Servants of Darkness by Mark Hall

she did what she did to that guy’s head. Carl . . .”  Wellman’s voice dropped to a sudden and solemn whisper. “Jesus Christ, Carl, it looked like the goddamned thing was chewed off by some kind of machine or something . . . and there was blood all over the child’s face . . . and in her hair . . . and in her mouth.”
    “Stop it!” Mary screamed.
    Wellman ignored her outburst. “You tell me she’s never done anything like this before, I’ll believe you. You tell me you had nothing to do with it and I’ll believe you again. I’ve got no reason to doubt you, Carl. We’ve been friends a long, long time. But I’m telling you now, I think it would have been best if you’d called the authorities in on this. What you just did out there was the worst possible thing you could have done—”
    “Goddamn it, Ed,” Carl snapped viciously. “It was the most sensible thing I could think of at the time.”
    “You just buried a dead man behind your barn, Carl. A man whose brains were strewn all over the floor out there. A man you say a seven year old girl killed? How did she do it, Carl? Come on, how did a blindfolded little girl with her hands tied behind her back do something like that?. None of us is being very damned sensible about any of this. We’re letting our emotions cloud our common sense. Think about it a minute. Think about how that child came to you in the first place. And, Mary.” He turned to the woman, arms outstretched, palms up. “You see these hands, Mary? These hands have waited thirty years to deliver you and Carl a nice passel of young ones. Lord knows you’ve always wanted kids. A hard working couple like you need and deserve kids. And I’ve never blamed you for what you did. Never! Theresa and I might have even done the same thing, given the same set of circumstances, I don’t know. But I do know one thing. I understand how you felt when that man stood there on your doorstep, that beautiful little baby girl in his arms. Your heart went out to her, I understand that, and I never blamed you, even though we all knew what you did was against the law, maybe even against God. But somehow I managed to shove the reality of what really happened that day into this secret little place in the back of my mind, hoping against hope that it would always stay there, locked up, safe and sound, never to come back and haunt any of us. But now I think it’s time to face some facts. And the fact is, you bought that child, you bought her from a complete stranger. You bought her just the same as if you’d bought some magic piece of carnival fun-house merchandise that promised everlasting life.” Wellman’s eyes had grown huge in his head and his breath was rasping in and out of his lungs like an asthmatic. “You bought her and now it looks like your going to have to start paying for her.”
    “We adopted her!” Mary screamed, her voice choking with grief.
    “No you didn’t, Mary! Don’t forget who you’re talking to here. You took your life savings and you purchased her from a door to door salesman.”
    “We needed her, Ed,” Mary said whimpering. “When we saw her we knew she had to be ours. We couldn’t help it.”
    “Call it what you like, Ed,” Carl said shakily. “Buying, purchasing, black-market-baby. It don’t make no difference to us how we got her or where she came from.” He pointed an unsteady finger at Wellman. “She’s ours now and so help me God, no ones ever gonna take her away from us.”
    “Carl! What are you saying?” Mary screamed.
    “Stop trying to deny the truth, Mary,” Carl snapped, his eyes never leaving Wellman. “Ed’s right. We did buy her. So what? It don’t make no difference. You see, I only know one thing. We ain’t giving her up for nothing, and you can put your money on that one, mister.”
    “For the love of God,” Wellman said, unyielding. “Listen to yourself. Your brain’s all messed up from what’s happened tonight. What do you know about