The Chosen by Sharon Sala

alive. At the same time, it occurred to him that he might die in here. His stomach turned, and his knees went weak.
    As the rat moved toward him, he backed up against the wall. One of the prisoners was whimpering. It took a bit for him to realize it was himself that he heard.
    Finally the rat disappeared through the space under the door. Bart leaned against the wall, then slid all the way down to the floor. His head was throbbing, his heart pounding so hard he couldn’t hear himself screaming.
    But he was.
    And the others heard.
    Simon Peters cursed and turned his face to the wall, while in the room next to him, Matthew Farmer put his hands over his ears and began hammering his head against the floor.
    James rolled into a fetal position and began to wail.
    Andy didn’t bother to join the manic chorus. Minutes before, he’d managed to catch one of the rats that infested the building, and now he was clutching it in both hands. As the other men screamed and cried, he grabbed the rat’s neck and squeezed, harder and harder, until blood started coming out of the rat’s nose and ears. When the eyeballs suddenly popped, he laughed aloud and threw it across the room.
    Â 
    Jay circled the block to his warehouse twice before he pulled around to the back and drove in. Even then, he sat in the cab without getting out, watching the opening in the rearview mirror, as well as scanning the large open space of the warehouse floor. Nothing had changed. Same stacks of wooden pallets. Same forlorn feeling of failure. Satisfied that all was as it should be, he opened the car door. But his sense of security quickly disappeared when he heard the racket coming from the other end of the building. He jumped out of the cab and started running, tracking the loudest wails to the room where his newest disciple, Bart, now resided.
    Without taking the usual precautions, he unlocked the door with shaking hands and dashed inside. Bart Scofield’s business suit was covered in blood. His nose was dripping blood, as were several cuts on his forehead. His wrists were bracelets of blood, with spreading bruises just visible beneath the once white shirt cuffs.
    â€œBartholomew…what’s happened? What’s wrong?”
    Bart Scofield was past pain and out of his mind when he turned on the cab driver. Still running on the adrenaline of panic, he whipped one of the chains up in the air and then brought it down and around Jay’s neck.
    Jay managed one panicked squawk before he went down. It was instinct that made him grab at the chain with both hands, and it was the only thing that saved him from a broken neck. He felt a finger bone snap as the chain tightened, but it was that pain that saved his life. Without thought of what would happen when he let go of the chain, he bolted to his feet and dived headfirst at his latest disciple.
    Scofield slipped on the puddle of urine in which he’d been standing and lost his hold on Jay as he went down. He landed flat on his back. His head snapped backward, hitting the floor with a sickening thud. After that, he didn’t move.
    Jay rolled off him, then sat up.
    â€œBartholomew…are you all right?”
    Bart wasn’t talking.
    Jay nudged Bart’s shoulder. When the man didn’t respond, he moved a little closer and felt for a pulse. The only thing he felt was the trembling of his own hands.
    â€œNo,” Jay muttered, then got up on his hands and knees and tried again, to no avail.
    He slid his hand beneath Bart’s head, testing for a wound. At first he felt nothing; then something odd caught his attention and he thrust his fingers through the man’s hair to the scalp, then beyond. Shocked, he yanked his hand back. It came away covered in blood and brain matter. Bart Scofield’s skull was smashed.
    Jay scooted backward like a crab, then scrambled to his feet. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He rocked back on his heels, folded his arms across his