The place where Tiffany had stood imploded and everyone lurched.

A hero in a story would have used the confusion to wrench free and run out the door. But Giles, ripped by the betrayal, just stood there.

Beefy fists grabbed him quickly again.

Everything moved swiftly. Killington, smiling like a saltwater crocodile, said, “I would imagine there is no doubt in the mind of anybody?” Voices agreed with him. Giles tried to shout, “What are you all agreeing?” But the He-is-Risen man moved sharply and a fist exploded against the side of Giles’s head.

Giles had lived a sheltered life. The last time anyone had hit him was in the 9th grade when Andy Fernandez, a bully with moist quivering lips, had punched him in the stomach and left him gasping on the locker room floor. The shock now of being physically punched made him as nauseous as the actual pain. But he did hear a gasp go around the room.

“I think we can conclude this. Please clear the room. We’ll finish this young troublemaker.” Killington tried to show only the weariness of a man whose job has been delayed by an annoyance but he couldn’t conceal an almost sexual delight.

“If I could just offer a plea for this young man?”

Giles lifted his aching head, which still rang with the blow. It was Jerry, sweat gleaming on his wrinkled brow. He stood now in his ill-fitting grey suit. “We’ve all made mistakes. This young man is a vital part of the festival and he made a mistake, that’s all.”

Jerry was a storyteller himself and he spoke formally now, the same way he told stories, enunciating each word with great care and pronouncing “a” to rhyme with “hay” and “the” to rhyme with “tree.” Giles had always thought this sounded ridiculously stylized but he didn’t think so now.

“Let’s just all take ay moment to reflect on past mistakes we each have made, and let’s give this young man thee benefit of thee doubt. After all, we’re all human beings and we all want thee best possible outcome, isn’t that true?”

Killington’s face crinkled as if he smelled something foul. “Every teller here knows the gravity of this situation,” he said, forgetting again to mumble. “Alright, once you all clear the room, we’ll consider the verdict once more.”

An image came to Giles’s reeling mind: years ago at a crowded party, a drunk young woman had teasingly hinted that she’d have sex with him if he could just get her alone. Killington acted now like Giles had acted then: every person, every interaction was an obstacle between him and fulfillment. Killington wanted to send him to the dark; anything else would be like blue balls to him. Giles’s only hope lay in keeping witnesses around.

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He was a teller! He would start a new story and hold them enthralled! (Could he, while still in the middle of the other story?)

“Good people,” he tried to say, but his head still reeled. The good people were being herded from the room by Mr. Risen while Mr. Pentagram held him. He steeled himself for one last attempt.

A sharp fist rabbit punched his kidney and he sank to his knees, retching and gasping. Mr. Pentagram, grinning through his teeth, said (also through his teeth), “Y’like that, y’little perv?”

Through a red haze, he heard the silence of the nearly empty room as the last feet shuffled out, and the firm slamming of a solid door. Killington’s voice, phlegmatic with triumph, said, “Contradict me in public once more and I’ll crucify you.” With a muffled smack, his large hand hit the bearded face.

Then soft feet approached Giles. His last moments were playing out. Tiffany had abandoned him. Jasmine had promised Tiffany would save him but Tiffany had abandoned him.

For some reason, innocent little Jasmine’s broken promise hurt worse than anything.

“No!”

Jerry’s voice again. Giles looked up, though his head swam and sharp pain lanced through his back. Jerry’s hand was on Killington’s arm. “Vah…” he began, then seemed to catch himself. “Roger,” he continued, “Don’t do this. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye but I’m begging you now. Don’t take this step.”

Giles couldn’t parse out all the implications of this statement: Killington was a man named Roger, he had a history with the festival’s original organizer, and he had never sent a man to the dark before. And what had Jerry been about to call Killington? There was no way that “Voger,” was a mispronunciation of “Roger.”

But everyone had heard of death by lethal injection of sleepy dark, even though there were a hundred different stories of what it meant.

Killington shoved Jerry sprawling on the floor. Jerry, not in the best of shape, (and his bravery, perhaps, drained dry) groaned and stayed down.

And then Killington’s face glared into Giles’s. He reeked of minty-fresh mouthwash with a hint of sulfurous gas and a dead opossum Giles had once found by the side of a hiking trail in the Marble Mountains. Giles struggled to back away but he was held tight by iron arms.

Amazingly, Killington produced a hypodermic needle. Giles hadn’t imagined that “lethal injection of sleepy dark” meant an actual, physical injection.

With the expertise of an addict, Killington squirted a tiny jet, then slid the needle into Giles’s arm and pushed the plunger home.

Giles, remembering the dark which had almost swallowed him as he told the unfinished story to Jasmine, could hardly breathe. Killington looked at his watch and counted.

No darkness enveloped Giles. The small sounds of the room intensified. He heard the thrumming of an electric fan, the ruffling of a pile of papers left near it, the “mmmph” in the throat of the man holding him. The sharp throb in his back grew blacker.

“Now,” said Killington. “Now.” And he looked like Giles must have looked when he’d gotten that girl at the party into a broom closet and they were all alone and her sharp punch-spiked breath was in his face.

“Now. Tell me again that story you told today.”