‘Let me tell you about evil, son. Evil don’t exist. . . . . You think I’m bad because I call myself a Satanist? Cos I wear a broken cross and thank a fallen angel for my evening malt?’So speaks Lucifer Senior, the devout head of the Darksteins, the family at the heart of JW Bennett’s mini novella, Practical Devil Worship for all the Family.

Goat Creek is an Appalachian American backwater, a God-fearing community whose residents have remained suspicious of the Darksteins ever since their arrival from the more liberal Philadelphia. The Darksteins – Delilah, Lucifer and their two children Jezebel and Lucifer Jr - are, essentially, just like any other family from Goat Creek. Hard-working and devout, the one thing setting them apart is their insistence on Satanism as their chosen faith.

At the opening of the novella, a fragile peace following a court case has been achieved. However, it is shattered when Belinda Popejay, a local twelve-year-old, disappears, last seen late at night on the Darksteins’ land.

The reader is taken on a journey – sometimes sinister, sometimes darkly comic, but always ultimately uncertain – following the ever-growing suspicion of the family.

Our sympathies sway. Delilah Darkstein, whom we have seen portrayed as a devoted mother, is approached by the school principal and asked to distribute flyers that might lead to the missing girl’s recovery, and relieve her father from his heartbreak: ‘The Popejoys are devastated,’ the principal tells her.

‘Shit happens,’ she says, and, later, in full view of a group of mothers, tosses the flyers into a nearby bin.

The story flits between Delilah, her husband and her children, each facing the suspicion of the rest of the community. Lucifer Sr is assailed by his employer; Jezebel is taunted at school (though she manages to frighten away her tormenters with a tarantula from a record bag bearing a dubious resemblance to the missing schoolgirl’s).

The claustrophobia of Practical Devil Worship becomes increasingly tense, culminating in a final scene as surprising as it is shocking, leaving the reader questioning whether the true evil of this story lies within the Darksteins, or the community that cloaks its wrong-doing in Christian morality.

Sounds like a story for our times. Did you think it was allegorical?