Tag: family

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 15

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 15

ZELLA LaSTELLA-SALLIE

BUT YOU, DANIEL, SHUT UP THE WORDS, AND SEAL THE BOOK UNTIL THE TIME OF THE END; MANY SHALL RUN TOO AND FRO, AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL INCREASE. (Daniel 12:4)

            There were about a dozen of us watching Seven’s program in stunned silence. It was a live podcast feed from the congressional hearing featuring my husband and Congressman Redburn. Brock Storm was operating the camera from his seat twenty feet away. Whether or not he was recording in secret I didn’t know—God knows.

            The stunned silence in the Storm’s home wasn’t because of the dialogue between Seven and the Congressman. Our eyes were riveted to the TV screen due to the chaos in the courtroom. What was causing the pandemonium was apparently the beginning of the seven last plagues.

            As Brock operated the video camera, he had been rotating back and forth between which of the two men on display were speaking. He had just zeroed in on Mr. Redburn when the Congressman’s face began to discolor. He truly seemed to be living up to his last name.

            His complexion suddenly transformed from a pale alabaster to something like a bad sunburn. Then in a matter of seconds his skin transformed again when his face seemingly broke out into a case of severe acne. That’s when we noticed murmuring and shrieks. Brock rotated the camera around the courtroom and virtually everyone in the room had the same thing happening to them.

            Then the video screen took in both Congressman Redburn and Seven. The appearance of pimples on the Congressman had now turned into boil like sores, oozing puss. Yet my husband was not affected! His light complexion was as smooth as could be. That is for a man over forty with a five o’clock shadow. He seemed to be staring at the camera with a stunned expression. But it was actually Brock he gazed at as he nodded an acknowledgement of some type of communication between the two.

            Next the camera swirled and jiggled as Brock, my husband, and my cousin, Louis Lewis, quickly exited the courtroom.  We caught glimpses of people screaming and clutching their faces. Then the camera bobbed up and down as the trio ran out into the street. The picture on the large TV screen gyrated so much it started to give me motion sickness.

            Yet I couldn’t take my eyes from the scene on the screen. Then the picture stopped vibrating and stilled. Out on the street Brock had stopped and allowed the viewers to take in the commotion outside even the courtroom. Scores of people were clawing the loathsome sores on their faces. Thankfully there were some unaffected as they looked around, amazed at the turmoil.

            For about two seconds my cousin’s face appeared on the screen as he made his way past Brock. Thankfully his ebony complexion was unaffected by the plague. But his brown eyes were super wide and intense as he said, “Come on, Brock!”

            Then Brock whirled and captured the sight of my slightly overweight cousin scrambling down the sidewalk. Between Louie’s wide eyes and the sight of a middle aged man in dress shoes high step running as fast as he could, it caused several of us to snicker, despite the gravity of the situation.

            That view only lasted a few seconds as well before we heard a grunt and the picture on the screen briefly giggled. The camera spun around and captured my husband, the venerable Seven Sallie, sitting on the sidewalk with his arms behind him propping himself up. His gray-green eyes were as wide as Louie’s. “Why’d you stop, Brock?”

            “I was taking in the scene around us, just like you apparently were, as you weren’t watching where you were going.”

            With surprising agility for a middle aged man, Seven leapt up and sprinted away as he said, “Come on, let’s get outta here.”

            The picture began to giggle again as Brock pursued his two companions. My husband, an avid runner, passed my chunky cousin. It reminded me of John chapter twenty when John out ran Peter to Christ’s tomb. But leave it to my husband, he flung open the back door of a dark blue Chevy Malibu and dove in.

            Three cars away, Louie opened the door of his dark blue Crown Vic, but he then froze as he gazed toward the car Seven dove into. “Seven, over here.”

            “I’ll get him,” Brock’s voice said as the camera caught his muscular forearm opening the door to the Chevy Malibu. “Seven, you’re in the wrong car.”

            “Shoot!” he said as he scrambled out. Suddenly my husband’s eyes filled the entire screen for a couple seconds as he said, “Is that camera on?”

            “Yeah, this is a historical moment.”

            “What, by sticking it in my face as I get out of the wrong car?”

            “I’m just trying to help you out.”

            “Well turn that camera off or we’ll have to call this ‘The Three Stooges Escape the Plagues.’”

            Next we see Louis Lewis fumbling with his keys, starting his car, and then a view out of the windshield as they shot out of a parking lot. They had to make their way cautiously down the city streets. Cars were pulled over left and right, and people were running around in a panic.

            “Can you believe what we are witnessing?” Seven said.

            “That’s why I’m filming,” Brock replied, as he turned the camera back on Seven as my husband leaned on the front seats from the back. Seven’s eyes as well as his nose filled the screen this time.

            His eyebrows too as he frowned. “Will you stop sticking that thing in my face?”

            The camera rotated to Louie. My cousin glanced at it, then did a double take. “Well, don’t be pointing it at my ugly mug.”

            As we watched the trio escaping the city via the live feed, Destiny turned her pretty face toward me. She was chewing nervously on her lip but then chuckled. “I’m kind of glad they’re reluctantly playing ‘The Three Stooges.’ It’s sort of relieving how freaked out I feel.”

            “Me too,” I said as we both gave each other’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

            A knock at the door made us jump. Destiny clutched my hand tighter, so together we cautiously made our way to her front door. She peeked through a window and sighed with relief. Glancing at me, she said, “It’s Anna Clayton and her daughter, Brianna. They have no sores, but they both look terrified.”

            Dee opened the door and with her typical warm smile, in spite the turmoil. “Anna, Brianna, please come in.”

            Anna Clayton had learned about the true Sabbath during the loud cry. The loud cry came on the heels of the national Sunday law, in conjunction with the out pouring of the Holy Spirit, which was the Latter Rain.

            I knew the Sabbath issue had become a divisive sticking point between Anna and her husband. After fellowshipping with us a couple of times, she and her eight year old daughter Brianna stopped coming. Her reason was for the sake of her marriage. Her husband was in adamant favor of the Sunday laws.

            However, a few weeks earlier, when Sunday worship became mandatory, she showed up at our fellowship with a tear steaked face. She informed us that when the rubber met the road, she couldn’t deny her convictions. She clearly saw the Seventh Day Sabbath as the seal of God, and the mandatory worship on Sunday as the mark of the beast. It now had seemed to have driven a wedge between her and her husband. Her husband refused to let their daughter come with her.

            We didn’t know much about Anna those few weeks ago when she took her ultimate stand of faith. She was a plain Jane, meek and kind of timid. Her shoulder length hair was somewhere between dirty blond and light brown. In the limited time I had been around her, it had always been corralled in either a ponytail or hair clip. She wore glasses, but no makeup, and no jewelry other than a wedding band. Her gray eyes were close set, her nose small and her lips thin. Her smile, although rare, was lovely and made endearing by slightly crooked canine teeth.

            “I didn’t know what to do other than to come back to your church,” she had told Destiny and me after we led her into the pastor’s study for some privacy. “Brad refused to let Briana come with me.”

            “First of all, lets pray,” Destiny said, and then led us in a heartfelt prayer petitioning God’s help with Anna’s family situation as she courageously took a stand for her convictions.

            “There’s something else I should share,” Anna added. “Our two sons take their dad’s side in this controversy.”

            “Oh?” Destiny replied with raised eyebrows, looking as surprised as I felt. “I assumed Brianna was an only child.”

            Anna shook her head vigorously. “Brad and I have a twenty nine year old son and a twenty seven year old son.”

            I frowned. “I see, but I thought you had told us before that you were married the summer before Brianna was born?”

            She shook her head again. “We renewed our vows the summer before Brianna was born. We actually got married two weeks after we graduated from high school. Bradely Junior was born late the following spring.”

            “Oh, so you two have been married thirty years then?” I asked.

            She nodded. Then she bit her lower lip nervously. “I feel I should share something else with you as well. It’s actually making my situation with Brad much more complicated than just our differing views on the Sabbath.”

            She paused and looked at her lap. She wore a blue and white house dress, and she twisted her fingers nervously in the folds between her legs. The church she had belonged to was very conservative and the women always wore skirts or dresses.

            She looked up at us and a tear leaked from her eye. “I feel like I’m betraying Brad with what I’m about to share.”

            She paused for a very long time, but Destiny and I sat quietly and gave her space. Anna surprised us by suddenly snorting a laugh. “Well, you two sure aren’t the nosy, gossipy type. So at least I can trust you to keep it to yourself.”

            She paused and looked at her lap again. Especially given the little compliment she had given Destiny and me, I had to stop myself from saying, ‘Keep what to ourselves?’

            “Brad isn’t Briana’s father,” she finally and quietly admitted.

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 13

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 13

LOIUS LEWIS

FEAR GOD AND GIVE GLORY TO HIM, FOR THE HOUR OF HIS JUDGEMENT HAS COME; AND WORSHIP HIM WHO MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH, THE SEA AND SPRINGS OF WATER (Revelation 14:7)

            “Lou, right now they’re single file,” Brock’s low voice said directly into my ear via an ear bud. “I still don’t know what kind of weapons they have. One of them is wearing black cargo pants and a black shirt. The other is wearing blue jeans and a green shirt. You take the guy in black; I’ll get the other. I’m moving in on them so I’m gonna be silent now.”

            Inga and I were in a make shift tent, a good half mile from the closest road. I could tell she was scared, but she had a determined look on her face. A crack from one of the tarps that worked as a shelter put a band of late afternoon sunlight across the top half of her face. It made me think of it as a mask of righteousness across the courageous young lady’s face. I was prepared to take a bullet for her if necessary.

            A few days ago, when I was still a police lieutenant, there was no way I would be part of a mission using a twenty something year old woman as bait to catch bad guys. No private citizen for that matter. Now I was a private citizen myself, and I guess playing a private detective. I ended up going along with a plan to entice some of those possibly involved with the murder of Inga’s sister into a trap.

            I also did another ‘no, no.’ I pulled a twenty-two pistol from a coat pocket and whispered, “Glow Eyes, have you ever shot a gun?”

            Her arctic blue eyes looked startled. But she still wore a stoic expression as she shook her head. I gave her an extra quick lesson, then sat the pistol not far from her. “Don’t touch this unless the bad guys somehow get the edge. But be of good courage, WE have the edge. They’re walking into a trap WE set. There’s three of us and two of them. And one of our three is Brock Storm.”

            She took hold of my hand that wasn’t pulling a Glock 17 from my other inside pocket. I looked at our joined hands and then at her. “We also have a decorated police veteran.”

            I forced a smile and refrained from saying former, but she did it for me. “Before you got fired.”

            I had discovered that Inga usually followed a compliment with a slight. Yet I’m not sure she did it on purpose. She was one of those people like Seven Sallie that had a hard time stopping their mouth from speaking what came to their mind.

            I could almost feel the approach of the bad guys, even though it was quiet. That is except for the noise of the woods. That being the chirping of birds and the chatter of squirrels. Then a twig snapped. Suddenly there was a rush of footsteps, and I aimed the Glock at the makeshift entrance. There was a brief scuffling sound, then Brock’s voice. “Lou, it’s me. You two can come out.”

            Inga and I exited the tent, and I scratched my head. The guy with the blue jeans and green shirt laid unconscious. The guy in all black had a bloody nose as Brock put handcuffs on him. As he did so, the suspect talked about wanting a lawyer.

            He continued. “I know my rights, all we have is knives and they are perfectly legal. That old pervert appeared to have kidnapped the young lady, and we thought he was gonna rape her.”

            Destiny and Zella came down the dear trail, with Destiny carrying a black tool bag.

            “You seem to be mistaken,” Brock said. “I’m not the police. I don’t care one bit about your rights. Just as you care nothing about the lives of Inga and Paloma Likas, and Priscilla Rosenwinkle. I only care about justice.”

            A propane torch in Brock’s right hand popped to life from a lighter in his left hand.

            “What are you doing?” the man in black asked nervously.

            “Executing justice for the murdered young ladies.”

            “We didn’t do it, I swear!”

            “Maybe not, but you know who did.”

            “No I don’t!”

            Brock flashed the flame across the man in black’s bare arm, and he howled at the dipping sun.

            “That was only a second, think what a minute, maybe two will be like,” Brock warned.

            To use an old fashioned gangster movie term, the man in black sang like a canary. No sooner had he finished, when FBI Agent Nora Medora came down the trail along with Benito Bonanno. They were accompanied with a few other Federal agents. At least I assumed they were since I was out of the loop.

            Inga sat on a nearby boulder, crossed her arms, hugging herself and watched a discussion ensue between Brock and Nora Medora. Zella went to her, and Inga sprang up like a jack in the box and hugged my cousin fiercely. Destiny joined them and rubbed Inga’s back. When Inga separated from Zella, she took Destiny’s hand and squeezed.

            I wasn’t good with emotional stuff. Maybe that’s yet another reason I ended up with marital problems. The Sunday law issue that came up between my wife and me was probably only the straw that broke the camel’s back. But I owed Inga, what? Respect? Gratitude?

            I approached the trio of women, and they all turned their gaze on me. Discomfort made my skin crawl, but I pressed on, duty bound. I made a fist, gently placed it on Inga’s upper arm and gave a little shove. “You did good, kid.”

            Those striking arctic blue eyes were watery as she looked into mine. She opened her arms and the next thing I knew I was in an embrace with the little twirp. It was like hugging a bag of bones. Although it was loose and awkward, it also felt surprisingly good and comforting. It seemed to allow everything I’d been holding back to flash before my mind. My marriage, my job, this little mission, what the future held.

             Then I heard whimpering and was horrified to realize that it was me. I braced myself for a smart-alecky remark. But she surprised me by kissing my cheek and saying, “Lou I know you’re going through a lot. Don’t feel embarrassed for having feelings. Remember, Jesus Himself wept.” (John 11:35)

            I gave a little shrug and nodded. Then she reverted back to the Inga I was more familiar with. She shoved me with both hands and said, “So who do you think you are?”

            “Who do I think I am? A man who is blessed to have friends like you during a time like this.”

            She chewed her lip, and her eyes watered some more. Her face scrunched up and she threw herself in my arms again, but this time our hug was tight. “You’re becoming like the grandfather I never had.”

            I felt myself frown. “You know, I’m actually three months younger than Zella.”

            “Oh, well, you just look a lot older, more gray, less peppy.”

            I turned our embrace into a bear hug, and she emitted a high pitched squeak. “Lou!”

            I released her and we both laughed. Then she looked at me with sympathy. “I don’t recall you ever laughing before.”

            The way I felt was either laugh or cry, right? But I didn’t tell her that.

            It felt really strange to be part of something like a police operation, yet not in the loop. It also felt strange being part of an operation where I questioned the ethics. The thing that bothered me was the threat of torture. What also troubled me was that the potential torturer had the reputation as a devout Christian.

            After the proverbial dust settled, Brock approached me. “Thanks for your help, Lou. You did great.”

            “Listen, Storm, can I ask you a question?”

            “Of course.”

            “Let me say first, you’re amazing at what you do. But…”

            “You had a problem with the torch incident,” he interrupted with a rueful smile.

            “I did. It’s not something I would have done as a police officer.”

            “You weren’t allowed to.”

            “True enough, but there’s plenty of bad cops that skirt rules and ethics.”

            “But you were a good cop.”

            “I tried to be.”

            “No, you were a good cop. Otherwise you wouldn’t have joined our side on the Sunday law issue. You care about doing what is right.”

            I shrugged, then gave him my own rueful smile. “Are you avoiding the question?”

            “You never asked one.”

            I frowned. He was right, he had interjected my discomfort with the torch. “Fair enough. How do you balance being a Bible believing Christian and torture?”

            “I didn’t torture anyone,” he said as he reached for the propane torch and lit it. He ran it across his arm just like the suspect. Only Brock winced rather than howled. “For the record, I was not gonna do any more than what I just did to myself.”

            “But you asked him how that torch would feel on his skin for a full minute or more?”

            “I never said I was gonna do it. I’m pretty sure he thought I was though. You may not agree with my tactics, Lou. But I suppose between my appearance and demeanor, I have only needed to give bad guys an implied threat. Keep in mind though, since becoming a Christian, I don’t do this chasing bad guys for a living anymore. Only when an acquaintance is in some type of trouble.”

            “Before becoming a Christian, did you follow through on threats?” I inquired.

            “You don’t want to know.”

            “Sure I do, or I wouldn’t have asked,” I replied, and then grinned. “But I think you actually answered my question by your avoidance.”

            “You are a good detective,” he replied with a smirk.

            The next few weeks for me were a blur. But not just because of my personal life. Every day the chaos in the headlines intensified with wars and rumors of wars, calamities, hunger and homelessness. Yet at the same time, false revivals across America were increasing in staggering numbers. Miracles and supernatural encounters abounded.

            A so called prophet that many believed was Jesus was adamant that the Bible Sabbath was changed to Sunday. My wife was one of the many that were buying in to it. Until then it seemed my wife and I might have been making headway in repairing our marriage.

            Then when I explained that Jesus’s second coming would be visible to all, and that there would be false Christ’s and false prophets, she didn’t like it. All of our endeavors at marital healing started to go sideways. Then the call for mandatory worship on Sunday became a reality. One would no longer be able to buy or sell unless they proved, mostly via their phones, that they had checked into a religious service. They could even do this through zoom if they were housebound.

            I vehemently refused to comply, and my marriage went from sideways to backwards. Karen filed for divorce and wanted me out of the house for good. She was very concerned that my refusal to comply with the Sunday laws would make her guilty by association.

            I never felt so alone that first day as I gathered some things and moved out. But things looked up rather quickly. My cousin Zella and I had fully repaired the breach that separated us for years. I joined her little band of believers, and they all, even her husband Seven, welcomed me with open arms.

            The Storm’s graciously invited me into their large home after my wife kicked me out of ours. They were living self-sufficiently. They had an abundant garden of which we all chipped in to help keep up with maintenance and harvest. There was also a network of fellow believer’s living the same way with all of us working together to defy the mark of the beast and its national Sunday law.

            God had a remnant people! During the loud cry, everyone was given a choice. Either embrace the commandments of God and the seventh day Sabbath of the Creator, or the commandments of men and Sunday, made popular by human tradition. Although most of humanity followed the beast and adhered to Sunday observance, many came out of spiritual Babylon and embraced the Bible Sabbath.

            The out pouring of the Holy Spirit was being experienced in abundance. Despite my many trials in the recent past, I had never experienced such peace and contentment as I did with my new life. There was a deep satisfaction that came from giving my all to God. Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10) became something I had experienced to the fullest. But it wasn’t without its challenges.

            Seven Sallie spoke before congress. Brock and I accompanied him. It was dangerous. In some parts of the world, Sabbath keepers were being put in prison and even to death. Sabbath keepers were being blamed for the calamities and strife throughout the planet. And what happened in that government building that day did not make things better.

            Despite Seven Sallie fluently and eloquently explaining Bible truth, the majority of our political leaders would have none of it. Suddenly people began to get rashes. Then the rashes turned into blistering sores. A rancid smell filled the room. Murmurs turned into shrieks. I was beyond confused. Compared to my spiritual brethren, I was still somewhat of a child in Biblical matters.

            “What is going on?” I mumbled to Brock, dazed by what I was witnessing. Yet he, Seven, and I were unaffected by the sores.

            In a solemn voice he replied, “It seems to be the first of the seven last plagues.” (Revelation 16:1, 2)

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 6

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 6

LIEUTENANT LOUIS LEWIS

HE REVEALS DEEP AND SECRET THINGS; HE KNOWS WHAT IS IN THE DARKNESS, AND LIGHT DWELLS WITH HIM (Daniel 2:22)

            “Is that shrug a yes or no?” I had asked Inga Likas, also known as Inga Cognito. The question was whether or not she had supernatural powers. Just to be clear, I did not believe that she had supernatural powers. But I was looking for was whether she thought she did.

            “Maybe,” she replied with another shrug.

            “How do you maybe have supernatural powers? Either you do or you don’t. Let me rephrase that. Either you think that you do, or you don’t. Yes or no?”

            “Yes, we all can have supernatural powers. And I mean you as well, Lieutenant.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “I mean if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can move mountains,” she declared. (Matthew 17:20) “Do you not believe that?”

            “I’m not here to discuss my faith. I’m…”

            “Or lack thereof,” Inga interrupted.

            “Now listen here,” I began to defend. Then I paused, regained my composure, and calmly said, “We need to stay on the task at hand. And that task is for me to investigate the death of your sister.”

            “You’re the one that asked if I had supernatural powers.”

            I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Why did my detectives have to be overworked, compelling the Captain to assign me personally to this homicide case? He had a twofold reason for doing so. For one thing, he put a lesser value on the murder of a seemingly homeless person. For another thing, I could tell he was not pleased when I requested to withdraw from overseeing the ever increasing Sunday laws.

            “Ms. Likas, tell me about this former fiancée. Why do you think he was behind it and not someone, say, from the homeless community?”

            “Because of what you said was carved into her flesh,” she replied. Then she paused as she choked on a sob. “Nobody here knows I sometimes went by Inga Cognito other than members of your police department, and my friends, Zella and Seven Sallie. Do you think one of your officers may have done it?”

            “Absolutely not!”

            “Well, I say the Sallie’s absolutely did not do it either.”

            “Okay, tell me about this former fiancée.”

            “Before I do, let me make this statement. In my thinking, I wasn’t his fiancée. I was being forced into a marriage that wasn’t legitimate, since he had multiple wives and I was only sixteen years old.”

            “Can you tell me who he is and where he is?”

            “His name is Bryson Bronx, and the last I knew he lived on a compound in the California desert. He’s very wealthy, I’m sure he’s a billionaire. He’s also the leader of a wacko alien cult. There were more than two hundred of us living on the compound. My sister, Paloma, who you found… Who…”

            Inga put a fist over her mouth and began to cry. My cousin Zella put an arm around her. I gave her space to grieve.

            “So tell me, Inga,” I began gently after she calmed. “If this Bryson Bronx is a very wealthy man way out in California, how do you think he tracked you here to a homeless camp in Iowa?”

            “Oh, I don’t believe he did it himself. But I do believe it was one of his hench men, bodyguards, thugs, whatever you want to call them.”

            “What can you tell me about these hench men?”

            “He had seven of them. He was obsessed with seven.”

            “I assume you mean the number and not this gentleman sitting at the table with us?”

            A smirk played at Inga’s lips. “Did you mean Seven Sallie?”

            “I did.”

            “Okay. The gentleman part confused me.”

            “Hey, that’s hurtful even if it might be true,” Seven replied with self-deprecation.

            Inga burst out with a laugh. Then it instantly morphed into sobs. She croaked, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be joking at a time like this. The truth is, Seven’s the most wonderful man I have ever met. If it hadn’t been for him and Zella taking me in, I most likely would have been killed with my sister.”

            I took in the scene for a moment. My cousin Zella with her arm protectively around Inga on one side, and Seven giving her hand an affectionate squeeze on the other. I had judged Seven and his zeal over the Sabbath vs. Sunday issue as Pharisaical. I felt he was knit picking, and disrupting community unity by rebelling against the Sunday laws. But their taking in this homeless girl was living out Christianity at its core.

            I had seen Inga Likas, also known as Inga Cognito, two or three weeks earlier at the station. Let me tell you, she was rough, dirty, and weathered. But now after only a couple of weeks with the Sallie’s she looked clean and healthy. This despite red rimmed eyes caused by grief.

            Getting back on task, I inquired, “Please tell me what you meant by Bryson and the number seven.”

            “He felt seven was the Biblical number of perfection,” Inga replied with a shrug.

            “I can’t argue with that,” I added.

            “Really?” Seven asked with an arched eyebrow.

            I didn’t know if he was inferring about the seventh day Sabbath or himself. But I knew I had walked into it, so I walked right back out of it by moving forward. “You were to be his seventh wife. Is there anything else regarding Bryson and seven?”

            She shrugged. “He had his seven hench men, seven house keepers and butlers, seven cars, stuff like that. But here’s the thing about his seven wives. When I was to become his seventh wife, it was more like his, I don’t know, eleventh or twelfth at least.”

            “What does that mean?”

            “It means when he finds an interesting prospect for another wife, his least favorite of the seven mysteriously disappears,” she explained, using air quotes while saying ‘disappears.’

            “So you’re saying he has them killed?”

            “All I know is they disappeared. Having them killed would be my guess. Or maybe he really is in communication with aliens.”

            “So let me get this straight. He’s into Biblical things, but has people murdered? His so called wives no less?”

            “I didn’t say he was a Christian, but he is interested in aspects of the Bible. But more  like secret Bible codes rather than, say, the Gospels.”

            “I see. So did you witness any of these disappearances?”

            “From the standpoint of hearsay. You know, like, oh Brenda’s gone. Then a month or two later, there was a new wife for Bryson from among our ranks. Then around a year later, oh Jenny’s gone. Then a month or two after, there’s was a new wife for Bryson. And Jenny was the vacancy that was supposed to pave the way for me.”

            “How long did you live on this compound?”

            “I was twelve when we moved there, so about four years. My mom got intrigued by the cult, divorced my dad and married one of Bryson’s seven hench men. Most of the followers on the compound lived in dorm type quarters. But because my stepdad had rank, we lived in a pretty decent apartment.”

            “Is your mom still there?”

            “I’m not sure. When Paloma and I ran away, Bryson was not happy at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if she disappeared,” she said, again using air quotes for ‘disappeared.’

            “Have you been in contact with your mother since you left the compound?”

            “Nope.”

            “So you were sixteen when you left the compound?”

            “I was days away from turning sixteen and Pal was eighteen.”

            “What about your father?”

            “I haven’t seen him since I was twelve.”

            “He didn’t have joint custody or anything?”

            “He couldn’t. He had a couple domestic violence charges against him. Besides, he always doubted whether he was actually our father. And with good reason. One of his domestic violence charges came after he caught our mom in bed with a friend of his.”

            “Is he a possibility in the death of your sister?”

            “I don’t know, I suppose. But it’s been so long since I’d seen him, it didn’t really occur to me. It was Bryson’s men who tried to hunt us down after we left. Like I said my dad wanted nothing to do with Paloma and me. The only one of us three he liked was Brent.”

            “Who’s Brent?”

            “Our brother. He’s two years older than Paloma, and four years older than me.”

            “Do you know his whereabouts?”

            “He joined the Marines as soon as he turned eighteen. I haven’t seen him since and only talked to him twice.”

            “Were you and your brother ever close?”

            She shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, for growing up in a dysfunctional environment, we got along quite well. My dad liked me the least. Brent protected me from our dad’s wrath. You see, the friend he caught in bed with my mother had unusually light blue eyes like me.”

            Inga’s eyes were indeed striking. So arctic blue, they sometimes seemed to glow.

            “My eyes are the reason Bryson chose me to be his wife,” she continued. “Even though Paloma is prettier than me. He felt like because of my eyes I was some type of gateway to other worlds. He thought I could make, how do I put this? Contact.”

            “You mean contacting aliens.”

            “Yeah, something like that.”

            “How old is Bryson?”

            “By now he would be in his mid-fifties.”

            Paloma’s face was beaten beyond recognition. When Inga said her sister was prettier, I thought it would be good to see how much the siblings resembled each other. “Do you have any pictures of Paloma?”

            Inga pulled out her phone and pulled up some pictures of Paloma. The two women definitely looked like siblings. Inga was also being humble in declaring her sister prettier. Although Paloma had a more curvy, voluptuous body, Inga’s arctic blue eyes made her face more striking, compared to Paloma’s darker blue-gray eyes. Would the killer have noticed the difference?

            As I held Inga’s phone in my left hand, I pulled my own ringing phone out of my pocket with my right. It was my desk sergeant.

            “Hey Jeff, what’s up?”

            “Hey Lou. There’s a man here who says his name is Brent Likas. Says he’s the brother of the murdered woman from the homeless camp.”

BLACK SABBATH – CHAPTER 5

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 5

ZELLA LaSTELLA-SALLIE

HE HEALS THE BROKENHEARTED AND BINDS UP THEIR WOUNDS (Psalm 147:3)

            I felt a wave of anxiety when I saw Lieutenant Louis Lewis’s unmarked police car in our driveway. Then it transformed into anger. I had been paying close attention to my husband’s podcast and knew for a fact he said nothing amiss about the national Sunday laws.

            The worst, according to officials and authorities anyway, would be his explaining the Holy Scriptures rather than the traditions of men (Mark 7:8, 9) and for teaching the Biblical Sabbath rather than the commandments of men (Matthew 15:9). But it seemed we were rapidly losing the right to free speech.

            My jaw was clenched as I made my way to the front door of our home, so I tried to think positive. Maybe my cousin, the lieutenant, had shown up to make amends for the rift between him, his family, and me. They had judged me for the way I lived my life in my teens and early twenties. Fair enough, I can see how I might have brought shame to my conservative family.

            But even when I experienced a spiritual conversion, when I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, it still wasn’t good enough because I worshiped on a different day from them. This only caused more disapproval from them when national Sunday laws were established. Yet not one of them opened the Word of God to show me my error from Bible.

            I was barely through the door when Seven pulled me into an embrace. This felt odd because I could see Triple Lou sitting at our kitchen table watching us. Nonetheless, I took the opportunity to inquire about my cousin’s visit. Placing my lips a quarter inch from my husband’s ear, I asked, “Are you in trouble again?”

            In a low voice and looking me in the eyes, his own gaze as intense as I had ever seen it, he said, “Don’t panic, Inga is alright. Physically anyway. So, your cousin had reason to believe she was murdered. But it turned out to be, possibly, a relative of Inga’s. But she became distraught and ran into her room. Maybe you should go to her.”

            “I will,” I replied as I dashed off. Inga hadn’t closed the door, so I peeked in. She was lying face down on the bed with her forehead resting on her crossed forearms. She was whimpering and I softly spoke her name. “Inga, honey?”

            Her head popped up and she turned to look at me. Then she rolled off the bed and took a couple quick steps toward me. For the second time in only a minute, I found myself in a tight embrace. Only this time the hugger buried her face in my neck and sobbed.

            “Ssshh,”  I soothed as I stroked her hair.

            “My Pal, Pal is gone,” she croaked when she calmed a bit. “The only person I truly ever loved.”

            “Was she your best friend, Honey?”

            “Yes. Not only that, she’s my sister… Was my sister.”

            Saying ‘was my sister’ brought on another round of hard sobs into my neck. I could feel the wetness on my skin, but I didn’t care whether it was tears, slobber, or even snot. Apparently, she became aware of the moisture she was expelling onto me as well. She quickly separated from me and grabbed at a tissue box on the nightstand.

            “I’m so sorry,” she said, and with trembling fingers she pressed the Kleenex to my neck and shoulder.

            I put my hand gently over hers. “It’s okay, Honey. Why don’t you sit down.”

            “I don’t know what to do,” Inga croaked as she plopped hard onto the bed.

            “I didn’t know you had a sister,” I told my friend of only about two weeks as I crouched in front of her. “We could have put her up as well.”

            “I didn’t know she was in town,” Inga replied as if guilty of something.

            “Where did you think she was?”

            “In Nevada, probably Las Vegas.”

            “Can I ask why you weren’t with her?”

            “Because she was employed by the oldest profession, and I’d rather be homeless than do that, or even be supported by that.”

            “Why are you homeless, Honey? Where did you grow up?”

            Her grief turned to a look of alarm, but then she calmly said, “I better go talk to Triple Lou. I do not want to go over my life twice.”

            “I’m sorry, Honey, I shouldn’t pry.”

            She fiddled nervously with her fingers as new tears leaked from her eyes. With quivering lips, she said, “I’m so sorry, Zella.”

            “Honey, for what?” I replied, incredulous. “You just found out that your sister was… You know… So why would you need to apologize?”

            “Because you took a chance on a homeless woman, and what do I do? I bring this… This trouble to your home.”

            “It’s not your fault.”

            “Does God hate me?” she squeaked.

            “Oh Honey, no!” I told her as I sat on the bed next to her, putting my arm around her. She leaned her head into the crook of my neck. I almost asked why she would say that. But obviously she had just found out that her sister had been murdered. I prayed silently. “Lord, what do I say?”

            “Honey,” I began. “It seems to me God put you in our path for such a time as this. You might have been killed with her. You weren’t. Not only that, you have us to help you get through this crisis.”

            “You mean you’re not gonna kick me out?”

            “Oh course not! Why would you think that?”

            “Well, Triple Lou is gonna want to know where we came from. Once you hear… I don’t know… I won’t hold it against you if you decide differently.”

            I opened my mouth to protest. But then I closed it. Although I didn’t believe the worst about Inga, did I really know her? Yet I trusted the Holy Spirit when He urged us to take her in. However, when I opened my mouth a second time, I said, “Do you feel up to talking to the Lieutenant now?”

            “I guess so,” she replied, but eyed me curiously. “Do you see him more as Lieutenant Louis Lewis or Cousin Louis Lewis?”

            “Right now as Lieutenant.”

            “Because of my sister?”

            “No, because I’m mostly estranged from my family.”

            “May I ask why?”

            “First because I got involved with racy things.”

            “You mean by marrying Seven?”

            “No, not race as in ethnic background, but racy as in lewd. I was a nude model.”

            “So you did porn?”

            “No, it was, um, erotica.”

            “What’s the difference?”

            “I didn’t have sex on film. Well, very minimal anyway.”

            “What do you mean by minimal?”

            “Honey, this doesn’t seem to be a good time for this discussion.”

            “You’re right, I know. I guess I’m both stalling and trying to understand how much I can trust Triple Lou.”

            “With this, I’d say you can trust him.”

            “Just not with the Sabbath inquisition.”

            “Yeah,” I smiled sadly. “It is weird that my family has shown more hostility at me not following the mainstream on the Sunday laws than they were for me being a centerfold. I thought when I repented, reformed, and accepted Christ and Christianity it would put me back in good graces with them. But apparently it wasn’t the right kind of Christianity. So instead the wedge in our relationships became deeper and, well, more wedged.”

            I stood and offered my hand to Inga. She sighed, stood, and put a limp hand in mine. “My head is swirling with so many things, Zella. Mostly grief and fear.”

            “I know, Honey. But trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5)

            “I will,” she said as her grip on my hand tightened. She eyed me earnestly for a few seconds. “Because the Lord put you and Seven in my life for such a time as this, right?”

            “Right, Sweety.”

            Inga and I walked hand in hand toward Lieutenant Louis Lewis and sat at the kitchen table with him. The first thing he said to Inga was, “I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Likas.”

            “Thank you,” she replied meekly.

            With an odd mixture of stern and gentle, he asked, “Do you have any idea who might have killed your sister?”

            Inga took a deep breath. “My best guess would be my former fiancée.”

            I felt myself tense. Inga had a former fiancée?

            “And do you have any idea why this former fiancée would want your sister, and maybe even you, dead?”

            “He was a wealthy and polygamous cult leader. When I turned sixteen he chose me to be his seventh wife. My sister helped me escape.”

            “You’re now, what? Twenty four?”

            “Yes.”

            “So that was eight years ago. What makes you think he would still be after you all these years later?”

            “I have my reasons. But the short answer is, he’s demonic and vindictive. He also thinks I have supernatural powers he can somehow harness.”

            “Do you think you have supernatural powers?” Triple Lou asked with an arched eyebrow.

            Inga just shrugged. I was puzzled by this response.  Triple Lou frowned and seemed to peer into her unique arctic blue eyes. Then knowing Seven and I didn’t flow with the mainstream, he glanced dubiously at my husband and then me. My cousin Lou and I got along great as children. What happened that as adults we seemed to regard each other with suspicion and disapproval?

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES – PART 2 – CHAPTER 19

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES

PART 2

CHAPTER 19

NANCY

  THE ANGEL OF THE LORD ENCAMPS ALL AROUND THOSE WHO FEAR HIM, AND DELIVERS THEM (Psalm 34:7)

             “Dad?” Drew had petitioned. My fiancée had his phone on speaker and had just told his father that his former bandmate, Donald Reed, was my biological father.

            Donald Reed was more known by his stage name Izzy Iscariot. He had been a hardcore satanist, whereas Arlo, Drew’s dad, had been, shall we say, a nominal occultist. Then Arlo left the band he shared with Izzy when he became a devout Christian. Not long after, Izzy had committed suicide in a very violent manner.

            Apparently the news rendered Mr. Aldo speechless as Drew tried a second time. “Dad?”

            “Oh, yeah, son, I… I’m sorry,” he finally stammered. “This just takes me by complete surprise.”

            “Yeah, I can imagine,” Drew replied. “Maybe I should have waited to tell you in person.”

            “No, no, that’s fine… But are you sure? How did you find this out?”

            Drew told him about how my mom was actually my biological aunt. He explained the connection between my mom’s family, their occult ties and Izzy.

            There was a long enough silence that it prompted Drew to say “Dad?” again.

            “Yeah, Son… Maybe you should reconsider marrying Nancy.”

            I felt my face flush as Drew looked at me with a stunned expression. I loved Arlo Aldo, and I thought he loved or at least liked me. So his suggestion to his son hurt and I felt tears sting the back of my eyes. But I clenched my jaw and pushed them back.

            “Dad, I love her. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. She’s a child of God and her own person, no matter parentage.”

            Yet again Drew was a balm to my tortured soul. I loved him more than anyone in the whole world and desperately wanted to spend the rest of my life with him as well. So his father’s words were very much a threat to my insecure psyche.

            “I understand that, but you see… What you just told about her parentage. It’s, I don’t know, all wrong.”

            “Dad, I’ve been on speaker, so Nancy is hearing all of this.”

            Silence again. But before Drew could say Dad, I meekly cut in. “Hi, Arlo.”

            “Nancy, hi. Listen, I didn’t mean anything personal. It’s just that there are things you don’t understand.”

            “You mean about me originating from demons?” I replied cooly.

            “No, no, no!” he responded. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

            “Then why do parents I never even knew make me unworthy of your son?”

            “It’s not that. It’s complicated. You see, before Izzy offed himself, he wrote several people letters, me included. Actually they were notes cuz Izzy was too deranged for a proper letter. Anyhow, he threatened to, um, have me haunted me in a particular manner.”

            “Oh come on, Dad, you can’t be serious! You know what the Bible teaches about the state of the dead.”

            “Yeah, yeah, of course, the dead don’t know anything (Ecclesiastes 9:5). Notice I said have me haunted. In other words curse me with the demonic.”

            “Dad, you also know God is bigger and stronger than the devil.”

            “Yes of course, but I can’t escape the ramifications of what I was involved with. You don’t come away from years of dabbling in the occult unscathed. Jesus Himself referred to Satan as the ruler of this world.” (John 12:31)

            “Yeah and He also said, ‘If I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.’ (verse 32) Of which you are a part.”

            “Jesus also said we would have tribulation.”

            “Yes, but what did He say before and after?” I began to clarify. “Before what you quoted, He said, ‘In Me you may have peace.’ After, He said, ‘Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’” (John 16:33)

            “You’re missing the point. Even though we are Christians, we shouldn’t test fate. The devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking who he can devour. (1 Peter 5:9) Look, I don’t do certain things regarding, say, lust or drugs, so I won’t be tempted. I also should heed the warning of a curse Izzy promised to put on me and my family.”

            “A curse? You’ve got to be kidding! What exactly did this lunatic write that has you so bent out of shape, so unreasonable?”

            “I don’t know verbatim; I haven’t looked at it in years.”

            “You mean you still have it? You saved a, um, suicide note?”

            “I did.”

            “Why? What for?”

            “For a reminder of what God rescued me from. Also for a possible time like this.”

            “I don’t understand, Dad. What could he have possibly threatened you with that has you freaked out about me marrying Nancy?”

            “You just told me she’s his daughter.”

            “Biologically. But he apparently didn’t even know he was gonna be a parent. He died a half year before Nancy was even born. Shoot, the woman that birthed her didn’t even raise her. So how dare you accuse her of bringing a curse to our family.”

            “It won’t bring a curse if you don’t marry her. I’m sorry, Nancy. I love you like you have been part of the family. But some things just aren’t meant to be, like if you would have found out you were siblings separated at birth. You certainly wouldn’t marry then.”

            “I don’t mean any disrespect, my father,” Drew told him calmly. “But you are being superstitious and ridiculous.”

            “Am I? Do we or do we not wrestle against principalities, powers and the rulers of darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness in high places?”

            “Once again you are leaving off the before and after. By that I mean the putting on of the whole armor of God. (Ephesians chapter 6) So tell me what Izzy said that has you this rattled.”

            Arlo sighed heavily from more that fifteen hundred miles away. “Izzy wrote a half dozen notes to people he thought betrayed him. Most of his message to me was crazy rambling. But he ended it by telling me that I sold my soul as much as he did, and you don’t get to just leave the band, just like the mafia. He said I was breaking up his family, so he was gonna infiltrate mine and curse it. The very last thing he said was, we mingled our blood and seed, now my sacrificed blood will mingle with your lineage unto the third and fourth generation. Then he signed his name in blood.”

            “What did he mean by you mingled your blood and seed?” Drew asked.

            “You don’t want to know.”

            “Of course I do, that’s why I asked.”

            “Haven’t I told my children that I didn’t want them researching my time in ‘The Sons of Molech? The person I was then is dead, just in a different way than Izzy.”

            “And I’ve honored that request. But now you’re telling me that something about your time in that situation has rendered the woman I love unworthy to marry.”

            “When I partook in the ritual to sell my soul for rock and roll, we drank a strange concoction. It contained three ingredients mixed in a large chalice.  The base was liquor, but the other two ingredients came from our bodies. We each submitted a vial of blood and…”

            “Okay, I get what was in it.”

            “You wanted to know,” Arlo said with more hostility than I had ever heard from the man.

            “I had no choice… So you guys drank each other’s…”

            “Eli and I were nineteen. Izzy and our drummer Kyle had already had a taste of success in the rock scene. Eli and I were young and dumb and on our own in LA. We were willing to do whatever it took to achieve fame and fortune.”

            “Okay, I don’t need to know any more about that aspect,” Drew said and looked me right in the eyes as he continued speaking with his father. “But I still don’t find that reason enough, at all, to call off our marriage. As a matter of fact, after we get back, I hope Nancy will agree to marry me as soon as Pastor Samson will perform the ceremony.”

            I was confused, distraught, and unable to hold Drew’s gaze any longer. I looked at my feet.

            “I don’t believe in coincidences,” Drew’s dad said forcefully. “What are the odds that you and Nancy just happened to become friends? Then romantic? Then to find out she shares fifty percent of her DNA with a deranged satanist who warned that he was gonna mingle his blood and seed with mine. I have the written documentation to prove it.”

            “Documentation?”

            “Hey, he may have been an out of control nut job in the end, but he took his demonism seriously.”

            “So what exactly do you think is gonna happen?” Drew asked incredulously. “You seem to be putting more faith in Izzy cursing you, or us, or whatever, rather than trusting God.”

            “No, it’s not that at all. Let me be frank for a minute.”

            “You mean other than Dad or Arlo?”

            “Under normal circumstances I would find that funny. However, to be frank, I don’t like the idea of Izzy and I having both of our DNA existing in the same grandchild.”

            Rather than tell his dad I likely couldn’t bear children, Drew simply replied, “Look, if we ever have a boy I promise we won’t name him Damien.”

            “That’s not funny.”

            “I’m not trying to be. Forgive me but this whole conversation has seemed ludicrous.”

            “I know it has. But on the other hand we live in a strange, fallen world.”

            “Look, here’s the way I see it, Dad. The flesh profits nothing, it’s the Spirit that counts. As in the Holy Spirit. You look at Nancy and my lives converging as a bad omen. The way I see it, her mother came to Iowa as an answer to prayer. And that answer to prayer was seeing you and Uncle Eli on the cover of a Christian magazine. She read how you and Eli repented of your lives in ‘The Sons of Molech,’ and were both living for God and family in the heartland, and she moved there herself in hopes her daughter could find healing from extreme abuse. That causes me to trust in light rather than fear darkness.”

            “I respect that, Son, I truly do. But I’ve also tried my best to protect my family from the dangerous dark stuff I was involved with for many years. God saved me and blessed me, and I’m very thankful for that. But there has also been an element that has haunted me all these years. With all that you have just informed me, I feel like the walls of protection I have constructed with God’s help through the years are collapsing in on me with this news.”

            “I’m sorry you feel that way, Dad.”

            “Please tell me you’ll consider my warning.”

            “With all due respect, I don’t need to consider. I love Nancy, I trust God, and I’m not superstitious. For me, she’s a gift from God, not an obstacle from Satan like you seem to think.”

            Arlo sighed heavily. “Look, we’ll talk when you get home. This conversation is not going anywhere.”

            “I want to see Izzy’s letter or note or whatever it is.”

            Pause. “Fair enough.”

            Drew and his father exchanged goodbyes. Then Drew took my hand. “Sorry about all that.”

            I shrugged, looked away from him for a few seconds, then back and asked, “How come you left that call on speaker?”

            “You want the truth, right?”

            I nodded. “But it hurts. I don’t get why Arlo is blaming me.”

            “He’s not blaming you.”

            “How can you say that when he was practically insisting that you don’t marry me?”

            “I don’t know what to tell you. He has always appeared to me to be such a man of faith. It completely took me by surprise to hear him react so irrationally. But I also thought his time in the occult was behind him. It never occurred to me that he felt haunted.”

            “His reaction surprised me too.”

            “Please don’t take it personally.”

            “It’s hard not to.”

            “I know. But his problem ultimately is with Izzy.”

            “I didn’t choose who my parents were.”

            He smiled warmly and said, “But Phebe chose you.”

            “Yes, she did!” I replied. Then several sobs burst forth. Drew hugged me tight, but I felt so tired and weak I could barely get my hands onto his shoulders.

            When I calmed and we separated, he said, “Despite my Dad’s bizarre reaction to Izzy being, you know… We will still get married as soon as possible.”

            “No,” I replied shaking my head vigorously.

            The smile left Drew’s face. “Why not? Don’t tell me you agree with his reasoning.”

            “It’s not that. I don’t want to get married without both of your parents’ blessings.”

            Drew began to chew on his lower lip as he looked away from me. I knew what he was thinking. His mother was repulsed by Izzy every bit as much as his father.

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES – PART 2 – CHAPTER 18

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES

PART 2

CHAPTER 18

DREW

HE REVEALS DEEP AND SECRET THINGS; HE KNOWS WHAT IS IN THE DARKNESS, AND LIGHT DWELLS WITH HIM. (Daniel 2:22)

          “Mom,” my beautiful bride began meekly. But then she paused, and I feared she was battling hostility. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

          “What is it, Sweety?” Phebe asked with concern.

          “Are you actually my aunt?” Nancy blurted.

          Phebe’s face looked stunned. Then it morphed into sadness. Then she took a deep breath herself and blew it out slowly before saying, “Yes.”

          Nancy’s demeanor became calm and business like, which I suppose was better than out right anger. “So how come you never told me?”

          Phebe was clearly rattled as she nervously twisted a napkin in her fingers. “I was always torn with what to do. The time to tell you never seemed quite right. Also, there was this side where I felt it was better to leave sleeping dogs lay. There was also the aspect that I raised you more than your biological mother did, and I mean even here in California before all the bad stuff came to light.”

          “So where is she?” Nancy wanted to know.

          “After everything went down with the creep she was married to. How he was abusing you and others. She died of a heroin overdose the day after he was arrested.”

          “Suicide.”

          “Who knows?”

          “I also have reason to believe the creep wasn’t my biological father,” Nancy told her.

          Phebe shook her head. “No he’s not, regardless of what your birth certificate states.”

          “So you knew? That also would have been nice to know. Do you know what it was like believing half of my DNA was from him all these years?”

          Tears began to leak from Phebe’s eyes. “I’m truly sorry. It was such a difficult time, especially before it was found out that the creep was making that vile filth. He and your mom divorced, and they had joint custody. That’s how he was able to use you in…”

          “Did you know?”

          “No, Honey, you know I didn’t.”

          “Well, you let me think you were my birth mother all these years.”

          “All I knew was that there was something off about the man. I swear to God that I didn’t know he was making porn until that brave boy jumped through the window.”

          “He’s how I found out the truth.”

          Phebe nodded. “I figured. He came to talk to me some time ago.”

          “And you still didn’t tell me, knowing he knew your secret?”

          “What can I say? I’m a procrastinator, and after all this time, I didn’t know how to go about it.”

          “I don’t even know my real mom’s name,” Nancy said testily.

          Phebe hung her head, and her lower lip quivered. “It’s Phoenix.”

          “My real mom’s name is Phoenix?”

          Phebe was unable to lift her eyes, and my heart broke for her. I gently said, “Nancy.”

          “What?” She snapped, as her fiery gaze shifted to me.

          I don’t know what she saw in my face, but hers softened.  And I said, “The flesh profits nothing, it’s the spirit that counts… Phebe is your real mom.”

          A look of wonder came into my fiancée’s face. Then she quickly moved in front of her mother and knelt. Hugging her she said, “Oh, Mom, I’m sorry! Drew is right, you are my real mom, and I love you so much. I just want the truth.”

          “I love you too, Honey, more than anything in the world.”

          “Yes I know. You proved that by moving me halfway across the country. But I do wish you would have told me about our family situation.”

          After the two women hugged for a minute, Phebe said, “You were traumatized, Honey. Your first therapist suggested I let you believe that I was your mother. It wasn’t hard because when Phoenix had her turn with the joint custody, it was usually me looking after you. And she and I looked identical, so you probably didn’t know the difference.”

          “Where is… where are her remains?” Nancy asked.

          “She was cremated, and her ashes were scattered in the ocean.”

          “Who are your parents?”

          “You don’t want to know.”

          “Yes I do. I’m an adult now, I want to know my roots.”

          “Your roots have been severed. Like Drew said, the flesh profits nothing.”

          “Why don’t you want me to know about my grandparents?”

          “Because I ultimately hold them responsible for what happened to you, and what happened to my sister.”

          “I don’t understand.”

          “Long story short, my parents were heavily involved in the occult. I shunned their belief system, while Phoenix embraced it. Because of my sister’s involvement in satanism, she became associated with the creep that abused you. She also became strung out on drugs, so much so, she neglected her own daughter.”

          “Where are your parents?” Nancy asked.

          “My father is dead, and, the last I knew, my mother lives in Santa Monica.”

          “I assume you don’t associate with her.”

          “Your assumption is correct.”

          “When did your dad die?”

          “Almost two years ago.”

          “Yet you apparently never let on, because I had no idea.”

          Phebe shrugged. “He was already dead to me.”

          “When was the last time you spoke to your mother?”

          “When my dad died. Mom wanted me to come to his funeral. I refused, and she was angry.”

          “So if the creep isn’t my dad, who is?”

          Phebe looked at me, and then back to her daughter. “This is also another aspect I never knew how to explain. I know you think I moved to Iowa because of my friend Grace. Which it was truly a part of why I went there. But I went there because of Drew’s dad, and his friend Eli.”

          “Huh?” Nancy frowned. “How did you know Drew’s dad?”

          “I didn’t.”

          “I’m not following.”

          “Well, after everything went down with the boy jumping out of the window, I felt the need to take you far away from the situation. I didn’t know where to go. I saw Drew’s dad and his friend and bandmate Eli on the cover of a Christian magazine. I knew they had been in the satanic band ‘Son’s of Molech.’

          “I read the article, about how they had turned their lives around, became Christians, and formed a Christian band along with Eli’s son and his son’s wife. The article mentioned they  resided in eastern Iowa after living in California for most of their adult lives. They said Iowa brought them a fresh start, that it was where the two friends met as teenagers. I felt like it was a sign for you to get a fresh start there as well.”

          Nancy looked stunned but managed to say, “Well, you must have been amazed when I became friends with Arlo’s son.”

          “Indeed I was.”

          “Yet you didn’t tell me the connection.”

          “Honey, like I said…”

          “That’s so weird,” Nancy said with a deep frown. “You moved halfway across the country because of two guys on a magazine cover. Two guys you didn’t even know.”

          “Well, I didn’t know them, but you see, they knew your father.”

          “Okay, now that’s the million dollar question. Please tell me who the sperm donor was.”

          “He was a man named Donald Reed.”

          I felt my toes curl, my body tense, and my mouth drop open. Nancy did a double take when she saw my reaction. “Drew, do you know this Donald Reed?”

          “I know of him,” I told my bride to be. “He was bandmates with my dad and Uncle Eli in “The Sons of Molech’. He was the singer but went by the stage name Izzy Iscariot.”

          Nancy’s expression was one of bewilderment. But she asked, “Was he the one that got really drunk and choked to death on his own vomit, or the one that killed himself in a very violent manner?”

          I cleared my throat. “The latter.”

          “I was so glad to find out that I didn’t share DNA with the creep that abused me,” Nancy replied numbly. “But I don’t know that this Izzy character is a very big step up.”

          “I don’t know what to tell you,” I told her. “I don’t know much about him myself. Both my dad and Eli never wanted to go into detail about their former band after God helped them turn their lives around. They just warned about the dangers of the occult. My dad even insisted that Jerry and I never look into his old band.”

          “So your dad won’t tell me about him?”

          “I don’t know,” I shrugged.

          “What do you know about him?” she asked Phebe.

          “Not much, I only met him twice, and that was enough. He was like a feral animal.”

          “If my dad won’t tell you, maybe Jerry can tell you something,” I said.

          “I thought you said Arlo told you guys to stay away from learning about the band.”

          “I obeyed; Jerry didn’t.”

          What would my dad think? I had to call him and find out.

          “Hey, how is it out west?” my dad greeted cheerily.

          After very brief small talk, I told him. “So Nancy found out who her biological parents are. It just so happens you know her father.”

          “I do?” he chuckled. “Small world.”

          “Very small!”

          “Yeah? Well who is it?”

          “Donald Reed.”

          Silence.

          “Dad?”

          Silence.

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES – PART 2 – CHAPTER 17

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES

PART 2

CHAPTER 17

NANCY

STAND FAST THEREFORE IN THE LIBERTY BY WHICH CHRIST HAS MADE US FREE, AND DO NOT BE ENTANGLED AGAIN WITH A YOKE OF BONDAGE    (Galatians 5:1)

          As Nancy gazed out of the airplane window, she reminded me of the girl I saw for the first time more than a decade ago on the playground. Her demeanor was both defiant as in ‘don’t mess with me,’ coupled with sad and lonely.

          I had a hard time concentrating on the book I was reading since I kept stealing glances at her out of the corner of my eye. During one such peak her head snapped in my direction, and my eyes flipped quickly back to my book.

          I felt her fingers on my chin, then she gently turned my head to look at her. She was grinning as she said, “Always keeping a watchful eye on me, huh Drew?”

          “Whatever do you mean?” I replied innocently.

          “I mean, you’ve always been there for me, even when I wasn’t there for you,” she told me as her eyes welled.

          “You’ve always been there for me as well.”

          She snorted. “Hardly. I’m sure you recall our three year hiatus, instigated by me.”

          “We were kids, foolish teenagers that needed time to grow.”

          She laughed, and for the first time since she was told her mother was actually her aunt, she looked somewhat happy. “Have you forgotten that we’re still teenagers?”

          “Maybe so, but we’re much closer to twenty than twelve.”

          “Maturity wise, you’re more like forty,” she said, and then looked at the book in my hand. “Make that more like sixty. How many teenagers have a physical book in their hands on a flight, rather than a phone?”

          “Hey, stop aging me,” I joked. “You’ll have me over a hundred by the time I really am forty.”

          “Just think how wise you’ll be, though.”

          “Well, okay, as long as I don’t have a hundred year old body when I’m forty.”

          She looked at me fondly, but behind her eyes was that unbearable sadness again. “Those three years without you in my life were so empty.”

          “There was a huge void for me as well.”

          She looked at me with a baffled expression. “I completely understand why I love you. What I don’t understand is why love me. I tend to be moody and witchy, I have hard time being girly, I come from an incredibly dysfunctional family. So you’re, like, too good to be true.”

          “Well, let me address these one at a time,” I told her. “When you go through a spell of darkness, your light shines all the brighter when you come through the other side. As for not being girly, I like that you’re not. It makes your natural femininity all the more beautiful to me. And obviously you have had a dismal childhood, whereas mine was very blessed. So I want more than anything to bring you into that fold by making you my wife. But first we have to repair the breach you feel with the only family you currently have.”

          “I don’t know how I could make this trip without you by my side. Even with you, I don’t know how to confront who I thought was my mom about her actually being my aunt.”

          “Are you that angry with her that you view our trip to California as a confrontation?”

          “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m just… confused.”

          “How do you feel about her?”

          She smiled wryly at me. Then she said softly, “You really get me.”

          “Do I?” I asked with a shrug.

          “You’ve always known when to leave me be, and you’ve always known when to talk.”

          “Are you avoiding my question?”

          Her mood swung back to seeming happy as she laughed. “See, you even knew I was avoiding the question.”

          “Are you gonna answer it?” I asked gently.

          She looked away from me and her expression turned pensive. After a minute she looked at me and spoke with a bit of hostility. “I’m angry that she lied to me all these years. It was bad enough I endured, you know… Then the rest of my childhood, I grew up believing my mom was my mom, when in reality she was my aunt. It rattles my faith in everything.”

          “Including your new relationship with Christ?”

          She nodded. “Can you blame me?”

          “No, but it’s not surprising.”

          “Why is that?”

          “You remember that there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents?” (Luke 15:7)

          “Yes, of course.”

          “Well, on the other hand there is anger in the demonic realm. Jesus warned us that in this world we would have tribulation, or trouble. (John 16:33) Then he told us what?”

          “Be of good cheer I have overcome the world,” Nancy finished with anything but cheer, her arms folded, her gaze at the back of the seat in front of her. Then she turned to me and said a bit testily, “Well, then you tell me what I should think and feel about Phebe.”

          I had never heard her call her mother/aunt by her first name before. So I cautiously replied, “I’m sure she had her reasons.”

          Nancy snorted and turned her gaze back to the back of the seat in front of her.

          “Here’s what I do know. Your mom…”

          “She’s my aunt,” she interrupted stubbornly.

          “No, she’s your mother,” I relied with equal stubbornness.

          “If she was truly my mother, I would have known she had a twin sister. It seems I know nothing about my family, and Phebe would never answer my questions about her parents or any other relatives. She would just tell me it was best I didn’t know, or you don’t want to know. So that’s why I don’t feel optimistic about this trip. I don’t know who she is.”

          “She’s the woman who raised you.”

          “Under a huge lie.”

          “She’s the only family you’ve got.”

          She looked at me again, and any semblance of happiness was gone. She appeared so lost and vulnerable, I couldn’t help saying, “Until we are married. Then you and I will be family.”

          Nancy and I were not a couple prone to public affection. But she emitted a little whimper and kissed me firmly on the mouth. Although delighted, as soon as our lips separated, I looked to my right, slightly embarrassed. But the seat next to me was vacant, and the older lady in the end seat appeared to be sleeping.

          “There’s something I want to make sure you’re considering about your mother,” I said.

          “Stop calling her my mother,” she said quietly, yet menacingly, then folded her arms abruptly. “Phebe’s my aunt.”

          “Maybe she’s biologically your aunt,” I said gently. “But she left her life in California and came to Iowa, far away from your trauma, to raise you, to protect you. Obviously you’re aware of all the beach décor in the house you two lived in. Then practically the minute you left for college, and moved in with Addie, she returned to California. She came to the Midwest knowing only one friend here, and then spent a decade away from the ocean and other friends she loved.”

          “Yeah,” she replied with a look of wonder on her face. Then after staring trance like at the back of her seat for half a minute, she spoke as if to herself. “How did I not see that? I guess couldn’t see the forest because of all the trees.”

          “I have no doubt that Phebe loves you,” I declared.

          “Yes, thank you for opening my eyes,” she responded softly, squeezed my hand. “I do believe my mom loves me.”

          Nancy’s mother/aunt lived in a condo with two other women in Huntington Beach. It was in walking distance from the Pacific Ocean. Despite the deceptions about her childhood, Nancy and Phebe hugged warmly. I was thrilled when Nancy said, “Hi Mom.”

          “Oh Sweety, I was so excited when you let me know you were coming,” Phebe told her, then smiled warmly at me. “And doubly excited that you brought Drew.” Then she laughed. “And triply excited that you two made up and are friends again.”

          “We’re more than friends, Mom, we’re engaged,” Nancy said happily, looking at me and then back to her mom/aunt.

          “Oh Honey, that’s wonderful!” Phebe practically shouted, then hugged her daughter/niece again. Then she hugged me, kissed my cheek, and told us ‘Congratulations.’

          There was a clear family resemblance between the two women. Especially with their hair since Nancy’s red gold hair was now shoulder length, and her mother/aunt’s hair that was once down to her tail bone strawberry blonde hair was now in a short bob.

          Phebe was very much a modern hippie. Long flowing colorful dresses, plenty of beads with rings on most of her fingers. She also had a laid back surfer drawl, which may or may not have been enhanced by the imbibing of marijuana.

          One of Phebe’s roommates was conveniently in Oregan visiting kids and grandkids over that Labor Day weekend. So Nancy was able to stay in her room over our three day stay. I slept in a hideaway bed in the living room. Nancy’s mom/aunt was puzzled that we didn’t sleep together, even after we explained that we weren’t married yet.

          This opened the door for Nancy to share her new Christian faith with Phebe. Her reaction was neutral. Although her vocal response was affirmative by saying ‘that’s nice.’ Her bodily reaction was stiff, as if to say ‘don’t push it on me.’

          Nancy was usually a very gung ho type of person. So I was a little surprised that we were there more than a full twenty four hour day before Nancy broached the subject that had inspired our trip out west in the first place. It came after dinner, during our second evening at Phebe’s.

          “Would you like some dessert?” Nancy’s mom/aunt asked. “I have strawberry ice cream or a coconut Pepperidge Farm cake. Or we could have both.”

          “No thanks,” my bride to be answered with an eerie calm, her fingers laced together and resting on top of the table. “But there is a serious matter I’d like to discuss with you.”

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES – PART 2 – CHAPTER 15

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES

PART 2

CHAPTER 15

DREW ALDO

  SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE ADDED TO YOU. (Matthew 6:33)

            I felt my toes curl when Sevenia Sallie told my brother Jerry that his girlfriend Brenda was her cousin. Brenda was Jerry’s ex, or something like that. If a six week relationship is long enough to merit the term ‘ex.’

            Sevenia had made this declaration happily. For she had yet to discover that Jerry and Brenda were no longer an item. To make matters worse, I could tell that Jerry had been smitten with Sevenia. This surprised me. Jerry’s typical lady of the moment was usually a blonde with dark roots, a tastefully placed tattoo or four, and a few piercings beyond just the ears.

            Sevenia, like Nancy, was a plain Jane. However, for my tastes this usually spelled natural beauty. But I guess I don’t think like most guys. Take your average male. If one of Jerry’s typical dates was walking down one side of the street and Sevenia on the other, at least four out of five are watching Jerry’s typical date.

            When I first met Sevenia a couple years ago, I myself was smitten with her. But because she had a boyfriend at the time, we became friends on a brother and sister level. She sort of reminded me of Nancy due to their similar builds, as well smooth alabaster skin, short hair and simple dress. But that’s where their similarities ended.

            Sevenia’s auburn hair was short and spiked at the time, whereas Nancy’s hair was strawberry blonde and stylishly mussed. But I don’t believe the stylish aspect was intentional. Nancy just washed, tossed and went.

            Their personalities were opposite as well. Sevenia was bubbly and outgoing. Nancy was an introvert who was often moody and sullen. While I was in between. I never got too high and never got too low. I suppose I still am.

            Although the revelation that Jerry and Sevenia’s cousin had just broken up was awkward at first, she seemed to shrug it off. Over the next three weeks, the thirteen prophecy presentations went off without a hitch. Nancy was baptized on the last night, and Jerry recommitted to his childhood faith.

            The next day I wasn’t surprised to get a text from Sevenia, but I was a little surprised at the time, 12:51 am. She requested that I call her. When I did she requested to meet me alone. We decided on lunch at the Bluebird café. At 12:48 pm Sevenia came walking into the cafe wearing a light blue summer dress with white sneakers.

            After quick greetings, I had to ask, “So why this urgent clandestine meeting?”

            She smiled but frowned. “Is that what you think this is?”

            “You texted me at 12:51 in the morning.”

            She crinkled her cute little nose, and her large emerald eyes looked a little mischievous. “Sorry about that, I was a little discombobulated.”

            “Over what?”

            “Your brother.”

            “My brother?”

            “Yeah, we were at the church talking for several hours last night. I guess you could say we really have hit it off, and then he asked me to dinner tonight. I told him yes, but I instantly regretted it. So when we parted ways, without thinking, I just rattled off that text to you. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

            “No, I didn’t see it till the morning. Well wait, I guess it was morning when you sent it. So you and Jerry talked until one?”

            “No, it wasn’t one yet.”

            “Oh, sorry,” I teased. “So you and Jerry talked until nine minutes to one.”

            “No, more like a quarter to one.”

            “My bad,” I replied, and then we looked at each other for a long moment. “So why do you regret it? It sounds like it’s just a friendly dinner.”

            “Well,” she winced. “I find Jerry rather appealing.”

            “And that’s a bad thing?”

            “Yes, for a couple reasons.”

            “I’m listening,” I said, reminding myself of Frasier Crane.

            “I sort of swore off the possibility of romance to focus on serving God,” she said. She sighed and looked out the window. A waitress had brought us waters and menus, and she twisted the wrapper from a straw in her fingers. “I don’t mean a promise, just kind of an intention.”

            “You said a couple reasons?”

            “Well, maybe this is unfair, even judgmental. I may have just gotten to know your brother, but I knew of him.”

            “Let me guess, you think he was a womanizer.”

            “Drew, I don’t think there’s any guessing about it.”

            “Oh boy,” I said and pinched the bridge of my nose. Then I looked at her solemnly. “He would probably kill me if he knew what I’m about to tell you, so please keep it to yourself.”

            “I’m listening.”

            So I shared with Sevenia what Jerry had shared with me a couple days before Sevenia’s prophecy seminar got underway. About how due to his religious upbringing he never actually had sex with any of the girls he dated. How although he only halfheartedly followed the fundamental beliefs of our church, he believes one should be committed before intimate relations. Now that he has repented, and turned from his backslidden ways, I’m sure he believes a couple should even be married.

            I was concerned when Sevenia stared at me with a blank expression. Then she quietly said, “I think I’m in love.”

            I reached across the table and took hold of her hand. “I’m flattered, Sevenia, but I’m with Nancy.”

            She laughed. “I meant Jerry, not you… I mean I love you as a dear friend, but…”

            “I know. I love you too as a dear friend.”

            “Just so you know,” Sevenia said, looking a little shy and nervous. This was strange to see because she is such a confident, dynamic speaker. “When you and I first met, I found you very desirable. But I had a boyfriend at the time, and you were heartbroken over Nancy putting the kibosh on your friendship. As a matter of fact, one of the things I found appealing about Jerry was his similarities to you.”

            “But with muscles on the order of Brock Storm,” I said with a grin. When Sevenia and I first became friends, she confessed guilt that she had had a bit of a crush on Brock, who is built like an NFL linebacker and married to Destiny Knight-Storm. He’s also her dad’s cousin.

            “I suppose,” she grinned back, but then grew serious. “I think the main thing is he is recommitting to God. Not being unequally yoked is very important to me.”

            Now I squirmed and looked a little nervous. In the course of our friendship, she had given me honest council that Nancy being out of my life was for the best if she refused to follow God. That had been the reason she had broken up with her own boyfriend. She had hoped he would convert, but he ultimately chose not to.

            “It’s important to me as well,” I declared. “It was troubling to be so attracted to someone who didn’t share my spiritual values.”

            “It seems there are no worries now,” she said happily.

            “Well, our spiritual beliefs are now in harmony. But I’m not certain she will ever want to be in a relationship. She has always been afraid of intimacy.”

            “Well, I’ve got some good and bad news for you,” Sevenia reported with a coy smile.

            I frowned. “Regarding Nancy?”

            “Yes. There’s actually a dual reason for our, what did you call it? Our clandestine meeting?”

            “If it wasn’t, it is now. So what is it you have to say about Nancy?”

          “When she discovered that you and I had become pretty good friends over the last couple years, she confided a couple things to me last night before you guys left.”

          “And something was good, and something was bad?”

          Sevenia nodded.

          “Tell me the bad first.”

          She frowned. “I kind of need to tell you the good first, because the bad coincides with it.”

          “Okay, spit it out.”

          “She was lamenting that you haven’t discussed marriage with her.”

          “I was just giving her time to get adjusted spiritually.”

          “Well, just so you know, she’s had enough time.”

          “So what’s the bad? Is she worried she’ll be afraid of intimacy?”

          “Because of the abuse she endured as a child, she’s been told by doctors she likely could not have children.”

          “That’s not important to me. When and if the time comes, we can adopt.”

          Sevenia smiled sweetly at me, took my hand, and said, “Go to her.”

          Two hours after having lunch with Sevenia, Nancy and I found ourselves at Cotton Creek. The rippling stream was about a football field’s length behind our church. I’d like to tell you I did something like have a skywriter spell out a proposal. But after she sat on a bench, I simply went to one knee and asked her to marry me.

          Instead of saying yes, she said, “Did you talk to Sevenia?”

          “I did.”

          “Did she tell you about me being barren?”

          “Yes, and it doesn’t matter. All that matters is I want to spend the rest of my life loving you.”

          She started to cry as she said, “I’m sorry I asked her to do it for me. I just couldn’t face you with it. Especially so soon after you found out what happened to me as a kid.”

          “Hey, it’s alright,” I soothed, caressing her cheek with my thumb. “But please answer my question.”

          “What question?” she asked. Then she gasped and went to her knees in front of me. Then before kissing me passionately she said, “Yes, oh yes!”

          After a couple minutes of hugging and kissing, she became dead serious. “By the way, the boy that rescued me from my situation all those years ago wants to meet with me.”

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES – PART2 – CHAPTER 11

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES

PART 2

CHAPTER 11

DREW

TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD; BLESSED IS THE ONE WHO TAKES REFUGE IN HIM (Psalm 34:8)

            “On second thought, maybe you should stay awhile longer,” I heard Nancy say with a  sultry tone.

            “Maybe you’re right,” my brother replied cooly.

            Then I heard more shuffling and low moans. What was going on? Was Nancy making out with Jerry? What happened to her fear of intimacy? What about her and me?

            “What about Drew?” Jerry asked.

            “Like I said, as much as I love and admire him, we’re no good for each other. Last night proved it. I had never admired and respected him more. But it also convinced me that I could never be the woman he needs.”

            “But thinking I was Drew, you asked me to kiss you.”

            “Yes I did. Who knows or understands the human heart?”

            “It’s deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” (Jeremiah 17:9)

            “Now you sound like Drew,” she giggled.

            “Speaking of sound, I wouldn’t have kissed you if I knew that you thought I was Drew.”

            “That was, indeed, bizarre.”

            “You should have seen the look on your face when you realized I wasn’t Drew and turned on the lamp. What gave it away?”

            “When you started to get handsy. Drew made it clear he believes in waiting until marriage for sex. You obviously don’t.”

            “No, I admit I am not a saint like Drew.”

            “How come you don’t believe like he does? You come from the same family.”

            “I just don’t buy into all that primitive Godliness stuff my family’s church sells. There’s a reason it’s called primitive. By the way, you said you want the peace Drew seems to have. After what you witnessed tonight, that doesn’t motivate you?”

            “It’s not that simple. I just believe we do the best we can, and apparently Drew’s better at it than most of us.”

            There was a moment of silence, then Jerry said, “Look, I should go.”

            “I know you should, but please don’t go.”

            “Nancy, put that back on!”

            “Why, am I not beautiful enough for you?”

            “No, you’re surprisingly stunning!”

            More giggles from the least giggly girl I ever knew. “Why is it surprising?”

            “Because you’re like, you know, a feminine guy.”

            More giggles. “You sure know how to flatter a girl. Now let’s get you out of your clothes.”

            “Nancy, we can’t betray Drew.”

            “How are we betraying him? Am I his girlfriend?”

            “I don’t know, are you?”

            “Well, I’m a girl, and we’re friends, but I don’t really think I’m his girlfriend.” Giggles.

            “You don’t really think? What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “I don’t know. I guess we got this strange attraction, but then there’s this other side that makes our chemistry like oil and water.”

            “We shouldn’t do this.”

            “Then why aren’t you stopping me?” More giggles.

            I could hear clothes shuffling, the smacking of mouths together, then the springs in the mattress creaking.

            Then Nancy saying, “Jerry, I changed my mind.”

            “What!”

            “This is no good, we shouldn’t be doing this.”

            “You have got to be kidding!”

            “No I’m not!”

            “Well I’m sorry, you took me too far to stop now.”

            “Jerry, stop!”

            “This is your fault. You should have stopped this before we shed our clothes, let alone climbed into bed.”

            “Jerry, no, please!”

            I raised my fist to pound on the door. Then something surreal happened. Nancy’s warm breath was on my ear as she shook my shoulder. “Drew.”

            I bolted upright in my bed. With a full moon’s light streaming through my window, I made out Nancy’s shadowy silhouette. Apparently I had been dreaming! Actually having a nightmare is more accurate!

            “Are you okay?” Nancy asked.

            “Um, yeah,” I managed.

            “You were making an awful groaning and moaning sound.”

            My mind was still hazy from sleep and reeling from a very real seeming dream. “Is Jerry here?”

            “Your brother?”

            “Yeah, was he in your room?”

            “No, I thought you said he was camping.”

            Have you ever awoken from a bad dream, and then the realization that it hadn’t been real washes relief over you? The shower of relief I felt in that moment was so wonderful. “Thanks for waking me, Nancy.”

            “Drew, were you having a bad dream?”

            “Indeed I was.”

            “What about?”

            I felt a little embarrassed. I did not want to tell her I was nocturnally imagining she was getting it on with my brother. “You don’t want to know.”

            “Actually I do,” the feisty Nancy I had known so well throughout our lives so well demanded.

            I turned on my bedside lamp and literally gulped. She was wearing a tiny nightgown that was too small, old and rather worn. It was pink and had Tweety Bird on the front. It was to the point of becoming tattered and see through. And I’m embarrassed to report that I saw through. I’m ashamed to say I couldn’t get myself to look away, until Nancy noticed my eye bugging out.

            “Oh!” Nancy gasped as she witnessed my astonishment. I felt her leave the edge of my bed and dash to the door. I thought she was about to leave, but she grabbed my robe that hung on a hook behind my door and put it on. She cinching it tight and then sat at my desk’s chair. “Drew, I’m so sorry! After the stress of last night I put on my oldest and most comfy nighty. I wasn’t thinking when I came up here without my robe. My mind has been churning ever since we went to bed hours ago.”

            “No need to apologize,” I said and tried to give her a reassuring smile but ruined it by saying, “I just wasn’t expecting to see you with more birthday suit than bed clothes.”

            She blushed, groaned and flanked her eyes with both hands in an effort to hide her face. Hoping to change the subject I said, “Why did you come up here?”

            She looked at me, her embarrassment disappearing. “I couldn’t sleep, and it sounded like you were moving around. So I thought I’d ask you a few questions about the things cycling through my brain… Sorry to wake you, but you were making awful groans in your sleep.”

            “No, no, like I said, I’m glad you came and also glad you rescued me from my nightmare.”

            “Me rescuing you, that’s a first,” she said, with a look of fondness in her eyes. “So, you were gonna tell me about your bad dream.”

            “Not much to tell. Probably the events from last night interfered with both of our sleep. I was just dreaming some guy was in your room. You two were fooling around, and then you wanted him to stop, and he wouldn’t. I was gonna make him stop when you, well, stopped me from dreaming.”

            “Would this guy in your dream be Jerry?”

            “How’d you know?”

            “When you first woke up you asked if he was here.”

            “Oh yeah, you’re right… Now your turn. What’s on your mind?”

            She chewed on her lower lip for a few seconds as she studied me. Then she arose and sat on the edge of my bed. Although covered with bedsheets, I now became aware of my own state of undress. I was wearing briefs and nothing else. “Nancy, will you look toward the west wall? I want to throw a shirt and sweats on.”

            She did as I asked, and I slunk out of bed and for some reason tiptoed to my dresser. I yanked a t-shirt over my head. Then I put one leg and then another in a pair of sweatpants. I turned back toward Nancy and was pulling them up my legs only to discover her staring at me.

            “Nancy! I asked you to look away.”

            She shrugged, aimed a coy smile at me. “You didn’t say for how long. Besides, I guess this is how two chaste people accidently play show me yours and I’ll show you mine. Now we’re even.”

            “How embarrassing!”

            “How do you think I felt?”

            “Feel better now?”

            “Forgive me but I do in fact feel better now,” she said with a satisfied grin.

            “Okay, now tell me what’s on your mind.”

            “Well, as you know, I’ve been reading the Bible. I’ve especially been thinking about the life of Jesus. I’ve even researched Him historically. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Jesus is a historical figure. He was God in human flesh. Wasn’t it Phillip who said show us the Father?”

            “Yes.”

            “And Jesus said that if you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father. Anyway, the thing I can’t get passed is you telling me that I’m a virgin in God’s eyes.”

            “You don’t believe me?”

            “I do and I don’t,” she told me, her eyes welling with tears.

            “Have you come to believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God?”

            “I have.”

            “Then I want to share a special passage with you,” I said, reaching for the Bible on my nightstand. I turned to 2 Corinthians and found chapter 5 and verse 17. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.”

            Nancy took the Bible from my hands and reread the text as if in awe. Then she read from verse 19. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.”

            I reached over and flipped to John 6:63. “Listen to the words of Jesus. ‘It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.’”

            “I want that life,” she said eagerly.

            “It’s yours for the asking,” I told her. I showed her several verses to back that up. In particular Luke 11:9-13.

            “Drew,” she said with a small, vulnerable voice. “My fear of intimacy has been my biggest obstacle with you and me being, you know, romantic. I also know that your biggest obstacle with me has been me not sharing your faith. I just want you to know, I now share your faith, although it’s all so new, and I would like to be baptized… And one more thing. I know for sure that you are the one person on this planet that I no longer fear to be intimate with.”

            “Does that mean you feel like you’re stuck with me?”

            “Hardly,” she replied and then actually giggled! Then her face grew serious, and her eyes grew misty. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

            “Well then I’ll spend my life trying to find out.”

            I couldn’t believe it, more giggles! Then something else unusual for Nancy. She looked bashful, her face colored, and she pressed her hands between her knees. “Does that mean…?”

            It occurred to me that we knew each other pretty well. So all I had to do is say “It does.”

            She gave me a quick chaste kiss, and we continued conversing until the sun began to come up. When we suddenly noticed light coming through the blinds, Nancy arose with a start. “I better get back to my room before someone gets up. We wouldn’t want them to get the wrong idea.”

            “Don’t worry, my dad was a musician most of his adult life. My parents aren’t early risers,” I spoke the famous last words.

            Nancy stopped at my door and made a hand motion for me to turn away before she removed my robe. I heard the door open and shut. About ten seconds after she left, I arose to go use the bathroom. But as I reached for the door handle, it popped open, and Nancy flew in. Her eyes looked like they were gonna pop out of their sockets, and she held her hand over her mouth, muffling something like a scream.

            “Nancy, calm down! What’s wrong?”

            “You’re mom was up making coffee!”

            “She was? Did she see you?”

            “Yes!”

            “You’re sure?”

            “Positive! She looked right at me and what little is covering me.”

            There was a gentle rap on my door. Then my mother spoke with an eerily calm voice. “Drew, Honey, may I speak with you?”

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES – CHAPTER 19

Posted on by Johnathan Embers

HEAVY METAL MIRACLES

CHAPTER 19

ELI

BEARING WITH ONE ANOTHER, AND FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER, IF ANYONE HAS A COMPLAINT AGAINST ANOTHER; EVEN AS CHRIST FORGAVE YOU, SO YOU ALSO MUST DO (Colossians 3:13)

            “Hey, Eli,” Elsa greeted, looking at me hesitantly as she sat next to me.

            We were on a bench that overlooked a small playground behind Cotton Creek Cove Fellowship. We had just finished a rehearsal for the small impromptu double wedding ceremony for Penny, Arlo, Ariel and myself to take place the next day. I was watching my five year old granddaughter Crystal play with Elsa’s four year old daughter Ivy.

            “Hi, Elsa,” I greeted cheerily, even as my body tensed.

            She had been my best friend’s girlfriend for eight years. Their relationship was often stormy, and I’m afraid I was the last straw. Elsa had often been flirtatious with me over the years. I’m ashamed to say that not only did I not discourage the behavior, I often flirted back.

            But then the sexual tension between us came to a boiling point for her. She not only propositioned me, she tried to seduce me. As randy as I was back then, there was no way I would actually get physical with my best friend’s girl. So I told Arlo on her. It not only caused their biggest fight to date, it was the last nail in the coffin of their dying relationship.

            Until her greeting on that sunny afternoon in late May, the year of our Lord 2000, her last words to me had still echoed in my head. With an ugly look on her pretty face, she declared, “Ya know Eli, you’re a hypocrite! All of the times you’ve undressed me with your eyes, and commented on my work, so here I was very generously trying to give you the real thing and you turn traitor on me.”

            By me commenting on her work, she was referring to her occupation as a model and actress, which mostly entailed posing nude and soft core porn. Her rebuke stung and was one hundred percent accurate. For I had, even sometimes blatantly, encouraged her behavior, yet I let her take the fall. Then to make matters worse, I smirked at her with demonic pride, not saying a word. She spit in my face, turned on her stilettos, and I didn’t see her in person again until this day at the wedding rehearsal.

            I was tongue tied for a long moment. I had always fancied Elsa. I’m ashamed to say, if she was anybody’s girl but Arlo’s, I would have bedded her in a second. I guess you could say she and I had been friends, but the only bond we had besides Arlo was a mutual attraction. Now, several years later, I find out that she has a terminal illness. She spoke first after our greeting. “Sorry about spitting in your face.”

            I chuckled and shrugged. “I deserved it.”

            “I’d like to think you did. When you aimed that cocky smile at me, I wanted to do much more than just spit in your face. I had never been turned down by a guy that gave me such clear signs he desired me.”

            “I had never turned down a woman as beautiful as you. But Arlo is like family.”

            “I know that now more than ever.”

            “I owe you an apology as well,” I told her. “I was more guilty than you over our mutual lust, but I threw you under the bus to cover my own guilt and shame.”

            She glanced at me with an arched eyebrow. “That’s big of you to say, but I’m the one that made the physical proposition.”

            “But before that, I was the one being more suggestive. It was my behavior more than yours that led to, shall we say, you showing me your goods.”

            She looked at me with an inquisitively arched eyebrow. “You seem different, Eli.”

            “Yeah?” I replied with my own arched eyebrow. “Is that good or bad?”

            “Definitely good. Do you know how I ended up in Iowa?”

            “In your car.”

            “No, silly,” she laughed and then frowned. “Well, yeah, I guess I did. Maybe I should have said do you know why I ended up in Iowa?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “A week ago I was in a Christian bookstore, and low and behold, I see you and Arlo on the cover of a magazine. I bought it and read the interview three times. I couldn’t believe it! You and Arlo renouncing your Satanic band and talking about coming to Christ.”

            “So I assume you’ve become a Christian then?”

            Her gaze was pensive. “I don’t know, Eli. I’m scared. Not just for me, but for Ivy. I guess I was there looking for hope. I had already bought a Bible when I was pregnant with Ivy. But it can be hard to understand, so I wasn’t very devout in reading it. Then my cancer came back, and I wanted some direction, some hope. I never dreamed it would come from Arlo. I didn’t want him to know about her because of your band. But after reading the article about you two, I knew I needed to contact him.”

            “That’s weird. I thought he contacted you.”

            “That’s the miracle!” she beamed. “I tried, but his number had changed. I tried calling some people we both knew, but all they could tell me was that he left California. I knew he grew up in the Midwest, but in all the years we were together, we never went to his hometown.”

            “You never met any of his family?” I asked.

            “Oh sure, but they came to us. We never went to them, not even at Christmas. Anyway, so I actually tried to pray about it, and literally a half hour later, Arlo calls me! I couldn’t believe it! At first I thought he had gotten wind that he had a daughter, but he said he called to make amends for being a less than stellar boyfriend.

            “He told me where he was, and I told him I was only about four hours away in the Chicagoland area. I told him I needed to see him. He was skeptical. I think he thought I wanted to get back together, and he told me that it wouldn’t be a good idea to see each other. He said he had a fiancée and was gonna be married this weekend. So as much as I wanted to tell him in person, I had to tell him about my illness and his daughter over the phone.

            “He said he would come to me, but I wanted to see where my daughter might be living, and with whom besides Arlo. He had called at lunch time, so I threw some things together, and spur of the moment, we made a little road trip out here.”

            “Wow,” was all I could manage to say in response. I was a guitarist, not wordsmith.

We both looked at Crystal and Ivy, and then she sighed as she watched our children. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. My heart ached for her as I groped for something to say. A weary smile spread onto her face. “They sure seem to click, just like you and Arlo. His daughter, your granddaughter.”

            “Yeah, a couple little cuties came from a couple bruties.” Maybe I was a wordsmith after all.

            “I understand you had a similar experience as Arlo.”

            “You mean finding out you have a kid years after the birth. Yeah, it is similar. But thankfully Arlo found out much sooner.”

            “So you wish you would have known Ariel was pregnant back then?”

            “Yes and no. I was a selfish pig right up through the collapse of our band. So it was probably best for Ethan that we met as adults.”

            “I have to agree that you were a selfish pig.”

            I chuckled. “Tell me what you really think.”

            “I did,” she replied with a tilt of her head and a little smile. If you hadn’t known Elsa, you wouldn’t know she had a terminal illness. But her voluptuous body was now a bit frail. Her lovely face was getting slightly hollow in her cheeks, and there were light purple circles under her eyes.

            Her little jab at me gave me a Penny moment. By that I meant that I spoke a question that was on my mind but had no intention of broaching the subject. “Are you sure Ivy is Arlo’s?”

            I instantly regretted it, but she turned sad, patient eyes on me. “You know firsthand that I was a cheater. But God as my witness, Arlo was the only man I had sex with for several months before Ivy was conceived.”

            “I don’t know why I asked that,” I replied and then sort of put my foot in my mouth again. “Arlo would raise her even if she wasn’t. You know when you, um, well…”

            “Die,” she finished with a zombie like voice as she stared at the kids. Then a tear leaked from her eye. “Arlo is such a changed man.” Then she turned her eyes on me. “I mean not that he was ever as wild as you other three, but…”

            “I was a saint compared with Kyle and Izzy,” I said, placing a hand over my heart, half mocking myself and half serious.

            “I suppose, but even Ozzy Osbourne seemed tamer then Izzy. Ozzy may have bitten the head off of a bat, but Izzy chopped off his own hand and slit his own throat. And Kyle was like a walking pharmacy and liquor store. So my old friend, being less insane than them isn’t all that impressive of an achievement.”

            I chuckled but then grew serious. “Are we old friends?”

            “I hope so,” she said eyeing me thoughtfully, as she scratched her temple daintily with her index finger. “I mean we had that last bad spat and haven’t spoken in years. But I traveled to a hundred cities with you guys. I’d like to think you and I got to know each other beyond all the partying and flirting.”

            “Yeah, me too,” I replied, and then chuckled before a little confession. “Now that I have a conscience.”

            “You’ve always had a conscience, Eli. What do you think kept you from getting as out of control as Kyle and Izzy? Or telling Arlo I tried to seduce you?”

            “Self-preservation and loyalty.”

            “Wouldn’t they be elements of a conscience?”

            “It seems you’re no longer an atheist.”

            A pained look came onto her face. “I don’t know. I guess between having Ivy, having a deadly illness, and talking to Arlo, I’ve become something between agnostic and a believer. I mean, when faced with raising a little human being, and then facing death, my search for God has consisted mostly out of fear and anger.”

            “That’s understandable,” I replied. “I’ve had a similar experience, albeit different circumstances.”

            “So what were your circumstances?”

            “Well, the fear came in through nightmares. Dabbling with Satanism and the occult is dangerous, and we did considerably more than dabble. The anger came in simply through the false doctrine of eternal hellfire, which, oddly, most of Christianity embraces. I thought, how can a God of love torture people for eternity? But Arlo set met straight. In a nutshell, he gave me a Bible study showing me that the world is destroyed by fire. Kind of like Noah and the flood, only fire instead of water. But then he recreates it after the devil and his angels are destroyed in the lake of fire. So even the supernatural forces that created evil won’t be tortured permanently. Only the result is permanent. The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23)

            (For more information on the topic of Hellfire, lookup Amazing Facts ministry and request their study guide, ‘Is The Devil In Charge of Hell?’ There are also a couple dozen other study guides with topics ranging from who is the Antichrist to can you rely on the Bible?)

            “Yeah, Arlo shared a bit with me about that. But I still can’t get beyond running your life by a book that was written two thousand years ago.”

            “See, another similarity with you and me. I felt the same way. But once again, after Arlo showed me through prophecy that the Bible is as relevant today as when it was written. The one that stuck with me the most profoundly was form the book of Daniel, chapter 7 and verse 25 in particular. Keep in mind this was written about six hundred years before Christ was born.

            “It says that a power would appear on the world scene that would think to change times and laws. It was referring to the Sabbath, which is both about time and is the fourth commandment in the law of God. This happened in the fourth century, when Constantine made Christianity a legal religion. To accommodate sun worshippers, the Bible Sabbath was shifted from the seventh day to the Venerable Day of the Sun, also known as Sunday. But who is man to think to change God’s Holy Law?”

            Elsa was looking at me like I had two heads. In a strange way, I sort of did. For I wasn’t the same person I was when we last spoke. Yet I was still me. Two different characters in one person. Elsa even expressed this. “Are you really the wild guy I knew as Eli Endor?”

            “I was,” I chuckled. “But now I’m simply Elijah Alderson.”

            She looked away from me and at the two girls playing happily. A wistful look grew onto her face. She smiled. “I’m so glad I came here and got to meet everyone. Even the man formerly known as Eli Endor has been a sweetheart. You all have been such a balm to my hurting soul. I’m gonna try hard to embrace the side of me that believes.”

            “I’m so glad you came here too, Elsa. And as for embracing the side of you that believes, pray for the Holy Spirit to help you. He’s also known as the Comforter  (John 14:26 KJV). By the way, I hope you stay. I’d like to truly be your friend.”

            “I’d like that,” she squeaked. Then she put her face in her hands and began to whimper.

            This took me a little by surprise. On impulse, I gently put my arm around her. Once again, to my surprise, she leaned into me and her head rested in the crook of my neck. There was nothing sexual about our togetherness, but talk about a relationship that did a one eighty.

            It felt awkward at first with my arm around her, but then shifted when she stopped crying. “I’ve been so lonely Eli. My aunt has dementia, so I can’t truly talk to her about my feelings. I was so nervous coming here, worried on how I’d be perceived, given my past and all. Especially by you and Arlo’s fiancée. The only one I’m still not sure about is your woman.”

            “Oh, no worries about Ariel, she’s a sweetheart,” I said, and then realized something. “Although, when I found out you were coming, I did tell her about our history. I didn’t want her to find out from somebody other than me.”

            “So that’s why she’s been aloof around me.”

            “She’ll come around. She’s probably just sizing you up. She’s had a tough go of it this last year.”

            I’m not gonna say speak of the devil, even though I sort of just did. But my sweet lady’s’ calm, yet menacing voice sent a jolt through me when I heard Ariel say, “Well, don’t you two look cozy?”