Chris Rogers, Author

Spark of Evil by Chris Rogers

[ 1 ] – [ 2 ] – [ 3 ]

The spark of evil that made a man take to killing had always been a curiosity to Billy Ray. His own brother had an evil spark. Growing up in the same house, same good country family, same school, and near about the same age, two boys ought to've had similar dispositions, from any common sense way of looking at it. Yet Billy Ray and his brother Beau were as different as Jekyll and Hyde. As a kid, learning to hightail it every time Beau got in one of his moods, Billy Ray had wondered if the Devil himself might've breathed life into Beau. He was just that mean.

Billy Ray hadn't thought about his brother in a long time. Not since the day they buried him riddled with the sheriff's bullets.

Fifteen years old at the time, Billy Ray remembered standing at the grave site praying that Beau's evil hadn't leaked out through the bullet holes and escaped.

It must've been Gruber's vicious laugh that stirred up all the memories. His laugh sounded a whole lot like Beau's.

Wearing white prison overalls and black shoes polished to a high gloss, the condemned man lay on a gurney, arms strapped down to receive the dose of thiopental. As the doctor fiddled with a bottle hanging overhead, Gruber raised off the pillow to scan the room, grinning.

His gaze locked on Billy Ray.

His ugly grin widened.

Billy Ray squirmed and tried to back away, but his feet refused to budge. He recalled seeing a dried beetle collection once, each beetle suspended above its name by a steel pin. He felt now as if Gruber had reached out with his fiendish black eyes and pinned him like one of those beetles.

Images spilled into Billy Ray's head, bloody, gruesome images of women dying, dozens of women ripped and beaten. Like a video on fast forward, they rushed manic and screaming. Pretty women. Ugly women. Fat or skinny. Blondes, brunettes, redheads.

Billy Ray's mind struggled to free him from Gruber's riveting gaze. He tried to blink away the images. He tried covering his ears to block out the women's screams and Gruber's hideous laugh. He longed to bang his head against the wall hard enough to stop the horrible movie from playing. But he could only stand there, nailed to the floor.

[ 1 ] – [ 2 ] – [ 3 ]

Return to top of page.