The flesh in the furnace

seven puppets on the left. They had been hiding in the banking facilities by the telephone booths. They, too, were armed with steak knives.
        When he turned to the rear, he saw a dozen puppets, some not exactly human in appearance. They were lined up by the customs booths and the arrivals platform.
        He was hemmed in.
        One of the puppets on the right slashed his leg.
        He screamed, stepped backwards.
        He could feel blood running down into his sock.
        On the left, a horned puppet ran forward and drove his knife through the soft top of the gypsy's boot. The blade penetrated the driver's foot.
        Pain lanced the length of his leg, seemed to coalesce in his hip, blossom from there across his broad chest.
        The puppet did not dare' to pull it free. He turned and ran, letting it stick straight out of the boot, quivering…
        Neither did the gypsy dare to bend and pluck the steel loose. Now he was remembering stories told by other gypsy truckers, stories passed down from one generation to the next. There were little people who lived on the dark and empty highways. Usually they skittered off when you came near. Now and then they were caught in the beams of headlamps. And some few times, they boarded a truck as it went by and sought the soul of the driver. They were soulless creatures themselves. The human soul was not adaptable to their form. They had long ago learned this. Still, they tried another one from time to time, especially so the stories said-if that man were a virtuous man.
        Heavens knew, he was no virtuous man. Yet he was not so rugged and crude as other earringed men of the highway. He had never killed a man, nor raped a woman.
        Now he wished he had.
        He could not walk on his wounded foot.
        The line of puppets by the arrivals platform moved toward him.
        He danced backwards on one foot.
        In all his years on the road, in a hundred fights over women in the gypsy camps, he had never been cut by a knife. He had always been too quick, too clever, too selfassured. And now one of these midgets had driven a blade through his foot. Panic and fear had overruled his usual efficiency. He knew that if he did not regain his calm shortly they would have him. Yet he could not stop the terror that coursed through him like current from a live cable.
        It was not the pain that unnerved him so much.
        It was not their size or their ruthlessness.
        It was, instead, the insane glitter in their eyes, the slack and sensuous cast of their faces, as if they enjoyed delivering pain more than anything else in the world.
        "Novel" a beautiful, blond midget exclaimed, waving her blade in the sir as if it were a knight's lance.
        The puppets rushed him from all sides, squealing with delight, shoving and pushing to be the first at him He stepped quickly backwards.
        Too late, he remembered the drop to the avenue behind him.
        He lost his balance, fell.
        The blades caught his arm, tore it.
        He fell away, was pounded unmercifully by the air cushion. His arm bled freely. The pain was almost more than he could bear, though he knew he must not lose consciousness.
        Then the truck began to descend.
        The blades grew closer; the fierce wind grew more fierce. Through the whirling rotars, he could see the fixtures that held the blade shield in place beneath the truck. He could see the spot he had welded last year when the shield had been dented and the blade had torn it open and punched it outwards. He could see grease up there.
        And then the blades settled over him, chopping, and he saw nothing after that…
        "Wasn't it wonderful?" Wissa asked. Her voice was soft, distant, as if she still had not returned from that plateau of hypnotic delight.
        "Yes, love," Belina said.
        "Did you see him trying to scramble out of the way of the van when it was coming down?"
        "Yes."
        "He looked at me, Belina, as if he wanted me to come help him. He looked to me, pleading with me. He said something to me, but I couldn't hear what it was."
        Belina kissed her.
        "Will Sebastian be as good?"
        "Better?"
        Wissa squirmed with anxiety. "How long?"
        "Tomorrow night."
        "Why not tonight? Now?"
        "We don't want to get it over with so fast. We want to enjoy this killing first- When the joy dies;