Sean E. Britten

I’ve always been inspired by music (I know, super original!) and music has always been a part of my writing. Way back in the days of burnt CDs, my mates and I used to put together CD mixtapes and I came up with the idea of a series of short stories based around pieces of music. Mixtape is all short stories sharing their titles with different songs and inspired, to various degrees, by their lyrics, artists, and vibe.

Now Playing: Peter Tosh – Stepping Razor

As part of an initiation, Mikhil is forced to steal from the shrine of local urban legend Stepping Razor. He’s got bigger things to worry about, Stepping Razor is only a ghost story, until the dreams start.

======

The first punch mashed Mikhil’s lips against his teeth and knocked his feet out from under him. Hitting the asphalt of the basketball court’s surface, he tasted blood. He tried to stand but someone else kicked him in the ribs. Rolling onto his back, head swimming, the boy did his best to protect his face and crotch as more blows rained down on his skinny, thirteen-year-old frame.

“Come on, bitch! You got to fight back!” Jaeden, the first one to hit him, yelled.

More kicks rocked Mikhil from all directions. One caught him at the base of the spine and sent spasms of pain through his back. He rolled with it, however, and that gave him enough space to claw his way back to his feet. He wound up next to the hoop at one end of the court and leaned against it heavily.

“Show us what you got, bitch!”

Sixteen-year-old Jaeden and half a dozen members of his ‘crew’ circled Mikhil. All of them were the same age as Jaeden or younger but were hardened brawlers with calloused knuckles and savage grins on their faces. Jaeden wanted Mikhil for his gang as well and for weeks Mikhil had been avoiding him. But this afternoon, on the way home from school, he’d been cornered cutting through the basketball court. Jaeden made it clear, either Mikhil got jumped into his crew, taking a beating as a kind of initiation ritual, or they’d beat him up anyway and wouldn’t stop until his brains were leaking out of his skull. Mikhil didn’t know where the concept of the initiation had come from specifically. Jaeden, like Mikhill, like the rest of his crew, had grown up in the town of Toshford in the north of England, and he got most of his ideas about how gangbangers should act from American movies and TV shows. Regardless, Mikhil had no option but to agree.

Stepping forward, Mikhil threw a punch with all the strength he could rally. The blow missed its intended target by such a margin that it almost wasn’t clear which one of the boys he was trying to hit. His shoulder wrenched out of joint. Another teen stepped in and punched Mikhil just under the ear, making his head ring. Someone shoved him from behind and spilled him onto his hands and knees, scuffing his palms.

“Come on, motherfucker!”

Grasping, Mikhil grabbed the nearest pair of legs and wrestled with them. They laughed and tried to shimmy out of his grip. Someone else kicked him again in the back. He hung on, however, and pulled the other kid down with him.

“That’s it!” Jaeden said. “You want to run with us, you got to show some fucking balls!”

Mikhil didn’t want to run with them, he thought that was the whole point. Despite that, angry and almost crying, he climbed the legs and the body of the teenager they belonged to. Wildly, he slapped and punched and clawed. Jaeden’s companion, another young guy named Deacon, batted the hits away. Grabbing Mikhil by the arms, two others dragged him off of Deacon and tossed him to the ground before raining another series of kicks and punches on his helpless body. His vision greyed and a last smack broke something open in his nose, a gush of blood covering his upper lip.

“A’ight, that’s enough!” Jaeden said. “I said that’s fucking it, leave it!”

Jaeden pushed and shoved the others clear. On the ground, Mikhil slowly unfurled. With his bare hands, he sopped at his bloody nose. Finally, Jaeden stood over him and offered his hand. Mikhil hesitated but worried what he would do if he rejected the gesture. He took Jaeden’s hand and let the older teen haul him roughly to his feet.

“You good, little homie? Good?” Jaeden said.

Mikhil struggled to nod, aches and pains twisting through his head and spine. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are we done?”

“Look at you, motherfucker! You’re ready to get started, aren’t you? You ready to put the hurt on some other motherfuckers! Bitch, we all done that, we all been through getting jumped in. No hard feelings, yeah?”

“So I’m in? I’m one of you?” Mikhil asked, not really wanting an answer either way.

Jaeden looked suddenly angry, and breathed hot breath right in Mikhil’s face. “You think it’s that easy, do you, bitch?”

“I-, I don’t know?”

“You want to prove you’re bad enough to run with us, you got to do something for me. You got to fucking steal some shit.”

Mikhil felt a churn of emotions. On the one hand, he didn’t want to steal anything. He didn’t want anything to do with Jaeden at all. But he also knew Jaeden could be asking him to do much worse. Jaeden and his posse were hooked up with some real criminals, local hard men. Drugs, guns, armed holdups, they were involved in all kinds of stuff. He’d heard a rumour that to join them, members had to kill a random person. Stealing wasn’t that terrible by comparison.

“Stealing what?” Mikhil asked. “Just stealing anything?”

“Nah, I’ve been saving this one,” Jaeden said. “I want you to steal me something from Stepping Razor.”

“Stepping Razor?” Mikhil repeated in genuine confusion.

“You know who I’m talking about, yeah? You know where people leave him shit?”

“I mean, yeah, I guess?”

“Stepping Razor, I want you to go to that-, what do they call it? Like a fucking shrine? I want you to go there, in that old factory, tonight, midnight, and I want you to take something from there. And take a video to prove it! Gimme your phone, bitch!”

As Jaeden snatched Mikhil’s phone and entered his number, Mikhil took a few moments to realise he was serious. Even though he was three years younger, Mikhil thought he could suddenly see clearly into the sixteen-year-old’s mind. Jaeden was tall and covered in rangy muscles, a weak moustache clinging to his upper lip. He could be easily mistaken for a grown man. He and Mikhil had gone to school together, in different grades, but Jaeden disappeared from classes over a year ago and hadn’t been back since. Mikhil knew from around the neighbourhood that he’d been running drugs and threatening people who needed to be kept quiet. But in some ways he was still a kid. Just a big, dumb, overgrown kid. Who else would come up with something as stupid as stealing from an urban legend as an initiation? Only a big, dumb kid who still believed in ghost stories.

“What if I don’t?” Mikhil asked. “I mean, what if I can’t do it? I can’t run with you?”

Jaeden got up in Mikhil’s face again, breathing hard. “You do it tonight, or we’re going to have to jump you in again. And again, and again, bitch, until you’re one of us. This shit ain’t optional. You live in my ‘hood, you run with us, you feeling me?”

Mikhil nodded with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. His face throbbed although his nose had stopped bleeding.

“Can I go now?”

“Yeah, get your narrow ass home. Don’t let no one disrespect you now, you’re with us! You’re representing us!”

Mikhil gathered his schoolbag and its contents, scattered by Jaeden’s crew. The other teenagers, barely older than Mikhil, dogged him with squared shoulders and puffed up chests but they didn’t interfere. He snuck the rest of the way home without issue, past rundown tenements and old, mostly abandoned houses waiting for the right developer to buy the land out from under them. When he reached the apartment where he lived with his dad, he eased open the door as quietly as possible.

“Hey, kid, is that you?” his dad, trying to catch some sleep between shifts, shouted from the bedroom.

“Yeah, dad, it’s me,” Mikhil said, trying to hide the choked sound in his voice from his busted nose.

“How are you doing, kid? How was school?”

“Yeah, fine, I got homework.”

Mikhil shut himself in his room before his dad could ask any more questions. With a surge of frustrated rage, he hurled his bag across the room then tore at his bloodied clothing. Bruises flowered on his chest and back. He used his t-shirt to scrub his face. Tears welling in his eyes, he sat on the edge of his bed and tried to sob as quietly as possible.

When he thought it was safe, assuming his father had fallen back to sleep, Mikhil ventured out of his room and snuck to the bathroom. Running water in the sink, he cleaned his face and removed the drying blood. A bruise swelled under his left eye and an egg formed on the side of his head. He snorted dried blood out of his nostrils and found he could still breathe, so it wasn’t broken. Some of his teeth felt loose but none of them had been knocked free.

As soon as he stepped out of the bathroom, Mikhil ran straight into his father. Shirtless, in boxers, yawning, his vast expanse of dark flesh filled the narrow hallway. Mikhil ducked his head to hide his black eye but he was too slow. One of his dad’s big hands cupped his face.

“What’s this, you been fighting at school?” he asked.

“No!” Mikhil answered, too quickly.

“What does that mean? Someone do this to you?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Mikhil tried to slink away.

“Them boys who’ve been bothering you? Bunch of goddamn little wannabe thugs?”

“I said don’t worry about it!”

His father’s face softened. “You stay away from kids like that, you hear me? No matter what they tell you, you can come to me, okay? If they’re causing you trouble, you can come to me.”

“It’s fine, I’ve got it handled.”

Head down, Mikhil shoved past toward his bedroom. His dad let him go.

“I’ve got to get ready for my night shift,” he said. “There’s food in the fridge, you just got to heat it. You can call me if you need anything, okay?”

Mikhil shut his door and stayed quiet. His dad ran the shower and bumped around for a bit before leaving. Toshford had been a coal mining town once but its main source of industry fell apart in the Eighties and it had been dying a slow death ever since. Those who still lived there struggled to find enough work, and worked whatever shifts they could. Working across three different jobs kept Mikhil’s dad out of the apartment at all hours of the day and night. Before he left, Mikhil was tempted to come clean about everything that had happened that afternoon. To tell him what Jaeden wanted him to do and ask what he should do next. Every time he thought about getting off the bed and opening his mouth though, he was overcome with shame and guilt. Guilt because he didn’t want to burden his dad with more problems when he worked so much just to afford rent and groceries. As long as they lived in this neighbourhood, Jaeden and his crew would be on him. But they didn’t have the money to move and there was nothing else his dad could do. He’d have to deal with his own problems, like a man.

Mikhil couldn’t have slept that night even if he wanted to. With his dad gone, he tried to watch some television to pass the time and prodded at some homework. As it got closer to midnight, he dressed again in dark clothing.

Mikhil had thought little about the actual task he’d been set. He was far more worried about catching another beating from Jaeden and his crew, or about what Jaeden might ask him to do next. He wasn’t afraid of Stepping Razor. He was just an urban legend, a story, a ghost. He knew the old factory where Stepping Razor supposedly made his ‘home’ but had never been inside it. He didn’t actually know what might be there to steal.

Creeping out of their apartment, Mikhil eased the door closed behind him. He worried with perhaps outsized paranoia that he might be caught leaving by one of their neighbours and they would report him to his dad. Hoodie pulled over his head, he slipped into the night.

Cold and dark, the street was lonely with working streetlamps few and far between. Distant sirens and shouted arguments drifted from side streets over an undercurrent of television sets playing behind dimly lit windows. Mikhil wasn’t afraid of Stepping Razor but there were plenty of real things to be scared of on these streets in the middle of the night. Crackheads and other junkies, muggers and wannabe gangbangers like Jaeden and his crew, crazy homeless folk, and, of course, cops who’d want to know what a thirteen-year-old black kid was doing walking around this late at night. It was bad enough during the day.

The surrounding streets and buildings got sketchier. Light and steam poured out of an industrial laundromat. Dogs snarled behind the chainlink fence of a small scrapyard. The kind of stuff Mikhil had never really noticed before. It was like a different, even more threatening world this late at night. Heart racing, he pulled his hoodie lower and picked up his feet.

The factory where Stepping Razor’s ‘shrine’ was located was dark and ramshackle, abandoned for more than a decade. There were more gaps in the fence surrounding the place than there were actual fence palings. Mikhil slipped his phone out of his pocket but didn’t turn its flashlight on until he was inside the fence. Muddy, rutted ground surrounded the factory and he picked his way across it toward the only entrance he could see. A dark gap, like a broken tooth. He probed the entry with his light before stepping inside, heart pounding against his ribs, breath coming up short.

Unguarded, the abandoned factory looked like it would be a prime spot for the local homeless population. Mikhil squared his narrow frame and tried to look tough. He added some swagger to his steps, like he might be carrying a piece or a knife. Maybe he should have brought a knife from home, he thought. Surprisingly though, he didn’t come across any signs of homeless. Sure, there were bottles and other bits of trash, a torn pair of panties, the normal bits of urban detritus scattered across the hallway and rooms, but no sleeping bags or bits of cardboard, no signs of campfires or tents. As he negotiated his way toward the centre of the factory, he was wary as he spotted what looked like candlelight.

The main body of the warehouse was open and empty. Strange bits of machinery, too worthless to sell, too heavy to scrap, rusted to the point of being unidentifiable, lurked in the shadows. Long benches lined the far wall. Candles covered the benchtops, hundreds of candles, although only about a dozen were lit. Their tiny flames flickered in the breezes moving through the big, empty room. Others had melted into hardened puddles and mounds of wax, a hundred different colours.

Mikhil could make out more as he moved toward the tables, raising the flashlight on his phone. The candles were surrounded by other, stranger objects. Photographs and pictures. Drawings, some of them looked like the work of children. Bottles and cans of alcohol, a couple of glass bongs, pipes, and other drug paraphernalia. Dead flowers, money, not a lot but a few piles of coins, playing cards, stuff that looked like cheap souvenirs. Other things glittered in the light of his phone. Razor blades, scores of them, the rectangular kind that went in old fashioned safety razors. They’d been embedded in candles or used to pin photos to the benchtop, or just scattered among the other offerings.

Above the shrine was a painting, a massive graffiti mural so large it nearly reached the top of the factory wall. Although Mikhil had never been there before, he’d seen pictures of it. Mostly from other kids bragging about braving the factory and seeing Stepping Razor for themselves. It was much more impressive in person. A huge, laughing, leering face, framed by thick and ropey dreadlocks. Scars were cut into both of his cheeks and notched his eyebrows. His eyes glowed, bright orange, and instead of pupils he had razor blades. His teeth looked sharp, too sharp, and his tongue poked out of his mouth to reveal another razor blade resting on the tip. One hand was raised, fingers curled, nails sharpened into metal claws. And above it all was the legend, ‘YOU WANNA LIVE – TREAT ME GOOD’. Unlike other murals Mikhil saw around the neighbourhood, in spite of its obvious age no one had tagged over the top of the mural or damaged it in any way.

Stepping Razor was a real person once, supposedly. Maybe several different people whose stories had gotten blended together. Back in the Seventies, when Toshford was still a productive coal mining town, a gang called the Yardies controlled much of the traffic through the local docks. Stepping Razor was a Jamaican gangster brought into the country specifically to deal with other gangs when they started encroaching on the Yardies’ territory. His favourite tool was a razor blade. The stories said the first thing he would do with a captured enemy was slice off their eyelids so they’d be forced to watch all the other terrible things he would do to them. Bits and pieces of his victims would be strewn so far and wide that the police would never find all of them. He always carried a razor blade on him, in his clothing, sometimes hidden behind his teeth. According to one story, he’d once hidden one inside his own flesh, inside a scar he’d stitched closed, just to sneak it into gaol when he got himself arrested so he could take out an informer on the inside.

Then, one day, he just disappeared, supposedly snatched by enemies who gave him the same treatment he’d given all of his victims. With no evidence of his demise, however, he lived on like a kind of boogeyman. Something to scare children, or superstitious criminals. Somehow, he’d passed into legend, if he was ever anything but a legend to begin with, and as the town’s already meagre fortunes collapsed he became a kind of saint to the oppressed, the poor, the desperate. This abandoned factory became his church, where worshippers left him offerings either out of fear or because they were looking for some kind of favour.

Mikhil checked his phone. ‘12:02 AM’ read the screen. He was supposed to take a video and send it to Jaeden to prove he’d really been there, he remembered. He opened the camera app and started recording.

“Well, here I am, like,” he said.

Capturing the weird shrine, Mikhil swept his camera across the benches. He turned and took in the rest of the factory floor then the mural overhead. For a moment, his hands shook. Those razor blade eyes, they seemed to be looking right at him. He wasn’t afraid of ghost stories, he told himself. It occurred to him for the first time though to wonder who exactly had lit the candles. Only a few were burning but someone, or something, had clearly been there that night, not so long ago. They might still be there, hiding in the shadows behind one of the pieces of rotting machinery.

Mikhil scanned the nearest table again. He felt the need to keep his eyes away from the mural’s gaze. Jaeden had told him he had to steal something but hadn’t told him what. The money seemed like an obvious choice but the best on offer were a few dirty one pound coins among the scattered pence. Maybe he should take some of the alcohol, he thought. But he didn’t really want to try a warm beer and he worried about his dad finding the liquor.

Idly, Mikhil plucked one of the razor blades from the side of a nearby candle. He studied it for a moment before tucking it into his pocket. His phone camera captured the moment but he doubted Jaeden would consider it enough. He kept scanning across the benches until something caught his eye. A fist-sized skull, it looked like the cleaned and polished skull of a cat. Even among the random crap heaped across the tables it stood out as particularly weird. But it was kind of cool as well. He snatched it on impulse and showed it to the camera.

“There you go, I stole something,” Mikhil said. “You didn’t say what, so I’m taking this.”

Mikhil stuck the skull into the pocket on the front of his hoodie and stopped recording. He glanced one more time at the spraypainted image of Stepping Razor overhead. He stared down at Mikhil with razor blade eyes, the extra razor resting on the tip of his tongue like a tab of acid. Not that Mikhil had ever seen someone take acid, but he’d heard of it. Averting his eyes again, he hurried back across the factory and returned to the night. The candles cast leaping shadows over the mural behind him, making it look almost alive.

On the way home, Mikhil sent the video to Jaeden. It was well after midnight by then and, assuming Jaeden even remembered, he didn’t want to keep him waiting. The little wheel spun and spun as it uploaded. Mikhil kept one eye on the screen and the other on the street, not forgetting about the dangers of being out so late. Ghost story or not, part of him worried there might be one more danger out there now. A razor-toting psychopath returning from beyond the grave to get back what was stolen from him.

Mikhil made it home without any problems. His phone dinged as he walked through the door. It was a reply from Jaeden, ‘thats my boyyyy!!!’ and a bunch of laughing emojis. Mikhil felt a mix of relief but also anxiety about what might come next.

His dad was still at work but Mikhil felt exhausted and he had school tomorrow. Returning to his room, he shut the door and pulled the cat skull out of his pocket. It looked pretty cool, picked entirely clean of flesh, polished, still with its little fangs. He set it on a shelf overlooking his desk, already cluttered with toys and bits of junk. He cleaned out the rest of his pockets. Suddenly, pain lanced the tip of his finger and made him jump.

“Ow!”

Mikhil examined the end of his finger. Fat drops of blood leaked out of a narrow cut. He stuck it in his mouth and tasted the warm, coppery liquid. After a moment, he removed the finger and studied it again. The cut was barely a centimetre long, off to one side of his right index finger, but relatively deep. After a moment it started bleeding again and forced him to stick it back in his mouth. He retreated to the bathroom across the hallway where he staunched the cut with a tissue until it clotted then covered it with a bandaid. It kept stinging under the plastic strip, like an insect bite.

When Mikhil got back to his room, he felt his pocket more carefully. He found and removed the razor blade he’d taken first from Stepping Razor’s shrine then forgotten about. With a surge of anger, he hurled it into the wastepaper basket by his desk. It clipped the rim with a metallic sound then disappeared into the trash.

xXx

Mikhil must have slept eventually. He blinked and suddenly it was dawn, morning light filtering through his window. He thought he’d dreamed but he couldn’t remember the contents. Strange, surreal, dark. The image of Stepping Razor’s eyes stuck with him. The cut on his finger throbbed and the edges of the bandaid were crusty. The flesh surrounding it felt puffy and hot. He replaced the bandaid and got ready for school. Home from his night shift, his dad snored in the other bedroom.

Mikhil’s day at school was uneventful. He was distracted by dark thoughts and his throbbing finger. He didn’t even share the story of his adventure the night before with any of his friends. He waved them off when they asked about his bruised face. If he ignored Jaeden and his crew, he could pretend they didn’t exist for a few hours.

Unfortunately for Mikhil, his phone chimed with a new message when he switched it back on at the end of the school day. Another message from Jaeden, ‘meet me @ bball court bitch sumthin for u’.

Mikhil thought about taking another route home, the long way, but he figured he would only be delaying the inevitable. He was part of Jaeden’s crew now, whether he wanted to be or not. Trying to avoid him would only piss him off. His bruises from yesterday’s beating were still fresh although it was the cut on his finger that felt the most sore.

When Mikhil arrived at the basketball court, it was empty. He wondered if he should keep going, or maybe message Jaeden. Instead, he waited. Like when he’d been jumped the day before, no one else passed through the court and there was nobody else around.

With a jolt, Mikhil realised, actually, he wasn’t as alone as he’d thought. One side of the court faced an empty lot. Nothing but lumpy ground covered in trash and a muddy drainage ditch, piles of industrial waste that had been illegally dumped, and some discarded shopping trolleys. It was fenced off but no one had any reason to go in there except sometimes adventuring kids, pretending it was a warzone or an alien planet or whatever. But there was someone in there now, an adult, lingering by one of the piles of refuse. Tall and solid and dark. Dark as in black, sure, but also dark as if the shadows somehow clung to him more than they graced his surroundings. His face was framed by dreadlocks and Mikhil couldn’t make out any of his features.

Mikhil froze, like some kind of prey animal sensing danger. His pulse started to race and he didn’t know why. He felt it in his throbbing finger. The man exhaled a cloud of roiling smoke yet Mikhil hadn’t seen him inhale on anything. His hands were shoved into the pockets of an ancient army jacket. Mikhil looked away quickly once he realised he was staring. He could feel the man’s eyes crawling over him, however. He could feel the man’s razor-tipped grin as lips pulled away from his teeth.

“Yo, bruv,” a voice interrupted Mikhil’s thoughts.

Mikhil made a yelping noise and jerked away. His shoulder brushed the chainlink fence surrounding the court and made it rattle. Jaeden, equally surprised by Mikhil’s reaction, barked with laughter.

“What the fuck, bitch? Fuck is with you?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Mikhil said. “There was a guy there, I was distracted or whatever.”

Mikhil gestured but the man with the dreadlocks was gone. He looked about in confusion. The stranger must have stepped behind the pile of broken concrete, or slipped into the drainage ditch. Probably he was a homeless guy with a hidden camp. But the disappearance felt deliberate.

Jaeden was alone, without his crew. He carried a backpack, it looked like his old schoolbag, over one shoulder.

“Stealing from Stepping Razor got you fucking pissing yourself or something?” Jaeden smirked.

“No, it was fine, whatever,” Mikhil said. “I didn’t bring the-, thing, the skull, with me, if that’s what you wanted.”

“Nah, bruv, I seen the video, you’re good.”

“Why? Why Stepping Razor? Why get me to take something from him? It was just a bunch of junk that no one would care about.”

“You ain’t hear, bitch? Stepping Razor don’t play, no one fucks with his shit or else he comes for you. Heard of some kid, thought he could go stealing some of the shit people left out for him. They found him all sliced up, eyelids cut off and everything.”

Mikhil felt a cold twist in his gut. “Yeah, right, he’s not even real!”

“Nothing to worry about then, with the fucking balls on you. Even if they haven’t dropped yet, huh?” Jaeden grinned.

“Did you want me here for something?”

“Yeah, now you’re part of the crew I got something for you. I just need you to hold onto it, yeah? Don’t let your ‘rents find it or nothing. Hold onto it until I say bring it to me and then you fucking bring it whenever I say.”

Unzipping his bag, Jaeden looked around to make sure they weren’t being watched. He pulled out an old biscuit tin, its sides dented and scuffed. It looked like the kind of tin someone’s nan would keep their sewing supplies in. Something heavy and metallic jostled around inside.

“What is it?” Mikhil asked.

“Why don’t you have a look?” Jaeden said with another evil grin.

Cracking the lid, Mikhil peered into the tin as if afraid something would leap out at him. Oily and black, a dense, L-shaped object rested inside. Little brass cylinders rattled loose around it.

“Shit, is that real? A real gun?” Mikhil gaped.

“You believe it’s real, bitch.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Someone gave it to me to hold onto, now I’m giving it to you. Hold onto it, fucking hide it, like don’t let no one else see it. When I say it’s time, might be a week, or a month, or whenever, you bring it wherever I fucking tell you soon as I tell you.”

“I can’t hide this! What if my dad finds it?”

Jaeden was suddenly in Mikhil’s face again, eyes burning, teeth bared. He jabbed Mikhil hard in the chest.

“He better fucking not, you hear me? No one better fucking know about the piece. Hide it good, and do what I fucking tell you, or I’ll find a reason to use it.”

“Okay, okay! Sorry!” Mikhil backed down quickly, and snapped the tin closed. “I’ll hide it.”

“My boy!” Jaeden turned all smiles again, slapping Mikhil on the arm. “Here, got you something else. Think of it like your first paycheque.”

Jaeden pulled a baggie filled with dark green material out of his pocket. Crushed up leaves, thick with stems and seeds. Mikhil knew enough to recognise it as weed although he’d never smoked any. Jaeden shoved it into his hands as well.

“I don’t want it!” Mikhil hissed.

“Take it! Smoke it, sell it, it’s yours. You one of us now, you got some good shit coming your way too.”

Mikhil shoved both the tin and the baggie into his bag. Terrified, he hurried the rest of the way home. The biscuit tin seemed to weigh as much as a bowling ball. His heart lurched as he worried he was going to be followed or stopped and searched.

Just before Mikhil reached his building, he saw someone on the street. The guy with the dreadlocks. Shadows wrapped around him but Mikhil could see a sharp grin as he breathed out another cloud of smoke. Mikhil made a strangled noise in his throat. Did he know? Had he been watching? Maybe he’d been following Jaeden and meant to steal the gun. Now, he wanted to take it from Mikhil instead. But instead of coming after him, the stranger stayed at the street corner with his hands shoved in his pockets. Mikhil hurried up the steps to the front door and his hands shook as he unlocked it.

Mikhil’s dad wasn’t home when he let himself in, to his great relief. Heading to his room, he scooped the biscuit tin out of his bag. Nervously, he opened the tin again. The gun was still there, and real. It looked like an old army pistol, a little battered, its sides greasy. He went to pick it up then thought better of it. He didn’t want his fingerprints on the weapon. On impulse, he shoved the weed into the tin as well and closed it.

Mikhil’s room was cluttered and his dad almost never came in there. Mikhil was expected to take care of his own laundry and not leave stuff like plates and forks lying around the room. That was part of being a man according to his father. Still, he wasn’t sure where to hide the tin where he could be one hundred percent certain his dad wouldn’t find it. Pulling his closet open, he dug down below a layer of old clothing and shoes. Some board games and boxes of toys from when he was a kid were heaped at the back. He tucked the tin with the gun and weed underneath them then piled everything back on top to disguise it. Still, he felt horribly aware of the container and its contents as he closed the closet and retreated to his bed. It was like a neon sign was pointed right at his closest door, promising illegal shit inside.

When Mikhil’s dad got home though, he rolled almost straight into bed. He only paused to check Mikhil hadn’t been fighting or getting into any kind of trouble that day. Mikhil felt like the lies must be all over his face but his dad was too exhausted to be suspicious. He gave Mikhil some money for takeout then went to bed.

Later that evening, Mikhil felt wired from nerves but exhausted as well. The lack of sleep the night before and the general stress wore on him. The gun buried in his closet sent out waves of danger, like something radioactive. He faced away from it in bed and pulled the blanket up to his ears to shield himself, and eventually fell asleep.

Nightmares pursued him through his sleep. He was being chased by something with blazing eyes and claws as thin and sharp as razor blades. It spoke, taunting him, with a black and smokey voice.

“Boy, boy, up yourself now. Open dem eyes.”

The voice pulled Mikhil from sleep. He found himself blinking in confusion back in his room. His heart raced and he still felt like he was being chased. Then the voice came again.

“Gon’ keep me waiting all night, boy? Up yourself.”

The voice came from Mikhil’s bedroom window. From both faraway and in a whisper. He found himself getting up and walking to the window as if his body was moving on its own.

“There he be, the little t’ief. You think you can t’ief from me, boy? Nobody t’ief from me.”

The street was empty. Nothing moved outside Mikhil’s window except for a single figure moulded out of the shadows. They stood directly across the road on the opposite sidewalk, staring up at his apartment. He couldn’t see their features, only a silhouette, but he could make out the shape of the dreadlocks heaped on their head and falling to their shoulders. A tall, solid frame wearing a crumpled jacket, jeans, and heavy boots. The homeless guy he’d seen earlier that afternoon. Except that wasn’t who it really was.

“Stepping Razor,” Mikhil said.

“One and the same, boy,” Stepping Razor replied, voice far and near. “Put some respect on my name.”

Two orange lights took shape in Stepping Razor’s face, like twin embers from a couple of cigarettes. Stepping Razor’s eyes, shiny in the darkness. He huffed smoke.

“What-, what do you want from me?”

“You dun know, boy, you t’ief from me. Sleep tight, me soon come.”

“What if I give you the thing back? Is that all? Will that do it?”

“Lickkle more, boy. Inna morrows, bless up yourself.” Stepping Razor’s eyes burned.

xXx

The next thing Mikhil knew, he was waking up in his bed again. He jolted against the mattress in sudden terror. The movement jarred his injured finger and caused a frisson of pain to shoot up his arm.

The short conversation with Stepping Razor remained fresh in his mind. Too fresh with morning sunlight falling through his window. It must have been a dream. It had felt like a dream, and yet not. It had to be, there was no Stepping Razor. Not anymore, if he’d ever existed.

Mikhil’s finger ached. Instead of getting better, overnight it had gotten worse. He worried he might have caught something from the dirty razor blade, some kind of infection. The flesh looked swollen, like an overcooked hotdog. The crusty bandaid dug into the surrounding skin. He tried to bend it and the joints felt stiff, and the pressure sent throbbing waves of pain through his knuckle and the back of his hand.

“Come on, man! Come on, fuck!”

It was too much. The thought he’d caught some kind of disease in his finger was too much. Jaeden, the gun, dreams about Stepping Razor, and now this. On the verge of tears or a rageful screaming fit, Mikhil stomped out of his room to the bathroom. Peeling off the bandaid, he revealed the cut looking scabby and inflamed. It stung again as it kissed the air. Under the pad of his fingertip, a reservoir of pus was building.

Mikhil picked at the scabby flesh, revealing raw pink underneath, but the pus didn’t give way. Digging at it with his thumbnail made his eyes water. The pain seemed entirely outsized for something so small. Finally, he used the thumb and index finger of his left hand to form a tight ring at the base of his swollen right index finger. Squeezing, he moved steadily upward from the base, over the joint, toward the tip. Slowly, intently, feeling the pressure build until it felt like the tip of his finger was going to pop off. A head of blood and pus swelled around the cut. Finally, the thinner flesh ruptured. Holding the tip of his finger over the sink, he spurted grey-green pus onto the porcelain. A spoiled smell reached his nostrils.

Mikhil felt, in equal parts, disgusted and relieved. Milking the finger, he kept pushing the reservoir of pus toward the tip. More discharge, tinged with pink, bubbled out of the cut. More than it seemed possible for his finger to hold. It drooled off the tip and smattered the sink, not running toward the drain but sitting there heavy and jellied. When the cut finally ran clean, he turned on the cold tap and washed the crap away. He held his finger under the running water and rinsed out the last red strings of blood before drying around the cut carefully and applying another bandaid. When he tested the finger it felt a little rusty but bent without issue. He decided that must be good enough and pushed his concerns about infection out of his head.

School was, again, uneventful, but he could hardly concentrate. Every moment, Mikhil thought he was going to be called out of class and told to go to the principal’s office where he would see his father flanked by a couple of cops, and he’d be asked to explain the gun found in his room. He checked his phone when he could, expecting a message from Jaeden. Either he’d want Mikhil to leave school and bring him the gun or he’d tell him to meet him for some other, even worse thing. Fortunately, no such message appeared. Then, there was Stepping Razor. No matter how many times he told himself it was only a dream, the explanation failed to stick. It didn’t explain seeing the same homeless guy the day before, with the same dreads and army jacket and shadowy presence. Compared to all that, his sore finger hardly rated.

“Mr Bennings? Mr Bennings! Mikhil!”

The voice of Mikhil’s teacher broke through his anxious daydreams. He jumped and the glassy look left his eyes. The rest of the classroom giggled and watched expectantly.

“Sorry, sir?” Mikhil said.

“Are you with us?” Mr Greyson said. “Would you like to give an answer to the question I just asked you?”

Mikhil had no idea what they were meant to be learning. “Uh, no, sir, sorry, sir. Do you mind if I go to the lav?”

More laughter. Mr Greyson looked exasperated.

“Very well, Mr Bennings, but don’t be long. And don’t take your phone!”

Mikhil would have liked to check his messages but he did as asked. Head ducked low, he slipped out of his seat and hurried out of the room.

The corridor was empty. Droning voices came from the surrounding classrooms, blurred and meaningless. Mikhil moved quickly until he was out of sight. He didn’t really need to use the toilet, he just had to take a few moments to gather his thoughts. He considered whether he could just take off from school before his next class but he was pretty sure his dad was home early that day and he didn’t know where else to go.

“Lickkle t’ief, where you gon’, lickkle t’ief?” a voice echoed down the corridor like a cold wind.

“What?” Mikhil spun in place. “What? Who’s there?”

“Who you t’ink, boy? Be serious now!”

A squeaking, high pitched scraping sound, like nails on a chalkboard, came from one of the windows overlooking the nearest courtyard. Before Mikhil’s eyes, a white scratch appeared on the glass. It wormed its way toward him, growing, like the work of an invisible razor blade. Mikhil wheeled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet.

“No, you can’t be here!” Mikhil said.

“Where can I be?” Stepping Razor replied.

The hallway remained empty but the damage on the window grew. Mikhil saw a ghost of a reflection, saw the dreadlocks, the embers for eyes. He kept backing up toward the bathrooms. The window ended but the scraping continued across the brick wall beyond it. Parallel lines appear above and below it. Four in all, like claw marks.

“You’re not real! You’re not!”

“What it is, it is.”

A poster got in the way of Stepping Razor’s slashing claws and it fell to tatters. Grooves carved across the bricks, dust tumbling down the wall behind them. Mikhil slapped himself across the face. It didn’t feel like any dream.

“You t’ief from me, boy, what you got come,” Stepping Razor growled, invisible.

Mikhil looked back and saw the boy’s bathroom. He slammed into its door, shouldering it open. Too late he realised that he shouldn’t be letting himself get cornered. The door had a lock on it, however, and he slapped its latch into place. Listening, he heard something scrape the door but then it was gone, quiet.

The bathroom was empty. Mikhil paced the length of it to be sure. The stink of urine and industrial cleaner filled his nostrils. He breathed deeply anyway, gulping air out of sheer panic. Then he saw movement in the mirror that didn’t belong. A dark figure, clad in shadows, grinning a razor grin.

“Mr Bennings? Mikhil, are you with us?”

Mikhil jolted hard enough to scuff his chair against the floor. A few of his classmates let out barks of laughter. Mr Greyson looked at him again with concern. He was in class, had he fallen asleep? Had he dreamed the whole thing? It felt so real.

“Sorry, sir?”

Mr Greyson huffed. “I said, are you with us?”

“I mean, yes, sir, sorry,” Mikhil said. “Could I use the lav?”

“Again?”

Mikhil’s eyes widened. A few more classmates laughed and whispered until Greyson shushed them.

“Again, sir?” Mikhil said.

“You just got back a few minutes ago. Are you feeling alright?”

xXx

Mikhil made it through the rest of the day with no more encounters with Stepping Razor. Or dreams or fugues or whatever. No, he was real. This was really happening. After school, Mikhil ran home. He hadn’t gotten any new messages from Jaeden but he avoided the basketball court just in case.

His dad was in the living room when Mikhil got back, enjoying a rare break between shifts where he had time to do more than just sleep. Nursing a mug of strong, sugary, black tea, he stared at a replay of a football match on the TV. He looked pleased to see his son walk through the front door.

“Hey, dad.”

“Come sit with me for a while, kid.” His dad set a hand on the sofa beside him.

“I don’t know, I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Come on, a little bit of time with your old man.”

Mikhil sat beside him but his mind kept racing with what had happened that day, and everything else he’d been going through. Football played on the TV but he didn’t pay much attention to the match. His dad looked content just to sit there.

“Dad, you know anything about Stepping Razor?” Mikhil asked on impulse.

His dad laughed. “Stepping Razor? You mean the old ghost story?”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, some kids were talking about him at school. They said he was real. I mean, not that the ghost story was real, that’d be mad! But that he was based on a real person.”

“Well, I’m not sure to tell you the truth. I think there was different versions of the story when I was a kid. One was that he was a Yardie who cut up people for his gang. I think another one was that he was just a regular guy, an immigrant from Jamaica, until someone killed him and killed his family. Maybe they were Yardies or maybe racists, I don’t know? It was sometime back in the Seventies. Then he came back as a ghost or something and took revenge.”

“Really?”

“I mean, they’re just stories. But I guess sometimes stories get a life of their own. I guess you heard there’s like a-, I don’t know what you call it, an altar to him in some old factory near here, right?”

“Uh, yeah, they talked about that.”

“People pray to him, I guess. I think some of them ask him for protection, or they even ask him to go after their enemies.”

“They do?”

He laughed again. “Yeah, can you imagine? A ghost hitman or something?”

“Yeah, right.” Mikhil faked a weak laugh. “They were talking about some other story, where a kid was dared to steal from him and he disappeared?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think I remember that one. Right when the picture of him was painted and people first started leaving things. There was some kind of game about leaving messages for him, one kid decided to steal from him instead and he disappeared. They found him again though.”

“They found him?”

“Well, most of him,” he said, and laughed. “I’m just kidding! Your face, kid. I don’t really remember anything happening. It’s just a story.”

“What if someone took something and then brought it back?” Mikhil asked.

“Uh, I don’t know, kid. I don’t know that much about the stories to be honest. You alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. I was just wondering.”

After his dad left for his night shift, Mikhil kept thinking. Back in his room, he picked up the cat skull he’d stolen. It was a lot of stress over nothing. He would return the skull but he worried about walking back into Stepping Razor’s home. Like walking straight into the lion’s den. Surely it was worth a shot? He suspected it wasn’t really about the skull but about the insult of stealing, thieving, from him. Stepping Razor was offended Mikhil would dare take something, anything, from him. If he really had human feelings that is. Maybe the ghost was relishing the chance to punish someone.

Mikhil’s phone vibrated. His stomach sank as he looked at the screen and saw it was another message from Jaeden. ‘my crib 3/36 clark st now’, the first message read. The second consisted of a bunch of gun emojis, or at least green and orange water pistols that Mikhil knew were meant to represent the gun when Jaeden followed them up with ‘bring it’.

“You only gave me the gun yesterday,” Mikhil said aloud, without messaging back. “Why would you need it back already? Another test?”

A sudden burst of inspiration hit him. Mikhil crossed to his desk and tore a sheet of paper from one of his notebooks. He remembered the pictures and even drawings that littered Stepping Razor’s shrine. Were they requests for protection, or targets?

“A ghost hitman,” Mikhil said.

Mikhil’s index finger still pained him. The joints had started feeling stiff and swollen again, and he suspected more pus was building under the cut. He’d not done much drawing since he was a kid either. The sketch on his paper looked like the work of a child he would have to admit. Half a dozen crude stick figures. He labelled them with names, Jaeden and Deacon and the other members of Jaeden’s crew whose names he could remember. Then, taking a red pen, he scratched geysers of blood leaking out of the figures’ necks, their chests, and pouring out of their eyes.

Done with the picture, he folded it and folded it again. Moving to the closet, he tossed aside the old clothes and board games to find Jaeden’s biscuit tin. He opened it to check the contents. The pistol and, even more importantly, the bag of weed that Jaeden had given him as ‘payment’.

Mikhil dressed in his jeans and hoodie then took the cat skull, stuffing it into his hoodie’s front pocket, and the biscuit tin. The tin and his crude picture he stuffed into his backpack. Before he could overthink things and change his mind, he left the apartment and hit the street.

Mikhil returned along the same route he’d taken around midnight a couple of nights ago. It was only just after dusk now, however. The streets and sidewalks were busier but people pointed their eyes down and kept to themselves. He wasn’t worried about crackheads and cops now though, too occupied with where he was going and what he was about to try.

Mikhil’s phone started vibrating in his pocket. He thought about ignoring it but after a few moments of hesitation he pulled it out. As he’d expected, it was a call from Jaeden. Mikhil hadn’t answered his messages so he’d decided to call.

“Yeah?” Mikhil answered.

“Where the fuck are you, bitch? You see my messages?”

“I just saw them, I was with my dad!”

“Where you at?”

“I’m on my way to you, I’ve got the-, I’ve got the thing.”

“You better be, bitch. I shouldn’t have given it to you, I got in some shit about it. I need it back.”

“I’ll bring it, I’ll be there soon.”

“When?”

“Soon, soon.”

“You fucking better be, bitch. The rest of the crew, they’re all here.”

Jaeden hung up. Mikhil stuck the phone back in his pocket and doubled his pace. He moved through the old industrial area to the abandoned factory again. Crossing the muddy yard, he slipped into the building the same way he’d done before.

Mikhil used his phone’s flashlight to find his way inside. Candles were lit along the length of the shrine again but no one was around. He wondered if someone took it on themselves to make sure the candles were lit around the clock. That would be why there were so many mounds of wax. The mural of Stepping Razor loomed over it all, staring, presenting the razor blade on his tongue.

“I’m sorry, alright?” Mikhil said. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know, I didn’t know you were real.”

Mikhil took the cat skull from his pocket and set it back, roughly, where he’d found it. Opening his backpack, he removed the picture he’d drawn of Jaeden and his crew as well as the biscuit tin.

“There, it’s back, okay? I’m giving it back. And, it wasn’t my fault, this is the guy who made me do it! This guy, Jaeden, and these other guys. They made me do it or they were going to kill me!”

Taking one of the razor blades scattered around the nearest bench, Mikhil pinned his drawing to one of the unlit candles. He opened the biscuit tin and removed the bag of weed that Jaeden had given him as well then set it down by the picture.

“A gift! A gift for you, or an offering, or whatever. I’m sorry, and-, and, if you want to punish somebody, you could punish them! Kill them, if you want to kill someone, please!”

Backing away, Mikhil kept his eyes on Stepping Razor’s portrait. Its glowing orange eyes followed him back to the wreckage of the hallway leading outside.

Mikhil had thought about leaving Jaeden’s gun behind as well, as part of his offering, but that would be putting a lot of faith into what was a pretty crazy plan. And if he ‘lost’ the gun then he didn’t know what Jaeden would do to him. Besides, he was pretty sure guns weren’t Stepping Razor’s style. He stuffed the tin with the pistol back inside his backpack then hurried over to Jaeden’s place.

36 Clark Street was in the other direction. The building was not so different from the one where Mikhil and his dad lived. He heard music pounding as he mounted the front steps. The door to the building was open so he made his way inside. He wasn’t surprised to find the music coming from apartment three on the ground floor. When he knocked, no one answered. Part of him hoped that maybe Stepping Razor had already finished the job but between peaks in the music he heard raised voices and what sounded like a video game. After a few moments, he tried the handle and found the apartment door unlocked as well.

The apartment was dimly lit and looked like an animal’s den. Bottles and cans and takeout trash was heaped across the floor. Most of the light came from a big screen television flat against one wall. The TV and a game system hooked up to it were fresh out of the box but the furniture surrounding them looked like stuff picked up off the street. The TV showed a split screen view of two different supersoldiers chewing through wave after wave of aliens with gatling lasers.

Jaeden sat in the larger of the two armchairs facing the TV, directly across the room. Seeing Mikhil let himself in, he shot to his feet. Two of his crew occupied the sofa in front of the TV, steering game controllers, while three more were spread across the other armchair and the floor. A couple of them glared at Mikhil with open hostility. All of them had been there at his ‘initiation’ the other day and had featured in his drawing for Stepping Razor.

“About fucking time you got here!” Jaeden said. “Where the fuck you been at?”

“I was out there, I knocked.” Mikhil gestured vaguely at the hallway.

“Get in here and close the fucking door! What I say jump, you jump, motherfucker!”

Mikhil shut the door and followed Jaeden toward the apartment’s small kitchenette. None of the appliances looked like they’d been used in years. White powder, Mikhil thought it must be cocaine, dusted the nearest countertop.

“Uh, you live here? Is this your parents’ place?” Mikhil asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jaeden said. “You brought the piece?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

Mikhil pulled the biscuit tin out of his backpack and handed it carefully to Jaeden, like a bomb. Jaeden flipped the lid open to check on the gun. Noticing how nervous it made Mikhil, he scooped it out of the container and brandished it in front of Mikhil’s face. Pinching the slide, he pulled it backward and racked the empty gun with a noise that made Mikhil jump.

“You’re not going to use it on someone, are you?” Mikhil asked.

“I was supposed to be holding onto it for a guy, Gav, you’ll meet him. When I told him I handed it off to you, he was pretty pissed,” Jaeden admitted.

“Makes sense.”

A dark look passed over Jaeden’s face. “Makes sense, like, what? Like I’m a fucking idiot for giving you the gun to hold onto? Like I don’t make sense?”

Jaeden jabbed the gun forward at Mikhil’s face. Although he was pretty sure the weapon was empty, Mikhil retreated with raw terror on his face.

“I just meant, like, you know me, and I-, I’m glad you trust me and all, but he doesn’t know me, right? And he must only trust you.”

Jaeden had looked angry enough to pull the trigger but he suddenly laughed and relaxed. “Yeah, you’re right, no big thing,” he said. “You want a beer, bruv? Want to smoke a bowl?”

“I’d better get home again, to my dad.”

“No, stay,” Jaeden said, in a tone that made it clear it wasn’t a suggestion. “Don’t worry about these motherfuckers, these are your boys now. Fucking hang with us.”

“Okay, I’ll drink a beer, I guess?”

Jaeden got Mikhil a can of lager from the fridge then steered him into the living room. The crew started a new match on the big screen. Jaeden sat back in his armchair and Mikhil was forced to perch on the arm of the sofa next to him.

Mikhil had never had a beer before. His dad had let him taste one a couple of times but never more than a sip. The can of lager was sour and made his throat close but he forced himself to drink it. Jaeden pulled out a glass pipe filled with something Mikhil couldn’t identify and smoked it, creating a sharp, pissy smell. Music thundered. For a while, the others played their game and ignored him. He found himself jumping at sounds that seemed out of place, thinking of the offer he’d made to Stepping Razor. He began to feel stupid. No ghostly, monstrous presence was coming to save him or rid him of Jaeden and his crew.

“Can I ask you something?” Mikhil said.

Jaeden’s eyes looked a little wild as they snapped toward him but his voice sounded relatively calm. “What?”

“Why me? Why did you want me so bad for your crew?”

“Because you’re my boy!” Jaeden’s teeth gnashed. “We grew up in the same hood!”

“I guess?”

“Remember that time when I was like, fuck, bruv, I was about nine so I guess you were six-years-old or some shit? School was trying to make some cash selling all these chocolate bars so me and you decided to gank a whole box of them. I sent you around to steal one while I was going to distract some motherfuckers but, like, they caught you first. They wanted to know who told you to do it but you didn’t fucking roll on me. I thought, that’s a solid little homie right there.”

Mikhil wracked his brain but he had no memory of what Jaeden was talking about. Jaeden had always kind of been there, around the same neighbourhood, a couple of years above him in school until he stopped going, but Mikhil had no specific memories of him really. Maybe that event meant more to Jaeden, or maybe Jaeden was actually mixing him up with some other kid if it was that many years ago.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Shit, bruv, you’re a questioning motherfucker! What is it?” Jaeden replied.

“Why Stepping Razor? Why did you send me to steal something from him as a test or whatever?”

Jaeden looked genuinely confused by the question. “Fuck, bruv, I don’t know,” he said. “I thought it’d be funny. I heard the stories, you know, about him killing kids who steal from him and I thought you’d piss your pants over it, but you did it anyway!”

“So it’s just stories?”

“Course it’s just fucking stories! What the fuck do you think?” Jaeden laughed.

Suddenly, the power flared and died, plunging the room into darkness. The music that Mikhil and Jaeden had almost needed to shout over vanished in the same instant and left only a faint ringing in its wake. The television, in the middle of a game, went black. One of the two guys playing it, Deacon, cursed and threw his controller across the room.

“What the fuck?” Jaeden spat.

Several of Jaeden’s crew pulled out their phones and used them to light the room. Mikhil felt his heart thumping. Could it really be real? The pounding grew twice as hard as he heard a scraping sound coming from the apartment door.

“Fuck is that?” Jaeden said.

It sounded like a big cat scratching to be let in. Mikhil had an easy time picturing razor blade fingers carving against the outside of the door. No one paid him any mind. It took the rest of the crew a few moments to identify the source of the sound.

“Deac, check it out,” Jaeden said.

Deacon got off the sofa without argument and made his way to the door, phone in hand. The hallway still had light when he swung the door open. Framed in the entrance was a tall, solid man with thick dreadlocks. Stepping Razor. His eyes caught the light and glowed orange like those of an animal.

“Yeah? Fuck you want, bruv?” Deacon said, deepening his voice. “Can I do something for you?”

“I been give this,” Stepping Razor said.

In one hand, Stepping Razor showed off the drawing that Mikhil had left at his shrine. Mikhil felt like he was going to be sick. There was no way any of the others could get a good enough look at it to understand what it was, however.

“Fuck is that s’pose to be? You draw that, bruv? You want to put it up on the fridge?” Deacon laughed, playing it up for the others.

Stepping Razor reached forward as Deacon was half-turned away from him. Almost gently, he ran his thumb across Deacon’s throat like he was going to cup his face. Deacon flinched and jerked away.

“Fuck you touching me, you fa-, fa-,”

Blood surged suddenly out of Deacon’s mouth, frothy as it spilled down his chin. His eyes went wide. Across his throat, a red line appeared exactly where Stepping Razor had touched him. His head tilted back and the flesh parted, split as if via a razor blade. His carotid arteries sprayed, twin fountains that splashed Stepping Razor across the face and painted the side of the doorway.

The room exploded. Jaeden and his crew hurtled to their feet, shouting and swearing over one another. Mikhil was the only one who didn’t move, perched on the arm of the sofa. Deacon’s legs went out from under him and he tumbled to the filthy carpet, clutching at his neck.

“What the fuck?”

“Deac! Shit!”

“Fuck!”

Another member of Jaeden’s crew threw himself at Stepping Razor. Jonathan, a white boy, fifteen but tall, strong, almost the same size as Stepping Razor himself. Yelling, he hauled one fist around in a sweeping circle. Stepping Razor didn’t react until the very last second when a hand flashed. In spite of the speed of the movement, Mikhil could swear he got a split-second glimpse of the ends of Stepping Razor’s fingertips transforming. Sharpening into razor blades complete with squared edges.

Stepping Razor’s index and middle fingers rammed into Jonathan’s eyes, splitting them open. The fingers buried themselves deep in his sockets. Jonathan wrenched backward and screamed. Stepping Razor’s thumb hooked the teenager in the mouth, gripping his face like a bowling ball. Hauling him sideways he slammed Jonathan’s head against the wall then pulled. Jonathan’s nose and sockets and a good portion of his face came away in Stepping Razor’s grip. Blood gushed as the teen collapsed to the floor.

Another member of Jaeden’s crew leapt at Stepping Razor while he was distracted with Jonathan. Stepping Razor backhanded him, the ends of his fingers raking through the boy’s throat and tearing it completely out. A firehose spray shot through the air as he spun, casting blood around the room.

“Fuck! What the fuck? The fuck?” Jaeden wheeled toward the kitchen.

The remaining members of Jaeden’s crew tackled Stepping Razor at once. Working together, the two of them snatched his arms and wrestled them to his sides. Stepping Razor only laughed. His eyes blazed. Jaw working, he seemed to root around in his mouth for a moment then produced a razor blade on the tip of his tongue. He clenched the razor in his front teeth then jerked his head forward. The blade slit through one boy’s left eye. He released Stepping Razor’s arm and fell backward, screaming. Clear, viscous fluid rolled down his cheek. Laughing again, Stepping Razor swallowed the blade then lashed out using his own stiffened fingers like a dagger, ramming it into chests and throats, opening arteries in fanning spurts.

Jaeden reached the countertop between the apartment’s living room and its kitchenette. He snatched the biscuit tin that Mikhil had brought him, ripping it open. Fetching the greasy pistol, he also removed an empty magazine from the tin then started ramming loose bullets into its stack.

Stepping Razor finished with the others. Blood splattered the walls, the furniture, and the screen of the television. Mikhil sat in the same place, on the arm of the sofa, watching with wide, disbelieving eyes as the ghost, the legend, walked right by him. More blood ran from both of his hands.

Hands shaking violently, Jaeden managed to load the pistol. He whipped around and pointed it at Stepping Razor.

“Who the fuck are you, bruv?” Jaeden screamed. “What are you?”

Stepping Razor didn’t answer. As he continued forward, Jaeden fired. The loud, flat bang echoed through the apartment. Mikhil dropped the can of lager and went to cover his ears. The first shot punched Stepping Razor in the chest. Jaeden fired again and again, holes tearing through Stepping Razor’s army jacket, but he didn’t slow down or show any signs of pain. Eyes glowing, he laughed and lunged as Jaeden emptied his pistol. Grabbing Jaeden around the head, he wrenched him sideways and dragged him deeper into the apartment.

Mikhil kept his hands over his ears but he could hear the screams. They seemed to go on and on forever. In spite of the gunshots and all the other noise, no one came to investigate. The door to the hallway remained open. Bodies were scattered across the floor.

Eventually, Stepping Razor returned. More blood covered his sleeves and ran off his terrible hands. He stood over Mikhil on the couch.

“Irie, it’s done.” Stepping Razor smiled.

Mikhil chanced a look up into Stepping Razor’s eyes. “Thank-, thank you?

“You should thank me none yet, little t’ief. I and I is square on your contract, but there still the matter of you t’iefing from me.”

“But I returned it! It was just the cat skull, I returned it!”

“Not everyt’ing.”

Stepping Razor cast a significant look at Mikhil’s hands. Mikhil followed the monster’s gaze to his right hand and his index finger. It stuck out, feeling stiff again, a bandaid digging into the swollen flesh. He’d injured it on the razor blade he pocketed back at Stepping Razor’s shrine. Slitting the finger after he forgot about it in his pocket, he’d thrown the razor away and promptly forgot it again.

“No, man, you can’t be serious!” Mikhil said. “It’s just one razor blade! I can get you more!”

“Aye, but I got a reputation to hold up, you feeling me?”

Razor-tipped fingers grabbed Mikhil by the throat and hauled him off the arm of the sofa. Screaming and kicking, Mikhil fought with all his strength, feet dragging in the blood across the floor, as Stepping Razor pulled him out of the apartment. They’d find him eventually, Mikhil thought desperately. But not all of him.

======

Sean: Taking some inspiration from the ‘Candyman’ film series for this one! RIP Tony Todd. Love Candyman, I think he’s the most underrated of the slashers and I wish there were, like, twenty more films in the series. I would love a terrible sequel where Candyman goes to space and becomes a cyborg. Or Candyman turns out to be real and starts killing people who are making a movie about him in the real world. Or they had actually made the proposed Candyman vs Leprechaun film which, yes, sounds absolutely awful, that’s the point! All the Candyman films are just so good, the character deserved some awful films as well! For the record, the Leprechaun also got a terrible sequel set in space as well.

One great thing the Candyman films do in step with those other slasher films though is they ignore the absolute shit out of any sense of continuity. Whatever works for the story in this particular film, that’s what we’re doing now. And I love how the 2021 film kind of leans into that. You know, Candyman was always about the legend surrounding the figure and how that made him real and then the 2021 film is about how legends do change and get updated and repeat themselves, which I thought was really cool. I think you can see elements of that here, in Stepping Razor.

Things have been going great with the new baby! Genuinely, we got a good one. You hear a lot of warnings about the screaming and the lack of sleep and certainly we were bracing ourselves for a bad time but, well, it just hasn’t happened. She’s been eating and sleeping really well since the beginning, and sure sometimes she can be fussy for a longer stretch but I genuinely haven’t had a situation where I couldn’t stop her screaming in less than a minute. Tess and I have been taking it in shifts overnight so we’re both getting a decent amount of sleep. This isn’t me being an arsehole and leaving baby raising to the womenfolk, she will tell you the same thing. I really didn’t think it was possible for a new-born baby to be as well behaved as she is. And obviously we love her! Can’t imagine life without her now.

All the Mixtape songs for the remainder of the year are now out on Spotify, so check out what’s happening for the rest of the year! And I’ve been a bit lax while adjusting to life with the baby but you can find more from me on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram.

Next Track: INXS – Devil Inside