The Oracle of Delphi — Stephen Donald Huff

Every child deserves a second chance, even a hopelessly psychopathic boy with a notorious history who has spent the bulk of his youth incarcerated in a forensic psychiatric hospital. There, after a decade of treatment, the manipulative patient eventually exhausts the sympathy and goodwill of his caregivers, who quickly learn to fear him. Terrified for their own safety, these hapless professionals eventually resolve to dispose of him to save themselves, regardless of consequences. Sealing the boy's records and changing his name, his doctors consequently recruit a naïve young couple to adopt him. According to the law, they inform the would-be parents regarding the juvenile's psychoses, but they cannot detail the many heinous crimes for which he had originally been committed. At the end of a long, hot summer in Delphi, Texas, adoptive parents welcome into their home a Bible-toting teenager they know as Micah, unaware of his murderous past and utterly beguiled by his rote knowledge of the Bible. Unwittingly supporting maniacal designs for their sleepy village, the well-meaning couple proudly introduce their new son to the congregation of their modest church, and they are all duly impressed by Micah's theatrical delivery of the gospel. Within months, among mesmerized disciples and the West Texas scrub, the newly delivered Oracle of Delphi will rise, self-serving, evil and obsessed with carnal ambitions.