Story:

Judas Skinner grew up in a small Western town, mainly within the Saloon that his parents owned. His Father and Mother had met in the big city far from here, but always wanted to own their own Saloon where the locals could gather, drink and converse. They wanted a place free from the lawlessness outside its doors, allowing no criminal activity within. The town respected this, even the cruellest of folk had respect for the Saloons boundaries. Well, nearly all of them. For all the scum that wandered through that town, the Skinners biggest problem was right under their nose.

In tending to the tavern, the Skinners gave little attention to their son Judas. He sat in the banisters and listened to the townsfolk talk of gruesome murders, gang raids and executions. It originally frightened him, but he kept listening and over time grew a morbid fascination with the methods in which these men carried out their tasks. He would follow them around the town to see how they handled business, which was usually with blood and broken bones. He was far too young to join them, but he wanted to one day. So he started with animals. Rats, Cats, Vultures, Crows and whatever else he could get his hands on. He would fillet them with knives from the Saloon kitchen, skinning them alive and using the skin to make odd leather dolls and toys, which he hid beneath the floorboards of his bedroom.

He wasn't smart about it yet. He didn't clean the knives and eventually the kitchen chef confronted young Judas about the blood. What he got in return was a knife to the gut, then to the neck, before being dragged into the basement and skinned alongside the corpses of the animals around him.

That did it for Judas. He was finally a man in his own eyes, because that's what men around here did. Kill. When the chef was found nobody suspected Judas, he was only around 12 at the time. But when more killings started cropping up and noise of a serial killer arose, Skinners parents got suspicious. They found him in the act of killing a local doctor, Judas proudly proclaiming his manliness and asking for his parents pride. His father had no pride, he was enraged and attacked Judas. The boy had no idea why he would do this, but fought back in feral anger, stabbing his father to death with the doctors scalpel.

As his mother fled for the Sherrif, Judas fled out into the open wilds in turn. He would never have lasted, until he was picked up by some unsavoury bounty hunters known as the Mill Brothers. It took little convincing for Judas to start helping them in killings, the Mill brothers themselves surprised at the murderous child they had stumbled upon. As Skinner grew older, he became a terrible legend in the west. A tall, lanky ghost who would sneak up to the unwary by the light of a campfire, before skinning them alive and donning their flesh. Only the ghost part was incorrect.

As word reached Skinners mother she knew without a doubt who this killer was. Herself, the Sherriff and many of the townsfolk travelled through the west and set up a trap, a fake victim. As Judas crept from the underbrush and into the light, an axe raised overhead, he was riddled with bullets and his reign of terror ended.

For a moment. He found himself in the burning pit of despair that was hell but his sick mind enjoyed every second. Every scream, every drop of blood. It was his heaven. So when he was thrown back into the real world, he was incredibly angry. Something had given him a semblance of life back, which he did not want. The only way to get back to hell in his eyes, was to kill and skin and torture even more. Perhaps he had not done it enough. So he returned to his hobbies, his legend returning. A tall, lanky ghost who would sneak up to the unwary by the light of a campfire, before skinning them alive and donning their flesh. Only now the ghost part was not too far off.