11
It was time. The speakers began to blast the song that introduced the Galesburg Fire before every home game this season. People began clapping and stomping in sync with the beat of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck and the whole town knew it was time for the team to come running out of the locker room. Students formed two lines on the field about fifteen feet apart from each other while the cheerleaders held up a huge paper banner that said: “Go Fire! Burn the Knight’s castle to the ground!”
Everyone stood and cheered as they saw the locker room doors open and a sea of red and black uniformed players came flowing out. Leading the pack, of course, was none other than Clayton Stoneking. The team jumped up and down, hooting and hollering, whipping themselves up into a frenzy. The crowd was following suit as they became more ecstatic at the sight of the team. Students were jostling with each other in both lines with the hope of being able to slap hands with the one and only Clayton Stoneking. Even thought the team was pumped up, they stayed behind Clayton. He was the leader and he was the reason they were here. They were completely devoted to him and they would do whatever he said.
Clayton began to run with his right arm held high in the air. The rest of the team mimicked him as they ran toward the banner. They were declaring victory even before the game began. Tears were streaming down some of the cheeks of the cheerleaders as they were overcome by the emotion of being this close. They could only dream to have been noticed by him. The team built up speed and ripped through the banner on the field to thunderous applause. Red streaming fireworks shot out from the tops of the gigantic video screens letting off loud explosions. To the delight of a riled up crowd, the football team ran down the field through the double lines of students with their arms out giving high fives to their fans. Clayton stayed in the middle as his team shielded him. The team ran to the center of the field, which was emblazoned with a flaming G, and jumped up and down. Then in unison they turned to the crowd and shouted: “BURN IT!” To which the crowd replied: “DOWN!” They shouted it six times and then on the seventh time the Fire turned to their opponent’s, the Moline Knights, and said, “BURN ‘EM DOWN!” The crowd went wild. It was time for football.
Jordan and his buddies cheered like everyone else did. They had come early enough to sit in the student section, which was certainly the rowdiest section in the place. Aaron and Emma stood and cheered as the team made their way on the field. Aaron mentioned to Emma the event he was doing tonight and also that Clayton was planning to come to it after the game. She could see the excitement in Aaron’s eyes as he talked about the size of the audience that would hear about Jesus tonight. Even though it had been years since she saw him, his excitement and passion remained the same.
Convert could hear the roar of the crowd from where he was. The McKenzies didn’t live too far away from the high school and even though they weren’t at the field, Galesburg’s public access channel broadcasted the game for the whole city to see. The three of them sat in the living room watching it, but Convert’s mind wasn’t really on the game. He was nervous about tonight. His story was an emotional one. He wasn’t afraid to talk about it, but he was nervous nonetheless about opening himself up in front of potentially one hundred fifty to two hundred students. He also noticed that Jack and Marie weren’t really concentrated on the game as well. They sat together on the couch hand in hand, but they both had a somber demeanor.
Convert was just about to ask them what was wrong when Jack stood up and said, “James. Would you mind stepping outside with me for a moment?”
“Sure. Everything OK?” Convert asked.
“I wanted to talk to you before you left to speak to the kids tonight.” Jack replied.
They walked out of the back door to the deck outside. This was a place of many conversations he had with Jack and Marie. It was always pleasant to be out there with them. It was dark out now and the clouds were getting thicker in the sky. It would definitely rain sometime soon, but even if it did, Convert had built a roof over the deck so they wouldn’t have to worry about getting wet. They sat down in a couple of chairs and stared out into the backyard. The security lights around the house showed some of Marie’s garden along with various lawn ornaments like their garden gnome and a fence post with an old tire hanging from it.
“Are you nervous about tonight?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. I guess I am. I don’t know why. It’s stupid, I guess, to be intimidated by a bunch of kids, but it is what it is.”
“Does what you’re going to tell them matter to you?” Jack said with a grin.
“Sure. I’ll be talking about the most important moments of my life.”
“What do you hope to accomplish by doing that?” Jack said still smiling.
“Well, I hope that if there is anyone there who is lost, like I was at that age, they will respond to God and believe in Him. I want them to know who Jesus is and I want them to be saved from a lifetime of hopelessness.”
“That’s why you’re nervous.”
“What do you mean?”
“It matters to you! You’re not simply telling a story for entertainment. You’re reaching out with the hope that these students will respond by believing in Jesus. That is no light decision. Rather, its life changing.”
“You can say that again.”
“You know, I’ve preached thousands of sermons for over fifty years of my life and before every one I was always a little nervous.”
“Even now?”
“Sure, and you know why?”
“No.”
“It was because every time I spoke I knew it could possibly be the one message that brought someone to the Lord. I know that God is the One who works on the heart, but I also know that He does that with His Word and I didn’t want to mess it up.”
“You know more than anyone that you can’t determine how someone reacts to your message. How many times have you talked to me about the parable of the seed on the four different soils? The same message can go out, but people receive it differently.”
“Oh, I know. I know. However, I was always nervous about making sure I gave the right message.”
“Well, I can tell you that it has always sounded right to me.”
Jack smiled, reached forward, and squeezed Convert’s shoulder. “Then that’s all we can ask for. The same applies to you tonight. Just be faithful with God’s Word and leave the results up to Him. I know you will do great and I can’t express how proud I am of you.”
Convert looked at his watch and noticed it was close to 9:00. It was almost halftime and he was going to have to go to church early and meet with Aaron to make sure everything was ready to go for tonight. “Well, it looks like it’s time for me to get going,” Convert said as he stood up. “Pray for me tonight around 10:30. That should be when I speak.”
“You know I will,” Jack replied as he stood up and gave Convert a hug. “I love you, Son.”
Convert felt a pang of sadness in his chest. He wasn’t really their son, but they had taken him in as if he was. “I love you too, Jack. As always, I can never thank you enough.” With that his eyes began to water.
“Make sure you say goodbye to Marie before you go. We’ll be praying for you. I’m going to stay out here for a little while.”
Convert left him on the deck as he made his way back inside. As he closed the door, he saw Jack standing with his hands on the railing, staring out into the backyard. At that moment, Convert had no idea that this would be the last time he ever saw Jack McKenzie alive.
12
There was a 1:13 left in the second quarter of the game. It was almost halftime and the Fire was in the lead 35 to 0. As usual, Clayton was amazing on the field throwing passes and even running in a touchdown for fifty-two yards. The defense remained suffocating as they continued to prevent their opponents from reaching the end zone. At one point, the Knights got close enough to attempt a field goal, but th
e swarming Galesburg players promptly blocked it.
Aaron really enjoyed the fact the Emma was next to him. She was still the witty and energetic person he had remembered from high school. She seemed to be enjoying herself as well. Throughout the game they had been briefly catching up with each other, but the game was too much of a distraction to have any real conversation. Now that halftime was here, Aaron knew he was going to have to leave soon so that he could prepare for tonight’s youth event.
“I hate to say this,” Aaron said to Emma, “but the guys and I have to get going. We have the post game youth event at church and we have make sure everything is ready to go.”
“No problem,” Emma said even though she secretly would have loved to see him stay. “It was great to see you again. I’m glad you’re back in Galesburg.”
“Yeah, it was really good to see you too. Would it be okay to exchange phone numbers or something so that we could catch up sometime?”
Emma’s heart skipped a little. Of course you can have my number, she thought. She also noticed just the tiniest bit of nervousness when he asked her. She found that to be even cuter than he already was. “Sure. I would love to do that!”
“Great,” Aaron said smiling as they gave each other their numbers.
Lisa grinned as she nudged Emma with her hip while they were exchanging numbers. Emma knew exactly what she was doing and nudged her back as she tried to keep from blushing in front of Aaron. Lisa was fully aware of the crush Emma had on him and it was all she could do to keep herself from laughing.
“Well it was good to see you, Emma,” Aaron said as he gave her another hug. “I’ll keep in touch for sure.”
“I hope everything goes great for you tonight. I’ll pray for you too.” Emma replied.
“Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it. I’ve got a special speaker tonight.”
“Oh yeah? Who do you have?”
“A guy that goes by the name of ‘Convert’ that lives here in Galesburg. He has an awesome testimony.”
“I know Convert! He goes to my church!”
“So you still go to Pastor Jack’s church? I should have figured. I guess I’m not the greatest detective. I should have put two and two together. We still have a lot to catch up on I guess.”
Aaron and his buddies stood up to go. “It was great to see both of you! Have a great night!” Aaron said as they walked past them to leave.
“Goodnight and God bless,” Emma replied.
“He always does,” Aaron replied with a grin as he turned to walk down the stairs.
The band began to take the field as halftime started. Emma finally looked at Lisa and they both started laughing.
“Pretty good game, huh?” Emma said blushing.
13
“So do we stay for the second half or should we head over to the church and see if Pastor Aaron needs any help?” Jordan asked the rest of the guys.
“You know, he is supposed to have the inflatable jousting set up for tonight. Maybe he’ll let us on it early if we help him,” Mark replied.
“So in other words, you don’t want an audience there when I knock you off the platform with the huge foam jousting stick they give us,” Trent said grinning.
“No, I just want you to get some practice in before I destroy you,” Mark said back to him.
“I’m fine with leaving,” Josh said. “You never know when it might start raining anyway and we do only have our bikes.”
“You’re right about that,” Jordan said.
“Let’s go then,” Trent said. “I’ve got to prepare for my epic battle against Mark tonight. All the girls will be waiting to see their champion!”
“Well then what does it matter if you are there or not?” Mark replied proud of himself.
Trent couldn’t help but laugh. “That was a pretty good one. I’ll have to give that to you. By the way, did you know that Julia was planning to be there tonight?”
Mark’s face started to blush. “Yeah, I heard. What does that matter?”
Trent laughed again. “What does that matter? You’re not fooling me at all. I know that you’ve liked her since grade school.”
“She’s my friend. So what?”
“Yeah, but I bet you wouldn’t mind her being your girlfriend either!”
“Leave Mark alone,” Jordan interjected. “Who cares if he does like her? She’s a nice person.”
“I’ve got no problem with that,” Trent said grinning. “I just wanted to point out that a sure fire way to get her to notice him would be to face off against me since all the girls are looking at me anyway!”
Trent was always setting up a punch line.
The guys left the football field and made their way to their bikes. The church was only a few blocks from the school so it wouldn’t take over ten minutes to get there. As they rode along they talked about video games and how much they were looking forward to spending the night over at Josh’s tonight. Everything was good and Jordan could see that. Out of the four of them, he had always been the most reflective of things past and he understood the importance of enjoying the time he had with his friends. Even though they were only freshmen, he knew that high school wasn’t forever and the fun times he was having with his friends now weren’t always going to be the case down the road. What would they do for college? How long would they all stay in Galesburg? How long would things be carefree before the real world with real obligations set in? Jordan didn’t know the future, but he did know that the present was something special.
They made their way down Fremont Street and the church was just ahead of them. They were riding on the sidewalk in a loose single line formation when all of the sudden, Josh, who was in front, made a sudden stop. Jordan slammed on his brakes and swerved to the left and into the grass barely missing him. Trent was next and he hit his breaks so hard that his back tire fishtailed sending him in a sideways skid, but he was able to stop right before he got to Josh. Mark, who was in the rear, did not have the reaction time like Trent and Jordan did. He saw Trent begin to stop, and as Trent’s bike started skidding, he finally hit his brakes. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get out of the way and he couldn’t completely stop. His front tire crashed into Trent’s front tire and the momentum sent Mark flying into Trent as his bike flipped into the street. Trent fell to the ground with Mark on top of him as Josh barely managed to stay up. Jordan jumped off his bike to see if Trent and Mark were ok.
“What happened, Josh?” Trent groaned as he tried to get Mark off of him. “Why in the world did you stop like that without any warning?
“I’m so sorry guys!” Josh replied. “Mark, are you ok?”
“I’m alright. Trent broke most of my fall,” Mark replied shaken up.
Jordan helped get Mark off of Trent and checked to see how they were doing. “Trent, are you alright? Did you hit your head or anything?”
“No, I just scraped my arm while I was busy breaking Mark’s fall,” Trent replied.
“I’m sorry, man,” Mark replied. “It’s dark out and I stopped too late. I really am sorry.”
“It’s ok. I’ll be fine, but your bike is still in the road,” Trent pointed out as he got up. “I’m just glad you didn’t end up there.”
Jordan grabbed Mark’s bike from the road as a few cars had slowed down to let him do so.
Trent looked at Josh who was not looking at him. “Dude, why did you stop? Is your bike broken or something?”
Josh looked at him. “No, I didn’t want to hit them.”
“Who?” Jordan said as they all looked down the sidewalk.
In front of them they saw four people around their own age standing there. They were all dressed in black and they were almost invisible in the dark.
“Looks like you guys need some bike riding lessons,” one of them said grinning at them.
“Would you have rather
we had run into you?” Trent replied.
“We were just on the sidewalk. It’s for people walking, not your piece of junk bicycles. Especially the way the fat kid’s bike looks right now.”
Jordan walked up to the guy face to face. He hated to see Mark made fun of for his weight. “We’re sorry we almost hit you, but you have no right to make fun of my friends.”
With that the kid took a puff of his cigarette and blew it right into Jordan’s face. “I will do whatever I want to do.”
Jordan stood back shocked by what was happening. All they wanted to do was have a fun night and now they were face to face with people that looked to start a fight.
At that moment, Trent recognized who the kid was. “Hey, I know you. You’re Eric Landon. Aren’t we in science together?”
“What does that matter? Am I supposed to like you because we share a class?” Eric replied.
Trent was at a loss of words just like everyone else. What was happening here?
Jordan looked at Eric who had never taken his eyes off of him. He looked at his buddies and knew that there was no way to win this, but to leave.
“Sorry to bother you guys,” Jordan replied. “We’ll just cross the road here.”
Trent looked surprised, Josh looked scared, and Mark looked hurt. All that mattered to Jordan was keeping his friends safe and that meant walking away.
Eric grinned. “That’s pretty good advice for all of you. When you see us, walk away.”
The three others behind him laughed, but it was a cold laugh. Jordan could sense something wasn’t right here. Something was evil.
The guys quickly crossed the road and made their way silently to the church.
As they were putting their bikes on the rack, Josh said, “I’m really sorry about that, guys. I didn’t see them and then all of the sudden they were there. I didn’t want to collide with them so I panicked and hit the brakes. I’m sorry they made fun of you, Mark.”
Mark smiled as he looked at all of them. “It’s ok. Who cares what they think.” He put on a strong front, but Jordan knew he was upset by it.
The Scarlet Plan Page 4
