Twisted by Jay Bonansinga

Pick her up! Let’s guhhhh—”
    The sap came down hard on the father’s cranium, cracking his skull through the hood of his rain slicker. The man flopped to the pavement, landing directly on the dog, which let out a stunned yelp. Lightning flickered overhead as the Holy Ghost whirled toward the sons.
    It happened so abruptly, so decisively, and yet so impassively , that the two boys—both big kids, both varsity athletes—had little time to react. One of them looked up and gasped. The other boy simply reared back, shielding his face as though the very sky had started falling.
    â€œNnooo!”
    The Holy Ghost lashed out again with the sap—a leather sock filled with steel slugs and lead sinkers—striking the older boy on the bridge of the nose as he tried to rise. The boy staggered, letting out a garbled cry—“Unh!”—right before his knees started buckling.
    The younger brother, crying out now, tried to flee, but the Holy One grabbed him around the waist as though grabbing a squealing, rain-slick piglet trying to escape the slaughter. The flask came out, rose to the boy’s contorted face, pressed down on his upper lip, and muffled his screams.
    The father was starting to move again, writhing on the ground in rivulets of rain and blood, the dog still pinned and whining under him. By this point the younger brother had sagged into unconsciousness in the Holy Ghost’s arms. The assailant let the boy sink to the cobblestones, then reached over and pressed the soggy stopper of sodium pentobarbital against the father’s face, disabling him, silencing him.
    As thunder boomed and waves of mist furled through the alley, the Holy Ghost dragged the father’s limp body into an alcove behind a loading dock for safekeeping. The two boys were left in the alley; the Holy Ghost had no use for children. But the father’s body would remain untouched in the alcove until the hour of transformation. And he was only the beginning!
    Trembling with emotion, the Holy Ghost paused and looked up at the sky.
    The black ceiling churned, lightning flickering like phosphorous veins. The hurricane was approaching. It would only be a matter of hours now. But there were many more subjects to harvest before the hour of transformation. The Holy Ghost turned his face to the angry heavens and let out a joyful howl until something unexpected caught his attention.
    A noise to his immediate left: a faint whimpering sound. He looked down and saw the wounded dog. Panting and whining in agony, it was trying to limp away toward the mouth of the alley. Its hindquarters had been shattered.
    The Holy Ghost went over to the animal, effortlessly scooping it up, then twisting its neck until cartilage and bone snapped. The dog expired instantly. Then the Holy One reached inside his pocket, found a spring-loaded blade, pulled it out, gave it a flick, and plunged it into the animal’s underside between its teats. Blood bubbled and fizzed in the rain, a pink stringer momentarily swirling up into the wind.
    The Holy Ghost reached into the dog’s steaming carcass, plucked out its heart, and ate it.
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    â€œGrove, Grove, Grove ... have you finally gone ... what is the American phrase? Over the hill?” Shaking his enormous head, the Russian could not believe what he was hearing on the other end of the line. “I cannot scramble the aircraft in one hour, Grove, I cannot even get a single roll of toilet paper for the men’s room in this place of the godforsaken.”
    â€œâ€˜Over the hill’ means old , Kaminsky,” the voice informed him. “I think you meant to say ‘Around the bend.’ Right? Meaning crazy? Nuts?”
    â€œYes, that is it, most definitely, you have gone around the bend with the crazy nuts.” Kaminsky nodded profusely. He sat in his little electronic nest at the National Security Agency’s Plum Tree Island Experimental Station, chewing a