Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Stephen Huff’s 
Bad Angel 
December 2003 – July 2004 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
2
 
BAD ANGEL 
Contents 
 
Page    Word Count 

Salvage Sans Salvation   1     3,105  
 
Mysterious Ways    13     3,744  
 
Pressed Thin and White   27     2,462  
 
The Far Edge of Doom   37     3,575  
 
Beyond the Veil    52     3,073 
 
God Knows     65     2,752 
 
The Flesh That Feeds, The Mouth 
That Devours   76     3,589 
 
Twisted Hands    90     5,154 
 
Curious and Learning   111     4,656 
 
Hope      129     2,535 
 
Eternity In An Hour   140     8,018 
 
Wheels within Wheels within 
Wheels    171     3,970 
 
Something Rotten    187     2,817 
 
The Wind That Whispers   199     5,331 
 
Peace In a Needle    219     5,249 
 
That’s All, Folks!    241     5,585 
 
Gurney     266     1,290 
 
   271     66,905 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
3
 
-|- 

Author’s Note: 

By December 31 of 2001, 3,581 offenders in 38 states resided in so called ‘Death Row’ 
cells, awaiting legal execution.  By the date of this writing, Texas, alone, has executed 
456 prisoners:  447 men and 9 women.  From December 7, 1982 through June 30, 2004, 
Texas executed 164 whites, 111 blacks, 46 Hispanics, and 2 individuals racially classified 
as ‘other’ (the total for this time range is 323 executions). 
 
Information regarding these convictions has long been open to the public.  Most death 
penalty trials are popularly publicized.  Anyone may review the gruesome, inhuman 
circumstances that deliver these offenders to their fates.  Regardless of emotional opinion 
or scientific analysis, any human being must admit that the horrific nature of capital 
crimes is deserving of the harshest sort of punishment. 
 
Detractors of the death penalty argue that cold, cruel statistical law demands a certain 
amount of error within any complex system.  The citizens of Texas believe appellate and 
clemency processes act to alleviate these errors.  In fact, since Texas reinstated the death 
penalty in 1972, approximately 150 previously condemned prisoners left Death Row by 
means other than execution.  Most of these fortunate few received reduced or dismissed 
sentences on appeal or retrial.  Twenty-five died of natural causes while incarcerated.  A 
half-dozen prisoners committed suicide.  Fellow inmates murdered three.  However 
dismayed their detractors may be, most Texans apparently find comfort in the punitive 
determination of their criminal justice system. 
 
The average condemned prisoner lives on Texas Death Row for 10.34 years at a cost of 
$61.58 (FY 2002) per day per prisoner.  Joe Gonzales of Potter County was executed 
after only 252 days on the Row, having forfeited his right to multiple appeals.  Excell 
White of Collin County lived there 8,982 days (24 years).  Who died happier. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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Salvage Sans Salvation 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
5
 
-|- 

 On Tuesday, December 31, something awful happened to middle-aged Christen 
Bass and a young girl named Ashley Austin.  The implacable, inscrutable hand of fate 
delivered to them both that day a certain sort of doom, which came crushing down upon 
them with all the terrible surprise and awesome weight of a mountainside cut loose 
without warning.  Theirs was not a happy way to go, as it was a passing of blood and guts 
and gruesome, wicked, mortal cuts.  Their destiny came as a bone shattering blast of 
concrete, steel, glass and human tissue, all swimming in excruciating agony that stopped 
time and dragged seconds to the length of hours. 
 After he rounded the darkened corner of a rain-slick, night-bound street, and his 
left front wheel rolled into a gaping manhole that an unknown prankster had uncovered 
for fun, Christen knew he must die.  He saw the child standing near the curb across the 
wide, empty avenue, waiting alone in the evening.  As soon as he saw her, his heart sank, 
and he knew she must die, too. 
When the shaft of his steering wheel snapped with a sudden, sharp spin, both his 
arms snapped in the same moment, jerking his head sharply to the left, shattering the 
windshield with his skull.  Before his car spun out of control, Christen’s head and body 
rebounded violently to the right, crushing several of his ribs over the shifter jutting from 
the vehicle’s center console.  Now his mind swam with breathless pain and stunned 
confusion. 

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Stephen Huff 
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Stars filled his vision, while the impact pressed his lids tightly shut with a 
miserable squint, sparing him the gut-wrenching vision of his wildly tumbling sedan 
careening across the street, sparks and shattered parts flying.  Though he heard her 
scream shrilly, Christen did not watch Ashley die.  Her terrified shriek came to an abrupt 
end, and his smashed machine rolled over her mangled body without ceremony or grace. 
Firemen pried him from the tangled ruin of his car an hour later, and then revived 
him with their cruel machines.  His vision instantly filled with a bizarre, stop motion 
replay of the accident, ending with his last memory of it; Ashley’s startled face. 
“What happened.” he wondered aloud, his smashed mouth rendering the words a 
mumble.  As all victims of such violence and trauma must, he asked, “Where am I.” 
“You crashed your car, sir,” returned a mustachioed medic, who hovered over 
Christen, as others prepared the wounded man for transport via helicopter.  “How much 
have you had to drink this evening.  What sort of drugs did you take.” 
Christen’s tongue and lips refused to work, fat, swollen and bruised black as they 
were.  He shook his head, and garbled, “None.  Nothing.  No.” 
“Come on, sir,” returned the disbelieving attendant, as he fixed a sensor to 
Christen’s neck with a bit of tape, “This is New Year’s Eve, a half hour from midnight, 
everybody’s had something to drink, or smoke or snort.  What was it.  Whiskey.  Beer.  
Pot.” 
Again, Christen shook his head, though it ached miserably.  He mumbled his 
denials. 

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Stephen Huff 
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Rolling his eyes, his tone laced with professionally detached accusation, the 
medic responded, “Help us help you, sir.  If you’ve taken something we don’t know 
about, you could die tonight.  Do you understand me.  Stay awake for me, now!” 
Christen struggled to open his eyes, though his face, a mass of edema and abuse, 
refused to comply.  Sleep seemed most appealing. 
“You’re badly injured, sir, we may need to give you a variety of medications to 
keep you alive.  Are you hearing me.”  Christen nodded.  The medic tapped one of his 
comrades on the shoulders, and they all moved slowly, carefully across the sidewalk to a 
waiting ambulance.  The man’s head bobbed as he walked.  “If you’ve taken something, 
we need to know about it, otherwise you may experience a fatal interaction.” 
“No,” choked Christen.  “Nothing.” 
“Try to remember, sir,” prompted the medic, “You were at one party, and you 
were heading to second… it was late… raining… you nodded off…  Is that what 
happened.  How much did you have to drink.” 
Before Christen could respond, one of the firemen barked, “Hey, pal, why don’t 
you lay off, huh.” 
“I’m just doing my job, here.” 
 “Bullshit,” retorted the other, “You’re interrogating the guy.  This ain’t the time 
nor the place.  Can’t you see he’s all messed up.” 
 “Yeah,” returned the medic hotly, “I see.  I see it all the fucking time!  Just like 
you and all these other people see it all the fucking time!  Just like I see that awful mess 
over there, which once was a little girl!” 
 Christen groaned.  His heart heaved, trepid and horrified. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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 “It was an accident!” 
 “Maybe,” retorted the medic flatly.  “Maybe not.  If not, then I think we should 
know, don’t you.  I’ve seen guys like him, before.  Lots of times.  You have get to them 
quick, while the shock of it is still new, and before they start thinking about saving their 
own asses!  Once, I worked this DOA where a guy…” 
 Christen lost the thread of the conversation, as they rattled and bumped him into 
the back of the ambulance, and the medic passed beyond earshot.  Inside the life saving 
ambulance, which would carry him three blocks to a broad lawn and a waiting helicopter, 
Christen concentrated on his own heartbeat, his own breath.  He felt his life ebb away, 
drop-by-drop, and he realized with a sudden, mortal shock that he lay too near the peril of 
death. 
 He gasped for breath behind the blue plastic mask pressed to his face.  His body 
heaved and arched with the effort, straining against the temporary splints and straps that 
held his shattered limbs together. 
 Seconds passed that seemed hours, before the lead medic climbed into the 
ambulance to replace the firemen.  Somebody slammed the doors shut, and a siren wailed 
forlornly.  Christen felt every rock and jolt of the short, slow ride, where broken bone 
grated against bone, where gaping wounds twisted open and shut, tiny mouths in his flesh 
to vomit forth his blood.  All the while, the medic hovered over him, working deftly with 
his hands, while his hateful gaze remained fixed on Christen’s unseeing face. 
For a moment, a mad, wicked moment, the man considered pumping a shot of air 
into Christen’s heart with a cardiac needle.  The medic went so far as to ready the syringe 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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in his right hand.  He leaned nearer to the helpless, prostrate victim, his once 
compassionate face twisted into a mask of disgust and loathing. 
 Christen, oblivious to this new doom, choked and wheezed for air.  He thrashed 
deliriously, and mumbled around his half-severed, bleeding tongue.  The ambulance 
rolled on, the equipment within its interior swaying rhythmically back and forth.  
Eventually, with a deep, purging inhalation and a quick prayer to God, the medic leaned 
back and disposed of the needle into a biohazard container, shaking his head. 
 With a tortured growl, he said, “God help you now, if you should live, you 
miserable piece of shit, because your conscience, if you have one, will never rest.  
Never!” 
 The ambulance rolled to a stop, and the medic moved to toss back its rear doors.  
Christen felt himself pulled out of the vehicle.  He heard the wheels of the gurney drop 
down and lock into place.  The helicopter idled nearby, its rotors turning lazily, its 
engines whining piteously.  Christen smelled burnt kerosene and machine oil.  The 
paramedic exchanged esoteric jargon with the flight crew, who hurried to bustle his 
mangled body into a paper-covered bed menaced by countless machines, monitors and 
dials. 
 An eternity seemed to pass before the jet engines roared to a high-speed fury and 
Christen felt the wheels lift away from the lawn.  The helicopter rose vertically a hundred 
feet, and then it tipped nose over and to one side, as the pilot pointed his aircraft toward 
the nearest trauma center. 
 From his vantage on the gurney, oblivious to the furious, life-saving efforts of the 
flight crew, Christen forced his swollen eyes open to watch through the helicopter’s side 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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door, as it tipped over and exposed the world between his two jutting feet.  There, far 
below, he saw his smashed vehicle, where it lay half wrapped around a concrete barricade 
that separated the sidewalk from the landscaping.  Tracing a set of serpentine tracks 
across the concrete with his eyes, Christen encountered a tight knot of emergency 
workers huddled around a prostrate form that tangled the center of a wide pool of blood 
and gore.  As he watched, one of the living tossed a white sheet over the dead. 
 Christen surrendered his life in that moment, and he no longer cared whether he 
survived or perished.  In fact, he relaxed his every throbbing appendage and abandoned 
all desire for breath.  He longed for death.  Death, he knew, would fade the girl’s image 
from his mind’s eye, because he feared nothing else could. 
 He wondered if she had been smart, or talented.  He wondered about her future.  
He wondered about children she could never have, and he pondered the husband she 
would never marry.  Fate rendered all her dreams and hopes to dust, he imagined, and he 
had come along to blow them away from the cupped palms of his malign hands, 
scattering them to the morbid doom of oblivion with a casual breath and a haughty toss of 
his chin. 
 Before his eyes, her startled face loomed, until it blotted out the reddened, anxious 
expressions of his belabored caregivers and the reality of his torturous surroundings.  A 
great sense of peace and relief washed over him then, and he felt a final, ragged breath 
drawn from his body by the accordion collapse of his useless, broken ribs.  Though his 
eyes glazed and his true sight faded to black around a pinpoint of light, her face loomed 
ever larger, ever clearer, and ever brighter before him.  Her countenance was the cratered 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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surface of a killing moon, her eyes and mouth three vast, black holes to speak of 
unspeakable calamity to come. 
 “I’m sorry,” he hushed with the last gasp of wind to cross his lips.  “I’m sorry.” 
 Somebody calmly announced, “We’re losing him.” 
 Christen’s heart raced painfully upon hearing this news, before it slowed to a 
terrible tumble.  He had never felt such sensations.  The intermittent, fumbling thump of 
his pulse fluttered uncertainly for a time within his chest and throat and fingers, and then 
it simply…. stopped. 
 During the seconds that followed, Christen’s body fell completely limp, and all 
his many bleeding wounds slowed to a trickle, then a drip.  His rescuers worked skillfully 
to revive him, but Christen found himself far beyond responding, and these last moments 
of his life passed without sight, without sound, without feeling of any kind.  He felt 
trapped and isolated in a world of soft cotton, inured to the busy scenes of his own 
demise and wonderfully unafraid of the unknown that must inevitably follow his final 
breath.  During this calm before the terrifying storms eternity must call forth, Christen 
found himself alone with his thoughts. 
 With all the desperate rapidity of a mind that knows these considerations may be 
its last, Christen experienced a gush of wild and exhilarating emotion that varied from 
depressed morbidity to manic enthusiasm all at once, even as his memory dumped itself 
out onto the performance stage of his imagination in a vast load of useless waste.  He 
watched himself grow from toddler, to child, to adolescent, to teen, and then to adult, and 
he somehow managed to measure his worth along the way, sorting his recollections of 
accomplishment and failure as an accountant might collect figures for a final tally. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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 When all was said and done, and his life played across the black inner surfaces of 
his eyelids, Christen found himself lacking, bankrupt, and destitute in all regards.  He 
lived a meaningless, purposeless existence.  Once he passed, humanity would not notice 
his absence.  Few would care to know he had ever been.  Little record of his passing 
would remain.  He had done nothing of significance with his time, and he had left nothing 
behind him, save for perhaps a tiny stone graven with his name. 
 Now Little Ashley Austin’s horrified mask lingered within Christen’s final 
considerations.  This, he knew, was the sum total of his value to the world.  She would be 
his final reckoning, and so Christen Bass passed from life into death, his column in the 
red; his number a massive loss; his meager profit an absolute write-off. 
 “Flat-line,” intoned someone who seemed to care. 
 For a time unknown to him, Christen Bass wandered the mysterious lands of 
death on a secret journey of silence and darkness that was an utter lack of sensation, 
thought, and consciousness.  His mind, his soul, his SELF, seemed a switch, thrown to 
‘OFF’.  He, Christen Bass, was rendered nothing.  He saw no bright light, no tunnel, no 
beloved relatives waiting in the Big Beyond to guide him to heaven or to hell.  He saw 
nothing, since he was nothing. 
 Sometime later, after his body cooled considerably and his heart all but forgot 
how to beat, the worst possible thing happened.  They revived him! 
 His body seized with a jolt, and he felt his abdomen strain to lift his feet and head 
from the bloody operating table.  Well restrained, his broken limbs resisted.  Christen 
screamed wretchedly with agony, but the tubes, wires and cameras that choked his throat 
suffocated the sound. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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 “Stop!  Stop!  Stop!” shouted an anonymous voice, young, female and slightly 
agitated.  “I have a pulse!  I have a pulse!” 
 Christen’s swollen eyes opened a slit to see three people lingering over his head.  
Two exchanged dismayed, disgusted glances behind the back of the third, who was 
oblivious to their displeasure and intent only upon administering a drug into a tube 
inserted directly into Christen’s skull.  Though this doctor had salvaged Christen’s life, 
her peers appeared to disapprove. 
The woman had apparently done something… unseemly… distasteful to effect his 
rescue.  The faces of her fellows soured and pickled, and they shook their heads dourly. 
 A nurse called out vital signs to the tune of a series of beeps, tones and whistles, 
which activity jolted the doctors away from their dire condemnations.  One of them 
grumbled, “EEG activity is spiky.” 
 “That’s to be expected.  It should return to normal quickly.” 
 “If the brain is undamaged.” 
 “Of course,” returned the female nonchalantly.  Noticing Christen’s awareness, 
she leaned closer, pried his puffy eyelids open, and flashed a light into his eyes.  “Hi, 
there!” she enthused, “How do you feel.” 
 Christen worked his throat and tongue to no effect.  His eyes rolled to avoid the 
blinding, excruciating light. 
 “Do you know where you are, Mr. Bass.  Can you tell me what day it is.” 
 Christen wondered if she could see the tubes they had crammed down his throat.  
Unable to speak, he attempted to waggle his head back and forth, only to find it was 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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bolted into a large, cubic fame and thereby completely immobilized.  Frustrated, he 
wondered how he should answer her. 
 Before he could become too agitated, she soothed him by saying, “Relax, if you 
can, Mr. Bass.  You had a narrow escape, and you’re not safe, yet.  We must operate on 
your internal injuries and your broken bones, in order to save your life.  Do you consent 
to this treatment.” 
 Christen found the strength to tip his chin so slightly that he doubted she had 
noticed.  Whether she had or not, she shut off the light and raised her head to announce, 
“Alright, he’s ready.  Let’s go.” 
 For the next three hours, Christen listened to an indecipherable and interminable 
string of professional jargon that rendered him confused and lost, while a team of 
surgeons and nurses worked to remove his spleen, stitch his guts and straighten his 
shattered limbs.  He thought it strange that they should slice him open and saw on his 
bones while he remained perfectly aware of every sensation.  He thought it stranger still 
that he felt little pain through it all. 
 More than once, he lost consciousness, only to be revived by the same plucky 
doctor, much to the apparent consternation of her co-workers.  He wondered why she 
would torture him so.  Eventually, he secretly determined that she was Satan, come to 
curse him for his awful crimes.  Her touch that would salvage was not intended to save.  
Her work that would heal him was not intended to make him whole. 
 He saw it in her eyes, whenever she leaned close to inject her drugs into his brain 
and then check his pupils with her light.  She smiled down at him, a smile most 
incongruous in such a frightening room.  This was her fun, he realized, and that was not a 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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compassionate, hopeful smile.  No, hers was the malicious grin of a devil that delights in 
the agony of others.  A mad Frankenstein, she would fashion him into her monster, 
Christen guessed, and set him loose upon the world with all the vengeful spite of an 
unrequited lust long ago rejected by humankind. 
He entertained himself by trying to remember every word of his favorite rock and 
roll song.  This, he sang repeatedly within the hollow, echoing context of his otherwise 
empty thoughts, hoping to pass the time as quickly as possible. 
 No matter his efforts, seconds dragged to hours, minutes came stretched long as 
months, and the hours seemed a lifetime.  Time passed, but with the slow, torpid, 
agonizing crawl of a dull, rusted blade drawn through quivering flesh. 
 When they finished with him, they removed him to a dim, quiet room, where he 
lay in a bed festooned with tubes, wires, pulleys and cables.  Lights flashed all around 
him.  Tones sounded musically.  Periodically, an older woman with massive breasts 
tucked inside her scrubs would visit him to check the discharges of his grotesque bodily 
fluids and the alignment of his horribly deformed limbs. 
 After an eternity, a young man appeared at his side with a syringe.  He said, “You 
can sleep now, Mr. Bass.  When you wake up, most of your injuries will have healed 
considerably.  How does that sound.” 
 Weary, Christen let his eyelids droop gratefully.  Seconds later, a deliciously 
comforting sensation coursed along his arteries and veins.  He felt as though his body had 
been plunged into a pleasantly cool pond of diamond-clear water on a hot summer day.  
Everything that hurt went numb.  All his malignant thoughts and disturbing visions faded 
in an instant.  For a brief time, Christen Bass felt good again. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
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Mysterious Ways 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
17
 
-|- 

 Christen opened his eyes laboriously and focused his gaze on the unadorned 
ceiling.  His breathing came slow and even, and the noise of it filled his throbbing, 
ringing ears.  Without looking, he knew they had restrained him against the bed.  He felt 
straps and buckles crossing his abused flesh.  His arms and legs hung from a torture 
works of cables and pulleys, while a high, stiff collar fixed his neck rigid.  Strangely, they 
had fastened his right wrist to its support with handcuffs, as well as proper medical 
instruments. 
 ‘Oh, God’, he moaned, though he previously professed little use for spirituality in 
his life, ‘Please, please, let me die.’ 
 Waiting for a final breath, he suffocated himself with his lips and hoped for the 
greater darkness of death, though nothing came to save him, except his next respiration, 
which he sucked with a defeated gasp.  He wept, but shed no tears. 
 He considered how time refused to flow in this place.  Nothing moved here, he 
knew, save for his tormentors.  They dealt his cards of fate with the smooth, adept hands 
of master gamblers, their smiles easy and thin, their eyes flat and inscrutable, their words 
the promise of salvation in the shape of a scalpel.  Though he could see nothing beyond 
the ceiling, Christen heard them shuffling back and forth across the floor, speaking in the 
sort of slow, hushed whispers that ever mark the presence of corner cabals amid sinister 
shades.  All the while, their instruments of torture beeped and whirred and whined and 
whistled, and occasionally sounded a mortal alarm. 

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Stephen Huff 
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 Even now, as his ears followed the business of the Critical Care Unit where his 
eyes could not, Christen heard a distant tone that warned of danger.  Suddenly, feet 
normally content to drag soft and lazy became animated with urgency. 
 ‘Sure,’ thought Christen with a groan, rolling his eyes, ‘It’s so easy for some 
people.  They just roll over and die, but what about me.  Where is my eternal salvation.  
Where is my angel of death.’ 
 At his right, Christen listened to a familiar drill that was a screech of metal curtain 
rings across a chromed run, and then the whiffle-thump of little plastic tires pushed too 
fast, followed by sharp, commanding voices, tearing paper wrappers, rattling plastic tubes 
and jingling glass bottles.  For some time, the alarm sounded steady and forlorn, and 
Christen imagined the awful machine to be a plastic cage wherein a tiny, hateful bird sat, 
spitting out its venomous song with all the glee of a gloating crow presiding over a grave.  
It mocked its victim, because that poor, unknown bastard probably wanted to live, even 
as it mocked Christen, too, because he wanted to die and could not. 
 Eventually, the alarm fell silent, though the furious commotion did not.  Christen 
thought perhaps the dying might be saved, but, no, the alarm sounded once more, this 
time accompanied by a chorus of terrible tweets and whistles.  Those mysterious voices 
came faster and sharper than ever, though Christen could barely hear their grim tones of 
instruction and reply, drowned as they were by the cacophony of their instrumentation. 
 As all things must, in time, this crisis passed.  Christen would never know the 
victim’s fate, because those scrubbed devils kept their secrets close and pressed flat to the 
table, but he suspected the news was not good.  Most likely, that unknown individual 
would survive to live another day in this hellish place. 

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Stephen Huff 
19
 
Pontificating this dismally reassuring promise of life that was the incessant 
whoosh of respirators and beeping of heart monitors, the ward’s dreary routine returned 
quickly to normal.  Soon, Christen fought his eyelids for command of his consciousness. 
 Periodically, he sensed the presence of his caregivers, as they patrolled their beds, 
straightening unseen wrinkles and tending unknown details.  Often, they spoke to other 
patients, as they moved about, though most of their hapless victims could offer no reply.  
Their words in these moments were soft and compassionate, despite the grim 
environment, and they were occasionally returned with a grateful grunt or moan from a 
shrouded bed. 
 They never spoke to Christen, however.  When they examined him closely 
enough to lean into his field of vision, Christen found their eyes dispassionate and hard.  
Clearly, they loathed him. 
 Even now, a young nurse with startling green irises exhaled into his face, while 
she leaned across his body to adjust something near his left ear.  Christen sucked a deep 
breath through his nose, and he drank her scent down with a heady gulp. 
As she leaned away, their eyes locked for a moment, and he felt her hatred 
penetrating his thoughts as a laser beam pierces darkness.  How it shone into his mind, 
searing and brilliant!  Her evident loathing was a violent force that eroded his sense of 
self-worth and self-image.  The pillars that formed the foundation of his ego crumbled 
and sagged beneath the onslaught.  Once, Christen knew, he had been a man, but now, 
before the glaring spotlight that was this young woman’s observation, he felt tinier and 
less significant than an insect.  So vile was he, that she would not dirty herself by 
stomping him flat. 

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Stephen Huff 
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Without saying a word, she turned her gaze to the handcuffs that fastened 
Christen to his bed, and then she walked away.  He heard her footsteps whisper off into 
the depths of the ward, her neat scrubs swishing between her legs. 
Christen rolled his eyes and swallowed awkwardly.  ‘God.’ he wondered meekly 
amid the clamorous din of his chaotic and disturbed thoughts.  ‘GOD.  ARE YOU 
LISTENING.’  Christen waited for an answer that he knew would never come. 
‘If you’re listening,’ he finished silently, beaten, ‘Please help.  Just… just… help 
me.’ 
In that odd moment, a masculine face loomed into Christen’s startled view.  When 
the man spoke, his voice came effeminate and snide. 
 “Hello,” said the nurse softly, his eyes sparkling oddly.  He spoke just loudly 
enough to be heard, but too soft for his words to travel far.  This conversation, Christen 
understood, would be private.  “How are we feeling tonight.” 
 Christen rolled his eyes and groaned.  Something about the man frightened him.  
The nurse’s eyes shone with a predatory interest.  He leaned too near when he spoke, and 
his smile was not pleasant, since it was not warm or friendly.  Rather, it seemed 
artificially fixed in place, as a jackal must ever smile to make room for its many teeth. 
 “Feeling better, are we.” 
 Christen thought to shake his head, but the collar restrained him.  He opened his 
mouth to croak ‘No’, but his throat rebelled. 
 Regardless, the man leaned nearer still, so Christen could smell coffee on his 
breath.  “I bet you are,” he said softly, “Too bad about the little girl, though.  She’s not 
doing so well, but who cares, anyway.  Not you, certainly.” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
21
 
 Nervous and quick, the man turned his eyes this way and that to be certain they 
were alone together.  “I know what you’re thinking, I bet.  You’re thinking your life is 
over.  You’re thinking about losing your house, your job, your car, your…” he turned his 
eyes toward Christen’s restrained left hand, where he saw a plain gold wedding band, 
“…your wife, and maybe your kids.  And that’s not all!” he enthused quietly, a demonic 
game show host predicting a grand-prize winner.  Now his gaze focused on those 
handcuffs, which he rattled with a bump of his hip against the bed’s rails.  “You’re 
probably wondering about prison life and rapist butt-fuck buddies.  Don’t worry,” he 
reassured Christen, though the patient had not protested, “It’s perfectly natural… 
perfectly natural.” 
 The nurse’s voice trailed off, as he turned his head to quickly examine the room, 
once more.  Reassured of their privacy, the nurse added, “Right about now, I bet you 
want to die.  Don’t you.  Hmm.” 
 That smile broadened coldly.  “Unfortunately for you, buddy boy, you won’t.  
How’s that for news.  I bet you never thought news like that could be bad, but I have to 
tell you now, you’re going to live for a long, long time.  Yep,” he gushed softly, his eyes 
sparkling meanly, “You’ll live right through your mandatory prison sentence, but it won’t 
be a good life. 
 “No, you’ll be so crippled by half-mended bones and torn muscles that you’ll be a 
walking road sign that reads ‘Beat Me, Rape Me’.  How’s that sound.” 
 Christen groaned and closed his eyes.  He was surprised and angered, when the 
nurse slapped his face repeatedly to open them again. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
22
 
 “Look at me,” hissed the nurse sharply, violently, “Look at me, you putrid little 
freak!” 
 When Christen opened his eyes again, he found the nurse’s pleasant mask 
disappeared.  Now the man’s true nature revealed itself in his countenance, which 
blushed red and swollen with a raging pulse.  His brow creased meanly, and his lips 
pressed tightly.  He seemed a pouting child that would have his way regardless of 
consequence. 
 “You don’t get off that easy, you murderous mother-fucker!”  Christen might 
have opened his bruised and swollen mouth to protest, but the nurse jabbed his shattered 
ribs at that moment.  Excruciating pain choked Christen silent, and he could do naught 
but gasp for air.  “Yeah, I know your kind.  You like to party, but you don’t want to pay 
the doorman.  When they haul your ass into court, you’ll plead not guilty, I bet.  Sure, 
you will.  They always do.  And maybe, just maybe, the judge will let you go.” 
 For the third time, the man scanned the room for eavesdroppers.  Leaning nearer 
still, so their noses all but met, the nurse said, “But you don’t even want that, do you.  
No, I bet you just want to die, right now. 
 “I bet,” he added confidently, leaning closer yet, so he exhaled into Christen’s 
inhale, “You’ve been talking to God.”  Christen was shocked to hear this recital of his 
own thoughts, and his eyes betrayed his surprise.  For many long seconds, the nurse 
breathed Christen’s breath this way in silence, their eyes engaged in a silent discourse. 
 Ultimately, the man leaned away again, and added, “You probably begged God to 
let you die, but God doesn’t answer your prayers, does He.  God doesn’t work that way.  
Believe me, because I know.  I know all about it.” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
23
 
 The nurse fumbled with something below Christen’s field of vision.  As he 
worked, he mumbled, “God works in mysterious ways.  Isn’t that what they say.  
Sometimes,” he added, distracted by his efforts, “God is a bullet.  Sometimes God is a 
smashed machine.  And sometimes,” he finished, finally raising his head and a syringe in 
the same instant, “God is a needle.” 
 Christen’s eyes flared wide.  He felt his face drain pale. 
 The nurse feigned surprise and pretended to pout.  “What’s this.  Second 
thoughts.”  He weaved the syringe back and forth, “Isn’t this what you wanted.  A quick 
injection, and its all over.  That’s better than life as a murderer, isn’t it.  It’s better than 
life as a prisoner, too, don’t you agree.” 
The nurse pinched the delicate tubing of Christen’s intravenous drip between his 
left thumb and forefinger.  Deftly, he fished up a tiny plastic valve, and held this out for 
Christen to see.  “All I have to do,” teased the nurse, “Is stick this tiny little needle into 
this tiny bit of plastic.  Then I squeeze the plunger, and send you on your way.” 
He smiled, and removed the needle’s cap with an unprofessional yank of his teeth.  
Spitting this bit of plastic onto Christen’s sheeted breast, the nurse weaved the needle and 
the tubing back and forth before the hapless patient’s field of vision. 
“Oh, don’t worry,” he offered sarcastically, “It’s quite painful, I’m told.  One 
injection of this stuff, and you get a pulmonary thrombosis; that’s a blood clot in your 
lungs.  It feels like a heart attack times ten, judging by the way people flop around just 
before they die.  The death itself is quick, but getting there…” he sighed, rolling his eyes 
like a starving wretch that anticipates a fine meal, “…ah, that’s the fun!” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
24
 
The nurse’s eyes suddenly snapped open, and Christen gasped to see the manic 
swell of those intent orbs, gorged as they were by depraved bloodlust.  “You prayed to 
God for a savior, didn’t you.  Didn’t you.” repeated the man petulantly. 
 Christen dipped his eyelids by way of affirming this.  When he opened them 
again, he saw the nurse gloat, reassured of his ideals and delusions.  “Of course you did.  
They all do, I know.  I know all about it.  God works in mysterious ways, buddy boy, you 
bet.  Sometimes God is a tiny germ.  Sometimes God is a fiery atomic bomb.  And 
sometimes,” trailed the nurse softly, as he inserted the tiny needle into its valve, placing 
his manicured thumb on its plunger, “God is little, old Ephraim Salazar the Third.” 
 Before he pressed the drug into Christen’s veins, the nurse paused to say, “You 
know you deserve this, right.  You know it has to hurt.  It’s the only way for you to feel 
better now, believe me, because it’s the only way for you to atone.  By suffering yourself, 
you’ll redeem a few moments of that little girl’s agony, I bet, and you’ll meet God with a 
clearer conscience.  God wants you to hurt, I think, but only for a short while, only 
briefly.  That’s why He sent me, you see, because I know just what to do.  I know just 
how to do it.” 
 He pressed the plunger flat, his grin lengthening as the shaft shortened.  Christen 
rolled his eyes shut. 
 Unseen, the nurse hissed, “There, now, that wasn’t so bad, was it.  No, it doesn’t 
happen all at once, you see.  The worst is yet to come.” 
 Christen opened his eyes, when the nurse slapped his cheeks.  “By the time you 
go critical, I’ll be sitting in the break room downstairs, sipping coffee and eating a 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
25
 
chocolate donut.  Sure, I’ll jump and run when they call a code for you, but nothing will 
save you, not even me.” 
 “Salazar!” barked a sharp, feminine voice from beyond Christen’s range of vision.  
“What are you doing with my patient.” 
 The male nurse jumped and snapped the syringe away with a nervous jerk.  In that 
moment, he seemed a small child caught touching himself. 
 “I’m just doing my job, Karen, and you damned well know it!” 
 “And you damned well know that I told you to leave my patients alone!  Get away 
from there!” 
 “I’m just performing my rounds.” 
 “Your rounds.  This man’s sheets are clean!  You have no business here!” 
 Though Christen could not see, he sensed the humiliated blush in the man’s tone, 
when he replied, “I’m responsible for much more than that around here, Karen.” 
 “Not as far as I’m concerned.  Listen,” she hissed, as they shuffled away, “I’ve 
already filed three reports against you this year, and I don’t mind filing another today!  
God only knows why you still work here, but…” 
 Christen sighed heavily, once he realized they were gone.  Desperate, yet helpless, 
his eyes turned to the tubing that penetrated his veins.  The drug was a slightly cloudy 
liquid, which rolled along the slender conduit toward Christen’s arm, roiling and mixing 
as a misty cloud within the drip fluid.  Nearer and nearer it crept toward his veins, his 
promised death in the form of a poison, his God in the shape of a needle. 
 His heart raced, as he pondered the nature of his pending demise.  Childishly, he 
had prayed for it, but now he feared it. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
26
 
He comforted himself with the hope that the incident had been a sick, sadistic 
joke, but he also believed every word of it.  Inch upon inch, as a wispy, tumbling cloud, 
the nurse’s ominous promise loomed nearer to his soul, and he pondered its advance with 
the trepid resignation of a doomed criminal marching toward his gallows pole.  He both 
dreaded and dismissed its slow creep, which seemed as real as his heart beat and as false 
as a terrifying nightmare. 
The most damaged aspects of his psyche longed for death’s release.  From his 
vantage in the C.C.U., his future seemed an eternity of physical agony.  While behind the 
hoods of his eyelids, that little girl’s final, terrified expression swelled broader and paler 
than an autumn moon over the night skies of his thoughts, and he knew it, like the lunar 
cycle, would remain with him constant and forever. 
It would rise over his evenings, shine through his nights, and descend into the 
glare of his days, obscured but never absent.  Ready as the after image of something 
brilliant burned into his gaze, her pale, horror-stricken face remained fixed to the bloody 
interior surfaces of his eyelids. 
He shut his eyes tightly for a moment to see her standing there upon the sidewalks 
of his tortured memory, staring up at him with the same dread fascination that drew his 
own eyes to the cloudy liquid flowing toward his veins.  She had faced her doom 
resolutely for all its surprise.  She had not sought to run.  She had not flinched.  As he 
envisioned her in his blackest thoughts, her face snapped upward in an instant to see his 
tumbling machine bearing down upon her.  Once more, he crushed her tiny body in his 
thoughts, and the resultant agony of empathy and guilt overwhelmed him. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
27
 
How many times could he suffer such visions sanely.  How long could he survive 
himself. 
Christen pondered his destiny with the shielded mental vision of a child at a 
horror show, and he knew he could not survive it.  Starting from the crash and looking 
forward, he envisioned his future day up on day, following its coursework of disaster and 
doom with an enthralled and yet terrified foresight that could see everything clearly.  He 
traced his life through the many possible pathways that radiated out from this point 
forward, each twist and turn a decision, good or bad, each inch an action, right or wrong.  
In his mind, Christen found himself at the center of countless pointing fingers and angry 
condemnations, and he knew he must become the pariah of his social circle now.  Worse 
still, Christen understood that his own thoughts would never let him rest, again.  His 
conscience must fester in the days to come, mortally poisoned by shame and remorse, so 
it must seem an irritation he could never purge, so it must be a constant, wracking noise 
he could never squelch. 
No, he knew he could not survive himself.  One day, he knew he would make a 
short climb up a tall stool standing beneath a dangling loop of rope.  It would be a short, 
sharp drop, he guessed, and no more or less painful than the drug that was even now 
slinking toward his murder through a slim, plastic tube. 
He watched that swirling cloud disperse to invisibility within its liquid medium, 
as it flowed out of sight.  Helpless, he sucked slow, deep breaths, and returned his 
attention to the ceiling.  He wondered how long the drug would require to finish its work.  
A minute.  Ten minutes.  An hour. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
28
 
 Once more, he begged God’s attendance, and asked for mercy.  ‘Let it be minutes, 
God,’ he wept silently, ‘Let it come quick.’ 
 Though he steeled his body against the reaction, he felt nothing.  He wondered if 
he had dreamed the entire episode. 
 Then the female nurse returned.  Her eyes reflected that same stale hatred to 
which he was rapidly growing accustomed.  Nevertheless, she tended him gently.  When 
she saw the plastic syringe cap lying discarded on his chest, she gasped and snatched it 
up. 
 Casting an angry glance over her shoulder, she held the bright orange cylinder 
before Christen’s vision, and asked, “Did that nurse inject you with something.” 
 Christen held his swollen tongue, and said nothing.  He rolled his eyes away from 
hers to focus on the intravenous drip, and then he closed his lids to see the little girl 
staring back at him from the far, black depths of eternity. 
 “Son of a bitch!” spat the nurse.  With quick, deft movements, she removed the 
tape fastening the intravenous drip to Christen’s hairy forearm.  As she worked, she 
alternated her attention between Christen’s gaze and the needle.  “Listen, you have to 
forget about everything you just saw and heard, okay.  I’m going to take care of 
everything, so you’ll be safe.”  She jerked the tube from his arm without ceremony or 
grace.  Christen winced, and his many agonies flared painfully.  “If you say anything 
about it, I’ll deny everything, and next time, you might not be so lucky.  Do you 
understand.” 
 Again, Christen rolled his eyes.  He fixed the handcuffs with his gaze, and 
pondered the dull, reflective surface of stainless steel chain links. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
29
 
 “Not that you deserve salvation of any kind,” she spat acidly, removing the old 
drip bottle from its hanger and wrapping it with the contaminated tubes.  “I don’t know 
what kind of person you are, but I suspect you understand why so many people want to 
hurt you, right now.” 
 Christen’s gaze fixed on his manacles.  Through a tortured throat, he croaked, 
“Was it quick.” 
 That stopped her.  She leaned close, her eyes hateful and mean. 
 “You think we have to care about you, simply because we’re doctors and nurses.  
Maybe we should, maybe we could, except it was not quick!”  Her voice broke and her 
face blushed angrily.  Christen realized she had narrowly stifled sobs of rage and disgust, 
this woman who had likely seen every sort of human horror and tragedy.  “Oh, God,” she 
hissed softly, “Oh, God, help us all.” 
 “I-I’m sorry,” he gargled, his words scrambled as the sound of rasping rivers of 
gravel. 
 “Of course you are!”  With quick, vehement movements, the nurse fixed a fresh 
bag onto its hanger, before she turned to fumble a new needle into Christen’s veins.  She 
taped the tubes to his arm, and finished by saying, “I only wish I could wheel you down 
to the morgue to see her body.  I wish you could see what you did to her, and… and what 
we had to do to her to save her.  Except, we couldn’t save her.  We could only save you.”  
With dead, professional eyes, her resolve returned, she added, “I hope you had a good 
time!”  Then she turned to leave. 
 To her back, Christen croaked, “I wasn’t drunk.”  Nobody heard him.  Nobody 
cared. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
30

 

 

 

 
Pressed Thin and White 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
31
 
-|- 

 Christen’s doctors soon transferred him from the C.C.U. to a semi-private room, 
whether to comply with his insurance plan’s requirements or simply to be rid of him, 
Christen could not know.  They had mercifully removed the collar from his neck, and his 
limbs from traction.  They had encased his shattered arms and legs in reinforced casts, 
instead, which itched horribly. 
 His situation had improved enormously, however, and he felt surprisingly well 
after only three days of treatment.  The handcuffs remained fixed in place and they had 
placed him in a special, guarded ward, though nobody had officially arrested him.  When 
he asked, the staff told him the chains were simply a ‘precaution’. 
On the third day of his internment, a huge female orderly shuffled into his room to 
offer him a liquid lunch of broth, tea and green Jello.  A neatly pressed young man 
followed on her heels, but he remained standing at the foot of Christen’s bed after the 
orderly began feeding her patient. 
He stared down at Christen for a moment, his gaze as hard and unflinching as cold 
steel.  “Mr. Bass.  Christen Bass.” he asked eventually, his hypnotic gaze unbroken. 
 Christen calmly sipped tea through a straw, returning the stare over the rim of his 
plastic cup without blinking, as the attendant held it steady before him.  “That’s right,” he 
rasped eventually, his voice a monstrous gargle. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
32
 
 “Hi, I’m Sergeant Martinez with the Pecan Groves Police Department, Homicide 
Division.  How are you today.”  The sergeant’s face remained flat and unsmiling, despite 
the overtly compassionate nature of his inquiry. 
 Christen chose not to respond.  He merely sipped iced tea, and eyed the officer 
warily. 
 Noticing the manacles fixed to Christen’s left wrist, Sergeant Martinez broke eye 
contact to maneuver around the room to the side of Christen’s bed.  Laying a thin satchel 
between Christen’s cast legs, he fished up a set of keys and removed the cuffs. 
 “As you probably guess, I’ve been investigating your accident, Mr. Bass.  It was 
an awful mess, one of the worst I’ve seen, and I have to admit it looked bad for you, at 
first.”  The officer dragged a chair close, and then sat in it with his slender leather case, 
from which he extracted a ream of reports.  “I have to apologize for the delay, but it was 
just terrible timing.  The New Year holiday is always busy for us, but this season things 
really got out of hand. 
 “After three straight years of decline, the D.U.I. arrest rate really spiked.  You 
should see the numbers, it was unbelievable, let me tell you.”  The sergeant shuffled and 
stacked his papers, before he selected a few vital sheets to support his interrogation.  
Abruptly changing subjects, he asked, “How are you feeling, by the way.” 
 “I’m alive, at least,” choked Christen.  “Thanks for asking.” 
 “Believe it or not, Mr. Bass, I care.  I know it doesn’t seem that way to you now, 
after three long days of wondering about your freedom, but it was really just terrible 
timing.  The sheer volume of holiday incidents delayed the results of your toxicology 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
33
 
tests; otherwise, I would have been here sooner.  I wanted to be here sooner, Mr. Bass, I 
really did.  Believe me.” 
 “I guess you did,” offered Christen flatly.  “You probably wanted to hang me by 
my ball sack.”  With that, the orderly apparently decided Christen had eaten enough, and 
she left, clucking her tongue. 
 The sergeant glared.  “No, Mr. Bass, not exactly.  First, I wanted to determine 
whether you had committed a crime, then, if I thought you were culpable, I would have 
hung you by your ball sack.  If it was your daughter, wouldn’t you expect the same 
response.” 
 Christen longed to rub the red welts around his left wrist, and half nodded.  
“Yeah.  Probably.” 
 “Good thing for you, though, you’re not guilty.  All your tests came back negative 
for toxicants.  No drugs, no alcohol.” 
 “That’s what I tried to tell you people from the beginning.” 
 “You understand we couldn’t just take your word for it.”  The detective softened a 
bit, and sighed.  “Let me be frank.  This situation is all fucked up on a permanent basis, 
Mr. Bass, and there’s no way I can un-fuck it.  You wiped out on New Year’s Eve, so 
naturally everybody assumed you were drinking.  The fact that you weren’t might not 
seem so important right now, but I guarantee you would feel a whole lot worse, if you 
really had been drunk.  In a few days, that might mean more than it does at present, but I 
still have a job to do.” 
 “Why.  I’m not guilty of a crime.” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
34
 
 “No, but somebody is, Mr. Bass, because somebody deliberately removed that 
manhole cover.  Depending on the perpetrator’s intent, we have a broad range of possible 
criminal charges to file, if I can locate a suspect.” 
 Christen sighed, ultimately relieved that he would not face trial or imprisonment.  
“I’m glad to help, if I can.” 
 As he annotated his documents, the sergeant offered, “I don’t know how much my 
advice counts, Mr. Bass, but I recommend that you go easy on yourself.  This wasn’t your 
fault.  Nothing you did caused the accident, and you couldn’t avoid it, once you hit that 
hole.  Somebody else killed the little girl, Mr. Bass, and I’m going to find that bastard, if 
I can.” 
 Though he had always considered himself a strong man, Christen stifled childish 
sobs with a protesting, bobbing throat.  “Yeah,” he responded eventually, “Thanks.  That 
helps.” 
 Without glancing up from his reports, the officer asked, “Don’t you wonder why a 
girl that age was out on the streets on New Year’s Eve.” 
 Christen scarcely heard the question, as his eyes were closed to watch the child 
die again.  He sniffled wetly and swallowed deeply, but he said nothing. 
 “No.” wondered the sergeant rhetorically.  “Well, I guess that’s not your job.  I 
suppose it must be difficult to think of such things at a time like this, but I wondered, Mr. 
Bass, I wondered quite a bit.”  Sergeant Martinez raised his eyes now, and they shone 
piercing brilliant with intensity and sincerity.  Somebody, Christen realized, would pay a 
dear price for this crime.  “We didn’t locate the girl’s mother until yesterday.  She hadn’t 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
35
 
even reported the girl missing, and we might not have found her at all, except the girl was 
responsible for supplying her mother with drugs, so she was well known in the area.” 
 That struck a chord.  Christen’s stomach churned, and a new doom began to 
slowly dawn over the ruins of his thoughts.  His eyes opened a bit wider. 
 “Yeah,” spat the officer, disgusted, “You should see the bitch, she’s a mess.”  He 
shook his head, and returned to his files.  Producing a photo, he held it up for Christen to 
clearly see, and the woman was indeed mess.  Weathered by long years of prostitution, 
drugs and alcohol, her thirty-something features appeared aged beyond her years.  Her 
eyes sunk into her face in a reptilian fashion, while unhealthy, blemished skin stretched 
across protruding cheeks.  “No matter who else I hang for that manhole bullshit, this 
woman is the primary culprit, as far as I’m concerned. 
 “So I popped her for a half dozen violations, when I questioned her.  She was 
already on parole for a financial instrument charge, so I violated that, too, and there’s 
much more to come.”  Neatly returning the photo to its place, he added, “I have my ways, 
Mr. Bass, you may be assured of that.  By the time I’m finished with that woman, she’s 
going to be drug free for years, and that’s the worst thing I can do to her.  After six 
months or so, her mind will clear a bit, and she’ll begin to relive all the things she’s done.  
After a year, her conscience will wake up, and then….” Martinez sighed and shook his 
head.  “Then, Mr. Bass, the real punishment begins for her.  Prison time will seem like 
nothing, compared to the time she’ll do inside her own head.” 
 Christen closed his eyes and swallowed.  He guessed the officer’s words were 
meant to console and comfort him, but they did not.  Rather, they spoke of a tortured 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
36
 
existence ended by a torturous death.  If all these things were true, then Christen could 
guess the rest.  “Oh, God,” he moaned, considering the child’s endless suffering. 
 For a moment, he thought the sergeant might have responded with a silent sob, 
because the man hung his head and sucked several deep breaths.  “I see very little of God 
in this world these days,” he offered softly, “But I feel God in my heart.  He speaks to 
me, sometimes, when I have to deal with… with… shit like this.  It’s not a genuine, 
human voice, you know- I’m not nuts.  Still, I hear… something, Mr. Bass.  A whisper, 
perhaps, or a dream… but something.” 
 “What does it say.” wondered Christen softly. 
 “One word, Mr. Bass:  justice.” 
 They exchanged a silent, teary gaze.  Christen’s chest swelled painfully.  “Yeah,” 
he sniffled, “Justice.  That would be good.” 
 Clearing his tone and his eyes with a snort, the sergeant returned, “You say that 
like you believe it’s a child’s dream, and I guess it must seem that way to you right now.  
I can only say; it’s not a child’s dream to me.  Do you see this.” he held up a document, 
which appeared official and wordy.  “It’s a John Doe warrant for murder, Mr. Bass.  It’s a 
one-way ticket to hell on Earth for the individual or individuals that did this terrible thing.  
I’ll work hard all day long, seven days a week, to make certain this warrant is exercised 
with all due haste.  When I catch the little bastards, I will have done my job to its fullest, 
finest extent to make certain everything sticks.  In short, Mr. Bass, if I charge somebody, 
they do time.  Period. 
 “I’ll get this sucker, you can believe that.  Sooner or later, one way or another.” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
37
 
 “You talk like no criminal ever gets set free,” returned Christen, wiggling his nose 
and longing to blot its tip with his lunch napkin. 
 Understanding Christen’s need, the sergeant rose up, clutching his case and 
reports with one arm, and dabbing Christen’s nose with the other.  Returned to his seat, 
Martinez collected his documents with a tidy shuffle, and said, “Many escape 
punishment, Mr. Bass, but nobody ever gets set free, not even you or me.  I can only tell 
you that I put lowlifes behind bars almost every day.  Whether you like it or not, I’ve sent 
a half dozen perps to Death Row in the past several years, and that’s Death Row in 
Texas, Mr. Bass.  Every one of them deserved it and worse, and Texas will make certain 
they get it, because I made certain.  Do you understand.” 
 Christen nodded rigidly.  “I think so.” 
 “A warrant for murder, even one in the name of a John Doe perpetrator, knows no 
statute of limitations.  Whether it waits a minute or ten thousand years, its determination 
of guilt is timeless and relentless.  When I’m an old man drooling in a rocker, somebody 
will slide this very same document from this very same file, then they’ll read the words 
that I write, that you speak, and they’ll start searching all over again. 
 “Once I convince a judge to fix a signature and a seal to this little scrap of paper, 
the guilty party faces two simple fates; the official damnation of prosecution or the 
natural damnation of death.”  Incongruously brightening the room, the sergeant smiled 
with a gleaming rack of perfect teeth.  “Now, don’t you feel better knowing that I’m not 
looking for you, Mr. Bass.” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
38
 
 Christen’s heart raced.  In fact, he felt extremely happy to hear this news.  Despite 
himself, he returned the smile.  “Yeah,” he gushed, relieved immensely, “I am, actually.  
Very much.” 
 “Good.  Just don’t feel sorry for the girl’s mother or the punk that removed the 
cover, and don’t feel sorry for yourself, Mr. Bass.  As I understand the situation, you 
narrowly escaped death.  They resuscitated you repeatedly, before they could get you into 
the emergency room, and that’s more punishment than you deserve for this crime you 
didn’t commit.  You have to see yourself for the victim that you are, and then you have to 
heal.  Move on.  Forget.” 
 “I’ll try.” 
 “I hope you do,” returned the sergeant sincerely.  With a sigh, he added, “I think 
you should know one more thing, before we begin, Mr. Bass.” 
 “What.” wondered Christen, when the officer refused to continue without a 
prompt. 
 “As hard as it may be to believe, you should know this accident might have been 
the best thing that ever happened to the girl.” 
 Stunned, Christen’s eyes flare wide.  He asked, “Why would you say that.” 
 “The autopsy, which you don’t want to see, revealed evidence of chronic physical 
abuse.  I don’t want to disgust you with all the details, but the intact portions of her body 
were covered with old scars and bruises and not a few fresh cigarette burns.  Both her 
arms and one of her legs had been previously fractured, and we found traces of heroin 
and marijuana in her blood work.  Finally, she had been sexually active for years.”  
Wearily, ashamed of having to explain such a sordid reality, ashamed that he should 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
39
 
know such things at all, the sergeant confided, “They do that, you know.  They pimp their 
own kids on the streets.  Back when I worked a beat in Dallas, I arrested prostitutes as 
young as twelve years old, sometimes more than once.” 
 Martinez shrugged.  “Maybe it makes you feel better, maybe it makes you feel 
worse to know.  That’s for you to decide, I just thought you should know.” 
 Christen relaxed into the uncomfortable pause that followed these words, and he 
realized that the sergeant had confessed his own secret horrors and needs.  The sergeant 
had purged himself in Christen. 
 Eventually, Christen asked, “Why.” 
 “Like I said, Mr. Bass,” returned the sergeant seriously, stoically, “I don’t see 
much of God these days, but He speaks to me, nonetheless.  One look at you, and I felt 
compelled to tell you things you should not know.  Somehow, I hope it helps.” 
 Christen closed his eyes, as the sergeant began his interrogation regarding the 
events of New Year’s Eve.  Half-listening and mechanically responding to the sergeant’s 
queries, Christen stared across the short, brutal distance that separated him from the little 
girl, as he watched her die again. 
 From the depths of an unfathomable eternity, she stared up at him, surrounded by 
the brutal night, tiny and helpless beneath the tumbling mass of Christen’s smashed 
machine, her eyes voluminous and withering in their innocent dread.  With a surge of his 
heart, Christen remembered how their gazes had locked so briefly.  He remembered how 
she stared back at him, terrified and yet comprehending.  He remembered how she… 
smiled back at him, her lips pressed thin and white, just before a cruel shadow fell across 
her face, and blackness filled Christen’s memory. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
40

 

 

 

 
The Far Edge of Doom 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
41
 
-|- 

 Christen rested comfortably on the fifth day after the accident.  The unknown 
gentleman in the adjacent bed tuned the television with annoying regularity back and 
forth between the evening news and a stale game show rerun, but Christen’s eyes 
remained shut, pressed tightly together to render him oblivious.  He heard nothing, save 
for the tumbling destruction of his memory.  He saw nothing, save for the girl’s pale face 
staring up at him from the far edge of doom.  He felt nothing, save for a sick, twisting 
churn of his stomach that threatened all things ill. 
 Since his conversation with the detective, the girl’s image had assumed a 
decidedly drab appearance.  Christen thought perhaps he remembered the details more 
clearly with the passage of time, but he suspected he remembered nothing at all. 
He had glanced up to see her standing near the curb, her eyes wide and her mouth 
a black ‘O’ of surprise.  At first, the surprise overwhelmed every other emotion that 
might have played across her face in such a terrible moment.  Yet, her expression had 
changed with shocking rapidity, once she realized her fate was at hand.  As young as she 
was, she knew. 
 Now he held her image fixed in his thoughts, a freeze-frame still shot snapped out 
of a jerky, blurred action video.  In this precise moment within his memory, her features 
appeared incredibly clear and precise.  From surprise, to fear, to… to… contentment, her 
face changed shape and color with ease and fluidity.  In the last instant before a shadow 
obscured her face, Christen watched the child return his gaze with a happy smile. 

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42
 
 Then he noticed the eyes behind the smile, and he found them sunken and pitted.  
He saw how her cheeks clung too nearly to the bones of her skull, and then he saw the 
many blemishes, scars and injuries that covered her pale, drawn skin.  A fresh cut 
glistened wetly near the corner of a swollen lower lip, and a new bruise shaded the skin 
blue-black there. 
 His heart surged, and his gut burned acidly.  Within his thoughts, he moaned, ‘Oh, 
God!  What have I done.’  A tear streaked his cheek to his chin, where it dripped to the 
collar of his thin gown. 
Involuntarily, he snorted wetly, attracting the attention of his roommate, who 
leaned forward to peer around the edge of the curtain that half-enshrouded him.  
Apparently exhausted, the old man lay back again, and grunted, “You okay over there, 
young fellah.  Should I call a nurse.” 
Christen jumped at the noise.  For a mad moment, he thought the girl had spoken 
to him from the depths of his nightmares.  He fought his diaphragm for control of his 
lungs, before he sucked a deep, calming breath, and exhaled, saying, “No.  I’m okay, I 
guess.” 
 Once more, the older man grunted.  “That’s too bad.” 
 “Excuse me.” returned Christen almost immediately by force of habit.  “What did 
you say.” 
 “I said, it’s too fuckin’ bad that you’re feelin’ okay, but ain’t that the way of it.” 
 “What are you talking about.” 
 “You, and that little girl.”  When Christen fell silent, and offered no response, the 
old man grunted again, settling into the raised mattress of his hospital bed.  “That’s right, 

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Stephen Huff 
43
 
I heard all about it.  The whole thing’s been on the news for days.  I thought it was you, 
straight off, since they said they dropped you at this very same hospital, but I wasn’t sure.  
It is you, ain’t it.” 
 Christen nodded, though the old man obviously would not see.  Nevertheless, he 
seemed to receive the response, when he continued. 
 “Yep, that’s what I thought, but it’s the natural way of things, I suppose.” 
 “What is the natural way of things.” returned Christen sarcastically. 
 “The drunk always survives to drink and drive another day.  It’s ever’body else on 
the road that dies.  You look like you’re gonna heal up just fine, but that girl ain’t goin’ 
nowhere ever again.  You seen to that, and it’s a right good job, too.  One of them fairy 
male nurses told me all about it.” 
 “Told you all about what, Mister.” Christen returned wearily, guessing who the 
male nurse might have been. 
 “He said I should sneak over to your bed at night when nobody was lookin’, and 
blow air into your tubes.  He even showed me how to do it!” 
 “Why didn’t you.” returned Christen, defeated.  “It might have saved a lot of time 
and trouble.” 
 The old man hissed a soft snigger.  “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.  I told him 
as much.  I says, ‘You know, killin’ that sorry sum-bitch would be the easiest thing for 
him.  If he has any kind of conscience at all, he’s gonna suffer for the rest of his life, and 
that’s a much worse punishment.’  He didn’t buy it, though, so I guess you had better 
watch out for him!”  The old man emitted another snigger, and flipped the television 
channel back to the news.  “So, I think it’s a shame that you’re feelin’ okay, but hearin’ 

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44
 
you sniffle over there like a little faggot pullin’ pud in the dark, I know you have a 
conscience.  The rest should work itself out.  Oh!” gasped the old man, thumbing the 
set’s volume higher, “It’s you, ain’t it.” 
 Indeed, Christen watched and listened to a report regarding holiday-related 
deaths.  Christen’s accident occupied center stage of the presentation.  The anchor, a 
striking blonde of advancing years, stated that Christen was ‘suspected of driving while 
intoxicated’, though she added ‘test results are pending’.  The old man snarled to hear 
this.  When the male anchor offered another report regarding the girl’s mother and her 
alleged abuse, the old man showed his displeasure with abrupt, jerking motions of his 
limbs. 
 “God damn it all to hell!” he spat, “That’s sick!  This world is one sick place, let 
me tell ya, and you’re a big, chunky turd swimmin’ through the muck!” 
 “I wasn’t drunk!” returned Christen hotly.  “The test results came back two days 
ago, and they were all negative!” 
 “Bullshit!  You’re a murderin’ bastard, and it’s best you just face up to the fact!  I 
got every reason to shit all over you, if I want!” 
 “Fuck you, old man!” 
 “Don’t you talk to me like that, youngster!  I ain’t no murderer, such as yourself.  
I’m a lawful, tax-payin’, votin’ citizen.  I was kickin’ ass in Viet Nam decades before you 
were a wet stain, and I got plenty fight left in me today!”  The old man’s voice came 
ragged and breathless, and Christen realized the man was enraged.  “People like you 
make me sick to my stomach!  You’re worse than useless, you’re a menace to yourself 

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45
 
and ever’body around you!  Guys like you never go out alone, ‘cause you’re too chicken-
shit!  Guys like you always gotta take somebody else along for the ride!” 
 Christen sighed, once he sensed a commotion in the hallway.  The staff had heard, 
and must now come to his rescue.  Softly, beaten, Christen parried by saying, “I wasn’t 
drunk.” 
 “And I’m Mother Theresa!”  The old man hissed a rasping snigger.  A concerned 
orderly entered the room, her face screwed into a peevish mask.  “Hey, there, young 
lady!” called the old man jovially, “You’re just in time!” 
 “In time for what.” returned the orderly, confused. 
 “Just in time to move me out of this room.  It stinks in here!” 
 The woman wrinkled her nose to sniff the air.  “No more than it normally does.” 
 “Oh, yeah, it was alright a few minutes ago, but then that cock-sucker woke up 
and opened his pie-hole!  You should hear the profanity!” 
 Christen rolled his eyes to see her face, before he turned his head away from her 
approach.  “Mr. Bass, you know you can’t go around stirring up trouble.  This man is 
very ill, just like you, and he needs his rest.  Now I suggest you lie quietly there and mind 
your own business.” 
 Sighing, Christen returned sharply, “Or else what.   What could you possibly do 
to me.” 
 The orderly cocked her head and her hip, placing one beefy hand atop her 
generously protruding haunch.  Lowering her gaze, she said, “For one thing, I could make 
certain you accidentally get hourly enemas for the rest of the day.  Imagine the liquid 
runs in all those casts.  Now you just be nice, okay.  There’s no sense in getting 

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Stephen Huff 
46
 
everybody all stirred up just because they took those handcuffs off.”  With a jerk of her 
fat, jiggling arm, she yanked the curtain that hung between their beds.  It shut him off 
from the rest of the world with a screech of metal rings and rails.  “You never know,” she 
added hopefully, as she left the room, “They might be back any minute, now.” 
 Before he could respond, the telephone rang.  Christen jumped, startled, and his 
every limb flared agony.  The old man answered, and responded in soft tones to the party 
on the line.  Eventually, Christen heard him groan to rise from bed.  On pale, stick-thin 
legs, he tottered over to the curtain, and leaned his head through the gap between it and 
the wall. 
 “It’s for you,” he announced unhappily.  “I would’a hung up, but she says she’s 
your wife.”  He smiled, as he leaned nearer to place the headset beneath Christen’s ear, 
“And she don’t sound none too happy, neither!  I bet it’s an ass-reamin’, for sure!”  
Cackling, he returned to his bed, leaving Christen to breathe into the phone. 
 “Hello.” she asked, her voice tinny and distant.  “Christen.” 
 “I’m here,” he responded softly. 
 “Are you alright.” 
 He remained silent for a long moment, his eyes shut, the little girl staring up at 
him, unafraid and ready for her fate.  “No,” he said softly, sarcastically adding, “But it’s 
nice of you to ask, Beth.” 
 She sighed.  “I would have called earlier.  I wanted to call earlier, but I didn’t 
know… I wasn’t sure…”  Her voice trailed off, and she returned his silence for a time.  
Eventually, she finished with, “Did you want me to call earlier.  Really.” 
 “No.  I guess not.” 

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Stephen Huff 
47
 
 More silence.  Then she asked, “Do you want to talk about it.” 
 “No.” 
 Once more, she sighed wearily.  “Of course you don’t.  You never want to talk 
about anything.”  When he groaned, she hurriedly inserted, “I know, okay, I’m sorry.  I 
promised I wouldn’t do this, so I’m just not going to do it.” 
 “Thank you.” 
 “I simply wondered if you needed anything.” 
 Christen wanted to say, ‘I need you’, but he couldn’t.  Even if he could, he knew 
she must reject him; their relationship had deteriorated too much for that.  Instead, he 
said, “No, I guess not.” 
 “Oh, please, Christen, don’t be such a martyr.  I don’t mind, really.”  When he 
refused to respond, she added playfully, hoping to alter the mood of the conversation, 
“Magazines.  Candy.  Chewing gum.  A hooker.” 
 He smiled, despite himself.  “Yeah, that would be nice.” 
 “Which one.” 
 “The chewing gum,” he responded, his tone lighter.  More soberly, he declared, 
“I’m in no shape to read a magazine, anyway, and I don’t want to eat, since I can’t… you 
know… afterward.” 
 “It must be awful.” 
 “It could be worse.”  Though he had stoically held himself steady with a white 
knuckled psychological grip, his voice broke, and the tears came anew.  “I could be that 
little girl, lying in the morgue.” 

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Stephen Huff 
48
 
 Beth responded with her own sobs, “I’m so sorry, Christen.  I can only imagine 
how you must feel.” 
 Christen sniffled and struggled to control his breathing.  “Maybe this is worse, 
though.  Things might be easier, if I had died, and she had lived.” 
 “Don’t talk like that.” 
 “I’m not suicidal,” he retorted too quickly, “It’s just that she was so young.” 
 “You’re still a young man, yourself, Christen.” 
 “But my life was already finished,” he returned unhappily, emotion heavily 
tainting his words.  “What have I done of any consequence.  What use am I to the world.  
I’ll never cure cancer or win a Nobel Prize, but she might have done anything with her 
future.  Hell, I can’t even keep up with a marriage.” 
 “That’s not true, Christen,” she rebutted quickly, apparently prepared for this 
debate, “First of all, that little girl was living a hellish life.  As horrible as it might sound, 
I have to say the accident might have been the best thing that ever happened to her!”  
Christen wondered if she had spoken with Detective Martinez, and then he wondered if 
either of them truly believed it.  He wanted to believe, but he couldn’t.  “In fact, I think 
her mother is the true criminal, here.  They should hang that bitch! 
 “Second, this separation is a… mutual thing…” she sighed leadenly, because she 
knew Christen must be rolling his eyes, which he was.  “No, that’s not right.  It’s me, 
Christen, all me.” 
 Though he sensed pity in them, her words soothed him with a surprising comfort, 
since she had never admitted this before now.  His relief must have crossed the wire, 
somehow, because he heard her sob wetly. 

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Stephen Huff 
49
 
 She hastily continued, and he scarcely understood her for her weeping.  “I mean, 
I’m the one that’s not happy.  I’m the one that left.  I know I told you that it was because 
you never listened, that you didn’t care, but that’s not the real reason, Christen.  I left, 
because… because… because, I don’t really know why I left, but I do know that I’m 
miserable.” 
 “Then come back,” he breathed hopefully, wishing their reunion might be the 
good born of such bad.  He only half hoped, however, since he knew her mind. 
 “No, I can’t,” she returned breathlessly, stifling her tears as though she realized 
how close she had come to undoing all she had wrought.  “You know I can’t.  As 
miserable as I am now, I was more miserable with you.” 
 It hurt, and he didn’t try to deny the injury.  “Why, Beth.  What was so bad.” 
 “I told you I don’t know!” she returned too sharply, “It wasn’t you, it was me.  I 
was watching my life slip past day upon day, each the same as the one gone before, and I 
found myself driving to work every morning wondering if it was the rest of forever.  I- I- 
I needed a change, Christen, that’s all.” 
 Angry, once more, he sucked a deep breath and retorted evenly, “We could have 
changed jobs and moved to another city, if change is all you needed.” 
 “Maybe.  That might have helped at one point, but not any longer.  It’s gone too 
far, Christen, you know it has.” 
 Christen longed to hold his own head, but casts fixed his arms awkwardly rigid.  
He contented himself to squeeze tears with his eyelids, which were ever ready to flash the 
little girl’s strangely animated image before his tortured vision. 
 “I wish it hadn’t.” 

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Stephen Huff 
50
 
 Beth fell silent for a time, before she whispered, “Christen.” so softly that he 
scarcely heard. 
 “Yes.” 
 “Christen, I’ve done something awful.  Something wicked.” 
 His heart rolled and his pulse throbbed painfully in his fingertips.  “What have 
you done.” 
 “I hope you understand that I did it impulsively.  I did it without thinking, you 
know.” 
 “What did you do.”  Though he suspected he should feel alarmed, Christen felt 
curiously detached, instead.  He felt nothing, because nothing could hurt him more than 
the accident. 
 “You must understand, darling, I thought you were…” 
 “What.” 
 “I thought you were drunk.”  She waited patiently through his explosive 
exhalation, before she continued, “I thought you were drunk and driving mad, I don’t 
know.  I just remember feeling rage and shame and hatred.” 
 Again, she fell silent, and again he prompted her.  “What did you do, Beth.” 
 He all but heard her bite her lip.  She said, “I talked to Ben Shale, you know, 
Katy’s cousin.”  Christen remembered the balding, middle-aged attorney who preferred 
big boats, sports cars, and young blonde women like Beth.  “He convinced me to file for 
divorce on the spot.  He’s really good, maybe too good, because that’s not all.” 
 “What else.” 

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Stephen Huff 
51
 
 “We filed a restraining order that prohibits you from entering our home.”  Having 
decided to start it, Beth would finish it directly, without hedging or fawning.  All 
business, she concluded with, “I’m asking for everything, including the bank accounts, 
the car, and the furniture.” 
 Christen gritted his teeth.  “And.” 
 “I placed all your personal belongings in a self-storage unit, and I mailed the key 
to your office.  I already changed all the locks, and my new telephone numbers are 
unlisted.  All our friends have agreed not pass them along.  Ben wants all your 
communications to pass through him, via your attorney, of course.” 
 “Of course.  Anything else.” 
 Beth sighed.  “I was going to let you keep Sneaky, but since you’re in the 
hospital, I thought it might be best if I kept him, too.  You can always get another dog, 
once you get out.” 
 “I never really liked that little shit factory, anyway.  Keep him.  Keep every-
fucking-thing.  Keep your key, too.” 
 “Don’t be angry, Christen.” 
 “What else should I be.” he wondered incredulously.  “Why even bother to call, 
at all.” 
 She squirmed a bit, before she replied defensively, “I wasn’t going to call, at first.  
Then Ben requested the public records pertaining to your accident, which included your 
medical test results, you know.  We intended to use it against you in court, but then we 
learned that you weren’t drunk, and I… I felt awful.”  She breathed a dozen deep breaths.  

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“I debated whether I should call, and Ben said I shouldn’t, so I might not have called, 
except…” 
 “Yes.” 
 “Ben also told me a constable would visit your room today to serve you with the 
divorce papers and the restraining order.  I guess I felt you deserved some warning, at 
least.” 
 “Gee,” returned Christen drolly, “Thanks.” 
 “I’m so sorry, Christen!” 
 “No, you’re not.” 
 “Yes, I am.  I’m truly sorry.” 
 “Then undo it.  Fire Ben, and tell the court you made a huge mistake, that you 
don’t want a divorce.” 
 “I can’t.” 
 “Why not.”   He was angrier than he liked. 
 “Like I said, things have gone too far.” 
 “Then remove the restraining order, at least.” 
 She sighed.  “I wanted to remove it, but Ben says no.” 
 “Fuck Ben!” 
 “You’re going to be angry, when they release you.  He says it will keep me safe, 
and you out of trouble.  If you never do anything to violate it, nothing bad will happen to 
you.  If I have it revoked, Ben says my case will suffer.” 
 Evenly, though his veins bulged painfully with a raging pulse, he responded, “I 
see.  We couldn’t have that, could we.” 

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53
 
 Her lips quivering, Beth said, “I knew you would be upset.  Who wouldn’t be.  
Still, I thought I should call.  I thought you deserved that much, at least.” 
 “Yeah, sure,” he whispered softly. 
 “Listen, Christen, this will pass.  You’ll get-” she rambled on, but he was beyond 
caring. 
 He raised his ear off the receiver, and nudged it with his shoulder, so the weight 
of its cord dragged it off the bed.  It clattered onto the floor without breaking, startling 
Christen’s decrepit neighbor. 
 “Finished.” he cackled.  “I don’t like to be nosy, young fellah, but it didn’t sound 
like a happy conversation.” 
 Christen rolled his eyes shut, bit his lip, and watched the little girl die, again.  He 
longed to leave this place.  He longed for the freedom to stick his fingers into his ears, if 
he couldn’t crawl away.  Salvation of any kind was out of reach, however, so he suffered 
in silence. 
 The old man tottered off his bed to retrieve the handset.  Stooping with a long, 
agonizing groan, he rose, wincing, to place the earpiece alongside his head.  Christen 
could hear Beth’s tinny voice demanding his attention. 
 “Hey, lady,” gargled the old man, “Can I say somethin’.  What.  Oh, I’m his 
roommate, which I don’t want to be, but them tight-ass nurses won’t move me.  No, 
that’s okay.  I’ll survive.  Listen, though, I just wanted to say somethin’.  Do you mind.  
Good.  It’s just this; I don’t blame you divorcin’ the poor bastard, God knows he’s got it 
comin’, after what he did.  Still, I just wanted to say that you are one cold blooded, 
money-grubbin’ bitch, servin’ him up that way while he’s still laid out!”  Sniggering, the 

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Stephen Huff 
54
 
old man listened to her sputtering reply, before he added, “Aw, c’mon, woman, you don’t 
really give a shit.  You grabbed him by his balls and you snipped ‘em, FFFFT!, just like 
that, without a thought or care!  No, fuck you very much!”  He hung up with a cackle. 
 After he climbed back into bed painfully, he held his wounded belly, and groaned.  
“I don’t know what you’re cryin’ about, over there,” he offered through gritted teeth.  
“It’s none of my business, but that woman ain’t worth a single tear, not that you deserve 
better.  I know.  I’ve been through four wives and a score o’ girlfriends in my time, and I 
say that one is trash!” 
 He flipped the television back and forth for several minutes, huffing breathlessly 
after his exertions.  Eventually, he announced with a grunt, “Oh, I think I ripped myself 
open deep inside.  I see blood.  Nurse!  Nurse!  NURSE!” 
 Christen pressed his eyes tightly shut, and strangely found comfort in the little 
girl’s vacant gaze.  Though the accident was only five days old, Christen had already 
learned he could hurt much worse. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
55

 

 

 

 
Beyond the Veil 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
56
 
-|- 

 She came to him in a carefully crafted moment.  Administrative representatives of 
the hospital had visited him earlier in the morning to inform him of his pending release.  
They had said nothing about his continued care, and they didn’t address the fact that he 
was homeless and virtually helpless.  His physician remained conspicuously absent 
through the early afternoon, while the orderlies and nurses all curtly informed him that 
somebody would tend to him soon. 
 A week previously, they replaced his rotting casts with smaller, lighter fiberglass 
splints, so Christen was able to leverage his aching bones into a wheelchair, where he sat 
until three in the afternoon, biting his lip.  He might have chewed his nails, but he 
couldn’t flex his hands to his mouth. 
 Outside, beyond the blinded windows of his room, a brilliant sun alternated 
between gray, obscuring clouds and clear blue sky.  He guessed the wind was blowing 
fiercely out there, as the fickle light danced with countless shadows cast by swaying tree 
limbs.  The thought of such movement pained him deeply, as he felt the limited 
constriction of his broken bones and atrophied muscles.  His heart surged anxiously.  
Where would he go.  How would he survive.  Who would help him. 
 As he wallowed in the dismal charnel pit that was his looming future, she came to 
him in a carefully crafted moment.  “Mr. Bass.” she wondered brightly, lightly rapping 
the door to his room with delicate knuckles. 

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Stephen Huff 
57
 
 Christen glanced up to see her genuine smile, and his heart thrilled.  He found her 
beauty angelic and hypnotic. 
“Yes,” he returned dully, ashamed to seem an insect before such a bright light.  
“That’s me.” 
 “Hello,” she offered, extending her right hand to touch the fingers of his right 
hand, which jutted from a rigid plastic cuff.  “My name is Rachel Voorhees.  I’m a Social 
Assistant here at the hospital, and I’ve come to talk about your situation.  May I roll you 
over to the corner, there.”  Without waiting for his response, she edged him toward a 
chair seated near the window, tucking a thin folder beneath her arm.  “I understand 
you’re feeling much better, and ready for discharge.” 
 “That’s what they tell me.” 
 She leveraged him into a convenient position, before she deposited her folder onto 
the windowsill and took her seat.  Straightening the kinks and wrinkles of her slacks, 
Rachel at last fixed him with her curious gaze, which superseded a broad and sincere 
grin.  “You look well, all things considered.” 
 Christen shrugged painfully.  “I feel okay.  The physical therapy is a real torture, 
but it helps.  They say I should be back in shape within a year.” 
 “Considering everything that might have happened, that sounds fine.  Don’t you 
agree.” 
 “Oh, sure, lady, I agree one hundred percent.  Life doesn’t get any better than 
this.”  Christen’s tone was flat and void of emotion. 
 His lack of sarcasm disturbed Rachel more than she liked to admit.  “May I be 
direct, Mr. Bass.” she asked bluntly. 

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58
 
 “Sure, why not.  And please call me Chris.” 
 “Okay, Chris.  I came here today to address the special circumstances of your 
discharge.  Your physician informed hospital administration that you are unable to locate 
appropriate housing, post-discharge, and that you have no family or friends to care for 
you.  Is this correct.” 
 “Essentially.” 
 “What is your status with your employer.” 
 Again, Christen shrugged.  “Okay, I guess.  I’m insured through the company, and 
the human resources department helped me out with vacation and short-term disability.  
Plus, since I was technically on-call the night of the accident, I get worker’s 
compensation and a sizable lump sum distribution.” 
 “So, financially speaking, you’re okay for now.” 
 “For now.” 
 “But you don’t have a home to go to.” 
 “That’s right.  My wife is divorcing me.  She filed a restraining order that 
prohibits me from approaching our residence.” 
 “What about friends and family.  Don’t you have anyone you can call to help you 
through the next few weeks.” 
 Christen swallowed stiffly, and struggled against an overwhelming surge of self-
pity.  “No,” he returned softly.  “My friends are all her friends, and they won’t talk to me, 
for now.  And my family are all gone, dead.” 
 “I see.  That leaves you in a precarious position, doesn’t it.”  Her smile returned, 
and he found it incongruously pleasant, given his surroundings.  “The good news,” she 

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Stephen Huff 
59
 
announced brightly, “Is that this is the worst of it.  Admittedly, this must seem like a low 
spot in your life, and I guess it is, but it could be much, much worse, Mr. Bass.  You must 
remain positive.” 
 “I’m trying,” he growled, thinking to himself how ignorant she sounded, healthy 
as she was. 
 “That’s the first step, then,” she returned happily, ignoring his souring mood.  
“The next step is to find you a place to live.  Have you made any progress in that 
direction.” 
 “Not really, no.  One of your orderlies helped me work the phone last week, and I 
located a few promising apartments, but I have to actually be there to sign the 
applications and leases, and such.”  Christen sighed leadenly, exhausted by the day’s 
exertions.  Groaning, he added, “I thought I’d go to a hotel for a few days, until I get 
everything sorted out.  I was planning to use cabs and such to get around, since my car is 
totaled.  Not that I could drive, even if it was good as new.” 
 “That sounds like a good plan, Mr. Bass, but maybe I could help make it a bit 
better.  If you agree, of course.” 
 “Rachel, I could use all the help you can offer,” he sighed, relieved.  “I thought 
you people just didn’t give a shit.” 
 “What do you mean.” 
 “I mean to say that some of the nurses and doctors have treated me rather nastily.  
It was really bad the first few days, when they kept me chained to the bed and everybody 
thought I was a drunken baby killer.” 

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60
 
 Rachel winced, and glanced at her lap.  “Professional caregivers can be callus and 
cold, Mr. Bass, due to the nature of their business.  They have to be.  Sometimes, we 
interpret that aloofness as disgust or disregard, but I assure you that they are all good, 
dedicated people.  All of them want to help.” 
 “That may be so,” he returned without hostility, “But there are shades of help, you 
know.  Let’s just say none of them really went out of their way for me, and one of them 
was actually a rather menacing character.  I would complain, but I know it wouldn’t 
make any difference.” 
 “Contrarily, Mr. Bass, it could make a great difference.” 
 Christen scoffed with a sharp breath.  “Never mind, anyway.  I guess I deserved 
it, if I had really been what they believed me to be.” 
 “But you weren’t.  You aren’t.  As I understand it,” she intoned, appearing to 
review his file, “You were the victim of a crime.” 
 “That’s right.” 
 “Another person was involved, I know,” she read silently.  “Perhaps you blame 
yourself for her death.” 
 “No,” he sighed, “Not really.  At first I did, but not now.” 
 “What do you feel about it, now.” 
 “I- I- I feel like… who cares, anyway.  In a hundred years, none of this will 
matter to anybody.”  He sighed heavily, “I knew such things happened to little girls, you 
know,” and his lip quivered, though he fought it stiff.  “I read about it the newspaper and 
I watched it on the evening news, but it never actually touched me until the accident.”  

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61
 
With mention of that horrific event, his resolve shattered as a dam burst by a flood, and 
he wept. 
 Concerned, tears welling in the corners of her own eyes, Rachel leaned close to 
pull him near to her comforting embrace.  He fell into it, and felt such warmth and 
companionship from her that his weeping fell silent as quickly as it erupted.  With the 
torpid drag of a toxicant drifting his veins, her touch infused his spirit and calmed his 
tortured psyche. 
 Into his ear, she whispered, “It’s okay to cry, Mr. Bass.  I promise I won’t tell.” 
 He sniffled, nodding, and indicated with a flex of his neck that he had taken all he 
felt he deserved from her.  She leaned away to extract tissues from a box sitting on the 
windowsill, which she used to dab his nose and eyes. 
 “Thank you,” he breathed softly. 
 “I can’t imagine how you must feel, Chris.  In all the time that I’ve worked this 
job, I’ve rarely come across a situation as apparently desperate as yours.  Whether you 
believe it or not, most of the staff and faculty of this hospital are decent people.  We want 
to help, we really do. 
 “So feel assured when I tell you that you are not alone today.  We are not going to 
discharge you into the street, regardless of your social situation.  In fact, I’ve already 
selected several assisted living facilities near the hospital that should meet with your 
approval.  Any one of them is capable of successfully transitioning your recovery, and 
they all provide the kind of therapeutic assistance you’ll need to get on your feet and back 
on the job.” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
62
 
 Indeed, she extracted a trio of brochures, which she fanned for his inspection.  
Briefly, she explained the particular benefits of each, and allowed him to make a 
selection. 
 Extracting information from the brochure to complete a form in his file, she 
absently informed him regarding the details of his residency at the halfway house.  She 
finished by saying, “I’ll call the facility as soon as we’re finished, and they’ll rush 
somebody over to fetch you.” 
 “And that’s it.” 
 “That’s it!” she bubbled.  “I told you, Mr. Bass, I already arranged most 
everything except for the final choice of locations.  Your short-term disability will pay 
for eighty percent of the cost, and I arranged credit for the remainder.  You’ll have to sign 
the financial instruments, of course, but all the paperwork is virtually complete and ready 
to go.  Once you get your life back in order, your settlement should cover the difference 
nicely, and you shouldn’t have any out-of-pocket expenses.” 
 Christen smiled.  “Thank you.  More than you can know.” 
 That angelic smile returned, and her eyes burned with a fierce affection.  “Mr. 
Bass, I care about you.  I want you to be happy and safe.  I want you to know that you 
have a place to go, where people wait to care for you.  After all you’ve endured, it’s the 
least that society can offer you, and I’m all too happy to play my small part.” 
 He shook his head, “No, it’s not a small part, Rachel.  You matter very much.  
You’re the first good news I’ve had in six weeks.” 
 “I’m glad to help.”  She gathered her various documents, apparently preparing to 
leave, and his heart sank. 

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63
 
 “Rachel.” he asked anxiously, instantly sorry that he had spoken. 
 “Yes.” she returned innocently. 
 “I- I- I wonder if there’s anyway I can repay your generosity,” he offered lamely. 
 Again, she took his hand in hers.  “Your smile is enough, Mr. Bass,” she returned 
professionally.  When his expression indicated that he felt she was condescending, she 
added, “Maybe you could buy me lunch when I stop by to check on you in a few days.  
How does that strike you.” 
 He beamed.  “I’ll wait breathlessly.” 
 “You do that.  I’ll call to finalize the details tomorrow.”  She sighed, and tucked 
his closed file beneath her arm.  “Well, I guess that’s it for today.  I should get back to 
my office to call Windsor Meadows as soon as possible.” 
 “Windsor Meadows.” 
 “The assisted living facility, remember.” 
 “Oh, right.  I had forgotten the name.” 
 She prepared to stand, and his heart thumped slow and heavy.  “Before I go, Mr. 
Bass, may I ask a personal question.” 
 “Certainly,” he returned happily, though her expression had fallen flat and 
earnest.  “Ask anything you like.” 
 “Are you sure.  It might be a bit painful for you.”  When he nodded eagerly, 
encouraging her, Rachel asked, “What was it like.  Do you remember anything, at all.” 
 He was taken aback.  “What was what like.” he wondered witlessly. 
 “Death.” 

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 Now his heart limped painfully to a momentary stop, before it thumped on.  “I 
don’t remember,” he returned quickly, softly. 
 “Did you see the light.  Did you see anybody you know.  Was anybody waiting 
for you there.”  Her wide, crystalline eyes fixed his gaze steadily, and he understood that 
she was fundamentally interested in his response.  “Did you talk to God.” 
 Christen licked his lips, and felt his bladder burning hot and full.  “No.  I didn’t 
talk to anybody.  I don’t remember anything.”  He closed his eyes, and he watched the 
little girl stare up at him from beneath lingering shades of doom, while hateful flames 
rose up all around him.  Something moved through that inferno within his mind, he knew, 
something dark, cold and dreadful.  “I didn’t see anyone.” 
 “Yet you died several times, before they stabilized you in the E.R.” 
 “That’s what they say.” 
 Rachel lowered her gaze to her fidgeting hands.  Softly, she offered, “My father 
died when I was young.”  Christen was alarmed to hear the emotion in her voice.  “The 
same accident also killed me, but I survived.  Do you understand.” 
 Christen nodded.  “I think so.” 
 “They say it’s common, these days.” 
 “What.” 
 “The so called ‘near death experience’.  Millions of people have had it, thanks to 
all this amazing medical technology,” her eyes rolled to encompass his empty semi-
private room.  “They say it’s a hallucination, but I don’t feel like it was a hallucination.” 
 “No.  Why not.  What did you see.” 
 She sniffled into a fresh tissue, and would not look at him.  “I saw my father.” 

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 Christen’s chest heaved, and he could think of nothing to say.  Therefore, he 
remained silent, and simply waited for her to continue at her own pace.  Slow shadows 
crawled the floor skittishly, erratically driven by a fickle wind that blew beyond the 
room’s blinded windows. 
 “He stood before me, as real as he ever had,” she explained sorrowfully, “And he 
took me in his arms.  I remember how I felt his touch, how I breathed his cologne, and 
how the stubble of his chin chaffed my cheek, as it always had.  I remember he spoke my 
name, and then he said something I will never forget.” 
 When she faded away, and seemed to disappear, he prompted with, “What did he 
say.” 
 Startled, she returned softly, “He told me he was going away forever, and that I 
couldn’t follow.  I wanted to go with him, but he told me to go back.  He said God had 
fashioned the world to require me.  He said I must do something important, something 
that only I could do at a particular time in a particular place.” 
 Christen pressed his lips tightly shut, and listened.  Unwilling to face his curious 
gaze any longer, she stood abruptly to approach the window and pull one slat of the 
blinds down to a sharp ‘V’. 
 “I asked him how I would know what to do,” she sighed, “And he told me that I 
wouldn’t know what to do.  He said I would simply do it.”  She fell silent for a time, 
before adding, “It might have been a dream, I suppose, though it seemed so real.  I was 
there, and he was there.  The experience was as real as this one, but he was already dead 
by then, and I was dying. 

Bad Angel 

 
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66
 
 “Like you, they brought me back repeatedly, before they saved my life, but they 
couldn’t save my father.”  For a time, she was enthralled by the play of nature, which 
danced to the wind beyond the glass.  “I was scared and confused, when I recovered from 
the coma, but I could recall with startling clarity every word, every touch of those last 
moments in his presence.  I know it happened, but it couldn’t have happened.” 
 When she turned to face him, and asked again if he could remember his 
experience, he shook his head stiffly.  For a time, he was too stunned to respond.  When 
she asked a third time, he said, “I wish something like that had happened to me.  I might 
see some purpose in the accident, if that were true.  It would make me feel better, but it 
didn’t happen that way.  Nothing happened, except that I blacked out, and then I woke up 
in the hospital.” 
 Rachel edged toward the door, suddenly ashamed of herself for confiding so 
readily to a stranger who was obviously in desperate need himself.  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bass.  
I shouldn’t have burdened you so,” and her feet led her jerkily toward the hallway.  “I’ll 
go call Windsor Meadows right away.” 
 “It’s okay!” he called after her, “I didn’t mind, really.  It’s just that those things 
never happened to me.” 
 She paused in the doorway to wave at him, while she struggled to fix that bright, 
cheery face back into place.  “Good bye.  I know you’re going to love the facility.” 
 “Good bye,” he returned, confused by her abrupt exit.  “Don’t forget lunch!” 
 From the hallway beyond his vision, he heard her say, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”  
Then she was gone. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
67
 
 The roomed darkened perceptibly, and Christen’s demeanor clouded over 
accordingly.  He stewed in his uncomfortable seat, his shattered limbs arranged 
awkwardly in their casts, as he counted the floor tiles beneath his dangling toes. 
 Eventually, his eyes fell on the windowsill, where he noticed a single sheet of 
paper lying in the slanted sunlight.  Curious to see handwriting scrawled there, he rolled 
his chair forward slightly with a thumb, until he could read its words. 
 With a spidery hand, she had written, ‘Demons Live Among Us’.  Christen’s brow 
crossed, and his nose wrinkled.  He longed to reach for the paper and examine it more 
closely.  He tried for it with his bound left hand, knocking it to the floor beyond recovery. 
 Pushing away from the wall with a painful flex of his right leg, Christen’s body 
rolled backward into the center of the room, as his eyes rolled backward into the bloody 
red depths of his skull.  In silence, he sat there, pondering the stark nature of absolute 
evil.  He wondered why Rachel had confided in him as she had, and he wondered why he 
had lied to her about his experiences beyond the veil of human existence. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
68

 

 

 

 
God Knows 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
69
 
-|- 

 Christen reclined on a couch in the day room, scratching himself with an oddly 
expert motion of his head, which held clenched in his teeth a long, narrow device 
specially designed for the task.  As he worked, he watched another resident of the facility 
roll quietly closer and closer across the floor. 
 The man was horribly burned when a large electrical transformer had overheated 
and exploded, bathing his body in hot, flaming oil.  Christen forgot his name, but he 
could not forget the man’s face, which resembled raw hamburger.  No skin graft could 
ever make that mess appear human, again. 
 Breathing noisily through his nose, the man sat hunched in his wheelchair, 
watching Christen work with obvious delight.  Eventually, he garbled, “That must feel 
good,” his inflexible lips dulling the hard consonants of his words, as though he spoke 
with a mouthful of cotton wadding.  “I wish I could do that.” 
 “Yeah, I guess it does,” mumbled Christen soberly around the device.  “I’d like to 
do the same for you.” 
 “Don’t worry about it,” returned the other, offering a cavalier toss of his scarred, 
balding pate.  “I’m just happy to be alive.”  Christen must have made a face, because the 
other reacted with a dismissive tilt of his torso, “Oh, I know what you’re thinking.  It’s 
okay.” 
 “What am I thinking.” wondered Christen evenly. 

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Stephen Huff 
70
 
 “You’re thinking, ‘Why.’”  He might have smiled, but Christen couldn’t be sure, 
since the man’s teeth were permanently exposed between shriveled lips, while his nose 
gaped obscenely, burned away as it had been in the fire.  “Why should I be happy to be 
alive.   You’re thinking I would be better off dead, aren’t you.  It’s okay.  I watch you 
during group therapy, and I see it in your eyes.  Don’t worry.  You’re not alone.  I see it 
in all their eyes.  All, except for Amanda, I guess.” 
 They both lowered their gazes at the mention of her name, and Christen stopped 
scratching.  Extracting the rod from the cast on his left arm with a slow, elegant twist of 
his neck, Christen deposited it into the nimble fingers of his ever-waiting right hand. 
 His mouth thus freed, he said more clearly, “I guess I was, but I feel the same way 
about myself all the time.  In fact, I think just about everybody in this place would be 
better off dead.  It’s… it’s not natural, all this survival.” 
 Burns blinked owlishly.  “How do you mean.” 
 “I mean to say, I should be dead.  You should dead.  Amanda, most of all, should 
be dead.  But she’s not.  And we’re not.  Although, strictly speaking, I think we all died.  
Some of us died more than once.  I know I did.” 
 “You’re a strange one, Chris.”  Burns rolled closer, a rasping noise escaping from 
the depths of his throat.  Eventually, Christen realized the man was laughing, “You say 
you died, right.  Then what is this; heaven or hell.” 
 Christen pondered the question soberly for a long while, before he replied, “Hell, 
for sure.” 
 “But you had to think about it.” 

Bad Angel 

 
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71
 
 “Only because I was trying to think of something worse than hell.  A pitchfork up 
the ass sounds easier than the future we all face.” 
 Burns tilted his bristling, scarred head.  “You don’t seem to have it too bad, 
really.  Those bones will mend, and nobody will ever have to know what happened.  I’m 
another story.” 
 “You’re not a baby-killer.” 
 Without hesitation, Burns parried, “Would you like to trade places.” 
 Christen exchanged stares with the man for a time, before he glanced away.  
Softly, he offered, “No, I guess not.” 
 Burns issued forth that odd, rasping sound again, and said, “I can’t say that I 
blame you.”  Abruptly changing subjects, he gushed, “Say, do you want to hear a funny 
story.  That’s why I rolled over here, in the first place.  I just remembered it, and I have 
to tell somebody.  You look like you might appreciate it.” 
 Christen shrugged his cast arms up and down.  “Sure, why not.” 
 “You wouldn’t know it for looking at me now, but I was a damn good looking 
man, in my day.  I was married twice, you know.  I have a couple of kids, and I still pay 
child support.  Can you believe it.” 
 “We all had lives… before.” 
 “So, this is the story about why I have a second wife.”  Burns rolled closer, and 
lowered his voice conspiratorially.  “You see, I got bored with the first one, after a while, 
like a man will after ten years of marriage.  Don’t think she wasn’t fun and interesting, I 
mean, we had some great times together.   We screwed in every imaginable way, in every 
possible place, private and public.  You know how it is.  We even had a friend over, ever 

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now and again.  I hope that doesn’t offend you or lower your opinion of me.”  He cackled 
with a dry, painful rasp. 
 When Christen shook his head ruefully, Burns continued.  “Anyway, she had a 
twin sister, you see, not an identical twin, but the other kind.  Still, they looked a whole 
lot alike!  Too much alike, except for one thing.  Know what it was.” 
 Again, Christen shook his head.  By way of response, Burns made the 
international sign for ‘huge breasts’.  They both smiled. 
 “Yeah, you understand how it works on a man’s mind, after awhile.  Year after 
year of summer picnics and swimsuits, and year after year of drunken Christmas parties, 
things falling out how they will, and all.”  He shook his head and waggled his pink 
tongue.  “I suppose it was inevitable, but that’s how nature fixes a man.  Most of us are 
one big, walking hard-on, and those that ain’t… well, they just ain’t!” 
 “Is that why you got a divorce.  You boned her sister.”  Christen’s tone was 
incredulous and teasing in a friendly, masculine fashion. 
 “Well, not really.  That’s not all, I mean, and that’s not what I rolled over to tell 
you.”  Burns shook his head, and flexed his inflexible, stubby arms and hands.  “That part 
of it isn’t funny, anyway.  No divorce is ever funny that way, especially when kids are 
involved.  A long time passed before I could look at myself in the mirror.” 
 Christen’s smile fell, and he found something of interest on the floor.  “Sorry.” 
 “Hey, don’t be.  It’s my story, ain’t it.  But that’s not the funny part.  So here’s 
what happened.”  Burns leaned closer eagerly.  “We used to take pictures of each other 
on occasion, keepsakes of the act, so to speak.  I put together quite a collection after ten 
years, ranging from Polaroid’s to professional prints, VHS and digital!  It was a kink 

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thing, you know, nothing that we sold.  We weren’t porn stars, but we sure had fun 
pretending! 
 “So, anyway, one day I came home from work, and my wife was sitting in the 
den, her legs crossed and that one foot bouncing, bouncing, bouncing.  Right away, I 
knew something bad had happened, and I knew it wasn’t a skid mark in the laundry, 
either.  She called me over to the lamp table beside her chair, where she had spread a 
fistful of digital prints.”  Burns shook his head, sniggering with an unsteady hiss.  “I 
nearly pissed myself, Chris, when I saw the pictures.” 
 “Why.  Who was in them.” 
 “Her sister.”  After Christen calmed a bit, Burns hurriedly clarified, “The ones on 
top of the stack were pretty tame, you know, just upper frontal stuff.  I remember I had 
her sister over one night while the wife was away.  I had her put a on a couple of pasties 
for the set, the kind with the long tassels, you know, and she was twirling them big, 
beautiful things around this way and that while I snapped away!  CLICK, FLASH!  
CLICK, FLASH!  Hot damn!  It was quite a sight, Chris.  I thought I was going to die of 
a boner-induced heart attack. 
 “It was a lot of fun at the time, anyway, but it wasn’t so fun standing there with a 
wet spot in my drawers, staring down at the absolutely lethal face of feminine wrath.  I 
remember I took a couple of quick swallows, and mumbled something stupid, at a 
complete and utter loss for words. 
 “Eventually, she asked, soft and easy, ‘Why.’  She wasn’t angry, you know, but 
worse.  It was the tone of a lioness lording over a tiny rodent, patient for the kill.  It 
scared liquid shit right out of me. 

Bad Angel 

 
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74
 
 “Now, here’s were it gets funny, because I answered before I knew it, like 
somebody else was talking through my mouth.  I told her the pictures were a surprise for 
her birthday.”  Burns sniggered, “She didn’t see that coming.  Her face kind of fell, then 
snapped back and forth between angry and confused for a while, before she asked me 
why I would give her topless pictures of her own sister for her birthday. 
 “Again, without even thinking, my mouth told her that we took the pictures for 
her, because we knew they would be good for a laugh.  She got this droll look on her 
face, before she sifted deeper into the stack, where she found one of her sister playing my 
bone flute, so to speak. 
 “My wife naturally wanted to know about that particular scene, since she was 
curious how we thought it might cheer her up.   I said, ‘You know, honey, it’s the 
damnedest thing, really.  I got a bit worked up taking the pictures, as you can imagine, 
but I was still fully clothed, honoring our vows, and all, so I would be certain nothing 
unnatural happened.  Later,’ I said, my face straight and flat as the truth.  I said, ‘Later, 
we were picking everything up, and she was bending down to help, when WHAM!  I 
tripped and fell, tearing my pants, and then my dick just slipped into her mouth.  Oh, and 
the camera went off at the same time.   I couldn’t believe my terrible luck!’ I said. 
 “When she asked why I had kept the photo, I told her she should be happy it 
wasn’t her mother!”  Burns rolled his tongue back and forth obscenely over his 
protruding teeth, “And that, my friend, was wrong.  She came up out of her chair with an 
unholy bellow of killer rage, and I was forced to run for my life.” 
 Christen smiled, chuckling painfully. “Is that story true.” 
 “On my honor!” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
75
 
 Christen wondered about the honor of a man who would sleep with his wife’s 
sister, but he kept his mouth shut.  Instead, he rolled his head, acknowledging the other’s 
mirth without comment. 
 “I was tired of her, anyway.  The divorce was inevitable.” 
 “I guess so,” scoffed Christen, “Since you were poking her sister and taking 
pictures!” 
 “Yeah, that wasn’t so smart.  You probably think you can imagine the monstrous 
pile of shit that came down on my head afterward, but you can’t, Chris.  Not really.”  
Suddenly, the rasping snigger was gone, and Burns’ face waxed deadly earnest.  “I lost 
my home, my wife, my family on both sides, and my job.  My kids refused to speak to 
me for years, and the judge raped me in the settlement.  Does this sound familiar.”  
Christen’s face soured a bit.  Burns added hastily, “All of it well deserved, I know.  
Unlike yourself, Chris. 
 “The only way I could get away from it was to get away from it, so I moved to 
Texas.  I started over, but I didn’t forget.  When I started over, I promised myself I would 
change.  Better still, I promised God that I would be a better man for the bad things I had 
done.” 
 By now, Christen’s face reflected his companion’s impassive countenance.  He 
swallowed stiffly, and nodded. 
 “I was a pariah, an outcast, a fucking Judas.  More than once, people actually spat 
upon me, Chris, and these weren’t strangers.  They were people that I once knew and 
loved, that once loved me.  I mean,” he grunted, shaking his scarred head stiffly, “I really 
made a mess of my life. 

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Stephen Huff 
76
 
 “For years, I lost sleep thinking about how cruel I had been that night in the living 
room.  I don’t know if I thought it was funny, then, but I know it was far from funny for a 
long, long time afterward.  Now, I can look back on it with the perspective of an outsider.  
I can look back at the man I was then, from the man I am now, and I can shake my head 
with you and laugh.  I can laugh, because I realize how foolish and sinful I once was.  I 
can laugh, because I know now that, as bad as things were back then, they might have 
been worse.” 
 Burns suddenly shifted in his chair, to take Christen’s right hand in his own, 
which bore fingers to the first knuckles only.   Christen raised his head, to find Burns 
staring at him intently, “You said earlier that you had died, that I had died.  This is true.  
In a sense, we are all the walking dead, but I don’t agree with you about one thing. 
 “I don’t believe this is hell, Chris,” he offered passionately, “Because I know 
better.  I’ve been there, you see, and back again.  I can tell you now, anywhere outside 
that inferno is heaven.”  Burns let his eyelids slide shut, before he breathed deeply 
through gaping nostrils.  “Delicious heaven.” 
 After a respectful silence, Christen pointedly released the man’s hand, before he 
offered, “I wish I could believe that.” 
 “You will, in time,” returned Burns without opening his eyes.  “I know I did, 
eventually.  Everything seems different from the perspective of the future.  I thought I 
understood it all, at last, after years of self-discovery, and then I had my little accident.”  
He glanced down through slatted lashes at the ruinous, festering wound that was his 
body.  “Now, I’m not so sure.  Now, everything seems different, again, and I would give 
anything to go back to the way I was before.  I never thought I’d say that!” 

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77
 
 Burns shook his head, and rolled his chair backward six inches, suddenly self-
conscious and embarrassed for himself.  “When I think of the things I’ve done, I know… 
I know I deserve this.  It’s a form of repayment, of punishment for my crimes.  It’s God’s 
retribution against me in this world, that I might be saved in the next.” 
 Christen wrinkled his nose, and rendered a question upon his brow.  “I can see 
how you might feel that way, but you can’t know for sure.” 
 “Oh, I know.  I know for sure.  I told you, remember.  I’ve been there.  I’ve 
talked to God.” 
 Now Christen’s eyes widened, and he questioned the man’s sanity.  One glance 
into the man’s gaze, however, and he knew Burns was thoroughly lucid and rational.  He 
believed this. 
 “I talked to God, Chris,” he repeated, his lips forever snarled, his teeth fixed into a 
permanent grin, “and God told me that everything bad is good.  Everything and everyone 
is righteous all the time, everywhere, because all is as God fashions all to be.” 
 Skeptical, Christen asked, “What else did God tell you.” 
 Burns rolled backward again, further this time.  “God told me I would meet you 
here, Christen Bass, at this crossroads of tortured souls, where the guilty gather, broken 
and ruined, faced with an inevitable future that diverges more clearly before them than 
they like.  Because we all face two ways from here, you know, right and wrong.  All 
except you.” 
 His brow cross as his tone, Christen demanded, “What the hell does that mean.” 
 Burns’ eyes rolled deliriously, as his chair twisted backward and away with a 
slow, lazy circle, “Time is the fourth dimension.  Did you know.  We exist in space as 

Bad Angel 

 
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we are, but we stretch from there to here through time like an awful worm that sprouts 
from another’s belly and ends in the earth.  Time is God’s cruelest measure, Christen, 
because a second may seem a lifetime, while a lifetime may pass within the breadth of a 
single second.  Time rules the living, while it defines the dead.” 
 Using his stubby fingers to exert a guiding spin on one of his chair’s wheels, 
Burns started away at a crisp roll.  “We never deserve the bad things that happen to us, 
but they happen just the same.  Do you ever wonder why, Chris.” 
 Christen leaned forward to ask, “Why.” 
 To which Burns replied simply, “God knows.” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
79

 

 

 

 
The Flesh That Feeds, The Mouth 
That Devours 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
80
 
-|- 

 When his doctors finally removed the splints from Christen’s arms and legs, the 
stench of his unwashed extremities forced his nose up and away from his body, and a 
mask of disgust disfigured his face.  As they worked to free him from his fiberglass 
exoskeleton, the staff soothed him with assurances that everybody smelled that way after 
eight weeks on the mend.  With expert movements and careful, precise cuts, they pried 
away the supports that had straightened Christen’s shattered bones, before they bathed 
him and left him to recover in his bed. 
 As the following days passed and the agonizing physical therapy began to have its 
effect, Christen’s wasted scarecrow arms and legs began to swell with renewed tone and 
vitality.  Soon, he found the strength to stand and walk on his own, though he felt at each 
step every fracture and knit within his protesting bones. 
 Eventually, he improved sufficiently to qualify for discharge into the real world, 
which awaited him with an unfurnished one bedroom apartment and endless black 
publicity.  Beth had been kind enough to heap his belongings onto his new living room 
floor and arrange for connection of his utilities, but the rest was raw and unfinished.  
Tomorrow, the facility’s staff would process his paperwork and present him with his final 
bill, and Christen would hail a taxi to drive him home. 
 Then… then…  what.  He understood he must unpack and arrange his things, 
which seemed an incredible task, given his present physical condition, but he had no 
plans for himself, after he finished moving into his new home.  Vaguely, he realized he 

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81
 
must eventually look for work, but his settlement rendered that necessity remote and 
obscure.  So he supposed he would pass the time watching television and playing video 
games, his frenetic activities fueled by massive quantities of drugs and alcohol.  Maybe 
he would overdose and finish things properly. 
 As he lay in bed during his last night at the halfway house, Christen feared the 
future silently while sleep evaded him.  His eyes wide and his mind luridly aware, 
Christen stretched himself flat and stiff, and refused to glance at the clock. 
 Slowly, dreading his own thoughts, Christen lowered his eyelids with a sneaking 
flutter, until they had blotted out the dim light that filtered beneath his room’s door and 
through its slatted windows.  He hoped to somehow slink into the refuge of slumber 
through the darkened shadows of his mind without disturbing his nightmarish 
imagination, but he was not yet clever or stealthy enough for success. 
 She waited for him there, as always, as ever, smiling up at him through her 
smashed lips and bruised eyes, regardless of the looming shadow of his tumbling 
machine.  Despite the fact that eight weeks had passed since the accident, her virtual 
presence before him appeared more detailed and exact than true reality.  He reveled in the 
clarity of her every finest hair, as they exchanged that last, lingering visual embrace. 
 Within his thoughts, Christen announced simply, ‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’ 
 To which the girl replied, ‘Where will you go.’  Christen noticed how blood 
outlined her teeth, the result of an obvious blow to her mouth, which had cut her lips. 
 As his car flipped end over end, and he lost sight of the little girl, Christen 
answered, ‘To hell.’ 

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82
 
 Though he could no longer see her, Christen heard the child’s reply with startling 
clarity, despite the ruinous din of this shared catastrophe.  ‘This is hell,’ she stated flatly, 
her tone void of self-pity and condemnation. 
 Then his car came down on top of her, squashing her flat against the pavement, 
before it rolled over once more onto its flattened passenger dome.  Christen hung from 
his seatbelt, his body broken and bleeding, his eyes blackened and his nose smashed by 
the exploding airbag that had saved his life.  Through tangled lashes that dripped 
crimson, Christen watched the little girl’s tattered body twitch and spasm near the curb.  
Calmly, she turned her crushed head to face him, her expression a horror show of 
lacerations and contusions. 
 She whispered, ‘This is hell, Christen Bass, so where will you go.’ 
 Christen wept.  ‘I don’t know.’ 
 ‘You know,’ she reassured him, her voice driven by a gush of hemorrhage.  
Choking on her own blood, she added, ‘You know where you must go now.  You know 
what you must do.’ 
 He shook his head, desperate.  ‘No.  I don’t know.  I don’t.’ 
 ‘You know,’ she insinuated snidely with a ruby splatter from her lips, ‘And you 
will go there, because I will go there.  We will go together.’ 
 Christen wept and shook his head.  ‘I don’t want to go.  I’m afraid.’ 
 ‘We are all afraid, Christen, since hell is fear.  Hell is an eternal threat of death, 
not of damnation, as most believe.  Our condemnation lies in our birth, for we are born 
into a punishment that is endless breathing and a deafening heartbeat.  Death does not end 
us, Christen.  Death sets us free.’ 

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 ‘I don’t want to die.’ 
 ‘You,’ she returned with a gargle of blood, ‘Are already dead.’ 
 Christen’s eyes snapped wide, and his heart raced.  “Oh, God,” he moaned 
audibly, sucking a deep, wet sniffle through his tear-flooded nose, “Oh, God, make it 
stop.  Make her go away!” 
 God answered with the relentless, metronome voice of a clock.  His angels sang in 
the whistles of Christen’s constant breath, while His symphony of distant mumbles and 
shuffling footsteps played to the bass rhythm thump of a stubborn heartbeat.  Christen 
listened to all, and understood nothing.  He watched his door for the explosive entrance 
of a bombastic God, haughty and vengeful. 
 Instead, he noticed a pale, crimson light, which shifted back and forth erratically 
beneath the under edge of the door like the remote flicker of a moving candle.  His 
curiosity piqued, Christen surrendered all thought of sleep, as he tossed back his linen 
sheets to swing his legs beneath him. 
 Issuing a moan and a gasp that escaped his lips slowly with all the furious noise of 
a high-pressure valve bleeding live steam, Christen eased his full weight onto his tortured 
hips and thighs.  His bones ached and groaned mechanically, while his muscles protested 
weakly. 
 Heedless, Christen stood himself upright, both hands tightly clutching his bed 
rails, and he gritted his teeth against the pain.  He clamped down so fiercely that Christen 
feared his molars might shatter beneath the intense pressure, even as his legs shattered to 
spill his body across the floor. 

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 All held, however, as Christen moved torturously across the room, tottering from 
one handhold to the next like a drunken buffoon bound for his next midnight binge.  He 
watched that fickle light fade beneath the door, as he crossed the cold tiles, and he hurried 
to catch it. 
 Christen eased his door quietly open, until he could see through to the hallway 
beyond.  The crimson glow had receded to obscurity.  Scarcely, he detected its flicker 
upon the walls of a distant hallway, and he knew its source had passed that way. 
 Placing his left hand against the wall for support, Christen eased along the 
dimmed passage at his quickest shuffle, careful to keep the flaps of his gown pressed 
tightly shut with his free right hand.  At the intersection of the two hallways, Christen 
crossed to the opposite side, so he could peer around the corner with a tilt of his head. 
 Pacing the center of the corridor perhaps a hundred feet further along, a sinister 
figure waddled away, apparently intent upon an evening errand.  Oddly, the individual’s 
body appeared to glow from head to foot with the illumination of unseen flames.  The 
light and its courting shadows progressed along the hallway with each lumbering step, 
and Christen thought he heard a soft wheeze that came timed to the figure’s rhythmic 
lurch. 
 Christen widened his eyes and blinked to rid himself of the unnatural glow, but it 
remained.  He pressed his lids shut, and then rubbed his delirious orbs with patient fists, 
while the little girl mocked him with her slight smile. 
 Returning his attention to the corridor, Christen noticed how the flickering light 
had dimmed, though not due to his actions.  The light had dimmed, because the figure 
had pressed his illuminated head against a distant door.  After pausing to listen, the 

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stranger glanced both ways along the length of the passage, before he ducked inside, 
taking his oddly disturbing aura along with him. 
 Christen pressed his back against the wall and breathed through his nose.  Why 
was his heart beating so rapidly.  Why was he so frightened.  Searching his thoughts and 
emotions for clues to the nature of his distress, Christen easily identified the source of his 
anxiety.  He understood the flickering light had obviously been a hallucination, which 
implied he no longer controlled his own faculties.  Remotely, announced within his 
imagination as a distant yet thunderous shout, Christen thought he must be insane.  
Accordingly, his heart rolled painfully, and his mind reeled.  The possibilities of his new 
condition boggled Christen’s imagination. 
 Curious to verify his lunacy, Christen rounded the corner and stumped painfully 
along the corridor, until he stood near the luminous figure’s destination.  He exposed his 
ear to the slim gap that remained between the door and its frame.  Listening, he heard 
nothing.  Delicately, he eased the door open a bit wider, until he could peer through the 
opening into the gloomy, half-lit room. 
 Within, he saw the glowing figure leaning over another form stretched and 
sleeping upon a raised bed.  Christen watched silently as the lighted man examined the 
other intently, whispering soft, sinister words, which the aloof observer could not 
decipher. 
 These whispers assumed the form, tone and rhythm of a ritualistic chant, which 
Christen guessed must eventually summon the presence of an imaginary demon.  As 
Christen watched, the illuminated figure leaned closer to the sleeping patient, his specific 
movements obscured by his hunched back. 

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 Cocking his head inquisitively, Christen pressed his wasted body through the 
narrowly opened door, sheltered in the deep shadows of the half-lit, night bound ward.  
After a half-dozen steps, he noticed a change in the light’s motion.  Flickering still, it 
now moved more certainly back and forth, back and forth, led by the motion of the 
hulking man standing beside the bed. 
 Christen could guess what was happening before he could see, but the sight 
shocked, nevertheless.  The stranger had positioned his oblivious victim conveniently 
upon the bed, and he was busily sexually assaulting the sleeping patient.  He tossed back 
his head, and his eyes rolled back to their whites, as he neared climax. 
 “What are you doing.” demanded Christen softly, his voice shattering the all but 
absolute silence. 
 The rapist jumped, startled, and hurried to return his swollen member to his 
trousers.  Upon the bed, his victim moaned softly, undisturbed by the obscene rip of the 
rapist’s zipper. 
 “Jesus!” belched the man.  “You scared me!” 
 “Because I caught you in the act,” returned Christen accusingly. 
 “In the act of what.  I was just doing my job,” he insisted stiffly, hurriedly 
rearranging the patient on the bed, before he returned clothing and sheets to appropriate 
configurations, “Which is none of your concern.” 
 “It becomes my concern when I catch you raping an unconscious human being,” 
returned Christen fearlessly.  He neared the bed with a lurch, rotating his supporting hand 
from the wall to the bed’s footboard.  “This is what you do, isn’t it.” he asked, 
incredulous and disgusted. 

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 “What.  I didn’t do anything.” 
 Christen nodded his head.  “I think you do this every night.  I think you’ve been 
doing this for years.” 
 “No, I haven’t,” returned the man bluntly.  Despite the odd, crimson glow that 
radiated through his skin, Christen could clearly see the rapist’s features.  He was a large, 
towering man, but he was not powerfully built.  Rather, his flesh appeared to hang from 
large, knobby bones with all the tone and shape of rising dough.  His face bore the 
unmistakable ravages of acute acne, while tiny, pig’s eyes glared meanly from behind 
thick, smeared lenses.  He breathed through his nose with a slight wheeze.  “I didn’t do 
anything to anybody.” 
 Inoffensively, he sidled toward the door, his back pressed against the wall to be 
well clear of the intruder.  “You can’t prove anything.  If you accuse me, I’ll deny it.  I 
might have to change jobs, but that will be the worst of it.”  Arriving at the door, he 
pushed it shut, rather than open, before he turned to softly say, “I know, because I’ve 
been there before.  The facility will settle everything quietly, after they fire me, and they 
won’t say a thing to the police, because they’ll be afraid of even more lawsuits.” 
 Instinctively, Christen knew the rapist was probably correct.  His face must have 
reflected this, since the other sneered and said, “Oh, I know what you’re thinking now.  
You’re thinking you’ll get around the staff and go straight to the police yourself.”  He 
smiled smugly, which enraged Christen.  “It won’t make any difference.  The staff will 
fire me, and then stonewall the investigation.  All the evidence will magically disappear.  
I told you,” he offered into the face of Christen’s frustration, “I’ve been there before, 
several times.  It always happens the same way.” 

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 Now he leaned forward menacingly, apparently finding strength in Christen’s 
obviously diminished physical capacities.  “If I were you, fellah, I’d mind my own 
business.  You never know what might happen.” 
 Gloating now, the rapist pulled the door open softly, stuck his head into the 
hallway to glance both ways, and then disappeared.  Christen stood trembling at the foot 
of the bed, his mouth agape and his lips working, though he remained void of words.  
Jerking himself around the bed with uncertain flexion of his wasted muscles and brittle 
bones, Christen neared the sleeping patient carefully. 
 When he pulled the sheet back away from the patient’s face, he saw the boy was 
an adolescent, pale and gaunt from the ravages of disease.  Christen whispered, disgusted 
and incredulous, “He can’t be fifteen years old.” 
 Fearing somebody might enter the room to find him lingering over the child, 
Christen backed away to place his supporting left hand against the wall, which led him 
back to the door.  There, he lingered, alternating his attention between the oddly 
illuminated figure waddling away down the corridor and the boy lying helpless in his 
deathbed.  For a mad moment, Christen’s mind reeled, as his gut churned with a sickness 
that was rage, horror, terror and nausea.  He hesitated, unable to formulate a plan of 
action.  What should he do. 
 Upon the backs of his oblivious eyelids, that same tired scene played itself out 
with the flickering tune of a failing projector.  Even as his thoughts warred to decide what 
he should do about this latest crime, he watched an older travesty unfold before him, and 
he was enthralled, as ever.  Within seconds, he forgot the orderly and the boy, as he 

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returned to the scene of his deadly accident within his memory, and locked gazes once 
more with the crushed child he had killed. 
 She said, ‘This is the proper way to go.’ 
 ‘What do you mean.’ he asked curiously, no longer amazed by his maniacal 
hallucinations, which revealed him hanging upside down from his seatbelt, his limbs and 
face shattered and splattered with gore. 
 ‘This is the proper thing to do.’ 
 ‘What is.’ 
 ‘Murder.’ 
 ‘I haven’t murdered anyone, not even you.’ 
 ‘You have.   You will.  You must.’  Blood sprayed with her every word, even as a 
jet of it pulsed from a horrific wound to her neck. 
 ‘Why.’ 
 ‘Because death is life,’ she choked, her eyes flat and unafraid, void of emotion, 
despite the ruin of her body and the desperation of her plight, ‘As everything bad is 
good.’ 
 Christen’s heart thrilled, and he remembered where he had heard that phrase 
before.  ‘How can that be.’ 
 ‘All is as God fashions all to be, Christen Bass.  Life begets death.  Death is life.’ 
 Within his thoughts, the child twitched upon a bloodied sidewalk, her limbs 
skewed unnaturally, her flesh torn, her intestines protruding, while his own shattered 
body hung from the seatbelts of his smashed machine.  Her features defined human 
destruction, as new injuries compounded old to write upon the parchment of her flesh a 

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macabre tale of life gone awry, of childhood heartlessly destroyed.  There, her mother 
had etched her handiwork with all the craft of a Gothic poet, her rules red welts and her 
words blue bruises.  Christen knew he had written his own passages into the text of the 
child’s life, and his discourse had been the most brutal of all, for his words were graven 
in blood dipped from the well of hemorrhage, ruled by the cruel frame of her twisted 
bones and emphatically punctuated by deep lacerations.  He wept to see her so. 
 ‘I don’t understand,’ he wailed mentally.  ‘I don’t want to understand.’ 
 ‘Your understanding is not required.  A tool is never concerned for its master’s 
grip, and it cares not for its use.  A tool might rust to nothing, neglected and never 
applied, or it might shine to high sparkle, polished from hours of expert craftsmanship.  
All depends on its master’s need. 
 ‘Your Master has need of you now, Christen Bass, and the Master’s hand cannot 
be denied.’  Her eyes fixed his, and they were deep black, fathomless, filled with a 
universal void that held the entirety of forever. 
 ‘What must I do.’ he wondered dully, vaguely hopeful that such nefarious service 
might free him from these horrid dreams. 
 ‘Do nothing.  The Master is the designer and the engineer.  The Master works all.  
Simply be as you are, a tool, and ply yourself well.’  When Christen appeared to doubt 
within his nightmare, the child asked, ‘Do you not feel God’s hand about you even now.  
No. 
 ‘Feel the pulse beneath your ear.  It is not your pulse, Christen Bass; it is God’s 
pulse.  The breath that fills your lungs is not your breath, but God’s.  This voice is not a 

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child’s voice; it is the voice of God, and you listen with His ears.  Touch yourself, and 
you touch the Master.’ 
 Within the smashed ruins of his imagination, Christen’s arms were once again 
broken past touch, so he refused to validate the child’s statement.  Instead, he licked his 
lips, and he drew God’s breath deep inside himself.  ‘If that’s true, why did you die.’ 
 Though her torn lips remained motionless, Christen sensed a broad smile within 
the child’s odd gaze.  ‘God is all and everything forever.  God is the void and the 
firmament.  God is the question and the answer. 
 ‘God, Christen Bass,’ she intoned roughly, her voice drawn through a tortured 
throat, powered as ever by a crimson flow, ‘Is every hungry belly, and every gnashing 
maw.  God is every frightened bolt, and every terrific pounce.  God is the flesh that feeds 
and the mouth that devours, because the Master has fashioned the life of all things to 
require death. 
‘Within the heavens and within our hearts, God consumes Himself.  He admires 
Himself in the casual touch and the fond embrace.  He lashes out at Himself in the angry 
blow and the violence of murder.  He loves Himself with the tender lips of a delicate kiss, 
while he hates Himself with the slaughter of genocide and the carnage of extinction. 
The Master fashions Himself from countless forms, for He is the smallest scuttling 
creature and the endless expanse of an ocean.  He is an unnamed thing born into slime 
that must live for a time and then die, while He is a spinning planet that hurtles toward 
fiery doom in a distant nova.  This entire universe of time and space suffered its birth, 
only to die cold, dark, and alone, Christen Bass.  Our fate should be no different.’ 

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 With a startled snort, Christen’s eyes snapped open.  He found himself standing in 
the corridor, though he could not remember leaving the boy’s room.  Feeling something 
cold and heavy in his right hand, Christen glanced down to see a broken metal rod 
clutched within his grip.  When he saw it was covered with steaming blood, he dropped it 
instinctively to the floor, where it clattered, shattering the night bound silence of the 
sleeping ward, before it rolled to the wall. 
 Tracing its movements with an amazed gaze, Christen discovered a leg jutting 
from underneath him.  He glanced down to see the rapist sprawled upon the floor in a 
pool of blood, his skull smashed by a grotesque, rod-shaped indentation that had 
displaced bone and brain matter.  Christen heaved emptily, and stepped away from the 
dead man, who yet twitched at the knee. 
 Without another thought, he turned and stumbled toward his room, his legs 
ungainly and awkward.  Nobody saw him.  Nobody screamed discovery at his back. 
 He pushed through the door to his room, closing it softly at his back, and then he 
stumbled into bed.  Curiously, he slept that night without dreaming of the child he had 
killed or the man he had murdered.  

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Twisted Hands 

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-|- 

 He awoke the following morning before sunrise.  His room remained half-lit, but 
the corridor bustled with activity.  With a surge of fear, Christen realized the staff of the 
first shift had started their rounds.  Before he could react to this revelation, the door to his 
room rolled open silently after a soft knock, and a familiar orderly entered to check on 
him. 
 “Oh!” she exclaimed with a whisper, “You’re awake!” 
 “I couldn’t sleep,” he lied groggily. 
 As she neared, her face wrinkled and her expression soured.  “What happened to 
you.”  She pointed at his breast. 
 When he glanced down, he saw his t-shirt soaked with a huge splash of dried 
blood.  It felt brittle and stiff against him, and the rust-colored clot chaffed him as he 
moved to sit up in bed. 
 Before he could think to frame his words, Christen’s lips said, “Nose bleed.  
Yeah, I had a fall last night, but it’s no big deal.” 
 “Why didn’t you change.” she wondered vaguely, apparently convinced that her 
patient possessed little to no common sense.  She turned to a nearby dresser, from which 
she extracted a fresh shirt, underwear and shorts, oblivious to the intrusive nature of her 
intervention. 
 “I guess I didn’t realize I bled so badly.  It was dark.”  Anxious to be rid of the 
incriminating evidence, Christen shucked out of the stained shirt, before he eased himself 

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painfully off the bed.  With the orderly’s help, he made his way to the bathroom and a hot 
shower.  “I probably messed the sheets, too.  Maybe you should change out the whole 
lot.” 
 “Don’t tell me how to do my job, Mr. Bass,” returned the orderly playfully, “I’ve 
been taking care of the likes of you for five years, now, and I’ll probably be doing it for 
the rest of my life.” 
 Christen smiled.  “You won’t be doing it to me, any longer.” 
 “I know.  They tell me this is your last day,” she enthused, gingerly leading him 
over the edge of the tub, though he might have managed on his own.  “Lucky stiff.” 
 “You know, it’s funny,” he offered, shucking his shorts and underwear jerkily but 
without care for the orderly’s presence, “I think I’m really going to miss this place.  You 
most of all, Leticia.” 
 “I bet you will,” she returned jovially.  “Sometimes, I miss myself!” 
 Gathering his things from the tub before he turned on the water, Leticia gasped, 
“Oh!  You got me so rattled with that nose bleed, I almost forgot to get you to ask me 
about all the fuss out there in the hallway.” 
 Christen cocked his head to listen, and was curiously amazed that his demeanor 
remained so calm.  His heart scarcely beat, and his breathing came slow and even.  He 
felt not the slightest taint of remorse, regret or guilt for what he had done, and he was not 
afraid of prosecution. 
 He listened to a low drone of voices and shuffle of footsteps, but he detected 
nothing unusual in the activity.  Regardless, he asked, “What’s all the fuss out there in the 
hallway, Leticia.” 

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 Making an elaborate gesture with her free right hand, the orderly said, “I’m glad 
you asked, Mr. Bass, because I’ve been squirming to tell somebody.  You know what we 
had here last night, besides the usual wet sheets and nose bleeds, I mean.” 
 Christen shook his head, turned on the water to test it with his thin fingers.  
Speaking louder to be heard, he asked, “What.” 
 “We had ourselves a real live MURDER!”  Her eyes bulged and her brow rose 
incredulously.  “Right out there in that hallway!” 
 “Really.” wondered Christen coolly.  “Who was it.” 
 “They don’t know, yet.” 
 “No, I mean, the person that was killed.  Who was killed.” 
 “Oh, a night staffer.  You might know him.  He was a big, goofy looking guy, 
kind of weird, always skulking through the shadows and making strange jokes that were 
never funny.  Well, he ain’t laughing any more.  Somebody stove in his head with an I.V. 
stand.  Can you believe that.  Right outside your own door, practically.” 
 “That is strange,” he offered flatly.  “I was awake all night, but I didn’t hear a 
thing.” 
 “Maybe you should tell that to the police.” 
 “Maybe I will.” 
 “Okay, then,” she sighed, once he turned on the shower spigot and pulled the 
curtain shut.  Messed up as he was, she admired his nude body, and considered such 
intimate moments with her more attractive patients to be a fringe benefit of her 
employment.  “I guess I’ll get these things down to the bio-haz laundry.  They’ll probably 
incinerate the whole lot, sheets and all.” 

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 “Sorry about the mess.” 
 “Don’t worry, Mr. Bass, and, if I don’t see you again before they cut you loose, 
good-bye and good luck.  We don’t want to see your face around here again.  Do you 
understand me.” 
 Smiling beneath the press of the shower’s steaming flow, Christen gurgled, 
“Thanks, Leticia, for everything.  I’ll try to be a good boy, just for you.” 
 She was gone, leaving him alone with the delicious, penetrating warmth of his 
boiling bath.  He showered for a long time, before he closed the valves and dried his 
body. 
 From his freshly made bed, Christen fetched a clean suit of clothing the orderly 
had laid out for him.  As he dressed, he admired himself in the mirror, considering that 
Leticia had learned his habits with amazing fidelity.  They were just the pieces he would 
have selected for his trip home.  She had further situated his sandals before his favorite 
chair in the room, an invitation to sit, watch the news, and eat the breakfast she had left 
for him. 
 These things he did, surprisingly content and happy.  For the first time since the 
accident, he felt eager for the coming day, for today he would go home.  Today, he would 
begin again. 
 After he consumed a large, tasty blueberry muffin and two plastic cups of tart 
grape juice, Christen lay back in his chair to close his eyes and think.  As ever, she waited 
for him, there on the far side of dark oblivion. 
 Somehow, he had mastered the child’s mangled image within his mind’s eye, 
such that she had assumed the role of a mental puppet that danced jerkily upon the stage 

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of his imagination.  Her lacerated and bruised countenance hung before his thoughts as a 
moon hangs upon a night sky, while her mouth worked bloodily to form her harsh, 
gurgling words. 
 ‘Why did you do it.’ he wondered silently. 
 Her eyes remained placid and dark as briny depths.  She choked, ‘I did nothing.’ 
 ‘You tricked me.’ 
 ‘No.  You served your purpose, nothing more.’ 
 ‘You murdered that man.’ 
 Her wizened gaze rebuffed him.  ‘You killed it, but that was not a man.’ 
 ‘Not a man.’ wondered Christen dully.  ‘Of course he was a man!’ 
 ‘It wore the shape of a man, but it was not a man.’  Her black, passionless eyes 
dared him to deny this. 
 ‘It.’ 
 ‘What do we call a shadow.  How do we name a shade.  It.’ 
 ‘He was not a shadow or a shade.  He bled all over me.’ 
 ‘Its human shell bled, true, but it cannot die, for it is already dead.’ 
 ‘What was it.’ 
 Distracted, her attention began to fade, and her eyes glazed white.  ‘Demons,’ 
intoned the child enigmatically, her lips writhing bloodily, ‘Live among us, Christen 
Bass.’ 
 ‘Demons.’ 
 ‘Countless black forms and inky shapes, all cast in physical flesh and dispersed 
among the living to sow evil and reap misery among humankind.’ 

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 Christen’s imagination sputtered, and his eyes drifted open.  He found himself 
sitting in the backseat of a taxicab, apparently bound for home.  The driver had 
apparently asked a question, which she now repeated. 
 “Some day, ain’t it.” 
 Christen nodded.  “Yeah, I guess it is.”  In fact, he turned his head to admire the 
sprawling cityscape.  Though the year was early and the spring was fresh, much of North 
Texas budded green and vibrant with the promise of new life.  The landscaping flared 
brilliant with rainbows of flowers. 
 “You just got out, huh.” 
 “From.” he wondered obtusely. 
 “That rehab where I picked you up,” she offered simply, her tone implying his 
lack of intelligence.  “You look like a former patient, rather than a visitor.” 
 “That’s right.  I had an accident a few months ago.” 
 “Months, huh.  Wow,” she enthused with a drawl, as she exited the highway, 
“That must have been some accident.” 
 “It was,” he winced, shifting his stiff legs uncomfortably in the cramped backseat. 
 “Hey, I’m sorry,” she offered immediately, “I didn’t mean to pry.  It’s just 
nervous small talk, and I only mention it because I’ve been in an accident or two in my 
time.”  She found his eyes in her mirror, and tossed him a wrinkled, age-worn smile.  
“I’ve been driving cabs for fifteen years, now.  Can you believe it.” 
 Christen returned the smile and shook his head dutifully.  “That’s a… long time.” 
 “Aw, I know it ain’t nothing to brag about, really, but I love it.  I wouldn’t do 
anything else, and that’s saying something, too, ‘cause I’ve been robbed more than a 

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dozen times.  I was even raped, once.”  When she glanced backward to see his face, she 
chuckled, “Aw, don’t blush.  He didn’t get to finish, before I maced his ass, and pulled 
my chicken-switch!  They caught him before he got three blocks!” 
 “What happened to him.” 
 She paused briefly, before running a stop sign, turning left with an expert roll of 
the wheel.  “Ten years.  He’s still serving time, as far as I know, since they promised to 
inform me of his release.  He gave me a hell of a shiner, too, so I don’t mind if he rots!”  
Incredibly, while accelerating and steering with her knees, the driver rotated in her seat to 
lift her lip with one finger.  Talking through her restrained mouth, she mumbled, “See 
‘at.  He ‘usted ‘at tooth, too!” 
 Returning her attention to the roadway, she sighed, “That was a bad week, for 
sure, I don’t mind telling you, but I didn’t let it get me down.  I was right back on the 
road again the next day.  I must have answered the same question a thousand times!”  She 
barked laughter and slapped her wheel.  “I got so tired of telling them what happened that 
pretty soon the whole thing was no big deal.  I can talk about it today like it was a joke.” 
 “It doesn’t sound like a joke to me.” 
 Her glance was sharp and concerned in the mirror.  Reassured that he offered no 
sarcasm, she conceded, “No, it wasn’t a joke at all, or one bit funny.” 
 “Yet, you still do the job, knowing the dangers.” 
 She shrugged.  “Before I drove a cab, I worked as a clerk in a little convenience 
store.  One night during the graveyard shift, a friend of mine was working alone, when 
this customer came in with a crowbar and knocked her on the head.  He was in the 
process of dragging her, screaming, out of the store toward his car, when a bread delivery 

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van pulled in and flashed its lights on the situation.”  Shaking her head, she slowed from 
her normal breakneck pace to wend her way through a dense suburban neighborhood.  
“Long story short, we all knew the guy, because he traded there all the time, though we 
didn’t know exactly where he lived.  So our husbands, I’m divorced now, went driving 
along the streets, looking for the guy’s car, until they found it.  Know what.” 
 “What.” he responded, oddly startled by the sudden question. 
 “When they went around the house looking through the windows, my husband 
saw him sitting in his living room with the top of his head blown off, dead.”  The cab’s 
brakes squealed, as she slowed to her nearest rendition of a stop.  Squinting up at the 
street sign, she grunted, “I think this is it.  That should be your complex over on the 
right.” 
 Christen sat up straighter.  “Okay.” 
 “Well.  Is it, or ain’t it.” 
 “I’m not sure.  I’ve never been there before now.” 
 Her face screwed into a puzzle, she rolled the wheel right, bound for her 
destination.  “You’ve never been home, before.” 
 Christen shook his head, his attention focused on the sprawling mass of cubicles 
that was his new place of residence.  “No.”  When she appeared curious, he closed his 
eyes with a laden breath.  “It’s a long story.  Too long.” 
 As they turned into the complex in the grips of an uncomfortable silence, she 
croaked, “Yep, I love driving this cab.  I mean, there’s risks in everything we do, but I 
make more money in one day than I used to make in a week.  That is, if the tips are good.  
Know what I mean.”  She clicked her tongue like a suave truck driver. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
102
 
 Smiling, Christen raised himself painfully to fetch his wallet from a back pocket.  
“Can you carry my things up to my apartment.  I only have the two bags, but my place is 
on the third floor, and I don’t think my knees can make the top.”  Exhaling painfully, he 
eased his billfold onto his lap.  “I’ll have to rest along the way, but you could hurry 
everything up, if you don’t mind.  The tip would be generous, I assure you.  How does 
twenty dollars sound.” 
 She stomped the brake, comparing his building number to a scrap of paper he had 
handed her.  “That sounds fine, Mister!  We’re home!”  With rapid, well-rehearsed 
movements of her arms and legs, she parked the cab and jumped out to fetch his luggage 
from the trunk. 
 He brought one satchel, which was half filled with underwear, shorts and t-shirts 
that he had purchased from the hospital’s commissary.  A second plastic grocery bag held 
his many medications and supporting medical instruments.  The driver hefted these 
easily, and appeared to wait for him at the curb. 
 Christen offered the cash for his fare and tip, once he levered himself out of the 
vehicle, wheezing, “Here.  Just go on up, you have the apartment number.  Don’t wait for 
me.” 
 “That’s okay, I don’t mind, really,” she returned, accepting his payment.  “You 
might need somebody to lean on.  It’s a long climb.” 
 “No!” he returned too sharply.  “That’s the problem.  I have to learn to manage 
this on my own, lady, and I have nothing but time.” 
 Blinking, she backed away, wounded.  “Okay.  You don’t have to snap.” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
103
 
 “I’m sorry,” he returned instantly, “It’s these damned legs.  They won’t do a thing 
they used to do!” 
 “That’s okay, mister, I shouldn’t have been so pushy.”  She turned to hurry up the 
steps and deposit his bags before the properly numbered door.  On her way back down 
again, she passed him sitting at the top of the first flight.  “Almost there!  Don’t give up!” 
 He smiled thinly.  “I won’t,” though he was anything but certain of this, himself.  
He sat on the top step, panting, as he watched her thump the cab’s door shut and roar 
away.  Breathing deeply to calm his pounding heart, Christen laid back his head and 
rolled his eyes to black. 
 ‘That which is evil, Mr. Bass,’ choked the child, at once returned to his 
imagination, ‘Knows no governance, for evil obeys no laws.’ 
 Christen watched her corpse twitch at the center of a street lamp’s unflattering 
glow, her face flat and expressionless, save for its gashes and punctures.  The pain 
returned to his limbs and body, where he felt broken deep inside.  ‘Why should God 
allow evil.’ he gasped awfully, remembering how blood had rushed across his face, hot 
and sticky. 
 ‘God does not allow evil, Mr. Bass, God IS evil.  God is everything everywhere 
forever, therefore all bad is good.’ 
 He shook his throbbing head.  ‘No.’ 
 The child’s eyes sparkled meanly, brutal and hard as unforgiving metal.  ‘This is 
the nature of faith, for it is impossibly simple and incredibly difficult.  To believe, you 
must surrender all things human.  To believe, you must die.’ 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
104
 
 ‘I don’t want to die,’ croaked his thoughts, though his memory replayed a horror 
show for his consciousness cast with demonic players and set to a blazing backdrop.  He 
instantly dreaded her response, because he knew what it must be. 
 ‘You are already dead.’ 
 Once more, Christen’s eyes snapped open, and he found himself standing in the 
open doorway to his warm, musty apartment, its door flung wide.  A towering pile of 
boxes and jumbled furniture occupied the center of the living room, while one chair, his 
favorite worn recliner, waited in a far corner before a broad, vacant window.  A gush of 
hot, stale air struck him in the face. 
 A forceful tap on his right shoulder started him up against the doorframe with a 
jerk.  His left knee snapped with a flare of agony, but he caught himself against the wall, 
before he fell to the floor. 
 He turned to find a middle aged woman with an attractive figure and heart-shaped 
face standing on the landing before the opposite apartment door, which also stood wide.  
Unlike his apartment, her home wafted a scented breeze that smacked of blueberry bath 
bars and cinnamon potpourri.  She covered her mouth, shocked by his reaction. 
 “Oh, my God!” she spat, stooping to offer him a free hand, while suspending a 
colorful tray with the other.  “I didn’t mean to scare you!  Are you okay.” 
 Fixing a rueful grin to his face, he pushed himself up against the wall by 
extending his burning, aching legs.  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he gasped.  “It’s okay, really, I’m 
fine.  It’s those steps!”  He blew a long breath, and made a show of wiping his brow.  “I 
thought they would be the end of me, for sure!” 

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Stephen Huff 
105
 
 “What happened to you.” she asked spontaneously, curiosity overpowering her 
better senses of propriety. 
 “I’m out of shape,” he returned bluntly.  “Are those for me, I hope.” he asked, 
eying the tray held aloft in her right palm. 
 “Oh! Yes, I forgot.  Here,” and she offered the red plastic party tray, which he 
admired with a broad smile.  It was covered with colorful plastic wrap, which brightly 
displayed the cookies, cakes and candies sheltered underneath.  “I hope you don’t mind if 
it’s a bit cold.  I kept it in the freezer, since I saw them carrying up your furniture last 
weekend.” 
 He took the tray, and levered himself through the open doorway of his apartment 
to his kitchen. Hobbling to his dusty countertop, he sat the tray down, before he turned to 
face her, leaned against a wall for support and proud of his returning strength. 
 “It looks wonderful,” he gushed, “Thank you.” 
 “It’s the least I could do.  I like to meet new neighbors, whenever they move in.  
Hi! My name is Barbara Dunkin.” 
 Accepting her hand, he replied, “Christen Bass.” 
 Her smile was hesitant though sincere, and he sensed her intentions were merely 
friendly, not romantic.  Turning to examine the state of his furnishings, she frowned, 
“Oh, my, it’s worse than I thought.” 
 His smile crumbled a bit.  “How do you mean.” 
 “Well, I’m not the nosy kind, though you may not believe it.”  She wandered into 
the living room.  “Who couldn’t notice, though, they way they threw your stuff around, 
when they moved you in last week.  I thought it was a moving crew, and I was going to 

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Stephen Huff 
106
 
tell on them, as soon as I met you.  Then I saw a woman bring up several boxes, which 
she practically tossed through the door, and I thought I should mind my own business.  
They just seemed so… hateful.” 
 Christen winced.  “It shows.” 
 “I know,” she guessed flatly.  “Divorce, right.  Are you the good guy, or the bad 
guy.” 
 He shrugged, “The good guy, I guess, but I don’t feel so good.” 
 “Me, too!  It’s been a year for me, now.  I’ve been over it for,” she glanced 
comically at her watch, “Days.” 
 “I’m just getting started.” 
 “Ooh,” she winced playfully, “It’s off to a hell of a start, too, I see!” 
 “You should have seen how I found out.” 
 Now her face assumed a surprised mask of denial.  “She didn’t serve you while 
you were in the hospital.” 
 He was stunned.  “How did you know I was in the hospital.  Does it show so 
clearly.”  He glanced down at his legs, which hung gauntly from his shorts, heavily 
traced with scars.  “Oh.  I guess it does.” 
 “No, not really,” she soothed quickly, biting her lip.  “I guess I must be nosy, after 
all, because I asked one of the movers about you.  He said you had been in rehabilitation 
for a long time, and that you were moving here to finish recuperating.” 
 Christen nodded.  “That’s part of it, at least.  What else did he say.” 
 “He said he thought you were some kind of computer nerd, or something.” 

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Stephen Huff 
107
 
 Another nod.  “Sort of.”  When another uncomfortable silence followed, he made 
an indecisive motion of his hands.  “I would invite you in for a seat, but…” 
 “Oh!  That’s okay,” she gasped, “I understand.  I just want to roll up my sleeves 
and clean this place for you!” 
 He smiled sardonically, and replied, “I’m sure you don’t mean that.” 
 “I do!  If you knew me, you would know how much I hate clutter.  I’m forever 
straightening things.  I even rework the flowerbeds, when the groundskeeper does a poor 
job.” 
 “I appreciate the offer, but I had better do it,” he sighed, limping to the center of 
the living room, eyeing the comfort of his recliner with a longing drool.  “It’s the only 
way I’ll know where everything is.  Besides which, she didn’t leave me with much.  I’ll 
have to buy a houseful of furniture.” 
 “Well,” she gasped, sensing her cue to leave, “I guess you have the most 
important thing, an easy chair.  You must be tired.” 
 Despite himself, Christen’s eyes rolled wearily.  “Yeah.  A bit.  Those stairs will 
require some practice, I think.” 
 “I can only imagine,” she returned politely, bound for the door.  “Go ahead, have 
a seat.  I’ll show myself out.” 
 “I’m sorry,” he returned stiffly, “I wish I could be a better host for such an 
attractive lady.” 
 “That’s okay, I don’t want to intrude, but don’t hesitate to knock, if you should 
need something.  Okay.” 
 “I will, Barbara, thanks.” 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
108
 
 With a smile, she was gone behind his closed front door.  Christen licked his lips 
and considered the shape of her body with a pleasant half-smile.  Then he remembered 
how his legs protruded obscenely from his shorts, writhing with scars, and he found 
himself grotesque.  With a wasted sigh, he bent to fill his recliner gratefully. 
 After he sat, he felt the heat of his stifling apartment, and he turned to find the 
thermostat on the wall, set to eighty.  Though it had been a mild spring day, North Texas 
blazed in the summer and burned in the spring.  He felt sweat rise on his upper lip and 
drip from beneath his arms. 
 Too exhausted to truly care, he levered the chair backward, stretched his feet, and 
tossed back his head.  Sucking a resigned breath, he let his eyelids flutter shut, as he 
hoped for a quick fade into restless sleep. 
 This was not to be, for she waited there in the darkness of his mind, her lifeless 
body smashed to a bloody ruin, though her bruised lips worked to haunt him.  ‘More will 
come before you.’ 
 ‘More.’ 
 ‘Demons, Christen Bass, human monsters.  Your duty is clear.’ 
 He shook his head without opening his eyes, while sweat rolled from his forehead 
into the shining mat of his tangled hair.  ‘I have no duty.’ 
 ‘Your duty,’ returned the child forcefully, her voice suddenly powered by a deep, 
bass rumble of authority, ‘Is to God.’ 
 ‘God that is evil,’ returned Christen evenly, unperturbed.  ‘God that murders.’ 
 ‘God that gives life, which demands death,’ she answered.  ‘God that loves with 
hatred, that pleases with pain, that worships with disgust.  God that commands you.’ 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
109
 
 ‘I don’t believe in God.  It’s a figment.  A child’s dream’ 
 ‘God is all things.  God is, and God is not.’ 
 Christen’s heart raced with panic, as full understanding of his psychological 
condition filled his imagination.  He recalled the first conscious day after his accident, 
when he had reclined alone with his thoughts, foreseeing his future and knowing he could 
not survive himself.  These maniacal visions stemmed from his conscience, he knew, 
which could never fall silent, again.  This would be his every waking moment, this girl 
and her torturous logic he could not stifle.  This would be every minute of every hour of 
every day to come, and he anticipated his destiny with sick dread. 
 As he gazed deeper into the little girl’s black, lifeless eyes, Christen found 
himself overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of her inky vision, for it was a void as 
boundless and passionless as the night sky.  There, far beyond her glazed irises, 
embedded within the dense tissues of her mind, Christen found his own reflection staring 
back from a pale, pinched face.  This false perspective hovered just above his placid, 
peaceful countenance for a quiet moment, before his vision rose effortlessly toward the 
ceiling.  Now he saw himself at a greater vantage, and he noted without emotion that 
prison officials had strapped him to a gurney to force needles into his veins and thereby 
pump his body full of poisons. 
 An anonymous physician leaned close to pronounce him officially dead.  
Christen’s eyes glazed slowly, as his last breath eased forth from collapsing lungs with a 
drawn, scarcely audible sigh.  His tongue lolled, blue and swollen, while his pale face 
shed all signs of life.  Curtains drew shut before two broad windows filled with grim 
spectators, and the show came to its morbid coda. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
110
 
 ‘The precise moment is fixed, you know.’ 
 ‘I don’t believe that.’ 
 ‘The manner is known, though you will not believe,’ responded the child, her 
voice filling his mind, which yet wandered the interminable void of her deep, dark eyes.  
‘We know only one thing certain in life, Christen Bass.  We know we must die.  Whether 
now or later, nobody and nothing escapes time.’ 
 ‘Time doesn’t require God.’ 
 As he wandered this lost and lonely place within his imagination, Christen felt icy 
movements course his flesh, which were ancient currents of nothing flowing through the 
fantastic landscape of forever.  He felt bound to the mystic as a superstitious animal 
clings to vines in a jungle, though his consciousness refused to heel and his mental focus 
remained stubbornly fixed on far away, a distance beyond sight.  She was himself, he 
knew, and her contradictions were his own, though he could not save himself from her.  
This vast, empty place, he realized, was his new mind, and she his new voice of reason, 
not to be denied. 
 ‘God,’ she stated softly, ‘Is time.  Perhaps God is time, more than any other thing.  
Everything that can be will be, and has already been.  Time does not begin and end.  
Time simply is, as all things are.’ 
 ‘Are you telling me the State of Texas will eventually execute me.’ 
 ‘Yes.’ 
 ‘For killing that orderly.’ 
 ‘No.  As you keep God’s duty, you are safe.’ 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
111
 
 Frustration swelled to rage proportions within his racing breast.  ‘Then why 
would I get the needle.’ 
 ‘The answer is obvious,’ returned the child flatly, her words echoing as a peel of 
bronze gongs within his thoughts.  ‘One day, you must fail God.  In failure, you will be 
condemned.’ 
 ‘Then I simply won’t do anything,’ he returned childishly.  ‘I won’t play this 
stupid game.’ 
 ‘This decision, of itself, is a movement upon the field.  You have no choice.  You 
never had a choice.’ 
 ‘You killed that man.’ 
 ‘They were your arms and your hands, Christen Bass.  You killed him.’ 
 ‘I wouldn’t have been in the hallway, if not for that light.  You led me to him.  
You made me see what he was doing.’ 
 ‘Perhaps.  Yet you struck him down.’ 
 ‘I don’t remember that.’ 
 ‘You know you did.’ 
 ‘Why.’ 
 For a long moment, his imagination hissed silence, and he feared she had gone 
without answering.  Eventually, she intoned, ‘Consider the hands that must one day 
handle you in death, Christen Bass.  These men and women must be unknown to you 
today, but they wait for you in the future, nonetheless, their hands ready to render your 
dead flesh to its final Earthly fate.  You simply served the same purpose for another last 
night.  You were an instrument in time, an implement of destiny.’ 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
112
 
 ‘Plied by the twisted hands of a vengeful God,’ pondered Christen softly.  ‘A God 
that would murder, that would send such a monster among us, in the first place.’ 
 ‘Indeed, for all is as God fashions all to be.’ 
 He sighed upon hearing this familiar refrain.  ‘What’s next.’ he wondered, 
surrendering to his lunacy, at last. 
 ‘Open your eyes and see.’ 
 With a snort, Christen snapped himself awake.  Disoriented at first, he slowly 
fixed his position in reality, once more.  He found himself outside in the darkness.  A 
streetlamp lighted a distant intersection, though the foliage surrounding him obscured its 
illumination.  He stood in the shadows cast by overgrown landscaping, which gathered 
thickly around a ramshackle frame house. 
 Across a weedy, heavily shaded yard strewn with junk, a single window of the 
house glowed with light, which filtered through glass smeared with filth and obscured by 
a rusted screen.  A figure of shadow moved within that light, and the corresponding voice 
of a woman screeched with its motions. 
 A screen door wrenched open noisily out of sight around the front of the house, 
before it snapped back with an explosive report.  The unseen woman screamed, “I told 
you not to slam that fucking door!” 
 Presently, a shade shaped as a pudgy, effeminate man rounded the corner, 
grumbling curses and the word ‘mama’ repeatedly.  With a sharp, prissy stride, the figure 
strode through the weeds to an ancient, battered Plymouth parked at the end of a rutted 
gravel drive.  Christen peered through the bushes to see the man’s face, which glowed 
eerily with a ruddy light that came dimly at first, and then brighter with every step. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
113
 
 By the time the man sat behind the wheel of his tired sedan, and the dashboard 
lights shone upon his face, Christen had recognized him.  His heart raced and his limbs 
throbbed painfully, as he watched the male nurse from the hospital I.C.U. reverse down 
the drive, bound for work, no doubt, and a new round of victim patients.  Christen 
swallowed fearfully, and eased back into the dense undergrowth. 
 He allowed his eyes to ease shut once more.  For the first time, his angel of death 
shaped torn lips into a broad, knowing smile, and then she laughed a child’s cruel, wicked 
laughter that mocked, teased and tormented.  

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
114

 

 

 

 
Curious and Learning 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
115
 
-|- 

 A television played loudly in the background, though individual words remained 
unintelligible.  The dialog exchanged back and forth between two persons, timed to 
sporadic bursts of a laugh track, which rendered the scene before him macabre and 
psychotic.  Dragging a shaking, nervous hand through sweat-matted hair, Christen 
struggled to breathe. 
 Before him, lying on the floor of her kitchen, lay a massive lump of death.  Obese 
and aged, her flesh appeared to slough off her bones to pool in obscene rolls all about her 
sprawled limbs and cooling torso.  Her body lay upon dirty, cracked linoleum tiles in the 
classic pose of death, with her arms and legs splayed at comfortable angles, and her head 
lolling to one side, tongue protruding and eyes glazed open. 
 A terrified, choked cry of horror escaped Christen’s throat, when he realized what 
he had done, and his right hand jumped to his mouth.  Gnawing at the bits of dried skin 
surrounding his thumbnail, he gazed down at the human ruins he had fashioned, and he 
wondered about a great many things.  Primarily, he pondered the nature of life and death, 
and of guilt and innocence, all of which reminded him how the State of Texas loathed a 
killer. 
 Hesitant and uncertain, he stumbled backward until his hips met a filthy counter 
in the cramped kitchen, and there he leaned, suddenly exhausted.  Insanity, he realized, 
could be a tiring ordeal.  His every wasted muscle felt drained and weak, while his bones 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
116
 
ached miserably.  He felt he had finished a marathon, though he remembered not a step of 
it. 
 Instinctively, he glanced down at his hands, expecting to find them running 
crimson.  Surprised, he found them clean, though his knuckles flared with agony and his 
fingers throbbed painfully.  Had he manually throttled her. 
 He imagined she should have fought him, if he had attacked her in such a personal 
fashion, so he searched his arms for scratches or bruises.  Save for the corpse stretched on 
the floor before him, the home betrayed no evidence of a struggle.  For all he could 
determine from this vantage, the woman had simply collapsed in her kitchen, striking the 
floor dead. 
 Swallowing stiffly, choking on words too pathetic to utter, Christen turned to 
hurry away.  He passed through a cluttered, dinghy living room strewn with newspaper, 
magazines and empty fast food packages that indicated the woman and her son enjoyed 
endless cheeseburgers and long hours in front of the television, which played too loudly 
even now, laughing idiotically at his guilt.  With stiff, jerking movements of trembling 
limbs, Christen exited the tiny frame house through a rusted screen door, which slammed 
shut to the tune of a protesting spring.  Meeting its frame with a gunshot report, Christen 
jumped at the SMACK of it, his heart racing to think someone had shot him. 
 Recovering his balance, Christen lurched across the gravel drive, returning to the 
darkness of the rampant landscaping from whence he had come.  There, concealed at last 
in comforting shadows, Christen paused to suck air and rest burning limbs. 
 By force of habit, his recuperative efforts forced his eyelids shut and plunged his 
mind back into the inky depths of lunacy, once more.  As he expected, she waited for him 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
117
 
there in the black forever, her shattered face impassive and void of accusation, while her 
dead eyes sparkled meanly. 
 ‘Why her.’ he asked with a thought.  ‘Why not the nurse.’ 
 The slain child gurgled, ‘Her time had come.  His has not.’ 
 ‘But why.’ he demanded, brutally curious.  ‘He tried to kill me.’ 
 ‘Indeed, he has killed much and often,’ returned the child, her voice the sound of 
rolling tires churning a deep bed of gravel, ‘As he must kill again.  He is yet required.’ 
 A familiar sense of disorientation and confusion overwhelmed him, and Christen 
imagined himself hanging suspended from his seatbelt, blood coursing the contours of his 
face as an obscene river delta bound for the lowest spot on Earth.  He felt every fracture 
of his mangled bones, and he imagined unhealed wounds bursting open to drown him in 
his own gore. 
 ‘Required.’ he wondered dully. 
 ‘As you are required, Christen Bass,’ returned the mangled child, her lips 
wriggling to form her words though her body lay lifeless and unmoving.  ‘However 
abominable, his are God’s labors.’ 
 ‘And his mother.’ 
 The child’s reply came immediate and certain, ‘Demons, Christen Bass, live 
among us.  Some are born into this world, while others are fashioned directly from 
human flesh in the course of time and cruel treatment.  Still others are thrust upon the 
living world as changelings that hide in the flesh of the walking dead. 
 ‘Hers was the middle path, for she lived her life as a human being, while she 
fashioned a demon in her son, hour upon hour, day upon day.’ 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
118
 
 Christen’s heartbeat accelerated painfully to think of all the world’s inept 
mothers. ‘How so.’ 
 ‘A demon’s genesis is a matter of chance, much as its fate, and God is nothing if 
not the master of chance.  He fashioned her life in the circumstances of her birth and the 
consequences of her actions, rendering her a bitter, resentful, misanthropic individual 
burdened with an unwanted child born of an unholy forced union with her own father, 
who beat and raped her regularly as a child.  In her son, she saw her greatest torment and 
her deepest longing, for she both loathed and loved her father, who represented the source 
of everything good and bad in her life. 
 ‘While her father remained beyond the reach of her hatred, their bastard son was 
always available.  Eventually, the unfortunate boy bore the totality of her rage, which 
malformed and twisted him indecently, wringing all nascent humanity from his soul, 
leaving it naked and vulnerable to an evil habitation.  With each stroke of the extension 
cord, with every slap of his face, with every meal denied and every foul curse uttered, she 
pressed her malignant hands against the levers of God’s machines until she had stamped 
out a remorseless, conscienceless murderer.’ 
 ‘Why would God allow the boy’s mother to treat him so badly all those years.’ 
 ‘That she should become for him the same concept of love and hate that her father 
had been for her.  Imagine the consequences of his response to the discovery of his 
mother lying dead on the floor of their shared kitchen.  Rage and frustration must swell to 
monstrous proportions, and he must lash out angrily at the world.  Many will die.’ 
 As always, Christen felt stunned and confused.  He repeated himself numbly.  
‘Why.’ 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
119
 
 ‘If the answer to this question eludes you, then you are not meant to know,’ 
responded the animated corpse.  ‘Faith requires your blind service, nothing more.’ 
 Christen gasped awake, once the steaming water struck his face.  Verged on 
boiling, the liquid fire spat forth from his showerhead melted the constant agony of half-
mended bones and muscles, though it scalded his flesh.  Regardless of the modest pain, 
Christen stood in the burning stream, choking and sputtering.  Aloud, he wondered, “Do I 
have a choice.” 
 Eventually, purged and wrinkled, Christen climbed out of the shower stall to 
towel dry and dress himself in comfortable summer clothing.  Wandering into his once 
empty bedroom, Christen found it filled with furniture, as were the den and kitchen.  He 
found his meager possessions neatly in place, just where he might have put them, and he 
was further startled to learn that someone had filled the considerable gaps atop his 
shelves and counters with tasteful bric-a-brac. 
 Dumbfounded by the transformation, Christen thumbed the pages of a calendar 
tacked to a wall near his refrigerator.  He located the date of his release, and then 
compared it to the date displayed on the face of his wristwatch, realizing he had somehow 
lost three days of his life. 
 Struggling to calm his rising sense of fear, Christen stumbled to his tiny dining 
room, where he drew a chair and sat before a dinette he could not remember purchasing.  
That trembling hand returned to the mat of his wet, uncombed hair, while his eyes bulged 
wildly.  “What the hell is happening to me.” he asked dumbly, and he thought perhaps he 
should visit his doctor. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
120
 
 Before he could finish his decision to call for an appointment, a book on the table 
in front of him caught his attention.  As it was faced around for access from the opposite 
side, Christen spun it with a thumb, so he could read the page to which it was opened.  
Scanning its headers and footers, he quickly learned the title of the book. 
 Stunned to read this, he lifted the front cover to admire its glossy face, confirming 
its title and author.  “Why the hell was I reading ‘The Chemistry of Extreme 
Explosives’.”  With a growing sense of dread, he noticed several other books scattered 
atop his coffee tables and end tables.  Drawing a deep, painful breath, Christen tottered to 
his feet and crossed the room.  The second volume he lifted was entitled ‘Kitchen 
Pyrotechnics’, and the third ‘Underground High-Explosives, Booby Traps, and Sabotage 
Techniques for the Amateur Anarchist’. 
 “Oh, no,” he uttered softly.  “The Feds will be here any moment.” 
 Perhaps, he considered, arrest would be preferable to whatever his alter ego had 
planned for the near future.  Absently, he thumbed the pages of the last tome, scanning its 
text with the long practiced ease of a man who reads voraciously, when he disturbed two 
scraps of paper, which fluttered to the floor.  Stooping upon protesting knees and aching 
bones to retrieve these, he leaned against an armchair to hold them before squinted eyes. 
 In the first, he recognized his cursive hand, while the second was a long printed 
supermarket receipt.  Examining the handwriting more closely, he quickly ascertained it 
was a list of explosive compounds and their household equivalents.  Beside each, he had 
scrawled notes about additional chemicals or tools required to refine the product to its 
component ingredients. 

Bad Angel 

 
Stephen Huff 
121
 
 Examining the receipt item by item, Christen compared the purchases to the 
shopping list.  He had been thorough, missing nothing. 
 Lowering his hands, defeated, Christen returned to the kitchen, where he opened 
all the cabinets and drawers.  Hoping to find them empty or stocked with common 
kitchenwares, Christen was not surprised to find them filled with bleaches, detergents, 
solvents and other organic goods, including a surprising quantity of corn syrup and cotton 
wadding.  The pantry contained various undiluted acids, a case of lye, and one large 
container of mercury.  All the jars and jugs bore the skull-and-bones and bright orange 
warning labels. 
 Christen exhaled slowly, amazed.  “What have I been doing.” 
 The brass knocker of the front door sounded three times loudly.  Christen jumped 
and squealed, slamming the pantry door shut with a startled jerk of his right arm.  His 
heart raced painfully, while his head swam dizzily. 
 Stumping across the floor as quietly as he dared, Christen put his eye to the 
peephole, as the knocker sounded again three times in rapid succession.  On the other 
side of the door, a lone figure with a massive, mushroom-shaped head stood swaying 
back and forth impatiently.  Before Chris could fumble the chain lock loose and open the 
door, the knocker sounded a third time. 
 Opening the door slowly, Christen expected a rush of armed officers shouting 
‘FREEZE!’, though he instead confronted a stocky, balding, middle-aged male with a 
red, puffy face. “Hey!” spouted the man immediately. “You’re the new guy, right.” 
 Blinking owlishly, Christen dragged himself into the open doorway, and 
responded uncertainly, “I suppose I am.” 

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 “Brad Watt,” returned the other, “Nice to meet you.  I think your van is blocking 
the drive down there.  I didn’t want to say anything, but it’s been an hour, now, and my 
wife will be home soon with groceries.  She’s pregnant, you know.”  Christen shook his 
head slowly, and Brad added, “Yeah.  It’s our first.  A boy.  We’re right below you on the 
ground floor.  Anyway, I don’t think we should have to carry our stuff over from another 
lot.  Do you.” 
 “No, of course not.” 
 “Then you’re about ready to move that thing.” 
 “Are you sure it’s my van.” wondered Christen dully.  After all, he had never 
owned such a vehicle, and he could not remember buying one recently.  When Brad 
indicated he should do so, he followed his neighbor onto the landing to peer over the rail.  
A large black van with darkly tinted windows and towering, reinforced suspension sat 
parked diagonally across the ramp leading to their building. 
 “I don’t think there are two like it in the whole complex, do you.” 
 “I guess not,” offered Christen lamely. 
 “That’s some machine, alright, and I guess you need it, what with your condition 
and all,” gushed Brad flatly, “But you have to share, too.” 
 “Naturally, I’m sorry.  I guess I forgot all about it.”  Christen backed away 
uncertainly, “I’ll get the keys.” 
 Brad laughed.  “Keys.  Man, you are in bad shape.  The keys are in it!  It’s 
running.  It’s been running for the last hour, stereo blasting away.  I thought you were just 
trying to piss me off.” 

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 “No, not at all!” replied Christen quickly.  “I fell asleep, that’s all, and then I 
forgot.  It’s the stairs, I think, they seem like a mountain to me.” 
 His face falling, ultimately realizing Christen’s condition was indeed dire, Brad 
softened.  “Hey, I’m sorry.  I didn’t think about the climb.  Maybe you should have 
moved into a first-floor unit.” 
 “I thought the constant exercise would be good for me.” 
 “If it isn’t, I don’t know what is.  Just to get the neighborly thing back on track, I 
could go down there and move the van for you.  How does that sound.  You want the 
exercise, I know, but just this once won’t hurt.  Would it.” 
 Christen shook his head, thinking of his burning muscles and aching bones.  
“Okay,” he returned immediately.  Then he remembered the shopping list and the 
contents of his cabinets and pantry.  He knew all those boxes and containers had come 
from somewhere, and he thought better of Brad’s offer. 
 “On second thought,” he called stiffly, catching his neighbor halfway down the 
top flight of stairs, “Exercise is best.  I should probably do it, myself.” 
 Brad’s expression soured.  “Okay, suit yourself, but don’t forget my wife.  She’ll 
be home any minute.  ‘Bye!” 
 Christen returned the man’s backhanded wave, and started toward the steps.  
Using the railing and his arms as much as his legs, he eased his way down to the ground 
foot by foot with a white-knuckled grip.  By the time he reached the bottom, he was 
winded and panting for air. 
 He longed to rest, but the sound of an impatient horn spurred him across the 
narrow lawn to the parking lot, where a huge, black van idled, its stereo pounding a deep 

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bass rhythm into the cavities of his lungs, while his ears buzzed with treble.  Riding high 
on its massive undercarriage, the vehicle towered over him mightily, and he wondered 
how he would pull himself into the cab. 
 Stretching to his full height, Christen opened the door and tugged it wide.  The 
din of music swelled immediately.  The interior was cold from the air conditioner, which 
blew fiercely from a half dozen vents. 
Ominously, the cargo area remained concealed behind a bulkhead, so Christen 
climbed up to the running rail with an agonizing grunt, and then tossed himself onto the 
high seat, squeezing beneath the lowered steering wheel.  Once in place, he noticed how 
the controls had been configured for the length of his arms and legs, while the mirrors 
conformed precisely to his field of view.  He silenced the stereo with a frustrated jab of 
his finger.  Craning his neck awkwardly, Christen turned in his seat to examine the cargo 
area.  He found it dark and silent, and he hoped it was as empty as it appeared to be. 
Pressing the brake pedal, Christen shifted the transmission to ‘R’ for ‘Reverse’, 
and then he clumsily backed the van off the ramp and out of the way.  A small foreign 
sedan immediately filled the spot Christen’s van had occupied, and he guessed this was 
the expectant mother. 
Once he rolled his massive automobile into an empty parking space on the far side 
of the lot, Christen hunched over its wheel.  Its air conditioner blew his face chilled and 
dry, while he kept his eyes open, focused on nothing, though they dried painfully.  “If 
only I could sleep,” he moaned softly. 
 From behind him, he heard a respondent moan that mirrored his own.  For a mad 
moment, he hoped this had been the result of an unnaturally delayed echo, but he knew 

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otherwise.  When he heard the sound again, he turned and raised himself in the seat, until 
he could view the van’s entire cargo area.  Wadded against the driver’s side panel directly 
behind him, Christen saw a rolled blanket, its folds conforming to the contours of a 
human body.  It twitched as he watched. 
 “Shit,” he whispered. 
 To which the blanket replied, “Mumf, mumf, mumf.”  This was a feminine voice, 
obscured by a gag. 
 Twisting in his seat, Christen squeezed his thin body between the bulkhead and 
the engine console to enter the cargo bay.  Switching the dome light to ‘on’, he crouched 
beside the quilt, searching for the head of the person trapped within its stifling confines. 
 At his touch, his victim squealed and jumped, and mumbled unintelligibly.  With 
a delicate hand, Christen folded the top of the blanket down to reveal a tangle of long, 
blonde hair, which was matted with sweat and a considerable amount of fresh blood.  He 
had blindfolded and gagged her with swaths of black cloth. 
 Since she struggled to breathe, Christen removed the gag and let her suck wind 
freely.  Sitting back against the passenger side panel, he hugged his knees and wondered 
what to do next. 
 “W-Why are you d-doing this to me.” she asked eventually.  “Please let me go, I 
didn’t do anything to you.” 
 Christen bit his lip, trembling.  The pain reminded him that this was reality, and 
not an awful nightmare.  He had really kidnapped this woman.  Christen thought he must 
have snatched her from her own home, because he had never seen the comforter before 
now, but, then again, he had never seen the van before now, either. 

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 “I didn’t see your face,” she offered pathetically behind a blindfold, “I don’t know 
who you are.  I couldn’t describe you to the police, even if I wanted.  Just let me go now, 
and I’ll forget everything.  Okay.  No charges.  No cops.” 
 The offer sounded good, but Christen refused to believe her.  If he were in her 
place, he knew he would say the same things, but the instant he released her, she would 
file charges.  Christen thought this might be for the best, however, given his predicament.  
He had committed two murders that he remembered, and probably others that he could 
not remember.  A tiny voice between his ears urged Christen to unroll the blanket and let 
her go, because he knew these crimes were heinous and wrong.  He deserved capture and 
punishment. 
 Regardless of his conscience, Christen simply sat rocking back and forth.  He 
made no move to help or hinder his victim, as she writhed and wriggled inside the 
blanket, obviously frantic with the bonds that restrained her wrists and ankles. 
 “Why are you doing this to me.” she repeated, angry, frustrated and terrified. 
 Softly, Christen answered, “I don’t know.” 
 She jumped.  Then the blubbering and pleading renewed with a redoubled 
urgency, finishing with a singsong repetition of, “Please, please, please, please…” 
 “Shhhhh,” cautioned Christen.  “Everything is going to be alright.” 
 “What do you mean.  You’re going to let me go.”  She sounded hopeful and 
confused. 
 “I don’t know,” he answered stiffly, his tone void of emotion, “But I do know that 
everything is going to be alright, no matter what happens.” 
 She wept piteously.  “I don’t want to die.” 

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 “We all die,” he returned by force of habit.  “Death is nothing to fear.  Believe 
me, because I know.  I’ve been there.” 
 When she fell abruptly still upon hearing this, Christen’s heart slow its pace with 
a painful lurch, and a familiar sensation of dread overwhelmed him.  Her voice calm and 
even, she sniffled and gasped, “Oh, okay.  I understand, now.” 
 “You do.” he wondered incredulously. 
 “Of course,” she returned, relaxing her body and rolling over to face the unseen 
heavens.  “I was afraid you were just some random pervert off the street.” 
 “I’m not.” 
 “Are you.” 
 “I don’t know for certain.  I was normal, once, but lately…” 
 Breathing deeply and evenly, she said, “If you are who I think you are, then 
everything really is going to be fine.  Suddenly, I don’t mind so much.” 
 “How can you say that, after what I did to you.” 
 “The angel told me you would come, and I’ve been waiting.” 
 Christen was stunned.  “You have.” 
 She nodded in the harsh light, and her hair made a wet, tangled noise with the 
movement.  “Yes.  I’ve been praying that you would come soon.” 
 He could think of nothing to say, except the inevitable, “Why.” 
 “I’m so tired,” she sighed wearily, genuine exhaustion obvious in her tone.  “I 
want it to end.  I want the pain to stop.” 
 “Are you sick.” he wondered dully. 

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 “Worse.  I’m alive, and a long, long way from a natural death.”  Rolling her head 
to face him through her blindfold, she added, “Though I seem to be mercifully near to the 
unnatural kind.” 
 Knowing she could not see, Christen nodded stiffly.  “Apparently so.” 
 “It’s okay, really.  Don’t feel bad about what happens.  It’s meant to be.” 
 “How so.” 
 “The angel showed me.  He told me I would stray, and that this would be the 
result.” 
 Acid boiled Christen’s stomach.  Before he could query her further, she asked, 
“Are we parked in the middle of a field.  A field covered with tiny yellow flowers.” 
 He shook his head.  When he realized she could not see, he whispered, “No.” 
 She appeared confused.  “It’s supposed to be a field of flowers.” 
 “What is.” 
 “The place where I die.  The angel showed me.”  She sounded convinced and 
certain. 
 “What angel.” 
 She stiffened, and Christen sensed panic rising within her, once more.  “You don’t 
know about the angels.” she asked, her voice edged with terror again. 
 He sighed leadenly, his head drooping between his bony knees.  “Yes.  I know 
about the angels.” 
 Nodding, she offered softly, “I thought so.  I feel it, you know.  I feel the end.  I 
feel it’s time.  I never thought I would be happy to say so, but I’m ready to die.  I know it 

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won’t hurt, because the angel showed me that, too.  Then, afterward…” Her voice trailed 
away with a long, purging exhale. 
 “Afterward, what.” 
 “I don’t know, for sure.  I never asked, and the angel only said one word about it.” 
 “Freedom,” returned Christen. 
 She smiled, and he found a strange comfort in that small gesture.  For the first 
time since his accident, he felt himself in the presence of a peer, an equal.  Then the 
reality of their situation superimposed itself upon his mind, dispelling all sense of 
comfort.  Her slight smile faded as a dying ember, perhaps bade by the same thoughts. 
 Anticipating his question, the woman said, “I’m HIV positive, you know.  I have 
been for years, but I don’t have AIDS.  The angel protects me, and keeps me perfectly 
healthy.  I might have gone on with his work for years.”  She choked on a stifled sob.  
“God only knows how many men I’ve murdered.” 
 Christen’s heart raced, and he cast an involuntary glance down at his own hands.  
Questions filled him, all without solution.  Before he asked, he knew his own tiny angel 
would not answer. 
 “They come to me from the strangest places, in the oddest ways, sometimes two 
or more at a time.  Often, I don’t even remember meeting them, but we always end up in 
the same place doing the same thing,” she said dryly, her tone morbid and resigned.  “We 
end up in bed fucking, and, though I can’t be certain, I’m sure they all get the disease.  
It’s my thing, so to speak.  It’s the trick I do.”  Rolling her head, she teased him 
incongruously with, “I can guess what your trick might be.” 
 He croaked, “I seem to prefer bashing my victims over the head.” 

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 Returning her blinded stare to the unseen heavens, she replied softly, “That 
explains the splitting headache, then.”  They exchanged a gruesome chuckle of the sort 
that devils might share in hell over a bit of wasted human flesh.  “I can tell you’re new, 
because you sound like the whole thing still makes you sick to your stomach.  I 
remember when I felt that way. 
 “Don’t worry, it fades in time.  Eventually, you’re mind will shut it out, and 
you’ll find yourself living a normal life as best you can in the gaps and lapses.  I know I 
did.” 
 “I don’t know how much time I have left,” gargled Christen, his voice rough and 
splintered from neglect.  “I don’t remember doing it, but I’ve collected several hundred 
pounds of various chemicals, along with a couple dozen books about how to blow things 
up and kill people.  By now, my apartment is filled with all the makings of doomsday, 
and I have the impression it won’t go to waste.” 
 “For me, it was lonely-hearts ads and listings on Internet sex sites.  My phone 
rang day and night, but never with the same man twice.  Isn’t that odd.  You’d think one 
or two might have come back for seconds, but none ever did.”  She wiggled 
uncomfortably in her stifling confines.  “I suspect they all went home to destroy their 
families.  Most of them were married, you know, and a lot of them had children.” 
 Christen shook his head.  “That’s the sort of thing that makes me think they aren’t 
angels talking to us, but devils.” 
 “Aren’t they one and the same thing.  I don’t know what you’ve been hearing, of 
course, but according to my voices,” she said, oblivious to the true implications of her 

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words, “God is all-powerful and all-knowing.  If that’s true, and even sane people say it 
is, then the angel must be right.  Somehow, everything serves God’s purpose.” 
 “Everything bad is good,” he uttered morosely. 
 She fell silent upon hearing this, and her expression clouded further.  “I’ve 
thought about this a lot, since the angel first came to me.  In the beginning, I thought I 
was giving the disease to bad men, men who cheated on their wives and lovers and who 
lusted for immoral sex.  I thought this must be God’s way of eradicating evil, but then I 
realized that the very act of eradication is evil, too, and that’s when I figured it all out.  
That’s when I strayed.” 
 Christen’s ears perked.  “You figured it all out.” 
 Nodding, she asserted, “I think I have.  It’s simple, really, so simple you won’t 
believe it.”  Christen waited patiently while she licked her lips and collected scattered 
thoughts.  “God truly cast the universe in His image, but the cast was flawed and wrought 
with errors, as any copy must be.  We are simply the tools that He uses to correct the 
imperfections of His own reflection, good or bad.  If this is true, then I think God must be 
practicing in us… experimenting with every birth and death… of us… of the stars… of 
the universe… of everything.  Curious and learning, I think God must be a child.” 
 Breathing stiffly for some time, as he pondered his prisoner’s words, Christen 
ultimately responded by replacing the gag and covering the woman’s head with the 
comforter, once more.  “If God is a child,” he growled, “Then He needs a damned good 
spanking!” 

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Hope 

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-|- 

Christen returned to the van’s driver seat, where he hunched over its steering 
wheel, exhausted and afraid.  Envisioning cages and handcuffs, he pondered his future 
and the promise of his angel.  He relived his brief conversation with this latest victim, and 
he wondered incredulously how his life had changed so drastically for the worse. 
Realizing he had obviously gone insane, Christen wondered how he should 
manage this lunacy.  Then his heart raced with an unwholesome pleasure, for he 
understood in this moment that he should do nothing at all to manage his illness.  For the 
insane, delusions must be reality.  His chaotic thought patterns and bizarre behaviors 
could not be avoided, any more than a sane individual could avoid the habits of 
normalcy. 
 Sighing with a morbid sense of relief, Christen closed his eyes and willed the 
angel to come.  For the first time since his accident, however, he found himself 
abandoned.  The backs of his eyelids presented only infinite darkness.  Gone were the 
visions and voices.  The little girl remained absent and silent, though he shouted for her 
presence with thunderous thoughts. 
 Perhaps echoing his inner turmoil, Christen was not startled by an authoritative 
thump upon the window at his left shoulder.  When he opened his eyes, he found himself 
yet parked outside his apartment, engine running and air conditioner blowing relentlessly. 
 Stranger still, he was not surprised or frightened by the presence of a uniformed 
police officer standing near his door.  The man’s face remained grim and impassive, but 

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he seemed bored with routine duty.  His cruiser was parked in the lot in front of 
Christen’s van, preventing a hasty exit, but its lights and sirens were still. 
 Christen rolled down his window and asked, “What’s wrong, officer.” 
 “We received numerous complaints about an illegally parked van playing loud 
music.  Was that you.”  The man’s tone was bass and not to be denied, but he addressed 
Christen as a citizen and not as a serial murderer. 
 Nodding, Christen replied, “Yes, it was, and I’m awfully sorry about that.  I’m 
still moving in, and I parked it across the ramp to make things easier for me.  I guess I fell 
asleep upstairs and forgot about it.” 
 “You fell asleep.  So quickly, and with the music blasting away.” 
 Pressing a thin smile to his lips, he replied, “It wasn’t so loud, really.  I couldn’t 
hear it up on the third floor, anyway.  Once the neighbors reminded me about it, I moved 
it immediately without a fuss.” 
 “Step out of the van, please,” requested the officer, stepping back to avoid the 
prompt swing of Christen’s door.  He asked for and reviewed Christen’s identification.  
He relayed the driver’s license number to his dispatcher through a radio microphone 
fastened to his left shoulder, and then stalked around to the rear of the van to call in the 
plates, as well.  Returning once more to his suspect, he asked, “What happened to you.” 
 Christen glanced down at his thin, scarred legs, the object of the officer’s 
curiosity.  “I was involved in an auto accident a few months ago, and I’m still healing.” 
 “I guess that explains why you fell asleep.”  He turned his eyes on the high climb 
to Christen’s apartment.  “Maybe you should have moved into a ground floor apartment, 
instead.” 

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 Grimacing, Christen replied, “I thought the exercise would be good for the legs.” 
 “Without a doubt,” returned the policeman, relaxing a bit.  Now he turned his 
official attention on the van.  “Wow, that’s some ride you got there.  You probably get a 
lot of exercise just climbing in and out of that thing.”  He roved around to the front of the 
van, stooping to glance at the undercarriage.  “It’s not four-wheel drive, is it.” 
 “No, but I ordered the heavy duty suspension.”  Before the officer could ask why, 
he offered, “I thought it would help with the move.” 
 “Do you plan to move often.” 
 Christen shrugged.  “Frankly, I don’t know.  Everything is nuts after the accident.  
My wife is divorcing me, and she’s locked me out of the house.  I had to buy new 
furniture, and this thing,” he patted the van’s metallic hide for effect.  “The only thing left 
from my life before the accident is this ragged body and my job, and I don’t even know if 
I want that, any longer.” 
 The officer chuckled politely.  “The body or the job.” 
 Ruefully, he responded, “Both, I guess.” 
 “Aw, you’re not doing so badly.  I’ve seen a lot worse, believe me.”  The officer’s 
eyes misted for a moment and reflected the endless tragedy of countless fatal car 
accidents.  “At least you’re alive and walking.” 
 “I know, I try to-“ he started, before the officer interrupted with a motion of his 
hand. 
After listening to a string of jargon and code issued forth from the speaker of his 
radio, the officer thumbed his microphone to respond.  Then he returned Christen’s 

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identification.  “Okay, I guess things are under control here, for now.  In the future, 
maybe you should cut the stereo, before you go upstairs.  Okay.” 
 “Sure, officer, no sweat.  I apologize for the inconvenience.” 
 “Oh, it’s no inconvenience to me,” returned the other, already bound for his 
cruiser and the next call on his itinerary, “Since I get paid for it.  Your neighbors 
probably feel differently, though.”  With a wave, he was gone, his cruiser roaring away 
with a swirl of dust. 
 Christen lingered for a moment outside his door, wondering why he had felt no 
fear.  “So this is how it feels to be nuts,” he mused with a half-smile. 
 Climbing back inside the van, Christen pulled his seatbelt down around him, and 
then shifted to ‘D’ for ‘Drive’.  Slowly, feeling awkward behind the wheel of such a large 
vehicle, Christen turned into the lot and drove around the complex to its front gate. 
 There, he turned his head left and right, wondering which way he should go.  
Once more, he closed his eyes and willed the little girl to return, while she remained 
conspicuously absent. 
 Cursing, Christen opened his eyes at the sound of a honk behind him.  Turning his 
wheel hard right, since it was the easiest way to go, Christen accelerated into the street, 
shaking his head.  “Great,” he said aloud for his own benefit, “Now what do I do.” 
 He knew he should not leave the van parked in the lot with a kidnapped woman 
confined in its cargo area, but he had never disposed of a human being, either.   Worse 
still, she was alive.  Christen knew he could never kill her, no matter what happened, but 
this only compounded his confusion, which filled his thoughts with a din of suppositions 
and impotent imagination. 

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 Eventually, he decided he should drive to the countryside, since that was the most 
logical place to find solitude.  By the time he left the concrete maze of the city, the sun 
had set in a sky the color of burnished gold and plum jelly.  A moonless night suffocated 
the world in darkness as black as Christen’s future. 
 On a whim, he exited the freeway to trace the course of a winding two-lane 
country road.  Miles deep into the tangled woods of northeast Texas, Christen swerved 
onto a narrow gravel lane, which penetrated overgrown fields left long to fallow.  Grown 
up on the neglected fence line, a double row of tall live oak trees arched overhead to blot 
out the stars and render the darkness absolute with their stout, leafy boughs. 
 A mile deep into the unplanted fields, Christen extinguished his headlights and 
slowed to a stop.  There, he parked, waiting.  The narrow lane remained deserted in the 
night.  Nobody would soon come this way. 
 Leaving the engine to idle, Christen returned to the cargo area, and once more 
activated its dome light.  The woman’s body had shifted closer to the rear doors.  When 
he touched her, he found her cold and stiff, dead. 
 Christen sighed, simultaneously grateful and disgusted.  “You didn’t make a 
sound, while I was talking to that cop.  Why.”   More than any other emotion, the 
woman’s bizarre devotion to her spiritual duty evoked within Christen a sense of dread 
and impending doom.  She claimed to have foreseen her death through the eyes of an 
angel, only to have the promised death delivered by Christen’s hands. 
He touched her again to confirm her demise, and felt the chill of her flesh drain 
the warmth of his own body.  Grim reality became the focus of his thoughts with a 
startled gasp. 

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 Again, he dared to close his eyes and will his angel to come, but she refused him.  
His eyelids promised nothing more than sleep, for which he longed, though it should see 
him discovered and arrested in the morning… 
He snorted awake with a start that thumped his head against the bulkhead with a 
thunderous CLANG!  Outside his idling van, he heard a flight of birds take wing from the 
treetops overhead, and his heart raced to think the sun had risen over him. 
 Without thinking, he turned to the cargo doors and tripped the latch, spilling 
himself onto the gravel lane, where his van sat parked in a hot cloud of exhaust.  Though 
morning was near, the land remained shrouded in night.  If he had come to act, then he 
knew he must act now. 
 Grimacing with disgust, he returned to the cargo bay and handled the woman’s 
body, pushing her dead weight with much difficulty to the edge of the deck.  Before he 
dragged her into the gravel drive, he removed the blanket and bindings.  Then he recalled 
true detective shows he had watched on television, and he thought to strip her of her 
clothing, thereby removing as much evidence as possible from the dumpsite. 
 This was a blasphemous and unpleasant business rendered all the more difficult 
for the fact that the body remained locked in the vice of rigor mortis.  Her arms and legs 
refused to cooperate, though he fussed and cursed them awkwardly.  Eventually, he 
resorted to tearing her clothing away, dressed as she was in thin pajamas and delicate 
panties, leaving him to suppose that he had dragged her screaming from her own bed. 
Sick for himself and sorry for her, he dragged her off the deck and into the grass.  
She slipped easily beneath the lowest line of barbed wire, and he followed her through 
clumsily, snagging his clothing and flesh on the many rusted barbs, despite his efforts to 

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avoid them.  Taking her by the wrists now, he dragged her backwards into the heather, 
milkweed and cockleburs as far as his skinny, wasted legs could manage. 
There, he collapsed beside her, panting and exhausted.  Above him, visible 
through eyelids pressed all but shut, he watched the sky lighten perceptibly, moment by 
moment.  Sunrise verged on the horizon, patiently relentless.  Tomorrow would come, he 
realized, whether he was ready or not, and with it the promise of capture and prison. 
 Grunting from pain and weakness, Christen struggled to his feet, and then he 
scurried for the tree line.  Knowing he had left a trail of evidence behind him, he climbed 
inside the van and slammed its cargo doors shut with a double sound loud enough to 
rouse the countryside.  Without pausing to catch his breath, Christen returned to the 
wheel and reversed the van backward along the narrow road, until he could turn onto the 
country two-lane that would carry him back to the Interstate and then the city. 
 Confused and horrified by his condition, Christen returned to the Interstate with a 
hasty squeal of his tires.  Mumbling wickedly, he drove through rising sunlight. 
Around him, the horizon dragged itself from a mire of heavy shadow with a torpid 
stand, from its brightly flowered meadows to its pinnacle treetops, until it towered over 
him from far away, a grim and accusing jury.  This land and its animal inhabitants knew 
what he had done, because they would feed from the woman’s corpse through the spring 
until only bleached bones remained.  Nature, Christen decided, must loathe him for this 
crime, even as it loved him, too, for they would eat, however unwholesome the meal. 
Later, as a gas pump drained his bank account, Christen collected all the evidence 
of his latest murder from the van’s interior, stuffing the woman’s clothing into a nylon 
grocery sack along with wads of thick tape and a pair of bunny slippers.  Fingering the 

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soft, plush material of this last item, Christen wept and moaned softly to himself, his chin 
buried in his collapsed breast. 
“What have I done.” he gasped, rolling over into a fetal curl.  Weary, he pressed 
his eyes closed to blot out the visual evidence of his madness.  “What have I done.” he 
repeated, his voice wracked with emotion and guilt, his tears streaming into a pool that 
formed on the corrugated deck. 
 ‘Pride,’ choked the girl immediately, ‘Is the ugliest of human traits.’ 
 Christen started in his sleep with a jerk.  ‘Pride.’ he wondered with a reflexive 
thought. 
 ‘It assumes more than you are.’ 
 Once more suspended upside down from his seatbelt, Christen felt confused and 
disoriented.  ‘Pride.’ he asked again. 
 ‘You did nothing,’ she continued, ignoring him, her eyes black pits of 
unreasonable intent, her voice drowned in a hemorrhage, ‘God works all.’ 
 ‘You left me to clean up your mess!’ 
 ‘You left yourself, since you failed to deliver her with the first blow, as ordained.’ 
 ‘Ordained.  I kidnapped and murdered that woman!  How can such an act be 
‘ordained’.’ 
 ‘God commands you.  God wills you.  However illegal or immoral, Christen Bass, 
you are charged with a hallowed toil.’ 
 ‘I’m obviously not very good at it!’ 

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 ‘You hesitated and checked your blow at the last moment.  You purposefully left 
her alive, because you doubted the sincerity of your beliefs.  Doubt is failure.  Failure is 
condemnation.’ 
 ‘Good!  I hope I do fail, and soon!’ 
 ‘Still.  After all you heard.’ 
 ‘I heard nothing!’ 
 ‘You spoke with the living dead.  She told you many secrets you should not 
know, because she wanted you to believe what she no longer could.’  The child’s face 
loomed at the center of Christen’s focus until her pale features filled his field of vision as 
a harvest moon dominates an October horizon.  Through bloody lips and smashed teeth, 
she added, ‘She wanted you to believe yourself worthy and just.’ 
 ‘I believe nothing, least of all that,’ he spat silently. 
 To which she promptly replied, her tone laced with sardonic humor, ‘You believe, 
Christen Bass, more than you know.  This afternoon, God sent your deliverance behind a 
badge.  It stood near you for a time, and might have been summoned at a word, at a 
glance, at a thought.  Why did you deny it.’ 
 ‘I didn’t want to go to prison.’ 
 Though her face refused to bend to the emotion, her tone feigned confusion, 
‘This, despite the fact that you know prison is the inevitable human punishment for your 
crimes.  No, this is not the reason.  You know your transgressions must inevitably end 
there, as I have foreseen it.’ 
 ‘Then why.’ 

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 She blew a rancid, splattered breath, and replied, ‘Because of the second ugliest 
human trait; hope.’  

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Eternity In An Hour 

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-|- 

 “You dropped something.” 
 Christen’s gaze snapped into sharp focus around the woman’s bright, chubby 
face.  Her hair was brilliant orange, and she smiled with motherly warmth.  “What.” he 
wondered with a snort. 
 “I think you dropped those, didn’t you.” she asked, and pointed to his feet. 
 Christen lowered his gaze, and noticed a set of tiny keys sparkling in the sunlight 
between his shoes.  “Oh!” he announced, pleasantly surprised, “I suppose I did!”  
Stooping to retrieve them, though his knees popped painfully, he grunted, “What would 
have become of me, had I lost them.” 
 She smiled again politely, and pulled her two children away, one in each arm.  
The oldest, a fat male child of perhaps twelve, picked his nose with impunity, and turned 
to stare at Christen’s scars, though his mother scolded him not to do so. 
 Christen hefted the miniature keys in his right hand, and examined them 
curiously.  Naturally, he had never seen them before now.  They appeared to be designed 
for luggage of some kind, which realization sent a shiver slithering beneath his skin. 
 A deafening horn sounded high overhead, and Christen jumped, startled.  Many of 
his fellow passengers did the same, and giggled afterward.  The horn sounded a second 
and third time, and then Christen felt movement beneath him.  As he turned his gaze back 
along the length of the ferry, an automated safety message played over loudspeakers, 

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warning its passengers not to bring gas cans, weapons or contraband onto the ferry, which 
the State of Alabama provided as a courtesy service. 
 The flat-bottomed boat surged away from its dock, laden with people and scores 
of automobiles.  Christen turned to the railing at his back, and cast his gaze across the 
choppy brown water of Mobile Bay. 
“Where the hell am I going.” 
 Gripping the keys tightly in his hand, strangely afraid that someone else might 
notice them and ask questions he could not answer, Christen surveyed the vehicles parked 
on the ferry’s gently rocking deck, until he located his monstrous black cargo van.  
Though he feared what he might find inside, Christen threaded his way to the van through 
a gawking crowd and alongside a towering recreational vehicle the size of a bus. 
 After a cautious glance in all directions to be certain he was unobserved, Christen 
carefully pulled the driver’s side door open and climbed in.  Once inside the cabin, he 
squeezed through to the cargo area, where he was not surprised to see a half dozen large 
suitcases stacked and strapped neatly into place.  
 Running a shaking hand over the stubble covering his jowls and chin, Christen 
sucked a deep, calming breath that did little to actually calm him.  He felt his knees 
weaken to buckle, and he sat heavily upon the engine console, wondering how long this 
madness must endure. 
 Impulsively, Christen thumbed up one of the tiny luggage keys, and then stooped 
to kneel over the nearest suitcase.  As he started forward with his hand to unlock and 
open it, he noticed something on the floorboard near his knee.  Distracted, he fetched this 
tiny device up before his eyes to examine it closely. 

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 Though he was no expert, Christen knew this was an electronic capacitor.  A 
quick search revealed the fact that the van was strewn with similar components, along 
with bits of stripped wire and plastic insulation.  Beads of spent solder rattled around in 
the troughs of the corrugated floor. 
 His heart racing, Christen thought better of opening the case, and sat back on his 
haunches, instead.  “Wait a moment,” he cautioned himself, “I probably didn’t pack extra 
underwear in there.” 
 A chance glance at his hands revealed an ominous circumstance.  Tiny heat 
blisters glistened from many of his fingers, while the skin on the backs of his hands 
appeared inflamed and irritated, as though from the effects of chemical burns.  He raised 
them to his nose and sniffed his fingers delicately, sensing sulfur and bleach there.  
Wiggling them together, he felt them ache from long hours of harsh use. 
 On sudden inspiration, he turned his attention to the date display of his 
wristwatch.  Somehow, somewhere, he had lost five days of his life.  
 “Oh, man,” he moaned, sick and terrified.  “What the fuck is wrong with me.”  
He ran an unsteady hand through tangled hair that glistened with adrenaline-fueled sweat, 
and he sat back roughly on his haunches, crossing his legs beneath him. 
 For a time, he sat so, rocking back and forth and hugging his own aching body.  
He longed to weep for himself, to mourn the loss of his past life, but the requisite 
emotions refused to come.  He knew he had kidnapped and murdered people, and he 
guessed those suitcases were bound to do even more damage in the world, but he could 
not summon a sense of guilt, regret or remorse.  The only crime he could rue was the 

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crime that sent him into this spiral of mental deterioration.  He could only perceive 
himself as a victim, not as a perpetrator. 
 Worse, deep inside his psyche, Christen sensed instead a feeling of eagerness, of 
anticipation.  The most central aspects of his mind believed and yearned to serve, though 
Christen could not precisely say what he believed or whom he served. 
 Today, he knew, he would drive this deadly payload on to its destination, and, 
though he had no idea who the intended recipient might be, he was certain it would 
destroy something and someone that must be destroyed.  Wherever they were, whoever 
they were, Christen felt certain their fates were well deserved, and he felt happy to be the 
instrument of their destruction. 
 On a whim, he straightened his right leg and thrust his right hand into his pants 
pocket.  There he found a folded sheet of paper, which he retrieved.  Scrawled upon one 
panel of this in his own reckless script, Christen read two addresses.  The first was of a 
hotel, including a reservation confirmation number.  The second remained unknown to 
him.  Unfolding the paper, he saw two colorized maps, which he recognized as having 
been printed on a computer. 
 The first map led him from his home to a hotel on Dauphin Island, Alabama, this 
ferry crossing being the last leg of his journey from Texas.  The second map traced a 
route from the hotel to a lonely road that followed a spit of land jutting northward from 
the island into the bay.  He read this unfamiliar address several times, vainly hoping to 
spark a memory of his intentions.  It seemed a lonely, isolated spot, even from the cold, 
aloof vantage of his crude map. 

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 “At least I know where I’m going,” he mumbled to himself, folding the paper and 
returning it to his pocket. 
 All around him now, he heard car doors clicking open and thumping shut, as 
motors whirred to life and revved for the road.  A loudspeaker directly overhead 
instructed drivers to return to their vehicles and watch the stewards for departure 
instructions. 
 Christen scrambled stiffly back into his seat, where he found the keys dangling 
from the ignition.  He started the van’s powerful motor with a roar that startled the 
elderly couple parked closely in front of him, and then he waited his turn to drive off the 
boat and onto the Dauphin Island landing.  He glanced at his watch.  Its digital face read 
’12:42 PM’. 
 For whatever reason, he breathed the words, “Ten hours.”  Afterward, he cast a 
confident though apprehensive glance over his right shoulder into the cargo bay, where 
the cases waited patiently, strapped to the van’s deck. 
 The drive to the hotel was pleasant, if congested for the flood of ferry traffic.  The 
township was a well-kept tourist spot surrounded by the inevitably elegant and expensive 
homes that sprout wherever water mates with earth.  Christen found the hotel without 
incident, where he greeted the valet and bellhops with a guarded amicability. 
 As the latter loaded his heavy cases onto a trolley, one of them gasped, “What’re 
you packing in here, mister.  Bricks.”  The doorman frowned to hear the man be so 
familiar with the hotel’s guest. 
 Christen chuckled playfully, and replied, “Books.  Lots of books.” 

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 Once they piled the suitcases onto their elegant dolly, first one, then two, and 
finally three of the bellhops strained against its frame, twisting it out of shape, before one 
of the wheels snapped off.  The resultant cacophony of collapse sounded incredibly loud 
beneath the hotel’s towering awning, and it attracted attention for blocks in all directions. 
 Laughing, the bellhops admired their handwork and discussed their dilemma in 
Spanish.  The doorman rushed in with two more trolleys, one in each hand, admonishing 
the help and apologizing to Christen for the inconvenience.  He urged Christen to proceed 
to the hotel desk, while he supervised the delivery of his baggage. 
 Unconcerned by the prospects of strangers handling such a deadly cargo, 
apparently confident of his safety, Christen checked into his room.  When they asked for 
identification, his heart leapt, but he reached for his wallet without any real concern.  As 
he suspected, trusting as he did in the meticulous manner of his bad angel, Christen Bass 
found a drivers license that identified him as someone else.  The clerk accepted the 
plastic card without hesitation, and Christen paid in cash.  Afterward, he rode the elevator 
to his floor without a care, and entered his room with a breezy manner. 
 The bellhops sat the cases in a neat row along one wall, their faces reddened and 
swollen from the effort.  More than one of them cast questioning glances in his direction, 
though none of them appeared to be particularly suspicious.  After he distributed their 
generous rewards, Christen realized that they had only been concerned for the size of 
their gratuities.  Their smiles were instant and broad.  Apparently, they had lugged 
heavier luggage through the hotel. 
 Once they were gone, Christen fetched the television remote and thumbed the set 
on, tuned to a news station.  Removing the bed’s comforter, which no doubt teemed with 

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human parasites, he flopped onto the bed to prop himself against its headboard.  He 
would not force sleep to come; rather he reclined there in surrender, his eyes unblinking 
and his thoughts sluggish as a cold breeze. 
 One hour into a protracted debate concerning the national budget, Christen rose to 
answer a knock at his door.  A man stood there with a black suit bag hanging over his 
back from his left hand, and a multipart form flapping in his right. 
 “Mr. Oppenheimer.” queried the young liveryman. 
 “Yes.” returned Christen, responding to his false name. 
 “This is the tuxedo you ordered, tailored to your specifications.”  The boy 
extended his left hand, offering the suit to his client.  “Mr. Barnes says you should try it 
on, before you sign the ticket, since he tailored it to your specs, sight unseen.” 
 “If he tailored it to my specs, then I trust it will fit.”  Christen hung the suit from a 
closet rack. 
 Uncomfortably, the clerk replied, “Mr. Barnes told me to say that alterations 
would be performed at cost, if you didn’t try the suit on, first.  The shoes are non-
returnable.” 
 Christen smiled.  “There won’t be any alterations, I’m sure.  Do I need to sign 
that.” he asked, indicating the multipart form folded in the younger man’s hand. 
 With a start and a courteous reply, he offered the receipt for Christen’s inspection, 
following it with a pen.  Christen signed it promptly with a scribble that might have been 
any name, before he returned it to the delivery boy.  A five dollar bill followed, and that 
seemed to finish the deal. 

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 Returned to his room, Christen sensed it was time to shower and shave.  The hotel 
had provided him with everything he could possibly need to perform his ablutions.  When 
he finished cleaning himself, he dressed in the tuxedo, and then admired his form in the 
mirror.  Whatever else had happened to him because of his accident, he had lost a great 
deal of weight.  He had not looked so slim since college. 
 As he patted his stomach, another knock sounded at the door.  When Christen 
opened it, he confronted a large, hairy man dressed in black leather adorned with 
countless chains and zippers. 
 “It’s time,” grunted the rock star mimic, his face glowing with a faintly red hue.  
He rolled a dolly into view behind him.  “I’ll get the cases.  You get on down to the limo.  
She’s waiting for you.” 
 Rather than act surprised, Christen simply nodded and strode down the hallway to 
the elevator.  There, he rode to the lobby, and was not surprised to see a white limousine 
parked before the revolving doors. 
 As he stepped out onto the apron, the doorman open the car’s door for him, 
apparently having been instructed regarding its intended passenger.  Inside, Christen 
found a single female seated, her dress elegant and formal, her smile pressed wickedly 
thin.  Wherever her flesh shone nakedly, a delicate illumination shone with the color of 
blood. 
 “Hello,” she purred, motioning him to a seat opposite her, which faced backward.  
“How nice to meet you, again.” 
 Christen cracked a wry smile, and took his assigned place.  “Ditto.”  Never mind 
that he had never met the woman in his life. 

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 “How have you fared, since our last meeting.” 
 Since he could not possibly guess, Christen lied.  “Fan-fucking-tastic.” 
 Her smile broadened, and she offered a polite chuckle.  “Such language will burn 
my ears.”  Alabama sounded from her tongue with a faint flavor, as peaches lightly flavor 
a fine brandy.  Her teeth gleamed, perfectly white and even, while her immaculate flesh 
hinted of sweet, hairless realms of pure pleasure.  “You know how I love it!” 
 “I know you do.” 
 “Drink.” she wondered, inclining her head toward a wet bar set into the plush 
interior near Christen’s right elbow.  “I’m having the port.  It’s quite excellent, really.” 
 Christen poured her refill, and then a drink of his own.  He sipped it delicately, 
and found it much too rich for his palate.  Still, it was a fine rendition, and he quickly 
warmed to it with the conversation. 
 They spoke of mundane matters, though her effects were heavily laced with 
sexual innuendo and naughty insinuations.  While they bantered back and forth, Christen 
watched the rock star impresario load his heavy cases from the dolly.  Each new burden 
bounced the massive car around, lowering it on its springs. 
 “Oh, my!” she gasped playfully, once she heard the trunk thump shut, “It’s a big 
one, this time!  I just love great, big ones.” 
 Christen couldn’t help but smile at the way she said that last bit.  “Me, too.”  She 
was, after all, very busty, and not at all shy.  “I think you’ll find this one the biggest.” 
 “Mmmm,” she purred demurely, twisting sensuously in her seat as though her 
womanhood itched for a long, deep scratch.  “I like your style.  You define cuteness.  Are 
all Texans so cute.” 

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 Effecting the proper drawl, he returned, “Yes, ma’am.  And you know what they 
say about Texas.” 
 “No,” she pouted playfully, “What do they say about Texas.” 
 “Everything comes bigger there.” 
 “Everything…” she whispered, leaning close to make two legs of her forefingers 
upon Christen’s knee.  “Comes….”  she breathed, walking her hand along Christen’s 
thigh to his crotch.  “Bigger…” and she squeezed viciously! 
 Christen yelped, and climbed out of his seat backward, “OUCH! God damn it, 
lady!” he cried, surprised.  “Those are the real things, you know!” 
 “Oh,” she returned, her mouth framing a sadistic leer, as she sat back in her own 
seat, “I know.” 
 Wiping his brow with a strangely delicate lace handkerchief, the longhaired driver 
climbed into the front seat of the limo.  He started it with a hunch of his shoulders, and 
drove too fast away from the hotel, his horn blaring to frighten an elderly porter out of the 
way.  They all laughed to see the old man’s reaction, and they sounded a devil’s perfect 
chorus. 
 The driver lowered the partition separating the limousine’s cab from its passenger 
compartment.  “It’s going to be a hell of a party, this year.  Bigger than ever before!” 
 Her lecherous grin parted with the words, “We were just talking about that.  Pinky 
was telling me about Texas.  Do you know what they say.” 
 “About what.” 
 “Texas.” 

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 The rock star smiled and glanced into his rearview mirror.  “Everything’s 
bigger.” 
 “Exactly!” she giggled too falsely, raising her foot out of its elegant shoe to stroke 
Christen’s crotch.  “I never heard that, before!  I have to get to Texas, soon.  Right, 
Pinky.  You’ll take me, won’t you.” 
 “I’ve been,” announced the rock star.  “It’s too fucking hot!” 
“I like it hot,” she returned, her foot working sensuously against Christen’s penis 
with an expert motion, as they drove through town.  The sun set around them, while she 
worked up an almost painful erection.  After an interminable time, she asked, “What 
about you, Pinky.  Do you like it HOT.” 
 “I do, now,” he returned coyly, warming to her advances, despite his better 
intuition. 
 Without another word, she leaned forward to unzip his trousers and fish his 
manhood out through his zipper.  The driver grinned smugly, and drove without concern, 
when she played the ingénue, exclaiming, “Goodness!  It IS big!”  Then she lowered her 
mouth over it, and thrilled Christen’s very being. 
 After a time, she bit him!  Soft and pleasurably, at first, and then harder, more 
cruelly she incised his penis, such that her last taste of him all but drew blood.  Christen 
screamed and pushed her away! 
 She drew back, delicately dabbing the corners of her mouth with a thumb and 
forefinger, grinning devilishly.  Her expensive lipstick scarcely registered the activity.  
“What a baby,” she purred, “You act as though you don’t enjoy the pain.” 

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 Christen massaged his swollen member through his pants, which he had safely 
zipped tight.  “Oh, I just love it,” he lied, recovering his balance, “When it’s someone 
else.” 
 Smiling, she returned, “You’ll get your chance, I’m sure.” 
 To fill the gap, since he could think of nothing to say, Christen sipped his drink to 
its glassy bottom.  The drive through town was brief, but nightfall descended before they 
arrived, hurried as it was by a brooding gray storm pouring over the mainland from the 
turbulent Gulf. 
 Great, fat raindrops thumped onto the limousine’s domed cabin, as the driver 
stopped at an articulate wrought iron gate and waited for clearance further along the 
overgrown drive.  An armed security guard examined the man’s credentials and face 
carefully, before returning the rock star’s license.  Next, he asked the driver to lower his 
rear windows, which let in the rain and drove Christen and his companion away from the 
storm. 
 The guard leaned low, oblivious to the raindrops spattering from the crown of his 
hat, shoulders and back.  “Good evening, ma’am.” 
 “Hello,” purred the woman, “You’re a cutie!” 
 The guard’s face remained passive and blank.  Enigmatically, he said, “To see a 
world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower.” 
 She replied, “Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” 
 “What is your number.” 
 “Seventeen.” 

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 The guard searched a form attached to a diminutive clipboard, made a crisp mark 
with a pen, and nodded grimly.  This last motion was not intended for them, since the 
gate swung open at that moment.  He tipped his hat, and waved them through, as the 
rainfall became a downpour. 
 Their window rolled upward to shield them from the water, while the driver 
switched his wiper blades to an urgent speed.  The sound was rhythmic and oddly 
comforting. 
 Expectantly, Christen returned his glass to the wet bar, and sat backward into his 
seat.  The woman stared at him curiously, and he felt prompted to speak, so he said, “The 
rain suits you.” 
 “Oh.  How so.” 
 “It’s your eyes, I think.  The raindrops weep for you.” 
 “You flatter, I’m sure,” she returned musically.  “I never cry.” 
 “I bet.” 
 “Am I beautiful.” she asked with false demureness. 
 “Stunningly,” he returned genuinely. 
 “Do you want me.” 
 “Oh, yes,” he replied, though he secretly wondered where she had been and what 
sort of human parasites she had contracted from her lovers.  “Doesn’t everyone.” 
 She stroked her long, supple body through the sleek material of her simple black 
dress.  “One would think so, but no.”  She pouted, “Some men and women loathe me for 
no reason whatever.” 

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 Christen returned her smile, though he refused to believe her.  “You frighten 
them, I guess.” 
 “Am I beautiful and frightening.” 
 “Lady, you’re terrifying.”  
 This seemed to please her, for she purred happily, and her grin became a 
lecherous, vain display.  In that moment, something changed within her features.  It was a 
subtle change, a trick of the light perhaps, but, given his recent experiences, Christen 
inclined to believe it was something more. 
As a flash of lightning illuminates the contents of a shrouded chamber, in a mad 
moment her teeth stretched long and straight to countless sharp points, which appeared 
impossibly numerous in the storm’s half light.  For the briefest instance, her smooth flesh 
dimpled to assume the appearance of a toad’s hide, while its tones bleached gray.  
Bristling hairs marred its smoothness.  For a split instant, she was not a beautiful woman 
laughing humorlessly from the backseat of an expensive limousine.  She was a monstrous 
devil chortling wickedly over the smoking pits of hell. 
Then, as quickly as it came, the hallucination vanished, and she seemed the 
perfect lady, once more.  Christen blinked owlishly, but held his countenance stiff and 
neutral.  Nothing could surprise him, any longer. 
The driveway stretched incredibly long, betraying the size of the property, which 
was overgrown in a well-tended manner.  Eventually, it terminated at the back of an 
amazing home, where a vast garage already overflowed with luxury automobiles.  A pair 
of liveried attendants awaited their pleasure beneath a temporary awning that kept out the 
rain. 

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 They sprang to their door, once the car slowed to a stop, and helped the lady out 
of her seat.  Christen, they left to his own machinations, which he effected stiffly without 
betraying the pain he felt. 
 Once they stood on a soggy red carpet, a short, stocky man rushed out of the 
home to greet them, his flesh glowing with a familiar crimson hue.  Holding a tinkling 
iced drink in his left hand, he wore an immaculate tuxedo with a cummerbund fashioned 
after the Alabama state flag, and he oozed confidence and authority. 
 “Greetings, you all,” he drawled with a slightly effeminate voice.  “I am so 
pleased you could be here with us, tonight.” 
 She extended her hand, which he accepted with an affectionate brush of his lips, 
“You know we would never be seen anywhere else, Martine.” 
 “Mmmm,” hummed the stranger, rising from his brush with the woman’s flesh, 
“Delicious, as ever, Dearest Dray.”  Now he turned his attention to Christen, extending 
his hand and saying, “Pinky, so good of you to come.” 
 As if cued by his last word, the limousine’s trunk popped open and rose into the 
draining sky.  Christen’s heart raced, and he licked his lips nervously, tasting a drop of 
rain there.  Somehow, he sensed this was too soon, and he worried. 
Before Christen could offer a reply, his host frowned and made a frustrated noise 
with his lips.  “No, no, no!” he protested, “We shall tend that matter, later, gentlemen.  
This moisture is making a mess of my hair!”  As his liverymen rushed out to slam the 
trunk, the man turned to Christen, offering his hand, again.  “They behave as though you 
are not to be trusted, Pinky.  The help can be so uncouth!” 

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Christen accepted the man’s smooth grip, and he bowed slightly, strangely 
relieved.  “It’s just awful,” he returned flippantly, though his host’s reaction left him 
feeling unsettled.  This was, he guessed, a man unaccustomed to such treatment. 
“I believe it is!” he returned, fixing a false smile to his face.  “I expected you an 
hour ago,” he said flatly, motioning them to precede him into the house.  “Nobody tells 
me anything I need to know.” 
“They were just minor delays, really,” she returned immediately, and Christen 
sensed something strange in her tone.  Eventually, he realized that their host frightened 
her deeply.  “It was unavoidable, really, however unfortunate.  Pinky, here, came through 
for us nicely, though, despite the trouble.” 
 “Hmmm,” returned the man unpleasantly, “I suspect we all should be ever so 
grateful for Pinky, then.  I salute you.”  He raised his glass and drained it.  Extending his 
hand as they walked, Christen was impressed to see an attendant dart into their company 
to remove it.  “It must have been a long and tiring drive.” 
 Christen pressed his lips thin.  “It was pleasant enough.” 
 “And the highways.  Were they clear.” 
 Innocently, Christen assumed Martine referred to the weather.  “Clear enough.” 
 The other’s glance was sharp and suspicious at Christen’s back.  “Not a soul to 
see.” 
 “Traffic was heavy,” returned Christen, guarded now.  When this reply appeared 
to leave his trailing host unsettled, he added, “I saw a few highway patrolmen, but not 
much else.” 
 “And no one followed.” 

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 Since he could not remember the drive, Christen shrugged and returned over his 
shoulder, “Who knows.” 
 Martine smiled, “I certainly do not.  Do you, Dray.” 
 “Dearest Martine, you are such a worrier,” enthused Dray brightly, her hips 
already moving to the dance rhythm thump that greeted them through the walls of the 
sprawling home.  “Pinky is a professional.  He knows what to do.” 
 “Prison is filled to capacity with so called professionals, darling.”  Martine 
sighed.  “I fear you are both far too flippant about this matter for my tastes.” 
 When they arrived at the large double doors that would lead them into the home’s 
interior, Christen and Dray stood to one side to await their host, and Christen said, “I’m 
not going to prison, today.  Are you.” 
 “That remains to be seen, my friend,” returned the other evenly, placing his right 
hand upon the door’s latch, waving away a nearby attendant.  His grip lingered there for a 
moment, as he said, “Once we step through this door, you will be searched thoroughly.  I 
trust this is no inconvenience.” 
 Christen smiled thinly.  “Not at all.  I’m happy to turn my head and cough.” 
 Martine returned the thin smile, and then he pulled the heavy oaken door wide.  
Loud dance music oppressed them, its bass beat thumping the hollow spaces within their 
breasts.  Four large men suited in tuxedos waited within the foyer, and Martine proved 
true to his word. 
 He seemed happy when they failed to find listening devices planted on Christen’s 
person.  As he led them deeper into the home’s lavish inner spaces, he placed his head 

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between Christen and Dray’s, still following behind, and he shouted to be heard.  “I feel 
so much better now.  You must understand that deviations leave me feeling… disturbed.” 
 Christen heard the man, but he could offer no reply.  He felt too stunned to speak, 
startled as he was by the party scene that filled a large, half-lit ballroom before him.  
Well-dressed men and women mingled among naked staff of both sexes and all 
proclivities.  At the center of the sprawling, domed chamber, a tangle of nude bodies 
twitched and jerked together amid the glare of various multi-hued dance lights.  Christen 
heard their groans of lust above the music. 
 “My, my,” declared Dray, squeezing Christen’s hand, “Such naughty behavior!” 
 “Indeed,” returned Martine, patting them both on their outside shoulder.  “Now 
that you have arrived, the festivities may truly begin!”  Saying this, he begged their 
pardon, and he disappeared. 
 “Shall we join the fun.” asked Dray, leading him into the crowd. 
Several of the men and women greeted her by name as she passed, and most of 
them reached out to embrace her affectionately.  Many of the embraces lingered 
indecently, and most of their faces glowed with an unnatural crimson light that Christen 
knew all too well.   When she introduced Christen to them as ‘Pinky’, they offered him 
the same familiarity, which he returned stiffly. 
 One of them, a tall, leggy brunette, hugged him tightly and squeezed his buttocks 
fiercely, one in each hand.  Backing away, she laughed and asked Dray, “Is this his first 
time.” 
 Dray laughed wickedly.  “I believe it is!” 

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 “Oh, my,” returned the other lustfully, “And such a cutie, too!”  She leaned closer 
to place her smooth cheek against his, as her hands busily wandered the contours of 
Christen’s body.  Into the shell of his ear, she breathed huskily, “I just love fresh meat,” 
and hairs rose from countless dimples that formed upon his flesh. 
 Those last two words had come from the throat of a devil, Christen guessed.  He 
felt the flawless skin of her cheek rise roughly in countless blemishes against his.  For a 
shocking instant, Christen felt knobby bones beneath the curves of her back, as though 
she had aged a hundred years in an instant.  Her kiss fell rancid as days old death. 
Before he could react, she placed scaly lips to the soft hollow of his neck, and 
began to devour him there.  The contacts forced disorienting waves of pleasure to course 
along every nerve fiber in his body, despite a sense of dread and terror that whispered 
soft warnings from deep within his conscience.  Though he longed to push her away in 
disgust, he felt powerless to prevent her feeding frenzy, overwhelmed as he was by an 
unnaturally potent lust that instantly consumed him. 
 She bit him with inhuman teeth just above his collar, and the pain endeared her to 
him.  Rather than force her away, he bent his head to one side to allow her more freedom 
there, and she went to work with a will.  Faster and harder, she bit and tasted him, her 
touch wandering from ear to ear beneath his chin, his head rolling listlessly to 
accommodate her need.  Christen moaned and swayed drunkenly, unconcerned by the 
sharpness of her impossibly numerous teeth and the pain that they inflicted. 
 When Dray pulled them apart, Christen staggered, intoxicated and confused.  
Smiling with glossy wet lips, the other drifted away into the party crowd, a wanton leer 
stretched across her face. 

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 Christen’s heart raced painfully.  He felt his pulse pounding in his throat, which 
burned from her abuse. 
 “She’s quite good,” offered Dray, as she dragged him deeper into the ballroom, 
toward the centerpiece orgy, laughing to see Christen’s face.  “She might have consumed 
you completely before the festivities started, and then where would we be.” 
 Now that the pleasurable abrasion of the woman’s lips had vanished, only the pain 
of her many bites remained.  Christen assuaged his neck with a massaging hand, twisting 
his head slowly.  He hoped Dray was being symbolic about the woman consuming him, 
though he sensed more sincerity in her warning than he liked. 
 As they neared the quivering mass of humanity cavorting at the center of the large 
room, a tall, thin female inserted herself before them, offering a tray of interesting drinks.  
Completely nude save for a pair of rings that hung from her breasts, she smiled without 
shame at them both. 
 “Oh!” gasped Dray, accepting a beverage with one hand and extending the other 
to fondle the staff, “Such excellent, long nipples!  May I.” she inquired, leaning forward 
at a nod to take them both in her mouth, each in turn. 
 The girl kept her eyes fixed on Christen’s, as her gaze waxed glassy and clear 
with each passing brush of Dray’s lips.  Sated for now, Christen’s hostess waved the girl 
away with a giggle, and said for Christen’s benefit, “I adore women with small breasts 
and long, firm nipples.  Natural is so much more alluring than silicon,” she purred, 
pointedly eyeing another nude member of the staff, whose breasts were unnaturally 
globular.  “Don’t you agree, Pinky.” 

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 “Both have their benefits, I guess,” he returned, his gaze fixed on the tableau 
grunting and heaving before them, “But I like natural better.” 
 “Of course you do, darling.  Everybody does.”  Turning her attention to the 
unholy orgy of oily men and women that rolled and struggled upon a low, circular bed, 
Dray’s lips stretched wide and thin.  She pressed close alongside Christen, her touch 
sensuously busy on his body, as she watched.  “Mmmm,” she purred, “Such fine actors 
this year.  I do believe Martine has outdone his self, this time.  Look at that one!” she 
exclaimed excitedly, pointing at a young man with a well-built frame and an incredibly 
large penis. 
 When he plunged this into another man from behind, Christen glanced away, 
disturbed, as Dray’s grip intensified and she gasped, “Oooh, I just love it when they do 
that!  Don’t you.” 
 Grimacing, Christen returned, “It’s not one of my favorite things, actually.” 
 “What about that, then.” she asked, pointing to a well endowed female squatting 
over another huge man, her body bouncing up and down.  Another female was orally 
busy behind the first, while another male pounded away behind her, in turn. 
 Whether a trick of the uncertain dance floor lighting or of his deranged mind, 
Christen watched their faces contort from the human to the monstrous and then back 
again.  They roared, hissed, snarled and screamed viciously, a wild pack of animals 
entangled together in a primordial frenzy void of morality.  At times, their very flesh 
appeared to commingle fluidly, the seams of their embraces disappearing briefly into a 
single, smooth continuum of struggling inhumanity.  Their various orgasms came bestial 

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and depraved to the sounds of wails and grunts that competed with the music for their 
ears. 
 Christen’s face might have paled at the sight, because Dray leaned closer, her own 
countenance a mask of teasing concern, “Are you well, Dearest Pinky.” 
 He nodded, gulping up a bitter, lopsided grin.  “Of course.” 
 She laughed, “If you could only see your face!  I don’t believe you are!” 
 Christen stepped backward away from the twitching pile to avoid an obscene 
spray.  “It’s… more than I expected,” he growled, replacing his confusion with a scowl, 
“That’s all.” 
 “I bet,” she replied, her tone oddly predatory and sadistic.  Taking him by one 
elbow, she led him toward the far side of the ballroom, circumnavigating the twitching, 
jerking tangle of limbs and torsos.  “The uninitiated are always overwhelmed the first 
time.” 
 As if bade by her words, the orgy participants disengaged from their various 
partners one by one, to stand and accept thin, transparent clothing from dutiful attendants.  
The material of their garments clung to beads of oil and perspiration dripping from their 
flushed skin, as they made their way alongside Dray and Christen toward the far side of 
the room.  Parting before them, the crowd made way for the performers, who gasped for 
air and rearranged wildly skewed hair.  A light applause preceded them, and many 
members of the anonymous party crowd reached out to playfully slap their buttocks or 
pinch nipples. 
 Dray led and Christen trailed along behind, as they progressed more slowly than 
the obscene troop toward the far side of the room.  The crowd filled in around them, and 

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the house lights came up.  Now, all the partiers began to slowly ebb toward the same 
destination. 
 There, set into an elegant alcove fashioned into the far wall, Christen saw Martine 
standing on a raised stage before a podium draped in red velvet that fixed a strange 
emblem of curiously intricate design.  The applause rose, once the music fell silent, and 
the revelers murmured expectantly. 
 “He’s such a handsome devil,” breathed Dray, her eyes fixed on their stocky, 
nattily dressed host.  “Even if he weren’t wealthy and powerful, I would do him in a 
heartbeat.” 
 Christen offered no reply, as they politely made their way to the forefront of the 
crowd, accepting the overly affectionate greetings that so many of them offered to Dray.  
Though he suspected the lunacy that plagued his thoughts, Christen felt too many of them 
staring at him, their eyes oddly feral and… hungry. 
 “Dear friends,” gushed Martine from the podium, his voice amplified through the 
sound system that ringed the ballroom, “I am so glad you all chose to attend this affair.  
Are you enjoying yourselves, thus far.” 
 The partiers issued forth a singular rumble of approval.  Many raised their glasses 
in salute, while several of the ladies giggled excitedly.  All their faces gleamed with an 
unholy light of ruddy hue. 
 “Of course you are,” stated Martine playfully, “You must be, since these fine 
actors cost a small fortune!”  He invited his players onto the stage, where they assumed 
their rehearsed places arrayed to either side of him, their stances practiced and easy 
before the assembled congregation.  When they bowed, the crowd erupted in enthusiastic 

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accolades.  “They are simply scrumptious,” drawled Martine, his face twisted by a carnal 
leer, “Each of them personally selected to appeal to your various fetishes, which I know 
all too well.” 
 As the crowd erupted and fell still again, Martine announced, “Tonight, as always, 
my home is your home.  My staff, you may have noticed, is clearly identified by their 
scintillating uniforms, and I assure you that they are instructed to satisfy your every 
pleasure.  However demented these may be, Vincent.”  Martine exchanged a knowing 
nod with an older member of the crowd, who raised his drink, grinning broadly.  
Addressing this man personally, Martine added, “I only ask that you share with the rest of 
us!” 
 Once more, the crowd responded noisily, eventually falling silent when their host 
raised his hands for attention.  “Tonight, as every night that we meet, all rules are hereby 
suspended!”  They applauded their agreement.  “All laws are forthwith rescinded!”  More 
applause.  “Here in Castle Moore, I alone reign as god, and as god I command it!” 
 They toasted his words with nods and tipped glasses.  The lights fell on queue to 
blue spots, which lit the crowd, and a series of crimson circles that focused center stage.  
To a rising bass rhythm, Martine intoned, “For wicked is the way to burn, my friends. 
Wanton is the way to be.  Tonight, we forsake all sense of righteousness, and, forsaken, 
we set ourselves FREE!” 
Deafening dance music surged through the speakers at once, modern and 
rhythmic, as the lights whirled and spun, and artificial fog swirled thickly across the 
floor.  The scantily clad performers began to writhe and dance skillfully in the uncertain 

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light, their bodies entwining more vitally with each gyration of their shapely arms and 
legs. 
Martine waited patiently for a pause in the crescendo, and, when the din fell to a 
steady, repetitive bass thump that choreographed an obscene display, he said, “Tonight, 
the moon rises full and bloody above this blessed room, while ancient oceans swell 
against it and frenzy must ensue!”  Above their heads, the domed ceiling flashed 
transparent, save for its frame, which stood in stark silhouette against the night sky.  
There, an awe inspiring lunar presence presided over their wicked ballet, its face cratered 
and wounded, its scowl grimly approving.  “Tonight, life begets life in the torpid currents 
of Earth’s warm seas.  Entire beaches bathe in the sexual offal of endless, exquisite 
release!” 
Strobes flashed luridly, arraying their individual movements in a stop-flash 
parody of reality.  By now, the scene on stage to either side of their host had progressed 
beyond the merely obscene.  Martine turned his head to admire his actors with an 
indication of extended arms, his face contorted demonically. 
 “If wildness measures madness, then insane must we seem!  By moon’s light we 
know not sanction nor the feted bonds of civility!”  The crowd responded almost ritually 
by coming together in massive, fondling embrace, which engulfed Christen and Dray, 
somehow pushing them forward toward center stage. 
 “Bring forth the initiate!” commanded Martine. 
 Christen felt himself compelled toward the podium, though he resisted 
uncertainly.  When he craned his head to question his fate, the party crowd terrified him.  

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Their faces twisted with unnaturally deviant leers and grins, all expressing an evident lust 
for something unwholesome and depraved. 
 As he neared the stage, Martine demanded of Christen, “Approach, rash beginner, 
and declare yourself crazed!” 
 The crowd forced him onto stage, where Martine’s actors mobbed him, stripping 
him of his clothing piece by piece with such deft skill that he scarcely felt a thing.  
Within the span of three forward steps, Christen found himself at first naked, and then 
clothed in a floor-length robe that bore a familiar shield of arms upon crimson velvet.  
They presented Christen thus adorned to their host, holding their captive fast with a 
writhing mat of clinging arms and legs. 
 Behind Martine’s unholy pulpit, Christen saw one of his suitcases resting 
unopened on a low table, and he grimaced.  When his host turned to open it using his own 
set of keys, Christen’s stomach churned sickly, and he felt afraid. 
 Expecting an incredible blast, once the case’s lid rose, Christen flinched 
involuntarily.  Instead of a massive explosion, however, the interior of the case divulged 
a large plastic bag that obviously contained some kind of drug packaged as nickel-sized 
pills.  From behind the stage, a long stream of attendants issued forth to place huge piles 
of the plastic-sheathed tablets on silver trays, which they then offered to the ravenous 
crowd. 
 Martine thrust a handful of large, lozenge-shaped pills into Christen’s grip, and 
followed this with a large chalice of blood-red wine.  One of the nude players pressed 
Christen’s hand to his mouth, while another pushed the load past protesting teeth.  Next, 
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and swallowed.  In this way, he consumed an inordinate amount of drugs and alcohol, 
which settled to his stomach and immediately began its demented work. 
 Within seconds, Christen felt the room roll sickeningly, while the walls swelled to 
vast dimensions.  His entire body hummed and vibrated to the tunes of the music, and he 
felt such stimulation from his genitals that he feared he might spontaneously ejaculate.  
Within minutes, he reeled drunkenly with the indecent attention of Martine’s obscene 
troop, which plied Christen’s flesh with all manner of sexual contact. 
 Presently, he felt drawn from the stage into the crowd, which groped, prodded and 
pinched him in every imaginable way.  How they bit and sucked upon him!  How they 
caressed and slapped him!  He felt consumed with a delirium of indecent delight.  
Though it disgusted him, he responded uncontrollably, a wanton beast. 
 By the time they delivered him to the circular bed at the center of the vast 
chamber, Christen felt hopelessly overwhelmed by his own human emotions and 
animalistic urges.  He protested, though weakly, and they ignored him by pressing their 
awesome sexual assault home, invading his every private space. 
 Once upon the bed, the world seemed to cease its polar rotation to turn around the 
center mass of their vital energy, which exploded within Christen’s brain with all the 
power, brilliance and effect of a thermonuclear weapon.  He screamed for the pleasure, 
which came in painful abundance.  He moaned for the pain, where the actors devoured 
him pleasurably. 
 Somebody bit him.  Now another.  Repeatedly, he felt their ravenous teeth upon 
his impossibly sensitive flesh.  He screamed with each incision, and struggled drunkenly 
beneath their oppressive weight.  The rhythmic dance music and pulsating strobe lights 

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worked with the drugs that infused Christen’s veins to hypnotize and desensitize him, 
rendering his struggle uncoordinated and ineffective.  They laughed at his clumsy strokes 
and kicks, converting each motion of rejection into an invitation for closer, more intimate 
contact with their prey. 
 Insidiously, the players attached themselves to him one by one, such that the 
entire surface area of his body soon burned with a scathing touch.  Their many gropes 
both pleased and horrified him, and he felt thrilled and nauseated in the same moment.  
With wide, dully glazed eyes, Christen rolled his head helplessly atop his veined neck, a 
doomed wildebeest consumed alive by a pride of ravenous lions.  To his disgust and 
amazement, he watched his flesh meld with their flesh in a seamless fashion.  Their 
fingers disappeared into the press of his skin, and they appeared to devour him by 
absorption.  Christen felt himself coming apart at the joints, and he screamed tortuously 
for relief, which they denied with sadistic amusement. 
 Crazily skewed, Christen’s vision jerked from face to face, and he realized that 
his spectacle had become the center of the party crowd’s depraved attention.  They now 
stared at him with the same amazement, repulsion, wonder and lust that he, himself, had 
earlier turned on the same mass orgy, and they seemed to wonder how he could tolerate 
such intimate anonymity without concern for deadly diseases or self respect.  He felt his 
heart race with panic, and he loathed himself for his weakness, which he could not deny 
or overcome. 
 When he next returned his attention to his abusers, Christen’s wild eyes bulged to 
find his body mired within an inescapable, fleshy tangle.  Though he dragged his arms 
away from the mass with every fiber of his might, his hand scarcely moved, burdened as 

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it was by the crushing inertia of the orgy.  He must drag a ton of resisting human cargo 
with every inch of movement. 
 Straining brutally, Christen raised his left hand free of the twitching, moaning 
mass.  With a stunned awareness, he registered the time, and his guts chilled. 
 More urgently now, he worked free of the bed, slithering through their oily, 
distracted grips with all the supple energy of a serpent.  Eventually, after an interminable 
expenditure of precious time and energy, Christen emerged from the mass of 
intermingled human beings as a newly born thing squeezed forth from a monstrous 
vagina onto the cold floor. 
 Unsteady and intoxicated, shivering with the after affects of so much raw human 
intercourse, Christen rose to his knees, before he struggled to his feet and stumbled 
through the crowd, which laughed and pointed out his nakedness.  The ballroom seemed 
more vast and expansive than he remembered, and he felt the seconds of his life bleeding 
away with every uncertain, unguided step. 
 Somehow, he found a wall, and there he found a door.  Pressing through to its far 
side, Christen found himself in a hallway, which he followed in a zigzag course that 
roughly traced its centerline.  He tried each door he encountered, until he found one that 
opened on a room with many tall windows. 
 Groaning unintelligibly, his eyes rolling uncontrollably, Christen tottered across 
the room to the nearest pane, which he fumbled to unlock and pry open.  With a crack 
and a rumble, he forced it upward, and then followed it with its screen.  A moist, heady 
breeze flowed in through the portal, filling the room with tepid night air that reeked of the 
muddy Bay. 

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 Headfirst, Christen tossed himself through to the landscaping beyond.  Naked and 
covered in filth now, he crawled across the lawn until he found the strength to rise to his 
feet, and then he ran with the wild, jerking movement of a puppet mastered by a drunken 
buffoon.  Fortunately, the property sloped gently downhill toward a muddy beach and the 
phosphorescent wash of a storm tossed surf.  Rain fell soft and cool, washing mud and 
the flushed heat from his flesh while soothing his confused thoughts. 
 As he neared the shoreline, a mighty, gut-wrenching stroke of artificial thunder 
smote Christen from behind.  A great gout of brilliant, hot flames burst through every 
exterior window and door of the sprawling house atop the hill, and the roof lifted up to 
rise high over Christen’s dashed head.  Forced face forward by the ensuing blast wave, 
Christen flew forward, off the low clay bank and into the warm shallows of Mobile Bay. 
 As he floated face down in the agitated waters, his arms and legs splayed listlessly 
across rolling waves, flaming debris from the blasted home rained down around him to 
extinguish in the waters with the sounds of countless steamy hisses.  Oblivious to the 
carnage and ruination, Christen’s glazed, lifeless eyes contemplated the briny deep with a 
curiously unaware intensity. 

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Wheels within Wheels within Wheels 

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-|- 

 ‘It is a wide sea, Christen Bass, and deep.’  For the first time, his bad angel stood 
above him, radiant and whole.  She wore a bright yellow dress adorned with saffron lace.  
Gone were the bruises, gashes and protruding bones.  The obscene flows of her many 
hemorrhages had been sealed shut, and the dark rings around her eyes had faded.  Indeed, 
her flesh, before drawn and ashen, now glowed with health and vitality.  With the perfect, 
ruby lips of an innocent child, she chided, ‘Yet you are no fish to swim it.’ 
 Christen groaned mentally, and raised his imaginary eyes to gaze up at her truly 
angelic face.  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he gasped.  ‘What happened to you.’ 
 ‘Am I.’ she wondered softly, glancing down at her shining form.  ‘Oh, I suppose I 
am.  This is nothing more than illusion, however, pleasing though it may seem.’ 
 ‘I like it better than before, just the same.  Thank you.’ 
 ‘I do not fashion myself before you,’ she returned, explaining a simple fact to a 
simple man.  ‘You see what you will, since your conscience drives my image.  Perhaps 
thoughts of my death come easier to you now.’ 
 Christen smiled and rolled over.  Half conscious, his body did the same.  In the 
real world, he floated on his back now, blowing spray from his lips and nose, as he 
gasped instinctively for breath.  Floating away from the wildly lapped shoreline, violent 
light reflected in his milky eyes, where he turned his oblivious vision on the towering 
inferno that had been Martine’s palace.  Its raging heat burned his face, despite the 

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distance, and he was numbly grateful for the slow, jostling drag of the current, which 
swept him northeast along the shore. 
 ‘After everything that happened tonight,’ he said to the girl child, prone upon his 
back within this imaginary landscape, ‘I don’t feel a thing.’ 
 ‘I fear for you,’ she announced sweetly, though her unsmiling face belied her 
tone, ‘For you have strayed yet again.  You wander strangely from the chosen path, and 
then you bemoan the inevitable outcome of your trespass.’ 
 Confused and disoriented as ever, Christen felt his vision-world spin beneath his 
back as he struggled to comprehend.  ‘I strayed.’ 
 ‘Indeed.  You strayed far and wide.  You should not have come here.’ 
 He laughed now, and it was a genuinely amused laughter, not the sound of a 
maniacal lunatic.  ‘I don’t even remember driving to Alabama.  How was I supposed to 
know what to do, once I got here.’ 
 Rather than answer, the immaculate child placed her hands behind her back and 
paced around his supine form, examining him skeptically, suspicion and doubt evident 
within her countenance.  ‘Yet you knew to leave the building.  No, you are not ignorant.  
You are weak with doubt.  You are not a true believer.’ 
 Christen’s laughter continued more softly now.  ‘Why should I believe.  What 
should I believe.’ 
 ‘Believe truly that the voice of God commands you.’ 
 He shook his head dismissively, and her eyes narrowed.  ‘God commanded me to 
blow up a houseful of people.’ 

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 Now her pacing fell still.  She stood at his feet, staring down at him with a passive 
expression that framed blazing eyes.  ‘Yes.’ 
 ‘Why.’ 
 ‘Because the house must explode, and certain people within it must die... call this 
destiny.  Call this fate.’ 
 ‘Their fate,’ returned Christen soberly.  ‘My capital crime.’ 
 ‘Indeed, your crimes are capital, though you are free of sin.  Which sanction 
matters most.’ 
 ‘Meaning sanctions within this world or sanctions in the afterlife.’  When she 
nodded soberly, he added, ‘I suppose that depends.  What’s waiting for me on the other 
side.’ 
 ‘I.  I await.’ 
 ‘And.’ 
 For a mad moment, her eyes flared wildly.  Her black pupils consumed his vision 
and the vital flames that burned within her orbs raised up a stark, unholy light all around 
him.  ‘Beyond,’ she intoned, mesmerizing her prey with the story of the universe, which 
played from first moment to last within the depths of her unnatural gaze, ‘Is a black 
velvet world fashioned of obsidian painted pitch.  Here, all of time is a compressed 
singularity infinitely smaller than the smallest thing you know.  Here, we are one with 
God, for God is all and we all are God.  Here, we are the unspeakably vast potential of 
everything to come; we are the impossibly varied expression of everything that is; we are 
the vain, sad history of everything that has been.  Here, we are wheels within wheels 

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within wheels; all tuned to the same clockwork rhythm, all turned by the vicious bit of 
God’s cruel lathe. 
 ‘We honor no promises here, and salvation is as unknown as condemnation.  This 
world that awaits beyond your last heartbeat and your final gasp, that exists beyond the 
deceptive boundaries of your fallible senses, that succors you for the eternity you name 
death, is a world fashioned of a singular fabric, the fabric of truth.  Here, you will become 
that which you must become, for herein dwell the inevitable dead.’ 
 Within her vision, Christen watched space and time explode forth from a single, 
infinitesimal pinprick to a vast outpouring of matter and energy that scarcely filled the 
mysterious void.  Galaxies flared to life and died before him, while countless billions of 
stars formed and expired violently.  Eventually, inside the span of a heartbeat, the history 
of the entire universe conspired to produce his human form in a screaming birth as one 
obscene, cancerous cell cast off from another.  Every event of his short existence 
replayed faster than a heartbeat, and then he watched himself strapped to the crucifix of a 
death row gurney.  The needle penetrated his vein, and God flowed through a valve to 
poison his blood and stop his life. 
 Gasping, Christen snapped awake, coughing and sputtering.  When he jerked 
himself upright, his head plunged beneath the waves, and he felt no bottom down there.  
Kicking his feet and flailing his arms, he fought for the surface with a primordial sense of 
direction, until his head burst into the tepid night air and he could fill his lungs gratefully. 
 Using the bonfire as a landmark, Christen realized he had drifted a half-mile along 
the shore, to the point where the land turned back to the southeast and the shore 

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abandoned him for the wide expanse of the Bay.  Swimming dazedly, he managed the 
shallows before the current swept him away, where he planted his feet in the slick mud. 
 Steadying himself against the storm driven surf, he dragged his weary legs 
forward one step at a time, until he could collapse on the shoreline, unbothered by the 
dismal rain.  As the pounding pace of his pulse quieted within his eardrums and his 
breathing fell from a sucking roar to a shallow wheeze, Christen heard sirens screaming 
forlorn warnings to the oblivious sky.  He followed them to their destination with his 
ears, where he watched the vast home burn brilliantly. 
 Strangely, he registered no feeling of guilt or remorse for what he had done.  
Though he knew he had blown up the building, certainly killing many people, Christen 
believed himself inculpable of his crime.  The fire and all the death and destruction that it 
entailed belonged to someone else, his demented angel, perhaps, or God. 
 With a resigned sigh and a heave of sagging shoulders, Christen rolled over and 
pushed himself to his feet.  Isolated on a sparsely populated spit of land, he faced only 
one way to go, so he started along the muddy bank, bound south to the nearest roadway.  
There, he turned east to walk back into town, keeping out of sight in the shadows, nude as 
he was. 
 Just before dawn, as he stumbled across the sprawling backyard of a darkened 
home, Christen found a powerboat kept beneath a stained and faded tarp.  Rummaging 
around within it wherever he could reach beneath the cover, he gasped when he found a 
wadded lump of material. 
 Extracting this from the boat’s interior with a greedy snatch, he saw a wrinkled 
bathing suit that reeked of mildew.  Christen slipped his legs through the appropriate 

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holes, nonetheless, and he was grateful for the concealment this close to his hotel.  The 
remainder of his walk transpired much easier, and he began to hope he might return 
safely to his room and, eventually, Texas. 
 Indeed, the hotel’s night clerk scarcely raised an eyebrow when Christen arrived 
at the counter to claim he had lost his key card while swimming.  Though he wrinkled his 
nose at Christen’s stench, he nonetheless produced a duplicate key, after a few basic 
questions intended to confirm Christen’s identity as Robert Oppenheimer, affectionately 
known as ‘Pinky’. 
 Inside his room, Christen threw away the purloined shorts and showered 
thoroughly, before he dressed in his previously discarded clothes, and collapsed on the 
bed in the half-light of rising morning.  Pressing his eyelids tightly closed beneath a 
pillow that reeked of detergents, Christen longed for sleep, and willed it to come, despite 
his fear of the revelations his tormented dreams might deliver. 
 ‘Why do you linger.’ she asked curiously, taking his hand and raising him from 
his back to his feet.  ‘You have much work to do.’ 
 ‘I’m tired,’ he returned soberly, as he followed the little dream girl through her 
dream world.  ‘I want to sleep.’ 
 ‘Your body is weary, but what of your faith.’ 
 ‘I have no faith.  I believe nothing.’ 
 ‘We all believe.’ 
 Christen scoffed at her assertion with a grunt.  She stiffened beside him. 

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 ‘We all believe, Christen Bass, especially those that claim otherwise.  The 
agnostic and the atheist are like children hiding from a terrifying truth.  They so fear the 
unknown existence beyond death, that they deny it, altogether. 
‘They want to believe death is the end of everything.  They want to believe time 
stops for them with the failure of their heartbeat.  This belief, if they can master it, allows 
them to further deny the truth of God, of a single guiding hand that drives the destiny of 
the universe.  For, without such unity, they can easily convince themselves they are free 
in this world to do as they please.’ 
 ‘Aren’t we.’ 
 ‘No.’ 
 Christen’s heart rolled painfully, and his stomach churned.  His imaginary gaze 
turned the far horizon of his mind, which was a smooth flat line to encompass him.  
There, sky blended with earth in a curious mating of hue and luminosity.  Beneath his 
feet scrolled an impenetrable darkness that seemed as ethereal as his thoughts.  Above his 
head, an endless expanse of dreary gray shaped the heavens void of starlight. 
 Because he could think of nothing else to say, after an interminable pause, he 
offered lamely, ‘I hope that’s not true.’ 
 Apparently assuming Christen knew she was incapable of deception, born as she 
was of his own imagination, she said, ‘While we live, we are prisoners of flesh.  We are 
not free to fly with wings of eagles, or dive with fins of dolphins.  While we are 
conscious, we are kept securely within our thoughts.  We are not free to assume the mind 
of another, or feel with another’s senses.  While we sleep, we are fettered by our dreams, 
whether pleasing or no.  We are not free to sleep without dreaming, or dream without 

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waking.  While we are nothing, that which is beyond this world, we are promised life.  
We are not free to choose the manner or timing of our birth, or delay the inevitable 
promise of death, life’s eternal partner. 
 ‘Why.’ she asked rhetorically, anticipating Christen’s childish counter query, 
‘Because time is not a thread.  It is not a beginning with an end.  It is not a single path 
through the substance of the universe.  It simply is, all at once.  Everything that has 
happened, everything that is happening, everything that can happen, has already been and 
will be again.  Because you are now, you must ever be, and you must ever have been.  
Thus, time, Christen Bass, is the nature of God, as you understand it, for the guiding hand 
that shapes all knows all. 
 ‘Thus, we all believe, because we all believe in the promise of time.  Who do you 
call upon to curse the hammer, when you have smashed your thumb.  Whose name do 
you cry out from moans of overwhelming ecstasy in the moment that you come.  Who 
bears witness to your every secret longing, your every desperate wish, when you pray to 
the unknown darkness of the future for fortune or a beneficial whimsy of chance.  If I 
pressed a gun to your temple and forced you to the floor, as I let the hammer back two 
soft clicks, would you forget your superstitious overlord, or would you beg Him for 
mercy.  No, Christen Bass, we all believe, one way or another, though we all doubt, too. 
 ‘It is your nature.  We know you will serve to a certain point, and then fail.  Yet, 
we cannot avoid your failure any more than you can.  Soon, you will undertake the task 
that must break you.  Your faith will buckle and give, as it always has, and you will be 
condemned, as you ever are.  In this way, you will pass beyond, where I await you.’ 

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 Numbly stumbling after his delusion, whose tiny hand dragged him forward by 
his fingers, relentless and insistent, he squeaked, ‘Why you.’ 
 At once, she stopped before him, and her shoulders bunched.  Slowly, as if she 
would reveal something nasty and unpleasant, she turned to face him, and he saw how the 
depths of the universe filled the blackness of her eyes.  With the voice of countless 
tongues, which came bass and powerful as thunder, she answered, ‘Because I am your 
God.’ 
 His torso rose to a stiff-backed sitting position, as he sucked a surprised, double 
lungful of breath.  Wildly corkscrewed and tangled from a long, restless slumber, 
Christen ran his fingers through his wiry hair, and glanced around nervously. 
 He found himself in his own bed.  The digital alarm clock on his nightstand 
flashed a steady ’12:00 AM’, but a glance out his shaded window betrayed the 
afternoon’s sunshine.  Feeling an urgent need to purge himself, he tossed his sheet aside, 
and gasped from surprise. 
 Though his chest was bare, he remained dressed from the waist down.  He wore 
blue jeans over heavy work boots, which he could not remember purchasing.  Worse, the 
boots and the legs of his jeans were covered with mud.  His sheets were smeared with the 
same stuff. 
 Glancing down at his left hand, which held the sheet high, he saw mud there, too.  
Black half-moons colored the nails black, and tiny clods clung to the bristling hairs of his 
arm.  Both hands appeared to have been used the same way.  He saw fresh calluses on his 
palms, and his bones ached from recent heavy use. 

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 Christen tossed his bedcovers aside, and stood stiffly, his legs trembling with 
exhaustion.  Leaning against the wall for support, his gaze turned the uncharacteristic 
clutter of his room, amazed by the junk that occupied every available space.  A pair of 
shovels leaned in the nearest corner, near a muddy rotary saw that crouched on the carpet, 
its vicious maw a threatening smile and its cord coiled as a whiptail ready to snap.  Each 
corner of the chamber kept a lean-to of tools, and his dresser was littered with smaller 
devices, including a scoped rifle and a pair of semi-automatic handguns. 
 He crossed the room to lift one of these, and sniffed its chamber, sensing cordite 
and sulfur there.  It had been recently fired, and he wondered who had occupied its sites 
at the time. 
 There he saw a hefty pair of bolt cutters, of the sort used to snap heavy padlocks.  
Resting on the floor nearby lay a black bag gaped open.  Inside, he saw several 
implements that obviously comprised a professional burglary kit. Two black leather 
gloves had been tossed on top, and Christen knew they would fit his hands perfectly. 
Suddenly, he remembered urgent business.  He shook his head, puzzled by the 
portents of all that he had seen, and then he hopped across the floor to his bathroom. 
 On his way to the toilet, he caught sight of himself in the mirror, and once more 
forgot about his full bladder and bulging bowel.  He needed a haircut and a shave, since 
he couldn’t see his ears or his chin for the scruff.  His eyes had caught his attention, 
however, not his emaciated, wasted countenance.  Leaning forward over his sink, he 
peered deeply into his own gaze. 
 He sprang back, once he saw her standing there, twiddling pigtails at the center of 
his desperate pupils.  Behind her, he had seen the vast expanse of the universe, which 

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served as nothing more than an alluring backdrop for her pretense of innocence.  All of 
time and space seemed a piddling plaything to amuse her inside his skull. 
As he stared at his reflection in the mirror, amazed and horrified, he watched the 
features of his face twist and churn bizarrely.  His cheeks drooped with his jowls, while 
his nose shriveled and his eyes sank deeper into the pits of shadow kept by his protruding 
brow.  His teeth, once perfect and even, suddenly grew and multiplied to form a shark’s 
grin of bristling white razors, while his eyes burned savagely with a feral light that hinted 
of moonlit feasts and raw, bloody flesh consumed by the gluttonous gulp. 
 Christen shook his delirious head to purge the bizarre reflection, and the motion 
returned his face to a semblance of humanity.  One glance out of the bathroom door 
betrayed the continued presence of all those sinister tools, however, and Christen knew 
he was not well. 
 Shaking his head, he shucked his soiled boots and pants, before he relieved 
himself.  He hoped a long, hot shower and shave would relieve him, and his 
disappointment was bitter when this treatment failed. 
 Donning boxers, shorts and a t-shirt, he exited his bedroom, careful to avoid the 
many dangerous implements someone had left lying scattered throughout the room.  The 
hallway was partially occluded by four fully inflated automobile tires with expensive 
wire rims.  Christen recognized them to be the same sort that had often resulted in 
carjacking murders in certain parts of the city. 
 As if to confirm their presence before him and dispel an illusion, Christen 
stretched out his left hand to touch the nearest.  Its tread was deep and well defined, and 
just as solid as any reality he had ever known. 

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 Dazed, he continued along the hall to the living room.  A gleaming Harley 
Davidson motorcycle leaned on its kickstand in front of the television.  Christen’s heart 
raced, and he glanced out the window, suspecting he might have moved to a ground floor 
apartment.  The view told him otherwise, however, and he was dumbfounded. 
 “How the hell did I get that thing up the stairs.” 
Again, he crossed the room to touch it, and found it solid reality.  When he saw 
dried blood on the seat, he could only guess whose blood and wonder why it was there. 
Now he turned to find the kitchen, and stumbled to avoid a heap of luggage piled 
beside the apartment’s door.  With a start, he remembered Mobile Bay, and he stepped 
back instinctively. 
 Leaning closer with a dread curiosity, he saw a nametag fixed to one of the 
handles, and he leaned nearer to read it.  The woman’s name and address were unknown 
to him, but each bag boasted the same identifying card. 
Somehow guessing he was safe, Christen snapped the largest case open, and a 
neat pile of clothing fell out onto the extended side.  He saw several grooming 
implements stuffed into the webbing inside the cover, while a pair of large shampoo 
bottles rested in the foot of the suitcase. 
Shaking his confused head, he returned the luggage to its original state, and 
continued to the kitchen.  The table was the only cleared surface in the entire apartment, 
and its chairs were neatly placed all around it.  The kitchen counters were another story, 
as they were strewn with a dozen large pots and glass jars. 
Sniffing delicately, Christen sensed ammonia, bleach and sulfur here, confirming 
his suspicion that the utensils had not been used to make cookie dough.  Opening his 

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pantry and shelves, he found all the chemicals and corn syrup long gone.  Indeed, he 
realized much time must have passed since anything sat on those barren platforms, 
because a fine sift of dust coated them all evenly. 
When he closed the pantry door, he took time to examine the calendar he had 
pinned there.  It was of no help to him, until he glanced at the microwave oven timer, and 
noted today’s date.  The calendar was three pages slow.  His stomach sank and his heart 
rolled over with a sick squish. 
 Somehow, somewhere, he had lost four months of his life!  Summer had ended, 
and fall was well underway. 
 Christen staggered sideways, until he could find the comfort of his dinette.  
Sliding into one of its matched chairs, he leaned an elbow against the table surface, and 
then leaned his head against it, in turn. 
 His mind swam in a draining spiral.  His thoughts chased themselves with the 
relentless idiocy of a dog that would chase its own tail. 
 With a jerk, he stood to snatch his telephone from its cradle, before he returned to 
his seat with a helpless collapse that all but spilled him onto the floor.  He dialed 
information, and asked for Windsor Meadow’s number, the only place he could think to 
call for instant access to a mental health professional. 
 He let the information service automatically dial the number, and he waited for an 
answer.  On the third ring, a recorded voice told him to press one of several buttons for 
the facility’s many departments.  He selected the code that would allow him to dial a 
particular extension. 

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 A bright, squeaking voice answered, “Doctor Marlow’s office,” with curt 
efficiency.  Christen recognized that voice, but not from the hospital.  It was too young 
and crisp. 
 Regardless of his doubts, he asked, “May I speak to the doctor, please.” 
 “No, Christen Bass, you may not.” 
 Surprised by this response, Christen’s brow knitted crossly.  He demanded, “Why 
not.” as he struggled to pin a name from his memory to that voice, though he could not 
quite manage it. 
 “What would you say to him, if you could talk to him.” 
 “I’d say I was going out of my fucking mind!” he returned, frustrated. 
 “The doctor cannot help you, Christen Bass.  Nobody can help you.” 
 “Who is this.” 
 “You know me well, I think.” 
 With these words, the recollection snapped into place within his mind like a lock 
bolt snaps across its strike plate and into its jamb.  “You!” he gasped. 
 “Indeed,” returned his bad angel smugly.  “You have strayed, again.” 
 “I- I- I-“ he stammered, his thoughts scattered and panicked.    “I don’t believe I 
have,” he ultimately finished, unable to think of anything else to say. 
How could he hope to avoid psychotic delusions that so insidiously infiltrated 
every aspect of his life.  How could he escape the demented confines of his own skull. 
 “You have, I assure you.  You verge on destruction.  You totter on the brink of 
downfall, as your arms pinwheel for balance and your knees threaten to buckle.  You 
know you are not safe.” 

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 “Safe.  Safe from what.  Safe from who.” 
 “From yourself.”  The line terminated with a sharp click. 
A dial tone immediately filled his ear.  He listened to this for a time, as its 
monotonous buzz shaped soft whispers that seemed to incessantly repeat ‘demons live 
among us’. 
“Demons,” he scoffed flatly, eventually depressing a button to terminate the call.  
“I am the demon.” 

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Something Rotten 

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191
 
-|- 

He had come to the mall hoping to evade the grim delusions that plagued his 
solitude.  Indeed, the noisy, jostling crowds vaguely distracted him with its endless voices 
and countless faces.  The mass movement of holiday shoppers was a torrential flow of 
humanity that broke around the island of benches where he sat watching them, before it 
came together again beyond him.  Their expressions seemed as uniform as a herd in 
stampede.  
 The novelty of their bustle quickly dissipated, however, and he began to notice 
their individual features.   They were fat and thin, tall and short, happy and dour, hurried 
and relaxed, pleasant and nasty, hopeful and disgusted.  They were every conceivable 
human shape and every possible variation of the human countenance.  They were every 
emotional expression all at once, a mass summary of the human condition written as 
countless brief paragraphs that he read in the scant seconds afforded him as they passed. 
 Soon, he noticed a delicate coloration that shone from some of their faces.  The 
strange light came as a sickly illumination, much like the phosphorescent aura of 
primitive cave-dwelling predators that hunt through the darkness among their oblivious 
prey. 
 Christen shook his head and pressed his eyes tightly shut.  He was saddened to 
learn that his disease must follow him wherever he might go to escape it.  When he 
opened his eyes again and turned them once more upon the crowd, he was not surprised 

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to see his delusions manifest among them, though the realization demoralized and 
dismayed him. 
 Slumped in his bench, Christen gripped a forgotten cup of tepid coffee, and 
pouted.  Demons, he thought, live among us. 
 “Are you with someone.” asked a stooped, elderly lady leaned upon a lacquered 
cane, the stereotypical grandmother.  Her free right hand shook with palsy, so the 
elaborate shopping bag she held fluttered its sides rhythmically. 
 He snorted, “What.” 
 “Is someone sitting with you on this side of the bench.” she repeated pleasantly. 
 Christen shook his head and slid to one side, making room for her.  “No.  Help 
yourself.” 
 She eased herself painfully onto the hard, flat seat, before she politely arranged a 
long, heavy dress around her knees.  “Thank you, young man, I thought I might never 
find a place to sit.” 
 Christen smiled ruefully, and nervously chewed the skin on the inside of his 
cheek.  His eyes roved the crowd with jerking, skittish movements.  With a growing 
sense of dread, he counted the glowing faces for a time, until the number grew too large 
to manage within his shattered thoughts.  “There are so many,” he gasped, unaware he 
had spoken aloud. 
 “Yes, there are,” agreed the elderly woman, shaking her jowls.  “The parking lot 
is a mess!” 
 Realizing he had stoked her conversational fires, Christen turned one corner of his 
lips upward, nodding, his eyes wide and wild, ever curious to examine the passing crowd.  

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She had not noticed his odd behavior, flustered as she was and busy with her hands, 
which she used as fans to cool her flushed face. 
 She added breathlessly, “They say it’s the busiest weekend of the year, and I 
believe them!”  After a time, when Christen refused to rejoin her, she announced, “I like 
it, though, busy as it is.  Some people hate the crowds, but I love them.  It’s a chance to 
get out and meet folks from all over.  Don’t you agree.” 
 Christen turned his lips again, and nodded his agreement.  To be polite, he half 
turned to face her and twist his lips into a cursory grin, when he caught site of her 
blushed features.  Her skin glowed with that same, familiar hue, and Christen’s flesh 
crawled.  For a moment, as her flapping hands wafted the warm air off her body and past 
his nostrils, Christen smelled something pungent and foul, something rotten. 
 “Yeah,” he croaked.  He slowly turned toward her, as his flighty perception 
studied her form from her swollen ankles to her coiffed blue hair.  “It’s one of my 
favorite things,” he lied. 
 “I can see you like the benches better than the aisles, too,” she hooted musically, 
finally lowering her hands to address him squarely, “Although you look like you have a 
lot of gas left in your tank.”  She smiled, and he saw a fine mesh of fangs pressed tightly 
together behind her thin, painted lips.  “Who are you shopping for, today.” 
 Christen’s reply came flat and even.  “Nobody.  I don’t have any family or 
friends.” 
 She frowned and scoffed colorfully, “Oh, pee-shaw!”  She pinched his knee, and 
goaded him, “Everybody has somebody.” 
 “Not me.” 

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 Shaking her head sadly, she replied, “Oh, that sounds terribly lonely, especially 
with Christmas just around the corner.  What did you do for Thanksgiving.” she 
enquired, unashamed to be so forward with a stranger. 
 “I don’t remember,” he answered truthfully.  When he saw how this reply puzzled 
her, he added, “It was just another day for me, I guess.” 
 “That’s awful.  Why, it just about breaks my heart to hear it.”  To support her 
assertion, she fussed with her patent leather purse, snapping it open to fish out a wad of 
tissues, with which she dabbed the corners of her eyes, lest her mascara run.  “You know, 
when I saw you sitting here, all alone, I said to myself, ‘Missy, that young man needs 
some companionship’.  And I was right!” 
 “Is it that obvious.” he wondered, though his thoughts churned another question.  
What evil could this woman work.  He considered her faintly glowing features, and he 
guessed that the world entire must be thoroughly infused with wickedness, if it could 
taint even her. 
 “It is, I must confess,” she returned, patting his knee warmly.  “You look like a 
puppy abandoned to the rain, and I just wanted to walk over her and hug you!  I wanted 
to tell you that the world couldn’t be so bad!” 
 “Lady,” he offered, somewhat amused, “You have no idea.” 
 “Oh, I bet I do,” she returned, her tone strangely insinuating, “And please call me 
Missy.” 
 “Is that your name.”  When she nodded, he said, “Christen Bass,” extending his 
right hand, which she accepted and shook politely.  “I’m sorry my long face ruined your 
holiday shopping.” 

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 “I’m charmed to meet you,” she returned, retracting her grip to fill her ample lap 
with clasped hands, “But you haven’t ruined my holiday shopping.  In fact, you might 
just make my day.” 
 “Oh.  How is that.”  His eyes returned to the crowd, as he watched a group of 
five rowdy young boys moving slowly along the mall’s broad aisle, their faces pure and 
innocent, void of that stark illumination.  Behind them, an older man followed, 
attempting to appear casual and unconcerned, though his unwholesome gaze often fell on 
the boys in front of him.  His glowering face burned bright red, and his eyes sparkled 
with unholy lust. 
 She distracted him with a quick grip upon his left forearm, “I hoped you would 
ask!  You simply must come to my house for dinner tonight!” 
 That brought him around.  “Really.” he wondered, perplexed.  “Aren’t you 
worried about taking strangers into your home.” 
 Shaking her head and beaming with smile, she said, “Heavens, no.  I walk with 
the Lord.  He knows when it’s my time, and Jesus teaches us to love our neighbors and to 
help the helpless.” 
 Christen glanced down at her right hand, which rested upon his thigh.  Where in 
hell is this going. he wondered about the sudden strange twist in their conversation.  “I’m 
not so helpless, Missy.” 
 “But you admitted that you didn’t have Thanksgiving dinner,” she retorted 
enthusiastically, “And this is such an awful season to be alone.” 

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 “We don’t even know each other,” he hedged, returning his distracted gaze to the 
crowd, only to find the boys and their trailing predator gone, disappeared into the 
anonymous river of humanity. 
 “That’s the point, entirely!  We could get to know one another, as we break bread 
together.  It’s two short hours that you wouldn’t be alone.” 
 Christen grinned into her wickedly glowing face, despite himself.  “Are you 
hitting on me, Missy.” he chided playfully. 
 She giggled and blushed, retracting her hand to shoo his implications well away.  
“My goodness,” she bubbled, “Don’t I wish!  Fortunately for you, young man, nature put 
out the fire in these loins twenty years ago.” 
 Warming to her invitation, curious as to the nature of her secret perversion, which 
he guessed must be unfolding around him like a spider’s web even now, Christen 
laughed.  “I’m not so sure about that.  I detect a certain predatory gleam in your eye.” 
 She giggled again, and shook her head.  “You tease!” 
 Christen shrugged, and announced, “I suppose I could have dinner with you, after 
all.  I’ll just have to be ready to fend off your amorous advances.” 
 “You will.  That’s marvelous!” she squeezed his knee, again.  “I’m an excellent 
cook, and I just know you’ll enjoy the evening!” 
 “I can only imagine,” he returned, attempting to do just that.  “What time and 
where.” 
 Missy held up a halting hand, and fished in her purse, again.  This time, she 
fetched a lavender business card, which she offered him.  “I run a ceramics business from 
my home.  It’s practically a going concern!” 

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 Christen accepted the card and read it quickly.  Her street address was printed 
there, as were her telephone numbers and net addresses.  “Missy’s Motifs,” he read with a 
flourish. 
 “I make angel figurines.  They sell on the net like hotcakes!” 
 “You must be very talented.” 
 “Or very bored,” she returned with a self-effacing chuckle.  “Can you find your 
way there.” 
 He nodded, tucking the card into his trouser pocket.  “I have a map.” 
 “You’re not going to stand an old lady up, are you. That would be most 
improper,” she cautioned in a grandmotherly fashion.  When he shook his head, she 
appeared to doubt, and said, “Don’t worry about bringing a Bible.  I have plenty to lend.  
If you change your mind, please call me and let me know.  Okay.” 
 “Sure, Missy,” he soothed her, “But it won’t be necessary.  I’m hungry already.” 
 “Good!”  She sighed, and struggled to her feet.  Christen hurried to help her lean 
against her cane.  She waggled a finger at him, “I’ll see you at seven.  Come hungry, and 
don’t be late!” 
 He smiled, and returned her shark’s grin tooth for tooth.  “Oh, I won’t.  Don’t 
worry, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” 
 “See that you don’t,” she huffed, starting away with a painful, lopsided shuffle.  
“Good bye for now, Christen Bass.” 
 For a time, he stood there and watched her walk away.  She turned occasionally to 
wave at him, and then she was gone.  When he turned around to resume his seat, he found 
the bench occupied by a gaggle of cackling young girls, and he frowned. 

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 Their boisterous behavior soon reminded him of the boys he had seen earlier, 
however, and he wondered about the trolling predator that had followed them.  Strangely 
anxious, he started in the same direction, his eyes darting back and forth among the faces 
of the crowd. 
 Many minutes later, after a long and tiring search, Christen found the boys 
huddled together in the broad center aisle, four of them anyway.  As Christen neared their 
tight little knot of discussion, he overheard one of them say to the other, “Have you seen 
Jamey.”  To which, his young companion responded, “No, but I think he had to take a 
dump.”  Another declared, “That was a half hour ago,” whereupon, they fell into a chorus 
of jokes and laughter that poked fun at the missing Jamey’s bowels. 
 Christen stumped along the aisle until he came to one of the many maps posted 
throughout the vast and teeming mall.  This he searched for public restrooms, locating 
one nearby. 
 He made his way there as quickly as his scarred legs would carry him without 
breaking into a full jog.  A long, empty corridor led away from the main aisle to the far 
rear of the mall, where it terminated near a stainless steel water fountain and a pair of 
doors marked as male and female restrooms.  An exit doorway stood on the opposite side 
of the hallway, barred by a bright red sign that warned it should only be opened during a 
fire, as an alarm would sound. 
 Christen pushed his way into the men’s room, and found its foyer empty.  Another 
door led past the sinks and hand dryers into the rest area, where a long row of gleaming 
porcelain urinals awaited his pleasure. Beyond these crouched a row of stalls, their doors 
all swung shut. 

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 His footsteps an uneven shuffle-stomp on the dinghy tiles, Christen made his way 
from stall to stall, pushing each open as he passed.  Only the last one was locked against 
him. 
 When he tried to push it wide, a bass voice growled, “This one’s occupied.  Use 
one of the others.” 
 “Sorry,” returned Christen, though he refused to move away immediately.  
Instead, he leaned nearer to the door to listen near its cracks.  Was that a muffled 
whimper. 
The toilet flushed to stifle the sound, and the occupant inside growled more 
fiercely, “I told you, this one’s occupied.  Go to another one, for Christ’s sake!” 
Now Christen knelt to peer beneath the stall door.  He saw a man’s feet standing 
on the far side, his pants and underwear down around his ankles.  Curiously, was not 
sitting facing the door.  Rather, he stood facing the toilet.  Was that a stifled gasp for 
breath. 
 “What are you, some kind of fucking nut.” demanded the man inside the stall, 
apparently speaking over his shoulder.  “Move along!” 
 Christen swayed back and forth, as he peered through the crack between the door 
and the stall, his motion alternating his field of vision back and forth across the interior 
through the narrow gap.  He saw a large man standing there, his broad back obscuring a 
detailed view of the stall’s contents.  As Christen’s gaze dropped toward the floor, 
however, he noticed something unusual. 
  A tiny sneaker sat on the toilet’s urine-stained rim, where a boy apparently stood 
upon it.  Christen’s heart raced. 

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 He backed up to the wall, and then he charged forward until his shoulder struck 
the stall’s flimsy door, blasting it open with a wide swing that swatted the half-dressed 
man to one side.  The sudden motion jerked his beefy hand away from the child’s mouth, 
while his unwholesome embrace threatened to drag the kid into a tumble. 
 Sensing rescue, the boy reacted instinctively by biting his captor’s suffocating 
hand and leaping nimbly up and away from the man’s fall.  Like a cat escaped from a 
burlap sack lined with bricks, the kid bolted out of the stall by literally climbing over 
Christen and falling onto the tiled floor behind him.  Whimpering unhappily, he jumped 
up and ran away, sniffling and sobbing. 
 Christen gripped the stall door with his left hand, before the pervert could recover.  
Using this as a bludgeon, he forced it backward repeatedly into the man’s face.  When the 
predator fell to the floor and attempted to wriggle underneath it and past his tormentor, 
Christen savagely kicked the man in the bridge of his nose.  He heard and felt bone break.  
Blood sprayed from the hapless molester’s shattered nose, and he moaned painfully. 
 Now Christen could force the door all the way open.  With a strength born of 
absolute rage, he jerked the molester to his feet and dashed his head against the far wall 
with such force that the tiles cracked and separated from the concrete underneath. 
 The man collapsed to the floor in an unconscious heap, blood seeping from his 
swelling nose and a deep gash in his skull.  Now Christen kicked the man’s ribs 
repeatedly, harder and harder with each blow, until he felt something give and he heard 
more bones break. 

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 Before he could kill the man, Christen wrested control of his rage, and brought his 
final strike up short.  Gasping and panting, he passed a slack hand over his gaunt 
expression, licking his lips. 
 Without further consideration or regard to his bloody victim, Christen turned and 
ran after the boy.  At the end of the hall outside the bathroom, he noticed a pointing 
crowd gathered to gawk and mumble.  They saw him and called for police. 
 Trapped, Christen cast about for an escape route, and noticed the fire exit opposite 
him.  Bursting through this, he found himself outside the mall near a loading dock.  As 
the fire alarms bleated at his back, he scurried across a narrow lane that ringed the mall 
and he disappeared into the chaos of the parking lot.  
 Once he was well away from the mall, he circled it cautiously while searching for 
his car.  As he walked, he mumbled about demons and curses, and he wondered how 
much longer he could survive himself. 

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The Wind That Whispers 

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-|- 

 Christen swung the ornate knocker fixed to the massive front doors of Missy’s 
large suburban home.  The sound it rendered was a thunder of foreboding doom.  As he 
waited for her to answer, Christen smoothed the creases of his slacks and the ruffle of his 
long, unruly hair.  He glanced around the neighborhood and found it quietly sleeping.  
This late on Sunday evening, the older inhabitants were likely planted in front of their 
television, while their children were making ready for bed and a long school day 
tomorrow.  He heard a cat’s lusty cry and a dog’s menacing bark, but nothing moved that 
he could see. 
 Presently, he heard Missy’s voice calling to him from beyond the heavy door.  
She urged him to wait for her stiff legs to catch up with the rest of her. 
 Ultimately, she opened the door with a slow drag, and craned her stiff neck into 
the breach with an inquisitive eye.  “Ah ha!” she fussed, “Fifteen minutes late!  I had you 
pegged for the fashionable type.” 
 “Good evening, Missy.  That’s a gorgeous dress,” he offered genuinely.  Indeed, it 
was a luxuriously simple affair that might have appealed in a sophisticated way on a 
much younger woman. 
 “This.  I only wear it when I don’t care how I look.”  She pushed her door wide 
and led him into her spaciously stuffy home.  Before he progressed two steps inside, he 
could picture the entire place.  Its many surfaces and shelves would be festooned with 
countless years of bric-a-brac and mementos, while its closets and spare bedrooms bulged 

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with magazines and books from the mid-twentieth century to date.  “I hope you’re 
hungry, young Christen.” 
 He breathed through his nose the olfactory heaven that must be a long 
experienced cook’s well-kept kitchen.  Grinning despite herself, and managing without 
her cane, Missy led her guest through a tidy yet cluttered den into a voluminous dining 
area abetted by a wonderfully modern kitchen that simmered with strangely delightful 
brews. 
 Reassured that the evening promised to be satisfying in at least one way, Christen 
smiled and sighed, “I’m famished.” 
 “Good, because I made several of my special favorites just for you.  You don’t 
know it, but you’re in for a spectacular treat tonight.” 
 Christen lingered near the threshold to the dining room, while she busied herself 
with removing their warming meal to a breakfast nook on the far side of the kitchen.  “It 
smells fabulous, whatever it is!” He had, in fact, surrendered guessing what sort of dishes 
they were. 
 “I can tell you’re intrigued,” she returned, distracted momentarily by a hot dish 
that resembled cornbread.  “Christen, dear, would you please carry the pitcher and glasses 
to the table.  You’re such a sweetheart.   You might grab the linens over there, too, so we 
appear somewhat civilized.” 
 Completing his assigned tasks, Christen found everything ready for the meal, and 
Missy preceded him to her chair.  Picking up the dangling thread of their conversation, 
she said, “I’ve traveled all over the world with my husbands, you know, and the one thing 

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I learned in each location was how to prepare the native cuisines.  I always seemed to 
marry the sort of man that preferred his woman at home in front of an oven.” 
 “Is that a bad thing, or a good thing.” he wondered politely, sipping from a glass 
that he assumed held tea.  He was surprised to find it juicy and sweet, with a tart 
aftertaste.  He couldn’t quite name it. 
 “It’s a good thing mostly, depending on which husband we’re talking about, and 
when,” she sipped her own drink and smiled.  “I’ve had six, you know.  All six of them 
died before me.”  She feigned a sadness that failed to convince Christen, and then she 
abruptly changed subjects by warning, “Be careful with the beverage, by the way.  I 
pressed it fresh from a South American root, so it’s bound to be quite potent.  You’ll find 
it comparable to one of our modern stimulant beverages, with a hint of tropical fruit.  Do 
you like it.” 
 Obligingly, he sipped it again, “I do,” he offered, though he sounded less than 
convinced.  Quite suddenly, he felt hairs stand up on the top of his head.  “Oh, wow,” he 
breathed, “That is scintillating.  Are you sure this is legal.” 
 “So far,” she replied demurely, her eyes strangely glazed behind the glare of her 
overly large spectacles. 
In rapid succession, she named a variety of dishes she had devised from all parts 
of the world, including every continent save Antarctica.  Christen quickly forgot the 
names of most of it, and found only some of it delicious, but one dish particularly struck 
his palate. 

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 “Mmm,” he moaned around a soft mouthful of the stuff, “This is delicious,” he 
added, once his mouth was clear.  Immediately, he swallowed another spoonful.  “What 
is it.” 
 She smiled, and replied, “I might ask you to guess, but you would never get it 
right.  It’s tapioca, that’s all.” 
 “It doesn’t taste like any tapioca I ever had before,” greedily, he finished another 
scoop of the sweetly tangy stuff. 
 “The tapioca doesn’t have any flavor, in itself, it merely provides a nice, creamy 
texture.  The special ingredient really lights up the taste buds.  I make it myself.” 
 “Mmm,” he repeated musically.  “You should can this stuff and sell it.” 
 Eating her own dish of the pudding more slowly than he, she watched with a 
gloating sort of glee as he finished the last bite.  Satiated at last by the generous helpings 
he had consumed of each strange dish, Christen leaned back in his comfortable chair to 
sip his drink. 
 Oddly, after he finished the final taste of the pudding, it returned to him with an 
acrid, bitter aftertaste.  Smacking his lips, he sipped his tea to kill the effect, and was 
grateful when it ultimately faded. 
 “It’s got a kick, doesn’t it.” he wondered, sucking his tongue. 
 “A bit.  Still, it’s a wonderful sensation, don’t you agree.”  Christen nodded, and 
she sat her spoon in her dish, and then the dish aside to lean forward and address him 
more directly.  “Are you really so all alone in the world, Christen Bass.”  When he 
nodded again, she enquired, “What of your parents.  Brothers.  Sisters.” 
 “Nope, I don’t have any of those.  I have an ex-wife.  Does that count.” 

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 “Are you two friendly.” 
 Morosely, Christen shook his dulled head slowly back and forth.  “Nope.”  He 
sipped his drink, relishing the rising headiness of its almost narcotic effect.  “She hates 
me, I think.” 
 “Oh, surely not.  You seem like a very nice fellow.  How could she hate you.” 
 He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  It just happened I guess.  Maybe I slacked off, or 
maybe she just found somebody much better.  I don’t know why, really, but she dumped 
me.” 
 “Just like that.” 
 Christen snapped his fingers, and missed.  A tiny, insistent voice echoed up from 
the depths of his consciousness to warn him this was not normal.  He tried again, 
however, and managed a dull ‘click’ between his thumb and middle finger.  “Just like 
that!” he slurred. 
 “Now I know you have friends at work that would miss you.” 
 Again, he shook his head, which seemed to weigh fifty pounds.  “Nope, again.  
I’m on extended sick leave, thanks to… to…”  Christen blinked his eyes together thickly, 
and sat up a bit straighter.  He struggled to lift his right arm and set his glass on the table, 
but was unable to manage it for the moment.  “Thanks to a tiny black hole.” 
 “Tiny black holes.” she mocked playfully.  “What sort of tiny black holes.” 
 “You know, officer,” he returned, struggling for breath with which to shape his 
words.  “The little black hole that opened up an inky hell in my life.” 
 “Is that why you’re alone.” 

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 His head swimming, Christen’s mind raced with alarm, though his heartbeat and 
respiration refused to follow suit.  He felt suffocated by the weight of his own breast, 
which pressed down on his heart and lungs, slowly squeezing all life out of him.  
Mortally startled, his brain sent a final desperate gasp of command along the fibers of 
Christen’s somatic nervous system, urging him to spring to his feet and run. 
 Indeed, exhibiting almost superhuman strength and determination, Christen 
straightened his numb legs to stand, knocking his chair backward from the tension in his 
knees.  Missy squealed and covered her mouth, but she refused to aid him. 
 “I think…” he started, swaying drunkenly, “I think I had better get home…” 
 “Okay, Christen,” returned the elderly woman, her voice sounding from a vast 
distance.  “Go on and leave, if you think you can.” 
 Christen started across the room, though he could no longer feel the joints of his 
legs.  Steering the contraptions of his body from a great height atop his head, he rolled 
himself around the table and through the kitchen, his gait top-heavy and awkward like 
that of an ungainly high-rise crane.  Now his head grew heavier and heavier with each 
step, until it threatened to collapse his spine in a pain racked accordion of vertebrate.  His 
forward motion slowed to a stop, and then tottered backward.  Struggling with a skewed 
sense of horizon, Christen felt the world spin upside down, and he delicately wrestled 
control of his feet to walk on the ceiling. 
 As he lay on the floor, his arms and legs twitching madly, Christen felt his sense 
of awareness narrow down to a single fine point of consciousness.  He had become a 
mind without a body.  He could think, but he could not feel. 

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 Missy stood over him, leaned heavily on a kitchen counter, the corner of which 
dripped with blood from his scalp.  “Why, child, what’s gotten into you.”  Though her 
words expressed human concern, her eyes did not.  Rather, they expressed the opposite, 
since they sparkled with an intense, predatory interest. 
 “Mumf, mumf, mumf,” he garbled, wondering why his lips had not formed the 
words, ‘Something’s wrong, help!’ 
 “Don’t worry, dear,” offered Missy with a knowing smile.  “Everything is going 
to be alright.  You’re just paralyzed, that’s all.” 
 Paralyzed.  Christen’s brain told his heart to race, but he felt it simply lurch along 
at the same steady, relentless pace.  With a monumental heave of his will, he urged his 
limbs to flail for purchase, that he might rise to his knees and bolt for safety.  
Unconcerned for their master’s dilemma, his legs and arms twitched spastically, but they 
were incapable of working together to manage his rescue. 
 “I watched people in South America use the same stuff to stun fish in a river.  
They would just wade out into the shallows and scoop up dinner.  Easy as pie,” she added 
with a grunt, disappearing briefly to fetch a comfortable chair from the den near to his 
head.  “A bit more, and your heart would stop.  A pinch too little, and you’d only get a 
headache.”  Seated now and more certain of her footing, she bent low to pinch Christen’s 
cheeks, which action he witnessed but could not feel.  “Other derivatives of the same 
substance are used to tip blow darts with a deadly poison.  Struck with a single missile, 
even a large monkey must soon come toppling from the canopy treetops.” 
 Now she prodded him with the toe of her highly polished shoe.  “It’s one way 
they keep their meat fresh, you see, by keeping it alive while they consume it limb by 

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limb.  The poor animal is helpless to save itself, though it remains utterly aware of its sad 
fate, even as its human predators devour it bite upon bite.”  Missy shivered ecstatically, 
and her eyes shone as a hungry old owl’s behind her glazed spectacles.  “Imagine!  It 
gives me the creeping crawlies to think of it!” 
 She cackled and covered her heart daintily.  “I guess it’s a good thing I don’t like 
monkey meat.  Don’t you agree.”  Now she addressed him more directly, and Christen 
could see the wicked animosity burning deep within her gaze, despite his inability to 
focus his eyes.  “Or maybe it would be better the other way around.  We’ll see, one way 
or another.” 
 Missy leaned back now, easing her rheumatic spine against the back of her chair.  
“It won’t be long, now,” she announced sleepily, almost whimsically.  Christen could see 
straight up her bristling nares. “Soon, your body will forget to breathe, and you’ll be dead 
minutes later.”  Sighing, she settled into her seat for a nap after dinner.  “Since your 
diaphragm stops long before your heart, you will actually suffocate. 
“But don’t worry, dear Christen, it’s not such a bad way to go.  It’s better than 
burning alive in a smashed automobile, the way my darling Enrique went in 1962.  It’s 
better than arsenic poisoning, which claimed my second husband, Sammy, in 1968, 
though the doctors mistook it for food poisoning.  It’s quicker than a festering gunshot 
wound, like the one that killed my third mate, Gene, after a three-month battle with 
infection.  Did you know he was shot during a botched robbery right in front of our own 
home.”  Missy clucked her tongue and waggled her head.  “Can you imagine.  It was just 
awful, watching Gene lessen day after day, until his spirit was as evident within his flesh 
as his protruding bones. 

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 “In a way, Christen, you owe a great deal to Gene’s suffering.  After he died, I 
realized that there are worse things in the world than death.  After all, death was a 
welcome relief to Gene, and Sammy, too.  They both suffered so, and suffering of any 
kind, of any length is so unnecessary.  Don’t you agree.”  She actually paused for his 
reply, before she added, “I thought you would. 
 “Take yourself, for instance, all alone in the world, without a soul to care for you.  
I marked you right off, when I saw you in the mall today.  I knew exactly what you 
lacked, just by looking at your face, it so reminded me of my last three husbands.  Lost 
men can seem so needy and unfulfilled, so lonely and wanton.  Every day that you live 
without human comfort and companionship is a day of agony.  Your suffering is as real 
and obvious as was my fourth husband’s, Jimmy Ray, who drowned while we were 
fishing from a canoe on Lake Dallas in 1972.  He was the kind that could never get 
enough of anything to make him happy. 
 “I could fuck him five times a day,” she hooted, her language irreverent on her 
grandmotherly lips, “And he’d still want more.  I even let him have his girlfriends on the 
side, hoping it would curb his appetites, but it only made him hornier.  The day he asked 
to bring one of them home to our own bed to join us, I decided I had all I wanted of him 
and his beastly ways.  The next day, he fell out of the boat and drowned at the end of my 
paddle under those murky brown waters. 
 “Sure, he suffered a minute or two, maybe five, I don’t know how long it really 
takes, once they sink to the bottom, but he didn’t suffer for weeks.  He didn’t suffer for 
days.  Neither will you, Christen, dear, and neither did my last two husbands, who both 
died of allergic reactions.”  She waved unarticulated protests away.  “I found a genuinely 

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natural death eases the passage of insurance payments, you know, especially when those 
payments are due a woman with my unfortunate history.” 
 Missy sighed wistfully, smacking her lips.  “Those were the good old days, to be 
sure.  I could attract them like honey draws a fly, you know.  One touch, one scent, one 
peek at the delicates between my legs, and they’d be mine!”  Now her sigh came 
reluctant and regretful.  “But age sours a woman like nothing else in the world.  Before 
too many years pass, a woman can’t claim anything but a vibrating bit of plastic, and 
then, one day, POOF, it’s gone.  No more desires.  No more needs.  Nothing.  Just 
sagging boobs and dimpled flesh and hours of idleness. 
 “And then what.” she demanded.  “Years and years of the same stale reruns and 
boring food.  Ages of loneliness and neglect, and nobody with the guts to end it 
properly.”  She snorted, and rocked her head back and forth dreamily, “Well, I, for one, 
have the guts.  You’re lucky that way, you know, because it’s all over for you, after 
tonight.  You’ll have no more worries, no more fears, and no more pain.  You’ll never, 
ever be lonely again. 
 “Because, tomorrow, I’m going to drag you out back to my garden, where I’m 
planting a new peach tree.  I’ll embed you alongside Deshaugn Williams, who lives under 
a lovely plum tree, and not far away from Sabrina Hancock, who makes the sweetest 
mulberries you ever tasted!” 
 Again, she smacked her lips together, anticipating jellies, jams and cobblers.  
“You’ll find the company most pleasant, I expect,” she grinned, her voice coming softer 
and slower, as slumber overtook her, breath upon breath.  “They are all, like yourself, lost 
souls abandoned by society to scatter among the cracks and gutters, nameless and 

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forgotten.  At night, you will each tell the other your dreary stories, and your morbid 
lessons of wasted lives must fill the wind that whispers at my windows…” 
 With that, she was gone.  Soon, her mouth gaped open in a long, disquieting snore 
that seemed all exhale and no inhale.  Christen’s thoughts came panicked and obscure, as 
he watched her sleeping, and he wondered how much time remained. 
 His eyes remained fixed open, and he could not blink.  His consciousness swam a 
sea of weariness for a time, before it ultimately drowned in the inky depths of oblivion. 
 Returned to the dreamscape of his haunted imagination, Christen found himself 
staring down at his bad angel, who stood before him crossly, her eyes fixed and focused 
maliciously.  For an interminable time, she said nothing.  She circled him with a slow, 
disdainful march, and she stared at him unblinking. 
 ‘What’s wrong.’ he eventually wondered. 
 The little girl said nothing.  She returned to the forefront of his vision, and she 
stared up at him with those deep, dark pupils.  Broader and deeper, that black gaze 
swelled to oceanic proportions, so it soon surrounded and then engulfed him.  Once more, 
Christen found himself a dust mote lost in a swirling cosmic storm.  As a tiny, 
insignificant, unnoticed thing, he watched the heavens churn amid a primordial void, as 
entire galaxies rose from the vacuum only to dim, dwindle and die before him. 
 With a dizzying spin and a gut-wrenching plunge, Christen’s perspective raced 
through time and space faster than a beam of light.  All at once, he found himself diving 
through the cool, wet winds of the Earth, bound for his own body, which reclined flat on 
the crucifix of a gurney shrouded with fresh, white linens. 

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 A window glared reflection on either side of him.  One, he somehow knew, was 
empty, for it was intended for his supporters, of which he had none.  The other, however, 
brimmed to capacity with a ghoulish audience comprised of his victim’s relatives.  
Though he could not see their faces, he suspected many of them watched the ceremony 
with more than a little eagerness.  Further, he suspected that their flesh would shine with 
a familiar, ruddy light. 
 Echoing from far away, somebody asked for his final remarks.  Christen licked 
his lips, unable to disconnect fantasy from reality.  He felt needles in the veins of both 
arms, and his limbs strained against a score of cruel restraints, which fixed him securely 
within the death chamber.  When he opened his mouth to speak, a foreign, guttural voice 
uttered, ‘Demons live among us’, and he shut his eyes. 
 Seconds later, something changed deep within his breast.  He tasted acrid rubber, 
and his head swam.  His ears rang with a deafening tone.  Christen felt his breath pressed 
from collapsing lungs in a long sigh, as his heart seized with a painful wrench.  Issuing 
forth a last, sputtering cough, he was surprised to feel a tiny, cold hand thrust into his. 
 Rolling his dying eyes, he saw the little girl standing there, her face grim and her 
eyes flat.  Despite himself, he smiled happily.  ‘I knew you would come,’ he said, his 
tone steeped in gratitude and relief.  ‘I’m ready.’ 
 The child shook her head, her expression flat and deadly.  ‘No, not yet,’ she 
rebuked.  ‘Your work here remains unfinished.’ 
 Christen shook his head, and found it free of restraint.  Indeed, his limbs came 
away from the gurney with ease, now, as he flexed each, in turn.  ‘I’m tired.  I want to 
rest.’ 

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 ‘Soon,’ she whispered, urging him to rise and follow her tugging lead, ‘You will 
sleep through eternity.  For now, you must work God’s will.’ 
 Numbly, Christen followed.  He walked past his executioner and the team of 
correctional officers standing by to subdue him, should the need arise.  Together, he and 
his bad angel strode through the door and into a hallway beyond.  They walked through 
walls, and into the crisp evening air outside Texas’ death house. 
 ‘Where are we going.’ he asked, as the tepid air burned his lungs long 
unaccustomed to fresh breath. 
 ‘To hell,’ returned the child without turning to face him.  She led through a 
distance of miles and of years, returning him to Missy’s kitchen floor, where his body 
jerked and jumped, his eyes dilated, fixed and open. 
 As he watched, another man entered the kitchen.  He was a tall, well built black 
man, who wore clothing two sizes too big and shoes rotted by endless miles of walking.  
A kindly smiling old woman followed him.  From the depths of Christen’s dreamscape, 
she said, ‘Now that you’ve finished the weeding, Deshaugn, perhaps you might like 
something to drink.’ 
 His smile genuine and broad, Deshaugn Williams said that he would like that very 
much.  Led to the same little table where she had killed Christen Bass, Missy sat 
Deshaugn in the same chair, and sat a tall glass before him.  In three throat-bobbing 
attempts, he consumed the drink thirstily, sighing when relief when it was finished.  The 
empty glass tinkled with ice, when he returned it to the table top, mouthing the unspoken 
words, ‘Thank you.’ 

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 Her eyes sparkling, Missy watched from across the little dining table, as 
Deshaugn’s eyelids drooped and his head lolled.  Within minutes, he stood to stumble 
drunkenly toward a telephone hanging on a wall across the kitchen.  After three 
stumbling strides, the man sprawled across the tiled floor to fill the same outline that 
Christen’s body would eventually shape there. 
 Now his elderly host dragged a chair from the den to sit near the man’s head, her 
gaze glazed with twisted lust.  As Christen watched her confess her wickedness and 
cruelty with soft, sadistic whispers, Deshaugn’s body warped and changed into another. 
 In his place, a large, unkempt white woman sprawled, vomitus crusting her lips 
and cheeks.  Before Christen’s unsurprised gaze, this form changed into a twenty-
something drifter, whose arms scrawled with the sort of physical graffiti that is common 
to bored prisoners.  The young man’s body twitched and jerked spasmodically, while 
Missy leaned over him, chiding him for his stupidity and reminding him how her fifth 
husband, Harold, had died.  She followed that with the news that his body would fill a 
hole that would soon hold a pomegranate tree, which she had selected for him because he 
was so young and strong. 
 When Christen next glanced at the floor between her feet, the young man had 
changed to another elderly woman, whose face was blue and whose eyes glazed with the 
cooling rictus of death.  Now the victim was a strung-out junky… now a mentally 
challenged street person… now a young female…  a pubescent child…  
 ‘Demons,’ reminded his bad angel, attracting Christen’s focus with a painful 
squeeze of his hand, ‘Live among us.’ 
 “What did you say.” 

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 Christen blinked owlishly.  “What.” 
 “What did you say, dear.” wondered Missy.  When she leaned over him, he 
sensed flushed exertion in her aged face.  A lone ball of sweat dropped from the tip of her 
pickled nose onto Christen’s chin. 
 “Demons,” he choked, “Live among us.” 
 “Is that so.” she wondered with a cackle.  Rising now, she gripped a shovel and 
thrust it into a large pile of sand.  “I never would have guessed!” 
 Though his muscles remained painfully stiff from the fading effects of the toxin, 
Christen rolled his eyes and his head.  He found himself hogtied in Missy’s back yard.  
He lay on his left side facing a huge hole.  On the far side of the hole, he saw a young tree 
standing on its root bolus, which was wrapped with a heavy burlap sack.  Somehow, he 
had worked his chin free of a large, clumsy gag, which hung loosely around his neck.  
Breathless yet from the effect of the drugs, Christen sucked cool morning air borne from 
an oblivious, cloudless blue sky. 
 “What are you doing.” he wondered dully, his tongue thick and reluctant. 
 “Isn’t that obvious, dear.” she returned, pointedly thrusting her shovel into the 
sand and tossing a pile into the hole.  Turning her unwholesome attention upon him, 
Missy paused her effort to say, “I must admit that your miraculous recovery scared the 
shit out of me.  I thought you were hours dead.” 
 Christen cleared a burning, obstructed throat.  “I was.” 
 “Really.  That’s a neat trick, then.  If you had more time,” she grunted, tossing 
another shovel of sand into his grave, “You could teach it to me.” 

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 His mind clearing rapidly, Christen began to truly appreciate his predicament.  He 
struggled with the bonds that fixed his ankles and wrists. 
 “Don’t fret yourself, darling Christen,” scolded Missy, “That nylon cord can 
support up to two thousand pounds of hanging weight.”  She raised the shovel high, 
gripping it with both hands, before she brought it down with a CLANG! on Christen’s 
skull.  Stars filled his vision, and his thoughts scattered as chaff blown before a cyclone.  
“This would be so much easier,” she chided, grunting to raise the shovel again, “If you 
would just DIE!” 
 Christen’s vision cleared in time to catch the downward swing of the shovel’s 
steel head, and he jerked his frame to one side with a powerful flex of his torso.  When 
the blow fell short to glance off the grass, Missy shrieked, “GOD DAMN IT!  Hold still!” 
 She raised the deadly weapon again.  Christen tossed his hair to clear his eyesight 
of blood, which flowed with a spider’s web pattern across his brow, stemming from a 
deep gash in his right temple.  Reacting instinctively, he arched his spine, rocked 
backward to achieve maximum momentum, and then rolled violently forward. 
 Missy screamed, when he knocked her sideways off her feet and into the deep, 
broad hole gaping beside her.  Together, they tumbled inside.  Christen came down 
heavily on top of his elderly captor, and he used his knees to force the wind from her 
lungs. 
 Though she struggled against him, her age worked in Christen’s favor.  He 
managed to keep his balance atop her writhing mass, and thereby he slowly stifled her 
efforts by forcing her face beneath a pour of falling sand.  She sputtered and gasped as 
the dirt filled her mouth and nostrils, and she whipped her head violently for relief, 

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locking her flabby arms impotently against him.  Her struggles only increased the 
smothering flow of earth, which soon enveloped her upper body.  Choking and writhing, 
coughing gouts of grit and loam, Missy drowned in dirt.  At the same time, Christen 
worked a bloody nylon loop loose from his restraints.  This slack eventually translated to 
the entire mass of hastily wrapped rope, and his right hand popped free. 
As if charged by its own thoughts, his grip immediately scooped through the sand 
to snap around Missy’s fat neck, where it penetrated ancient rolls of flesh and fat, 
squeezing tightly.  She choked and gargled obscenely.  With a desperate, dusty breath she 
gasped, “Please… please… please don’t kill me,” which words she had so often 
answered with cruel laughter, herself. 
 Grinning viciously, Christen worked his grip through the sand until it seated more 
firmly around the vital cords of her throat.  With a turn of his head, he ignored her flabby, 
flailing arms and hands, which raked his cheeks with broken fingernails.  “Don’t worry, 
Missy,” he growled, “Dying isn’t so bad.  I’ve been there.” 
 “I-“ she croaked, sucking a short, choking breath when she felt Christen shift his 
stranglehold, “I don’t want to die!”  Missy thrust her own hands between them to struggle 
with his throttling right wrist. 
 Her two hands were nearly equivalent to his one, but the force of righteous 
vengeance coursed through Christen’s veins.  Growling primitively, he forced his fist 
deeper and deeper into the soft, pliable girth of her neck. 
 “Everybody dies,” he grunted.  “It’s simply your turn, today.” 

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 Missy groaned and slowly relaxed, her final breath escaping through the pinch of 
her compressed larynx with a sick gargle and plume of dirt.  Christen held her fast until 
he felt convinced she had genuinely expired. 
 Twisting and writhing atop her cooling, stiffening body at the bottom of his 
intended grave, Christen eventually pulled his bleeding left wrist through the nylon.  This 
he used with his aching right to unfasten the tighter loops that bound his feet. 
 Grunting and clawing at the dirt, Christen hauled himself out of the hole, gasping 
for air and dizzy from the sun, which burned across the blaze of an obliviously brilliant 
blue sky.  Resisting the urge to collapse onto the pile of sand, Christen glanced about to 
be certain they were alone, and then he rounded the hole to push the sapling in on top of 
his tormentor’s curled body.  She lay in a fetal position beneath the burlap-shrouded 
bolus, a fat grub to chew through the rotten underside of the earth forever. 
 Frantic to be certain she could not return to attack him, Christen shoveled sand 
into the hole until the work was finished.  Exhausted, he completed the effect by relaying 
the sod that Missy had preserved from the site.  After he hosed the yard down and washed 
away the leftover remnants of the sand pile, Missy’s lush lawn returned to a uniform 
evenness, and he could scarcely detect the seams of his handy work. 
 Finished, Christen cleaned himself at Missy’s kitchen sink, leaving a mixture of 
sand and blood collected at the bottom of her garbage disposal.  He thrust his right hand 
into his right pocket, gasping at the rawness of his knuckles and wrists, and was not 
surprised to find his car keys missing. 
 A quick search revealed them on a hutch that stood in a prominent location in 
Missy’s den.  Beneath them, a small drawer gaped partially open.  When Christen pulled 

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it wide, he found it filled to the top with similar sets of keys, along with an assortment of 
male and female wallets.  His own billfold rested on top of the stack. 
 Strangely, she had left his cash and credit cards.  Indeed, every other wallet that 
he checked remained apparently intact.  “I guess she wasn’t doing it for the money,” he 
croaked to himself, chuckling with painfully constricted lungs that yet burned from the 
after effects of Missy’s potent toxins. 
 From there, Christen staggered across the den to the entryway and Missy’s 
massive front doors.  He found his van parked where he had left it, and he climbed inside 
to start the motor with a grateful smile.  As he backed out of the driveway, and turned 
onto the street, he noticed one of Missy’s neighbors watering flowerbeds across the 
street. 
 The man watched Christen spin his steering wheel.  He smiled warmly and 
waved, as Christen accelerated away down the street.  Christen returned the gesture 
without the friendly smile. 

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Peace In a Needle 

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-|- 

 Christen lay on his back sprawled across the floor of his littered den.  Scattered all 
around him, occupying every available flat surface including the floor, lay the empty 
containers and discarded remnants of his existence gone so madly awry.  As he lay there, 
he felt his muscles burn, his bones ache, and his joints throb, while his exhausted heart 
thumped unsteadily along and his lungs wheezed as old bellows to fill his chest with 
hollow breath. 
 More than any other sensation, he felt spent, used, wasted.  He seemed nothing 
more than another empty container, garbage to be buried or burned. 
 With the dreary thoughts of a diseased mind, Christen pondered the nature of 
time, which flowed certain when measured by a mechanism, though it lent itself uneasily 
to a man’s crazed perception.  He clearly remembered a second that once held the entirety 
of forever, while the last year had passed in a disjointed span of a few disconnected days.  
Though he struggled with every means of his intellect, Christen could not recall more 
than eight weeks of the preceding twelve months.  The accident was a year old, yet it 
seemed fresh and recent.  When he wondered what all he had done in the time he could 
not recover, he quickly asked himself if he really wanted to know. 
 A tear tracked the corner of his eye to fill his right ear.  No, he ultimately 
answered, I don’t want to know.  I want to forget.  I want to believe none of it ever 
happened. 

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 The few memories he possessed of the last year left him feeling unsettled and 
queasy.  He remembered the orderly at the hospital, and the three women… he 
remembered the bomb in Mobile… and he knew he had murdered.  He knew authorities 
in at least two states were busy looking for him relentlessly, and he expected the harshest 
sort of treatment, in the event that they caught him. 
 “What the fuck is wrong with me.” he wondered aloud, his voice choked and 
constricted.  “What have I done.” 
 Though the definitive answer to this question eluded him, Christen grew more 
certain of another undeniable truth that followed.  Nothing could be undone.  Fickle as it 
flowed through his memories, time flowed but one way.  He could never repeal his 
crimes; therefore, society was unlikely to repeal his sentence. 
 It would be a sentence well deserved, he knew.  Briefly, he considered dialing the 
police to confess all he had done, leaving them to figure the rest.  Indeed, he rolled his 
head to one side to turn his eye on the telephone, where it waited on a nearby lamp table.  
His gaze focused on its stylish handset, while thoughts of its glowing buttons and shrill 
tones filled his mind.  A single phone call could end everything, he knew. 
 Christen felt his shoulders twitch with the first spark of motion, while his fingers 
began to hum with anticipatory sensations.  He envisioned rolling over, crawling across 
the floor, lifting the handset, dialing the numbers, and… and… 
 A distraction in the near corner of the ceiling drew his gaze.  There, air 
compressed and condensed to a wispy white fog, which further condensed into a solidity 
of corporeal flesh.  Her dress and hair arrayed as if in freefall, Christen’s bad angel 
floated before him, her tiny face stern and disapproving. 

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 “Your faith is failing, Christen Bass,” she announced unhappily. 
 “I never had any,” he gasped, returning to his listless sprawl, surrendering all 
consideration of escape and freedom. 
 “You have served well, when you have served, though you have ever been fond of 
blasphemous questions.” 
 By way of responding to her assertions, Christen’s chest buckled and flexed 
repeatedly, as he chuckled softly, morosely.  “Blasphemous.  I never believed in God.  I 
never believed in hell.” 
 “Yet you serve God at every call.  Yet you consider this hell.” 
 Christen’s merriment fell instantly silent, and his eyes sprang wide.  As a 
marionette unskillfully deployed, he jerked to his feet, and then he turned the apartment.  
“Hell.” he wondered, his heart racing, as he examined the bizarre furnishings of his tiny 
apartment.  “Am I in hell.” 
 Everything he saw appeared to be evidence of an intricate crime.  He had 
apparently prepared explosives and drugs in his kitchen.  He had assembled wicked 
electronic devices on his dining table.  The corners of his den were stacked nearly to the 
ceiling with the remnants of various criminal enterprises.  There lay the contents and less 
desirable rewards of a night burglar’s toolkit, while another corner was mysteriously 
shrouded by a large tarp.  When he paced the distance to this obscuring blanket and 
removed it with a dusty whip, he found the remnants of a Harley Davidson motorcycle.  
It had been disassembled into a jumble of parts for some strange reason. 
 Now he turned his attention to his couch, which was heaped with a dozen large 
boxes.  Apparently heavy, they compressed the cushions and sank deeply into the divan’s 

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sagging springs.  When he examined their contents, he found them filled to capacity with 
books. 
 Their subject matter varied, but they all conformed to a singular theme.  Every 
publication described the implementation of weapons, explosives, mind control 
techniques, espionage and counter-espionage procedures, and the like.  One box 
exclusively contained forensic manuals and investigative methodologies, including a 
volume from the State of Texas Attorney General’s office entitled ‘Texas Evidence 
Gathering Protocol’. 
 Christen whispered, “I can only imagine why a private citizen would need this 
one.”  He returned the thin, crudely bound pamphlet to its box with a toss. 
 His bad angel grinned maliciously.  “You have been an excellent student.  You 
learned with a will.” 
 “Why.” he wondered, unable to recall reading a single line of the works stacked 
before him. 
 “God commanded.  You obeyed.” 
 “God.” 
 Her grin broadened, stretching her lips beyond capacity and thereby revealing 
impossibly numerous teeth.  “God,” she asserted simply. 
 Christen scoffed with a vulgar noise and a toss of his head, before he wandered 
over to his entertainment console.  A partially extended drawer had attracted his interest, 
and he pulled it fully open.  Inside, he found countless rings, watches, bracelets, earrings, 
and assorted human bric-a-brac.  Too many and too disparate to belong to one person, or 

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a half-dozen persons, Christen suspected the drawer contained trophies collected from a 
large number of unknown victims. 
 His face collapsed at once into a child’s mask of futile, hopeless sorrow, and 
Christen wept.  Lifting the disgusting treasure with a shaking grip turned upside down, he 
examined its sparkling details for evidence of the horror that had undoubtedly wrested the 
individual pieces from unwilling owners, and he thought of Missy.  She had kept just 
such a cache of mementos and keepsakes. 
 Feeling his stomach rise and his head swim, Christen returned the purloined loot 
to its hiding place, and pushed the little drawer shut with a sharp snap.  A trembling hand 
raked through the hair wildly corkscrewed atop his head, while his diaphragm sucked an 
unbidden breath into the depths of his lungs.  His knees buckled.  Drunken with 
confusion, Christen stumbled backward. 
 As his empty stomach heaved, he turned to find the hallway and his bathroom.  
He was unsurprised to find the corridor cluttered with assorted loot and criminal 
implements.  A huge, double-bladed axe near his bedroom door particularly disturbed 
him, since it appeared to be stained with bloody handprints.  A closer examination 
revealed clumps of tissue, hair and bone dried to its stout haft and steely head. 
 Christen pressed an urgent hand to his lips, rolled his eyes, and stumbled into the 
bathroom, where he collapsed over the toilet to choke emptily.  Purging himself vainly 
with painful contractions of churning guts, Christen was unable to rid himself of the bitter 
taste of guilt, of the burning sensation of capital fear, of the branding mark of Cain. 
 When he leaned against the sink to peer into his mirror, he found a gaunt, starving 
stranger standing before him, staring back at him from the remote distance of a year gone 

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missing.  He scarcely recognized his own cragged features, so he confirmed the solidity 
of reality with a raised hand that flattened pulsing fingertips to cold, flat glass.  The 
scarecrow figure before him imitated his actions, and Christen knew this aged cretin as 
himself. 
 Standing behind him, he noticed his bad angel smiling through thin, pressed lips.  
“Can you imagine the mass of the universe pressed down upon one man’s straining 
shoulders.” 
 Nodding sickly, his eyes rolling shut to blot out her hallucination, he gasped, 
“Yes,” and wiped his lips with the bristling back of his right hand. 
 “Such is the force of God’s labor.  It must invariably crush flat those who serve.” 
 “You said that before!” he snapped.  “And I told you I don’t believe God is doing 
the commanding, here.” 
 “If not, then who.” 
 To gauge the child’s sincerity, Christen let his lids flutter open, until he could fix 
the child in the center of his blurred vision, once more.  She faced him resolutely.  
“Satan,” he replied uncertainly. 
 “Satan is a figment, Christen Bass.  God knows no equal.  God fears no threat.  
Good and evil are not two separate ideals, but one.  Remember how all serves time.  Time 
is the nature of God.  God is the nature of time.” 
 “RIDDLES!” he raged, slamming his hand down atop the sink with enough force 
to scatter the grooming products cluttering its rim.  “Insanity!” he asserted more softly, 
flipping down the toilet lid for a seat.  “Murderous madness,” he whispered, collapsing 
there, defeated, to hang his head between bunched shoulders. 

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 The child neared, her wide eyes filled with all the matter and space of the 
universe.  She placed a calming hand atop Christen’s heaving shoulder. 
 “I know what you truly fear,” she offered softly, her words oddly soothing.  “You 
do not fear legal sanction.  You do not fear imprisonment or execution.   No, Christen 
Bass, rather you fear for your soul.  You fear dying as a damned murderer.” 
 Christen’s weeping came openly and loud, now.  His shoulder rose and fell, while 
his ribs appeared rhythmically through the fabric of his stained t-shirt.  “Yes,” he 
confessed wetly. 
 “While I know the words to be vain and wasted in this place, at this hour, I long to 
convince you that your service is your salvation.  God loves you.  God awaits you with 
open arms.” 
 He shook his head violently without raising his face.  “Not now, not after all the 
terrible things I’ve done.” 
 “Especially now, because more remains for you to do.” 
 He sobbed louder and more forlornly to hear this.  “No, I can’t.  I won’t.” 
 “You must.  You will.  Tonight.” 
 Christen pressed his hands tightly around his ears to squeeze out her voice.  
Regardless of his efforts, his bad angel would not fade, and she would not be muffled. 
 Clear as ever, she whispered into his ears, “The time approaches.” 
 “I won’t go!” he raged, jerking his head to one side, as though he might tear it 
free of her manipulative grip. 
 “You always go.  You have already been.  You are leaving, even now.” 

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 Indeed, behind squirming lids, Christen watched himself gather the required 
implements of murder and mayhem from his dwindling stockpiles, before he pushed 
through his front door and danced purposefully down the stairs to his van.  Now he stood 
over a bed in the darkness, where two figures slept soundly beneath rolled blankets and 
sheets.  Now he lay stretched in a crucifix atop a gurney, two needles puncturing the 
veins of his arms, his every appendage restrained.  Now he turned his head to find the 
child standing near his right hand, grasping his swollen fingers, which twitched morbidly.  
He heard himself sigh, ‘I knew you would come,’ with his last, rattling breath. 
 Christen’s head jerked violently left and right in denial, and his eyes snapped 
open.  He found himself sitting in the driver’s seat of his van, dressed in black clothes 
and wearing leather gloves, as he swerved through heavy holiday traffic.  The clock on 
his dashboard told him the time and date was December 31, 11:17 PM. 
 Strapped into the seat beside him sat the child, her eyes fixed on the road.  “You’ll 
miss the exit,” she announced simply. 
 “No, I won’t,” he returned flatly, steering around a compact car straddling the 
center lane and Christen’s lane simultaneously.  A horn blared behind him. When he 
rotated his head to face his odd passenger, he found her gone again. 
 He shrugged, and maneuvered to the far right lane, where he exited the freeway to 
drive along the frontage road for a mile.  Apparently knowing the way instinctively, 
Christen spun his wheel into a hard right turn, which delivered him into a neat residential 
subdivision that posed a maze of winding streets.  Christen knew the way to go, though 
he could not guess how he knew, and he followed a tortuous path through tree-lined 

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avenues with such fanciful names as ‘Windsor Wood’, ‘Churchill Down’ and 
‘Huntington Meadow’. 
 Eventually, he turned into a narrow alley framed on two sides by high wooden 
privacy fences.  These were broken periodically by driveways, which led to rear garages 
where most of the residents preferred to park their cars.  Without understanding why he 
felt so certain this was his intended destination, Christen rolled into a particular drive, and 
then shifted to park.  After the rumble of his engine died, the sleeping neighborhood 
returned to a state of absolute silence, save for a few lonely dogs baying their warnings 
and threats. 
 Christen sat patiently inside his van in the darkness, until the dogs returned to 
their restless, spastic dreams.  Then he let the door open quiet and slow.  Standing on the 
concrete drive, he reached behind the driver’s seat for his toolkit.  Tossing this silently 
over his shoulder by its lone strap, Christen eased the van’s door shut. 
 Exhibiting a stealthy expertise he found alien and strange, he stalked to a gate in 
the tall privacy fence near its termination against the home’s exterior brick wall.  Its latch 
depressed silently with a flex of his gloved right thumb, and the gate swung wide. 
 Without hesitation, Christen entered the neatly landscaped backyard, and threaded 
his way along a cleverly bricked path to the patio doors.  These he found locked, as 
expected. 
From his bag, he extracted a tiny tool shaped like a handgun.  In place of a barrel, 
it exposed a pair of delicately thin tongs that bristled with catches and springs.  Inserting 
this into the keyhole, he worked the trigger back and forth with expert motions of his 

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fingers and thumb.  Something clicked, and the door cracked open.  A cool, pleasantly 
deodorized breeze wafted through the narrow opening. 
 Christen inserted the fingers of his right hand to spread the gap wider, and then he 
pushed the sliding door open.  A curtain covered the doorway, and his body formed a 
bulge behind it.  Whisper smooth, he slid the door closed, once more, before he eased 
around the hem of the drapes. 
 Quiet as a stalking feline, he padded across a living area into the kitchen.  Atop its 
cool, dully gleaming tiles, he strode, confident of his eventual destination, which lay 
through the front foyer along a generous hallway to the arched doorways of the 
bedrooms.  Though several doors might have concealed his quarry, Christen was intent 
on only one, the master bedroom. 
 He found its door closed, but not latched.  He pushed it silently wide.  Without a 
sound, his feet led him across the distance to the bed.  Snores sounded from its tossed 
depths.  The blankets and sheets formed a singular heap at the bed’s center, and he had 
trouble picking one sleeping form from another in the darkness. 
 With a careful, steady set of gloved fingers, he lifted the blanket aside to find a 
rumpled sheet.  He lifted the sheet aside to find a leg, obviously feminine.  He raised the 
sheet higher to find her torso, where it curled into a near fetal position above her cocked 
knee. 
 The same way he knew which house to invade, Christen knew which sleeping 
figure he had been sent to slaughter.  She was not the one.  He lifted the sheet higher, 
until he could see her husband’s sleeping form curled beside her.  Again, he felt certain 

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the man was not the one.  Careful not to disturb their silent dreams, Christen pulled the 
sheet and blanket back to their feet. 
 Reacting to the draft, the woman rolled over slightly.  There, sleeping on its back 
between its parents, arms and legs splayed, lay Christen’s target.  With cursedly adept 
hands that scarcely stirred the air, he gently lifted the snoring infant from the bed.  It 
curled into a ball instinctively within his gently cradling arms, and Christen carried the 
child out of the room, then out of the house. 
 In the backyard, he laid the rousing babe atop the neatly mown lawn, and then he 
extracted a long, cruel blade from his bag to cut its throat.  Without a thought, he pressed 
its business end deliberately beneath the baby’s chin.  Its sleeping face bunched with 
consternation.  Its eyelids flickered half open. 
 Christen steeled his right arm to flex rigid, thereby dragging the cutting edge 
across delicate flesh, releasing a twin geyser of crimson blood into the still night air.  
Nothing sounded so loudly in the night as his own breath, which came as a steam engine 
HUH-HUH-HUH from his lungs, as he crouched over the baby.  Resisting the alien will 
that drove him, Christen’s arm relaxed and refused the cut. 
 His shoulders drooped, and his arms relaxed.  He knelt beside the sleeping child, 
and backed the knife away an uncertain inch. 
 Then, just as quickly as it faded, his odd resolve returned, and he flexed his right 
arm stiff at the elbow.  The blade pressed a long, straight dimple beneath the child’s chin, 
and its eyes fluttered open, sleepy and confused. 
 Upon seeing the child’s crystalline blue eyes, Christen’s arm once more went 
limp, and he felt his body and sense of determination relax.  The infant’s mouth worked 

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wetly, in search of a pacifier or nipple.  It opened its mouth to wail, and Christen knew 
time was short. 
 With a series of quick steps, a tiny pair of buckled patent leather shoes appeared 
on the grass in his peripheral vision.  He traced the shoes to a pair of stocking-sheathed 
ankles, and the ankles to a set of knees set below the hem of a bright yellow dress 
adorned with lace.  Inside the dress stood Christen’s bad angel, beaming down at him as 
if she knew all the secrets of history. 
 “Kiiiill hiiiim,” she hissed through impossibly numerous teeth. 
 Christen’s arm went stiff again, and the blade pressed forcefully against the 
child’s skin.  A long welt of blood brimmed the sharp edge, and he child’s mouth opened 
and closed rapidly.  It coughed repeatedly, a sure indication of a long, loud wail to come. 
 “Draw the blade!” insisted Christen’s demonic hallucination.  “Cut his throat.” 
 Christen’s stiffened arm trembled wearily.  He warred with the fibers of his 
muscles, and raged against the bloody bidding of his demented mind.  “No,” he 
whispered softly, forcing his elbow to unlock and lessen the press of the knife’s edge 
against the child’s delicate flesh.  “No.” 
 “Yesssssss,” spat Christen’s ghostly familiar.  “God commands you.” 
 “This one thing,” returned Christen, releasing the child and withdrawing the long, 
menacing blade, “I cannot do.” 
 Christen’s haunt sucked a sharp, accusing breath, her eyes black as the infinite 
void.  “You must!  This is your most vital service of all.  The child must die.  Tonight.  
Now!” 

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 Bidden by her insistence, Christen raised his arms high overhead with a double 
grip on the knife’s haft, ready to plunge it straight through the infant’s heart.  At the apex 
of his intended swing, his shoulders seized, and the knife shook, suspended above his 
head with a pair of rebellious fists. 
 “NO!” he growled through clenched teeth. 
 “YES!” she returned with the powerful voice of God.  It split the night as thunder, 
and its echoes rumbled from one far corner of the earth to another. 
 Christen’s hands descended with a savage jerk.  The knife’s brutal point pierced 
and then severed through the grass and into the dense earth.  “NO!” he roared defiantly. 
 The infant added its own din to the night, as its surprisingly powerful lungs 
shattered the stillness to wail for its mother.  Its arms and legs thrashed petulantly, and its 
needful cries were undeniable. 
 Already roused from sleep, once she found her first-born son missing from her 
bed, the lady of the house heard his cries, and raced through the house to the patio doors.  
Standing there in the threshold, her sleep-crazed eyes searched the darkness for the 
source of her child’s wails, stunned to find the infant outside, at all. 
 At first glance, she saw nothing save the shadows that tangled and dappled the 
lawn.  Eventually, she spied her child lying on its back in the grass, its feet and hands 
thrashing uselessly as a turtle turned upside down. 
 With a gasp, she immediately started across the yard to retrieve him, when she 
heard an enraged, frustrated male voice below “NO!” and she saw a knife’s blade flash in 
the dim light.  In a powerful arc, it descended toward her baby, penetrating the sod with 
an audible THWAK!  It appeared to move magically through the night. 

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 Now she saw a deeper shadow wrapped about its quivering haft.  Appearing from 
the darkness as a sudden, evil revelation, the child’s mother witnessed the materialization 
of a hulking shadow that leaned threateningly over her baby.  The shade released the 
knife without retracting it from the dirt, and then its black shape stood, stretching to full 
height. 
 Understanding this shadow possessed the form of a man dressed all in black, the 
woman opened her mouth to scream for her husband with the desperately shrill voice that 
only a hysterical woman could produce.  Christen bolted for the gate, and then climbed 
into his van.  Its engine started with a roar and a heavy rumble, and he reversed with a 
squeal of smoking rear tires, as the child’s enraged father charged around the gate and 
onto the driveway.  When Christen paused in the alley to shift to drive and escape, the 
man threw a clay pot he had retrieved from his backyard landscaping. 
 This struck the van’s windshield, shattering it.  As Christen roared off down the 
alleyway, he realized the van would be easy to identify, marked as it was by its ruined 
glass.  His apprehension appeared to be a simple matter of time. 
 Christen gratefully resigned himself to this fate, as he wound through the 
confusing maze of residential streets without a clear sense of direction.  From the corner 
of his eye, he noticed his ever-present tormenter sitting in the passenger seat. 
 “At last,” she grumbled, “You have abandoned God’s will.”  Flashing lights 
illuminated the horizon, even before Christen found his way out of the subdivision.  
“God’s will therefore abandons you.  Good-bye, Christen Bass.” 

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 When he glanced in her direction, she was gone, never to return to his waking 
thoughts or his tortured dreams.  As soon as her image faded beside him, Christen forgot 
the shape and lines of her face.  He forgot her name.  He forgot her philosophy. 
 Ignorant of a better course of action, Christen located the subdivision exit, and 
drove through it, directly into the path of a brace of squad cars, which lingered with lights 
extinguished on either side of the through street.  Immediately upon spying their quarry, 
the policemen inside each cruiser activated spotlights and strobe lights to make a felony 
stop in the dark.  The van gleamed blackly at the center of their luminous attention, and 
Christen raised his hand to shade his eyes against the glare of his shattered windshield. 
 A loudspeaker crackled to life.  “Driver, park the van, stop the engine, and extend 
your hands through the window NOW!” 
 Christen wrapped sweating palms around his slick steering wheel, and he 
wondered what to do.  For the first time in twelve months, his depraved mind offered no 
intuition or instinct to guide him.  He forgot everything his mysterious alter ego had 
learned, and his false courage evaporated as quickly and easily as his bad angel had 
vanished. 
 In the same moment, a soothing sense of relief washed through his arteries and 
veins.  His long tensed muscles relaxed, and the dull ache of his shattered bones eased 
considerably.  Euphoria flooded the tortuous ruts of his thoughts, and he no longer feared 
the consequences of the end, for the end had come. 
 Suddenly weary beyond human endurance, Christen laid his head back against the 
seat’s headrest with an explosive sigh.  As soon as he closed his eyes, he was asleep. 

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 He scarcely stirred when the police nervously approached his door shouting their 
unheeded orders, and then yanked him rudely out onto the street.  Though he offered no 
resistance, several of the officers felt the need to kick and punch his exhausted body.  
Awakened by a vicious blow to his stomach, Christen strained to curl into a tight ball.  
He struggled for breath, while they denied it, busy as they were wrenching his arms 
behind his back. 
 As soon as he sucked a deep breath, Christen expelled it to the sounds of laughter.  
Half a dozen policemen knelt atop his back and limbs, crushing him thin against the 
pavement.  Regardless of their oppressive weight, he fought to breathe, and, breathing, he 
laughed deliriously. 
 Satisfied with his restraints, they left him lying at their feet on the rough concrete, 
his body wracked with wave upon wave of mirth.  He choked and sputtered himself still, 
and immediately returned to a nearly comatose state of exhausted sleep, a trickle of blood 
flowing from one cut lip. 
 “Mr. Bass.” demanded a rude toe that struck Christen’s spine.  “Mr. Bass.  You 
might want to wake up for this, sir.” 
 Christen snorted, fighting to clear his eyes.  “What.  What happened.” 
 “Are you completely awake.  Come on, now, snap to, Mr. Bass.  This is 
important.” 
 Through crusted eyes, Christen saw a pair of cowboy boots standing near his 
head.  Blinking against the flashing lights of the squad cars, Christen was surprised to 
find himself still curled on the concrete, his hands and feet restrained with cold stainless 
steel.  “What.” he asked again, more forcefully this time. 

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 “Mr. Bass, my name is Detective Sergeant Martinez.  Do you remember me.” 
 Christen nodded, and let his tired skull back down to the pitted pavement.  “Yeah, 
I remember you.  Did you ever catch that prankster.” 
 “No,” returned the detective, his face flat and menacing in the uncertain light.  
With deft grace, he hiked the crease of his khaki slacks, and squatted alongside his 
suspect.  “I caught you, though.” 
 Now Christen shook his head, and that same sick chuckle returned to the bobbing 
works of his throat.  “I caught myself.” 
 “It’s all the same thing to me, Mr. Bass,” returned the officer, his professional 
tone void of emotion.  “You’ll die in prison, one way or the other.” 
 “I know that better than you do,” he sputtered, attempting to smother his 
inappropriate sense of amusement, “And I’m looking forward to it.” 
 “I bet,” responded Martinez drolly.  “Christen Bass,” he then intoned officially, 
placing his right hand upon the lump of Christen’s heaving shoulder, “You are subject to 
investigative arrest, pending charges of aggravated night burglary of a domicile, 
aggravated kidnapping, attempted capital murder of a child under the age of six, and a list 
of other crimes to be determined later. 
 “You have the right to remain silent during questioning.  You have the right to 
competent legal counsel, which the state will provide in the event that you cannot afford 
representation.  If you choose to waive these rights and voluntarily discuss these crimes 
with Pecan Groves investigators, any information gathered during the course of such 
discussions will be used to aid your prosecution.  Do you understand these rights, as I 
have explained them to you.” 

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 Again, Christen nodded.  Once he caught his breath, he said, “Yes.” 
 “Will you agree to waive counsel and discuss the charges against you.” 
 “Sure,” he announced, sobering at last.  “Why not.” 
 At a nod from the sergeant, two sets of rough hands gripped Christen’s restrained 
arms and lifted him bodily to his feet.  Without ceremony or encouragement, they 
marched him across the street to a waiting squad car.  A dozen officers of both sexes 
stood there, anxious to have a look at the face of the psychotic criminal that had 
perpetrated such a heinous crime.  Exhibiting surprising care, Christen’s escorts eased 
him into the backseat, where he was fixed into the seatbelt, regardless of the awkward 
position of his arms. 
 Martinez climbed in from the opposite side.  For a time, he coolly examined his 
suspect from head to foot. 
 Eventually, the detective asked, his voice laced with genuine, personal curiosity, 
“What the hell happened to you.” 
 Christen shrugged, which was an easy motion, since he hunched over his lap due 
to the pressure of his cuffed hands, which pressed into the small of his back.  “A bad 
angel corrupted me,” he sprayed laughter that all but suffocated him. 
 “A bad angel, Mr. Bass.” 
 “Yeah, that’s right.”  Christen suddenly sat straighter and turned to face the 
investigator.  “Hey!” he spouted, as if suddenly recalling an interesting fact, “You know 
her!” 
 “I do.” 

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 “Sure.  It was the little girl.  You remember, from the accident.”  When the 
sergeant nodded to indicate that he remembered, Christen added, “She made me do it.  
All of it.” 
 “Everything you did tonight.  Or other things, too.” 
 Christen nodded obtusely.  “Lot’s of other things.”  He laughed again, doubled 
over with it, in fact.  “I-“ he gasped, “I’ve been a bad, bad boy!” 
 Martinez frowned, and patiently waited for Christen’s bizarre merriment to fall 
silent.  While he waited, a uniformed officer climbed into the front seat of the cruiser to 
drive them on to the station and a proper interrogation room. 
 Once Christen’s chuckles fell all but still, Martinez asked, “Have you committed 
other crimes, then.” 
 “Yep!  I’ve been very, very busy.  Busier than you could probably guess!” 
 “Oh, I don’t know,” retorted the detective vaguely, “I sometimes think I’ve seen 
just about everything.” 
 “Maybe.  Maybe not.” 
 “Thrill me, then, Mr. Bass.  What sort of crimes are they. 
 “Capital crimes, Detective Martinez,” ejected the suspect, his face swollen and 
red, “Of a most brutal nature.” 
  “You don’t strike me as a cold blooded killer, Mr. Bass.” 
 “Ask yourself this; what sort of guy breaks into the home of strangers to kidnap 
their infant son and cut his throat for no apparent reason.”  Christen’s eyes twinkled in 
the face of the detective’s obvious reflection. 

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“Nevertheless, I know you’ll forgive me when I require corroborating evidence to 
support your confessions.  Can you give me that.” asked the detective, naturally 
suspicious of such free speech from a man certain to face the death penalty, if everything 
he said proved true. 
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” Christen asserted, turning a suddenly lucid 
gaze on the officer.  “Now that I’m caught, I want to confess everything, plead guilty, and 
get what I deserve.” 
 Martinez reached for a tiny tape recorder, which he kept clipped to his belt.  As he 
prepared it to catch this unanticipated and premature statement, the detective asked, “And 
what do you think you deserve, Mr. Bass.” 
 “Peace in a needle, detective,” responded Christen, once more given over to 
uncontrollable laughter.  “Freedom in an overdose!” 

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That’s All, Folks! 

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-|- 

 “Fascinating,” Christen enthused with a thin smile.  He sat behind a thick 
Plexiglas window, holding a telephone with manacled wrists.  “I brought the clips you 
sent me.  Shall I read a few of my favorites.” 
 Worldly and jaded, the heavyset female reporter flashed a quick smile, and 
responded, “If they don’t upset you too much.” 
 “No,” he scoffed, “Not at all.  I like the way you write.  Everything is quick, 
concise and to the point.  I first sorted them into date order, and then I read every word.   
Can you believe it.” 
 She shrugged, “What else are you going to do with your time.”  Christen, 
himself, was fond of this phrase, and often used it during their telephone conversations.  
They both chuckled blackly together. 
 “Okay, then, this is the first one…” 
 
 …Early this morning, police arrested Christen 
Cedric Bass after a nighttime burglary of a residence in the 
exclusive Rolling Falls subdivision of Pecan Groves, 
Texas.  Public records identify Christen Bass, 33, as an 
unemployed, disabled resident of the 700 block of Jester 
Road, located in the same city. 

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 Exactly one year earlier to the hour, Mr. Bass was 
involved in a highly publicized traffic fatality.  Ashley 
Austin, 9, died instantly when Mr. Bass drove over an open 
manhole on New Year’s Eve, lost control of his sedan and 
struck the child on the sidewalk.  Police never identified the 
prankster responsible for removing the manhole cover, and 
Mr. Bass passed all sobriety tests, which indicated he was 
not intoxicated at the time of the incident. 
The child’s mother, an often-convicted prostitute 
and drug offender, was later prosecuted for multiple, 
unrelated felonies and incarcerated for those crimes.  
Charges of child neglect and endangerment were quietly 
dropped without an explanation last month. 
Authorities refused to conjecture regarding the 
timing of the two events, but the ritualistic nature of an 
attempted capital murder that transpired during the burglary 
has already intrigued forensic experts around the world.  
One psychologist, who refused to be identified for this 
article, indicated that the two events were likely related. 
 Minutes before midnight, Gayle Blackley, of the 
20000 block of Shale Green Drive, awakened to find her 6-
month-old infant son, Damon, missing from the bed she 
shared with her husband, Kevin.  Searching the house for 

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her child, she told authorities that she heard the baby crying 
in the backyard.  When she went to investigate, she found 
the rear patio doors pried open. 
 In the center of her backyard, Christen Bass 
allegedly crouched over the child with a large butcher knife 
that he reportedly brought to the scene for this purpose.  
Fearing for her only child’s life, Mrs. Blackley screamed, 
awakening her husband, who managed to chase the attacker 
away, leaving the boy relatively unharmed. 
 Police arrested Mr. Bass 30 minutes later, after he 
became disoriented in the densely populated subdivision.  
His van was easily identified due to damage Mr. Blackley 
inflicted to its front windshield.  Mr. Bass immediately 
confessed to the crimes upon apprehension. 
 Additionally, investigators announced that Mr. Bass 
had confessed to other crimes, which he claims to have 
committed in multiple states within the past twelve months.  
Despite the fact that his appointed legal representative 
cautioned him not to do so, Christen Bass has stated 
publicly that he wants to plead guilty to all charges and 
receive the death penalty.  When asked, investigators 
familiar with the case would not indicate whether Mr. Bass 

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had in fact committed any crime eligible for the death 
penalty. 
 Currently, he is accused of aggravated burglary, 
aggravated kidnapping and attempted capital murder of a 
child under the age of six, none of which are punishable by 
the death penalty.  Mr. Bass was arraigned on these charges 
in the district court, where he immediately pled guilty in a 
rambling outburst that included implications he suffered 
from demonic hallucinations.  The judge rejected this plea 
of guilty, and rescheduled the hearing for an indefinite date, 
pending psychiatric and medical evaluations of the 
defendant. 
 
- Helen Valentine, Pecan Groves Register… 
 
 …Christen laid the clipped newspaper article aside with a genuinely friendly 
smile.  “I guess we really put Pecan Groves, Texas on the map, didn’t we.” 
 “You did, anyway,” returned Ms. Valentine, “I just wrote it up the way it 
happened.” 
 “I like the article for the most part,” he added with a rueful smile, “Except for the 
word ‘demonic’.  I never claimed it was a demon.  I called her a ‘bad angel’.” 
 “I correct myself in later articles, as you know,” she responded, her face flat and 
inscrutable.  “Your crimes were only hours old, when I wrote that one.” 

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 “I apologize for getting you out of bed so early that morning,” he teased, lifting 
another article.  “Shall I read another.” 
 “I already know what they say, since I wrote them, but knock yourself out.” 
 “Okay, just one more, then.  I especially like this one, because you used my 
nickname…” 
 
 …Today, Texas authorities transported Christen 
Bass, the so called ‘Bad Angel Killer’, to Montgomery, 
Alabama, where he pled guilty to the mass murder of 
seventeen people, many of them prominent social fixtures, 
during the infamous Mobile Bay Bombing two years 
earlier.  The same attack maimed 73 others, many of them 
seriously.  Mr. Bass confessed to the murders after his 
apprehension and subsequent conviction for an unrelated 
burglary, kidnapping and attempted capital murder in Pecan 
Groves, Texas.  Authorities insist Mr. Bass would not have 
been associated with the bombing without his spontaneous 
confession. 
 Mr. Bass’ appearance in Alabama completed 
protracted legal negotiations between the states of Texas 
and Alabama regarding the disposition of the defendant’s 
sentencing for crimes committed in the latter jurisdiction.  
Incensed and outraged over the audacious bombing of one 

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of Mobile’s premier communities, the people of Alabama 
have called for Mr. Bass to face their death penalty, despite 
the fact that Texas has already sentenced the defendant to 
death for the capital murder of Mississipi ‘Missy’ Jones, 
83, a Texas widow.  Missy Jones was beaten and strangled 
during a burglary of her residence, just one of many fatal 
crimes for which the defendant has been charged in Texas, 
though he is unlikely to ever face another trial there. 
 According to the agreement between the two states, 
Mr. Bass, 35, pled guilty to the capital crimes in Alabama 
and received 17 death sentences, to be served after the 
accused completes his sentence in Texas.  Since Texas 
intends to execute Mr. Bass within the year, he is unlikely 
to serve any time in Alabama, rendering the conviction a 
hollow, symbolic gesture, at best. 
 During the hearing in Montgomery today, the 
defendant confessed to the particularly heinous bombing in 
a rambling, hour long statement that shed little light on his 
choice of victims, and that expressed no remorse or regret 
for the loss of life.  Often during his statement, Mr. Bass 
asserted that a ‘bad angel’ had driven him to commit the 
countless crimes of which he is accused and to which he 
has repeatedly confessed. 

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 ‘What would you do, if God commanded you to do 
something.’ asked the defendant of the judge hearing his 
plea.  ‘If you truly believed it was the voice of God, you 
could only obey.  I obeyed the angel’s commands, because 
I believed her to be an agent of God.’ 
 During the first weeks of the investigation into his 
lengthy confession, authorities suspected deception on a 
scale unseen since Henry Lucas and Otis O’toole confessed 
and later recanted the murders of 500-600 people in nearly 
every state of the union.  Subsequent discoveries confirmed 
much of Mr. Bass’ statements, however, despite his bizarre 
insistence that a ‘bad angel’ had guided and protected him 
during his yearlong crime spree. 
Contrary to conjecture that he might later do 
otherwise, Mr. Bass never used his alleged hallucinations 
as a basis for an insanity offense.  Likewise, he refused his 
attorneys’ requests to present expert medical testimony 
regarding obvious damage to the frontal lobes of his brain.  
Mr. Bass suffered these injuries during a New Year’s Eve 
traffic accident three years earlier.  The frontal lobe, 
experts contend, governs many key aspects of personality, 
including the socially oriented ability to distinguish right 

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from wrong, a fact that might have garnered some leniency 
from the court. 
Justifying his decision to embrace his death 
sentence and refuse all appeals, Mr. Bass once said, ‘I 
know how I’m going to die, now.  It’s two needles and a 
few short, painless minutes.  How are you going to die.  
When.  Will it be so easy.  Think about it.’ 
 Indeed, the notorious killer seems more than 
resigned to die, since the prospect appears to please him 
greatly.  During the course of interviews, Mr. Bass appears 
invariably smiling and carefree.  He has repeatedly stated 
that he looks forward to his date with the executioner.  His 
‘bad angel’, he claims, waits to welcome him to what he 
has called ‘the next step of existence’. 
 
- Helen Valentine, Pecan Groves Register… 
 
…Christen pretended to wipe sweat from his brow.  “Whew!” he huffed, “That 
one was long-winded!” 
“I was getting a lot of space, at the time.”  Helen reached for a cigarette in her 
purse, and then remembered that she had not been allowed to carry it into the visiting 
room. 
“You seem nervous, Ms. Valentine.  Do I make you nervous.” 

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“You always make me nervous, Mr. Bass.  You know that.” 
“Ah,” he intoned, raising a finger and a knowing eyebrow.  “It’s the cigarettes, 
isn’t it.” 
 “Yeah, that’s right.” 
 “How long has it been, now.” 
 She wondered if he referred to her diagnosis or her period of abstinence.  Neither 
were subjects she wanted to discuss with a condemned serial killer.  “Six months.” 
 “Six months.  Cold turkey without a slip.” 
 Despite her resolve, Helen grinned ruefully.  “I’ve slipped a few times.” 
 “Fight the good fight, Ms. Valentine,” encouraged the killer, his teeth gleaming 
whitely behind thin lips.  Changing subjects, he wondered, “Why are all my courtroom 
statements ‘rambling’.” 
 She shrugged.  He often teased her this way.  “How would you describe them.” 
 “Poetic.”  Incredibly, given his predicament, he laughed. 
 Returning his humor with pressed lips, Helen responded, “That word never 
occurred to me, Christen, but it wouldn’t have passed edit, if it had.  Small town Texas 
readers don’t want to think of a serial killer as being ‘poetic’.” 
 “Yeah, I know,” he returned resignedly.  “It’s like a cheese pizza with a double 
topping of sliced shit.”  Again, he laughed, apparently oblivious to the fact that Texas 
would strap him to a gurney within forty-eight hours.  “It’s like John Gacy playing Pogo 
the clown.”  He feigned an exaggerated shiver.  “Man, that’s just a creepy combination!” 
 “To be sure.”  Helen grunted, and shifted in her seat.   Pointedly lifting her pen 
and placing its tip to paper, she intoned, “Mr. Bass, I came here to interview you 

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regarding your pending execution, which appears certain at this point.  Shall we talk 
about the subject at hand, now.” 
 “I thought we were.” 
 “I’d like to hurry things along a bit. Time is-“ she bit her lip. 
 “Short.” he asked innocently.  “It’s okay, Ms. Valentine, I don’t mind.  I’m 
looking forward to it.  You know that.  God, somebody once told me, is the nature of 
time, while time is the nature of God.  A minute may seem a lifetime, while eternity may 
seem nothing at all.” 
 “Is that how you view eternity, Mr. Bass.” 
 “In a manner of speaking,” he grunted, as he attempted to make himself 
comfortable, despite the restraint of his cuffs and shackles.  They never let him loose on 
Death Row, especially not in the visitation room.  “We all live repeatedly, Ms. Valentine, 
that’s the easy part to figure.  The hard part is knowing that to be ourselves, we must be 
ourselves, every time.” 
 “I don’t follow.” 
 “Once you are born, you must live the same life and suffer the same fate each 
time, otherwise you are not you.”  He smiled knowingly, when she appeared confused.  
“It takes a while to get it straight, Ms. Valentine, but I have all the time in the world to 
explain.  Shall I try.” 
 She nodded, and he continued, “Simply stated, given infinite possibility and 
infinite time, life must evolve on countless planets throughout the universe.  Every time 
life evolves, chemistry and physics render the remote possibility that life will evolve in a 
fashion nearly identical to our own DNA-based evolution.  That being the case, given the 

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infinite possibilities of eternity and the cosmos, you and I have potentially been born only 
to die a thousand times over. 
 “It’s like a mirror that reflects a mirror that reflects a mirror, you see.  That’s the 
good and the bad of it.  It’s good, because it’s comforting to know that this time around 
isn’t the only time around.  Its bad, because it means we have to make the same sad 
mistakes and suffer the same ill consequences, each time.  Otherwise, you would not be 
you and I would not be me.” 
 Ms. Valentine raised her eyebrows, and briefly scribbled a few lines of shorthand 
notes.  “It’s an interesting theory,” she announced eventually, blowing a long, cool sigh, 
“But what does it have to do with eternity.” 
 “Do you remember what you were, before you were born.” 
 “Of course not.” 
 “Me, either.  Nobody does, naturally.  This is my point.  Eternity, Ms. Valentine, 
that indefinite span of time between death and life, is forever in an instant.” 
 She scribbled further notes.  “I take it you don’t believe in the Judean-Christian 
concept of a soul.” 
 “A soul.”  Christen seriously pondered the ideal.  “I don’t know for sure, but I 
suppose I do, in a way.  I’m certain of one thing, though.” 
 “What’s that.” 
 “Something’s going to happen, the day after tomorrow.  Something wonderful.  
And my bad angel.”  He smiled and rolled his eyes.  “She’ll be waiting there to take my 
hand, when the moment comes.” 
 “Why her, Christen.  Why Ashley Austin.” 

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 He shrugged and offered no immediate response.  As he appeared to be lost in 
thought, the reporter held her patient silence.  With another shrug, he appeared to 
surrender to the complexities of the problem.  “I don’t know,” he returned softly.  “I 
really don’t know, except to guess that certain fates are intertwined with others in an 
inseparable fashion.  It’s like we are two facets of the same destiny.  After all, without 
her, I would not be the man I am today.  Without me, she would not be dead.  I was there, 
when she died.  Perhaps she wants to return the support.” 
 “Does your angel ever visit you in prison.” 
 “No.  I haven’t seen or spoken with her since that night, the last night.  She said 
good-bye, and she was gone.  That’s all.” 
 “Are you bothered by the claims that you fabricated the hallucination to somehow 
alleviate your own sense of blame.” 
 “Not at all.  I know the truth, and I have confessed my crimes accordingly.  I 
never denied the things I have done, and I never shirked the blame, guilt or punishment.  
In fact, I have embraced it all.”  Christen sighed longingly.  “Mine won’t be the quickest 
execution in Texas history, but it should come close, if they have the guts to finish it 
properly this time.” 
 “Why have you refused all appeals on your behalf.  Why hurry the process 
along.” 
 Christen rolled his eyes and indicated the confines of the Death Row visitation 
chamber with upraised palms.  “Would you want to languish in a place like this for years, 
Ms. Valentine.  Who would.  Oh, sure, some of these animals cling to every last second 

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of their miserable lives, but this only delays the inevitable.”  He shook his head and 
smacked his lips.  “Man, there’s nothing like justice in Texas!” 
 “You’re saying it’s a means of easy escape, then.”  This was both a question and a 
statement. 
 “Oh, it’s much more than that.  It’s an efficient and necessary means of taking out 
the garbage of society.  What good are we, Ms. Valentine.  Even the average citizen is 
good for little to nothing, save for watching television and consuming vast quantities of 
fast food and cheap, plastic things, but you take a guy like… like me, for instance, and 
what do you have.  Nothing.  No, less than nothing, you have a waste of everything 
human.  Why keep us around.” 
 “Rehabilitation,” posed the reporter.  “Benevolence.” 
 Christen scoffed with a flatulent noise from his lips.  “That sounds all fine and 
good on paper, Ms. Valentine, but it overlooks one vital fact.” 
 “What.” 
 “A man who kills once might as well kill twice.  And a man who kills twice is just 
as comfortable having killed four, or five, or… you get the idea.” 
 “How many did you kill.” 
 Again, he shrugged.  “I only remember the thing in Mobile and the four in Texas.  
I might have killed fifty, or a hundred, I don’t know.  They say I killed fourteen others in 
Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, but they never charged me, as you know.  It doesn’t 
seem like they ever will, now.” 
 “Why.” 
 “Why what.” 

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 “Why did you kill so many innocent people, Christen.” 
 “Innocent.” he smirked. “Innocent of what.  The truth is; I don’t know why I 
killed them, except that they were anything but innocent, according to my bad angel.  I 
believed her.” 
 “Why should you believe a figment of your imagination.  Especially to the point 
of acting out the way you have.” 
 “I know most people will refuse to hear anything I say.  Most people think I’m a 
lunatic, no matter how the court feels about it.  Regardless of their opinion, however, 
everyone should remember one important fact.” 
 “Yes.” 
 “I already died once.  That’s documented.” 
 “Are you claiming that the injuries you sustained in the earlier accident somehow 
caused you to do what you did.” 
 “I’m not saying anything about it, except to note that it happened.  It really 
happened, and nobody can deny that, especially not you, Ms. Valentine, since you wrote 
it up in your own newspaper.  No, I’m only thinking aloud, but I wonder sometimes. I 
wonder what happened while I was on the other side.  Sometimes, I think I didn’t make it 
back, after all.” 
 Helen’s incessantly scratching pen fell still, and she raised her eyes.  “How do 
you mean.” 
 “I never denied the angel until the end, Ms. Valentine.  She returned with me, you 
see, and I have a feeling that something happened between us while I was dead.”  
Christen’s face screwed into a curious expression, and his lips worked together as though 

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seeking for a familiar flavor upon his tongue.  “It’s impossible to describe, really, except 
to use her own words.  The truth is neither good nor evil, Ms. Valentine, it simply is.” 
 “And the truth is.” 
 “The truth is; I killed those people.  I always kill those people.  I will kill them 
countless times again.” 
 She smiled, despite herself, and recorded his words in her own hand.  “If your 
statements are not rambling, Christen, then I don’t know what they are.” 
 He smiled and nodded, conceding her point.  “I suppose they are, but then I 
suppose life rambles, too.  Why does one sane person purposefully kill another.  
Anybody with a mind asks that question from time to time.  Why.  The final truth, Ms. 
Valentine, is a simple one.  Whether a crazed junky pulling the trigger on a terrified store 
clerk for twenty dollars in change, or a spoiled socialite contracting her well insured 
husband’s murder for hire, everybody kills for the same reason.” 
 When he paused for effect, she tapped her pen pointedly, uncomfortable playing 
psychological games with a confessed serial and mass murderer.  As he required, she 
prompted.  “You tease.” 
 “Everybody kills who they kill when they kill, simply because they are acting in 
time as God’s means of destiny.  They kill, because others must die.” 
 Helen pursed her lips.  “That’s bullshit, Christen.” 
 “If you think I’m full of shit, Ms. Valentine, why do you keep coming around.  I 
mean, besides the royalties and exclusives.” 

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 Realizing that this would be her last conversation with this complex and deeply 
disturbed man, Helen responded honestly.  “I suppose it’s because I can’t help thinking 
about that accident on New Year’s Eve three years ago.” 
 Christen’s ever present smile faded a bit, and he stiffened.  “Why so.” 
 “For one thing, the circumstances and timing of the incident were strange.  I don’t 
buy into your belief that fate is pre-destined or pre-ordained, but I can’t help feeling… 
serendipity in the way events developed. 
 “More importantly, I’ve personally researched your life prior to the accident, and 
it stands as a marked contrast to your life afterward.  Though you committed untold 
numbers of crimes in the following twelve months, I could find nothing more than a few 
minor traffic violations in the time preceding.”  Helen tossed her hair with a sharp breath.  
“Even your ex-wife had nothing but good things to say about you.  After talking to her 
last year, I had the feeling that she somehow blamed herself for everything. 
 “So it bothers me a bit when I hear that the state’s own medical experts were 
prepared to confirm your attorney’s assertions of brain damage, had you allowed him to 
present this evidence.  At worst, you would have received a life sentence.  At best, you 
might have been found not guilty due to incompetence.” 
 His eyes sparkled condescendingly, when he replied, “You say it so easily.  You 
appear to write it easier.  The truth is; you don’t have a true understanding of the words.  
First, a life sentence in this place is no easy trick.  Second, I am guilty.  I did it all.” 
 “At the behest of a bad angel.” 
 “They were my hands and feet, Ms. Valentine, though I sometimes wish to God 
they weren’t.” 

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 She knit her brow and cocked her head, but refused to glance up from her work.  
“I’m confused.  I thought you were doing God’s work, in the first place.” 
 “I was, but that doesn’t necessarily imply that I enjoyed it.  In fact, I suspect, if 
the truth could be known, God’s labors would rarely seem pleasant.  You see, Ms. 
Valentine, there is no obvious division between good and evil, but the human condition 
somehow demands guilt in the face of joy.  Most of us might be secretly pleased to cut 
the throat of our most hated enemy, but the psychological consequences of such an act 
are extreme, so extreme that most of us choose to find another solution to our problems.  
Most of us.” 
 “And those that don’t.” 
 “Well, Ms. Valentine, you really have to worry about those folks.  They obviously 
never learned to guilt themselves.  When a person of that disposition takes a mind to 
please his or herself, they are free to take that pleasure however they choose.  No amount 
of begging can dissuade them, and no extremity of punishment can deter them.  Before 
the act is finished, they are unstoppable, and once the deed is done, they are remorseless.” 
 Ms. Valentine scribbled his words rapidly for a time.  Eventually, she cleared her 
throat, and asked, “Earlier you said you were caged with animals.  Do you consider 
yourself one of those animals.” 
 Christen shook his head, his eyes flat and serious.  “No.  Absolutely not.  Christen 
Bass was a good, law-abiding citizen.  He was educated, and he worked hard for his 
family, such as he knew it. The true Christen Bass, the man the world knew before that 
accident three years ago, is dead, unfortunately.  In fact, the accident killed him.  In this 
sense of the question, the answer is a definitive no 

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 “The man you see before you now is another matter.  Would you want me for 
your next door neighbor.” 
 Helen smiled despite herself.  “No.  Nevertheless, you highlight the central 
controversy associated with your situation.  Many Texans believe you were not 
competent at the time of the trial to deny expert medical testimony that might have saved 
you.  Indeed, these individuals often cite such behavior as an indication of your dementia.  
What would you say to these well meaning observers, Christen.” 
 “First, I would thank them.  I understand why they make such claims.  They’re 
true, after all.  Second, I would tell them to shut the fuck up and go away.  I don’t want 
their help, well meaning as it is.” 
 “Why are you so determined to die.” 
 “In light of the fact that I suffered irreversible brain damage during the accident, 
and given that this has apparently resulted in uncontrollable and violent behavior, I feel 
my execution is the only sensible course of action for society to take.  They’d euthanize a 
rabid dog for the animals own good as well as theirs.  Well, here I am, a mad dog.  Gas 
me, baby!” 
 “It seems most likely, at this point.” 
 “I hope so, Ms. Valentine, and I hope that book you’re writing makes the best 
sellers list.  If you want to write a postscript for me, tell the world that Texas is doing the 
right thing here.  I deserve to die.  Anybody that would do what I did deserves to die.  It’s 
the only way for the rest of you to feel safe, to be safe.” 
 “If you were somehow set free tonight, would you kill again.” 

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 “That would depend on the voices inside my head, and I think we’ve already seen 
what happens when I listen!  Would you want to take a chance with your own life.  With 
you family’s lives.  No, the only way to be certain is execution.  Don’t you agree.” 
 “It’s not my place to agree or disagree, Christen.  I try to remain as objective as 
possible, when I’m working.” 
 “What about when you’re at home at night, a private citizen.  What do you think 
about me, then. 
 “If we were in the privacy of my home after hours, I might tell you.  Right now, 
I’m working.” 
 “Give a condemned prisoner a break, Ms. Valentine.  I’ve read enough of your 
articles to appreciate your true feelings on the subject.  You can be honest.  I promise I 
won’t bite your head off,” and he flashed a lengthy, toothy smile that appeared to 
guarantee the opposite course of action. 
 “I say; push the button.” 
 “Now you’re talking!”  Christen laughed, and leaned backward to shout at four 
guards standing dourly nearby, eyes suspicious and wary.  “Hey, guys, did you hear that.  
So much for the liberal media, huh.  She should work on the inside!  Ms. Valentine,” he 
enthused, returning to the telephone, “You might be as blood thirsty as some of my 
esteemed roommates.” 
 “I think not, but you have to admit, Christen, how your own behavior while 
incarcerated has only served to fuel the demand for your execution.  You’ve consistently 
shown no remorse or regret for anything you did, and you have yet to sufficiently explain 
your selection of victims.  Obviously, you’ve worked hard to ensure that the state of 

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Texas will execute you this time around, but what about the truth now.  It’s too late to 
save yourself at this late hour, so why not explain yourself more clearly.” 
 Christen sighed, weary of a tiresome frustration.  “I tried to explain a hundred 
times.  Nobody wants to accept my explanation.” 
 “You’re talking about the bad angel, again, of course.” 
 “That’s right.  The truth is the truth, Ms. Valentine.  I can’t change it with a lie 
and still call it the truth.  I can’t explain the choice of victims any better, because she 
rarely told me why.  I rarely asked.  She guided, and I followed.  I did what I was told, 
that’s all.” 
 “Young and old, male and female, your victims were of various races and socio-
economic demographics.  Your selections appear to be genuinely random.  Would that be 
an accurate assessment.” 
 “No,” he shook his head emphatically, “Absolutely not.  I never asked why, but I 
understood that each one of them somehow deserved to die… just like I deserve to die the 
day after tomorrow.” 
 “Can you explain any of them.” 
 “A few.  The first two, for instance, are easy to explain.  That orderly had to die 
because of the horrible things that he had been doing to his more helpless patients, and 
the woman, the first female victim, was a monster.  I forget her name, but I know she 
brutalized her son and made him into the sort of animal that deserves to be where I am, 
now.  Someday, I suspect, you’ll write quite a bit about him, in fact.” 
 “How do you know.” 
 “The angel showed me.”  

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“And the Mobile bombing.” 
“I’m not really sure about all of them, but I know most of them were involved in a 
variety of unwholesome enterprises.  I told the Alabama courts how I personally 
delivered fifty pounds of various drugs to the location, just before I blew it up.  They 
didn’t want to hear that, though, and nothing ever came of my allegations.  That system is 
apparently locked up pretty tight.” 
 “What about Missy Jones, an eighty year old widow.” 
Christen chuckled darkly.  “Oh, she’s the best example, by far.  I told the police 
all about her, but they never even bothered to dig up the rest of the trees in her backyard.  
What about all the wallets and key chains in her hutch.  I asked, but they never bothered 
to wonder.  Don’t be surprised when a future resident of that property turns up more than 
one bleached skeleton buried under the azaleas and peach trees.”  
 “What about the boy.  What about young Damon Blackley.  Why did an infant 
deserve to die.” 
 The confessed murderer frowned and appeared deeply puzzled.  “That one bothers 
me, sometimes, Ms. Valentine.  In fact, I didn’t actually kill the child, because it bothered 
me even then.  Instead, I let him go, abandoning God and my bad angel in the same 
instant, and thereby embracing my own condemnation and mortal punishment.” 
 “You let him go.  Why should that bother you.  After all, it’s probably the one 
right thing you did during that yearlong crime spree.” 
 “Oh, I’m not bothered by the fact that I wanted to kill the child, Ms. Valentine.  
No, it bothers me that I didn’t kill him.  I can’t help but feel that something very bad is 
going to happen to the world, as a result of my weakness.” 

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 Helen’s eyebrows arched inquisitively.  “How so.” 
 He shrugged stiffly.  “How might the world be different today, if someone had 
purposefully smothered Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin in their cribs.” 
 Helen scribbled furiously, before sucking a deep breath and saying, “Many people 
would insist that your beliefs are symptomatic of a narcissistic, paranoid psyche, 
Christen, as exemplified by statements such as these.  How can you justify personally 
condemning a child as an anti-Christ, based on your visions of its future.” 
 “I can’t justify it, Ms. Valentine.  Only time can do that.  Wait and see what 
happens.” 
 “What do you think will happen, Christen.” 
 He fashioned an enigmatic mask of his face, and mused, “Oh, bad things, I 
suspect.  Lots of very bad things.” 
 Ms. Valentine paused to flip through her notes, making minor corrections and 
notations.  She read a few previous passages, and then flipped to the next blank page.  
“You seem to be obsessed with the conflict between good and evil, Christen, but you 
often say they are the same thing.” 
 “Two halves of the same whole,” he inserted. 
 “Further, you claim your bad angel was an agent of God, but you are not a 
religious person, not even behind bars.  In fact, you often doubt the very existence of 
God.  How can you rationalize these apparent contradictions.” 
 Christen laughed.  “That’s very bold, Ms. Valentine!  Who believes a mass 
murderer is capable of rationality.”  After a pause to recollect his wits, he added 

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seriously, “To this day, I doubt the origins of my bad angel.  I, like most of you, doubt 
very much that God sent me to murder little old ladies and helpless infants. 
“At the same time, I sensed a purpose in it.  I sensed divinity in it.  In the end, for 
unexplainable reasons, I believed.  Believing, I acted.  Whatever the truth might be, I’ll 
soon find out.  Once the drugs start to flow, I’ll know.  Either she’ll be there, or she 
won’t.” 
“Your bad angel, Christen.” 
He nodded sedately, beaming, as shadows fell across his shoulders.  They were 
coming for him. 
Sensing movement in the visitation chamber, she asked quickly, “Do you intend 
to make a last statement.” 
 With a steady hand, Christen stroked the stubble of his chin and jowls 
thoughtfully.  “No.  I think I’ve said all there is to say.  Don’t you.  Besides,” he gushed, 
“I’m likely to ‘ramble’, and nobody would believe me, anyway.” 
 Helen smiled thinly, noting the approach of guards at Christen’s back.  Their brief 
time together had ended.  Motioning for a final question, the reporter hurried through her 
notes, finding them utterly incomplete. 
 At last, as they lifted Christen to his feet and way from the telephone handset, she 
flustered to ask, “What would you say to Texas, Christen, if you could.” 
 “In the words of Porky Pig,” he cried mockingly, “Ba-deep, ba-deep, ba-deep, 
That’s all, folks!”  Then he replaced the handset, and was gone with a double-handed 
wave that jingled stainless steel manacles. 

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“Good-bye, Christen,” she called through the disconnected telephone.  She knew 
he was beyond hearing, but she felt she owed him something human, regardless of his 
well-deserved fate. 
Gathering the scanty belongings they had allowed her inside Death Row, Helen 
Valentine pondered Christen’s pending execution.  She wondered how she would react as 
a witness.  She wondered how he would react as a victim. 

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Gurney 

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269
 
-|- 

Four of them appeared at the door to his holding cell.  Their faces were grim, yet 
strangely compassionate.  They were well trained to do their morbid job, and they 
appeared determined to do it, with or without Christen’s assistance. 
“Hi, fellahs,” he greeted them brightly. 
 “It’s time, Mr. Bass.” 
 He stood to straighten his prison garb.  “I know.” 
 “We’re going to come inside to get you, now.  It will be easier if you cooperate.” 
 Christen smiled, “What do you want me to do.” 
 The door snapped unlocked and then rolled open with a sound of thunderous 
heavy metal.  “Just stand there nice and easy with your hands relaxed at your sides.  
We’ll do the rest.” 
 Wary and cautious, they slinked into the cell to place their hands on Christen’s 
body and extremities.  Beyond the cell door, Christen saw their captain standing to one 
side, dressed in body armor and riot gear.  A team of a dozen shock troops lingered ready 
nearby.  Before them, Christen saw the gurney waiting to carry him to the far side of a 
heartbeat. 
 “We’re going to walk you to the gurney, Mr. Bass,” intoned the leader of the four, 
holding Christen’s arms and a leather harness fixed to the prisoner’s torso, “Nice and 
slow.  If you would, please, lie down on your back.  We’ll do the rest.” 

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 “Sure, guys,” he returned respectfully, aware of the female guards in their 
presence, “Anything you say.” 
 As they led him from the holding cell to the specially contrived stretcher that 
bristled with restraints, Christen caught the eye of a particularly young attendant.  The 
young man grasped Christen’s right wrist with a white knuckled tenacity, ready for the 
worst. 
 “Don’t worry, kid,” spouted Christen evenly, as they led him gently yet forcefully 
to the gurney, “It’s okay.  This is the right thing to do.  I deserve this.” 
 “We appreciate your words,” returned the man giving the instructions, apparently 
the only one of the team authorized to speak.  “It makes this easier for all of us.  We’re 
just doing our jobs here, Mr. Bass.  That’s all.” 
 “It’s okay,” returned Christen, flexing his arms, once they reached the gurney.  
The four nearest him responded with a nervous tension, while the assault team assumed a 
ready stance as a single unit.  Following through with his motion, he climbed onto the 
gurney to lie on his back, offering his arms and legs for their restraints.  “You have to do 
it.  You always do it.  You’ve already done it.” 
 He watched with a tilt of his head, as they strapped his body securely into place 
with rapid efficiency.  Since he had been so responsive, they allowed him the courtesy of 
keeping his head free to the last.  “Make sure it’s nice and tight,” he offered, when one of 
the straps felt loose, “I don’t want to fall out, at the last minute.” 
 Finally, they looped a thick canvass strap over his head, fixing him to the padded 
table.  A physician appeared, who quickly fixed a needle into the exposed veins of 

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Christen’s inner elbows.  Attached to the needles, clear plastic tubes drained the fluid 
from a saline solution, which the doctor fixed to a tall rod attached to the gurney. 
 When he finished, he performed a quick examination of Christen’s condition, and 
pronounced everything ready to proceed.  Before they gathered at his head to roll him 
into the death chamber, the doctor leaned into Christen’s view, and mouthed the words, 
‘Forgive me’. 
 Christen nodded with his eyes.  “It’s okay.  I’m alright.  I’m happy to go, really.”  
The wheels of the gurney whiffle-thumped across the linoleum tile floor.  “In fact, I want 
to thank you, all of you, for treating me so well here, after all I did.  You don’t deserve to 
feel guilty for this.  It’s the right thing to do.” 
 His eyes fixed on the ceiling, Christen marveled at his time on Death Row.  It 
seemed an awful dream, and he felt genuinely happy to be quit of the steel and Plexiglas.  
“Funny,” he announced, as the double doors of the death chamber loomed into view, “It 
feels like I’m leaving home for the last time.  I think I’m really going to miss this place.”  
As the doors swung wide, he added, “It was cleaner than I ever thought a prison would 
be.” 
 With a series of motions and metallic noises, they quickly fixed the gurney into 
place at the center of the chamber.  The warden stood near one wall, along with a 
chaplain, and a brace of guards.  They were cleverly positioned such that Christen could 
watch them at the corner of his eyes, and he blinked his acknowledgement of their 
presence. 

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 Two darkened windows reflected to either side of him, while a third looked on out 
of sight above his head.  Two, he knew, would be filled to capacity with members of the 
press and his victim’s families.  The third, reserved for his supporters, would be empty. 
 When the warden asked him for a final statement, Christen held his tongue, and 
kept his eyes focused on the ceiling.  The following two minutes passed with agonizing 
slowness, and Christen thought to hurry it along with a word, as he knew he was entitled. 
 Nevertheless, he held his tongue, and he clung to his final two minutes of life in a 
state of mortal reflection.  What good had he wrought on Earth.  What evil. 
 These were long, private thoughts that could never be finished.  Ultimately, the 
prison physician signaled that the fatal dose was prepared, and the warden commanded 
the unseen executioner to start the injections that would claim Christen’s life. 
 So tortuously slow, those last two minutes had passed as an instant, after all.  He 
sucked a quick breath, and his heart raced to feel the burning sensation of the first drug, 
where it coursed through the veins of his forearms to his armpits.  His hands throbbed 
miserably for a moment, and he tasted acrid rubber. 
 “Demons,” he warned enigmatically, “Live among us.” 
 All at once, he felt the oddest sensation of floating in flat, calm sea.  Its waters 
lapped gently all around his body, warm and delicate, enticing in their depths.  With a 
slow, certain slip, he felt himself drawn down beneath the dappled surface, such that his 
form disappeared with a soft, wet sound in a motion so faint as to scarcely leave a ripple.  
Submerged, he sucked a quick, liquid breath.  Once.  Twice.  Three times. 

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 Then he no longer felt the need to breathe, at all.  Instead, he swam as a fish 
through a crystalline medium that welcomed him home in a primordial fashion.  He 
scarcely felt his heart stop. 
 Turning his head with the last of his human will, Christen’s eyes focused at the 
length of his fingertips.  Though his perception rolled wildly, he struggled to see… to see 
her… standing there… waiting with a childish smile that beamed sunlight and promised 
azure joy. 
 With a cold, thoughtful reflex, he waggled his fingers, longing for her soothing 
touch.  His heartbeat languished, still and stifled, on that last thought, and he worried for 
her presence, he wondered for her guidance. 
 In the last moment, her fingers fell into his with a sensation that ascended merely 
mortal contact.  As a spark leaps a gap, he felt himself bond to her, to the entire universe, 
where it brooded beyond human understanding, where it waited beyond a final gasp and a 
last, sluggish pulse.  Before his eyes, the awe of eternity churned in a timeless spiral amid 
an unfathomable void, and he knew he could touch it all with a single thought. 
 Into the piercing brilliance of her warm, affectionate smile, Christen hissed, “I 
knew you would come,” with his last breath.  On a sputter, he died. 
 
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