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Payback
by Ska Child and David Harris
197 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #99-0071; ISBN 1-55212-321-9; US$21.50, C$24.50, EUR18.00, £12.50
A novel of action and revenge, but also a brilliant moral tale and a scathing indictment of society's willingness to turn its back on the victims of child abuse. Paybackis destined to become an underground classic.
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About the BookMeet Todd Black Battered child His happy childhood ended the day his parents were murdered by home invaders. Handed from one miserable foster home to the next, Todd's life was bad enough, but his suffering was nothing compared to the physical and sexual abuse that drove his sister to suicide. Street kid On the streets, he learned to keep his mouth shut and take his comfort where he could find it, but even that little comfort ended when he was falsely accused of murdering a cop. Prisoner No mercy for cop-killers in Folsom Prison. Beaten, tortured, and used as a sex-slave, he learned to kill in order to survive. Executioner? Or Saint with a sword? Released from prison, his only desire was vengeance. He wanted payback in full for all the pain that had been dealt to him and to his sister; but each of the abusers that he tracked down led him to two or three more, and he spiraled out of control, bringing vengeance into the world of the soulless ghouls who prey on innocent children. |
About the Authors
David Harris
David Harris' first novel, the crime thriller Vortex, was shortlisted for literary prizes in Britain and Canada, and subsequently translated into six languages. He was a chapter contributor to Distant Mountains, one of the best-selling coffee-table books worldwide in 1999, and is currently editor of the American journal, Ascent
In addition to the usual university education in English literature, his literary training includes five years as a white-water guide, a year driving taxi, two expeditions to the Canadian Arctic (including the first ever crossing of the Penny Icecap on Baffin Island), and first ascents of rock, ice, and mountain climbs in the Coast Mountains and Canadian Rockies.
He lives in Canada, in the mountain town of Golden, BC, in a refurbished railroad caboose.
Ska Child
Simultaneously with the writing of the trilogy, Ska Child created the publishing house Veteran Publishing & Entertainment Ltd. (www.skavoovie.com), with a mission to publish the kind of subculture and underground writing that wasn't being handled by the mainstream publishers. He is also in the process of working on a film version of Skavoovie, the middle book of the trilogy.
In addition to his adult-oriented writing, he enjoys creating illustrated childrens' books, practising the martial art Defendo, playing squash, and walking with his dog, Sassy.
Ska Child
Excerpt: Prologue
This really isn't my story. It's Todd Black's story, but Todd isn't here to tell it, so I'm going to have to do the best I can. He is alive, but that's pretty much all I know. The package he sent me had French stamps and postmarks, so maybe the French Foreign Legion thing he talked about is what actually happened. But he was usually at least two steps ahead of everybody around him, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was in Australia or New Zealand, and arranged for the package to be sent to me from France.
On the other hand, he was my friend - is my friend - and I'm sure as hell not going to give away his location, so maybe the package came from Hawaii, or Brazil, and I just made up that part about the French stamps.
Doesn't really matter. When he first showed up at my parents' Bed & Breakfast place in Missoula he said he was a writer, looking to get away from the rat race in LA. He wasn't a writer any more than I'm the Queen of England, and even if I'd believed him then, one look at the story that came in the package he sent me after he disappeared would have changed my mind.
Oh, sure, the story was all there: the abuse, the time in prison, all the killing, but like I said, he's no writer, so I've cleaned it up as well as I can, and that's going to have to do. I've changed most of the names and places - you'll understand why when you read it - but the essentials are all there.
So who was Todd Black? I talked to a couple of the people on the FBI Serial Killer Task Force when they came looking for him and got two totally different pictures. One of them believed he was a psychopath, no different than Son of Sam or the Green River Killer, the other believed he was some kind of avenging angel. I probably knew him better than anyone, and I can assure you that he was neither.
He was a killer, make no mistake about that. But he was no monster. The circumstances of his life forced him to make decisions that people like you and me will never have to make, and he had the strength to make them. He was the most moral man I ever met, a man who cared deeply for the welfare of children, a man of great courage and strength.
And a stone-cold killer.
Why did he send me the package with this whole story in it? Not because he was worried about what I would think of him. He knew that I loved him like a brother, and that I accepted the fact that much of his past was hidden from me. And not to clear himself in the public eye, either. He lived in a universe of stark black and white, of clear right and wrong, and it had been twenty years since he'd given a damn about what other people thought of him.
No, I think he sent it to me because he cared about the kids. Not just the ones that had suffered, and often died, in the past, but the ones that might be saved from suffering in the future. I think he believed that if his story was told that maybe some other little kid wouldn't have to go through the hell that he went through.
It's not a pretty story. It's full of pain, of sadistic sex, of brutality, of stolen childhood and lost promise. But it needs to be told, and it needs to be told in his words, not in some sanitized, Disney version where everything turns out right in the end.
There is no fairy godmother coming to save the children. Either we do it ourselves, or predators like those who destroyed Todd's sister will continue to walk among us.
Welcome to Todd Black's world...
