Blood Lite

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.

My hand is starting to get tired. See? Even with it being a miniscule plastic bell, the ringing process is tir­ing. That is why I was provided with this particular bell and not some giant black iron behemoth that would be impossible to ring a sufficient number of times without collapsing from exhaustion. Everything makes sense when you apply simple logic.

"Was that six hundred and sixty-six?" Rick asks.

"No. We're just over five hundred," I inform him.

"This all seems kind of inconvenient."

"Oh, sure, because it makes sooooo much sense that the process of summoning the devil should be so conve­nient that you can do it just by grabbing the bell from my desk and shaking it a couple of times," I say, making no effort to hide the sarcasm in my voice. "Think about what you're saying, Rick!" I don't have to treat him with respect any longer. You can't respect somebody who is moments away from being skewered by a flaming pitchfork.

I switch the bell to my left hand and continue ringing.

Six hundred (approximately).

I want to cackle with maniacal laughter about what is to occur, but I have to remember that we're still in a place of business, and professional conduct is expected. I can't stop myself from gri

I ring so fast that my hand tingles.

And finally I reach the Ring of the Beast. I ring ten more times just in case.

I give a satisfied nod to my doomed antagonists ... but then my grin vanishes.

What have I done?

Oh God, what have I done?

To prove a point to my co-workers, I have brought Hell to the offices of Tyler & Bettin, Inc. How can I call myself a Christian when I would so selfishly summon Lucifer himself for no reason but to make Rick from Corporate Accounting look foolish?

Satan may not have arrived yet, but there is still an evil presence in this room, and it is me.

I am so displeased with myself that I want to scream. Rivers of blood will flow over our keyboards and mice.

Our printers will melt and sizzle in the hellflre. My co-workers ridiculed me, but did they really deserve this eter­nal overtime of misery?

What can I do to stop this?

Though I'd said that a net couldn't hold Satan, that had merely been an educated guess. If we have one around, it is certainly worth a shot. I want to shout for my co-workers to try to find one, but I am so terrified and appalled by my own behavior that I can't speak. I gesticulate frantically, while they stand around my desk, still looking amused.

"Hello? Satan?" Rick calls out, unaware that he is almost certainly making himself the first target.

I have to stop this! But what can I do? What could ward off the Prince of Darkness? What does he hate most in the world?

And then I realize the answer. Love.

The power of love can stop the Beast from invading our plane of existence. A kiss, true and pure. Upon sensing the expression of human love, the devil will be so repulsed that he might—might—return to his hellish plane and leave us alone.

I gaze at Patricia.

She turns and sadly walks away from my desk. I think I can hear a rumbling sound in the distance. It reminds me of the ventilation system, but I am in no condition to accurately judge sounds and know there is no time to spare. I have to express pure love now.

I stand up, whisper "I love you," then pull Rick toward me and kiss him on the lips. I don't really love him, but perhaps Satan will be fooled.

The chaos is so great that for a moment I think Satan has arrived. But, no, they are merely reacting to my act of redemption. Not in a positive way. Still, they can judge me all they want as long as I've staved off the effects of that accursed bell.

Satan does not show up in the offices of Tyler &Bettin that morning. The kiss worked.

I destroy the bell by stomping on it with my foot. It is too much responsibility for one man.

I spend some time down in Human Resources, explain­ing my actions. I am written up for unprofessional conduct and told that it will negatively impact my raise, but that's okay. I had succumbed to the sin of pride, and my punish­ment is just.

And I learned an important lesson. Love conquers all... but in a pinch, you can fake it.

Dead Hand Sharyn

McCrumb

In stock car racing, a "dead hand" is a jack-type device with which you holdup heavy car parts (like a transmission) while you unbolt them.

I don't hold with talking to dead people. Of course, that's just a personal preference of mine. It ain't against the rules of NASCAR, you understand. And it's about the only thing that ain't.

Will they let you adjust the spoiler a couple of degrees for less air resistance? Naw.

Can you make the roll cage bars out of aluminum instead of steel to lighten the chassis? Not if they catch you.

How about putting a little nitrous oxide in the gasoline to give your car an instant boost in horsepower? Don't even think about it.

Cheating in stock-car racing is a time-honored tradition, an endless game of Whac-A-Mole. You find some little way to give your team an edge, and then NASCAR catches you at it, and the next day they add a new no-no to the rule book. So then you go looking for some other way to get ahead, and that works for a while, and then they catch you again, and so it goes.

I was on a team that was so far up the creek in engine sludge that we couldn't even afford to pay the fines they'd hit us with if they caught us cheating. We were dead last in points, dead men racing, dead in the water as far as being competitive in the sport. That's what got me think­ing about dead people, I guess.

Trampas-LeFay used to be a name to conjure with on the NASCAR circuit, but that was back in the day, when drivers still knew their way around an engine, and when most of the guys out there racing had day jobs instead of fan clubs. Back then a race team could be located any­where, like the Wood Brothers' shop in Stuart, Virginia, or in the garage in back of Ralph Earnhardt's little white house in Ka

Times changed, though. Big money and national media exposure changed the sport beyond recognition, so now we were in an era of West Coast pretty-boy driv­ers and rocket-science engineering, all propelled by the almighty dollar.

But Trampas-LeFay had hardly changed at all. We were still the same little one-car team in the Te

We hadn't won a race in a year of Sundays, but that doesn't mean we don't know our stuff. It just means we're stubborn and maybe a bit behind the times, which in this sport is the fast lane to oblivion.

For one thing, all the wi