Go Kill Crazy! by Bryan Smith

long before he could get there, but what other choice did he have? He wasn’t about to just sit here and take whatever brand of brutal punishment they had in mind.
    He had to act and act now.
    But something in his sister’s voice helplessly compelled him, made it impossible to do anything other than sit and listen as long as she continued to speak. “You are done interfering in my life, Casey. I have a rendezvous with destiny…” Something about that phrase struck a nerve within Casey and further fueled his already redlining sense of anxiety. “All of us do. And you’ve made your last attempt to block it. But I know how stubborn you are. I know you won’t just do the sensible thing and go away. So we’ve come up with a special way of dealing with you. After this, you won’t want anything else to do with me. But that’s okay. I no longer consider you my brother. Any pain you are about to suffer you brought on yourself.”
    Boyd and Marzetti were too close now. The chair gambit was no longer a viable option. Every elapsing second brought him irrevocably closer to something horrible. The perverse anticipation of the goons pinning him in was a palpable thing. And yet still he couldn’t move.
    Keely’s image smiled again. “Your life is about to change forever, Casey. All the simple, everyday things you take for granted are about to become very hard for you.” There was a vicious twist to her mouth now. The sight of it stabbed at his heart. “And it’s all your fault.”
    The video ended.
    Casey braced his feet on the floor and tried to propel himself out of the chair, but Boyd and Marzetti were there to grab him and slam him facedown onto the table. Boyd, being the substantially bigger man, held him down while Marzetti stretched out his right arm and held it against the table’s surface.
    Casey’s eyes rolled upward to stare at Jones, who was now standing. From this vantage point, he looked almost impossibly huge, more like a mountain than a man. And clutched in his right hand was a shiny stainless steel meat cleaver. Casey was willing to bet it was brand new, purchased especially for the occasion. He had also donned a long rubber apron at some point while Casey had been transfixed by the video.
    Every remaining ounce of bravado drained away from Casey as his gaze locked on the gleaming edge of the blade. In its place was nothing but gut-twisting fear. He was pretty sure he’d never seen anything quite as sharp as that blade.
    “You don’t have to do this. I’ll leave you motherfuckers alone from now on, I swear.” Casey hated hearing the pitiable whine creeping into his voice, but he couldn’t help it. Stoicism was impossible in a situation like this. “Come on. I fucking swear to God, I won’t ever bother you again.”
    Jones chuckled. “Oh, we already know that, Casey. According to your sister, you’re right-handed. Well, you used to be, as of a few seconds from now.”
    This remark elicited belly laughs from the goons holding him down.
    Jones looked like a grinning ghoul as he raised the blade high above his head. “Ready to bleed, Casey?”
    Casey couldn’t stop shaking. Tears stung his eyes. “No. Please.”
    Jones’ right bicep expanded perceptibly as he prepared to slam the blade down, but before that could happen something in the kitchen exploded. Screams filled the room as Jones staggered backward. Casey glanced up and saw that a chunk of the man’s head was missing. He belatedly understood that the explosion he’d heard had actually been the close-range report of a gun. The cleaver slid from Jones’ fingers and clattered on the tiled floor an instant before the big man toppled dead to the floor. The goons let go of Casey and went for their weapons, but it was already too late for them. Two more loud reports rang out. Two more big bodies hit the floor. Casey remained where he was a few moments longer, his ears ringing while he waited, fully expecting to meet the same fate as the other