Part 5: The Last stop

Lily stared out the window and watched the trees, until she was interrupted by a familiar voice. “Boast not thyself of tomorrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth!” She remained silent, but felt her face contort as her fists clenched. She composed herself and calmly turned toward Jack. Jack, distracted by the daunting road ahead, weaved in and out of the realms of reality and sleep, as his heavy eyes allowed for a momentary reprieve from the tedious drive, only to fall back into a temporary slumber.  This pattern of his eyes opening and then closing again was suddenly interrupted by a sobering sound. He heard the familiar moans of Lily ringing in his ear. He glanced at Lily and noticed her looking at him. Both nervously flashed a feigned smile at each other.

 “Do you have a charger that I can use?” she asked.

His eyes were hyperfocused on her cell phone, as the moans of Lily grew louder in his ears.

 “You can check in there.” He gestured toward the glovebox.

Lily rustled through the mess and found one, then plugged it into the car port. “It fits,” she said. Lily went to close the glovebox door, until she came across a picture of twelve men wearing ties, dress shirts, and slacks – all of which were smiling and holding Bibles. Some sort of graduation picture.

He noticed her examining the photograph. “You think you can find me there?” he asked.

Using her cell phone as a light, she scanned through the faces and pointed to a man with a clean-shaven face, smiling while holding his Bible up. “I didn’t even recognize me,” he said. She held the picture up and looked back at him. “There’s only a few differences now,” she said.

 He laughed. “It’s the beard, right?”

“That’s one difference. And the beard only changes so much. Your eyes are still the same.”

 The man paused. “What’s the other difference? More wrinkles now?”

She smiled. “No. Now … no wedding ring.”

 Jack cleared his throat and perked up when he saw the exit. “Finally, our stop.”

 She looked around and noticed that there wasn’t anything in sight. “I thought you wanted a place that’s well lit and has any sign of life.”

The man rolled down his window as he veered toward a beaten pathway off-road. They heard the echoes of an owl. “Listen … there goes your sign of life.”

 Lily nervously looked outside at the rows of trees. What are you nervous about? This will be your chance to make your move. Her own thoughts began to come to her by the voice of the man in black. At this point, she couldn’t tell the difference between the man in black whispering in her ear or if her thoughts were genuinely her own. Either way, it didn’t make a difference, she was still on a mission, yet Lily wasn’t sure if it was to get back at the preacher for his obnoxious religious ramblings constantly ricocheting in her mind, or to become a hero to many by making this man fall. Securing her fans and preserving her reputation is what drove her this far.  

“You can get the backseat. I’ll stay up front,” Jack said. He reached in the back and pulled out a pillow and wedged it between his head and the glass. “I’ll keep the heat on for awhile, but eventually, I have to shut off the van. If it starts to get too cold, there’s more than enough comforters back there to keep you warm. You can also leave your jacket on.”

She unzipped her jacket and tossed it behind her. “The comforters should do. I get pretty overheated at night.”

 Jack turned away from her and tried to find a position of comfort but was interrupted by Lily.

“I’m weak. I have these desires and uncontrollable urges that I suppress.”

Jack slowly turned toward Lily and then sat upright in silence. She continued. “The more I suppress them, the less I feel like myself.”

Jack leaned in to crack open his thermos and then poured out some room temperature tea into his thermos cup. He gestured tea to her, but she nodded to decline. “Did you ever think that feeling less like yourself is a good thing?” he said. Jack stared at a look of bewilderment that plagued Lily’s face. He continued. “Who are we really but weak creatures ladened with discrepancies and flaws. If we give in to bad urges, we confirm that truth, but then if we refrain from those urges, we look down on those who don’t which in itself magnifies another discrepancy and flaw within us. We are in a losing battle with ourselves.” He motioned a toast to her and took a sip.

“I thought you went to Bible school. That’s not what I would’ve expected to hear.”

He grabbed the picture from the glove box and ran his finger along the faces of each of the men there. “You know it’s easy to think you know who you are when you’re surrounded by others. But the true feat of discovery comes when you are all by yourself. That’s when things really come to light. I don’t walk like them, or talk like them, but the only one thing that we have in common is that we are going to heaven. Because we are good people? Heck no. Some of those people there are worse than some criminals I met. It’s just because of one man we are, and that’s Jesus Christ.”

The girl fidgeted in her seat. He noticed.

 “What, does that name make you uncomfortable? People use it as a curse word all the time, what’s the problem?”

Suddenly a flash of light shined through the van from outside. Jack and Lily looked at each other, baffled. The light only flashed temporarily. Jack turned on his headlights, but didn’t notice anything.

 “Who else could be all of the way out here?” Lily said.

Before Jack had an opportunity to answer, they heard a voice. “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Lily. Happy Birthday to you.”

Jack flashed the lights on again to find the man in black standing in front of the van. Jack started the van, but the tires were stuck in the mud. The man in black walked over to the driver side, smoking his cigarette as he looked at the tire struggling to get out of the rut.

“Looks like you’re a bit stuck there.”

 Lily left the van and marched over to the man in black. “What are you doing here?” she said.

Jack, perplexed, questioned her. “Do you know him?”

 She hesitated. “Yes, I saw him at the rest stop. He was the guy you were talking to.”

The man in black snapped. “Enough of the lies! The level of deception is just way too much for me to handle.”

Jack got out of the van and attempted to put his hands around the man’s throat. Jack’s hands were blocked, and he immediately fell to his feet, succumbing to a supernatural presence that seemed to overpower his will.

The man in black stood over a kneeling Jack while taunting him. “I believe the scripture says, anger rests in the bosom of fools.”

Lily attempted to intervene on Jack’s behalf, but the man grabbed a fist full of her hair and tugged her back. “You let your fans down, Lily.” After flinging her to the ground, she dropped next to a kneeling Jack. “I let things go on for way too long, and then you had to bring up His name in all of this. There is only so much patience I have.”

Both helplessly looked up at the man in black. The man raised his fingers in the shape of a picture frame, capturing Jack and Lily’s faces. “Now this is a telling picture right here. One who doesn’t have anything to lose, and one that has everything to lose. Which one to keep around?”

Jack and Lily attempted to arise, but both buckled at the knees.

Jack yelled. “Kill me then, devil. I know where I’m going.”

 Lily remained silent as the man in black spoke. “It’s a shame that someone must go. See, killing is not my thing. I’m more into making investments. Besides, killing is short term satisfaction, but you see, torture … now that’s where it’s at.”

The man in black laced the fingers on Jack and Lily’s hands together.  “But every now in then … the two go hand in hand.”

He took out Lily’s cellphone and aimed it at the two. “Hey Lily, smile for the camera.”

Afterwards, the man in black simultaneously put his left hand over Jack’s head and his right hand over Lily’s head and spoke. “Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” Lightening crackled and a flash of light briefly illuminated the night sky. Jack and Lily’s bodies laid sprawled out on the beaten-up path.

  The sun had risen, and an orchestra of birds chirped in melodious harmony. Jack, with his head on a pillow wedged against a glass, opened his eyes abruptly. He looked around the van in a panic. There weren’t any signs of Lily. He frantically searched and exited the van to stumble across drops of blood. Jack froze in terror. He noticed that there was a trail of blood. Jack followed it until it led to a tree. Around the tree, he noticed there were birds without any heads, strategically placed around the tree. He counted twenty-four of them. Jack ran back to the van and frantically looked around. “Hello?” he shouted. But his desperate cries faded into the abyss of the forest. He jumped in his van and tried to reverse. This time his van effortlessly rolled away as if the rut never existed.

While Jack was driving out of his dispersed camping area, he glanced around quickly, hoping to find Lily. Jack finally made it back to the main road but still with an edge of uneasiness arresting his spirit and mind. He constantly checked the mirrors to see if anyone was tailing him, and he constantly looked out of the windows hoping that maybe he would see Lily.

Why am I still alive? Was that girl just like that devil, or was she a human? Where is she? Did she even exist? In the middle of his thoughts, Jack glanced over at the passenger seat to see Lily’s crucifix and chain lying there. He grabbed it from the seat and noticed that it was covered in blood. Jack looked up to see a traffic jam ahead. He slammed on the breaks to avoid hitting the idle car in front of him. Immediately after, he turned his attention again to the cross. Jack placed the piece of jewelry in his glove box. He looked ahead and took a deep breath, until a that voice broke his silence. “I always make good on my promise. All you had to do was sleep with her.”

Jack quickly glanced around, but did not see the man in black. He attempted to drown out the voice, so he turned on the radio and raised the volume. However, instead of music, the sounds of Lily Ladson’s intimate moans that he heard from her cell phone escaped the speakers. The moans grew louder. He turned his attention to a car next to him and noticed a young girl about five years old, playing with a doll. The girl saw Jack and smiled and waved at him. Jack looked on with agony and forced a smile. He turned the volume down, but still the sounds persisted, and the volume increased. Jack looked forward as his heart began to beat faster. The man in black’s voice intertwined with Jack’s thoughts. “Who was she you were wondering, Jack? To you, your passenger. To her fans, an ambitious and daring harlot. To me … a successful investment.”

                                          THE END