The men and women of the Salt Lake City Police Department were visibly shaken when a dishevelled man, sobbing and drenched in blood, staggered into their main office. Almost relieved to see several guns pointed at him, the stranger pleaded to be arrested, if it meant that he wouldn't be forced to kill again.

The man identified himself as Thom Greece, a marketing analyst traveling through on his way to Brigham City. But since he arrived, he had only known horrid nightmares of murder amidst restless slumbers- and that come every morning since his arrival, he always awoke in areas other than his hotel room. The police found a bent Six of Diamonds playing card on Greece's person. Three other cards- a Two of Clubs, and a Four and Five of Spades- were also found on Greece's pocket, smeared with blood that was not his own. Greece had no memory of how he obtained these last three cards. The sheriff then asked how he had obtained the Six Of Diamonds card.

Greece explained that three days ago, before the nightmares began, he stopped to help a stranded motorist on Route 40 West. Greece complied with the motorist's request for the use of his cell phone. As the motorist awaited a towing service to answer, he offered to show Greece a card trick. Despite noticing that the card deck was only about 1/4 complete, Greece still drew a card when prompted. Upon Greece drawing the Six of Diamonds, the motorist abruptly hung up the phone with a "No answer", got back into his car, and drove away.

With Greece's description of the motorist came a police sketch, which matched the appearance of a suspect wanted for 51 possibly related murders in Denver, Colorado. Random playing cards were discovered on the bodies of some of the victims; fingerprints on the cards matched those of other victims. The sheriff deduced that the cards were part of some weird elimination game. With 52 cards in a standard deck, he surmised that the suspect had already doled out a large number of cards before Greece encountered him on the roadside. He also suspected a rule of the game from Greece's acquired cards: a "player" is to kill anyone with a lower face value.

The sheriff pressed Greece further. Greece tearfully insisted that he had neither any memory of killing anyone, nor did he confess any motive to do so for their playing cards. He did not deny his actions either. Infuriated, the sheriff scoffed at the idea that a meager card game could hold any paranormal influence over its players.

Then the entire department mobilized to full force as a large man in black denim bashed through the police station's doors with an enormous stone mallet. His hair was long and brown. His face was painted with the black "club" suit and spikes rose from his jacket's shoulders. Stuck on the spikes were random playing cards. The club-faced man looked straight at Greece, hefted his mallet, and stomped towards him without a word. He completely ignored the orders to drop his weapon. He also ignored the bullets finding their mark in his chest. It was only until a blast from the sheriff's shotgun that his stride was broken.

Twenty-seven police officers fell to the hammer of the club-faced man. Easily weighing over one hundred pounds, in the hand of the murderer the hammer had all the encumbrance of a plastic children's bat. As the club-faced killer took after Greece into the parking lot, a SWAT team arrived. Their SUV driver gunned the engine, pinning the killer to the outside wall of the station. As the killer clawed for release at the hood of the vehicle, he was finally subdued with tear gas and tranquilizer darts. The killer, later identified as local computer programmer Luther John Roberts, was sent without delay to Tyburn Maximum Security Prison. Built upon the Great Salt Flats of Utah, Tyburn also houses the AMPUTHEATRE arena known as The Slayground.

Issuing an all-points-bulletin, Salt Lake City authorities began securing as many of the strange playing cards as they could. After exhaustive efforts by the Salt Lake City police department, only one card hadn't been recovered: the Jack of Clubs.

Occult experts at Tyburn deduced that the killer, nicknamed "Jack" by the tabloids, had already slain the holders of the cards speared to his jacket. Of notable curiosity was that Jack had obtained the King of Spades, one of the higher cards in a deck. At first this countered the sheriff's theory about the rule of slaying those with a lower card value. However, the occult experts further concluded that many card games have a "wild card"- one card that beats the rest regardless of value or suit. Incredibly, this theory was supported by Jack's great strength and invulnerability. The occult experts also theorized that the actual Jack of Clubs card holds the source of Jack's powers. When detectives were unable to find the card at the Roberts residence, it was assumed that Jack has the card somewhere on his person.

A nagging mystery is the origin and significance of the murder weapon itself: an execution mallet of Italian design called a mazzatello. One of the murderers involved in the "Denver 51" was wielding a similar, if not the same, weapon. Whether the card dealer had given the mazzatello to Roberts before encountering Greece is unknown. Most baffling of all is that Jack has the weapon in his possession again- the weapon was under strict lock and key in the forensics department, and his recovery of the mazzatello defies all logic and reason.

The mad Jack of Clubs now serves out his sentence fighting in the AMPUTHEATRE. Proof that the homicidal tendencies of the card players were all induced by the weird suggestive powers of the game makes his inclusion in the games highly controversial. Whether Jack kills out of his own free will or not, it is evident that with his imprisonment comes an end to the proliferation of the card game, and the prevention of 51 more murders. The Wardens of Tyburn Maximum Security have little doubt that if Jack earns his freedom from the contests in The Slayground, he will resume his hunt for Thom Greece in an effort to finish his card game.

Recently in the games at The Slayground, Jack was knocked off his feet and set upon by a similarly sentenced felon. Before Jack crushed the felon's temples with his forefinger and thumb, the felon was oddly rifling through Jack's coat and jean pockets. Jack realized that the Evil Wardens have revealed his weakness to his opponents. With a glare towards the Wardens, Jack threatened that they too would disppear under the mazzatello.