Bad Angel — Stephen Donald Huff

Until the night of New Year's Eve, Christen Bass led an ordinary, unmemorable life. On that fateful evening, a deadly highway prank changes him forever. The resulting accident kills a young girl standing near the roadside and it also kills Christen Bass… for a time. After medical intervention revives him and saves his life, the community assumes him to be another drunk driver, and they condemn him for a murderer despite his innocence. His wife divorces him while he is still recovering in the intensive care unit, and more than one of the hospital staff secretly menace him while he is prone and helpless, their loathing for him obvious and genuine. His future seems bleak and tortuous. Although the local police eventually clear Christen of blame, he cannot escape himself. His sense of guilt and horror are overwhelming. In the grips of returning and worsening blackouts, the little girl returns to haunt his delusions and nightmares. She becomes his Bad Angel. As his Bad Angel guides him on ever more elaborate and mysterious errands in the name of 'God', Christen Bass breaks with reality. He can no longer distinguish between right and wrong, and he wakes from his blackouts to find his kitchen cabinets stocked with explosives, his tables heaped with books describing how to build weapons of mass destruction, his living room crammed with stolen goods, and his bedroom piled high with implements of murder. Christen has only vague, deeply disturbing recollections of his nefarious activities, but one thing is certain: he has become a kidnapper, extortionist and murderer, many times over.