A Pair of Aces Read online

  A PAIR OF ACES

  By Joe R. Lansdale

  A Macabre Ink Production

  Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright 2014 by Joe R. Lansdale

  WRITTEN WITH A RAZOR

  Screenplay and Stories based on The God of the Razor

  Created by Joe R. Lansdale

  Screenplay by Joe R. Lansdale & Neal Barrett Jr.

  Cover images courtesy of:

  Glenn Chadbourne: http://glennchadbourne.com/

  http://theartistdarklady.deviantart.com/

  http://madamem-stock.deviantart.com/

  &

  THE MAGIC WAGON

  A Short Novel of the weird, wild west

  Cover images courtesy of:

  http://juleesan.deviantart.com

  http://rinymph-stock.deviantart.com

  http://mellowmint.deviantart.com

  http://maria-murphy-art.deviantart.com/

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  BIO: Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Hotep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror." He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Scienceand its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

  Other Crossroad Press Books by Joe R. Lansdale:

  Shadows West

  The Drive-In: A "B" Movie with Blood & Popcorn, Made in Texas

  The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels

  The Drive-In 3: The Bus Tour

  Joe Landsale's Website

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

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  CONTENTS:

  Author's Introduction

  Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale

  Short Stories:

  The God of the Razor

  King of Shadows

  Janet Finds the Razor

  Screenplay:

  THE NIGHTRUNNERS

  Screenplay by Joe R. Lansdale and Neal Barrett, Jr.

  Based on the novel by Joe R. Lansdale

  Short Novel:

  The Magic Wagon

  Bonus:

  Excerpt From The Drive-In: A "B" Movie with Blood & Popcorn, Made in Texas

  WRITTEN WITH A RAZOR

  Author's Introduction to Written With a Razor

  This is a unique project. I wrote it with one of my writing heroes, Neal Barrett, Jr. The only bad thing about it is we never sold it. We did sell a script to MASTERS OF HORROR. A very good script, but, the show got cancelled. Still, our screenwriting collaboration was not for nothing; we got paid for it, even if we never got to see it made. THE NIGHTRUNNERS. It's based on a novel of mine. An early novel, but a novel a lot of readers really like and still talk about. Some have called it the scariest novel they have ever read. Actually, it sort of jacks me around as well; it is disturbing. But the point here is that the character, The God of The Razor, who appears in the novel inspired a number of God of The Razor stories. I should also note that in the novel, unlike in the stories, there's no guarantee that he actually exists. In the screenplay, Neal and I decided we'd write the story as if he did; thought it would make for a better film. I still think that. I like our script. It's fast paced and scary and disturbing in spots, and just downright weird. It plays to both the basic horror audience, as well as the audience that is looking for a little something different. We like to think you are that audience.

  Pretend you are in a darkened theater, and that the script is the film, because we wrote it to be read and for it to be envisioned as a film in the head, hoping that it would become an actual film in time. We've got a lot of nibbles, but to date, no bites.

  To sell the story as a script, you have to make the reader, the producer, the director, the actors, see the story. We do not believe a script is just a blue print. Reading blue prints is boring. A script shouldn't be. We violated some of the "rules" of screenwriting in how we presented it, but I think they were wise violations. We hope you like it. We enjoyed doing it.

  Neal lives in Austin, Texas, and I live four hours away in Nacogdoches, Texas. To make this happen I drove to Austin and got a hotel room for a few days. It was written in that hotel room in Austin, Texas. Neal would meet me every morning and we would work until noon, go out for lunch, work again until dinner, have take-out brought to the hotel, and then we would continue. We did this until we had a draft. I went home then, came back later so we could do another draft; this one you hold in your hands or are viewing on some non-hand-held device. It was mostly fun to write and we had a great visit along with it, though I do remember a pretty powerful take out meatball sandwich I ordered that has put me off of that culinary delight forever.

  As for the stories included here, well, as I said, the novel not only inspired this screenplay, but years before Neal and I wrote it, I took portions of the unsold novel (took me about seven years to sell the book) and turned those sections into short stories. After the novel, I wrote a few more tales about The God of The Razor. I even wrote a creator owned comic book about him for DC Comics, with the great artist Mark Nelson doing the illustrations. Not too long ago a tribute book to me and my creation was edited by Subterranean Press, and I had a new story there. Most of those tales are included here, minus the comic script. The old razor god seems to live on and on.

  Want to know what would top it off for me and the God of The Razor? A film. Preferably from our script. But until that happens, here's a film for your head, as well as, what I like to think of as some pretty damn nifty stories.

  Joe R. Lansdale

  Nacogdoches, Texas

  The God of the Razor

  Author's Note:

  This was another cannibalized piece from The Nightrunners, and it was the one that I lifted the most directly from the book, at least as far as the description of the God of the Razor goes.

  I loved the way the God was described, and I know that sounds immodest, but, alas, it is true. He stayed with me for a long time before he found his way into the The Ni
ghtrunners. He is both fairy tale and every day and legendary and something you might see in a bad dream, which is where I found him.

  The image and the idea of the God of The Razor haunted me, and I was, to put it mildly, disappointed that the book was not published immediately and that The God had not been revealed to the world. In the meantime, I came up with this idea suddenly, of turning the description of the God in the book into a story, and though I don't believe it to be my best written piece, I feel it is quite effective. It continues to live and has been reprinted and was even made into a kind of radio show CD that I enjoyed very much.

  It would probably make a great episode of Showtime's recent Masters of Horror, something along that line. But, here it is in its best form. Prose. Enjoy.

  Richards arrived at the house about eight. The moon was full and it was a very bright night, in spite of occasional cloud cover; bright enough that he could get a good look at the place. It was just as the owner had described it. Run down. Old. And very ugly.

  The style was sort of Gothic, sort of plantation, sort of cracker box. Like maybe the architect had been unable to decide on a game plan, or had been drunkenly in love with impossible angles.

  Digging the key loaned him from his pocket, he hoped this would turn out worth the trip. More than once his search for antiques had turned into a wild goose chase. And this time, it was really a long shot. The owner, a sick old man named Klein, hadn't been inside the house in twenty years. A lot of things could happen to antiques in that time, even if the place was locked and boarded up. Theft. Insects. Rats. Leaks. Any one of those, or a combination of, could turn the finest of furniture into rubble and sawdust in no time. But it was worth the gamble. On occasion, his luck had been phenomenal.

  As a thick, dark cloud rolled across the moon, Richards, guided by his flashlight, mounted the rickety porch, squeaked the screen, and groaned the door open.

  Inside, he flashed the light around. Dust and darkness seemed to crawl in there until the cloud passed and the lunar light fell through the boarded windows in a speckled and slatted design akin to camouflaged netting. In places, Richards could see that the wallpaper had fallen from the wall in big sheets that dangled halfway down to the floor like the drooping branches of weeping willows.

  To his left was a wide, spiraling staircase, and following its ascent with his light, he could see there were places where the railing hung brokenly askew.

  Directly across from this was a door. A narrow, recessed one. As there was nothing in the present room to command his attention, he decided to begin his investigation there. It was as good a place as any.

  Using his flashlight to bat his way through a skin of cobwebs, he went over to the door and opened it. Cold air embraced him, brought with it a sour smell, like a freezer full of ruined meat. It was almost enough to turn Richards's stomach, and for a moment he started to close the door and forget it. But an image of wall-to-wall antiques clustered in the shadows came to mind, and he pushed forward, determined. If he were going to go to all the trouble to get the key and drive way out here in search of old furniture to buy, then he ought to make sure he had a good look, smell or no smell.

  Using his flash, and helped by the moonlight, he could tell that he had discovered a basement. The steps leading down into it looked aged and precarious, and the floor appeared oddly glasslike in the beam of his light.

  So he could examine every nook and cranny of the basement, Richards decided to descend the stairs. He put one foot carefully on the first step, and slowly settled his weight on it. Nothing collapsed. He went down three more steps, cautiously, and though they moaned and squeaked, they held.

  When Richards reached the sixth step, for some reason he could not define, he felt oddly uncomfortable, had a chill. It was as if someone with ice-cold water in their kidneys had taken a piss down the back of his coat collar.

  Now he could see that the floor was not glassy at all. In fact, the floor was not visible. The reason it had looked glassy from above was because it was flooded with water. From the overall size of the basement, Richards determined that the water was most likely six or seven feet deep. Maybe more.

  There was movement at the edge of Richards's flashlight beam, and he followed it. A huge rat was swimming away from him, pushing something before it; an old partially deflated volleyball perhaps. He could not tell for sure. Nor could he decide if the rat was trying to mount the object or bite it.

  And he didn't care. Two things that gave him the willies were rats and water, and here were both. To make it worse, the rats were the biggest he'd ever seen, and the water was the dirtiest imaginable. It looked to have a lot of oil and sludge mixed in with it, as well as being stagnant.

  It grew darker, and Richards realized the moon had been hazed by a cloud again. He let that be his signal. There was nothing more to see here, so he turned and started up. Stopped. The very large shape of a man filled the doorway.

  Richards jerked the light up, saw that the shadows had been playing tricks on him. The man was not as large as he'd first thought. And he wasn't wearing a hat. He had been certain before that he was, but he could see now that he was mistaken. The fellow was bareheaded, and his features, though youthful, were undistinguished; any character he might have had seemed to retreat into the flesh of his face or find sanctuary within the dark folds of his shaggy hair. As he lowered the light, Richards thought he saw the wink of braces on the young man's teeth.

  "Basements aren't worth a damn in this part of the country," the young man said. "Must have been some Yankees come down here and built this. Someone who didn't know about the water table, the weather and all."

  "I didn't know anyone else was here," Richards said. "Klein send you?"

  "Don't know a Klein."

  "He owns the place. Loaned me a key."

  The young man was silent a moment. "Did you know the moon is behind a cloud? A cloud across the moon can change the entire face of the night. Change it the way some people change their clothes, their moods, their expressions."

  Richards shifted uncomfortably.

  "You know," the young man said, "I couldn't shave this morning."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "When I tried to put a blade in my razor, I saw that it had an eye on it, and it was blinking at me, very fast. Like this…oh, you can't see from down there, can you? Well, it was very fast. I dropped it and it slid along the sink, dove off on the floor, crawled up the side of the bathtub and got in the soap dish. It closed its eye then, but it started mewing like a kitten wanting milk. Ooooowwwwaaa, oooowwwaa, was more the way it sounded really, but it reminded me of a kitten. I knew what it wanted, of course. What it always wants. What all the sharp things want.

  "Knowing what it wanted made me sick and I threw up in the toilet. Vomited up a razor blade. It was so fat it might have been pregnant. Its eye was blinking at me as I flushed it. When it was gone the blade in the soap dish started to sing high and silly-like.

  "The blade I vomited, I know how it got inside of me." The young man raised his fingers to his throat. "There was a little red mark right here this morning, and it was starting to scab over. One or two of them always find a way in. Sometimes it's nails that get in me. They used to come in through the soles of my feet while I slept, but I stopped that pretty good by wearing my shoes to bed."

  In spite of the cool of the basement, Richards had started to sweat. He considered the possibility of rushing the guy or just trying to push past him, but dismissed it. The stairs might be too weak for sudden movement, and maybe the fruitcake might just have his say and go on his way.

  "It really doesn't matter how hard I try to trick them," the young man continued, "they always win out in the end. Always."

  "I think I'll come up now," Richards said, trying very hard to sound casual.

  The young man flexed his legs. The stairs shook and squealed in protest. Richards nearly toppled backward into the water.

  "Hey!" Richards yelled.

  "Bad shape," the y
oung man said. "Needs a lot of work. Rebuilt entirely would be the ticket."

  Richards regained both his balance and his composure. He couldn't decide if he was angry or scared, but he wasn't about to move. Going up he had rotten stairs and Mr. Looney Tunes. Behind him he had the rats and water. The proverbial rock and a hard place.

  "Maybe it's going to cloud up and rain," the young man said. "What do you think? Will it rain tonight?"

  "I don't know," Richards managed.

  "Lot of dark clouds floating about. Maybe they're rain clouds. Did I tell you about the God of the Razor? I really meant to. He rules the sharp things. He's the god of those who live by the blade. He was my friend Donny's god. Did you know he was Jack the Ripper's god?"

  The young man dipped his hand into his coat pocket, pulled it out quickly and whipped his arm across his body twice, very fast. Richards caught a glimpse of something long and metal in his hand. Even the cloud-veiled moonlight managed to give it a dull, silver spark.

  Richards put the light on him again. The young man was holding the object in front of him, as if he wished it to be examined. It was an impossibly large straight razor.

  "I got this from Donny," the young man said. "He got it in an old shop somewhere. Gladewater, I think. It comes from a barber kit, and the kit originally came from England. Says so in the case. You should see the handle on this baby. Ivory. With a lot of little designs and symbols carved into it. Donny looked the symbols up. They're geometric patterns used for calling up a demon. Know what else? Jack the Ripper was no surgeon. He was a barber. I know, because Donny got the razor and started having these visions where Jack the Ripper and the God of the Razor came to talk to him. They explained what the razor was for. Donny said the reason they could talk to him was because he tried to shave with the razor and cut himself. The blood on the blade, and those symbols on the handle, they opened the gate. Opened it so the God of the Razor could come and live inside Donny's head. The Ripper told him that the metal in the blade goes all the way back to a sacrificial altar the Druids used."