Evil Otto

Have you ever played Berzerk? I’ve always been too much of a puss to ever play it. If you saw what I saw, if you felt the sadness I felt, you wouldn’t play it either. It was 1981, I remember it was early Saturday morning, the sun had barely risen. Me and my friend Jeff sat outside of the Video arcade. We always got up early on Saturday and waited until the Video arcade opened.

One time got chairs we waited so long. Jeff was nineteen at the time. He was only a few months older than me. I look over at Jeff and ask him what time it was. He pulled out a leather hand watch out of his pocket. Ive never seen it before. Maybe he stole it, he's always been a little rebellious to the law. He looked down at the watch and tells me it was 6:30 A.M. I sigh.

"How come we always come so early?" I ask.

"I’ve told you this a million times" Jeff replies.

"I always want to be the first to play Berzerk... Berzerk? He always plays Berzerk. He shakes slightly in excitement as he looks at the arcade machine through the window. We wait another hour. After each hour more and more people began to show up. They had more common sense then we did. We usually waited 2 to 3 hours for the place to open.

At 8 o’clock a man with a short beard walks up from inside the arcade and unlocks the door. Jeff and I with the small crowd of people by our side rushed through the doors of the arcade. Jeff was the first to get to the coin booth. He gave his 5 dollars to the young man on the other side of the counter.

He handed Jeff 20 silver 25 cent coins. He clenched the quarters in his fist and jammed it into his back pocket. He ran over to the Berzerk machine and slammed the quarter into the slot. He pressed the start button and is greeted to a robotic voice to my knowledge says "ATTACK IT!"

A large smile washed upon Jeff's face. He ran through each level blasting each robot and avoiding the evil smile, or Evil Otto as he's called. I refer to him as the death smile. Invincible, unstoppable, evil. After getting my ten dollar’s worth in quarters, I pulled out a chair and watched Jeff play Berzerk. I always watched because he always was playing it and it creeped me out to much to play it.

He rubbed his face on the screen. I can hear him whisper, "Come on COME ON!"

Each time he said it, his voice became louder and more violent. It became so loud that I couldn’t hear the ambiance of people in the arcade. He shoots the last robot on the screen and ran into Otto. The screen flashed. Jeff got the high score.

He fell to the ground. At first I thought he was joking and I giggled. His body started to flail on the floor.

"Jeff are you alright?" I ask.

"JEFF" I scream! Everyone in the arcade stared at the flailing body on the floor. I dropped to my knees and put my hands on his chest.

"CALL 911!" I holler.

When I said that I noticed something evil happen. The screen of Berzerk flashed again and you could see the demonic smile laughing.

"It was you" I whisper.

I always knew that game was sketchy but not like this. I started to sob. Jeff's body stops moving.

"Oh my god" I whisper. I put my head on his chest.

I holler "WHERE'S THE FUCKING AMBULANCE?" I lay on his chest for a good ten minutes.

I hear a siren coming from outside. In a matter of moments twin men pull me up and grab Jeff. They were paramedics. One paramedic tried to revive him. "CLEAR!" He hollered. I saw him shake his head and say "no good." The other paramedic runs to the ambulance and grabs a body bag. I lean on the wall next to the arcade machine and sob. They grab Jeff and put him into the bag. He zips up the bag.

The men picked the bag with Jeff's lifeless body inside and haul it off to the ambulance. The two men put his body into the car, shut the trunk, and enter the car. I walk outside and watch the ambulance move out of the parking lot. Jeff died of a heart attack that night. I walk back into the arcade and look at Berzerk. The Death smile was still there laughing.

I point to the machine and say "It was you." Out of anger I drive my fist through the screen. Sparks flair and the screen shatters. I pull my hand out of the shattered screen and stared at it. There was 1 shard of glass in my knuckle. A long streak of blood ran down my arm. The owner screams "HEY MAN, YOU CRAZY?" With which I reply "No... Just angry." I open the door and storm out of the arcade.