One Door From Heaven

street on which he most desired to live. Eventually, the relatively new field of bioethics became a cozy house in which he felt at home as never before in his life.
        Thus he had arrived at his current eminence. And to this place, this time.
        Soaring mountains, vast forests, eagles flying.
        North, north to Nun's Lake.
        The Black Hole had resurrected herself. She settled in the copilot's chair.
        Preston conversed with her, charmed her, made her laugh, drove with his usual expertise, drove north to Nun's Lake, but still he lived more richly within himself.
        He reviewed in memory his most beautiful killings. He had many more to remember than the world realized. The assisted suicides known to the media were but a fraction of his career achievements.
        Being one of the most controversial and one of the most highly regarded bioethicists of his day, Preston had a responsibility to his profession not to be immodest. Consequently he'd never brag of the true number of mercies that he'd granted to those in need of dying.
        As they sped farther north, the sky steadily gathered clouds upon itself: thin gray shrouds and later thick thunderheads of a darker material.
        Before the day waned, Preston intended to locate and visit Leonard Teelroy, the man who claimed to have been healed by aliens. He hoped that the weather wouldn't interfere with his plans.
        He expected to find that Teelroy was a fraud. A dismayingly high percentage of claimed close encounters appeared to be obvious hoaxes.
        Nevertheless, Preston ardently believed that extraterrestrials had been visiting Earth for millennia. In fact, be was pretty sure that he knew what they were doing here.
        Suppose Leonard Teelroy had told the truth. Even suppose the alien activity at the Teelroy farm was ongoing. Preston still didn't believe the ETs would heal the Hand and send her away dancing.
        His "vision" of the Hand and the Gimp being healed had never occurred. He'd invented it to explain to the Black Hole why he wanted to ricochet around the country in search of a close encounter.
        Now, still chatting with the Hole, he checked the mirror on the visor. The Hand sat at the dinette table. Reading.
        What was it they called a condemned man in prison? Dead man walking. Yes, that was it.
        See here: Dead girl reading.
        His real reasons for tracking down ETs and making contact were personal. They had nothing to do with the Hand. He knew, however, that the Black Hole would not be inspired by his true motives.
        Every activity must somehow revolve around the Hole. Otherwise, she would not cooperate in the pursuit of it.
        He had figured that this healing-aliens story would be one that she would buy. Likewise, he had been confident that when at last he killed her children and claimed they had been beamed up to the stars, the Hole would accept their disappearance with wonder and delight-and would fail to recognize her own danger.
        This had proved to be the case. If nature had given her a good mind, she had methodically destroyed it. She was a reliable dimwit.
        The Hand was another matter. Too smart by half.
        Preston could no longer risk waiting until her tenth birthday.
        After he visited the Teelroy farm and assessed the situation there, if he saw no likelihood of making contact with ETs, he would drive east into Montana first thing in the morning. By three o'clock in the afternoon, he would take the girl to the remote and deeply shaded glen in which her brother waited for her.
        He would open the grave and force her to look at what remained of the Gimp.
        That would be cruel. He recognized the meanness of it.
        As always, Preston forthrightly acknowledged his faults. He made no claim to perfection. No human could honestly make such a claim.
        In addition to his passion for homicide, he had over the years gradually become aware of a taste for cruelty. Killing mercifully- quickly and in a manner that caused little pain-had at first been immensely satisfying, but less so over time.
        He took no pride in this character defect, but neither did it shame him. Like every person on the planet, he was what he was-and had to make the best of it.
        All that mattered, however, was that he remained useful in a true and profound sense, that what he contributed to this troubled society