THE LEATHER STORY
LEATHER TEETH
1987. Bret Halford is a nineteen-year-old freshman majoring in chemistry at Midwich Valley University. He lives in a middle-class residential neighborhood of Midwich Valley with his parents, Jim and Trish, and his little sister, Mindy. Bret is a diligent student who has always been top of his class. He is especially close to his maternal grandmother, whom he visits every Sunday for lunch.
Beyond his passion for math and science, Bret is a devoted glam rock fan. Alone in his bedroom, he often imagines himself as a rock star, the lead singer of a glam rock band, convinced that fame would finally bring him success with girls. Girls he is far too painfully shy to approach. His geeky appearance certainly does not help. With trifocal glasses, corduroy pants that are much too short, and an outdated jacket, he has always looked out of step. Back in high school, he was regularly mocked by bullies. Even now, on campus, students still make fun of his old-fashioned look.
Since his years at Midwich High School, Bret has secretly been in love with Kendra McCornish, the beautiful athletic blonde admired by everyone. Kendra has been dating Chip Prescott since sophomore year. Chip is the muscular heartthrob and quarterback of the Slashers football team. The Slashers were the coolest and most popular guys in high school, and everyone wanted to hang out with them. Some of them were Bret’s tormentors, especially Elliott and Trey, who took great pleasure in insulting and beating him while no one stepped in. Kendra and Chip were the most popular and envied couple in school, and even now at Midwich Valley University, all eyes remain on them.
Poor Bret. Hopelessly in love, he knows he will never stand a chance with Kendra. So he watches her from afar, dreaming that one day she will break up with Chip and become his fiancée. Chip, however, has noticed. He does not like the way this poorly dressed geek lingers around his girlfriend.
One evening in May 1987, Chip and the Slashers throw a huge party at their frat house and decide to invite Bret. The party is in full swing. All night long, the Slashers act friendly toward him for one reason only, to get him drunk. Bret quickly feels the effects of the alcohol, having never had a drink in his life. He briefly passes out, only to wake up abruptly with his head plunged into a toilet bowl. Chip, Trey, and Elliott stand around him laughing hysterically as Bret struggles to break free.
Alerted by his cries, Kendra arrives and witnesses the humiliating scene. Tears fill her eyes. She cannot bear what she sees, yet she remains frozen. Soaked and ashamed, Bret pulls himself out of the bathroom. As he walks to his car under the roaring laughter of the guests, he swears he will take revenge on all of them.
When he gets home, Bret rushes to his bedroom and locks the door behind him. He immediately gets to work, handling flasks and test tubes with feverish precision. He must create the perfect formula, the one that will make him irresistible to Kendra. Soon they will become the most envied couple in Midwich and Chip will watch, powerless and miserable. At last, he will have his revenge on Chip and on the others, on everyone who dared to laugh.
Unfortunately, the experiment goes terribly wrong. A reckless mixture triggers an explosion and Bret emerges burned and disfigured. His revenge has turned against him. It is over for Kendra. Over for girls. No one will ever want him with a face like this. His life is ruined, unless something changes.
Yes. Bret will let his revenge mature. He will become a rock star adored by all, the lead singer of the glam rock band Leather Patrol. His stage name is already chosen.
He will call himself Leather Teeth!
LEATHER TERROR
1991. Bret Halford, known to the world as Leather Teeth, has become a famous rock star with Leather Patrol. He has also become a methodical, cold-blooded serial killer. At least, that is what the drugs he has surrendered to body and soul keep whispering to him.
Revenge and addiction consume him to the bone. He has forgotten nothing of the humiliation inflicted by Chip and the Slashers. To keep up with the relentless pace of his rock star life, Bret injects whatever keeps him standing or sends him somewhere else entirely. Nights blur together. Groupies come and go. The murders pile up too, at least in his mind. Hotel rooms have become his only address, dark alleys the recurring setting of his insomnia. Women adore him, but none of them replace Kendra.
In the chemical fever of his sleepless nights, Bret rehearses his revenge. He convinces himself that every murder is practice, a dress rehearsal before Chip and the Slashers. During the day he watches and stalks. At night he prowls through alleys that look like crime scenes.
Then the long-awaited date finally arrives. Leather Patrol is playing in Midwich Valley. Midwich Valley. The town of his childhood. The town of humiliation. The town of his enemies.
Bret is ready. Fueled by hallucinogenic pills and alcohol, his revenge sharpens into something terrifyingly clear. In the scenario unfolding behind his dilated eyes, the first to fall will be Chip’s closest allies, Elliott P. Mitchell and Trey D. Spence : the loyal Slashers. Bret already imagines their faces frozen in disbelief. He rehearses the movements, refines the order, replays the scene. And then will come Chip, the final act, the closing line.
In the roar of the concert, the spotlights blind him. Midwich screams his name. In his head, the plan unfolds flawlessly. Elliott falls.Trey collapses. Chip understands too late. Then silence. When Bret opens his eyes, the crowd is still there. Alive. But to him, Chip is already gone. And in this rewritten reality, Kendra finally belongs to him.
Bret goes to Kendra’s appartment with the certainty of a man who has completed his work. He knocks on her door, convinced that every obstacle between them has disappeared. When she opens it, he invites her out to celebrate their victory at last. He speaks too fast and far too loud. He reveals who he is and confesses that his love for her has never faded. Most of all, he tells her what he believes he has done to his enemies, that Elliott, Trey and Chip are gone for good.
Kendra is horrified by what she hears. She steps back, then turns and runs. The building becomes a maze. Bret chases her. They burst into the street, then into a dark alley, until Kendra finds refuge in an abandoned slaughterhouse. Inside, the gray walls sweat with dampness. Bret slowly drags the blade of his knife along the tiled wall. The sharp metallic screech echoes through the empty building. He moves toward a half-open cold storage room. He makes out a shadow behind a hanging carcass. Confident, he steps closer. A sudden flash crosses his vision. A violent pain seizes him. His left arm drops in a burst of blood. This time, nothing is imagined. Bret screams and falls to his knees. Kendra, trembling but determined, an axe clutched in her hands, shoves him to the ground and slams the cold room door shut. The lock snaps into place. Bret is trapped.
Outside, suddenly, a deafening explosion tears through the night.
LEATHER TEMPLE
2077. The world has fallen into economic and ecological chaos since the nuclear explosion of 1991. Humanity is now divided into two castes: the Mighty, transhumans who own all wealth and exploit the people without mercy, living in the glittering light-cities; and the People, the enslaved masses who survive on the outskirts, among ruins and relics of the past. Entry into the light-cities is forbidden to them.
Midwich Valley, now renamed Midwichpolis, has become the nation’s capital under the rule of Iron Tusk, a 60-year-old tyrant feared by all and consumed by his thirst for power. He rules the nation with an iron hand, a nation whose population has reached 666 million. Paranoid and addicted to Pink Base (a synthetic drug that has ravaged his body), he resides in the Temple, the world’s largest and most heavily fortified tower. He is constantly surrounded by his inner circle: his bodyguard Skipp Blaine, a giant with steel arms; Troy Evans, his close advisor; and Crystal, his wife, as gentle as Iron Tusk is cruel. They alone know his secret : his rejuvenation baths, which keep him young and preserve his vitality.
To control the population and entertain the Mighty, Tusk organizes weekly death races known as “Speed or Perish.” The contestants, called Death Racers, come from Midwich Slums, the sprawling shantytown at the gates of Midwichpolis. They compete against each other but also against deadly traps set by the organizers. The Speed or Perish races take many forms: foot races through the capital’s streets, car races, motorcycle races, any excuse to thrill the crowd hungry for blood and spectacle. Giant screens throughout the city and even the outskirts broadcast the carnage, fueling the frenzy. The prize is enticing: the winner earns freedom and a new life inside Midwichpolis. There is just one catch: no one has ever made it out victorious… or alive.
Midwich Slums is lawless and dangerous, the last stronghold of rebellion against the Mighty. It is a vast, decaying district where survival depends on grit, loyalty, and the ability to fight back. Among the rebels is a group known as the Horde. They live off all kinds of trafficking, but their main trade is the smuggling of high-tech hardware stolen from the upper city. At their head is Lita Connor, an explosives expert and a brilliant pilot. She is also the lead singer of Steel Magus, a heavy metal band born in the heart of the slums. By her side stand four loyal companions. Xen Axe, a sharpshooter and guitarist for Steel Magus. Lex O’Neil, a high-tech specialist who also plays guitar. Lee Zenxya, the muscle of the group, a boxer and the band’s drummer. And Val Yum, the youngest of them all, a gifted hacker and bassist.
Together, they are not just a band. They are part of the resistance.
One day, while scavenging ruins for old hardware, the Horde uncovers a cold chamber buried under rubble, a relic of the past. After much effort, they pry it open and discover a frozen man, his left arm severed. At the sight of him, with his unusual appearance, memories come flooding back to Lita: she recalls a letter passed down through generations, written by her great-great-grandmother Kendra, describing how she survived the vile attack of Bret Halford, aka Leather Teeth. It is him, the very same man, his body encased in ice, spared by the nuclear blast of 1991. She is determined to bring him back to life and avenge her ancestor.
Lita has a clear plan: use Bret and turn him into a war machine capable of ending Iron Tusk’s reign of terror. Thus Lex O’Neil rebuilds Bret into a half-man, half-machine: replacing his left arm with a mechanical limb strong enough to crush any material, granting him night vision, equipping him with bionic legs, and implanting within his chest a bomb Mighty enough to obliterate an entire city. Bret’s transformation takes more than a week; the components for his new body are hard to come by, even for expert smugglers like them. Finally, the day of Bret’s rebirth arrives. Like Frankenstein’s creature, Bret Halford returns to life as a new being, a revenant, the most mighty machine on earth.
Bret has no memory of his past. He knows only that he serves the Horde and must obey them. As days pass, a bond of friendship grows between Bret and the Horde. Though Lita does not forget Bret’s past, she acknowledges that he has become indispensable and provides them with a strength they never had. Gradually, thanks to Bret, the rebellion in Midwich Slums grows stronger and capable of facing the enemy.
Lita had a plan. With the Horde and Bret, she launched a series of coordinated attacks across the City of Ligh. Their escape on motorcycles through glittering avenues played out under the crossfire of security forces. At the end of this furious chase, their way was blocked by Skipp Blaine, Iron Tusk’s bodyguard, a giant of muscle. In moments, everything changed. The Horde was scattered, Lita and Bret captured. For the crowd who would later see the footage, it was the spectacular arrest of two notorious criminals. For Lita, everything was going according to her plan. Their place in the arena for the next Speed or Perish competition was already assured.
Lita and Bret enter the next Speed or Perish. They have no choice but to win. This time the trial is a car race through Midwichpolis’s special circuit. Lita will drive; Bret will be the engine’s heart.
On the giant screens, a frenzied crowd watches. Each competitor is introduced by the announcer: the duo Bret and Lita, along with two other ruthless pairs. The battle is fierce, a blur of speed, blood and shattered metal. But after a grueling fight, Bret and Lita emerge victorious. Stunned by their win, Iron Tusk must face the truth: they are the first champions of this deadly tournament.
After the race, during a ceremony at the Temple, Bret and Lita are awarded the Speed or Perish prize by Iron Tusk himself. This is Lita’s chance, her moment to trigger the bomb implanted in Bret. She will end the tyranny of the Mighty once and for all. Before doing so, she reveals her true identity, her bond with Kendra, the bomb in Bret’s chest, and the sacrifice she is about to make.
It is 11:58 p.m. A colossal explosion shakes the city. From Midwich Slums, standing atop a heap of car wrecks, Xen, Lex, Lee, and Val watch the Temple collapse.
Is this the dawn of a new era rising from the ashes?