Rick Mofina - If Angels Fall

Telephone.

If you ever get lost, Gabrielle, just call home.

She would call home right now.

“Where is the phone, Danny?”

He pointed to the door. “Out there.”

Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

She was scared. She looked around the room again.

“Danny, you sure there’s no phone in this room?”

“Out there.”

Gabrielle stood, she was a little dizzy. Maybe sheshould just sit here and wait. No! She had to do it. She had to, so shewouldn’t be in trouble. She had to phone home. And she had to pee.

Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

The grease-stained burger boxes and bags crumpled asshe moved to the door. What if the man was watching from a spy hole, ready tocome in at any second? The wrappers, napkins, empty drink cups, boxes, and bagsrustled. Something squished. Yuck. A half-eaten burger. Stale ketchup bledunder her shoe. In the far off corner some wrappers were moving.

By themselves.

Gabrielle froze.

The bags moved a little, trembling like something wasgnawing on them. Gabrielle watched. Maybe it was Jackson? What else could itbe? It had to be Jackson. Gabrielle cut a path to the corner.

“Here, pup,” she cooed, lifting a large bag just as agiant rat with ketchup dripping from its mouth flew at her, coming so close shefelt its tail slap against her palm!

Gabrielle screamed, jumped back, falling.

A vanilla cream cookie whizzed by the rat’s head.

“Go away!” Danny shouted, reaching into his bag foranother.

Gabrielle scurried to Danny. Together they firedcookies at the rat. It had touched her. She was scared.

The door swung open.

Mr. Jenkins. Only, he didn’t look so friendly now. Abig silver cross was swinging from his neck. He spotted the rat, disappeared,and returned with a baseball bat.

“Vermin!” he screamed, bring the bat down swiftly,missing the rat. It squealed, the bat went clank and garbage scattered.

He yelled, swinging the bat down again.

The fierceness of the man’s attack frightened thechildren more than the rat did. His eyes were huge, popping out of his head,the white parts as big as eggs. His hair wild like a nest o angry snakes.Spittle clung to his beard.

Keller swung again, making a wet, squishing sound. Helaughed, his bat dripping with the blood of the rat. Gabrielle screamed. Kellerlooked at her.

“It is done,” he said, moving toward the children.

Keller’s expression changed. Raphael and Gabriel werebefore them. He saw their auras.

The light of one million suns shone upon him.

His rage was replaced by rapture. Like a victoriousbattle-weary soldier, he laid his foe at the throne. The bloodied, pulpycarcass, fur and mangled intestines, lay inches from Gabrielle and Danny.Gabrielle stifled her sobs, trying not to look.

“W-We want to go home, now. Please Mr. Jenkins,” shepleaded.

Keller did not hear her.

“You have come, Gabriel. God’s emissary. You have cometo me!”

“Please, Mr. Jenkins! Let me phone my mommy anddaddy!”

Remembering the bat, Keller lifted it to his face,examining the blood with fascination.

“I am cleaned in the light of the Lord. I have tastedthe blood of my enemies. None shall defeat me, for my mission is divine and Iam truly invincible.” He moved his fingers over the blood-slicked club. “I amcleansed in the light-I have tasted the blood of my enemies.”

“My mission is divine. I am truly invincible.”

Gabrielle pulled Danny tight to her.

Keller went upstairs to the bathroom and ran the bathwater.

God had answered his prayers.

One more angel and the choir would be complete.

Then the transfiguration would begin.

Wiping the tears from his face, he stood and kissedhis crucifix.

It was time for the second baptism.

If Virgil Shook worshiped anything in this world beyond himself it was the Zodiac,the personification of power.

The Zodiac was the hooded executioner who had murderedfive people in the Bay Area during the late 1960’s and mocked police in thecryptic letters he wrote to newspapers. His cunning eclipsed the best minds ofthe SFPD and the FBI. He owned the city, mastered its fear, yanking it by aleash at his leisure. The Zodiac was a visionary, a seer who knew that when hedied, his victims would be his slaves and he would be a king in paradise.

They had never captured him. Shook signed.

For a time last year, like the Zodiac, he had sippedfrom the cup of power. He had enjoyed Tanita, the little prostitute. Loved herto death and forced the city to tremble in the wake of his omnipotence. He hadmanipulated Franklin Wallace, outsmarted police, and taunted the priest withhis confessions, spitting in the face of his God, compelling him to genuflectto the power of The One.

That was then. Now the city was under the spell ofanother. A new player was reaping the harvest of Shook’s work and Shook wasenraged.

Who did this new fuck think he was?

Shook snapped off the late-night TV news afterabsorbing the reports of Gabrielle Nunn’s abduction in Golden Gate Park. Thehorror in Nancy Nunn’s face had seared him. Her pain should have been his torelish. Yet he watched mournfully from afar, like a starving wolf contendingwith the mark of a new predator.

Shook paced his dirty flophouse room, oblivious to theopera of sirens piercing the foul of night air of the Tenderloin. If he wasgoing to be immortalized like the Zodiac, it was time to up the ante. Time toteach the challenger a lesson in a way even more thrilling than it had beenwith poor little Franklin Wallace, when he plucked him like a harp, savoringthe danger of it to the point of arousal.

Franklin? It’s me.

Oh Lord, don’t call me at home like this. Lorddon’t!

They know, Franklin, he lied. They know aboutTanita. Me. You.

NO!

They know everything. And the press knows, too.

No!

They found the pictures of you with her in DoloresPark. They are coming for you soon. You know what that means.

No!

Remember our pact, Wallace. We must pay for oursins. We both know that.

But, Virgil, I-

Think of your family, the insurance. They won’tpay if you’re connected to anything criminal, Franklin. They are coming foryou.

Wallace was sobbing, a sickly, man-child kind ofweeping.

Virgil, please! I don’t know what to do.

You do know. We both know. Good-bye, Franklin.

Virgil-No, wait.

May God have mercy on you, Wallace.

Shook fired the blank from the.22, dropping itwith the phone on the floor. Wallace screamed through the earpiece, his voicetiny, distant. An hour later, Shook stood safely out of sight near Franklin’shouse, smiling to himself when that fool he called at the Star appeared onFranklin’s doorstep, like an obedient lapdog.

Everything flowed. Beautifully. The Zodiac wouldapplaud him.

Time to move on. Time to teach a new, painful lesson,one that would transcend his work with Franklin, one tempered with rage for thenew fuck.

Shook pulled on a pair of gloves and went to thecorner newspaper box, returning with two fresh editions of the Star .

He went to his bed, a huge steel-framed monstrosityfrom a St. Louis hospital that had burned down. He unscrewed the middle hollowbar from the head and carefully tapped out several rolled-up Polaroidssnapshots of himself with Tanita Donner. None one had seen these pictures. Andno one knew of the tantalizing clue he had left police before he dispatched thelittle prostitute to paradise.

Shook traced gloved fingers tenderly over the photosbefore selecting two. He ripped the Nunn abduction story from the firstnewspaper and scrawled a note over the text, using a blue felt-tip pen like theZodiac. He folded the clipping, put it in a plain, brown envelope, scanned thephone book, then addressed the envelope to Paul Nunn.