I was ready to fight them, but how did I get them to come to me? Looking around the maintenance department, I found a unlabelled closet full of machinery. It was the PBX system for the phone and the P.A. system. There, I found a CD player with "The Best of Neil Diamond" in it, set to repeat forever,(shudder). The wolves said they knew this place inside and out, if they heard the music change, they would know where to come.

It couldn't just be any music. It needed to be something that would make them so furious they would not stop to think that this was a trap. It had to be the sort of thing that Psych-Ops people use to get people to end a stand-off. Desperate people can give up when they can't stand hearing the Barney theme song, or Metallica makes them cringe. Interestingly enough, creatures from Hell didn't seem to mind Neal Diamond...

I had remembered seeing a CD boom box on the desk in the maintenance manager's office. Maybe there would be something there. Inside the CD player was a classic bluegrass gospel CD from Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys called "This World is Not My Home. My folks made me listen to this music when I was a kid. I hated to admit it, but I liked it. There would be no other type of music to infuriate these creatures better than Old Time Gospel.

I removed the Neal Diamond CD, and threw it like a frisbee and heard it shatter on the wall, I thought I may have heard a tiny, evil cry as it shattered. I put in the new CD and selected track 2, the title track, "This World is Not My Home", and set it on repeat. I turned up the volume for all the speakers and increased the high-end response on the equalizer, so they could enjoy that extra-twangy goodness.

I turned the heavy steel shop table on its side as a barrier, and waited with my hand on the rope, listening hard to hear the creatures coming...

Part XXVI

Thanks for reading,

AC