Hollywood Hack Job E-Book

Nathan Allen

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Three disparate and deranged tales featuring deluded narcissists, desperate wannabes, cunning fraudsters, lecherous vampires and sociopathic social climbers, in the city where dreams are sold and nightmares are conjured.
 
FALSE ICONS AND SACRED COWS: Fr. Arthur Gerdtz is on a mission from God. His church is fighting for relevance in the modern world. Attendances are dwindling, atheism is rising, and Instagram celebrities are bigger than Jesus. This veteran priest is in danger of losing his religion – until he brings some Old Testament values into the twenty-first century.
 
THE HONEY TRAP: Two lost souls are drawn to each other one night via Tinder. He is a successful businessman, searching for a reprieve from a life of solitude. She is a sweet-natured but damaged schoolgirl who just wants to be understood. Both long to connect with another human being. They know that meeting up is a bad idea, and they know their actions could have far-reaching consequences. What they don’t know is that the other hides a secret.
 
THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER: Cameron Knight and Eric Haas discover the realities of being a Hollywood screenwriter haven’t quite met their expectations. Their dreams of living the high life have fallen by the wayside and they find themselves hopelessly out of their depth, struggling to finish the lowbrow horror gore-fest they have been hired to write. Do they have what it takes to make it in Hollywood? How far they are willing to go to succeed in such a cut-throat industry? And when you have no limits, how do you know when you’ve gone too far?

Leseprobe

Hollywood Hack Job

By Nathan Allen

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2017 Nathan Allen

[email protected]

@NathanAWrites

Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

Contents

PART I – FALSE ICONS AND SACRED COWS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

PART II – THE HONEY TRAP

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

PART III – THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

PART IV – ROLL CREDITS

Chapter 27

ALSO BY NATHAN ALLEN

All Against All

Horrorshow

The War On Horror: Tales From A Post-Zombie Society

The War On Horror II: Return Of The Undead Menace

PART I.

FALSE ICONS

AND

SACRED COWS

Chapter 1

“Jesus knew Satan was at work in that very hour,” Fr. Gerdtz intoned from his pulpit. “The devil had already enlisted Judas to betray him, and Christ knew the religious hierarchy in Jerusalem was being empowered by the principalities of Hell. He was also aware that a devil-inspired mob was coming shortly to take him prisoner. That was when Jesus said to the disciples, Satan, the undead one, is coming.”

Fr. Gerdtz paused when the snoring in his church became too loud to ignore.

He lifted his eyes from his notes and scanned the room for the source of the disruption. It wasn’t long before he identified the culprit. The pews were sparsely filled; only seventeen people had bothered to drag themselves out of bed that morning to give thanks for all the Lord had blessed them with. It came from the back row, where a tattered pair of mismatched shoes stuck out from the end of one pew. He didn’t need to see the shoes’ owner to know who was responsible. It was the same man who interrupted his sermons on a near-weekly basis. His name was Jefferson Slade, a local vagrant who frequently stumbled into his church to sleep off a heady Saturday night of cheap liquor, public nuisance and lascivious behavior. He was at least grateful that Jefferson was sound asleep, and not heckling and muttering profanities as he sometimes would.

Thirty seconds had elapsed since Fr. Gerdtz last spoke. None of the parishioners appeared to have noticed. Many had their heads bowed and bibles open, although it was fairly obvious they were doing this to disguise the fact that they were really looking at their phones.

A sinking feeling of disillusionment took hold as he surveyed what remained of his congregation. Thirty-six years ago, when he arrived here from Vienna, he frequently addressed packed houses. Parishioners would arrive an hour early on a Sunday morning to snare a good seat, then wait a further thirty minutes at the end just to let him know how much they enjoyed hearing him speak. But that was a different era altogether. Now his entire audience could carpool home in a minibus.

Crowds had steadily declined over the past four decades, and only a dedicated few remained. The majority were closer to the end of their lives than the beginning. They were the ones who wanted to make peace with the Lord and reserve their place in heaven before being trampled underfoot by the inevitable march of time. But the older crowd was thinning out, their numbers waning with every passing year, and a younger generation was not stepping up to take their place. The church was fighting against irrelevance, and it was a fight they were losing.

He returned to his notes and pressed on.

“Evil, of all kinds, has risen to an exceeding height in this world, and highly exalted itself against God, Christ and the church. Satan has highly exalted himself and greatly prevailed. By his subtle temptations, he brought about the ruin of the whole race–”

A snort erupted from Jefferson Slade’s open mouth, and Fr. Gerdtz lost his place once again. The cathedral’s vast emptiness gave the sound additional volume. The high walls and ceilings amplified every one of Jefferson’s involuntary interruptions, reverberating for seconds afterwards.

Fr. Gerdtz closed his eyes and exhaled through his nostrils. He prayed that the Lord grant him the strength to carry on in the face of these constant challenges.

The parishioners filed out of the church in a slightly hurried manner following the conclusion of the service. Fr. Gerdtz found himself speaking with Lance and Colleen Robertson, a couple in their early forties who had been coming to the St. James Church for many years. He had known Colleen since she was a young girl. He had officiated at her wedding to Lance, and he had baptized their infant daughter Briony. But as was the case with many families, their Sunday attendances were growing further and further apart. It wasn’t unusual for entire seasons to pass by without an appearance.

“We’re sorry it’s been so long,” Colleen said, wheeling out the same excuse Fr. Gerdtz had heard many, many times before: “It’s just that we’ve all been so busy.”

“I understand,” he said. “It can be difficult to find the time, especially in this day and age.”

A small part of him died upon uttering these words, embarrassed by how completely devoid of meaning they were. He resisted the urge to point out that his weekly church services demanded less time than a single episode of those HBO dramas Colleen and Lance obsessively devoured. He often overheard them talking about how far behind they were in their viewing schedules, and the great lengths they would go to when setting aside time to catch up. They spoke as if scripted television was some arduous chore that had been enforced upon them against their will.

“But it’s been great seeing you today,” Lance said. “We always look forward to your services. We really should try and do this more often.”

This last comment produced an involuntary but nonetheless audible huff from Briony, Colleen and Lance’s now-teenaged daughter. Briony had clearly been dragged along today against her will. She was the only person in attendance under the age of forty, as well as the only churchgoer Fr. Gerdtz had ever seen wearing a t-shirt with the words “BITCH, I’M FABULOUS” emblazoned across it.

Lance shot his daughter a stern look, imploring her to show some manners. Briony failed to take the hint. “Can we go now?” she whined.

“In a minute honey,” Colleen said.

“But we’re going to be late!”

“Briony, it doesn’t start for another four hours,” her father said.

“Only the first two hundred people through the doors will get to meet Krystal!”

“Calm down, sweetie,” Colleen said. “There’s still plenty of time.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!”

“Briony–”

“You know how much this means to me! If I miss out it’s all your fault!”

Briony stormed off towards the family car. She climbed into the back seat and slammed the door closed.

“Teenagers, huh?” Fr. Gerdtz said with a raised eyebrow. It was his attempt at lightening the mood, but at that moment he was relieved to have taken a vow of chastity.

“We’re taking her to see Krystal Blayze after this,” Colleen said by way of explanation. “She’s been talking about this non-stop for weeks.”

The vacant look on Fr. Gerdtz’s face suggested he didn’t have the slightest idea who Colleen was talking about.

“You don’t know Krystal Blayze? Oh, she’s a massive star. She’s doing a book signing at the Beverly Center today.”

“She’s an author?”

“No, she’s ... well, she has released three books. But she’s so much more than that. She’s a model, a DJ, a lifestyle blogger, she has her own TV show, a skincare range. She designs swimsuits, she’s appeared in a Chris Brown video. She’s across all media, really. Young people totally love her.”

There was a marked rise in enthusiasm as Colleen spoke. She appeared almost as excited about meeting this Krystal Blayze woman as her fourteen year old daughter. Fr. Gerdtz got the impression Colleen was turning into one of those mothers terrified of middle age; the type who believed that by sharing her daughter’s interests and being her best friend she could cling to the last vestiges of her fading youth.

The family departed a few minutes later, leaving as soon as they’d invested the minimum amount of small talk so as to not appear rude. The last of the congregation milled around until about eleven a.m.

Fr. Gerdtz was about to head back into the church when his attention was drawn to the guttural sounds emanating from around the corner. He looked across to see Jefferson Slade, now up on his feet and somewhat conscious, hunched over the newly-planted daffodils and dry-retching every few seconds.

He briefly considered ignoring this unpleasant distraction and continuing on inside, but decided the Christian thing to do would be to check in on Jefferson and make sure he was alright.

A sigh of exasperation spilled from his mouth as he made his way over. He knew he was supposed to welcome everybody into his church with open arms, but Jefferson was a never-ending test of his patience. He wasn’t alone in feeling this way; the police often picked him up following complaints from local residents and businesses regarding his offensive behavior. They would leave him in the care of a nearby nursing home, but he never stayed long. He would stick around for a day or two, mostly to harass the nurses and antagonize the other residents, then disappear in the middle of the night. These days the police mostly left him alone, just so long as he didn’t push his luck too far.

“Are you feeling alright, Jefferson?” Fr. Gerdtz asked in a tired voice.

Jefferson heaved. Unintelligible noises blurted from his mouth, a cross between a dead language and gobbledygook. It was the indecipherable dialect of a man at the lowest point in his hangover. A string of brown bile hung from his chin. He smelled like dumpster refuse.

Fr. Gerdtz looked away in distaste. “Do you need me to call someone?”

Jefferson spat twice on the grass and staggered off towards the road, no doubt looking for someone else to torment.

Fr. Gerdtz watched him as he left. He was becoming more and more convinced that Jefferson had been sent by the Lord as a test of his faith.

Fr. Gerdtz arrived home mid-afternoon. He put out some fresh food for Samson, the long-haired Angora kitten he had recently adopted, and phoned his local pharmacy to arrange a prescription refill for his arthritis medication. He then switched on his computer and set about figuring out how to sign up for a Twitter account. This wasn’t something he especially wanted to do, but many of his colleagues within the clergy had been on his back for some time about the need to embrace new media strategies. He’d put it off for as long as he could before finally giving in. It was a last-ditch attempt at staying relevant, a kind of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude. He figured any medium that helped spread the word of God was worth investigating.

Creating his Twitter profile took less than ten minutes. This was something he was quite proud of. He had always found modern technology to be rather intimidating, but the computing for seniors classes he had taken in recent years had gone some way towards demystifying it all.

He gained his first follower a few minutes later. It was Fr. Jenkins from the nearby United Church, one of the colleagues who had encouraged him to join social media. Fr. Jenkins had been on Twitter for several years now, and had amassed more than five hundred followers in that time. This played a large part in Fr. Gerdtz deciding to take the plunge and join up. It had been some time since he last addressed five hundred people at once.

Fr. Gerdtz followed him back, and the two priests exchanged pleasantries and a few jokes.

He then came across the Twitter page of Colleen Robertson from his church. Her most recent post featured a photograph of her and her daughter Briony, standing next to a young woman with peroxide-blonde hair and a dour face hidden behind a pair of giant cataract sunglasses. This, it appeared, was the world-famous Krystal Blayze. Briony wore an ear-to-ear smile in the photograph, while Colleen looked happier than she did on her wedding day. Krystal Blayze looked bored, like she’d rather be anywhere else than where she was at that moment.

Curiosity soon got the better of him. He simply had to know what it was about this woman that made her so appealing, since Colleen’s explanation from earlier that morning hadn’t made a whole lot of sense to him. It was one thing for Briony, a teenager with a brain that was still developing, to illogically worship someone like this. But a grown woman, an otherwise intelligent wife and mother? He was definitely missing something here.

He clicked onto her page to discover that Krystal Blayze had over six million Twitter followers. A few minutes later, he found that she had more than three times that number following her on Instagram.

This revelation plunged him into a deep state of bewilderment. It wasn’t just the gargantuan number of followers. It was more the fact that she was famous for absolutely no reason at all. All this woman appeared to do with her life was post an endless array of photographs of herself in various states of undress for the pleasure of her anonymous, grammatically-averse followers. She was pictured reclining in a swimsuit on a beach, reclining in a different swimsuit by a pool, and reclining sans-swimsuit on a bed, as well as hundreds more showing her either shopping or partying. Scattered throughout was the occasional inspirational quote about self-acceptance and finding inner peace. None of her followers appeared to have noticed that these quotations directly contradicted the egoistical, materialistic lifestyle she openly promoted.

But it only got worse when he learned that Krystal Blayze was far from an isolated example. There were hundreds, possibly even thousands of others just like her. Ordinary, unremarkable people who had cultivated huge online followings for no discernible reason. They possessed no unique talents, nor had they done anything to benefit anyone other than themselves. There was nothing particularly interesting about any of them. In fact, most appeared to be simply horrible people – self-centered, shallow, vindictive and extraordinarily vain. Of greater concern was that this sort of behavior was actively rewarded. An ostentatious display of wealth or a childish Twitter feud usually resulted in the offending parties gaining additional followers and becoming even more popular.

Some indigenous cultures believed that part of their soul was lost when their photograph was taken. Judging by the evidence before him, Fr. Gerdtz concluded that whenever some dummkopf took their own picture and posted it online, several million brain cells were irreparably damaged. Here was incontrovertible proof that we were all living in a post-shame world.

He kept on clicking over and over, unable to stop himself, viewing different versions of the same image. He saw young people pouting into the camera, shots in a mirror’s reflection, post-workout images, point-of-view beach snaps, and innumerable instances of people who believed that having their tongue hanging out of their mouths somehow made them edgy or subversive.

[Side note: Hanging Tongue Syndrome is a condition prevalent in many types of dogs. It is caused by inbreeding.]

Something about this troubled him greatly. Even if he wasn’t able to properly articulate his concerns, the fact that such superficiality was not only condoned but admired made him fear for the future of the human race. He had long suspected the world was becoming more tolerant of the gauche and the obscene – that much was obvious when the country saw fit to elect a boorish, orange-faced buffoon from a reality television show as its president – but only now was the full extent of this diseased culture evident.

Celebrity had metastasized to become the new opiate of the masses. Fame was the sole aim for millions rather than the byproduct of hard work and success. Rampant consumerism and mindless celebrity worship infected every square inch of society. Everybody wanted to be somebody, and nobody wanted to be just anybody.

The public, too, was consumed with the lives of these vacuous fame-chasers, deliberately shutting out anything from the real world that might penetrate their own blinkered existence. It was a phenomenon that had spread to all segments of media. In that day’s newspaper, a suicide bombing attack in Jakarta that left thirty-three people dead was allocated just a small fraction of page fourteen. News of a Hollywood divorce and a rapper’s new shoe line both received much greater coverage. What was once relegated to the gossip section now polluted the entire newspaper.

Fr. Gerdtz removed his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. He was getting older, and the modern world was leaving him behind. He was so far removed from the younger generations that they may as well have arrived from another planet. They lived different lives and had different values. They no longer had any need for the church, preferring to give their attention to the unlimited entertainment options available twenty-four/seven on their massive TVs and devices that fit comfortably in their pockets. Trying to compete with that was like trying to nail custard to a wall.

His whole life had been in service to God, and now he feared it would all be for nothing. His entire existence may have been meaningless. At the rate things were going, the world will have moved on from religion within a decade. It would all be forgotten, a relic of a bygone era. Fr. Gerdtz’s legacy would be that he was part of the generation that allowed spirituality to wither and die like a neglected pot plant.

A moment passed, and a sense of helplessness took hold.

He did what he always did during times of uncertainty and soul-searching. He bowed his head and clasped his rheumatic hands together in prayer.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” he whispered solemnly. “Am I wasting my time here? Should I give up and simply accept this is how the world is today? Is there anything I can do to make a difference? Or are there better ways for me to devote my energies towards helping people?”

He was silent for a long time.

“Please, Lord,” he said, a ripple of emotion entering his voice. “It’s rare that I ask for help. I know there are many more in much greater need than I. But I just need a sign. I need to know if there is something I can do.”

There was a knock at the door.

Fr. Gerdtz froze. He opened his eyes and looked up at the clock. It was 9:38 p.m. Much later than he thought. His time spent on the internet just sucked the hours away.

He was conflicted about what to do next. Should he answer the door? This was an odd time for visitors, and he wasn’t expecting anyone. But the knock occurred immediately after he asked the Lord for help. Was that a coincidence, or was God actually listening? He often told his followers there were no coincidences in life, and that everything was part of the Almighty’s divine plan. Whoever was on the other side of that door – even if they were unaware of it – would be able to provide guidance in his hour of need.

He rose from his seat and tentatively approached the door. His eye moved to the peephole. There was no one out there. Probably just some kids playing tricks. Tonight was Halloween, after all.

He turned the lock and unhooked the chain, then stepped out into the dark night.

The security light came on, and the area lit up. Funny, he thought. Whoever knocked somehow did so without activating the sensor. He looked left and right, but he could see no one around. Maybe he had imagined it. Maybe his mind was going in his old age. Or maybe it was nothing more than wishful thinking.

A light breeze blew, and a sharp chill brushed against his skin. Today had been a day of unseasonable warmth, but the night air had turned unexpectedly frigid. A shiver rippled through his body.

Then he saw the parcel.

It was right in front of him, inches from his feet. By now he had been outside a couple of minutes, but had only just noticed it. It was almost as if it had materialized out of thin air. A more logical explanation was that it had been there all along, but he had failed to notice until then. He recently had the prescription for his glasses updated, but his eyesight was still poor once the sun went down.

The parcel was about the size of a shoebox. It had no note, or anything else to identify the sender. It was wrapped haphazardly in pages from a softcore pornography magazine.

Chapter 2

Krystal Blayze dropped into one of the plush velvet sofas inside the VIP section at the Aubaine Manor nightclub. She tugged at the hem of her Halloween costume – a skimpy nurse’s outfit that a ten year old girl might struggle to squeeze into – then checked the time on her Sony Xperia 25 Premium phone. It was just past midnight, which meant she still had another hour to kill before her contractual obligations were fulfilled.

She was exhausted from another arduous day of work. She’d had to grimace her way through her fifth meet and greet in the past three days to promote her new book #YOLO, Bitch!. When that was over she reviewed the script and rehearsed her lines for an upcoming episode of Blayze of Glory, her “reality” television show that was about to start filming its third season. Next was a magazine photo shoot and two hours of phone interviews, then on to her appearance at Aubaine Manor. She had been pulling sixteen hour days for the past three months, with no letup in her schedule anytime soon. And there were still ignorant haters out there who had the nerve to dismiss her as “famous for being famous”.

More than anything, it was these nightclub appearances that drained her. So many people assumed it was easy money, but they had no idea what the job really entailed, nor did they understand just what she had to endure night after night. Tonight she had been trolled by a group of basic bitches looking to score their own fifteen minutes of fame, as well as being hit on by about a thousand guys who thought that telling her they’d seen her hacked photos constituted a pickup line. No matter how much she got paid, she was totally made to earn every cent.

The financial rewards weren’t even that great anymore. She had missed the golden age of the celebutante by just a year or two, a fact she lamented every time she turned up to one of these things. She still took home around $70,000 for a single appearance, which could be bumped up to $100,000 if she DJ’d as well (DJing was a process that involved connecting her phone to the console, loading a Spotify playlist, then waving her arms in the air for an hour). But it was a far cry from the quarter of a million some venues were paying not so long ago. Appearance fees had plummeted in recent years as the number of fame-wenches approached saturation point. Now there were miscellaneous “personalities” with the tiniest amount of celebrity status, all these YouTube vloggers and viral news subjects, turning up to clubs for ten grand or less. They were dragging the price down for legit stars like herself.

Her manager Nigel sauntered across and sat down next to her. “Great set, babe,” he said. “You really had the crowd moving.”

“Whatevs,” Krystal said. “This place is dead tonight, anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re totally right.” Nigel was reading a message that had just appeared on his phone and wasn’t paying attention to a word Krystal had said. “By the way, I spoke with the owner of this place. I let him have it over those posters. He apologized and said it wouldn’t happen again.”

“What posters?”

“You know, the posters they had up promoting your appearance here tonight. The ones that promised ‘A special DJ performance by Krystal Blayze’, with inverted commas around the word ‘DJ’. I told him that was completely disrespectful.”

Krystal nodded along, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what the inverted commas implied.

“Also, the projections have just come through from the publisher,” he said, reading the message on his phone. “#YOLO, Bitch! is on track to shift a hundred k in the first week.”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s ... great?”

Nigel made a face. “You’re not happy with one hundred thousand?”

“It’s just that I have, like, twenty million followers. I thought it’d be a bit more than that.”

“Trust me honey, one hundred thousand is a lot for a book. Nobody reads actual books anymore. And it’s almost double what Slut Puppy did in its first week of release.”

Slut Puppy was Krystal’s previous book about dating and relationship advice. It sold over one million copies worldwide.

“In that case, I guess I’m allowed to chillax a little,” she said.

A server passed by holding a tray of multicolored shots. Krystal reached for one, and Nigel gave her hand a gentle smack.

“Uh, I don’t think so sweetheart.”

“What, you’re telling me what I can and can’t drink now?”

“No, I’m reminding you that we have a meeting with the head of Parlux in eleven hours’ time to discuss bottle designs for your new fragrance. It’d be nice if you turned up to a meeting sober for once.”

Krystal let out an adolescent whine. “Do I really have to go to that?”

“If you want your name emblazoned across a bottle of perfume then yes, you really do have to go to that.”

“But I’m not even sure I want my own fragrance.”

“What part of having your own fragrance do you object to? Is it the part where you take a three dollar bottle of scented liquid and sell it for $110?”

“No, Nigel–”

“Trust me princess, this is one meeting you don’t want to blow off. Having your own fragrance is like owning a money-printing factory. If you’re not willing to take advantage of this opportunity there are plenty of other scene queens who are.”

Nigel’s phone chimed with an incoming call. He leaped up off the couch. “And put something new on Instagram,” he ordered. “It’s been seven hours since your last post. Leave it any longer and the press will start drafting your obituary.”

Nigel left to take the call in a quieter corner of the club. He plucked a shot glass filled with bright blue liquid from the bar along the way and poured it down his throat.

Krystal sulked for a few minutes – she hated it when Nigel ordered her around like she couldn’t make any decisions on her own – before eventually conceding he might be right. She needed some new content for her Instagram account.

She took out her phone and scanned the room for career advancement opportunities; namely, famous or semi-famous guys. A celebrity selfie was the surest way of enhancing your brand and keeping your name at the forefront of the public’s mind. She knew that better than anybody. A year and a half ago, a twenty second encounter with Justin Bieber saw her profile skyrocket. Rumors quickly spread that the two were romantically involved – rumors she did nothing to dispel – and Krystal’s rise from anonymous to ubiquitous kicked into warp speed. The picture received two hundred thousand likes, and she gained half a million new followers in a single week. Her entire career – the TV show, the modeling gigs, the books, the fitness DVDs, the endorsements – could all be traced back to that one cluster of pixels. But she wouldn’t be able to rely on it forever. She had to stay relevant or risk the ignominy of fading back to obscurity.

Even though, as a feminist, she knew it was wrong that a woman could become famous purely due to her association with a successful man, she didn’t let it bother her too much. As far as she was concerned, feminism meant that a woman should be able to do whatever she wants and not be criticized for it. Anyway, nothing said Girl Power more than exploiting a man for your own personal gain.

Sadly, the VIP section of Aubaine Manor was severely lacking in A-list guys tonight. What it did have was an oversupply of second-tier professional athletes, third-tier reality-famous douches, and no-name sub-Juggalo frat-rappers. In other words, nobody Krystal could benefit from having her name associated with. In fact, being seen with any of these dickwits could only damage her brand. The name Krystal Blayze was synonymous with exclusivity, and she’d prefer to keep it that way.

If there were no other celebs of her stature to leech off she would have to rely on her tried and true selfie fallback. She extended her arm, gazed into the phone’s camera, and snapped off a quick dozen shots.

Scrolling through the results, she was horrified by what came up. The pics were ghastly; she looked about thirty. The lighting in the club accentuated the bags under her eyes, her hair looked like it was a strong breeze away from falling out, and almost every shot gave her a double chin. She looked hotter in her mug shot than she did here. She tried fixing a couple of the better ones with filters, but this did little to make her any less of a hot mess.

She would need to bring her A-game if she was to post anything Insta-worthy tonight. So after a quick fix of her hair, makeup and cleavage she sucked in her cheeks, pushed out her lips, did that squint thing with her eyes that made her appear more alluring, and flashed a peace sign with her left hand.

She had taken a handful of shots when a dark figure appeared in her peripheral vision.

After taking a moment to examine the mystery package left on his doorstep, poking and prodding it in an amateurish attempt to determine if it was potentially dangerous, Fr. Gerdtz lifted it up off the ground and carried it inside his house. It was slightly heavier than he expected. He placed it on his dining room table, then carefully removed the crumpled magazine pages used as wrapping paper. Inside, he found a plain brown box with an envelope attached. The envelope contained two things – a VIP pass to a West Hollywood nightclub, and a handwritten note.

The note read: I trust you’ll know what to do with this.

He used a letter opener to slice through the tape sealing the box shut. He pulled the flaps open, just as the sky exploded with a sharp clap of thunder.

Inside was a .500 S&W Magnum revolver and a box of ammunition.

Fr. Gerdtz instinctively backed away. His hand went to his mouth in shock, and he collapsed into a kitchen chair.

He didn’t move for a full five minutes.

A range of possibilities raced through his head. A deadly weapon had just landed unannounced on his front door. Who on earth would do such a thing? Was this meant to be some sort of warning? A threat? A prank? If it was a prank, it was quite an expensive one. Even though he knew next to nothing about firearms, he did know that guns like this one, the type Harry Callahan used in all those Dirty Harry movies, didn’t come cheap.

He debated what he should do next over a strong cup of tea. This was such a bizarre event, coming so out of the blue, that he really had no idea of the correct course of action. He assumed he was supposed to report this to the police. He could see no other sensible option.

But then the note caught his eye. I trust you’ll know what to do with this. The words rattled around inside his head as he attempted to decipher their true meaning.

He couldn’t explain why, but something compelled him to reach inside the box and pick up the gun.

An otherworldly sensation ricocheted through his body as soon as his palm made contact with the rosewood grip. His entire being vibrated with a kind of euphoric energy. It was a phenomenon unlike anything he had ever felt before, and the closest he’d come to a purely religious experience in a long, long time.

A moment passed, and the pieces of this cryptic puzzle gradually shifted into place. There could be only one reason why this gun appeared on his doorstep at this exact time. He knew where it had come from, and he knew what he was meant to do with it.

Several hours later, he made his way to a nightspot on La Cienega Boulevard called Aubaine Manor. The name proved to be a slight misnomer; “Aubaine Manor” brought to mind a sophisticated establishment frequented by classy patrons, not an overcrowded and overpriced den of sin and sleaze that inflicted actual physical pain on him as he entered. He found himself surrounded by people one third his age, many outfitted in Halloween costumes more befitting the red light district than neighborhood trick or treating. Worst of all was the excruciating noise assaulting his eardrums. When he first came into the club he assumed a fire had broken out and they were sounding some sort of evacuation alarm. It soon became apparent that this was the actual music these people were voluntarily exposing themselves to. Fr. Gerdtz tried to maintain an open mind about what young people enjoyed these days, but this was one thing he’d never quite understand. The music, if you could call it that, was more like something riot police would blast in order to disperse large crowds rather than anything an entertainment venue might play to attract one.

As he wandered through the club he noticed just how much things had changed since he was a young man. The dances he had attended were a great deal more wholesome than the debauchery he was witness to here. In his day, a gentleman would signal his intentions by respectfully approaching a young lady and asking her to dance. Now it seemed acceptable for a man to show his interest in a woman by stumbling towards the dancing area and grinding his crotch against the unsuspecting target of his inebriated lust. The fact that this all occurred on the holiest day of the week only compounded his revulsion.

The VIP section was situated at the rear of the venue. He attracted a number of puzzled looks from the burly security staff, one of whom called him “bro” and complimented him on his “freaky dope-ass costume”, before his pass granted him access beyond the hallowed velvet rope.

A different type of music played in here; one with angry urban males using deplorable language whilst shouting at one another over an abrasive instrumental track. After just a few seconds of this, Fr. Gerdtz was thankful that his failing hearing dulled the full impact of this odious racket.

His eyes scoured the room. The décor was kind of retro-futuristic. The bar was made from transparent fiberglass, and the lighting came from thin neon green fluorescent tubes running along the sides of the walls and tables. A black and white art house movie was projected onto one wall, although the VIPs – none of whom appeared to be of particular importance – paid scant attention to it. They were more interested in gulping down their brightly-colored alcoholic beverages and shouting into each other’s ears.

He spotted his target in the far corner, holding her phone out in front of her. She was dressed like an extra from a Carry On film and contorting her face into something that resembled a large fish gulping for air. This was Krystal Blayze; the woman symbolic of an entire generation with an excess of confidence but absolutely no justification for it.

He made his move, striding purposefully towards her. He expected her to look up, but her focus remained solely on her phone. He reached beneath his cassock and removed the Magnum. He wasn’t one hundred percent certain what was happening here. He couldn’t tell if he was doing this all on his own volition, or if he was being compelled by an unseen force. Possibly a combination of the two.

With little hesitation, he aimed the gun and pulled the trigger.

He was completely unprepared for the recoil produced by such a powerful weapon. He lost control the instant it discharged. The force propelled him backwards and his hand flew up, the gun striking him across the face. Clint Eastwood made it look so much easier.

When he regained his balance, he saw that Krystal Blayze was now missing the top half of her head.

Time slowed to a crawl. Fr. Gerdtz stood frozen to the floor, unable to move, staring at the Rorschach-shaped bloodblot trickling down the wall behind Krystal’s inert body.