The Wrath of Jeremy (45 page)

“This is for luck. I’ll see you in a little
bit.” She kissed him gently on the forehead and saw his silence,
his smile and newly falling tears, knowing that he yearned so badly
to say the same to her, but couldn’t. She stepped back and walked
out of the circle that made up the boys, her smile fell on his eyes
and sat down on the ground. “You can do it, Jeremy!”

Swiftly, with their minds set in a mode of
completing their adventure, each of them took a deep breath, ready
for their final task. Yet, before they could initiate reading the
words of the Shroud, a man shot out of the crowd and yelled, “Those
are sinners you see before you. All of them are sinners!” Jeremy
turned around to face the crowd and all the boys’ eyes followed,
transfixing Curtis in their views. “People of this land, come with
me and help destroy them,” Curtis yelled out, stopping the people
from praying. They suddenly started to follow Curtis toward the
circle of boys. Jeremy could see the anger that the people had now,
and he noticed them beginning to run toward them with rage in their
stride, forcing him to think quickly.

“Sam, get in the center of us, now,” Jeremy
yelled. Before he could finish his words, a man shot out of nowhere
and grabbed her hard.

“I will kill her if you don’t break this
circle you’ve made,” Victor screamed out. He held onto Sam tightly.
Victor knew she was the only bargaining chip he had, threatening
her life because he knew Jeremy loved her. And it worked. Jeremy
started to walk toward her and stopped when he heard her
screaming.

“No, Jeremy, just call to the angels, do it
now, that’s the only way,” yelled Sam, crying out to his eyes.
Jeremy stopped walking and ran back to his spot, looking away from
Sam and concentrating his eyes on the Shroud. He felt her tears,
her fears; Jeremy wanted to run and help, but knew this was the
only way he could help her. He had to complete the wrath.

Victor dropped Sam while the people,
including Curtis, reached the circle of boys in a frantic manner,
screaming out hateful names. They all reached for them and tried
pulling them away from their spots, but before they could even
grasp onto any part of their bodies, Gabriel read the Shroud’s
dominant, powerful words and yelled them out. “Thou shall now see
God’s work being ended!” Gabriel’s voice echoed throughout the
crowd, with a small, clear shield of smoke appearing suddenly and
it surrounded the boys like a sanctuary, protecting them from the
crowd of lunacy.

The people, including Victor and Curtis,
tried bashing on the smoky shield, but it wouldn’t break, acting
like a wall of iron. The powerful words that Gabriel spoke,
mind-boggling even to himself, realizing the great power of God’s
words, caused Gabriel to fixate his eyes on the cloth, ignoring the
insane crowd that the thin layer of smoke protected their lives
from.

“No, no, you son of a bitches, no,” Victor
and Curtis yelled simultaneously. They felt the wind dying out. It
made the people look around, noticing a wicked downpour of
raindrops that fell as fast as they suddenly stopped. It was as if
the rain depicted tears which quickly fell, and ended from God’s
wondrous eyes of rage. The rain fell on the smoky shield and
bounced off it, allowing the boys to stay dry.

Jeremy searched through the circular shield
of smoke and saw that Sam was protected by a circle as well, being
not that far away, but having a circle of smoky air around her like
a halo that confined her from the crowd. Jeremy looked away and saw
that Gabriel looked back at the Shroud, continuing his reading,
excited to see what the next event would be by the next words he
spoke. “Thou call for the angels to be guided to the east!” A
bright light began to glisten in the sky, floating its wonder
throughout the heavens, and the sounds of angel voices appeared to
their ears. Everyone looked up to the stormy, tumultuous sky and
saw thousands and thousands of beautiful white angels hovering
above them, like twinkling stars hanging from the darkened sky in a
thick line, flapping their silver wings and waiting to be guided in
a direction, as if they were soldiers from Heaven’s soul. “I guide
you all to the east,” Gabriel yelled out. He pointed to the east
and abruptly all the angels began flying toward the east in a fast
motion, soaring through the skies in a white light. As they looked
up at the angels flying toward the East, they saw nothing but a
long strand of light that made up the angels’ bodies, going quickly
in the direction that Gabriel ordered, soaring below the sinister,
darkened clouds of aggression. “Seize the sinners, and those with
virtue, for judgment has come on them. Bring the people of the East
here!” Gabriel ended his words, perceiving the angels’ voices
growing louder, tangling in the wind that raised their authority to
a higher magnitude.

“Stop this now, you don’t know what you’re
doing,” yelled Curtis. Michael looked down at the Shroud, trying to
ignore Curtis’s partial warning. He saw that he was next to call
out for the angels, because a small arrow, on the Shroud, started
from Gabriel’s name, and circled its way toward Michael’s name and
the rest of the boys. Michael was ready.

“Thou shall now see God’s work being ended. I
call for the angels to be guided to the south,” screamed Michael.
They saw new angels appearing in the sky that stretched over a
mountain toward the southern skyline, waiting for Michael’s finger
to guide them. Through the darkness, the angels showed themselves
through their own light they created, pulsating from their bodies,
alone and having the lightning that soared around them with fury to
its irritation. “I guide you all to the south,” Michael yelled,
pointing toward the south. The angels followed his finger, flying
as fast as the speed of light toward the southern skies. Another
line of light appeared in the sky, the light of angels that were
going to the south, and this line crossed over the Eastern line,
making a sign of a cross-like symbol in the heavens. David looked
up at the two strands of light and swallowed his saliva in a loud
manner; he knew, according to the Shroud, that he was next.

“Thou shall see God’s work being ended. I
call for the angels to be guided to the west,” David yelled. They
all, including the people, searched the sky and saw more angels
appearing against the black clouds. By this time, the people who
were banging on the cloudy shield that surrounded the boys stopped
their hammering, being intrigued with sudden fright by the visuals
that took place in the cosmos. “I guide thee to the west,” David
said. The angels followed his finger to the west, passing over the
eastern line, making it brighter. Timeless in its magic, the lines
soared far across the heavenly darkness, with the eastern and
western lines combining, making each other as one, but the southern
line wasn’t as bright, causing Michael, Gabriel and David to turn
to Jeremy.

“Jeremy, it’s your turn,” Gabriel said.
Jeremy looked at the sky; he saw three strands of light stretching
to the south, west and east. He held his fear in his stomach.

“Thou shall see—” Jeremy yelled out as he
hesitated on finishing it. Fear and betrayal. Terror and anxiety
raced through Jeremy’s eyes, contemplating his actions, trying to
figure out if this was the right thing to do. “Thou shall see God’s
work being ended. I call for the angels to be guided to the north,”
Jeremy yelled out. Larger angels of red color levitated in the sky,
awaiting Jeremy’s orders. He looked around with fear, not being
sure if he should guide them or not. He looked down at his finger
and just gawked at it.

“Guide them, Jeremy!” yelled Gabriel. More
and more memories of Gabriel, David and Michael’s past life as
devious angels came to their minds, leaving Jeremy there with his
one memory of Mary’s hell, and nothing else. It was as if by
Gabriel, David and Michael, guiding their angels in the right
direction, forced their memories to race full throttle back into
their minds, changing their perception on one another, molding
their characters, attributes, into that of another person. “Guide
them now, Jeremy,” Gabriel added; the force in his words depicted
evil raging from below.

Jeremy, still in his mortal frame of mind,
looked at Sam, and saw her crying and smiling to him. He smiled
back, took the direction of his eyes and placed them back on his
finger and began shaking his head. “I can’t do it,” Jeremy cried.
Tears fell out of his eyes and he slowly placed his finger
down.

“Do it now, Lucifer, you chicken!” David
yelled out with anger in his voice. Jeremy looked at him with shock
in his fear-filled eyes, realizing that his full memory of his past
life returned as well as the others.

“I…I guide you to the—” Jeremy yelled,
pausing with hesitation.

“They’re waiting,” David bellowed; he pointed
to the angels in the sky. “Guide the army!”

Jeremy’s trepidation erected in his black
soul, pointing his finger to the north and yelling out, “I guide
thee to the north.” The angels of red flew toward the north with
great speed, leaving Jeremy there in puzzlement; he was puzzled
because his memory of being Lucifer wasn’t coming back to him.

David looked down at the Shroud and read the
words to himself that were embedded into the cloth. The rest joined
him by reading the words themselves. “Alright, guys, we must wait
for them to retrieve the sinners and non-sinners from their
destinations,” said Gabriel to the boys as the people who tried to
break through the cloudy shield started to cry out for forgiveness.
Curtis and Victor looked at each other while Sam watched the skies
in amazement. The pyrotechnics were about to begin.

CHAPTER THIRTY

A
little girl, with
eyes of innocence, swayed back and forth, her eyes wandering over
each of the dolls she had, trying to choose which one she wanted to
grab, which one she wanted share her imagination with at the
moment. Choosing one, she lurked about in her room with a dolly of
blonde hair and stared out her window at the rainy streets, seeing
that the raindrops stopped falling. This conveyed a smile to her
face, hearing her mother coming into her doll-filled room and
saying, “The rain stopped, sweetie, everything’s gonna be okay
now.”

The little girl ran to her mother, hugged her
stomach, and felt contented, filled with rapture and joy that the
horrific, eccentric nightmare ended. The mother clutched her
firmly, looked out of the bedroom window pane, and gazed at the
ambiguously darkened clouds. “Oh my God,” the mother said in a
shocked voice. She saw angels out in the distance, grabbing people
from off the New York streets, lifting them up one at a time and
soaring into the darkened clouds with their screaming and frantic
bodies. “Come on, honey, we have to hide,” the mother said, trying
to hold in her hysterical emotions.

She ran out of the room while carrying the
little girl, not knowing where to go in, where to hide, but just
making sure that her feet were still running. In a New York
penthouse, the mother ran fiercely with her bare feet pounding
against the hardwood floor, racing down the circling staircase as
she yelled out, “Fred, where are you?” The building started to
quiver, lights died without a reason, leaving them there in
darkness, raging toward any direction that the mother felt was the
right one to go.

The mother raced down the staircase, and the
little girl’s eyes peered through the darkness at the exquisite
paintings that hung on golden walls that stretched to their high
ceilings, depicting monsters in the night to the girl’s innocent
eyes. Rich furniture acted like goblins in the obscurity of the
room. The little girl closed her eyes tightly as the mother still
circled the staircase, trying to get down all the stairs without
falling from her own panic.

“Where’s Daddy?” the little girl cried out
with, seeing mother coming to the last step of the staircase. There
in the pitch black, with the lightning from outside to give a
glimpse of the silhouetted furniture around them, she saw the
little girl’s father in the darkness.

“Frank, what’s going on out there?” the
mother asked.

Frank hugged her and his little girl
together, tightly, firmly, not knowing what to say. “I don’t know,
but we better hide,” he replied. Suddenly the front door to their
penthouse busted open. They turned around timidly and there in
their view was the sight of three angels flying into their home.
Two of the angels grabbed onto the husband and wife with a tight
grip, dropping the little girl to the floor. The angels turned
around to face the window and flew out of it, while carrying the
mother and father, breaking the glass and allowing the little
girl’s last memory of her parents to be that of terror and screams.
The little girl, crying and afraid, saw the third angel still was
in the room, and it walked up to her slowly with a smile, reaching
out its hand toward her.

“Come child, your virtue, your purity will
protect you,” the angel said. It grabbed onto the little girl
gently and began to stroke her long, blonde hair. The angel saw the
little girl’s tears falling, and smiled toward the teardrops of
fright. “Don’t cry, Sheila, you are going to where you belong.”

“How did you know my name?” the little girl
asked, feeling the angel picking her up and placing her on its
back.

“I’m an angel, your guardian angel,” it
replied. The little girl’s tears ended while a smile appeared on
her face. The angel headed straight toward the window, jumped on
its ledge and said, “Now, hold on tight.” The little girl closed
her eyes and the angel flew out of the window, soaring toward the
clouds, with the wind floating past little Sheila, and clouds that
touched her face in benevolence.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A
fraid of her
appraisal on her decision, tormented by her thoughts that caused
tears of anxiety to fill her eyes, a young woman stood in an
abortion clinic with her boyfriend, awaiting their doctor to speak.
“Alright, let’s begin,” the doctor said. He placed her onto a
table, putting some sort of an instrument up her blue hospital gown
as her legs lay in stirrups, her eyes begging him to stop this
tormented decree.