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barbeque. But a sudden flight of the little angels distracted the pig-eared cops. The tiny winged beings beat at the men’s cruel faces, giving the five pure hearts a chance.
    Clutching his suitcase like a talisman, Jack led Gretchen, Jessie, Tonel, and Vincente across the parking lot to the Casa Linda. They pounded up the motel’s outdoor concrete stairs, all the way to the roof. The pointy-eared police were too busy with the next carload of victims to chase after them. Over by the Banana Split, hungry mantises were debarking from the gold donut.
    They found Albert Chesney at the low parapet of the motel roof, staring out across the rolling hills of Killeville. He had a calm, satisfied expression. His prophecies were coming true.
    â€œBehold the city of sin,” he said, gesturing toward Killeville’s pitifully sparse town center, its half dozen worn old office buildings. “See how the mighty have been brought low.”
    â€œHow do we make it stop, Albert?” asked Gretchen.
    â€œLet us join hands and pray,” said Chesney.
    So they stood there, the early morning breeze playing upon the six of them—Albert, Gretchen, Jack, Jessie, Tonel, and Vincente. There were maybe three dozen toroidal UFOs scattered around Killeville by now. And beside each of them was a plume of greasy smoke.
    Jack hadn’t prayed in quite some time. As boarders in the rectory, they’d had to go to Reverend Langhorne’s church every Sunday, but the activity had struck him as exclusively social, with no connection to any of the deep philosophical and religious questions he might chew overwith friends, like, “Where did all this come from?” or, “What happens after I die?”
    But now, oh yes, he was praying. And it’s safe to say the five others were praying too. Something like, “Save us, save the earth, make the aliens go away, dear God please help.”
    As they prayed, the mothlike angels got bigger. The prayers were pumping energy into the good side of the Shekinah Glory. Before long the angels were the size of people. They were more numerous than Jack had initially realized.
    â€œHalle-friggin-lujah!” said Vincente, and they prayed some more.
    The angels grew to the size of cars, to the size of buildings. The Satanic flying donuts sprang into the air and fired energy bolts at them. The angels grew yet taller, as high as the sky. Their faces were clear, solemn, terrible to behold. The evil UFOs were helpless against them, puny as gnats. Peeking through his fingers, Jack saw one of the alien craft go flying across the horizon toward an angel, and saw the impact as the great holy being struck with a hand the size of a farm. The shattered bits of the UFO shrank into nothingness, as if melting in the sun. It was only a matter of minutes until the battle was done. The closest angel fixed Jack with an unbearable gaze, then made a gesture that might have been a benediction. And now the great beings rotated in some unseen direction and angled out of view.
    â€œPraise God!” said Albert Chesney when it was done.
    â€œPraise God,” echoed Jack. “But that’s enough for now, Lord. Don’t have the whole Last Judgment today. Let me go to college first. Give us at least six more years.”
    And it was so.
    A Greyhound bus drew even with the Casa Linda and pulled over for a stop. B LACKSBURG, read the sign above the bus window. Jack bid the quickest of farewells to his mother and his friends, and then, whooping and yelling, he ran down the stairs with his suitcase and hopped aboard.
    The Killeville Barbeque Massacre trials dragged on through the fall. Jack and Albert had to testify a few times. Most of the Pig Chef defendants got off with temporary insanity pleas, basing their defense on smeel-poi-soning, although no remaining samples of smeel could be found. The police officers were of course pardoned, and Danny Dank got the death penalty. The cases of Banks,