Jericho

Chapter 2

[Editor's note: I've supplemented Aaron's writings with certain documents that I think are relevant. As far as I know, he hasn't read the following document.]

From the diary of Adrienne Harris.

October 17th, 2008

Dear Diary,

Today I did a bad thing. I followed a boy home again! I don’t know why I did it. It’s been over two years since I last had an incident. Dr. Ward told me I was making real progress to finally overcoming the compulsion. Good thing I go in for an appointment on Monday anyway, otherwise I’d have to try and schedule an emergency appointment with Dr. Ward.

I know it was wrong, but I felt a little bit of guilty pleasure as I did it. I mean, I was very good. We just met tonight, the boy and I did. He had heard my poem at the slam and said he really liked it. So we ended up talking for a long time. I gave him my number. I did everything right. But I guess I was just afraid that he wasn’t going to want to call me. So when he left, I followed him home.

Like I said, I was good. He must be a little paranoid, or maybe it was because at the coffee shop we’d talked about that girl Kristi’s murder. Either way, he kept checking behind himself as he walked. It was challenging, but I avoided being seen. I know I shouldn’t think like this, but honestly, it’s kind of good to know that even being out of practice for so long, I can still shadow with the best of them.

But no matter what, I’m not letting this one get out of hand. I’m going to come clean with Dr. Ward on Monday and together, we’ll work through this little lapse to keep it from becoming a full-blown crisis. I haven’t stalked anyone since I got to college and I don’t intend to start back up again. No matter how perfect for each other we are, it is not appropriate to obsess over someone to that degree. If it’s meant to be, he’ll come around. If it’s not, then at least there’s no reason for me to be criminally investigated.

* * *

[Relevant information ends here. I now return you to the next chapter of Aaron's manuscript.]

I returned home and kept trying to shake off the feeling that I’d been followed. I turned on all the lights in the apartment and I was still able to be startled by even the slightest noise. It was times like these that I didn’t like being in a first-floor apartment. The constant groaning of my ceiling as the upstairs neighbors moved around was unsettling when I was in this sort of mood.

Finally focusing enough to overcome my silly fears and anxieties, I started up the computer and searched for the first chapter of Jericho. And find it I did.

Jericho Chapter 1

Jericho is not a friendly place. Jericho is our world reflected in a dirty and ancient mirror. The shapes are recognizable, but the details are eerily dark and hazy. To walk alone at night in Jericho is to take your life into your own hands. Every shadow holds a more horrible secret than the last.

Christi Dale knew that she wasn’t alone in the apartment. Living in Jericho sharpens certain instincts for survival. Unfortunately for her, her attacker was too fast for that intuition to be useful. She felt a cord wrap tightly around her neck. Immediately, Christi began to kick behind her at her unseen attacker and claw at the garrote. The attacker ignored her struggles and simply pulled the cord tighter.

Christi’s assailant moved his head into her field of vision as her struggles began to subside. Her body no longer had the oxygen needed to continue the fight. As her eyes struggled to stay focused, she took in the appearance of her killer. He was tall, blond, and some part of her mind even registered him as being very attractive. This attraction was of course, overridden by the more immediate hostility he was demonstrating. Still, it was there.

“Christi,” whispered her attacker. “Do you know why you have to die?”

Christi was, of course, unable to answer.

“You are a nonbeliever and a fornicator. And to top it all off, your very name is an affront to Christ. An account of your sins will surround your empty body, so that you may serve as an example to others like you.”

I slammed the lid of my laptop and ran outside to light up. Once outdoors, I just started walking as quickly as I could from the apartment, wanting to put as much distance as possible between me and the laptop. It took me about ten minutes of mindless flight before I calmed down enough to think closely about what I’d just discovered.

My story had happened. It had come true. There were some differences, but those were small enough that I felt they actually strengthened the prophecy aspect. The only real question left was one of causality. Did the murder happen because I wrote it or did I write it because it was going to happen? I hoped with all of my being that it was the latter. If the former, then that meant that I had killed someone. And not just anyone. A girl my age, with hopes dreams, friends, family. An honest to God flesh and blood human being. And I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to handle that knowledge.

Which of course, left me in conflict. If I tried to write more of Jericho, if I tried to force it, and found that it happened, that wouldn’t really answer either question. If I forced it and nothing happened, that would lead me to believe I was predicting things. If I turned out to be predictive sometimes and not at others, especially if these instances lined up well with an inspired/uninspired dichotomy, then in my mind I’d definitely feel that I was somehow receiving premonitions. After much consideration I decided that I’d try to avoid writing any more of Jericho. No matter what happened, my conscience would suffer. If I was the cause, well, I didn’t want to be a killer, no matter how obliquely. If I wasn’t the cause, I’d feel powerless. If I went to the police trying to stop one of the murders by showing them stories I’d written describing in detail the deaths of people, they’d probably be suspicious of me instead of grateful for the tip.

That was an interesting problem to consider. Could I honestly account for where I’d been on the night of Kristi Dell’s murder? It didn’t seem likely that I had any sort of fugue, but stranger things have been known to happen. There were many problems with that hypothesis, foremost among the fact that I don’t believe I’ve ever even owned a bible, much less killed a stranger over some religious issue. And I was fairly certain that once I’d calmed down a little bit more, I’d be able to remember exactly where I had been on the night of Kristi’s murder.

So I’d ruled myself out as a suspect. It was around this time that it struck me how very far from home I was and how late in the evening it was. Jonah’s Cross is a college town, so rarely do the lights go down. Still, to get back to my apartment, I had to walk through quite a few dark stretches. And rereading Jericho did not make the prospect of walking home alone any easier. As I walked on, an even more unsettling realization overcame me. I hadn’t stopped to lock the door. My ground floor apartment was currently open to anyone who decided to try the doorknob.

Abject terror doesn’t even begin to describe the emotions I felt at that point.

Despite myself, I managed to keep from breaking out into a full-out run. But I did walk back very briskly. At the entrance to my apartment, I hesitated. My mind was alive with images of serial killers and dead co-eds. I probably stood in front of that door for a full fifteen minutes, completely immobile. Finally, I opened the door, bracing myself to be jumped. Naturally, I was not. I locked the door behind me and proceeded to turn the entire house upside down looking for anyone who might have snuck into the apartment. After twenty minutes I finally climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling with the lights on until I woke up the next morning.