Blue (8 page)

“The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke of a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only to torture those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not given the power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

“The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like a woman’s hair, and their teeth were like a lion’s teeth. They had breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails had the power to torture people for five months. They had as king over them the angel of Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.

“The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.

“The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden alter that is before God. It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ And the four angels who had kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.

“The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, heaving heads with which they inflict injury.

“The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.”

Blue had had his arm around her the whole time she was speaking and had his other arm on her leg. He had just used the Bible toward his own personal gain, but Meganlynn knew what to do. Justin had walked up right behind her when she had started preaching to Blue, but kept silent because he wanted him to hear the word of the Lord for once in his life.

“Now what was the whole point in that?” he asked as he moved his hand farther and farther up her leg. Meganlynn was finally sick of it and decided that enough was enough.

“That was so you can get ready for what’s coming when the rapture happens, and I won’t be here!” she shouted in his face. It made him jump back a little bit, but he was still sitting right next to her.

“Now, why would I care?”

“Because of this,” she held up the Bible and shoved it in his face. “Now, get out of Justin’s seat and stay away from me!” He took her Bible out of her hands when he got up to leave.

“This means nothing!”

“To you! It means everything to me!”

“Fine! Then keep it!” he threw it back in her face so most of the pages of the Bible flew out and onto the ground.

“You’ll answer for that, one day!”

Then he went and sat back down in his own seat while Meganlynn and Justin picked up the pages to the Bible that had fallen out.

“Are you going to call your parents about this?” Justin asked, getting some of the pages back into the Bible.

“Guess I better,” Meganlynn answered. “But I’ll wait until we land and then I’ll make the phone call.”

“Okay, just make sure that you get a new one,” he said holding up the Bible that had all of the pages all scattered and some still falling out.

“I will,” she answered, taking the Bible from his hands. “Poor thing,” she said, trying to straighten all of the pages back into the original binding. Meganlynn smiled a little. Justin smiled back at her at the most that he could. He wrapped his arm around her and walked her back to her seat.

“Don’t want to be here, do you?” Justin asked when he decided that she had been staring out the window for too long of a time.

“Not at all, Justin, not at all,” she answered, thinking about when times were easier between the two of them and Blue was nowhere near the picture to be found.

“Where would you rather be?”

“At home, safe and sound from all harm.”

“Okay, I guess I can see that.”

“You guess?” she repeated with a joking voice.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“How can you guess?”

“I don’t know, I just can.”

“You don’t even realize everything that I’m going through, do you?” Her voice had disgust in it when she said these words to him.

“Meg—”

“No, you listen. You try being sexually harassed and then forced to sit next to the same person that did it to you in the first place. You try being sexually harassed, harassed, then stalked, and then you tell me how you feel and whether you’d rather be at home where no one can bother you what so ever.”

“I see your point.”

“Good.” Then she began to cry.

“Meg, what’s wrong?”

“Do you have a notebook?”

“No.”

“Never mind, there’s one in here.”

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Write like I love to do.”

“Okay.” Then for the rest of the plane ride she wrote. The first thing that she wrote was a poem that explained the different things that she was going through. She didn’t exactly feel like writing a short story or a novel, so she copied down Bible verses.

One of the verses that she wrote down was Lamentations 1:16:

This is why I weep

And my eyes over flow with tears.

No one is near to comfort me,

No one to restore my spirit.

My children are destitute

Because the enemy has prevailed.

She wrote down many things from Lamentations and from Revelations as well as Romans. She didn’t have quite enough time to copy down all her favorite Bible verses, but she had enough time to copy down the verses that explained how she was feeling at the moment.

Finally, the plane ride ended, and she and Justin got off. Then, Mr. Nolls told them that they were to be back by ten o’clock that evening. Justin and Meganlynn took off to find the rental car that her parents had gotten for her.

CHAPTER 5

Meganlynn loved Arizona and already knew that she did from the trip that she and her parents had taken when she was in fifth grade. Once she was finally in the rental vehicle for the first time, she pulled out a CD from her purse. It was her favorite band, Spoon. They were Christian rock, and she had all of their CDs.

They listened to that while Meganlynn drove to the gas station where she called her parents.

“Hey,” she said once her mother finally answered.

“Hi, honey, what’s up? Are you on the ground?”

“Yeah, and I need those addresses.”

“Okay, do you have a pen and pencil handy?”

“Yeah.”

“Who are you going to go and see first?”

“Probably Uncle Bob and Aunt Cindy.”

“Okay, well they live on Wells Road.

“Okay, thanks. Now what about the Gollingbird
address?”

“They live right next to Aunt Cindy and Uncle Bob.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, and we put that money in your account.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, and the weird part of it was that Grandma and Aunt Cherie wanted to put two hundred dollars apiece in so spend wisely and bring them back some gifts for the family.”

“Okay, we get the whole last day for shopping anyway.”

“Okay, I’ll see you next week.”

Once they were finally there, her Aunt Cindy and Uncle Bob were very surprised to see her.

“Who’s this?” she asked, pointing to Justin.

“This is Justin, my boyfriend.”

“Oh,” she said, looking at him. “Well come on in, come in.”

“Thank you,” she answered.

“Would you kids like something to drink?”

“Please,” answered Meganlynn.

“What are you two down here for?”

“Band camp.”

“Then what are you doing out here?”

“Well, we’re allowed out during the night time, and we just got here. My parents rented me a car so now I’m here.”

“Can you show me where the bathroom is?” asked Justin.

“Sure can,” Uncle Bob said and then took Justin to the bathroom.

“You do realize that the Johnny guy next door can never stop talking about you, right?”

“Really?” Meganlynn asked excitedly. “And wait, Johnny lives next door to you?”

“Yeah, I can get your Uncle Bob to distract that Justin kid and you can go over and flirt a little if you want to.”

“But I’m only going to go over and say ‘hi.’”

“I think that it would be better if I stayed over here or got Justin to go with me when and if I do go over there,” Meganlynn replied.

“Okay, I’ll tell Uncle Bob.”

“Tell Uncle Bob what? I don’t want to go over there by myself. I actually love this guy, he’s stuck with me through everything and I can’t imagine leaving him for another guy.”

“But, he said that if you ever came down to visit then we had to send you over by yourself, or if we got a picture then we had to give him a copy,” her aunt’s face begged her to go and see him.

“And I will go and see him once Justin comes back from the bathroom and I can take him with me.”

“But that’s no fun.”

“Maybe not for you but I’m in love with Justin. I love him so much it’s not even funny,” a real smile broke on her face for the first time in a long time.

“Fine, but promise that you’ll go,” her aunt said getting puppy-dog eyes.

“Fine,” she said as Justin and her uncle came back into the room.

“Go where?” Justin asked walking over to Meganlynn.

“Going over to Johnny’s house,” she answered him.

“Who’s Johnny?”

“A boy from my past,” Meganlynn answered irritably.

“Okay,” Justin answered making sure not to pry too much in front of her aunt and uncle.

“We better get going,” Meganlynn said.

“Fine,” her aunt answered, showing them to the door. “But make sure that you go and see them,” she demanded after they finally got out of the door.

“We will,” Meganlynn answered while her aunt slammed the door in her face. “Bye,” she finished.

“Do you want to go and see your past?” he asked.

“No, he moved the summer before I really got to know you.”

“Then that was years ago, why does he want you to go and see him?”

“He liked me.”

“Oh, does he still?”

“Don’t know,” she took a deep breath. “But someone’s watching in the window,” she motioned in back of her. “So we better keep a promise or I will have more problems than Blue in my family,” she said, taking his hand and starting to walk toward to the house across the street. When they got there, she took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

“Why don’t you want to be here?” Justin asked.

“I don’t want to remember my past. It’ll only make me want it more,” Meganlynn replied.

“Hey,” Johnny’s mother answered the door with the sound of surprise in her voice.

“Hey, Mrs. Gollingbird,” Meganlynn said.

“Meganlynn?”

“Yeah, and this is Justin, my boyfriend.”

“Oh, well then, come in. Come in! Johnny will be so pleased that you’re here. He never can stop talking about you.”

“It should be nice to see him again,” she answered taking Justin’s hand.

“He’s been waiting for a chance to see you since well, for forever as he puts it. Every vacation we take is always, ‘Can we go north and see Meganlynn?’ After a while though, it did get a little old,” she chuckled.

“Yes, I know.”

“How is everything?” she asked, climbing up the stairs to go to Johnny’s room.

“Pretty good.”

“Good. I’ll go and get Johnny, I’ll be right back.”

Finally, he came downstairs.

Johnny’s dark brown hair was curly and came down to his ears. He had on the blue and white sweatshirt that Meganlynn had given him five years earlier. He had a pair of blue jeans on also and white socks. His deep blue eyes won out in the battle of the eyes. She never had a crush on anyone like she had a crush on Johnny. She had wanted everything to be perfect.

“Meganlynn?” he asked. Maybe that daydream wasn’t just a daydream at all. Maybe God had sent her a vision to be careful.

“Johnny.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked. The vision was out of line.

“My school is having band camp down here.”

“That’s great! Where at?”

“The university.”