The Servants of Twilight

He tried to believe nothing else was bothering him, tried to pretend he was only worried about the Scavello boy, but finally he had to admit to himself that another thing was chewing at him.

The old need. Such a fierce need. The NEED. He wanted No!

It didn't matter what he wanted. He couldn't have it. He couldn't surrender to the NEED. He didn't dare.

He dropped to his knees in the middle of the living room and prayed to God to help him resist the weakness in him. He prayed hard, prayed with all his might, with all his attention and devotion, prayed with such teeth-grinding intensity that he began to sweat.

He still felt the old, despicable terrifying urge to mangle someone, to pummel and twist and claw, to hurt somebody, to kill.

In desperation, he got up and went into the kitchen, to the sink, and turned on the cold water. He put the stopper in the drain. He got ice cubes from the refrigerator and added them to the growing pool. When the sink was almost full, he turned the spigot off and lowered his head into the freezing water, forced himself to stay there, holding his breath, face submerged, skin stinging, until he finally had to come up, gasping for air. He was shivering, and his teeth were chattering, but he still felt the violence building in him, so he put his head under again, waiting until his lungs were bursting, came up sputtering and spitting, and now he was frigid, quaking uncontrollably, but still the urge to do violence swelled unchecked.

Satan was here now. Must be. Satan was here and dredging up the old feelings, pushing Kyle's face in them, tempting him, trying to get him to toss away his last chance at salvation.

I won't!

He stormed through the apartment, trying to detect exactly where Satan was. He looked in closets, opened cabinets, pulled aside the draperies to check behind them. He didn't actually expect to see Satan, but he was sure he would at least sense the devil's presence somewhere, invisible though the demon might be. But there was nothing to be found.

Which only meant the devil was clever at concealing himself.

When he finally gave up searching for Satan, he was in the bathroom, and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror: eyes wild, nostrils dilated, jaw muscles popping, lips bloodless and skinned back over his crooked yellow teeth. He thought of the Phantom of the Opera. He thought of Frankenstein's monster

and a hundred other tortured, unhuman faces from a hundred other films he had seen on "Chiller Theater."

The world hated him, and he hated the world, all of them, the ones who laughed, who pointed, the women who found him repulsive, all the No.

God. Please. Don't let me think about these things. Get my mind off this subject. Help me. Please.

He couldn't look away from his Boris Karloff-Lon ChaneyRhondo Hatten face, which filled the age-spotted mirror.

He never missed those old horror movies when they were on TV. Many nights he sat alone in front of his black-and-white set, riveted by the ghastly images, and when each picture ended, he went into the bathroom, to this very mirror, and looked at himself and told himself that he wasn't that ugly, wasn't that frightening, not as bad as the creatures that crept out of primeval swamps or came from beyond the stars or escaped from mad scientists' laboratories. By comparison, he was almost ordinary.

At worst, pathetic. But he could never believe himself. The mirror didn't lie. The mirror showed him a face made for nightmares.

He smiled at himself in the mirror, tried to look amiable. The result was awful. The smile was a leer.

No woman would ever have him unless he paid, and even some whores turned him down. Bitches. All of them. Rotten, stinking, heartless bitches.

He wanted to make one of them hurt.

He wanted to bring his pain to one of them, hammer his pain into some woman and leave it in her, so that for a short while, at least, there would be no pain in him.

No. That was bad thinking. Evil thinking.

Remember Mother Grace.

Remember the Twilight and salvation and life everlasting.

But he wanted. He needed.

He found himself at the door of his apartment without being able to recall how he'd gotten there. He had the door half open.

He was on his way out to find a prostitute. Or someone to beat up. Or both.

No!

He slammed the door, locked it, put his back to it, and looked frantically around his living room.

He had to act quickly to save himself.

He was losing his battle against temptation. He was whimpering now, shuddering and mewling. He knew that in a second or two he would open the door again, and this time he would leave, go hunting…