The Angel of Lies
Copyright (c) 1993, Bruce Diamond
All rights reserved



                               The Angel of Lies
                                      by
                                 Bruce Diamond


     The lips moved right outside the second-story window.  Electronic whirr,
metallic slide, wooden click and the lips parted.  Whirr-slide-click and they
closed into a kiss-me pout.  And not only did the lips move, but the left eye
winked during each cycle.  Whirr-slide-click, lips and eye open.  Whirr-slide-
click, pout and wink.  The face was vaguely Monroeish, the product a national
brand of cigarettes.  Neither mattered to the six-month-old baby who stared
out his nursery window, transfixed by the larger-than-life face promising him
a goodnight kiss.

     From Bobby Reith's window, only the face was visible.  The nursery was
dark, so the florescents illuminating the billboard drew the child's
attention.  Bobby never cried the entire time that face moved outside his
window, a fact his parents noted without discovering the source of their
child's behavior.  He stared at that face (*whirr-slide-click*) night after
night, until a car dealer ad replaced it four months later.  But he continued
to stare out his window at night, still seeing the face that blew kisses at
him across the backyard.

     He began to cry at night a short time later.

                                #

     Five years old.  The child's first drive-in movie.  Those pictures
fascinated him when they moved in the brown box at home (especially with all
the lights out and the sound turned down), but the pictures out here were HUGE
and surrounded by a starry sky, making them all the larger.

     As if the people on that screen had learned at Edgar Bergen's knee, they
threw their voices straight to a banged-up metal box hanging from the car
window.  Bobby reached from the back seat and fumbled the volume down, staring
at the moving bodies, the moving lips, silent against the starry sky.  Bobby's
father slapped the small hand away and turned the volume back up.

     A Road Runner cartoon.  A Jerry Lewis movie.  Intermission.  Previews of
coming attractions.  ("Ghidrah--the monster with three heads!")  A Doris Day
movie.  A long night for a boy so young, but the Chevy's back seat took care
of that.  Bobby drifted in and out of sleep, dreaming of little Road Runners
(*beep-beep*) chasing little Jerry Lewises back and forth under the car seats,
trying to avoid the flyswatter hand of a weary five-year-old. The black Chevy
started up with a cough and a dark cloud, but Bobby slept on.  Not until the
car's lurch-stop, lurch-stop of leaving the lot did he wake up.  And yet not
fully--the young head lolled back and forth on the car seat, the eyes gazing
tiredly out the rear window.  When the car groaned onto the street, the child
saw a large silhouette on the rear of the movie screen.  A huge knight astride
a horse, lance at the ready.  The knight didn't move, didn't make a sound.
Bobby continued to stare at the knight until it receded into the distance.

     Bobby couldn't sleep when he got home.  He put on his Superman pjs and
threw his clothes on his favorite Romper Room chair, thoughts of the knight
filling his mind as he crawled into bed.  He looked around the dark room
through slitted eyelids, wondering when the little Jerry Lewises would come
back.  Instead the clothes on his chair began to melt, shaping themselves into
the knight and horse from the drive-in marquee.  The boy snapped his eyes
shut, but the image remained.  The knight didn't clank, the horse didn't even
whicker, but he knew they were there, waiting for him to take a peek. He
peeked between his fingers.

     The knight, no longer mounted, strode towards the bed, leveling his
ebony lance at the boy.  Bobby shook as he heard the knight's armored foot-
steps on the wooden floor.  Electronic whirr, as though the knight were a
robot, metallic slide as armored hands readied the lance, wooden click as
iron-shod foot met wooden slats.

     The knight stopped at the foot of the bed.  The lance, pointed at
Bobby's heart, wavered within an inch of the boy's chest.  He held his breath
in anticipation, even though he knew the weapon couldn't pierce the big red
"S" on his shirt.

     The knight moved quickly, thrusting the lance straight through the boy's
body.  It came back out with a wet, sucking sound.  Bobby screamed and
squeezed his eyes shut, trying to make the knight and horse go away.  Tears
streamed down his cheeks.  The lance moved in his chest, sending pulses of
pain through his body with every heartbeat.  "Go away!" he croaked, the words
caught in his throat along with his heart.  The horse whickered near his ear
and he felt its breath searing his skin.  Something wet dropped onto his neck,
causing his flesh to sizzle.  The stench roiled his stomach and bile burned
his mouth. "Go away right now!" Bobby choked out, and the pain stopped just
like that.  The horse's fetid breath, the knight's lance--both had disappeared
as though they never existed.  He felt his chest.  No hole, no blood, nothing.
He counted ten heartbeats, glad he still had a heart, and bravely opened his
eyes.  Both figures had disappeared.  The full moon shone around his room,
reassuring him that nothing waited for him in any of the corners.

     That left one place to check.

     Gulping air down a sandy throat, the boy slowly poked his head over the
edge of the bed.  There, lying in a pool of moonlight, were his Mickey Mouse
t-shirt and his Levis, the same ones he had tossed onto his Romper Room chair.
The arms of the t-shirt were reaching for the bed.

                                #

     Eight years old.  Christmas with relatives in Hannibal, Mo., home of
Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher.  Bobby remembered seeing
a movie on tv about those kids, but he just couldn't stay interested--what
stupid kid goes looking for buried treasure in a dark, creepy old cave and
runs into an Indian?  No, that couldn't have been for real. The family decided
(well, Dad, actually) to spend their couple of nights in town with Grandma
Reith, who was so old she had to share a one-story A-frame with Aunt Helen,
Dad's older sister.  (Dad came from a big family--a younger sister, an older
sister, and a whole pack of brothers--eight all told.  Bobby always got his
uncles mixed up and had to carry pictures of them in his billfold--his first
grown-up possession, besides his watch, given to him the Christmas before--
with their names written on the pictures in blue ballpoint.  The printing was
tiny--his teachers all complained about the size of his writing on
assignments--but still legible.  He checked the pictures every trip to
Hannibal.)

     Bobby loved staying at Grandma Reith's house, because she had a huge
roll-away with softest feather mattress ever made.  He usually fell asleep
pretending he was lying in a snowdrift or making hills in the mattress and
pretending little people lived just over the next range.  Once he brought some
toy cars to bed and made "vroom-vroom" noises all night as he raced them
around and over the hills.  Mom spanked him soundly for that--Grandmas don't
sleep well with "vroom-vroom" coming from the bed in the corner.

     As he sank into the mattress that first night, he noticed Grandma had
hung something on the wall across from the bed.  He made details as his eyes
adjusted to the dark.  The thing on the wall seemed to be a plate.  "That's
silly," he thought, "who hangs plates on their walls?  Grandmas, that's who."
Then, his eyes completely adjusted, the boy saw that the plate had something
painted on it.  A rock, a forest clearing ("Just like in Bambi!") and a long-
haired man in a white robe kneeling at the rock, his hands clasped together on
it and his face turned towards the sky.  He wore a beard, just like mean Uncle
Loran who tweaked Bobby's nose and threw him in the air (Uncle Loran lifted
weights), and a golden shaft of light streamed from the night sky, causing
every feature of the man's face to glow.  The man, who he now recognized as
jesuschristourlordamen (that's how they said it in church), seemed to plead
with the light, his glowing forehead all wrinkled up like he had a headache.

     Bobby had heard of this scene in Sunday School--jesuschristourlordamen
was asking his dad, godthefather, to take a full cup from him.  "A cup of
what?" he had asked the teacher.  "A cup of grief, Bobby."  He didn't dare ask
what grief meant, because his teacher hated to interrupt stories to explain
things.  He hoped grief tasted good, like cherry Koolaid.

     Jesuschristourlordamen prayed in the garden of Getsesame three times and
then went back to see that his disciplines had slept through it all. "Just
like I'm gonna do.  G'night, Jesus."

     But Jesus wouldn't let Bobby sleep.  His eyes kept drifting to that
shining face.  Silent.  Unmoving.

     Growing.

     Jesus grew, the light getting brighter, the rock getting bigger, and the
feather bed getting smaller every minute.  Bobby felt himself lifted and drawn
into the plate, like a cone of light reached across the room and sucked him
into it.  Just like on Star Trek.

     And then jesuschristourlordamen turned his head to the trembling boy and
said, "Are you frightened, little one?"  Bobby nodded, gulping.  "That's very
good.  'Suffer the little children to come unto me' I said a long time ago,
and it's good to see the little children still suffering."  Bobby was
confused.  Jesus' words were all turned around.

     "Where do you go if you do something bad, Bobby?"

     Bobby wished he were back in bed, sleeping.  "The bad place," he
whispered. "And what bad place is that, my little frightened angel?"

     The boy hesitated.  Mom told him never to use that word or he would
regret it.  Right now, he felt he would regret not saying it.

     "H-hell," he managed.  His ears burned.

     "And who lives in hell, my sweet little morsel?"  Horns?  On Jesus'
forehead?

     "The--the devil."

     Jesuschristourlordamen's skin reddened and his tongue sharpened to two
points.  "And what does the devil do to bad children?" he hissed.

     Bobby shook, streaks of sweat trailing down his face.  "H-he spanks
them?"

     The long hair and beard had disappeared by now.  The eyebrows arched
over blood-shot sunken eyes and the ears flared to points.  And as the jaw
moved, Bobby could hear a metallic whirr coming from the open mouth.  The
tongue slid around the red lips, slide, and the teeth came together with a
sharp click.

     "You know better than that, little angel.  You know better than to lie
to me."  Whirr-slide-click.  Saliva ran down the red chin.  The teeth chomped
and chewed as though biting through roasted flesh.  Whirr-slide-click. "You
know better, my little Angel of Lies."

     More saliva.  The demon glared at him with eyes of fire.  Whirr-slide-
click.  Jaw, tongue, teeth.  Saliva.  Hungry eyes.

     "The devil cooks bad children . . . and he EATS THEM!"

     The demon lurched at the boy, who jumped back, nearly falling off the
edge of the plate.  He glanced over his shoulder, tearing his eyes from the
demon in white robes, and saw himself still asleep, pillowed down in the goose
feather mattress.

     With renewed belief this was all a dream, he turned back to catch a blob
of burning spittle in his face.  The boy, repulsed and startled, staggered
while wiping the spittle from his eyes.  He heaved and felt vomit dribbling
from his mouth, dripping onto his chest.  The demon reached out, hissing, the
sound coming from a drive-in speaker box . . .

     "Bobby?  Oh my god, Larry, he's sick."  Mom put her oh-so-cool hand on
Bobby's forehead, while removing his vomit-stained pajama top with her free
hand.  She took him into the bathroom, washed him off with Dad's help, and
poured some Pepto-Bismol down his throat.  They couldn't make his grunts out
as words, so when Bobby was back in bed, held and rocked by Mom to soothe him,
jesuschristourlordthedevilamen still hung on the wall, whispering to
godthefatheroflies, about the succulent morsel sleeping in the same room.  Mom
tucked him in when he seemed calm, and Bobby dreamt of a demon in white robes
changing him into an angel.  Not just any angel, but a false angel.  The Angel
of Lies.

     And the demon chased him throughout the night around an empty drive-
in parking lot.  On the screen was a woman's face, winking and pouting, with a
whirr-slide-click coming from each speaker as he passed it.

                                #

     For weeks after, Bobby thought of nothing but the demon in white robes.
And the Angel of Lies.  He excused himself from attending Sunday School, using
his patented pretend-to-be-sick-and-stay-home-from-school routine.  That
worked for two Sundays.  The third Sunday, he got ready to walk the two blocks
to church, left the house, and then ran down the block to play at Willie
DeVon's house.  That worked for a month, until the two boys had a snowball
fight and Bobby went home soaking wet.  A good paddling and a week confined to
the house convinced him to go back to Sunday School the following weekend. The
dreams had tapered off by this time.  He'd all but forgotten them.

                                #

     Twelve years old.  Sixth-grade Sunday School and Bobby was one of the
staunch regulars now.  The dreams had gone, but they left him with a need.  A
need that only church could even begin to fill.

     They left him with one other thing.  His friends still teased him about
it, but he got used to their razzing.  Besides, a nightlight didn't mean you
were a pussy.

     Did it?

     Funny how his parents never came to church with him.  "You're young, you
need it," Dad would lecture from behind the Sunday paper.  Sure, just like I
need the nightlight, right, Dad?  "And besides, it's right down the street."

     Bobby gave up on his parents' souls and brought his attention back to
the lesson.  "Who remembers the last plague God sent to the Egyptians?"  The
teacher looked around the room.  "Come on, we just discussed this last week.
It has to do with something that flies."  That funny vein in Mr. Simmons'
temple started throbbing.

     A voice in the back squeaked, "Bees!"  Bobby, sitting in the second row,
stuffed a hand in his mouth to keep from giggling.  Jimmie DeVon, Willie's
brother, seeing this reaction, contributed, "Buzzards!"  Bobby covered his
face and scrunched down in his seat to keep from exploding.

     "Wrong, both of you," Mr. Simmons sighed, tugging at his tie.  Bobby
peeked over Chubby Jurgens' shoulder, wishing for the last ten minutes to
speed up and end Sunday School.  "I'm gonna bust!" he thought.  "I'm gonna
bust and Mr. Simmons is gonna be real mad."  But he couldn't stop laughing.  A
girl in the third row chimed in with, "Laser missiles!" and Bobby was whopped
with the giggle stick but good.  He rocked back and forth in his chair,
hugging himself and gulping air in great whooping hiccups.  He could barely
see Simmons glaring at him through his tears.  The class shifted and whispered
until Bobby calmed himself by taking a deep breath and trying to hold it.

     "Well, Mr. Reith, since you seem so amused by all this, perhaps you can
tell us the right answer," Simmons said between clenched teeth.  Bobby gasped,
"The Angel of . . . the Angel of . . . of Flies!" and that set him off again.

     He saw Jimmie DeVon's jaw drop and his eyes go as wide as a bullfrog's.
That didn't help matters.  Chubby Jurgens grabbed his sides and fell off his
chair, farting when he landed on the floor.  A few of the other boys started
to join in, but abruptly cut off when Simmons shouted, "Quiet!  All of you!
None of this is funny--all of you know the answer.  Look," he wiped his
forehead with a handkerchief, "we're going to discuss it again next week and I
expect some straight answers.  Now, you can go," and some stood up, "but you
have to leave in an orderly manner.  All except you," and Simmons' head
swiveled what had to be 180 degrees to drill holes into Bobby's eyes.  Bobby
choked back a last giggle and sat stock-still.  "The answer, as you all know,
was the Angel of Death, sent by God to kill the first-born of every household.
Remember that."  Bobby's eyes burned.  Simmons consulted his Timex digital,
then the clock.  "Let us pray."  Some feet shuffled in the back as the
children sat back down.  All heads bowed, including Bobby's, but not before he
caught the gleam in Simmons' eyes.  "Lord, watch over us today as we leave
your house.  Be with us and keep us strong until we return here to worship
next Sunday.  In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, amen."

     Bobby whispered, "Jesuschristourlordamen," and watched from the corners
of his eyes as the other kids left.  Jimmie looked back at him and drew a
slash across his throat with his thumb.  Bobby bit his lip.

     When the room was empty, Simmons called, "Come here, Mr. Giggler."  The
boy complied, keeping his head down the entire time.  "Look at me, Mr.
Giggler.  Or should I call you Bobby?"

     The boy shrugged his shoulders halfway but kept his head down.  "I said,
look at me!"  Simmons grabbed Bobby's chin and jerked his head up.  "Why are
you shaking?  You kids always seem to be afraid of something.  Usually you're
afraid to answer a question.  Tell me something--did you think the Angel of
Flies was that funny?"

     "N-no."  Bobby tried to lower his face, but Simmons kept his grip firm.
"Then why were you laughing?"  Simmons gave the boy's face a squeeze.  "Ow! .
. . I . . . the other kids were laughing . . ."

     "They didn't start until you said Angel of Flies.  Or maybe you meant to
say Angel of Lies, hmm?"

     ("You're my little Angel of Lies.")

     A demon in white robes leaped into the boy's mind.

     "Because that's what you were doing.  God doesn't like liars."

     "I wasn't lying.  Really."

     "Little liars go to hell, Bobby.  Maybe you didn't think about that."
Try as he might, Bobby couldn't shake the frighteningly familiar image.  "Tell
me something, Bobby.  Are you the first-born in your family?"  Was Simmons
turning red from anger or something else?  "Are you the first-born?" Simmons
hissed the question.

     Bobby closed his eyes so he couldn't see the twin points of Simmons'
tongue.  But every time he did, he saw the demon in white robes.  "I don't
know . . . Ow!  You're hurting my arms!  I don't know . . . what you mean --"
Simmons shook him until his head hurt.  The demon-image overlapped reality
while Simmons flicked his snake-tongue out between words.  "Are (flick) you
(flick) the oldest (flick) child (flick) in your (flick) family?"  Bobby
whimpered, tears in his eyes making the demon and Simmons blend together.

     "Let go!  You're hurting . . ."

     "I WANT TO KNOW!"  Saliva flew from Simmons' mouth, showering the boy
with flaming liquid.

     Bobby twitched in Simmons' grip.  "I don't have . . . any brothers . . .
just Diane . . . she-she's only two . . ."

     Simmons' fingernails grew into three-inch claws and dug deep into
Bobby's arms.  "Then you think about this, Mr. Bobby the Giggler.  You're
first-born.  The Angel of Death could be coming for you anytime."  He spun
Bobby towards the door, raking his arms with the claws.  He brought his foul-
smelling mouth next to Bobby's ear and whispered, "Pray that the Angel of
Death doesn't visit you in your own bed tonight, Mr. Angel of Lies."

     ("And what does the devil do to bad children?")

     He swatted Bobby on the butt, hard.  The boy squirmed out of Simmons'
loosened grip and ran through the doorway.

     "Pray that he doesn't kill you tonight, little liar.  Pray that the
Angel doesn't know you're the first-born in your family!"

     Bobby ran from the church, confused, hardly able to see the way home
through his tears.  He could still feel Simmons' breath on his neck and the
man-demon claws in his flesh.  He ran for what seemed like hours, dogs chasing
him, his lungs thirsting for air.  His heart beat in his ears, his throat, his
stomach; his chest wasn't large enough to hold it.  He ran until he collapsed
on the ground, spent from escaping demons that masqueraded as real people.  He
had left the sidewalk somewhere far behind him and he was gasping for air on a
carpet of the greenest grass he had seen.  He was thankful for the shade some
tree thoughtfully provided him.

     "What's going on?" Bobby thought as he regained his breath, face pressed
against the grass.  People don't just grow claws and snake-tongues like that.
Only in monster movies, not for real.  But what about Simmons?  Was he a for-
real monster?  He could still see the demon image merging with Simmons, but
pushed the thought away.  That was too scary.

     Bobby raised his head, his breath even now.  The grass smelled sweet; he
was safe here in the shade.  In the park.

     But this wasn't the park.

     The tombstone in front of him read "Ashworth."  Next to it, rising miles
into the air, stood a statue.

     A statue of an angel.

     A black angel.  (The Angel of Death.)

     Casting a black shadow.  (The shadow of death.)

     And Bobby was caught in the Angel's shadow.  (Though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me.)

     "I'll always be with you, Bobby," the statue whispered.  "You're my
little Angel of Lies."

     And even though it was daylight, and even though statues couldn't do
things like that, and even though Bobby didn't believe it for a minute, the
statue began beating its wings.  The black wings reached far over the cast-
iron head and spread as far as fifteen feet across as they worked out a years-
long stiffness, like a metal arthritis.  The wings whirred as they built up
speed.  "Statues can't fly.  Statues can't fly."  Bobby worked it into a
mantra. "But angels can," the statue said.  "And I'm going to fly you straight
up to heaven."

     "But I'm not d-dead," Bobby said, still unable to move from his knees.
His heartbeat leapt back up to machine-gun speed, each beat matched by the
Angel of Death's wings.

     "You can be, Bobby," the statue said, its voice as sweet and pure as the
church soprano.  "Wouldn't you like to be my real-and-true Angel of Lies?"
The boy gulped dry air and slowly backed away from the statue.  It lifted
slowly from the granite pedestal, wings shirring lazily against the air,
eyelids clicking open and shut with each beat.  A black, forked tongue slide
across the ebony lips.

     Whirr-slide-click.  Wings, eyes, tongue.  The statue came closer.
"Don't liars go to h-hell when they die?" Bobby asked, tears leaking from the
corners of his eyes.  "How can you take me to heaven if I'm your Angel of
Lies?"  He kept crawling backwards, grass staining his best pants.  "Don't you
believe me, Bobby?"  (Whirr-slide-click.  Wings, eyes, tongue.)  "I'm an
angel.  Would I lie to you?"  Black horns poked out of the metal head. "Oh,
God, make it stop," Bobby whispered, trying to regain his feet by holding onto
a headstone.  "Make it go away."

     "I'll go away, my little Angel of Lies.  But you're coming with me."
The statue dove for the boy (whirr-slide-click), tongue flicking madly, mouth
spitting black fire, eyes in flames.


        CONTINUED IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE OF SUNLIGHT THROUGH THE SHADOWS!