Jericho's Razor
Authors: Casey Doran
The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Casey Doran
Cover design by Adrijus Guscia
ISBN 978-1-940610-01-6
Published in 2014 by Polis Books, LLC
60 West 23
rd
Street
New York, NY 10010
Jericho's Razor
by
Casey Doran
CONTENTS
For M.L.D â Thank You for Everything.
Murder is in the air.
âJericho Sands
I killed my father when I was sixteen, sold my first novel when I was twenty-five, and saw my name on the bestseller list for the first time when I was twenty-seven. My success bloomed from my infamy. I am the firstborn son of serial killers, the spitting image of the old man without the predilection for ritualistic carnage. My books are sold in over a dozen countries and have been banned by church groups, schools, and other “respectable” organizations in all of them. They are graphic, bloody tomes that make no illusion or apology for the hedonistic pulp that they are. I write because the solitude lends itself to my reclusive nature. I write because it is the only thing that I really know how to do. But on the night that my past came to bite me in the ass, I wasn't writing a goddamn thing.
My recurring character was stuck, suspended in literary stasis while his creator fumbled for his next move. While many authors market heroes, I harvest the other side of the spectrum. Christian Black is a musician who enjoys classic literature, vintage guitars, and homicide. He lives a double life, one that fans who download his hits on iTunes would never imagine. In his latest exploit, Christian was preparing to dispose of a corrupt congressman. The politician was tied to a rotting elm tree while waiting to see what manner of death lay in store for him. There were several to choose from: Fire. Beheading. Disembowelment. Gun. Knife. Nail gun. Hammer. Hedge clipper. Ax. Samurai sword. The problem was Christian had already used them. After seven books, the well of creative killing methods was running dry. Every idea that popped into my brain was followed by the same three-word mantra:
Already done it
.
I tapped a drumstick against the desk, mimicking the pattern of the blinking cursor.
“Come on, dumbass.” I muttered to myself. “Just kill the bastard already.”
The drumstick tapped against the desk.
The cursor flashed on the screen.
I continued to not have shit and reached for a glass of Jack Daniel's that went empty over a half hour ago. Setting the glass aside, I set down the drumstick and lit a cigarette, thinking about Dr. Baum's words the last time I had sat in his office. “Your lungs are blacker than your main character's soul,” he told me. I thought it oddly poetic for the sixty-year-old doctor, if not fatalistic. Plus, I was sure he had never read my books, despite asking for an autograph on my first visit.
I blew smoke rings across my office, willing an epiphany to slice through the haze of writer's block, when my phone chimed. I wondered if it was Katrina calling and instantly hated myself for it.
No, dumbass
, I told myself.
She still hates you
. But curiosity pulled me toward the phone. I rationalized that checking a message would only be a brief distraction. Discipline demanded that I finish the book, meet my deadline, and put another Christian Black installment on the shelves for the local PTA to boycott. The cursor pulsed at me like a dare, and I felt that if I got up it would win. But as it often did, curiosity defeated discipline. I scooped up the phone and saw that I had a video message attached to an email.
The screen showed a man tied to a chair. Strips of black duct tape bound his arms and legs and covered his mouth. I could hear murmuring from behind the gag, words that were lost before being formed but were undoubtedly desperate pleas for help. Both eyes sported ugly purple bruises. Blood drooled from his nose onto the tape covering his mouth.
Pretty good
, I thought. Fans would often reenact scenes from my books and send me their handiwork. They would dress in rubber suits covered in fake blood and wave rubber machetes like drunken jungle guides. Most were immediately stricken down with the âDelete' key, but some were kept in a private file for whenever I needed a laugh. This one was looking to be among the best. The makeup was a nice touch; so few of them bothered to focus on the details.
On cue, I heard the angry metallic clatter of a chainsaw. The hostage thrashed against the chair hard enough to make it fall on its side. While he continued to fight against his restraints, a second person entered the shot. Covered from head to foot in a black rain suit, he held the chainsaw in a high, two-handed grip and approached his “victim.” I waited to see how far they would take it, expecting the movie to cut out while the live hostage was replaced with a dummy. That was how these things usually went. I actually considered sending the creators of this reproduction a reply. It had been a shitty week, and I needed a good distraction.
The feed continued. The executioner stood directly above his victim as the chainsaw sang a song of death and mayhem. It was a living thing, ravenous and determined. The clatter rose to a howl as the chainsaw swung down in a powerful arch, meeting blade with neck, causing a geyser of viscera amid screaming only to be found in the darkest corners of Hell.
My cigarette dropped to the floor.
My eyes and my brain began an immediate and intense debate about what I had just witnessed.
There was no way it was real
, I told myself.
No. Fucking. Way.
This was the product of some overly motivated film students trying to impress a weird writer. The executioner disappeared behind the camera, leaving a trail of bloody footprints in his wake. The shot wobbled, as though the camera was being removed from a tripod, and then panned to the left. I saw a concrete wall covered in red spatter that dripped to the floor and formed oily puddles. I saw gray matter mixed with itâbone marrow or brain matter or whatever the hell else explodes from a human body when having a critical piece of anatomy severed with a chainsaw. Finally, I saw what the director of this morbid home movie wanted me to see. It sat like an idol to realism, safe and familiar, but still covered in viscous red detritus.
It was my truck. In my building. Downstairs.
The screen went black.
I suddenly realized I had been holding my breath.
Slow down
, I told myself.
Assess the situation
. I took a deep breath and reached a speedy conclusion. The video was real, and there was a killer with a Leatherface complex downstairs.
I slid open the top drawer of my desk. Inside was a Smith & Wesson .45 caliber revolver. It's not an intimidating hand cannon like Dirty Harry's, but it already saved my life once and can stop anything in front of it. I didn't have to make sure it was loaded. It's always loaded. With my finger just under the trigger guard, I proceeded to the main living area of the loft.
Doomsday quickly came to my side. Doomsday is a brown boxer of uncertain age and the closest thing to a best friend that I have. Probably because we are both strays who prefer to forget our past. Two minutes ago the dog was likely sleeping on either the sofa or in my vacant bed, but I was not surprised that he had run over so quickly without having to be called. His ability to sense trouble is as good as my ability to find it.
Panoramic windows line the east wall of my loft. It offers a good view of downtown Peoria and the Illinois River. In the summer, I can watch the minor league baseball team play home games two blocks east. Now, brilliant cascades of lightning rippled through the night sky and cast the room in brief flashes of near daylight. But even in the moments of darkness I easily navigated around the furnishings, careful to use the sofa and end tables as a barrier between myself and anything that decided to jump out. If someone had been in the lower level of the building, it was not a leap to assume they could have made it up to my loft as well. One thing I was sure of, people with chainsaws were not to be trusted.
Hanging over the mantel was the movie poster for
Black as Night
, the film adapted from my first novel. It was a straight-to-DVD release that boasted only modest sales. You could probably find a copy in the bargain bin at Walmart. But I was proud of it and hung the portrait prominently. It portrayed a holographic version of Christian Black: choirboy in one image, machete-wielding killing machine in the next. The strobelike flashing of the lightning made it appear as though Black himself was the uninvited guest and was crashing at his creator through the wall.
I nearly shot it.
Doomsday quickly led me through the living room, past the kitchen, and toward the door for the stairwell. After disengaging the deadbolt, I stood on the landing and listened. I heard neither the metallic purr of a chainsaw nor any screaming that may accompany it.
In my books, as well as in most horror movies, going down the stairs would certainly lead to a violent death. Searching the basement. Investigating the suspicious noise coming from the barn armed with nothing but a flashlight. They were all classic mistakes that got characters killed. Viewers would yell at the screen because the characters were idiots who deserved to be disemboweled by the lunatic with no face who was waiting in ambush. In knew all these clichés. Hell, they put food on my table and beer in my fridge. But the fact was that when you were in the moment, knowing better was not the point. You just couldn't help yourself.
Doomsday waited. Behind me lay the safety of the loft. Below lay death. I aimed the gun down the stairs and took my first step into darkness.
“We have company, boy.” I said. “Let's not keep them waiting.”
My building spent the sixties and seventies as a slaughterhouse. The lower level, to where Doomsday and I now descended, had been the killing floor. Pigs were brought in by railcar and unloaded onto pins to await execution. One frigid December morning, the building's boiler had ruptured, killing seven employees and badly injuring several others. The slaughterhouse was forced into bankruptcy, and the building was closed. It sat boarded up for over a decade until catching the eye of David Howitzer, a local developer who had aspirations of turning the property into luxury apartments.