The Latest Bloodshed

Jim Stallings

C H A P T E R 1

Was it raining? It didn’t matter. At some point in all his dreams, Jelly Lovejoy knew it had to rain. Trouble had to come home to roost. That was the nature of where he was. Strickland County, Georgia, county seat, Warden. Forty thousand souls in the Land of Nod. This was Jesus country. Old and New Testament. A hard land laced with blood and suffering. And in his recurrent nightmare, there was something dark and cloudy, plasma of sorts, nothing definite, except in flashes it took on definiteness, yes it did…and it chased him through his dreams. Like down a slick silver highway through the dark Georgia night. And there was that rain, making things slick. Like blood…slick and sticky all at the same time. And if you made the wrong move, you’d be off that road and off into the pine forest night. And then God help you, nobody knew for sure the limits of your suffering. It took Jelly a long time to figure out what it was chasing him through the dark nights. But it was akin to ignorance. Bilious, unformed, never certain, never obvious, just a vague display of horrid ignorance. One hand not knowing the other…

And it came after you like a mob of monsters that could not get enough of hate and pain. They wanted to punish Jerry “Jelly” Lovejoy for all his wandering thoughts. What had he been thinking when he first began to question things? Was he insane?

But there it was, that questioning mind, asking, does it have to be this way? And the answer from the rearview mirror was, yeah, boy, it does have to be hard and mean and stupid. This is the land of suffering…and the dark hostile force redoubled and chased his failing car through the Georgia nights and he stuck his head out into the wet and cried out for a savior and he or she just didn’t

-1-

The
Latest
Bloodshed

Copyright © 2004 Jim Stallings. All rights reserved.
Maintained by R M Stelting.
Updated: 24 August, 2004