According to legend, Saint Menaus fell from grace by turning his back on the Lord, and committing such ungodly acts that his name was struck from the pages of history. The townspeople imparted the details of his atrocities from one generation to the next, father to son, when the time was right, in a whisper. The young earned their rite of passage into adulthood upon hearing of the saint’s sins, and only if they refrained from repeating the details and evoking the troubled spirit. And so they remained tight-lipped, and wide-eyed, until the time was right for them to pass on what they knew about the saint’s grisly past to their own children, imploring them to heed the warning.
In a recent dig, archaeologists celebrated the discovery of an ancient tomb buried deep below the statue of the fallen saint. The following inscription was unearthed in the entrance to the tomb:
O YE SAINTS HEED MY TORRID COUNSEL. FOR I LAY HERE IN FURY TIL A BOND UNITES ALL MEN ON EARTH. AVERT YE EYES FOR IT SHALL BE WRITTEN – THY NAME – THE PATRON SAINT OF TERRO.
Those who worshipped Saint Menaus soon proclaimed him as the Patron Saint of Terro, the land, until archaeologists exposed an additional stone tablet inscribed with the letter ‘R’. And from that time on, the townspeople cried that Saint Menaus was the Patron Saint of Terror.
Flowers wilted. Iron rusted. Drought plagued the local vignerons who foreclosed on their estates. Gridlocked with fear, the township became a Mecca for wretched souls banished to damnation.
A bond now exists to unite all men on earth: the internet. And Saint Menaus is ready to join the two billion people online at any given moment. He commands his silent army of devil worshippers through the web, and none is more devout than Mr Winter Jeffrey. His feverish evangelism flourishes in the stealth of the net, where old crimes play out in new ways. No messy blood trails. No fleeing from crime scenes. Immune from the reach of traditional policing. A place where identities are lost in online ghettos with dial-up vulnerability. And with an infinite well of victims guided by their silicon values and dotcom morals, all Saint Menaus needs is a chat-room handle.
