and his love of material things. Despite this, the two have managed to come to a compromise. Jack remains dormant within John’s psyche until John allows him out. Before Jack is freed from his confinement, they set boundaries on his actions and the time he is free.

In response, John keeps the two out of prison and away from those who would do them harm while Jack is imprisoned. The two have even come up with a phrase that John must say in order to “seal the deal.” That phrase is, “Trick or Treat.”

There is one thing that the two personalities hold in common; a deep and unrelenting need to protect John’s wife Jill from danger. He will slaughter anyone or thing that threatens her well being. But Jack’s actions are not guided out of love.

In truth, Jack wants to kill every living being on the planet earth… he just wants to save Jill for the very last.

Quotes

(While disemboweling one of his victims) “Whistle while you work…” (cheerful whistling)

“Gentlemen, it appears Halloween has come early this year.”

(Excerpt from phone conversation)
Halloween Jack: “Hello ?”
John: “Jack, help me please !!”
Halloween Jack: “Hello ?”
John: “Jack !? Jack can you hear me ?”
Halloween Jack: “Is someone there ?”
John: “Dammit Jack, stop screwing around ! I need your help !!! They’re in the house !”
Halloween Jack: “John ? Is that you ?”
John: “Jack… please… I’m begging you.”
Halloween Jack: “Okay John. Relax. You know how this works. You call me, we playfully banter back and forth…”
John: “Jack, they have Jill.”
Halloween Jack: “… okay John. You may wanna lead with that next time. So just to make this clear, you are asking me for my help, right ?”
John: “Yes.”
Halloween Jack: “And you’re letting me off the leash, yah ? I get to kill them all, right ?”
John: “… the men that are inside… yes.”
Halloween Jack: “Yeah… you see John, that just doesn’t work for me. I’m gonna need them all.”
John: “Fine dammit… you can kill them all. Just help us !”
Halloween Jack: “Good, very goood. Now that that’s settled, we just have one more item of business. You need to say it.”
John: “What ? Whuh… what difference does it make ?”
Halloween Jack: “John, we made the rules for a reason, remember ? Say it.”
John: “… Fine… Jack ?”
Halloween Jack: “Yes John ?”
John: “… Trick or treat.”
Halloween Jack: “HA HA HA HA HA !”

(While dragging Jill by the hair towards the neighbour’s house)
Halloween Jack: “Oh come now Jill, do try to relax and have some fun. You never liked her anyway.”
Jill: (while screaming and thrashing) “You’re a monster ! Let me go !”
Halloween Jack: “Well… I thought that was obvious. Now sing with me:
Jack and Jill,
went over to kill,
John’s nosy next door neighbour,
Silly Denise,
went and called the police,
Now Jack’s gonna gut her with his sabre !”

By Bryan Gittens.

Source of Character: Voices short story (initially created for DC Heroes list Halloween contest) written by Bryan Gittens.

Writeup completed on the 25^th of October, 2014.