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tired. The snake routine had gotten him charged up, but then there was the depressing
     slide from elation into darkness later. Last night he’d gotten a real buzz. But then came the pounding in his head that lasted
     until dawn. He’d spent most of the day sleeping it off, and now, at evening, he felt a little better.
    The countryside swelled from the lowland to the mountaintop. It was mostly rocky farmland and groves of trees stippled with
     dusty turnoffs that led nowhere. After six months out here, he really knew the terrain. Every boulder, every tree: he knew
     them all.
    Ruth checked the rearview mirror for traffic and caught a glimpse of himself in the glass. There were dark rings under his
     eyes. He smoothed his hair and looked away. It was finally catching up with him. There were too many bodies, too much pain.
     His eyes had seen too much. Armageddon, the fall of empires, the slaughter of innocents. Enough blood to fill a sea.
    The road was clear, no headlights in either direction. Ruth turned off between two tall pines onto a hard-packed dirt road,
     and soon the car was surrounded by timber. He drove slowly until the vehicle nosed out into a clearing. He released the accelerator
     and tapped the brake. The car stopped a few feet from the rim of a five-hundred-foot cliff.
    Ruth shut off the engine and lights and leaned back in the seat. The sky to the east was black. At this elevation there was
     no horizon. Heaven and earth blended together, and there was no difference between the dots of light that were stars and the
     ones that were electric. From this perspective they were all the same: torches in the night.
    Ruth savored the solitude. There was too much noise at the camp, there were too many people. Silence was better.
    He unlocked the glove compartment and removed a cellular phone. It chimed as the numbers were keyed in.
    After four rings there was an answer. “This is the voice of
truth
,” he said to the person on the other end.
    “How is it going?”
    “It goes.”
    “How are you feeling tonight?”
    “Physically or spiritually?”
    “Don’t fuck around. Are you all right?”
    “I
live
.”
    “Are you taking your medicine?”
    “As the lamb doth suckle the ewe.”
    “Cut the bullshit. Are you popping your pills?”
    “
Yes
, master.”
    “How’s your supply?”
    Ruth reached into his pocket, grabbed a plastic bottle, and rattled it. “The coffers are full.”
    “When you need more, let me know.”
    “As you wish.”
    “It’s not as I
wish
. You have to stick with the program. Six a day.
Every day.
“
    “I
know
.”
    “It’s almost time for a cash drop. You know what to do.”
    “Yes, of course, my Savior.”
    “Don’t call me that.”
    Ruth didn’t respond.
    “Hey! What the
hell
is wrong with you?”
    “I grow tired….”
    “Well, drink some coffee and take your pills. We’ve got work to do.”
    “Thy will be done.”
    They talked some more, and finally Ruth pushed “end” on the phone unit. Contact points, cash drops, pill supplies. It was
     all so familiar, yet so strange. When he talked, there was another person talking. When he listened, no one was there. Ruth’s
     head pounded, and the screams began again, the anguish of the dead, wailing beneath his skin. He jammed a capsule into his
     mouth and swallowed it dry. Then he put his hands over his ears, lay back against the seat, and tried to focus on the shimmering
     lights that began at the base of the cliff and went on forever.
    Frank Davis was on the move. He’d worked the Joseph Brown case all day, interviewing the other feeble minds at the senior
     center who’d had contact with the deceased the day he passed from the earth. Except for the time out with Sergeant Brown at
     the station, he’d hardly had a break. Now his squad car was parked outside the center again.
    This was the hardest he’d ever worked on anything. But this case was the big one. If he could solve it, he’d move up the ladder.
     And