Race the Sky Read online

  The restaurant was at the end of a strip mall and with the exception of the painted look of the red lettering on the exterior, it looked like a pizza joint from the parking lot. Normally, if they witnessed a tornado on a chase day they would stop at a steak house and eat like royalty, but tonight everything felt off for reasons John could not discern.

  Inside the restaurant, they waited near the hostess stand to be seated. Colorful tissue paper lanterns hung from the ceiling and paintings of farms and koi fish decorated the walls. The chairs were made of cheap black vinyl and metal, but the floor was clean so John did not care.

  Captain reached in behind the hostess stand, helped himself to a menu, and then picked up a flyer off of a nearby counter. To pass the time, he read the flyer aloud as if he was an announcer for a traveling carnival. “Does your God live in a book? Does your God live in a box? Our God lives on a throne. Our God is anointing an army to take back our town. Have you been anointed?”

  John leaned over and skimmed the flyer. The top of the flyer was dominated by a watercolor picture of Jesus stepping down off of a throne with His arms outstretched and beams of light streaming out of his palms. John read the ad copy but his eyes glazed over and he turned away. A waitress arrived and led them toward an empty table near the buffet line. After they were seated, she handed John a menu.

  Captain put the flyer down on the table and jabbed his index finger at it. “Look, it says here they offer healing services. They even have a healing event coming up next month. See, I told you, all I need to do is go to one of these places and my trick knee would be history.”

  “So would any money you had on you,” John said without looking up from his menu.

  “Is that for the Spirit of Grace Church in Wick?” The waitress said. “They’re for real.”

  Captain lifted his eyes from the flyer to look at John and then turned to face the waitress. “And how do you know this?”

  “I went there last year after I slipped on the ice. See?” She held out her right arm and turned it over so that they could see her wrist. “I sprained my wrist, but when I went there, some people prayed over it. It got really warm and then the pain went away.”

  John studied her facial expression to see if he could pick up on any signs of dishonesty, but could find none. The waitress was in her late teens and had a ponytail of long black hair, bright blue eyes, and an olive complexion. From what he could tell, she really believed the healing was real.

  John still remained unconvinced. “Are you sure it didn’t just go away on its own?”

  “Oh, no,” the waitress replied. “I’m sure it was them. The pain never came back.”

  Captain looked down at the menu but did his best to hide a smirk. He flipped through the menu quickly and then handed it back to the waitress. “I’ll take the buffet.”

  “Same here,” John said as he handed back his menu without looking at it further. The waitress wrote down their orders and then departed.

  Captain stood up first and rotated his right shoulder around several times. “After that last stunt you pulled in the ditch, I think I need to see the healer. Do you think they have a roadside assistance program?”

  John rolled his eyes and glanced over at the booth behind them. There, a woman in her mid-twenties put her hands to her forehead in exasperation. She had long, straight brown hair, wore pearl earrings, and had deep brown eyes. In front of her was a plate of partially-eaten buffet food, but the rest of the tabletop was covered with paperwork and books. Her laptop computer rested on top of some of the papers. She looked up at John and gave him a warm but discouraged stare. Then she swept her hair back behind her right ear and looked away.

  There was something in her appearance that drew him in, but despite the tug he knew he had to pull back. The churn of emotions he had been through over the past year could resurface without warning and the last place he wanted to break down was in a Chinese restaurant. At the risk of giving in, he gave her a brief smile before standing up and heading toward the buffet line.

  The buffet area was split into one line for hot food and another line for desserts. The hot food line was further subdivided into an overwhelming array of oranges, yellows, and greens. John picked up a warm white plate and loaded it up with sweet-and-sour chicken, fried rice, cream cheese puffs, an egg roll, and a mound of gooey orange chicken. Captain passed by on the way back to table and clutched his shoulder as if to feign an injury.

  John continued on and surveyed the pan full of crispy fried chicken wings but was distracted with thoughts of the woman behind their booth. Why was the table covered in paperwork, he thought. Maybe she was in college, preparing a paper, or maybe she was writing a master’s thesis. He returned to the booth, but his gaze repeatedly drifted from his food to her.

  Captain set his fork down and slid the flyer across the table and over to John. “If we hang around the area another couple of days maybe we could check this out.”

  “You’re not serious are you?”

  “I got it. How about I wear an arm sling and you pick up some crutches at the medical supply store in town.”

  “That’s not funny,” said the woman in the booth behind them.

  Captain gave John a puzzled look. John leaned over and used the opportunity to get another view of the woman.

  The woman set down her pen and gave John a searing look. “People are really getting hurt by those healing events.”

  “How so?” John asked as he started to pick the hot peppers out of his orange chicken.

  The woman let out a deep sigh. “A lot of hurting people go in there expecting a miracle. Once in a while there is one but most of the time it’s faked.”

  “What about the waitress and her wrist? She said she was healed,” Captain said in a suspicious yet sarcastic voice.

  “Maybe, I don’t know.” The woman got up and stood next to their table. She pointed to the flyer. “That church is run by Jared Wyckham. He calls himself a church doctor. He came to town a couple of years ago and ever since it’s been nothing but division. Nobody reads their Bible anymore and everybody is hung up on the next great experience.” She looked to the side and put her hands on her hips. “What’s worse is that anybody that stands up to him gets driven out. He’s leading people away from God and no one seems to care.”

  “You’re a whirlwind of info,” John said.

  “Sorry. I’m just so frustrated with them right now. By the way, my name’s Madeline.” She extended a hand to shake.

  John reached out and shook her hand. “I’m Data Guy and this is Captain Avalanche.”

  “So you speak in code names?”

  “Okay, okay. My name’s John. So is this flyer the reason you’re in town?”

  “No. I just came back from seeing a friend in Flatfoot. I need all the help I can get before dealing with these people again. They’ve overrun my home church. I wish they’d leave.”

  John glanced down again at the flyer and read the address. The healing service was being held at Spirit of Grace Church in Wick, which was a town south of Sioux Falls. “What would happen if you left instead?”

  “Why should I? They’re the ones that don’t belong. Besides, I have friends there. Not many now, but some. And then there’s my Mom. So why are you guys in town?”

  “We were out chasing.”

  Madeline raised her eyebrows.

  John pointed toward his pickup truck in the parking lot. “We travel cross-country to take pictures of storms and do research.”

  She nodded but then wandered back toward her booth. As she collected her papers together she cleared her throat. “Did you catch the big storm that came through here earlier?”

  “You mean the tornado that lifted for no good reason?”

  “Well, Flatfoot is a prayerful town.”

  Captain shot John an irritated glance. “So you’re saying someone’s prayers saved the town?”

  “It’s possible. My friend prays for the towns in the area all the time,” Madeline s
aid.

  “What if they would have stopped? Would Flatfoot be gone now?” Captain asked.

  Madeline stacked up her books and snapped her laptop computer closed. By the looks of it, she had run out of patience with them. “Maybe. I don’t know. Did you get your photos? How about your data?”

  John sensed the conversation was near the end. Worse, he thought that he might never see her again so he spoke up. “Does your friend go to church in Wick? I had a friend who used to go there.”

  Madeline stopped shuffling her papers and looked up. “What’s your friend’s name? Maybe I know them.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. She’s gone.” He looked away because retelling the tale of the loss of his friend still unearthed too many feelings that the counselors and the psychology books said should have faded out by now. Yet here he was again, nearing the edge of a maelstrom of unanswered questions. Despite all of his investigations over the past year, none of the data brought him any lasting peace about her passing.

  Madeline opened up her purse, pulled out a pen and a yellow pad of sticky notes, and wrote something down. She walked over to John’s table and handed him the note. On it was her name and phone number. “Sorry about your loss. If you ever feel up to talking about it, I’d like to hear her story.”

  He took the note from her, committed the number to memory, and did his best not to punch it immediately into his contact list on his cell phone. He then went back to eating.

  She packed up the rest of her belongings into a backpack and waved goodbye. “By the way, what’s up with the name Captain Avalanche?”

  John laughed and pointed at Captain. “This guy can find escape routes out of any situation. One time in Montana he got caught in an avalanche on a snowmobile. How he dug his way out nobody knows but I’ve been calling him that ever since.”

  She gave John another warm smile. “Sometime you’ll have to tell me why they call you Data Guy.”

  John waved at her with a smile and watched her exit the restaurant.

  Captain whistled and waved his hand in front of John’s face. “Earth to John. I hope you know I was just kidding about the crutch and sling thing.”

  John waved him off and attacked the cream cheese puffs on his plate with abandon. He did not know if or when he would take Madeline up on her offer, but something in her demeanor stirred up an uncontrollable angst that he hated and longed for at the same time.

  Chapter Three

  Madeline Kinney pulled up to the Spirit of Grace Church in Wick with an overwhelming sense of weariness, suspicion, and purpose. She turned her canary-yellow Volkswagen Beetle off and surveyed the cars in the parking lot. Jared’s usual followers were present, right down to the pastor’s car which was parked next to Jared’s black Jeep Cherokee. Jared’s truck had a lift kit, fat tires, and a fresh coat of mud. Across his back window a slogan read: “Jesus wasn’t afraid of the mud”. To the typical passerby, the truck looked like it just returned from an off-road search for wayward believers.

  As she stepped out of her car, she clutched her Bible, but thought twice about leaving it behind. She was sure someone in the group would glare at her for carrying it or gossip about her behind her back but another part of her did not care what they thought. She was sure most of the people there tonight had no clue about what they had allowed to infiltrate their congregation anyway.

  Once inside, she made her way to the fellowship hall. Jared was leading the night’s co-ed Bible study and she could hear his voice boom above the rest of the group’s chatter. One of his cackling laughs made her hesitate just short of the doorway.

  Inside the hall, two dozen church members were seated around two round wooden tables pushed together. She knew all of their names and all of them except one were loyal to Jared and his teachings. She found an open chair in the double circle and set her Bible down in front of her with a thump. Eye contact with the others was critical at this stage, she reasoned, as she had not visited any of these Bible studies in months.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Jared said, interrupting the flow of conversation in the group.

  “Thanks,” she said in a sheepish voice that belied her true feelings and intentions. She noted none of the others in the room had their Bibles open, so she opened hers up to the Book of Galatians.

  Jared leaned back in his chair and adjusted his camouflage baseball cap. He was in his late thirties with a stocky medium build and wore a matching camouflage tee shirt and blue jeans. He had brown beady eyes and a mustache that connected to a short scruffy black beard. “I was just telling the group that we’ve been looking for a sign about what to do next as a congregation and that I think God has great plans for our group. And I don’t think it means spending all our time in this book,” Jared said with a laugh. He closed the Bible in front of him with his fist and surveyed the group. “Maybe we should use this time to ask God what to do instead. Who’s with me?”

  That was his favorite line. It meant that he was about to charge off in a particular direction without caring whose feelings he hurt. Madeline looked around at the others in the group to try and read their reactions. Some bobbed their heads in agreement and others pushed away their Bibles in response. Somehow she could not stop from thinking that her entry into the room sent him off on a tangent.

  “Who’s going to lead us in prayer?” He said as he glanced around the tables.

  One of the men in the group, Stephen Willis, spoke up. “I’ll go.” He bowed his head and everyone else except Madeline followed his lead. “Oh, heavenly Father,” he said, loading his words up with enough drama to make her wonder if there was a camera rolling somewhere in the room. “Lead us tonight on what we should do. Tell us where to go, what people you would have us meet, and how to take your vision of the future to the streets of our town. Help us, Father. Help us.”

  The room fell silent. With their eyes closed, no one stirred for a full minute. Then, Alicia Benning, the Sunday service worship leader, opened her eyes and exclaimed, “God says, “Get up from the table. Go forth and conquer. Tell them I have sent you.””

  Jared opened his eyes. There was a look of mild confusion in his features. He cleared his throat and rubbed his beard. “Okay. Okay. Guess Bible study is over,” he said with a chuckle. Everyone else in the group opened their eyes and with a mixture of smiles and head nods they stood up.

  Jared got up and left the room. “Be right back,” he said as he walked through the hallway toward his office. He returned a minute later with a bottle of corked red wine and an unopened package of saltine crackers. He set both items in front of his chair and then went into the church kitchen. He returned with a corkscrew in his hand. With a few twists, he pulled the cork out of the bottle and set it aside. He then picked up the package of crackers. “Follow me, folks,” he said like a pied piper leading the masses into the unknown.

  Madeline knew from Jared’s other excursions and prayer walks through the town that this was often the point where unpredictability began. On the other hand, it was something he was quite good at handling and he even seemed to thrive on a lack of a plan.

  The group left their Bibles behind and stood outside in the parking lot while Jared tore open the package of crackers. “Let’s start here. Let’s claim this parking lot for God.”

  Madeline held onto her Bible and stifled a laugh. She turned away for fear of embarrassing the group. The intentions were good, she felt, but where in the Bible did it talk about spirits inhabiting pavement?

  Jared closed his eyes and raised the wine bottle to heaven, “Lord, we claim this land for you. Only you.” He lowered the bottle and sprinkled a few drops of wine onto the parking lot. He then pulled out a couple of crackers, crushed them in his fist, and sprinkled them on the ground in an arc. “May the body and blood cover this land and set it free from all oppression.”

  Everyone in the group except Madeline said “amen” and a few bobbed their heads in agreement. Jared then led them to the sidewalk that ran alongside the church and dow
n Second Avenue toward Central Street. Just as they were about to reach the edge of church property, he turned back to face them.

  “Let’s break up into groups of two. Go forth and conquer as we’ve been commanded. Remember what I taught you tonight. Break the strongholds over this town. Let’s meet back here in about a half hour.” Jared pumped his fist in the air.

  Madeline counted an odd number of people in the group. Rather than deal with the rejection of being the last one picked, she took it as an opportunity to exit the situation. She began to walk back to her car.

  “Oh, Madeline,” Jared called out. “You can come with us.”

  The thought made her cringe. She looked over her shoulder and saw him waving her back. With reluctance, she decided to tag along if only for research purposes. At any moment she knew she could separate herself from the group and head home.

  Jared led the way down the sidewalk. He passed the town bar and off-sale liquor store, which surprised her. He seemed to have no intention of going inside the place, despite others in the group suggesting such an act in the past. He continued across the street to the next neighborhood and then stopped abruptly in front of a rambler with tan siding and dark brown trim. There was a pink child’s bike lying on the front lawn. All the windows of the house had their curtains drawn and otherwise the yard appeared to be in order.

  “Do you sense something?” Alicia said as she stared at Jared with doe eyes. She was a thin woman with piercing green eyes and long, flowing, red hair that she only put up during yoga exercises.

  Madeline crossed her arms and looked to the side. She was sure Jared knew the residents of the house rather than sensing anything.

  Jared put up a hand as if to silence any conversation ahead of time. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and continued to clutch the crackers and the wine. “Lord, I sense something about this house. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not good. Maybe there’s some family strife, but this is your kingdom now. We claim this property for you! Demons be gone!” He opened his eyes, crumbled some crackers on the edge of their beautiful lawn, and sprinkled a few drops of wine on the sidewalk.