I think I’ve found the next #iHunt novel. I have a premise, but I’m not ready to share it. I tend to start with a proof of concept piece, which often ends up edited into a first chapter.

I wanted to share this one with you all:

Do you know how hard it is to find a saw mill in Southern California? It takes a specialized skillset to know you can only murder someone with a massive circular saw, and then it takes a unique degree of followthrough to get your victim to that sawmill, to tie them to it, then to wait and make sure the whole thing goes off without a hitch. Basically what I’m saying is, it’s not just anyone who could do my job. 

It’s not like we don’t have forests—you just have to drive a few hours to get to one that anyone’s allowed chopping down. You can tie someone up and throw them in the trunk of your car. But anyone who’s seen TV knows that someone in a trunk will inevitably wake up and escape. Fuck that shit. I don’t have the time to backtrack and all over the damn place searching for someone I’ve already captured. 

Besides, I’m not a cartoon villain. That’s a slippery slope toward tying innocent young women to train tracks. 

An enterprising murderer knows that you can find gigantic circular saws in home improvement stores. The best thing about using these stores is that once you’re finished, you can go over to the cleaning supplies department and get some lye, the household appliances and get a pressure cooker, and the materials handling department to get a steel drum. Well, and a cart to handle the weight of a steel drum. But I feel like maybe that’s a given? 

You can’t dissolve a body in a home improvement store. It takes at least three hours just to do the dissolving. Then there’s a huge mess to deal with, and that’s not even considering the time to get the supplies. Your average retail store, you’ll have security patroling every few hours. 

It’s just not practical. 

I’m nothing if not practical. So instead, I rent a van and take the drum, the chemicals, and the body to an abandoned McMansion neighborhood. These kinds of places popped up all over the place during the Clinton Administration when California housing was in huge demand. Now, there are entire ghost towns of prefabricated multi-million dollar homes left to rot rather than giving homes to the homeless. I feel like there’s a certain poetic justice to using a place like that to dissolve the body of a rich guy. 

Of course I am killing a rich guy. I’m not a monster. 

I’m Lana. I hunt monsters.