Once Night Falls

by Roland Merullo

This was the power of evil, he thought before drifting into a light sleep. Nothing need be actually done to you, just the idea of it, the rumor of it, the sense of the possibility of it. That was enough.

A strange thing, he thought, the way the human mind could form false systems of belief and cling to them in the face of the laws of love and the certainty of death. A whole nation could go suddenly insane. Two whole nations. He wondered how God could allow it.