Running from a werewolf

*

One must hit bottom and go through the bottom to reach the place of peace, the garden one has always wanted. But first one must hit bottom.

*

Duessa leaped with her pads up some dark steps and her maw opened as if 360 degrees. A scream as big as the "world". One poor clerk had made the mistake of walking home that night. She seized the Christian's throat, tore it and fed on the person alive. This was the lady who was now senior warden of her church, a pillar of a community that was falling. Be sober, you just never know when the fiery words of Ezekiel will come alive again: "[They] are like wolves tearing [their] prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives in order to get unjust gain" (Ezekiel 22:27, HCSB).

There is a superfluity based on another's pain that is a weedpatch where the devil lives.

Now when the siren rang her shoulder blades began to tingle, a precision instrument, and she loped into the void.

*

Elf stood over her attacker and wailed: I didn't do it. I didn't intend, I didn't mean to. His shoulder was so dislocated that it was almost a separate object -- a sacrificial offering. The siren stopped, the door of the vehicle opened, and she stood quietly waiting to be arrested. Wolves hopped through the alley, no longer boys at all.

But it was it was the chubby priest Sam or Samuel driving the van -- a rescuer! -- and look, all her other friends are inside. Get in, they said. We're taking you away from here.

As though 40 days and 40 nights -- although she was not worth such a thought of comparison.

She got into the van and the strange man, Dave, her fellow worshipper, briefly hugged her and then let her sit in peace, a woman of violence, but no, ultimately no. There was corny Christian music playing on the radio, you offer me the aroma of God as filtered through static and thick red cloth. Elf collapsed and had her breakdown in a safe place, moving closer and closer into God's arms, the only safe place in the entire world -- those arms' invisible touch like something huge and warm and protective, because their "like" was reality. And her mother would never never never be allowed into this car.

*