Thirteen: A Tale of Demonic Abuse

By Don Canaan

"Thirteen: A Tale of Demonic Abuse," tells the story of two previously friendly deities; one worshipped by many humans, the other vanquished in a coup d'état, and their continuing battle for supremacy.

 

Some youngsters on their 13th birthday are involuntarily drafted into an ongoing battle between the forces of good and evil. That's been the case since 1666 when a demon selected a 13-year-old boy to continue the war across the centuries. That boy, transformed during the height of a plague, is promised both eternal life and bliss by the custodian of evil. And for nearly 400 years, a demonic spirit promotes that destiny while inhabiting the bodies of, among others, the Marquis d'Sade, Hitler, and Allen Abbott. Now, Allen Abbott's grandson, Armen Bedrosian, inherits and continues that demonic endeavor as a result of his grandmother's impregnation by the evil entity within her husband's, Allen Abbott's, body.

 

Research has confirmed that some molested children, as adults, continue that practice. "Thirteen: A Tale of Demonic Abuse," is a psychological tale of horror and serves as a primer for readers to understand this ongoing problem. This novel is a new merged version of Daddy's Girl, Pretty Little Girl, The Baby Thief and Entangled, and it dramatizes relationships rarely discussed or acknowledged.

 

An AudioFile Magazine review referred to the book as "A realistic account…that never misses a beat as the tragic picture continually changes… (Readers) will feel as if they're on an emotional roller coaster as the story unravels layer by layer to a most unexpected conclusion."

 

One reader's review called it a "story so gripping that I couldn't even stop reading to eat or sleep."

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pumblechook Publications
• Release date: May 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201463700

Don Canaan

Don Canaan went from a Bronx tenement to success in television news film, immigration to Israel, return to the U.S. and then to print journalism. He edited news film and documentaries for NBC News in New York, receiving a joint editorial commendation (as Donald Swerdlow) for Producer Fred Freed’s “American White Paper: Organized Crime in the United States.” In 1974, Canaan immigrated to Israel as part of an American group planning to found and settle in the new city of Yamit in the Sinai, north of El Arish. Upon returning to the U.S, Canaan became a unemployment statistic because news film had been superseded by videotape, which was controlled by a different union.. Ohio State University's School of Journalism came to the rescue with an offer to earn a master's degree while serving as an assistant in its TV news workshop. Canaan was hired as staff writer and photographer for The American Israelite in Cincinnati where he enterprised many stories.. His series, "Jews in Ohio's Prisons: Does Anybody Care?" won first place for best weekly journalism in Ohio from the State of Ohio Bar Association. . He is the author of “Horror in Hocking County” (a true-crime documentation of alleged satanic murders.

Book preview

Prequel

1666

CHAPTER 1

THE MASSIVE STEEL DOOR to Death Row creaked open as I, a rapist and murderer, shackled with leg irons and handcuffs, was led past a wall plastered with posters advertising a monument dealer’s stock-in-trade.

My new home is located directly opposite that of another killer, a black man named Abraham. My cell is one of many in which I have lived since I was reborn in 1666.

It was an irony that I later learned that my neighbor and I may have had a connection in the past; alone in my cell with my memories in this temporary home. I can never die, even though my demonic being has endured punishments over the years, I have continued to exist. I have unsuccessfully tried to recall what it was like to be a 13-year-old virgin teenage boy with human blood flowing through my veins and arteries. 

I can empathize with the stone carver’s call to rest in peace, for in my mind, he was speaking directly to me; mocking me for the deal the boy had made during that fateful year of the plague in 1666. Some may call it damnation, but when the Prince of Darkness wants me to sit at his right side, I heartily accepted the consequences that brought me to the 20th century. 

And what a deal it was... power, sex, riches beyond belief.  All I had to do was serve my Master. On that fateful September day when I was 13, I entered a confessional for the last time and learned that I would never die.

You’re probably asking yourself ‘Who is this monster?' So let me introduce myself—but I’m not a monster, just a demon doing what his boss has ordered him to do."

Throughout the ages, even I, a demon, possessed by my Master, have had to adapt to the mores of contemporary society. So when I describe myself, it's not self-deprecation. Monster is a word that you the reader have applied to me.

My name is Daniel and I'm a servant of God. Not the God that you may believe in, but the God that created creatures that evolved into the human race.

And that's where I come in. I'm my Master's agent—his supply clerk so to speak. I guess I should explain this more fully.

My Master had a falling out with a competitive deity, one whom he had considered a friend. That so-called friend overthrew my Master and His earthly realm and then exiled him beyond the Styx. My Master was hunted and harassed by the entity who eternally became His arch-rival. 

With this defeat, my Lord and Master lost everything except His desire to recover what had been taken from Him.  And to do that required a cadre of servants, acolytes to prepare the way for my Master's return to power. 

IT WAS MY 13TH BIRTHDAY and, while my family was neither rich nor poor, a prayer session had been planned to ask that they be spared from the plague that was ravishing the land. 

My parents, my relatives, and many other villagers planned to continue praying, but I was not destined to do so. On that day, my adolescence abruptly ended.

I entered the confessional and knelt. Just as the priest opened the latticed opening, I froze and could not remember how to begin. But he sensed my nervousness and prompted me: Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It has been a very long time since my last confession and these are my sins.

I listed my sins, especially my wet dreams and the pleasure I felt after I ejaculated. I felt compelled to reveal my other fantasies; the boys and girls who caressed me as I slept. I revealed all of my thoughts to whom I assumed was a priest; a shadow on the other side of the lattice.

Suddenly, the booth’s candle flickered and I froze. What felt like a soft girlish hand gently fondled my pantaloons as if I was reliving the best wet dream I’d ever had. I couldn’t move my hands. My genitals weren’t paralyzed and my penis grew larger than ever before.

Then that lovely, gentle, clenched hand transformed itself into a cherubic mouth of a Lolita that sucked me and devoured my teen-seed as I orgasmed.

Those continuing climaxes seemed to last for an eternity. But the ejaculations were synchronized with voices; directives piercing my brain.

This shall be yours forever; power, money, and all the pleasure you desire. For I am the true God and I will give this to you if you will serve Me. The choice is yours. But there is no choice, is there?

I screamed out, Yes, I want this forever.  I’ll do whatever you want me to do, just don’t let this ever stop. Suddenly the booth’s door opened and I was no longer an awkward teenager, I was a leader and my body and pantaloons were dry.

SITTING IN CELL NUMBER 66, the centuries flashed before my eyes; orgies, murders, crimes that my Master and I had participated in. I was the Marquis d'Sade; I was Robespierre; I was Jack the Ripper, Hitler, Stalin, Lee Harvey Oswald.  And now I'm Allen Abbott.

My body has aged slightly (I guess it’s normal for someone in his fourth century), but my desire for revenge has continued. My body, inhabited by my Master, the true creator of humanity, believes that He can now become humanity’s destroyer.

THE DOOR REOPENED INTO a cornfield in a strange land; a cornfield with people dancing around a pentagram.

The men and women welcomed me.  My clothing disappeared as their robes fell to the ground. My nudity brought forth a phallus in erection, one larger than any of my new male acolytes’ organs.

I felt gratified as they pressed their bodies against mine; kissing me and manipulating the few parts of my body that remained visible. The humans appeared to worship me, their new leader, but my Master and I had to prove to them that we were worthy of their adoration.

HOW DID I, OR SHOULD I say Allen Abbott, wind up on Death Row?  Well, I’m here now and it’s as good a place as any to tell you about my latest conquest. Although I’ll be skipping around quite a bit, I'll try not to be too tangential. But you’ll have to bear with me because, as you humans like to say, ‘Give the devil his due."

CHAPTER  2

TODAY I'M BOTH A MAN and a demi-god; I’m not an acne-faced boy any longer. I willed a teenage boy and girl to enter the cornfield located parallel to a river, a waterway lovingly called The Sticks by area residents.  It was given this name because sticks of marijuana and other drugs could easily be bought there.

It was named after Alfonso Stix, a pioneer that passed himself off, using counterfeit land grant papers from the king of Spain. He titled himself Baron Stix, the proprietor of New Mexico.

But I knew the river by its historical name, the Styx; the river whose boatman transitions the living to the world below, the realm that My Master rules.

And that's how Annie Costello and Bryan Beastly, prompted by my will, emerged from a dirt path next to the railroad tracks parallel to the corn stalks. They weren't shocked by the nudity because they had been there before to buy drugs and had also participated in a demonic ceremony.

But now I was running the show and this time would be different. My proselytes grabbed the engaged couple, ripped off their clothing, and ravished the teens by ripping appendages from their bodies as the youngsters cried out in pain.

Through all of this torture, I willed it that Annie and Bryan remain alive so they could witness the abuse each endured. They cried out in pain, but I wouldn't let them die.

Annie's breasts were neatly sliced in the manner of a delicatessen machine, and Bryan's penis and testicles were then crudely removed. Again I couldn't allow them to die without receiving praises from our acolytes. They were ordered to bite into the appendages and pass them around to the others. We, my Master and I, Daniel, just stood there wearing our joint murderous hyena-like grins. The youngsters' mangled bodies had to undergo purification before we would allow them to die.

I ordered my followers to cut the barely-alive bodies into small pieces and bury them in shallow areas in various parts of the cornfield. The larger parts, heads, and appendages, were just dumped into the Sticks River.

Yes, I knew the parts would eventually be found, and that's what I wanted. I knew that I had to find a scapegoat, someone on whom to blame the ritualistic dismemberments.

But that was easy enough. I decided to blame it on Annie Costello's stepfather, a man disliked by many in Sticks County, a man of my ilk; a pedophile that couldn't keep away from 13-year-old girls.

What was crazy about that situation was that Allen Abbott didn’t know, and would never realize that My Master was, and had been for many years previously, actually controlling Abbott’s urges.

Sure, rumors circulated throughout the conservative community. But there was never any proof that improper acts had occurred.

BEFORE MY DEVELOPING body fully matured into My Master's essence, I had not realized that this animalistic nature was already present in 20th century Sticks County. It had already filled the brain of Allen Abbott, Annie's stepfather, with a desire to have sex with young girls. And Annie, his stepdaughter, was the first of many conquests to come.

My Master used Abbott's body to molest female virgins throughout the county, but also placed within him a power that both removed memories of the rapes, as well as for their bodies to regenerate. No one, victim, parent, or police, knew what had happened. No one knew except Allen Abbott and, of course, me.

Police and physicians could not prove molestation because the girls were all intact virgins. There was no way during that period in which DNA could be used for a genetic connection. Abbott's new children grew up to become willful accomplices in Annie and Bryan's sacrifice.

When Annie and Bryan did not return home that evening, there wasn't much of an outcry. It was just assumed that the couple, who had just become engaged, were just fooling around in Bryan's beat-up Ford. Or perhaps they had eloped to get married.

After a few days, a search party was organized. While residents were exploring a clearing near the railroad trestle, Allen Abbott mentioned to a sheriff's deputy that he had a dream and asked if any sign of the teenagers were present in the river.

Shortly after that, Annie and Bryan's decapitated heads were found hidden under some bushes on the river's shore. The deputy recalled the conversation with Abbott and told the sheriff about it.

AN 11-MONTH INVESTIGATION into the murders took place. Area residents speculated that the killings could have been perpetrated by Abbott, a cult, or even by drug dealers.

A grand jury, after three days of testimony, indicted Abbott for the gruesome murders. When asked whether he would make the arrest himself, the sheriff said: Are you kidding? After nearly a year, I want some action one way or another.

After arriving home, a single-wide trailer parked next to a small pond, Abbott searched through a shoebox of Polaroid photos that he had taken of Annie. He was about to destroy them when Sheriff Gabriel Highsome and SWAT team members burst into the mobile home.

Abbott was charged with the murder of his stepdaughter and her fiancé (the other body parts had not yet been found). The photographs, as well as a collection of butcher knives, were removed from the kitchen as evidence.

The search for body parts continued. Blood was found in the ground under some of the stalks and during the next few days other body parts, including Bryan's penis, were found buried in shallow graves in the cornfield.

YES, I SET UP THIS scenario but there was no way that the authorities could expose my involvement or that of my acolytes. This was my latest and greatest achievement and no human was going to take it from me.

Yes, there would be more. I guess you knew that because I told you so from my Death Row bed and breakfast Suite 66. I'm calling it a transient B&B because I'm eternal and the struggle between my Master and the imposter up above continues to evolve.

CHAPTER 3

Bryan Beastly, Annie's fiancé, lived with his mother, Claudia, in a small frame house on a tree-lined street on the outskirts of Truth or Dare, New Mexico, the county seat of Sticks County.

The town, originally called Cornwall, changed its name during the early 1950s when Bert Parker announced on his radio program that he would air the program from the first town to change its name to the name of the show.

The Beastlys had divorced a few months earlier and Butch (his given name was Belvedere) lived in an apartment in town and worked as a sanitation collector.

On that October morning, the courtroom was filled. Abbott, wearing a vanilla-checkered, western-cut shirt tucked neatly into his trousers pleaded not guilty to the double charge of aggravated murder. Judge Hiram Hightower denied a bail request, and as Abbott was being led to a waiting police car for transfer to a more secure location in another county, somebody spat in his direction.

An onlooker told a local reporter Everyone has been kinda tense around here.

The trial date finally arrived in January. At 15 degrees, it was the coldest day of the year, and residents, reporters and television crews were intimately confined next to one another in the warm courtroom. The only section with an area in which one could comfortably stretch their arms contained the prosecuting team, Abbott, his lawyers, the judge, and the jury.

It was the biggest event that the county had ever seen, one resident said.

The prosecution called Bryan’s parents to the stand. Both of the Beastlys said they last saw their son on October 4th, the day he disappeared one year earlier.

She testified that Annie had moved in with them in early August because of problems at her house. She told the prosecutor that when Bryan came home that afternoon, he went upstairs to speak with Annie and about 30 minutes later she saw an upset Annie run from the house, followed closely by Bryan.

Claudia saw him catch up with her as they headed toward the river.

Sheriff Highsome testified that the identification of Annie's body parts was based on information received from Allen Abbott. He had indicated that Annie had a scar on her leg and her lower backside and that she also wore dental braces.

The sheriff continued by stating that his deputies had discovered a sock full of skin peelings and one testicle. Then a plastic feed sack was discovered that showed red staining as well as red crusty substances. Maggots were crawling inside the bag and a determination was made that the bag had contained human flesh.

Highsome said Abbott discussed the family's proclivity for nudity but denied ever having a sexual relationship with Annie. However, he balked when asked if he had ever masturbated in front of Annie.

He sort of dropped his head, the sheriff testified. He said that Abbott told him that he had acted in ways condemned in the Holy Bible, and that he had prostate trouble and that when he had an erection, he needed immediate relief.

A deputy coroner from Albuquerque testified that Bryan had been shot five or six times, during which time he was cut. He said that one of his lungs was missing from the body parts that had been found.

Annie was shot twice before being dismembered by a sharp, single-blade cutting instrument. All of her reproductive organs and most of Bryan's organs were also missing, although the coroner could not say whether they were cut off or cut out separately.

On the trial's third day, the spotlight shifted to allegations of nudity within the Abbotts’ home.

Former Police Captain George Schiller related several conversations that he had had with the Abbotts about Annie and Bryan's relationship with Allen. When asked if any photographs of Annie were available, the Abbotts gave him five or six nude pictures taken when she was about 13 years old.

The photos included shots of Annie holding a rifle and bandoleer of ammunition, one showing Annie nude from the waist up, and the third one of her lying nude on a blanket.

Allen Abbott told Schiller that he had initially liked Bryan and considered him a member of the family because he was constantly at the house. But this familial relationship ended, he said, when Abbott found the couple in Annie's bedroom changing into their bathing suits.

Schiller testified that Abbott had told him that he ordered Bryan out of the house and that he didn't want anything like that going on under his roof.

Abbott also told Schiller that the family wasn't nudists but family members did like to take their clothes off in the confines of their single-wide. He denied that there was any sexual relationship with Annie, but admitted, over an objection by Abbott's lawyer that it was irrelevant, he did get aroused when Annie was present and he was nude.

Abbott told him, said Schiller that he just tried to act normally under those circumstances, but added that when he became aroused, he had to take care of it right away.

CHAPTER 4

Alice Abbott, Annie’s mother, took the stand. With her in the courtroom was her lawyer, who told the judge that on more than one occasion the police had threatened Mrs. Abbott with criminal prosecution on various matters.

Alice admitted that the family practiced nudity and that her husband had taken nude photos of Annie. However, she invoked spousal privilege when asked by the prosecutor, Did Allen ever tell you that he had had sexual relations with Annie?

That was immediately followed by the question Do you recall telling Allen that you didn't care if he raped Annie every day of the week?

Alice shrieked, I just want my baby back.

An objection by defense counsel was overruled and Alice admitted to making that statement. The judge, citing a section of New Mexico law governing testimony of a spouse, later had the question and answer stricken from the record.

Alice continued her testimony and over continued defense objections, admitted once again that Allen had taken the nude pictures that the police used to identify Annie.

ANNIE'S FORMER BOYFRIEND at Truth or Dare Community College, Tommy Tompkins, testified that Annie had previously introduced him to her stepfather and that on several occasions, the two men had spoken.

It was after one of those meetings that Annie told Tommy that her stepfather was having forced sexual relations with her, abuse that had started when she was 13 years old.

Tommy testified that he had received threatening phone calls during the time he was dating Annie. And in one of the calls, the man who sounded a lot like Allen Abbott, told him that If I made sexual contact with Annie, he would castrate me and do the same to her.

Those calls continued, he said and the caller told him that he had 15 days to live. And during the following days the numbers became smaller. The last call said that he only had three days to live. After that third-day phone call, we broke up. I was scared.

THE TRIAL'S NINTH DAY started with a defense motion that Abbott should be acquitted of the aggravated murder charges. The attorney maintained that the prosecution's case was circumstantial and that they had not proven Abbott's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  Judge Hightower overruled the acquittal.

CHAPTER 5

A llen, did you kill them?

No, I did not, Abbott insisted, after taking the stand in his defense.

Did you cut them up?

No, I did not, he replied.

Did you put them in that cornfield?

In an extremely low monotone, Abbott said, No I did not.

Abbott then told the judge and jury how Police Captain George Schiller had tried to badger him into confessing to the murders.

I know you killed the kids. Confess, the city is scared to death. Put their fears at ease, Abbott quoted Schiller as saying.

Schiller questioned him for nearly seven hours in a smoky room shortly after the body parts were found in the cornfield. During much of this time, Abbott was wearing only jeans and a pair of socks because his undershirt, boots, shirt, hat, and vest had been taken from him.

Abbott emphatically denied ever telling Schiller that he beat his meat while Annie was present. Every time I told him something, he (Schiller) would twist it around trying to make something dirty out of it.

He told the jury that when he had offered to take a lie detector test, Schiller replied, Well, you better pass it or I'll arrest you on the spot.

Abbott's lawyer inquired, You loved Annie, didn't you? and Abbott quietly replied, Yes, I did.

When his lawyer asked whether there was any sexual contact with Annie from the time she reached puberty, Abbott said there had been. At that point, the lawyer dropped that line of questioning.

Abbott explained that the nude photos of Annie were shot as a legacy for her to show her children. One of those Kodak moments when you wished you had a camera.

Because of legal technicalities, he said, they were not permitted to live in the cabin that they had just bought. While sleeping outside in a tent, Abbott said he heard his dog barking. Three boys were trying to break into the cabin, he testified.

Upon investigating, he said he heard Annie say, Kill those S.O.B.s daddy. Turning around he saw Annie standing naked, holding his shotgun. The next day, Allen and his wife took Annie's picture posing with the shotgun. This was the photograph given to the authorities.

CHAPTER 6

The defense team decided to present new evidence of a startling nature and Rafi Mountaindale was called to the stand.

Mountaindale, a Santa Fe history teacher and self-described expert in forensic history, explained that he was a specialist in the study of criminal activities that have set historical trends. That expertise, he referred to as forensic history.

Defense counsel Aubrey Pumblechook asked Mountaindale to describe his background in the study of occult worship as well as his expertise in forensic history.

Mountaindale testified that he believed a worshiper of Satan shot the teenagers to death, left their bodies in the cornfield, and went to gather other cult members for a midnight ceremony to worship the devil.

This beyond question was an operation carried out by five or more dedicated, totally perverse Satanists, he said.

Bryan and Annie were in the cornfield at approximately 5 or 5:30 p.m. They were discovered by one of the cult members who then followed them into the cornfield. They probably had their clothing removed because previous testimony said that the bullets that entered the bodies did not have any clothing adhering.

Mountaindale believes the cultists drank the remaining blood during the ritual. The autopsy report said Bryan had an eight-inch by eight-inch wound across his chest and from this report, Mountaindale surmised that the boy was the first one wounded.  After that, the killer plunged another cutting instrument through that wound into Bryan's heart.

This wasn’t a knife. This was a sword. This was a sword hack. The bone was severed like nothing I’ve ever seen before, he said.  It was just like a zipper had opened.

Mountaindale concluded that Satanists also make the cross symbol over the victim’s gut or genital area.

The official autopsy report referred to smaller cuts on the body. These, Mountaindale said, were intended by the killers as rays emanating from the cross corresponding to stations of the satanic cross-dedicated to the trinity of Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Baal.

It was obvious to me that this was a satanic killing. The sexual organs, missing from the victim’s torsos, probably are in use by the killers as amulets, he said.

The autopsy also indicated that Annie's womb had been cut open and that seven fingernails were missing from her hands. Mountaindale theorized that her fingernails were also being used as amulets.

Bryan and Annie's severed heads were found buried face-up; the top of the heads facing east. They were blackened with a substance, which Mountaindale said was human excrement.

Mountaindale indicated that the slayings occurred during the midnight of the New Moon, an important cultist requirement. If the bodies had not been discovered the murderers would have returned to the graves on All Hallows Eve" to conduct the second part of their mass; cannibalizing the bodies.

Rural New Mexico is not an unlikely place for devil worshipers, Mountaindale said.  Satanic worshipers, really all occult worshipers, are found generally in fundamentalist areas. I think we have a situation here that potentially could rival or surpass the murders by Charles Manson and his family."

The same slayers will strike again with even more bizarre killings, he insisted.  Each time Satan is to be summoned forth, the offering up of a sacrifice must be greater than before. The groups usually start with small animals progressing to larger animals, from finger amputations to human sacrifice. When we refuse to look at Satanism, we practice self-delusion."

BUTCH BEASTLY PROVIDED his opinion of Mountaindale's testimony to waiting reporters. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I don’t care who it is or whatever you wanted to kill.  If you’re going to eat anything at all for a ritual, you don’t kill it. If you even put it in a refrigerator and left it there for any period, it would be spoiled rotten.

You can’t even buy a hamburger and have it two weeks later; you’d be sick as a  dog, it’ll be spoiled green; let alone, put it out in the ground someplace for the maggots and everything to eat and crawl all over it.  No,  Mr.  Mountaindale is just... well, I’d hate to have him teaching my kids anything.

`Claudia Beastly then interjected: Allen was a very macho person. He believed it had to be his way or no way. He was always right. Annie told me they were not allowed to go to church.  He was exactly the opposite of what he is today,  a meek, poordale-type person because that’s the way he wants to be perceived. He acts like he’s weak as if he’s a weak person. It’s too bad people didn’t know him before this and see the difference.

Allen Abbott is convinced, said Attorney Pumblechook, in the correctness of the judicial system, and he believes that eventually, the system will release him because he’s innocent. He’s convinced that his God will not permit him to die for something he didn’t do.

CHAPTER 7

On Friday afternoon , the defense rested and that evening, Abbott was allowed a brief conjugal visit with his wife, Alice, in a trailer adjacent to the Sticks County jail. But it was not Allen who performed; it was me at my Master's bidding.

On Saturday morning, the 12-day trial concluded with both sides presenting final arguments.

Murder is the ultimate form of incest, the prosecutor said. The dynamics of this case started long before the couple disappeared; it started during the moonlit night when Abbott said the reflection on his stepdaughter’s 'bare butt' made him wish he could capture that Kodak moment.

Incest, like rape, is not a sexual occurrence but is indeed one of abuse, dehumanization, and violence. Therefore the shooting, mutilation, and butchering of Annie Costello and Bryan Beastly clearly indicates that the perpetrator of this crime is the defendant.

Abbott's lawyer, Aubrey Pumblechook, told the jury that his client was a scapegoat for local law enforcement authorities ('He nearly had that correct'), and hinted the murders may have been connected with persons connected with the occult.

He said there wasn’t any concrete evidence against Abbott and also dismissed the prosecution’s  claim that  the teens were killed because Annie threatened to reveal her stepfather's sexual misconduct. If testimony were to be believed, he said, she’d already told numerous persons, long before the murders, about the misconduct."

CHAPTER 8

As the jury deliberated , Allen Abbott thought to himself I hope you truly do have an open mind and a reasonable mind; this being  so you can  come to only  one conclusion.

But after 2-1/2  hours of deliberation, the weary jury found him guilty on two counts of aggravated murder.

Since the jurors were anxious to get home after 11 nights of sequestration at the town's only hostel, the Truth or Dare Bell, Bed & Breakfast. Judge Hiram Hightower decided to immediately sentence Abbott to death in the gas chamber with no option of resentencing him to life imprisonment without parole.

Showing no emotion. Abbott stoically stared ahead.

Townspeople listening to the proceedings broadcast live over a local radio station, cheered when it and the punishment were announced.  Sheriff Gabriel Highsome appeared on a balcony two stories above the street shaping a V for Victory sign with his fingers.

Truth or Dare Mayor Burt Parkinson expressed his community’s sense of relief but personally was distressed and apprehensive about the future of his town's image. He felt the town may be personally scarred because of the tragedy. I doubt that we’ll ever get rid of that image because that’s not the way the media works.

Butch Beastly quoted the words etched on the Sticks County Courthouse. ’Never shall we deny right or justice.’ I think in this case it fits.  Of course, if the verdict had gone the other way, I would have wanted the county commissioners to sandblast it off.

With his thumb turned upward, Beastly offered to pay for the gas. When they kill him, I’ll pay the bill.  This is what we were hoping for. He killed my son.  He killed my son’s girlfriend. He broke the law. He has to pay for it.

CHAPTER 9

Aday on Death Row at the Penitentiary of New Mexico in suburban Santa Fe begins at 6 a.m. Prisoners are allowed to shower three times per week, 10 minutes under the water.

Alice Abbott visited her husband every two weeks at the penitentiary, an  institution that some have characterized as one of the worst prisons in the country—a Dickensian asylum.

I intentionally subjugated my Master’s persona and for his wife’s benefit, I let Allen’s personality come forth, Abbott said

While visiting Allen, conversation about the murders is avoided.  Most of the time we try to keep it light and happy, Alice said. Allen's good with words and he’s a really peaceful person. He doesn’t get upset about things. He's an extremely gentle, kind, soft person. He doesn’t have a temper.  He’s one of the sweetest people you’d ever want to meet, she said.

During visitation, a few months later, Alice told her husband that she was pregnant and that the trailer she was living in had been torched. To protect her safety and privacy Allen advised her to file for divorce and to move to another state where she could start life afresh.

Alice divorced Allen and moved to Fresno, California where she would meet her husband-to-be Armen Bedrosian.

In the years that followed their marriage and the subsequent birth of her son Armen, Jr. Alice naively maintained her faith in Allen's innocence.

BUT DOES THAT MATTER? That's a human decision. Allen Abbott unknowingly did what I wanted him to do, and in the process had a hell of a time himself. He created a flock for me and these sheep will continue to do our work. Eventually, soon I hope. We will be, as you humans like to say, top dog."

And when that happens, humanity containing your so-called free will cease to exist. It will be my Master's will that will be obeyed. And I will sit at His right hand.

CHAPTER 10

BOOK 1

LOST

WELL, AREN’T YOU A pretty little thing?

Laura froze.  It was already warm and it promised to be a hot day, but she was suddenly chilled...and a little girl once again.

Daddeee.....I’m scared!

One of her earliest memories was sitting in one of the cars on the Ferris wheel as it rocked backward and forward.  Suddenly, the wheel stopped; their car perched at the very top. All of Fresno’s thousands of homes and businesses twinkled in the twilight.

Laura clung to Armen, her father. She squealed equally with horror and glee as she peeked out over the edge of the car to look down at the people.  But a few seconds later she buried her face onto her father’s shirt, its fabric fisted in her tiny hands.  His arm around her made her feel safe in a way that not even the safety belt around her waist or the bar locked over both their laps could. 

She couldn’t have been more than three years old, much too short for the ride.  How had her father convinced the operator to let her on?  It wasn’t too hard to figure out.  Laura’s father was well known and persuasive and used to getting his way in business, in stores, in restaurants, and especially in his home.  But one thing he always wanted was to make his baby happy.  Nothing was too good for his only daughter.  He made sure she had the best clothes, the best toys, and the best education.  If she had pointed her chubby hand at the monstrous ride and said, Ride, please, Daddeee? he would have done whatever it took to make it so. 

She didn’t recall if he had taken her to the fair that first year after she was born, but certainly, by the following year, he had begun what would become an annual tradition.  Although he hadn’t lived in the city of Fresno for years before she was born, he had fond memories from his childhood.  He had been raised in the boondocks when Fresno was a rural agricultural town.  Going to the fair was one of the few luxuries his parents, Armen Sr. and Alice could afford.  Taking Laura to the fair every year became a ritual. 

From the beginning, it was a father-daughter trip.  Laura’s mother was neither invited nor interested.  They always went on the first day the fair opened; arriving at the gate before it opened and staying until well after dark.  She slept in the back seat as Armen drove home, but even so, she was always tired and cranky the next morning.  When she was old enough for school she was allowed to stay home and rest. 

No matter what was happening at work, the opening day of the fair was theirs.  It continued every year, even after she reached puberty and her father was the last person she wanted to go to the fair with.  But he insisted and what Armen desired, Armen always got.  The last time Laura went to the fair with him was nine years earlier when she was twenty-five.  She was engaged to be married in six months and she decided that, with all her other responsibilities, it was juvenile for a married woman to continue going to the fair with her father.

As Laura watched the fair’s rocket ride ascend, she also recalled the exhaust plumes as it slowly descended.  And through all of this, her father had remained the biggest, strongest, bravest man in the world. He provided a feeling of assurance and safety that nothing could hurt her as long as he held her.

Now, she looked at him once more.  It was the first day of the fair and she was there again with her father.  He didn’t look big, or strong, or particularly brave.  Today he just seemed...lost.  His hair was white; he didn’t stand as straight as she remembered.  He certainly didn’t exude the confidence and authority that had always convinced everyone from powerful CEOs to Ferris wheel operators to accede to his wishes.

Daddy, do you remember taking me on the Ferris wheel?

He smiled at her.

I think there’s time for nine holes before that meeting.

Dad, we aren’t at the golf course.  We’re at the fair.  Remember?  The Fresno Fair?  You and I used to come every year.

I just need to pick up my clubs.

He ambled away and Laura followed a few feet behind, watching him stop to bend down and pick up an imaginary tee.  The exhaustion of the last two years suddenly settled over her, along with the familiar resentment of having put her life on hold; a life that had fallen apart.  As they neared the exhibit halls, she caught up to him.

Dad, do you want something to eat?

We have a foursome and it’s too beautiful a day to waste indoors.

You don’t even know who I am, do you, she sighed.

He patted her hand where it rested on his arm.

Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing?

Laura released his arm as he knelt to put the imaginary tee in the dirt.  Reaching into her purse, she ripped a piece of paper from her notebook, took a pen, and quickly wrote something on the paper. When he stood up, she folded the paper and tucked it into the breast pocket of his shirt. 

The boys want to meet in the bar for drinks before we start, he told her.

The clubhouse is right over there, she replied, pointing to the Home Arts Building just across the grass. 

He smiled and headed in that direction.  She watched him, knowing that within a few steps he had already forgotten where he was going.  The tide of people broke around her as she felt her heart pounding. 

Armen followed the crowd of people moving toward the building.  As he stepped through the large open doors and into the shade, the crowd closed around him and her father disappeared.  Still, she stood there, her eyes watching the doorway. 

For five minutes she waited, and then pulled her purse strap onto her shoulder and began walking away from the building.  She approached a different gate from the one in which they had entered less than an hour earlier. 

Refusing a stamp on her wrist that would allow her to reenter the fairgrounds later, she slipped out and walked to the parking lot.  Sliding behind the wheel, she started the car, turned the air conditioning on, closed her eyes, and rested her forehead against the steering wheel for several moments. 

Finally, she backed out of the parking space and pulled out onto Chance Avenue.  She made her way slowly through the busy streets until she found the entrance to Highway 41.  Merging into the southbound lanes, Laura drove away from Fresno.  Away from her memories. 

Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing?

CHAPTER 11

It was the fifth or sixth time that the elderly man passed by before Steve Jacobs, CEO of the Fresno City Fairgrounds, took notice.  He was not tall, several inches shorter than Steve’s six feet, thin, white-haired.  Steve tried to remember how long ago it was that he first saw him; several hours, at least.  The man didn’t seem to be with anyone, nor did he seem to have a destination in mind, and Steve, as he made his rounds, had seen him in several different