Nietzsche's Lament

The limp body swung eerily from the squeaking barn door. A shadowy figure emerged from the shed, in a hood, dragging an aluminum extension ladder across the soft, reddish-brown earth. The figure carefully positioned the ladder, climbed to the top and nailed the lifeless hands and feet to the cross members of the massive barn door. Blood oozed from the opened hands, causing him to slip from the last few rungs of the ladder. “Damn it!” he shouted into the early Montana evening. “Bastard!” At the foot of the ladder, the executioner admired the handiwork. The sun had set and moonlight played across the placid face of the murdered man. A crown of thorns made of barbed wire adorned his slumping head. His eyes had rolled to the back of his skull, his blue jeans and boots were drenched in blood, and the image of a crucified serpent glimmered on the oversized belt buckle, sparkling in the light of an ascending moon. A coyote’s cries echoed from the nearby hills, signaling the finale to a successful night’s work. The dark figure peered up at the lifeless body. The moonlight gave way to a slow, rolling fog that eventually enveloped the barn and its surroundings, leaving nothing but the distant howl of competing coyotes. Suddenly, everything went blank as a man’s voice yelled, “Wake up! Wake up! You’re having a bad dream.” Laura Lamb shook her head and rolled her eyes. The annoying businessman seated next to her had awakened the Lead Lady from a rare event—it was only the third dream of her life. Dreams were for voyeurs and the timid. She preferred real adventures to fantasy. After a trip to the cramped restroom at the rear of the plane, she regained her composure and thanked the man for saving her from the nightmare. It was, however, an insincere gesture of gratitude, unusual for her nonetheless. Laura was not known for her social graces. She was always in a hurry and had little patience with others. Whenever she confronted plodders, she would flash the poor devils a cold, condescending look, and then abruptly dismiss them with a backward wave of her hand. She believed that the only worthy life was an efficient one. She streamlined her days to maximize effectiveness. Slow movers and thinkers were to be avoided at all costs. The pilot’s voice informed the tired travelers of the plane’s arrival at LAX in fifteen minutes. Laura Lamb gazed down at the sprawling city of Los Angeles, freeways, tract homes, backyard swimming pools and strip malls dotting the landscape. She stretched her short, agile limbs in a vain attempt to shrug off the mind-numbing effects of jet lag. The twelve-hour flight from London’s Heathrow Airport had left her feeling sluggish and disoriented. The uneasy feelings, however, had less to do with her flight than returning to the scene of her metamorphosis. Nearly three years before, she had morphed from an influential FBI agent into a notorious serial killer. Laura Lamb would soon set foot on American soil for the first time in two years. The guy next to her in coach had emitted an annoying whistling sound from his nose whenever he napped during the flight. When awake, he had repeatedly complained about the economy, his dead-end job and his unappreciative wife. “Life’s nothing but an agonizing marathon of sweat and tears,” he muttered. He was gone, thank God, but the irritating whistling sound lingered. Laura Lamb couldn’t get out of LAX fast enough. She retrieved her luggage and rented a red Mustang convertible for her California homecoming. Her two-year excursion abroad had taken her on a fun-filled adventure from London to Mt. Everest. The ex-FBI agent had been on the lam, successfully flying under the radar, undetected by a host of law enforcement agencies, from the CIA to the FBI. She had crossed the thin blue line and become an ominous threat to anyone daring to compromise her private life. She crucified Mitch Moriarty, her one-time boss at the Bureau, for invading her private space and exposing her secret diary. Mitch had made the mistake of revealing her libidinous secrets to the feds, instigating her arrest. Mitch was later found nailed to the barn door of his retirement sanctuary, a ranch in Montana, far from his former stressful life with the Bureau. His crucifixion and the Santa Monica Pier roller coaster murder of another former boss, Mike Adams, placed her high on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. She was armed, dangerous and definitely had a chip on her shoulder. She had arrived in Los Angeles, not as Laura Lamb, but as Maggie Thorton, a one- time nanny and mountaineer, who had conquered both K-2 and Mt. Everest. Laura Lamb was unofficially referred to as the “Lead Lady” at the Bureau. Her nickname traveled across the country by way of the law enforcement grapevine where it had become infamous. She was brash, bold and egomaniacal in her dealings with others. In her mind, she had no equals; she was truly beyond good and evil. Following rules were for others—she created her own values out of whole cloth. The Lead Lady was ready for a new challenge and desperately needed something to light her fire. She had some unfinished business to attend to. Laura registered at the Holiday Inn at the foot of the Santa Monica Pier. It was here that Mitch Moriarty had broken into her hotel suite and found her diary sequestered away in the false bottom of a custom-made suitcase. It was at that moment that Laura had begun her official slide and eventually crossed the forbidden line that separated wholesome law abiding people from the dark world of villains and charlatans. There was a special place her dark soul for this pedestrian hotel. It had again become her launching pad for nefarious deeds. She left the Holiday Inn as Bobby Moore, shedding her Maggie Thorton persona and resurrecting her twenty-something college student disguise. Decked out in a hooded Bruin-blue sweatshirt, jeans and gym shoes fortified by two-inch lifts, she was eager to check up on an old friend. She hadn’t masqueraded as a young man for more than two years; it had worked well before and she was confident. It would feel good to saunter through campus with a male swagger. Her first stop was UCLA; she had to catch up on the latest with Thomas Chance Carpenter. She read on the UCLA web site that the professor had returned from a two-year sabbatical, that he had spent studying Buddhism at a Tibetan monastery. The philosophy department web page indicated that Professor Carpenter had, once again, resumed a full teaching load. She wheeled her rented red Mustang convertible into the parking structure just off Hilgard and made her way to Dodd Hall. She had traveled with the top down, enjoying the warm air blowing through her hair. It was cut short and gave a masculine look to her delicate facial features. The thought of making a surprise visit to Professor Chance Carpenter’s office made the hair on her nape perk up. She enjoyed the buoyancy that the twenty-something collegiate attire gave her, certain that the professor would not recognize her. She was a master of disguise and enjoyed interacting with her rivals from the protective barrier of a persona of choice. She had come to believe that her life had dissolved into a house of fiction; the Lead Lady was nothing but an amalgamation of her many identities. Beneath the varied looks and pseudonyms was a nameless emptiness that threatened her very existence. She lived only in the moment, and was sustained only by the latest persona. She avoided facing her real self at all costs. Bobby Moore mounted the steps of Dodd Hall, bathed in the warm glow of the morning sun. The red brick façade reminded the Lead Lady of her undergraduate days at Columbia. She found the professor’s office without a problem. It had been nearly three years since her last visit to UCLA. On that occasion, she had been there on more official business: to arrest the professor for the murder of five graduate students.