The Karma Book

This is a story I wrote a long, long time ago for a short story contest ... I think.

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Sitting on a hard milk crate, Andrew bit into a turkey wrap in his uncle’s dark musty attic, pondering why people hang onto useless junk. Being his uncle’s only living relative, naturally he inherited the entire estate, which amounted to a rusted 1983 Ford Escort and an 87 year old dilapidated brick rancher in Hackensack, NJ. He had cleared his weekend, reluctantly, to clean out the old house for a quick sale. As of Sunday morning, the only thing left to do was clean out the attic and then he could return to the lavish lifestyle he had come to know from his success as a fund manager on Wall Street. Having to do work like this on his well-deserved weekend cramped his way of living, but his wife insisted. “He is your uncle who obviously loved you very much.” she would say.

Andrew finished eating and sorted through the rest of the attic, throwing out just about everything he saw. The sight of only a few boxes left in the corner eased his nerves as he had looked over what must have been every book his uncle ever read. One particular one on top of the stack stood out as it was bound in an old weathered brown leather jacket with gold leaf edges. A swipe of the dust on the cover allowed him to make out the title: The Karma Book. The term “karma” wasn’t entirely new to him; some hippie had once preached about it to him. What goes around comes around – or some shit like that. He cracked the book open to find it riddled with blood and instantly threw it in the trash as though casting away any diseases that may have jumped out of the pages. However, curiosity had been planted from The Karma Book and it wasn’t long before Andrew was digging the book out from the bottom of the trash.

What kind of weird satanic shit was his uncle up to? With a precision grip on the edges of the book cover, Andrew delicately flipped it open. Every page showcased splatters of blood - like some kind of freakish Jackson Pollock inspired artwork. Strangely, names accompanied the blood and nothing else. Name after name, blood splatter after blood splatter. A slow chill crawled slowly up his back as the house turned painfully silent, every creak and crack from the old wood amplifying tenfold. A cockroach scurried up an adjacent wall, reminding him of a movie in which the devil had taken the form of a thousand cockroaches.

The last name entered in the book was Roger Harrison, followed by blood. With it all being too much to digest at that moment and the urgent need to get out of the creepy old house, he snapped the book shut and quickly finished clearing out the boxes, only to pack away an old photo album he kept to appease his wife. Upon standing to make his exit, a newspaper clipping fell from The Karma Book. He picked it up and read it:

Man Gets Month in Jail for Animal Cruelty, Then Mauled at Facility
Local resident, Roger Harrison, received the county’s first conviction for cruelty to animals. Harrison reportedly picked up stray dogs in the neighborhood for use in his backyard dog-fighting ring. One neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, claimed Harrison stole his Irish Setter for involvement in the dog-fighting ring. On his departure from the correctional institution, two stray Pit Bulls attacked Roger Harrison causing injuries that required over 300 stitches.

That’s an odd article to keep, Andrew thought, as he put the news clipping in his pocket before leaving to return to the city.

Andrew hardly noticed his wife waiting to greet him at the front door. He showed her the photo album, but said nothing of The Karma Book and she settled into a comfortable spot on their expensive leather sofa as she opened the old album and perused the pictures for a younger, innocent Andrew.

“What is going to happen to your uncle’s dog?” she asked.

Andrew had been digging in a cabinet for his bottle of Patron. “What dog?” he snapped back.

“This Irish Setter … sitting with your uncle. I’m assuming it was his dog.”

Andrew looked at here blankly, unsure. “He didn’t have a dog.”

He quickly exited the room, mumbling the need for a long hot shower. In the bathroom, he locked the door, unzipped his jacket, removed The Karma Book, and turned to the first page without haste.

It read:
Karma is that which guides our past, present, and future life experiences through the manner in which we live our lives. This book has been crafted to ensure Karma is served justly to those who have not yet reaped the experiences they have sewn. To assure this effect is prominently served, write the name of a person within the pages of this book and complete the entry with a drop of blood.

Countless pages of written names combined with blood seals followed. Who were all those names and what actually happened to the people? It had to be some kind of gag or freakish experiment designed by a bunch of bored teenagers. But how did it get into his uncle’s house? Did his uncle really own an Irish Setter? And if so, was it the same dog that was stolen by Roger Harrison from the newspaper clipping?

A devilish thought emerged. What if this book is for real? What if it really did dip into some kind of occult shit responsible for serving justice … or karma … or whatever you call it? Andrew thought of all the assholes he could use it on, the idea infusing a sense of power that he had never known. Perhaps he should give this book a test drive. But who should he extract Karma’s wrath upon first? Maybe all the bullies that picked on him in grade school, or one of the many stuck-up bitches that turned him down during his college years, or perhaps the ass-kisser at his company with the corner office that always managed to get the yearly merit awards. Yes, yes, and yes. They would all eventually find a page in The Karma Book. But he would start out slow and test it out on a lesser subject.

Kyle Forester lived one floor down in Andrew’s building -- the perfect person to test this Karma thing on. Kyle consistently beat Andrew home from work and took the only parking spot close to the elevator in their high rise luxury building. The remaining spots were further down in an unlighted area, often times scouted by would-be thieves.

The other perturbing thing about Kyle was the fact that he had a gorgeous wife and Andrew never understood how he got such a beautiful woman. That hardly mattered now because The Karma Book would do its work and root out all that was wrong with Kyle … serve him a swift dose of Karma. Andrew wasted no time entering Kyle’s name below Roger Harrison and then completed the deed with a fresh dose of blood from his finger.

I wonder what Karma will be dished out to old Kyle tonight? Andrew wondered as he lay in his bed. Maybe that hot wife of his will finally see him for the idiot he really is and leave him. The evil, yet happy thoughts danced through Andrew’s head until sleep finally silenced them.

Unlikely events had come about the next morning - just as expected. Kyle Forrester sat at the edge of his sofa, surrounded by the police, his hands covering his face as he sobbed uncontrollably. One floor above, Andrew Chamber’s apartment also flurried with police activity, where his bloodied bullet ridden body lay lifeless slightly over the threshold of his door. Slouched on the other side of the door, Kyle’s deceased wife lay holding a revolver in one hand and a murder-suicide letter in the other. It explained the long-standing affair she had been having with Andrew Chambers and her sudden impulsive need to make it right by Kyle.