Operation Wolfe Cub: A Chilling Historical Thriller (THE TIME TO TELL Book 1) (37 page)

Eddie soon joined in with a halfhearted smile and wave.

As they left their shocking experiences behind, the Prophet of the Witness members kept watching their every move from afar. All of them looked sour after they had just seen Eddie litter the sidewalk with their literature.

Reckless abandon seemed to be running through some of their veins. The tall man gritted his teeth, not making a sound. His snarling glare looked as if he wished to strike Eddie down. Without hesitation, he nudged his little son, nearly knocking him off his feet. “Well, boy? You witnessed it…what you waiting for? Go get it.”

The boy bustled from their crowd as he had done many times before. When he got to the discarded literature, he skidded to a stop and plucked them up.

The way back from his speedy fetch was different, however. The little lad decided to take his time while looking at the front picture on the main flyer. Childish amazement struck his face; his little observance was marked all over with innocence as he continued walking back. He stroked the pretty, colorful picture gently with his tiny fingertips, which brought much attention to what was pictured.

Admittedly, the picture was quite nice or perhaps it was too nice. He wanted to feel what was in the picture, but the paper was too smooth to feel anything else. The artwork did work in its own magical, way. The picture meant more than a thousand words to him, even though it was a simple picture created by just one artist.

The pseudohistorical scene depicted Jesus Christ hovering high off the ground, with golden-yellow rays of light beaming from behind the gifted one’s golden-brown hair. Below Jesus were dozens of men and women in agony, dressed in rags, pleading for their lives and begging for mercy with their hands held together. The words “
He’s coming!
” were arched above the wonderful artwork, which seemed to be the theme or title of the print.

While the boy slowly strolled back to his group in a blissful daydream, his father yelled, “Get back here, boy!”

The startled boy shook himself from his daze, realizing his diminutive subservience was under a watchful eye. Carefully, he handed the literature up to his father.

Swat!

With one big swipe of the tall man’s huge hand, he took it away then slapped it back into his satchel. Then he looked at the clock on the steeple of his church and muttered, “It is time.”

Just about then, their church bell rang, echoing down Church Row. A second later, all of the church bells began to ring. A bonging orchestra of bells sounded off all the way down the street. Not long thereafter, the hair-raising rings of offbeat rhythms quickly reverberated all the way downtown with a kind of unusual splendor never before heard anywhere else.

As far as Chantain and Eddie were concerned, they were among the last ones filtering into the majestic-looking house of worship at 995 Church Street. It was an old building, dressed up in gingerbread woodwork with Old English letters painted in gold over the entryway that said “Church of the Original Testament.”

The flamboyant facility inside was well-appointed, big and crowded, with an open-style cathedral that created the feeling of greatness. It housed about two hundred members and their guests. This complimented the open-door policy the church embraced.

Anticipation was underway. Voices vigorously chattered throughout, as the organist played the familiar church song “All People That on Earth Do Dwell.” Everyone seemed vibrant, paying their veneration to God as they waited. Quite a few of them were also talking about the weather. Rightly so, considering its turbulence from the days before had kept them practically locked-up inside their homes.

While the small talk went on, none of them forgot why they were there. Every last one of them kept a vague eye out for their man of God to arrive. The word “priest” was used here and there among them. He was due to pop in and he did so—inaudibly. Without much detection, a mordant-looking, gray-haired man with a bushy beard appeared from a very small door congruently cut into the lines of the highly decorative wooden trim on the wall behind the sanctuary, high up on stage.

The man was intricately clothed and wrapped in a colorful, full-length robe of gold, red, brown, black, and even a touch of white.

Just after he appeared, he paused to see if any of his audience had noticed his presence. So far the majority, if not all, hadn’t. It went without saying, but this man of God wanted it that way. By no means did he disturb his followers verbally divulging their affairs.

Finally, he brought himself out into the open, but with a set of gracious eyes and posture. Patience was part of the picture he wished to portray, so he slowly made his way to center stage, walking like an ancient, decrepit man, though he wasn’t nearly as old as he looked.

Little doubt remained. The man of God was in a preplanned approach he could call his own. His last stretch of walk confirmed this as he strolled with his head down. Every so often, he glanced up to the tall ceiling as if he wished to see through it. All the while, he slowly slid his moccasin style shoes across the beautiful, deep red mahogany wood floor, which was much nicer than the floor below where his audience was.

The huge, weathered book held tightly to his chest with crossed arms was indeed dear to him. This was his personal Bible, which looked to be in terrible condition. The idea of separating him from it was out of the question for he protected it too well.

Time had to be brought into perspective, in order to give a full understanding of the priest’s presentation, which began before anyone knew. His dramatic, detailed, introduction was expressed in minutes—not seconds.

New steps came about, which he dealt with in the time it took for him to reach the pivotal point before the podium. He had to go to one more level, which was hard to detect until he got there. One step at a time, he gracefully climbed almost two feet higher behind his tall, ornate podium that hid almost
half his already-tall body. At this level, he exhaled a noteworthy breath of peaceful air, as if he was done, but he wasn’t.

With more calculated grace and peacefulness, he carefully laid his Bible down to rest, and for good reason. One could see the whole book by then, barely tethered together. It would have fallen apart had he not been careful.

The time had come for the Priest to gaze around at the wonderfully packed church before him. It was safe to say that by then, he was ready to begin his Sabbath day sermon.

The lady below playing the organ was the only person who seemed to know what was about to happen. She appeared to be growing a might distressed. For the first time that morning, she missed a key on the organ as she kept a close eye on the priest. Surmise to say, she became the one to watch after that. “Nervous” was the word, as she waited for a cue to stop playing.

The priest raised his hand as if he were the conductor of a symphony, ready to silence her. His hand was shaking, which actually drew minor concern. Something was coming. Many sensed his beginning was not going to be all that ordinary.

Just then, the organ player gawked with a tiny moan of fear as she yanked her hands back from the keyboard to cover her face.

WHAM!

From out of nowhere, the priest slammed his fist down on top of his badly beaten Bible. Before his audience could react, the priest began brutally shouting, “Burn in
Hellll!
”

The cathedral that everyone sat or stood in had been well-designed for voice amplification. It sounded like an echo chamber specially rigged to pierce the ears with satanic condemnations, or whatever else he cared to yell about. With such a surprising entry, there was no wonder that he literally electrified the crowd. In fact, he’d sent them reeling with echoes of shock and awe before they even sat down.

All at once, everyone dropped to the pews, as if wishing to duck for cover. High-pitched gasps and small, shuddering
cries bounced from all sides of the great room. One could not imagine what it sounded like in such a long room of hardwood walls towering at least twenty feet high. There wasn’t so much as a piece of carpet to help muffle the sound.

A pudgy woman with hair that was curled in the front, seemed to be the most affected by the hellacious echo of his shout. She let out a whimpering cry, telling it all. “I lied! I stole it!
I stole it!
” After her shocking confession, she almost fainted. Luckily, her husband caught her or she would have fallen backward.

At the same time, a skinny man with bony cheeks hysterically lunged out into the aisle as if he had just encountered a parade of paranoid ants in the middle of his back that he couldn’t reach. “
Waaawaaahaa
—help me, help me, preacher! They got me!”

And so the priest did help him in his own fashion. Immediately after, he stared the skinny man down, then slammed his hand on his Bible, roaring, “
Fire
burns your flesh in the bottomless pits of eternity, with Satan!”

He slammed again. “Evil does what it wants toooooo!”

Then, like a frog vexed in hot water, he whipped his audience limp and ferretted out whatever places they tried to hide. There was no place for anyone to go, except to perhaps hide in their mind. Somehow, he broke them out of hiding there too.

Again with his fist, he pounded his broken Bible, delivering another bitter blow so hard, dust blew from the pages. “I said—
go to Hell!
”

His audience spun into yet another chorus of gasps. This time it was the woes, shaking out a couple more into the aisles hollering repentances. Others, who were still holding on, either grabbed their handkerchiefs to doctor their noses or simply hide their faces in fear.

Just as the audience began to settle down, the priest paused. When he did, he stood up straight, sniffed, and then
gazed around for a long minute. Cordially, he went about his business, acting as if nothing ever happened. “Ladies and gentlemen—infants and offspring. It is time for prayer. Let us pray for the sinners who come before us today. Bow your heads now, before our all-powerful God. It is my prayer, which we all giveth together:

“Dear God in the greatest kingdom of all.
I seen beforeth me.
Some of us in my holy house hath sinned.
I ask you. Have mercy on their souls to do with as you wish.
God—grant me as a holy servant, the power to teacheth.
I wish to teach the difference of Christians and—Christians of War.
Bring me the holy weapons through your teachings to defend you,
oh Lord.
I wish to teacheth about war.
I say these blessed forthcomings to be righteous, first in the name of Gauwd,
And then our brother above us, Jesus Christ.
Amen.”

Everyone answered, “AMEN, amen-amen, amen-amen. AMEN…Aaaamen.”

He graciously continued, “Thank you all. The Lord now has giveth me the power today to teach about Christianity and War. Before I provide for our dear Lord, I wish to seek a show of hands with the heavenly father’s questions. How many today—consider thyselves Christians? Show the hands…come on, come on. I wish to seek them.”

The entire room eagerly raised their hands without delay.

Apparently, this wasn’t what the priest wanted to see. Agitation strapped him up tight on stage, tying him in a quagmire. From the constant changes in his looks, one might have guessed that he was headed for a hard, strenuous lecture. He
shifted his eyes back and forth through the crowd, rolling his fingers across the top of his podium.

Suspicion seemed to be lurking in his mind too when he asked an almost identical question: “How many consider thyselves—Christians of War?”

The crowd came alive, buzzing with whispers as they looked at one another across the aisles. They were discussing what his point was. The vote seemed muted since everyone had already raised their hand on the first choice. Soon, all of them became starkly quiet, compelling themselves to sit down. Miraculously enough, the result was 100 percent unanimous, with nobody showing a single hand.

The priest, once again, rolled his fingers then shifted his eyes, except now he appeared upset. His awful glare conveyed the thought that he believed his audience was nothing but a bunch of cowards. While he wiped his face, he gracefully stood up tall, looking at his Bible. He might have been thinking of what bodily gesture he needed to use next. As he carried on, this became obvious. He shifted his body to one side, trying to decide, but couldn’t quite make up his mind.

Indecisiveness finally gave way to what looked like the pure play of anger again. Self-control had never looked so painful. Whatever little bit of control he had gathered from before must have been hanging by a thread, so he surprised everyone by growling. Then he said, “That’s what I thought your answers would beeee.”

Very clearly, he wasn’t happy with his audience’s lop-sided show of hands between Christians and Christians of War. As a consequence, some of the people sitting in the pews, not wishing to anger him, begged to change their minds. Oh, but no. The stage for bias was already settled as far as their priest was concerned.

WHAM!

It showed when he let go with a massive blow to his Bible. “You’re
not
real Christians!”

His accusations, mixed with antagonism, seemed almost too much. His audience quickly sank down to a new level. Some slouched, while others sank down lower than the backs of the pews themselves.

However, peacefulness seemed to be where the priest wanted to return, time and time again. And so he did—along with a few other emotions. He turned back to his podium, rolling his fingers, but this time he dramatized yet another surprise. Pain and anguish came raining down upon him. His onlookers started to feel it too. Before they could get comfortable, he switched to a bizarre act of deep meditation. Hardly anyone could figure that one out. Perhaps he hadn’t used it for a while. Ultimately, his audience changed right along with him, showing grave concern.

Then, unexpectedly, one frightened gentleman spoke his piece regarding his vote, “But the war. I’m no Christian of War…Germany’s doin’—ju-ju-genocide!”