Jasper: Purple Flamingos Fly at Midnight (Jasper - Purple Flamingos Fly at Midnight Book 1)

by Refner, Daniel

  Infernal Max let out a cheer from the top of the ramp, and the rest of the army joined in. Gezon, still at his side, turned to whisper into his ear, and then he pointed to the sky above. All eyes gawked at the air; a portal ship was moving at a slow pace before it came to float between the drilling machine and the open plains.

  “Jayla is on that ship; she can control its angelic weapon systems…she has come to rescue us,” Agent Tate said with conviction and a smile.

  “You might want to bite your tongue in a second,” said Commander Mop while holding his arms up in surrender to his captors.

  Jayla stopped the portal ship just to the rear of the drilling machine. She thought for a moment, closing her eyes and remembering Gezon’s last instructions to her: “Consider it your gift of absolute loyalty to me.” Gezon had held her in a close embrace then pulled back slightly, but still within kissing distance. “Once you arrive, leave the flight control deck and enter the armory, retrieve the crystal sword, and give it only to me.” He had kissed her, and she had become lost to herself all over again.

  The blue spiraling transport beam and platform extended to the ground. A second later she materialized on the platform and gave Infernal Max a military salute, and then gave a nod to Gezon. The mole-men screamed in victory. Jayla displayed a robust smile. Her mission was accomplished.

  “Jayla has betrayed us all…Jasper was right.” Agent Tate shook her head in defeat. “Great…now we’re the hostage detainees. We’ve been captured by the cousin of the common front-yard pest.”

  “Jasper and Thunder have walked straight into a trap,” Commander Mop stated evenly.

  Stacy shook her head. “No…he knew this was coming; there is still hope.”

  “BE SILENT,” murmured one of the mole-men. He grabbed Stacy by the back of her hair and pushed her down into the dirt. “NO NOISE.”

  Stacy belted out a scream. “That hurt, dude!” She jumped up from the ground to confront her attacker but was met with a push to her chest and another slam to the ground. She stood slowly, not saying a word this time, and moved forward, being pushed in the back by the mole-men to be rounded up with the other prisoners. They were all being shoved in the direction of the drilling machine to stand at the bottom of the ramp.

  Infernal Maximus stood at the top. He patiently watched, waiting for the defeated to be placed before him, and ever so slowly he licked his lips with a deliberate eye on Stacy.

  chAPTER forty-eight

  “Capt’n! There be whales here!” Jasper said in his most Scottish accent, giving as much jolly emphasis on the word “captain” as he could muster. Abbadorn looked flatly at him, bewilderment gripping his facial expressions. “This is awkward. Honestly, Abbadorn, I’m embarrassed for you. You don’t know what Star Trek is? Do you get TV in heaven? Have you never been to a movie? ‘Star Trek: The Voyage Home’ was the movie where Captain Kirk and his loyal crew went back in time in a stolen Klingon Warbird to snatch up a humpback whale, bring it to the future, and save the whole planet. That saying is a classic substitution for the word ‘Eureka!’ When you find an answer to a problem it becomes an ‘Eureka!’ moment, or for geeks and nerds we say, ‘Capt’n! There be whales here!’ We almost drowned out here, and your thoughts turned Thunder into a whale. This is totally awesome. I am standing inside my horse, my whale, Thunder,” Jasper said, wishing Abbadorn could grasp the moment and appreciate it as a human.

  Abbadorn suddenly seemed to be standing a little taller. Jasper noticed his glow was increasing. Jasper held his hands up to protect his eyes. “Yo, Mr. Light Bulb, dial back the glow a little. You’re going to blind me.”

  Abbadorn complies. Abbadorn levitated into the air about three inches and floated over to Jasper. He slapped him on the back, nearly knocking him over. “I am not acquainted with the majority of human social interactions, but I am willing to learn. I do know enough, however, to say thank you. I have a debt of gratitude that I cannot hope to ever repay properly. You and Thunder came for me. Against all odds, we have escaped alive. You let Bell speak through you, and because of that action, I was able to finally understand that the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He will never leave nor forsake me. When I feel far away from the Lord, it is not HE who has moved, it is I. So again, I say, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, my friend. You would have done the same for us, I know it.” There was a momentary pause of self-consciousness on Jasper’s part. He seemed tongue-tied, not sure what to do next. Oh, great, now I’m the socially inept person in the room. I feel clumsy, do I hug him?

  “Jasper, I can still hear your thoughts. We’re connected in close proximity; how about a high five?” Abbadorn lifted his hand and swished it horizontally forward through the air, causing Jasper to duck.

  “Well, that was a near miss. Next time try not to behead me. Some friend you are,” Jasper said, grinning from ear to ear. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t know what a Time Lord is?”

  “Oh yes, you speak of ‘Doctor Who’, everyone knows that.” Abbadorn proudly answered.

  “Now you’re just messing with me.”

  Abbadorn smiled briefly. He stopped, closed his eyes for seven seconds, and let out a loud hum. “The archangel Michael calls for me. I must leave right now. I have given instructions to Thunder to beach. You will make landfall around Coco Beach, Florida. It is night. Look up to the sky, for I will send you a taxi to get you both where you need to be, for the battle for Abraham’s Bosom is underway. Eureka!” Abbadorn gave Jasper a wink of his eye and vanished in a swirl of white light before Jasper could even say goodbye, but Jasper knew all would be well and he smiled. After all, he had just taught an angel to say “eureka”-how hard could the battle of Abraham’s Bosom be compared to that?

  Jasper waited in the darkness of Thunder’s belly. Hours seemed to have passed. Then he felt it, a pitch-forward jolt. Thunder had landed.

  “Maloof!” Thunder was now a horse standing next to Jasper on the shore. “We must be on a barrier island between NASA and Cape Canaveral. I wonder why Abbadorn chose this place.”

  Jasper heard a roar coming from across the sky. A fireball was coming at them. For a moment he thought he would run, but his intuition told him to stay still and stay put. Blazing bright orange, it raced over the night sky turning direction, pitching up and down, like an out-of-control paper airplane. As the fireball came closer, Jasper realized this was the taxi Abbadorn had promised to send. No one would notice it really, and those who did would think it was just another unscheduled launch of a military rocket. Abbadorn was shrewdly clever.

  Thunder was getting nervous. Jasper jumped onto his back, and once in place, he leaned forward to rub his side in a manner that he knew from years of practice brought peace to Thunder. He relaxed and let their thoughts merge deeper than ever before. When the fireball landed 20 feet to their left and rolled at them with the bouncing speed of a kangaroo, neither Jasper nor Thunder flinched an inch; they had frozen in solid peace.

  “Capt’n! There be whales here!” The fireball dropped directly upon them, consuming them in fire. The flames hit the ground…exploding across the sands and into the ocean, disappearing out of sight, they were gone now. The night was still again, seagulls squawking about, waves rolling in up the shoreline. In and out, those waves came and went as if nothing remarkable had just happened.

  chAPTER forty-nine

  Friday Evening

  Stacy’s head hurt from where the mole-man had pulled her hair. She must have lost some strands…the back of her head felt damp, and there was some watery blood on her fingertips after she touched the spot. This made her mad. Instead of having her hair pulled out, she should have been busy putting highlights in her hair for the prom. She just couldn’t get past it…did this mean she was self-centered? She turned her hand over to examine the other side. There was dirt under her fingernails; it must have happened when she had put her arms out to break her fall…I think Gena would disown me if she saw how filthy
I am. At least Lance, Aunt Debbie-Lynne, and Jasper’s parents are safely hidden away in the village.

  Commander Mop and Agent Tate were now standing on either side of Stacy. Their aim was to keep her in the middle and protect her by all possible means. Mop had noticed Infernal Max watching her as if a snack had just been delivered by a clown driving an ice cream truck, and everyone knows that clowns in ice cream trucks are simply evil. Jayla had misted over to Moses and Noah. She whispered something to them both, then misted away in a swirl of darkness, appearing seconds later next to her lover, Gezon.

  Infernal Max raised his arms to the air, and the mole-men became quiet and still. He looked down upon his prisoners and spoke with the most arrogant of tones. “I, Infernal Maximus, have won this battle, and now I shall lead you into battle against archangel Volnar and his Royal Guard.” The mole-men sent up a loud cheer. “My victorious armies, do my bidding; prepare the portal ships for departure. Next stop, Planet Iconium, and when we return…” Infernal Max stepped forward and lowered his voice and tone to wicked growl. “When we return, my father shall sit upon the Trinity Throne and plunge this world into perfect darkness.” He stepped back, thrusting his arms high over his head. “WE WILL TAKE THIS WORLD AS OUR OWN!” he shouted in conclusion, and the mole-men cheered again. Infernal Max ever so dramatically turned and strolled back into the drilling machine at the height of the cheering.

  Gezon stood at the top of the ramp shouting orders. He commanded half of the mole-men to march upon the village, killing all they encountered, and to the rest he commanded them to begin transferring supplies from the drilling machine cargo holds to the portal ships for the journey ahead of them. He then spoke directly to Jayla. “I want you to move our human friends to the front of the ship for slicing under the blades. I am sure Max will enjoy a fresh tossed salad with his dinner tonight. Oh, and right before you shove Stacy into the blades, make sure you tell her that Jasper and his pet made a nice snack for our Lord Lucifer. Let me know how she receives the news. If she bursts into tears I shall tell Max that his salad has been sweetly extra-salted.”

  Jayla threw a malicious glance in the direction of the humans and began to walk down the ramp. There came a sizzling, popping noise from overhead, the type of sound you hear when bacon is cooking in a frying pan. A fireball was racing toward the drilling ship as fast as a missile. It stopped directly above the bottom of the ramp, producing a gust of wind; it drifted slowly down, descending like an elevator to the ground floor. The fire diminished rapidly like a car engine shutting off. There, in a chariot made of gold, stood Jasper, Thunder, and another Old Testament saint known only as Elijah.

  The commotion from the mole-men was quite loud; they were confused as what to do with these new arrivals. On the other hand, Gezon and Jayla didn’t waste a single second; they ran into the drilling ship the second they recognized the old man in the chariot. “Take notice, the rats ran away.

  Perhaps they have realized the water is rising in the bottom of their barrel. Moses, Noah, what have you done with this place? Demons and mole-men, what kind of a horror show do you have going on here?”

  Moses turned to Noah. “Why does he always have to make such an entrance?”

  Jasper was all smiles. “Thanks for the lift, Elijah. Next time we go twice as fast.” Elijah and Jasper knuckle-bump and rocketed away their wrists in a backward motion, making swishing noise from their lips. They stepped off the back of the chariot and were instantly blocked by the four shadow demons.

  Elijah shouted to them, “Get out of the way!” He dropped open his jaw wide; a white mist came forth and swarmed over the demons, causing them to flash freeze. Thunder trotted between the four of them, snapping his tail upon each one, and they shattered to the ground in frozen pieces. At the sight of this, the mole-men moved quickly, stampeding over each other in an effort to withdraw to the rear of the drilling machine.

  Stacy and Jasper rushed over to each other. They squeezed each other hard. “Jayla said you were both dead.”

  “Jayla is a fraud.”

  “You had me worried.” Stacy slapped Jasper on the arm.

  Jasper stepped back for a moment, taking a good look at Stacy. “You’ve been hurt. What happened?” Jasper looked over to Commander Mop and Agent Tate.

  “We have had our share of combat today, Jasper. We have lost some good men,” Mop said sadly.

  Jasper addressed Agent Tate. “Where are my parents, Aunt Debbie-Lynne, Lance, and Grandpa Teddy?”

  “Mostly safe back at the village, we believe,” Agent Tate replied.

  Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by voices arguing at the bottom of the ramp. Everyone turned to look and watched intensely with disbelief. They marveled for a second at what they all were witnessing and then just as quickly became annoyed.

  Noah spoke to Elijah. “It was Moses who wanted to go on a field trip. I only came along to keep him out of trouble.”

  “Keep me out of trouble, you must be joking. You’re too old, too slow to keep me from doing anything I want. Turmoil and danger are nothing more than a mere nuisance to the great Moses.”

  “At least I make an effort,” said Noah.

  “Disease and illness move faster than you. One hundred and twenty years to build an ark with your bare hands. Did you pound one nail per day? What was that all about?”

  Noah snapped back, flicking his finger upon Moses’ nose. “Go strike a rock, you old goat.”

  “Both of you are missing my point.” Elijah placed one hand each upon the shoulders of both saints of old. “For the first time in this century, it is my turn to read the minutes from the last assembly, and the two of you won’t want to miss my performance. Now get on my chariot; we will not be late for this meeting.”

  It was during the petty bickering that the mole-men made their retreat. The Mighty Gezon and his lieutenant Jayla thought it best to retreat inside the drilling ship at the appearance of the third saint of old. Fight or flight, survival of the fittest rules would apply here. They dove into the ground from where they stood, and each one sent out a recall signal, telling the others to emerge at the rear of the ship and enter through the emergency exit. They came from as far as the village, each one determined not to be left behind. The very thought caused them to recoil and twitch in pain; they sought urgent refuge from the very mention of abandonment. They poured into the drilling machine like ants returning to their nest in the ground. All the ground trembled at the passing mole-men beneath. The assault teams were amazed; the enemy who had just defeated them was literally giving ground. From his command room, Infernal Maximus could be heard ranting. His anger at Elijah was profound. He called to Gezon and Jayla; they were standing just out of sight in the corridor.

  “Listen to the son of Lucifer babble like a child.” Gezon was giddy, delighted in what was to come next.

  Jayla pressed in against Gezon’s human form. “He is confused, angry…distracted. This is the moment; he is weak, and you must strike him down.”

  “Give me the crystal sword and follow me in. Get in position behind him, and when I nod to you, call his name. Put all your power into it; it has to be deafening, intense, compelling him to turn his back on me. When he does I shall behead him, and the deed will be done.”

  Jayla pressed the crystal sword into the interior of his cloak. She asked herself, Is this what love is all about…power? The strength of Gezon’s influence over her made him even more dynamic in her eyes, and seeing this display of potency made her want him even more. In a minute he would need her to shout, and shout she would, with the might of star-gone-supernova.

  They entered the chamber and sealed the door shut. Jayla moved quickly around the outer edge of the room to find her position while Gezon stepped forward slowly. He stopped short of Infernal Maximus, who was still in the middle of his rant. He bowed in respect, and then he interrupted Infernal Max.

  He was not amused. No one did that to him, not ever. He was speechless; Gezon knew he had the opening
he needed to catch him completely off his guard. “Max, you stupid snake, do you know what you have in common with Daddy aside from your horrible lack of hygiene? You are both destined to fail.”

  Moses was just about to send another verbal zinger at Noah when a volatile ringing noise blared out from the drilling machine. There was an earsplitting group reaction that hushed them all. It was time for their departure. Elijah, Moses, and Noah climbed into the back of the chariot.

  “We have to even the odds, give these kids a fighting chance to survive, or the moment we leave it will be over for them.” Moses was suddenly sad. His field trip was nearly over, and he had conceded the argument to Noah on account of his ill-measured birthday present that Elijah had misled him on. The last thing he wanted was to end his day with a performance by Elijah. He needed a win.

  “Jasper, you and your friends need to take shelter inside that house and quickly,” Elijah said with a wink. “Oh, Noah, my dear friend…it was my fault that Moses here built you such an oversized ark, and to be fair to you, Moses, use your staff…you’re looking at me with that same blank stare you gave our Lord when he spoke to you from the burning bush, don’t deny it; I watched the whole thing at the Library of the Mind. You haven’t got a clue what I’m suggesting…Noah, can you help him understand what I’m trying to say? I don’t speak ‘witless’ as well as you do.”

  “Moses, Moses, Moses, let my people go, Moses...” Noah started to say.

  “Isn’t it past time for you to get drunk in your tent again?” Moses slurred.