Havoc — Stephen Donald Huff

On Friday of Easter weekend in Juglan, Texas, many strange events distract from the festivities. Telephone service is sporadic and failing. Fires burn out of control. Police services are nonexistent. The dead and the dying accumulate on the streets. Before the village's clocktower chimes midnight, many of its citizens will perish and the city, itself, will lie in flaming ruins.This is the terrible revenge of Nelson Sedgewick. For years preceding this heinous act, he has brooded within the ramshackle ruins of his lifelong obsession, his self-styled “Animal Emporium and Family Fun Circus”. An unlicensed roadside attraction presenting animal performances during a period of declining support for such displays, the Emporium is emblematic of the pathological disconnect between reality and Sedgewick's mad dreams. Deceived by the grandeur of his visions and his own misplaced self-confidence, the would-be ringmaster invested heavily in his enterprise before it inevitably failed, and now he blames the village for his ruination.Tonight, he will exact retribution with his army of demented circus animals, all of them recently starved, beaten and conditioned to crave human flesh. City parks will crawl with deadly serpents. Its waterways will team with ravenous reptiles. Its alleys will be the haunt of stealthy leopards, and roving packs of enraged hyenas will prowl its streets. Tonight, Nelson Sedgewick and his Animal Emporium will redefine ‘family fun'.