“I don’t understand, and for now, I don’t even have the urge to understand that. All I want to know is how shall we follow this cross? I mean, how shall we follow a cross that’s just a cross?” Jeremy begged, noticing that Sam was approaching them.
Luke’s eyes fell upon Sam’s beautiful face, saying, “Ah, I’ve been reading the Testament that another woman shall join you on the search. A woman by the name of ‘Sam’.”
“How did you know my name?”
“Like I said before, I read it…. And I see another beautiful face has joined you, the Testament called her ‘Mary’,” Luke said, holding Mary’s eyes in his sight, seeing them glowing with a bit of wonder in them. “Now go, and follow the cross to where the maps are hidden. You have exactly one month and two weeks to complete this. You must be back here on December tenth.” Luke then turned around and walked back to the cave, surrounded by all of them standing in the darkness and watching him closely.
“How do we use this cross, how does it guide us?” asked Jeremy. The man’s back turned around slowly to face Jeremy and his question.
“Mary and Sam, of course. They shall guide you all, only the purest can use the guide. They’re virgins, and they have the right to bear the cross and to understand its directions,” replied Luke before Jeremy pulled the cross from his pocket and handed it slowly to Sam.
“But I’m a virgin,” Jeremy declared, suddenly looking at everyone in embarrassment. “I mean, I think I am!”
“Jeremy, like I said before, only the purest souls can use it. Michael, David, Gabriel and especially you do not have pure souls.” Luke then stopped his words and noticed Jeremy was ready to say something, but he spoke over him before Jeremy could release his words. “No more questions, you don’t have much time, leave now. But one more thing I would like to say to you before I retire to my cave. Be careful when you find the maps, people will harm you like I told you all before. But never say your names to anyone who asks, they will know who you are if you do, and they will try to stop you…. When you find the maps, call out my name and I will guide thee back to my home.” Luke walked back into his cave and they lost sight of him.
“But wait, how do we use this?” asked Mary. The three lanterns lost their light and stars became their beacons again, leaving them alone and her question unanswered. She ran over to the cave entrance and found that it was vacant. She came back to where they all were standing and grabbed the cross from Sam’s hands and just stared at it. She then looked at Sam’s long, blonde hair and red, perfect lips, watching as Sam’s beautiful blue eyes closed and tears squeezed out from them. Mary looked down at the cross and said, “Well, I don’t know how to use this. Just because I’m still a virgin doesn’t mean that I’m a whiz at directions.” Unexpectedly, Sam grabbed the cross back, and as soon as her right hand touched it, the cross glowed. She let go of it, and noticed that the light ceased. She then grabbed onto it again when Mary said, “We both have to hold it!” The cross initiated its glowing again and it shot out a line of light, which resembled a sort of arrow, the direction directly across the Dead Sea.
“Alright, I guess we have to go that way,” said Michael. They started their journey to a place that was not known to them, a place where they were to go to retrieve the maps; maps that they didn’t know of. And as they walked, taking their first steps, Jeremy looked up at the stars and prayed for God’s protection, a protection that he didn’t know was with them the whole time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Abreath of cool air brushed against Mary’s face, cooling her down as well as the rest of them; they all felt exhausted from walking. The breeze brushed against their sweat, beads of heated torture, turning it into a soothing, cold brew, as their perspiration melted down their faces, cooling their bodies down like heated ice. They wandered for two days straight through the Holy Land that was one great desert, a wasteland, a huge slab of gravel-like particles that smoldered in the day, and froze in the night to their tired minds. Sleeping near any vegetation they could find, hiding whenever they saw men with artillery, and not eating at all, it became misery to their bodies, wretchedness to their flesh that burnt in the scorching sun. Luckily Jeremy found an old canteen near the cave that Luke appeared at, filled with fresh water that mysteriously was convenient for all of them to drink during their two days.
The boys watched as Mary and Sam would grab onto the cross every so often to see if they were still heading in the right direction. The girls became a part of the mission that only David knew about, the mission that was concealed from all of their thoughts, except for David’s. Even though David didn’t know where to head to next, he still recognized what the mission was for, deeper than what Luke explained to all of them in his vague manner; he knew who they really were.
Another three days passed, and their hunger and thirst, since the canteen had run out of water, commenced to worsen as each day came in the inhospitable surroundings in which they staggered. They were beat. The winds would kick up the sand and place it ever so gently into their mouths, and they did not have any saliva left to wash it away or spit it out. The heat would allow them to sweat out most of the water they contained. Now it was to the point where they didn’t sweat anymore, as if the heat burned up all their sweat. Voices were barely audible to the human ear, as their lungs and vocal cords became fatigued and sand-filled from the journey.
“We’ve been walking for five days, guys, I’m hungry and thirsty,” Gabriel yawned when they came across a sign that read “Tel Aviv-Yafo”. They saw a huge cathedral in the distance that surrounded a colossal village. Mary and Sam touched the cross together again and watched the light shine toward the cathedral, brightening their glossy eyes and causing most of them to develop tears behind the gloss. Knowing that the light was shining at the cathedral, they knew this was the first destination that they were to go to, and they made it. They survived.
“Look, the light doesn’t go beyond the cathedral – that means they’re in the cathedral,” Jeremy shouted, following smiles that came on all of their features. They ran to the village, laughing in their tones, apprehending the thought that the mission was a cinch so far. “This is easier than I thought,” said Jeremy. They didn’t waste any time, running with whatever energy they had left. Each of them entered the village and looked at the cathedral with astonishment and amazement all rolled into one. “Wait a second, guys, before we go in, I have to go to the bathroom,” Jeremy coughed, trying to speak and get out sand from his throat simultaneously.
Mary and Sam walked up to Jeremy and said together, “Yeah, I have to go, too!!”
Because the rest yearned to get this over with, done for good, they showed frustration in their eyes, agitation, and impatience toward the “bathroom” call. But they understood their bladders, and gave them the benefit of the doubt. David looked at the cathedral and then looked toward Jeremy, saying, “Alright, we’ll wait right here until you guys get back, but hurry up, please.” So Jeremy, Mary and Sam left, and the rest waited, watching them go further from their eyesight until they were out of view. David, Michael and Gabriel sat, exhausted, on the steps of the cathedral, basically lying on them while pointing their heads toward the bright skies with their eyes closed, feeling the pulsating heat begging and fighting to break through their eyelids and show its bright, God-like self to their pupils. But they kept their lids sealed.
Still being hungry and thirsty, they just waited for Jeremy and the girls to return quickly. During their wait, and while they lounged around on the steps, four men dressed in army uniforms approached the cathedral, pointing their army boots at Gabriel, David and Michael, and stopped right in front of them. The men started yelling in another language to the boys, startling them and forcing them to open their eyes to the bright day to see what was wrong.
They were nervous and confused, with Michael tapping David on the back, while keeping eye contact on the men, and whispering, “What are they saying, David?”
“They want to know what our
names are and if we are Jewish or not.” Even after David’s words to Michael, the troops kept on yelling, screaming higher and higher.
Gabriel became overwhelmed, and yelled to David, “Well, tell them we’re not!”
“It’s not that simple, I don’t know if these guys are Palestinians or Israeli,” said David when suddenly the guards hit David on the arm, demanding to get his attention.
“Don’t you know what answer to give them, I thought you knew everything,” Michael shouted to David’s eyes.
“Um, no, I didn’t say that, all I know is about the mission. It’s not like I studied the history of this land!”
The shouting was getting louder, so Gabriel went between the troops and David, obscuring David’s vision of the troops, and said, “Okay, David, we can do heads or tails, or we can be honest with these… guards.”
David took in a quick breath of air, took a step to the right to see the troops’ eyes again and started to speak their language to them. The guards looked at each other and then Michael tapped David on the shoulder.
“Ah, what did you tell them, David?”
“I said that we are not Jewish. But then they asked if we were Americans, and I said ‘yes’,” David answered. “I guess that was the right thing to say!” After two minutes of having the men talk to each other about what do to, they grabbed onto the boys and took them away, with David shouting, “I guess I should have said we were Jewish!” Across from the cathedral stood a small building, which was the jail, and the troops pulled them into the structure and threw them in a jail cell, consisting of rusted bars and dirt and sand for the floor.
They threw Michael, Gabriel and David into separate cells, right next to each other, so they were able to see and chatter with one another as if they were in the same cell. Each one sat down on the dirty, urine-soaked floor and was hunched over in exhaustion and exasperation, speculating how they were going to get out of this predicament. They watched the guards gaping at their own eyes, watching to see which boy would talk to the other first, but they sat in silence, until the guards turned away and conversed with each other. That’s when Gabriel turned to David, still looking at the guards to see when they would look at them again, and whispered, “I thought there was a peace treaty in effect between the Israelis and the Palestinians, wasn’t there?”
Before David could answer, Michael raised his voice a bit and spoke in sarcasm: “Well, by the looks of it, I guess the treaty has been broken!” Suddenly, Michael turned to the guards to see if they heard him and a rat came up to his legs and brushed against him, making Michael panic, his eyes filled with fear, dilating toward the black rodent.
“Why didn’t you touch his arm and make them believe that we were Jewish, David?” asked Gabriel, perceiving that Michael had moved quickly to the other side of his cell, leaving the rat by a puddle of urine that it started to drink.
“I don’t know, I tried but it didn’t work. Maybe because they don’t believe in the same God as the rest of us do, or at least as we do. Maybe that’s why my powers didn’t work on them. That’s the only thing I could think of,” David answered, noticing the rat, which was in Michael’s cell, walking into his cell instead. “I don’t think these guys are a part of the police force. I think they’re terrorists, and being that, maybe because they’re evil, it didn’t work on them,” he added, looking back to the guards and noticing one of them looking at him, smiling an evil grin.
Meanwhile, Jeremy, Sam and Mary walked back to the front of the cathedral and found that they were missing, gone from the hot stairs that the sun heated every moment. They figured that they must have gone in the cathedral without them, being too impatient to wait until they returned. So they walked up the stone stairs and entered the cathedral, seeing monumental masterpieces while they looked at the different statues sparkling in their beauty, with the light from the sun shimmering on them through the painted glass windows. “This is Heaven,” said Mary in awe, walking with Jeremy and Sam on a red carpet toward the altar. Mary and Sam grabbed onto the cross again, looked and saw that no one was in the church pews, and saw the crucifix gleaming its light near the bottom of the table that stood on the altar.
Grins came to their faces, but abruptly their grins turned to fright as a voice from behind them began shouting, in another language, “Who are you?” Mary, Sam and Jeremy knew the man saw the crucifix shining, so they had no time to talk their way out of it. Instead, they ran toward the altar and the man who shouted to them ran outside of the cathedral and went across to the jail, or the terrorist headquarters. The man explained what he saw to the troops, and while the guards armed themselves and prepared to follow the man, Mary, Sam and Jeremy were trying to figure out where the maps were. They got up on the altar as the girls grabbed onto the cross again. It shined directly to the floor of the altar, in the midst of Jeremy’s eyes grabbing this perplexed moment and flushing his browned face with confusion.
“I don’t understand. What are we looking for?” Sam asked.
“Either the Shroud or the Kerchief, or both of them together. It must be somewhere under the ground,” replied Jeremy. He got down on his hands and knees and lifted up the carpet that was underneath the table, yearning for his eyes to find the Shroud or Kerchief. He tried pounding the floor that was made out of marble, speaking, “Grab the cross again!” The girls grabbed it once more, knowing that they were so close to finding what Luke told them they needed, when unexpectedly the guards showed up in the cathedral with the man who snitched on them pointing his finger toward Jeremy and the girls. The light shined from the cross, pointing directly to the ground where Jeremy’s hands lay frozen. Swiftly, the confusion went away in Jeremy’s mind, saying, “The carpet, it’s the carpet!” He grabbed the carpet, which really was a white cloth, out from under the table as the guards began running toward them at great speed. “Run,” yelled Jeremy. He put the cloth over his shoulders and ran into a room that was directly behind the altar. The girls closed the door to the room and locked it while Jeremy looked for an escape route, searching the room and scanning it with his shaking eyes, panicked and unsure that they were going to make it out of this alive. A smile then came to his face as his eyes noticed a stairway that led up toward the roof of the cathedral.
He pointed toward the stairway and Mary and Sam followed his eyes and saw his grin of relief. As soon as Mary saw where his eyes were pointing, she shouted, “Are you shittin’ me? Are you crazy, Jeremy? I’m not going up there.” Gunshots came from behind the door, running at their ears, while sweat dripped from their faces and their nerves frantically raced. Mary and Sam were still confused about all that was happening. Sam thought this was a dream. Mary thought this was a nightmare. Yet Jeremy knew this was a mission, an escape from his nightmare that he yearned to wake up from.
The gunshots heard made up their minds, and their feet followed Jeremy up the staircase. They came upon three doorways which prompted Mary to ask, “Alright, which one should we go in?” Jeremy unfastened the middle door, pulling it open, with gunshots still being heard, knowing that the troops were trying to shoot down the downstairs door. Jeremy’s eyes noticed, once he opened the door fully, that it led to a ledge that was actually inside the cathedral, surrounding the dome of the holy house. They climbed onto the ledge and Mary and Sam held hands, locking them tightly together as their eyes faced upward toward the painted glass of the dome. Mary touched the glass, while saying, “My God, we’re trapped, Jeremy. Where does this ledge lead to?”
Jeremy tried to break the glass, pointing his eyes down and seeing the seats of the cathedral below, and punched his fist toward the glass, but it wouldn’t break. “Just be quiet, maybe they won’t know we’re up here,” he whispered. He noticed some of the troops were sitting down below them in the seats of the cathedral, forcing him to stop punching the glass. They started to walk more on the ledge, with the sweat from Mary’s face forming into great big beads. While they walked, the guards who were originally chasing them broke open th
e doorway and ran up the stairway. The troops came across the three doorways as they decided to check all of them separately. They first opened one doorway that led up to the roof of the outside, while Mary, Sam and Jeremy walked on the ledge that was on the inside of the cathedral, trying to keep balanced and silent at the same time. That’s when Jeremy’s eyes became even more fear-filled, finding a statue of an angel in the way on the ledge, sticking out from the walls, its wings in a “V” formation.
“Alright, you’re going to have to walk around this thing,” he whispered. “Just watch the way I do it, and then you do the same.”
Jeremy grabbed onto the angel’s wings and tried to sway his body to the other side of it. As he did, the cloth dropped from his shoulders and fell onto his hanging feet, dangling there with his hands slipping quickly from the sweat they withheld. He stayed silent, trying to sway slowly to the other side and trying to keep the cloth on his dangling feet. His hands slipped more and more and the guards still sat in the pews below, talking to one another while Jeremy hung from above. Before Jeremy’s hands gave out, he swayed his body enough to reach the other side of the statue, and he fell onto the other ledge, grabbing the cloth very gently with his eyes looking at the guards in their seats. He saw they didn’t hear a thing, so Mary then swayed across the angel using its wings to hold onto. Finally, Sam saw the angel in the middle of the ledge’s pathway and, it being her turn to go across, made her sweat fiercely and panic greatly. While she grabbed onto the angel’s wings, Jeremy noticed a small door that was about five feet away from them. He walked over to it and opened it, discovering that it led to the roof. As he opened it, guards walking around on the roof came to his sight, so he quickly shut the door, closing his eyes in relief that they didn’t see him. Jeremy’s eyes faced Sam, and saw her swaying across the statue, landing on the other ledge with Mary to help her to her feet.
The Wrath of Jeremy Page 17