Alison Hendrix's Blog, page 8

Pastor Rising Part 4

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Pastor Rising:  Part 4

After Jason’s visit, Tuck felt oddly at ease.  He went about his daily routine with a smile and even a chipper word for his fellow inmates.  He was never unkind before, but now he was almost relieved to know of another person who had seen the kinds of things he’d seen.  He had often questioned his own sanity and wondered if Cindy’s death had really been his fault.  Somehow, after speaking to Jason, he didn’t question himself, but renewed his efforts at research and writing about those terrors that he had seen.  Maybe he could help someone by sharing his knowledge, just maybe.

One morning, Tuck casually arrived in the recreation room and, after taking a lap around the room a couple of times, he walked over to a table with a pack of playing cards laying there.  He wasn’t much good at holding his cards, but he managed, and he enjoyed a good game of Spades once in a while, or even poker.  He looked around, wondering if any of the guys he usually played with were around, and seeing no one available, he dumped the cards out and began a game of Solitaire.

A ways down the hall, he heard shouting and the clanging of metal bars.  Someone’s room was getting randomly searched by the guards.  It happened occasionally, especially if they had reason to believe you had any contraband.  Tuck barely even took notice of these things now, and continued playing cards.

Then suddenly, “Tuck! Yo, Pastor! They comin’ for you, man!”  It was Will, he’d just come stumbling into the rec room and was yelling at the top of his lungs.

The pastor’s eyes widened, but he didn’t move.  He sat still even as two guards, whom he knew very well, Dominique and Michael, came quickly to his table and stood there, confused looks on their faces.

“Hi guys, what’s going on?” asked Tuck, a sinking feeling in his gut that he already knew the answer.

Dominique held out a small packet, some green stuff wrapped in a napkin.  It had obviously been wadded up and smooshed flat, but he knew what it was.  And he knew it was not his.  The guard said, “We found this in your mattress, Tuck.  What’s up with this, man? I thought we were friends.  Why you doing something like this?  You know what’s gonna happen now, right?”

Tuck was stunned.  He’d never used drugs in his life, who would’ve planted that in his bed? And why?  As far as he knew, he had no enemies here.  He started to reply, “It really isn’t mine, I don’t know how that got-”

But he was interrupted by Michael, “You know that’s what they all say, right? Look, pastor, I don’t really think you did this, but we have to do what we have to do, you know?”

Tuck clenched his teeth. He shoved himself away from the table with his good arm and stood.

“Let’s go,” said Michael, and they began walking towards the other side of the rec room.  Tuck knew there would be a humiliating search next, and they’d take his prosthetic arm, and then there’d be solitary confinement for at least a week. He knew there was some awful mistake, but there was really nothing to be done about it.  Inwardly, he prayed that the Lord would see him through.

They stepped into the hallway leading from the rec room when a soul-piercing scream was heard just behind them.  All three spun.  The guards left Tuck standing there and sprinted back the way they’d just come.

Spilling into the rec room, from another hallway, was a gang of six or seven men, led by Cando, one of the most aggressive and angry of all the men incarcerated there.  They had approached quietly and then rushed Will, who had sat down to finish the Pastor’s game of solitaire.  One of them had a make-shift knife and slipped it between Will’s ribs.  The others were beating him and screaming obscenities at him.

Dominique and Michael were there in an instant, along with one other guard who happened to be close by, and the three of them managed to subdue the attackers…with a little help from some pepper spray and batons.

Tuck slid to Will’s side once the attackers were on the ground and held his head.  He prayed out loud, “Father God, if it be your will, protect this man, let him heal, oh God, let him be ok! Help the pain lessen and help him cling to you!”  and he talked to Will, trying to calm him.  He stayed with him until emergency services arrived to take him to the hospital, but Tuck wasn’t sure if he’d make it that far.

He stood, shirt covered in blood, and looked around.  Michael and Domonique had successfully neutralized the angry prisoners, and they were all confined in their cells for now.  He wasn’t so sure what would happen next, but he was angry.  Will was his friend, why had they attacked him?

Michael finished talking to the EMS, and headed to Tuck.  He looked over the Pastor’s soiled shirt.  “Wow, what a day.  Let’s get you cleaned up and back in your room for now.  I know Will was your friend.  Any idea why those guys did that?”

Tuck shook his head, his gray eyes filled with anger.  His face remained stony, though.  It would be a while before he heard anything about Will, so he focused on the tasks at hand.

He cleaned himself off and changed his shirt, then sat down hard on his bunk. He held his head in his hands and began to pray, but his thoughts were interrupted by a whisper at his door.

“Someone said Will stole that stuff they found in your room.  Stole it from Cando. But Will didn’t do it.” Tuck rushed to the door and peered out, but whoever was speaking was already gone.

 

Pastor Rising: Part 3

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Jason rubbed his jaw.  He was shaken, still, from recounting the terrifying episode he’d witnessed on his last long-distance run, and if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t so sure he should even be here talking to the pastor, to Tuck.  Maybe a psychiatrist would be better.  The pastor’s question, “How’s your faith, son?” hit him deeply.  Did this mean that Tuck believed his story? Did he really see what he thought he saw that night? Or was this just something preachers do when they talk to you to make sure you’ve been converted? He hoped he wasn’t wasting his time.

He licked his lips, “Ah, I’ve always believed in God, and I go to church every Sun-”

“That’s not what I mean,” interrupted Tuck, “I mean, how is your FAITH? Do you talk to God and KNOW that He will respond?  Do you KNOW it?”

Jason looked him in the eye.  “I do.”

The Pastor repositioned himself and stared at Jason for a while.  Finally he nodded and said, “Good.  Your faith in these fights cannot be something you cling to only on Sundays, it has to be real.  They know the difference.”

“What? Who knows the difference?” asked Jason, “What did I see that night, Tuck?”

Tuck gravely responded, “You saw a demon, Jason.  No doubt that young lady had given herself over to it, maybe even summoned it… Oh, you don’t think that sort of thing happens in real life?”

Jason realized he’d raised his eyebrows in surprise. He shrugged.

Tuck continued, “It happens in the mind, mostly, they attack and influence our thoughts by planting lies and confusion.  They usually only do this if there is some scheme they’re up to, some larger goal.”

He stopped here and glanced away, then his gray eyes snapped back to Jason’s blue ones. “I guess what I’m saying is pretty hard to believe, but, ever notice how, when something big is going on politically, that there’s suddenly a hate crime that floods the news?  Or a mass shooting?  Such hatred exists when people open their minds to these dark creatures.  Even just a little, and all kinds of evil pours out.  Of course, people are responsible for their own decisions, but these things have powerful influence, and vile intentions on a global scale.”

It occurred to Jason that Tuck may be insane.  After all, Jason had read that Tuck’s attorney had begged him to plead insanity to lighten his sentence, and no doubt everyone thought Tuck’s story was crazy.  While Jason did believe in God and he believed the words of the Bible, he wasn’t exactly convinced that demons went around like shadows exploding people.

He decided to ask, “Why were you in the woods that night, Pastor?”

Tuck didn’t seem stunned, but his face remained stony for a while.  Then he said, “I had only been a minister for about 5 years.  I was young, still inexperienced even though I thought I knew everything.  The Bible College I graduated from prepared me for music ministry, how to relate to teenagers, how to put jokes in my sermons so that people didn’t get bored. They didn’t prepare us to ground people in the Word, to stand against popular opinion, to teach, edify and rebuke when necessary, and God knows, they didn’t prepare me to fight demons!”

Jason eyed him, still wondering if he was insane.

Tuck continued, “And what I DID learn led me to believe that I should be getting paid a large salary, so I only applied to churches with a lot of members.  This landed me happily at Sander’s Grove Christian Church, where I met…” he swallowed hard, “where I met Cindy, my wife.”

“Cindy led me into a deeper relationship with my Creator, helped me strengthen my faith.  We started a lot of small group studies, because, well, our church was so large that we couldn’t know all of them.

Cindy heard from one of her church friends that a particular small group, they called themselves, “The Light Group,” had taken to meeting in the woods outside the city.  At first, this woman told Cindy, the group would bring their Bibles and do a short devotion, eat some food, enjoy the outdoors.  But there was one member of the group, a guy with long, stringy black hair, whom I had seen before, but didn’t know.  This guy started asking strange questions that made this woman uncomfortable.  The other members of the group, she said, told her not to say anything about it, that she should accept him and hope he came around.  Well, apparently, he had begun bringing drugs with him to the meetings, and tarot cards. He convinced other members of the group-they’re all pretty new to the church, and young- to join him. Cindy’s friend was seriously concerned at this point, and tried to explain that these things were not for Christians. She says she did it in a loving way, but the people from The Light Group asked her not to come back.”

Jason interjected, “Wow!”

Tuck stared at the table and continued, “Cindy and I tried contacting members of the group individually, but they weren’t taking our calls or responding to emails. We decided to accompany Cindy’s friend out to the woods that night.  When we got there, we..” He swallowed and cleared his throat, “We followed a path that lead back to a clearing with some picnic tables, and we saw them.  It was horrible, the worst debauchery I’ve ever seen, it was-”

He glanced up at Jason and said, “I won’t go into gritty details, but it was horrible. These were supposed to be members of our church! There was a stinking smoke hanging in the air, I’m sure they were all drunk and high along with everything else. Cindy’s friend ran away, thank God, but Cindy and I, we, we began praying aloud and we tried to talk to them.  I became angry and started shouting, and most of them ran away. The guy with stringy black hair, the guy I didn’t know, confronted us, though, and that’s when the shadows came.”

The Pastor stopped talking here, his face stony and grave. He figured Jason either believed him or not, and their time was almost up.

Jason looked at the man in front of him.  He didn’t SEEM crazy. The pot-bellied guard began his saunter toward the door, and he knew Tuck would have to go.

“Uh, thank you for talking with me.  What, what should I do?”

Tuck said, “I don’t know how to answer that. After that night, I’ve never seen those shrieking monsters again, I suppose I am no threat to them here.  Maybe you’ll never see anything like that again, either.”

The guard waved and said, “Alright, time’s up.  Let’s go.”

Tuck stood and said, “Jason, you’re not crazy. And neither am I.”

“Let’s go, Tuck,” called the guard, and Tuck took a step toward the door he’d entered through, then said over his shoulder, “Keep the faith, son.”

Jason nodded in reply and rose to leave.  He passed back through the way he came in, and stopped back by the window to sign out next to where he’d signed in.  The guard behind the glass said, “Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”

Jason barely glanced up to say, “You, too,” before heading on to the parking lot.  The guard smiled oddly as he watched him go, and pushed back long, stringy black hair.

On Memorial Day

On Memorial Day

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“When I get older, I will be stronger, they’ll call me freedom, just like a waving flag.”

 

Our days are filled with care, real and imagined, and our focus is, as a country, full of division and strife. It has been for months now.  What a blessing is this day, a day to remember, to reflect, that we ARE unified, our families have fought together through the ages to protect our freedoms and our welfare.  Let’s remember the fallen soldiers whose lives were so precious, shining jewels of men and women, and whose sacrifice should live in our hearts daily and push us to strive for unity and peace.

If you’ve lost a loved one in the service of our country, God bless you, dear one, and know that their sacrifice is not lost, not forgotten, not hollow.

Pastor Rising Part 2: Jason’s Story

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Part 2

Jason Hart was a long distance truck driver, and a well-read young man. His was a rewarding career, but his recent marriage to a spunky blue-eyed beauty had him looking for something more local to home. Besides, he’d been seeing some strange things on the road lately, things that kept him awake at night.

As a seasoned driver, Jason had seen his share of odd sights: a car exploding on the side of the road, a clown being chased by a bulldozer, and a herd of cows crossing the highway with an actual honest to goodness panda bear. Those were interesting memories and something fun he would share with his wife.

But he’d seen something on his last long run to South Carolina that haunted him as he drove along now, in broad daylight, on a busy highway. He could not make sense of it, and hoped that this Pastor he was going to visit was as knowledgeable as he seemed.

When he arrived, Jason signed his name on a ledger, then was instructed to wait inside a small room, not much larger than an elevator. An alarm buzzed and the door in front of him opened to reveal a room that reminded Jason of his high school lunchroom. Rubbing his jaw, he sat down at an empty table, seeing a few other people doing the same, and waited to see the Pastor.

Another alarm buzzed and a door slid open on the opposite side of the room from Jason. A guard with a large belly sauntered out, escorting a few prisoners who went to their visitors. The last man to walk out was probably in his early 40’s, not much older than Jason. This surprised the truck driver, who had expected a much older man. The pastor’s short, wavy hair was graying, and he had a muscular frame and cool gray eyes. His left arm was prosthetic, and hung lifeless at his side. He eyed Jason as he sat down.

Jason began, “Mr.-”

The pastor interrupted him with a smile, “You can call me Tuck, everyone else does.”

“Alright, then, Tuck, I’ve followed your story in the news, and uh,” he stopped here and rubbed his jaw, then continued in his southern drawl, “I don’t know, I just hope you can help me.”

Tuck stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Why don’t you tell me everything.”

Jason took a deep breath and began. “Well, you know I drive a big rig up and down the coast, that’s how I met my wife.”

Tuck said with a half-smile, “Ah, ok, you don’t sound like you’re from up north.”

Jason returned that half smile and nodded.

Then he continued, “Being on the road means a lot of late nights driving, lonely hours. A lot of times, I’ve stopped in some shady places because I had to get some rest. I try to be safe as I can, but there aren’t always the best options.” He glanced down at his folded hands on the table.

“The night I wrote you about, I was driving home from South Carolina. It had been a long day, there were some problems with the load and then getting it dropped off was more complicated than it normally goes. There was an inspector there that was on those guys like a duck on a June bug, and well, let’s just say, it took about twice as long for them to unload and get my rig back on the highway.”

He gulped, rubbed his jaw, then said, “I was tired, dog tired, and I knew I couldn’t make it to the next truck stop. So, I took the next exit I saw that had a gas station, but it turned out to be a few miles down the exit. When I finally saw it, it was some privately owned, tiny filling station, surrounded by trees, and the only light was the one inside the store. It looked sketchy, but, as I said, I was dog tired, so, I pulled on into the parking lot and hoped for the best.” He exhaled through pursed lips.

“I woke up to some horrible sound, like someone throwing up, but it was loud. I could hear it over the engine running. I got up and tried to see out the window, but at first, it was too dark to see anything. I moved around so I could see out the other side, and there was a,” he stopped to take an extra breath here, and Tuck leaned in, a stern look on his face.

Jason said, “There was a, a girl about 16 or 17, I don’t know, and it was dark, but I could tell she was, well she was naked, pastor, and she was acting crazy. She was pulling her hair and screaming and making that horrible vomiting sound and walking in a jerking motion..”

He looked up at the pastor, “It was disturbing. I thought she was probably drunk or on drugs and she obviously needed help, so I reached for my phone to call 911, but then…” He looked back at his hands again, rubbed his jaw, took another breath.

“A shadow moved, or ran, across the dark parking lot. I thought another person was there at first, but then, I don’t know, I…It was a shadow. It covered the girl and she started screaming, ear splitting screams and I was,” Jason licked his lips and tried again, “I was terrified, but I jumped to the door to go help her, but she, somehow, oh God, she exploded. Chunks of her were thrown into my windshield, her fingernails were painted. That shadow ripped her to pieces, pastor. I think. I don’t know what I was looking at, what I saw, but that’s what happened.”

Tuck, after a second, calmly asked, “What did you do then, what did you see?”

Jason answered slowly, slowly even for his usual slow southern drawl, “I climbed to the cab and flipped on the headlights. I saw a shadow fly to the trees. I bent down to pick up the phone, and when I sat back up, all the, you know… pieces, were gone. There was no blood, no…nothing. I thought I must be losing my mind, but I was terrified, too terrified to open the door and get out to look around. I just left. You can bet I was wide awake then. I motored on til I crossed the North Carolina border, it was daybreak by then. I pulled into a truck stop I know pretty well and pulled out my Bible. I fell asleep reading it. When I woke up, I wrote to you.”

The pastor took a moment to think, but really, there was only one question to ask. “How’s your faith, son?”

Life really isn’t fair, you know.

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Life really isn’t fair, you know. Everyone knows that, but occasionally it sinks in with such solidity that you think it consciously. You think, why was it designed this way? Maybe this wasn’t the original intention of the Designer, but that is neither here nor there, is it? The fact remains that, for the majority of humans, we spend years overcoming everything that high-school took from us, decades smoothing out the wrinkles of self-doubt and loathing and insecure thoughts that breathe with us. And then, somehow, we arrive at a stopping point, a place where we perhaps find what we are longing to become, and for a breath, a heartbeat, one blink of the eye, all is perfection. And if not perfection, all is arrived. And then that single breath is released, the heart continues to beat, the eye continues to roam and to close and unclose. The hill we were climbing finally levelled for the briefest of steps, and is now descending. Falling, really, at an alarming rate. Faster and faster we tumble down the other side, perhaps without realizing that we’ve found, and quickly flitted past, the solid table land. How unfair, how cruel, how every-damn-day.

Beautiful; She regenerates from purpose.

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Beautiful. The beauty of life is an imp of a child, a blur of footy pajamas and giggles, a mother’s begging her child to stop growing up, or at least slow down! The most beautiful thing is the emptiness of a soul poured completely out, perfect exhaustion, mental, emotional, and physical fatigue: when she can do no more than sit on the couch in the company of her husband, oblivious to her exhaustion… and then the little ball of soft curls and snuggles! A sleepy smile that nuzzles into her lap. The Mother brushes the curls back behind those little ears, and the soul refills. She regenerates from purpose.

Wrinkles, gray hair, and understanding. Those are the most beautiful of all. A rich understanding of her mother before and hers before her. The beauty is the realization that a Mother is the strongest of all creatures. She gives when there’s nothing more to give. She manufactures love, creates energy, exudes light when there is none. A look at her child, an ear to its song and play, and she can do the impossible. That is the most beautiful.

Pastor Rising

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The lone pastor raced down a dirt path, not well-trodden, and prayed between the poundings in his brain. “God save them, if it be your will, and save me!” He tripped over a branch jutting into his path and screamed as he fell to the ground.  He landed hard and blood burst from his lips.  “Ahh,” he pushed himself up, “God help me!” He was running again, but a rushing, whooshing, tearing sound was closing in behind him.

Without daring to hope, he came to the opening where his light blue sedan sat waiting.  Jamming his hands in his pockets, he caught up his car keys and fell into the car, starting the engine and closing the door all in one swift motion.

He should’ve been on the cruise ship right now, singing the worship songs that mindlessly repeated the same verse over and over and forcing himself to feel something.  He wished he had made Cindy go, too. “Oh God! Cindy! Lord forgive me!”

A flash of her terrified eyes and the terrible sound of her terrified screams; these he would never forget.

His eyes snapped back to the dirt road ahead, and he prayed he would not see the shadows.  A glance in the rear view mirror killed that hope: shadows darted in and out through the trees behind him.  They would catch him.  They would rip him into pieces as they had to poor Cindy – unless…

Shaking uncontrollably, he pressed the brake.  He pushed the gear shifter into park, took a deep breath and stepped out of the car.  He closed his eyes as he sank to his knees.

“In the name of the Lord Je-” A shrill screech interrupted and drowned his prayers, but the pastor spoke even louder. “In the NAME of the LORD JESUS, the son of the living-” another shriek, this time accompanied by a buffeting, and claws digging, ripping his flesh to the bone.

“THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD! IN HIS NAME- Ahhh!!” He was swatted over and pinned to the ground, his blood leaking into sticky pools.  Weaker now came the faithful words that were his only hope.  Weaker, but steady.

“In the name of Jesus-” he felt his arm rip from its socket. “GAHHH!!” Then, with a strength he couldn’t account for, the pastor screamed, “I command you! BE GONE!!”

In a violent, shrieking tornado of shadow and blood and grit, the attacking darkness flew up among the treetops and dispersed.

Those things would be back, he knew that.  He also knew he was bleeding to death and he had to move.  Almost hysterically, he glanced around but could not find his left arm.  He laughed and dragged himself into the car.

The following year was a nightmare.  Between surgeries and physical therapy with his new prosthetic arm, there were horrific court appearances that left him a nauseas puddle of a man.  He had been arrested and convicted for the grizzly murder of his wife, Cindy.  No one believed his tale of demons of course.  The prosecutor somehow convinced a jury that the pastor had brutally murdered the most beautiful, faithful woman in the world, scattered her remains all over the woods, then was himself attacked by a bear or mountain lion.  His left arm had never been found.

For the last 10 years, he’d been a guest within the concrete and barbed wire walls of Rockwell Federal Prison for violent offenders.  He spent his time in study and prayer and writing books about battling the forces of evil.  He’d also managed to make friends of most of the inmates and guards.  They all trusted him because he never took sides, he offered prayer.  This turned out to be something desperately needed inside this place. His routine was well-established, and he was, if not happy, at least content with his lot, a modern day Paul.

And then Will dropped an envelope on the desk the pastor used for journaling every morning.

“He ya go, Tuck,” he said. The guys in here had begun calling him “Tuck” after one particularly big, grumpy inmate had discovered he was a minister.  He’d said, “Ha, y’all, we got Friar Tuck in here!” The pastor was a bit surprised that hardened criminals would use a Robin Hood reference, but it had made him smile, and it stuck.

“Let me know if you need to send off a reply,” said Will as he left the Pastor to his letter.

“Tuck” observed the name and address in the top left corner.  Jason Hart. He was not familiar with the name.  He slid open the envelope and read the short note.  He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.  The shadows were back.

A bit of this and that

This morning, I’ve been creating bookmarks for a book I hope to launch next week.  I have a lot of work to do to prepare for that, but I’m really just super excited to finally be able to hold this book in my hands.  It’s one I wrote fairly quickly and easily, but then I wanted to illustrate it myself.  This took a long time. A LONG time. It was well worth it, though, because I really love this book.  Lenny the Last Lightning bug is about my baby girl playing with a summer friend.  I will be talking about it a lot, so I won’t go into detail now, only that I am excited to finally have it ready for publishing, printing, and release!

I am inspired at this moment by this gorgeous writing desk I bought this week.  It was in the back room of an old building that stands in the back of a parking lot, behind an antique shop.  It was dusty, stained, and dirty, but absolutely beautiful.  The price tag on this desk made my eyes swim.  It was more than three times what I could afford.  The owner was very patient, and even though he knew my price range, he showed me all those lovely pieces and tried to help me find things priced for me. There was not much that I could afford, or that would work for my needs.  As I was about to leave, I asked if he minded if I took a look in that back room one more time.

I eyed an overly ornate desk, something the king of England might have used, and the price was a kingly price.  Out of curiosity, I asked, “How much would that one be, you know, for when I’m a rich and famous author and come back to buy it?” To my surprise, he said he would let it go for half of what it was listed for! (Now this was still about three times what I could afford, but it let me know he would deal!)  I lingered, I hovered, I studied this lovely piece with a leather top and cabriole legs. I noticed dings and nicks, and the lovely flowery detail on the middle drawer.  I asked, what could you do on this one?”  Well, he hemmed and hawed and pulled it away so he could see the back (which was really beautiful) and finally quoted me a price just over half the sticker price.  This was still a ways away from what I could do.  I recalled what my husband had said our very max budget for this venture would be, and I traced my fingers along the desk, trying to decide if it was worth squeezing out to the tip top of my budget.

I offered a price.  Ohh the owner did not like it.  His brow furrowed, he squinted, he traced over the piece as I had done, he again looked at the back and all the sides, and even bent down to look underneath and pulled out the drawers.  Then he stood back, fist curled under his chin, and said, “I’ll do it.”

VICTORY!! I could not imagine a more lovely desk, and my husband was, to my surprise, completely fine with spending the money. (What a blessing to have a man like him). It now sits in front of my office window, overlooking the street, my neighbor’s horses, and the trees beyond.  A mad hatter hat sits on the corner, next to a picture of our Wonderland wedding.  These are here for inspiration.  I’m surrounded by insipiration this morning, and realize I am rambling.

Blessings and magic to you today!

Fancy Writing Desk

It’s taken a long time for my laptop to get up and running this morning, because I am downloading something to hopefully help with publishing one of my books. Normally this kind of delay would tend to get under my skin, but not today. Not today because, not only do I have an amazing cup of coffee, at least 2 hours before my kid wakes up, and a cuddly blanket, I also have this brand new-to-me writing desk! I’ve spent the 10 minutes waiting for everything to install tracing over the detail in the leather top, running my fingers along the ornate woodwork and designs on the drawers and the cabriole legs. What a beauty, I’ve been wanting so badly to come in here and write since I found this desk in the back room of an antique warehouse a few days ago. With a 4 year old and a home renovation, this is the first time I have sat down at my new desk. It is so much earlier than I usually rise, but I am content