Operation Wolfe Cub: A Chilling Historical Thriller (THE TIME TO TELL Book 1) (46 page)

Clarence looked disappointed. He caught his balance as he sat back down. “What about the hymn? Is it about women going to pot in th’ future then?”

Everyone chuckled, as did Pastor McKoowey while saying, “I’m amazed at just how old you are, and you’re still going…how long you two been together if you don’t mind me asking?”

Clarence looked down, pondering, while his wife answered, “It’ll be seventy years in a couple months.”

Pastor McKoowey raised an eyebrow. “Wow…well, I’m sorry to let you down on the hymn, Clarence. It’s not what you think…just a patriotic song because we won the war, that’s all. We’ll make it short and sing one verse. Shall we, everybody?”

After singing, Pastor McKoowey stepped back over to his podium. “A short prayer, and then you can all go home and have a good evening.”

Everyone bowed their heads as he prayed:

“Dear Heavenly Father. Please forgive all those who have left us tonight.
Amen.”

Everyone gathered their belongings and headed for the door when Pastor McKoowey spoke above the noise of footsteps and mutters, “Eddie, Chantain…don’t forget to see me before you leave.”

Chantain whipped her hair around, facing Eddie. “What’s this about?”

“
Um
…I have a feeling it’s about those donations we still owe.”

As Pastor McKoowey stepped down and onto the floor, Eddie came up to him and shook his hand. “You haven’t lost it. That was one of the best speeches I heard you do.”

Pastor McKoowey looked around, making sure nobody heard. “You think so? Oh, by the way, about you standing up and yelling ‘amen’…thanks for support, but don’t speak out in church that way. Before you know it, everyone will want to do it.”

Eddie apologized as Chantain strolled up from behind, holding Doll and looking the pastor over. “Hello, remember me?”

Pastor McKoowey nodded and guided them both to a door just to the side of the room. “Please come into my office over here. I have some things we need to talk about. Shall we?”

As they entered, he offered them a couple of comfortable chairs in front of an oak desk and then stepped over to a matching cabinet to pull out a file with the Coolidge’s’ names
written on the face. As he sat down in his swivel oak chair behind the desk, he took his time looking through their file. “Yes, I remember you…Chantain’s your name…such a beautiful name. How did your parent’s come up with that name?”

As Chantain played with her hair, she looked nowhere in particular. “It’s a long story, actually…before I was born, my mother toasted a glass of champagne to her divorce from my father on New Year’s night when she met another man and—”

Eddie jumped. “I don’t think our pastor needs all that kind of detail. The beverage
champagne
is good enough… sorry Pastor McKoowey.”

Pastor McKoowey smiled as he continued looking through their file. “That’s all right, Eddie…I hear all sorts of stories in my line of work, believe me…okay…so…these are your church records…
hmmm
, let me see here. What can I find?”

By then, Chantain had put Doll down on the floor to wander around, which he promptly did. He started looking for things he couldn’t reach, which happened to be everything on Pastor McKoowey’s fine desk. The first things attracting him were the shiniest things. One of these just happened to be a beautiful, brass crucifix. Doll wanted it but realized everyone was watching him.

Decisively, he turned away to find something else to play with, which was hard for Doll. Time and again, he sneaked a peek at the crucifix when nobody else was looking. As Pastor McKoowey observed, he wished to put an end to it, but before he did, he turned to Chantain. “Is it okay that he plays with this?”

“Oh yes…he won’t drop it or hurt it. It’s okay.”

Before Doll actually accepted it, he turned to Eddie for his acceptance too: “Oh go ahead, Pastor…and Doll, don’t drop it…it’s called ‘expensive,’ okay?”

Doll gently took it and backed away, whispering, “Ex-pen-sive?”

Pastor McKoowey noted. “My, he’s dexterous. Look, he’s trying to pick at Jesus’s hands…maybe one of his parents was an artist.”

It didn’t take long for Doll to notice that something wasn’t quite normal with the shiny golden man he was holding. The exemplary figure of Jesus was hung on iron spikes. Not only that, he was in pain and he looked as if he were still alive. He gasped, then glanced out the window to the life-sized cross that Pastor McKoowey put up outside on the wall. Seemingly to him, it looked like it was ready for another body. He gasped again, “
Ahh no no
…noooo.”

Eddie leaned over from his chair. “It’s okay, Doll. Not real. No, just a statue.”

Doll kept trying to pick the little spikes out of Jesus’s hands and feet, but he couldn’t. Shortly after, he walked back over to Pastor McKoowey then, surprisingly, he tried to give it back to him. “Ouchy, take back…it hurts him.”

Pastor McKoowey smirked, “The little guy talks. How old is he?”

“A little over a year.” Chantain replied.

The pastor reached over and touched the crucifix statue, saying in a cute, baby-talk voice, “Yay’uh…that’s
uh
ouchy alwight. You see dis wittle man in thu wittle cwoss? He’s speciawwl. You wanna be speciawwl too? Now go over there while I talk to Mommy and Daddy.”

Doll looked puzzled. He gave the pastor back his statue in a hurry and scuttled over to hide behind Eddie.

As the pastor hid the little statue behind his desk, he asked, “I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

Eddie picked Doll up. “Oh no, not at all. He just doesn’t understand what you said. Just talk normal to him, and he’ll be fine with you after that.”

Pastor McKoowey rocked back in his chair as if he’d just been insulted. “Really now. I’ll remember that…so anyway, I’m sure you know why I called you in.”

“Yes, I know,” Eddie said. “It’s about donations, and I’m sorry. Chantain and I thought it would be okay if we just came a couple weeks for now. Our money situation isn’t all that good with my disability and all.”

Pastor McKoowey looked as if he wasn’t buying his story, so Eddie turned to Chantain. “You do all the bills. Tell him what’s going on.”

She looked at her nails in the painstaking silence that followed, then she whipped her blonde hair in the direction of Pastor McKoowey and carved a good look at him from top to bottom. “I guess it’s true, but he’s kind of wrong…we can afford it.”

Eddie put Doll back down on the floor. “Afford it? You’re the one that keeps saying we’re flapjack broke all the time.”

Pastor McKoowey stuck his pencil out between them. “That’s okay, really. We really don’t need to discuss your finances. That’s not what I called you in here for anyway...it is God and his finances.”

Eddie relaxed in his chair. “What did you call us in here for then?”

As Pastor McKoowey thumbed through their file more intently, he sadly said, “
Hmmm
, from what I can tell, neither of you have paid a single cent in tithing, even before you left.
Hmmm
, what was that? A couple years ago?”

He then plopped their file on his desk like it was rubbish. While leaning back in his chair, he kept looking at the file as if he’d like to throw it all the way into his trash can: “Look, Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge…Chantain’s baptism ceremony, the lease on this new church, my time…it all counts. It’s all generously given by God…I mean if you had a hard spell, I could see beyond, but look at what God’s given you. I mean
look
...can you see your miracle? The child. He’s a living, breathing
child
…a child you might not have been able to have.”

Doll quietly corrected, “Not ‘child’…I’m ‘Doll.’”

Pastor McKoowey talked right over: “Miracles happen, believe it or not…how can I say it? It’s a gift to keep blessings happening. I hate to explain this, Eddie, but—I wish I could. I can’t see this going the same way after you coming back. I mean, you’re really nice people, but I’m sure there are other churches out there if that’s what you need to do. Unless, of course one of you likes to serve.”

Chantain popped up. “
Wait
. Maybe I can volunteer some work around here. I’m really good for doing anything you want.”

Pastor McKoowey tapped his fingers on their file, thinking impressively fast. “Anything? What about the child? The
child
needs to be cared for somewhere else while you work, I would imagine.”

Doll corrected again. “It’s
Doll
.”

In the midst of everyone ignoring Doll, Eddie turned to Chantain with a long look on his face. “No, no, Chantain. I never wanted you to work a day of your life. It’s not right.”

Pastor McKoowey smiled, reaching into his drawer where he swapped his pencil for a pen. He then pulled out a clipboard with a sheet of paper on it: “Yes, I think so. Chantain helping out sounds like a great idea. Child or not, it’s right if you don’t mind my two cents. Let me see now, what kind of numbers can I come up with…
hmmm
, and you can find a sitter for the child?”

Doll raised his voice. “My name’s
Doll
.”

Pastor McKoowey heard him loud and clear, this time. His reaction, unfortunately, was similar to smelling something terribly bad. He lifted his pen off the paper, looking at Doll as if he’d like to spank him.

Eddie saw this too, so he patted Doll on the head. “Oh, sorry…you called him ‘child.’ Just call him ‘Doll,’ and he won’t bother you. Will you do that for him?”

“You’re not kidding me, are you? Okay, Doll. I won’t call you anything else, but don’t yell please.”

By then, Doll’s tiny adventure of scouting around the office was over. He simply crawled up on Chantain’s lap where he played with the buttons on her blouse.

Incidentally, Chantain brushed his hair to keep him quiet. In the course of doing so, she spotted Doll’s strange tattoo and it startled her.

Pastor McKoowey lifted his pen. Without actually looking at anyone in particular, he asked, “Something wrong, Chantain?”

Chantain looked as guilty as hiding a little toy devil in her pocket. She patted Doll’s hair down then looked over at Eddie, who was fretting more about what she might say or do next.

Eddie tried to help her along with a couple of subtle hand signals, but that just made her decide all the more quickly. With the bat of an eye, she snapped out, “Oh, it’s nothing… say,
uh
…I was wondering about a part of your talk a little bit ago. You know, your speech.”

Pastor McKoowey kept writing. “Oh? What’s that? Did you like it?”

“Yes, I
did
…you said something about one of the angels that came down in the last days and spoke with a loud voice, saying if any man were to worship the beast and receive his mark on his hand or in his head.”

Pastor McKoowey curiously stopped writing. “Yes. It was the forehead, not the head. What would you like to know?”

“Oh, you mentioned something awful about it…
um
, what kind of mark is it?”

Eddie could have shot flames from his eyes as he glared at her. Unfortunately, the pastor looked up just in time to catch this too. He put his pen down and looked at both of them suspiciously. Nothing too revealing came to him, so he leaned back in his chair, pondering the need to try to read their minds.

One thing was clear. Nobody could have read Eddie’s depth of distress more clearly than the pastor. Nevertheless, he answered, “Strange you mentioned that, Chantain. You picked up on it. I was going to explain Revelation thirteen through eighteen, which covers the mark of the beast…it’s six hundred threescore and six, but everyone started leaving. I cut it short because of it.”

Eddie leaned forward in his chair. “It’s nothing more than a mark or symbol of six-six-six, isn’t it?”

The pastor strained a bit then shook his head. “No, it’s not. Everyone thinks it’s the three sixes that’s evil. Crazy, isn’t it?” He took a deep breath as he went on, “Now that you brought it up, I wish I would’ve explained.”

Chantain and Eddie both asked, “Can you tell us?”

“Yes, we’d like to hear about it.”

“Well, all right…how can I say? You see, it’s much more complicated than that. It’s not a mark at all, as most believe.”

Chantain shook her head. “What? That’s silly.”

The pastor sighed. “No, it’s not silly…the mark in the forehead is a representation of all those evil thoughts in one’s head. The mark in the hand is a representation of actually doing those thoughts too.”

As an example, he pointed to his own forehead and then showed his hands and flipped his idea another way. “You know…forehead is thinking….hands are doing…thinking and then doing. That’s the mark the prophet is talking about.”

Chantain tried arguing. “But what about the thinking of six-six-six and doing six-six-six? What if it’s not what you’re saying at all? What if it’s six letters, like—”

“Hush, Chantain. Let the pastor talk.”

The pastor continued, “Six letters? I never heard that one before. You’re misinterpreting my thesis…it’s about the end of the world.” He then methodically raised his fingers, quoting, “The so-called ‘six-six-six’ is the profound number
of times the majority of people of Babylon have committed their heinous acts. They have to do them over and over and over again, like I said in my talk. So many times it’s not twice, not triple…it’s at least six times, or threefold…that’s what the prophet’s interpretation of the ‘six-six-six’ is. There’s no such thing as the symbol of the six-six-six and there never was. Everyone’s just obsessed with horror picture shows. They think that.”

Eddie’s mouth dropped. “No kidding? How do you know for sure?”

The pastor picked up his Bible off his desk. “Everyone thought the world was flat too…hard to buy because nobody’s ever unraveled one of the Devil’s biggest secrets of all time. Here, take my Bible. I’ll show you why I’m talking about just plain old
Halloween
…Go ahead. Pick it up.”

Eddie took it and asked, “Have you thought about…I mean, why?”

“You really want to know? I should have gotten a better grade at school, so don’t get me started. Everyone grades mainstream with a little bit of their own bias mixed in. Throw my idea out the window if you want, but remember…Satan’s in on it more than you know.”