by Bill Myers
“Why didn’t you just say ‘we’re done’?”
“I am a man of science,” replied Willard, closing the laptop with a flourish.
“No, you’re a guy who uses big words.”
“Oh,” Willard nodded knowingly. “You mean a logophile. Or a logogogue. Or possibly a logomachist. Or — ”
“Willard?”
“Yes, Cody?”
“Be quiet.”
Willard grinned as the laptop’s lights flickered greenly. “I will gladly desist, my friend.”
Cody started to answer, then stopped. Willard had always been smart. But lately he’d been testing his vocabulary … and Cody’s patience. A lot of people get their exercise by working out with weights. Willard worked out with words. Not that Cody blamed him. At school everyone made fun of him. Maybe this was his new way of fighting back.
Cody continued watching. “You still haven’t told me how these are going to help Piper and her family.”
“It will momentarily become clear,” Willard said. “And you shall have nothing further to worry about.”
Cody sighed, running his fingers through his hair. He’d heard that before. “That’s what worries me.”
“Here.” Willard handed him two leg harnesses. “Put these on. They will assist in the stabilization process.”
As Cody grabbed the leg harnesses, he thought back to some other not-so-successful-inventions Willard had recently created. Little things, like …
The Solar-Powered Toaster that exploded into a fi reball. Not bad, if you liked your toast well done.
The Computer-Guided Eyebrow Plucker. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop with the eyebrows — as the first hundred angry, bald customers proved.
The Turbo-Charged Pickle Jar Lid Opener. A great success, except for the twenty-seven kosher dills still embedded in Cody’s kitchen ceiling.
“Hurry!” Willard called over his shoulder. “We must dispatch ourselves with expedience!”
“Do what with who?” Cody asked, looking up at his friend.
“We gotta go!”
The map light illuminated Mom’s finger as she traced the winding road on the atlas. “Just one more mile,” she murmured. Her voice was both hopeful and anxious.
“All right, sweetheart,” Dad said as they shot through the thick woods. He tried to sound reassuring, but inside his fear continued to grow. What if we don’t get to the kids before they do?
He glanced to his wife and thought back to the beginning.
Mom had been pregnant with their third child, Elijah. She had just left the florist’s with a giant bouquet of daisies for her sister’s birthday. As she walked — more like waddled — toward the car, a bearded old man with a tattered jacket stepped in front of her, bringing her to an abrupt stop.
He spoke quietly, almost in reverence. “Your son will work miracles.”
She blinked, more than a little surprised. How had he known she was going to have a boy?
He continued. “The Scriptures speak of him.”
“Who?” she asked, hoping to slip inside the car and get away from the crazy man — not an easy feat when one is holding a bouquet of flowers.
“Your son.”
She stared at him a moment, then nodded slowly, uneasily, as she opened the car door and got inside. She locked the car and put the key in the ignition. She glanced back at the man, but when she turned he had vanished. The old man was nowhere to be seen.
Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of the strangeness. It soon got stranger.
Just after Elijah was born, Mom and Dad began to notice little things. Like how their baby laughed and cooed as if he saw something above his crib … when there was nothing there at all.
Or the time he was in preschool and his teacher ran out of snacks … or thought she did. No one could explain how, when she kept reaching into the graham cracker box, she never ran out of graham crackers — not until the last child was served. Amazing. Well, to everyone but Mom and Dad.
That was the good weird. But there was also the bad …
More and more, they got the sense that people were watching them. Sometimes it was a dark blue car that followed them at a distance when they pushed the baby stroller down the street. Other times it was a tall, skinny man in overalls who always seemed to be trimming hedges or sweeping a sidewalk when they went outside.
Then came the fateful Saturday morning when the strange old man appeared once again — but this time on their doorstep.
Spotting him through the window, Mom called upstairs to Dad. “Mike! That man from the florist — it’s him! He’s here!”
Dad bounded down the stairs and threw open the door to confront him. But the old man said only three words:
“You must leave.”
“Guess again,” Dad said. “I don’t know who you are or what’s going on, but you’re the one who has to leave.”
The man shook his head. “No. You must go. For the boy’s safety — and your own.”
Dad snorted in disgust and started to shut the door when the old man raised his voice. “Please … there is an organization.”
Dad hesitated.
The old man continued. “They are watching your son to see if he is the one of whom the Scriptures speak. Once they are sure, they will move in.”
Dad frowned. “Organization?”
“They are empowered by a dark and sinister force, and they will show no mercy when they come for him.”
Dad bristled. “That’s enough. If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the police. Do you understand?”
The old man remained. “You’ve seen his gifts.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’ve seen his powers. You’ve seen — ”
Without a word Dad slammed the door.
“I’m not sure if you should have done that,” Mom said.
“The guy’s a loony!” Dad replied angrily. He turned, checking through the door’s peephole.
Nobody was there.
That was when they decided to pack up the kids and move … the first time.
But no matter how they tried to hide Elijah’s special gifts, the little guy would do something that caused people to start talking … and asking questions.
Then, just a few days ago, a red-headed woman and two men with guns showed up at the house. Mom and Dad tried to act as decoys to draw them away, giving their children a chance to escape to safety, but the plan backfired. Instead, the parents were kidnapped and taken to a mysterious compound where they first encountered … Shadow Man.
They had escaped. It was a miracle from God — there was no doubt about that.
But Shadow Man wasn’t about to give up — there was no doubt about that either.
Chapter Three
Arrest
“We’re going to fly?!” Cody’s voice cracked. It hadn’t done that since he was thirteen, but raw fear can do that to a guy. “AGAIN?”
“No,” Willard chuckled, “we’re not going to fl y. ”
“Whew, that’s good.”
“Technically, we will simply be resisting gravity.”
Somehow, that didn’t make Cody feel much better.
“We must locate Piper’s parents,” Willard said as he slipped into his antigravity tennis shoes. “We must inform them of the tracking device my equipment has discovered under their car. This is the only way to warn them.”
“If we survive,” Cody said, giving the shoes a doubtful look.
Willard ignored him. “I’ve triangulated their last email transmission with their cell phone call. But we must proceed there quickly before we lose them.”
Cody was silent, frowning down at the tops of his tennis shoes.
“Look, I know what you’re thinking,” Willard said. “You’re recalling the time my Remote-Controlled Pencil Sharpener flew out the window, crashed into the power station, and shorted out the entire town for a week.”
“Actually,” Cody said, “I forgot tha
t one.”
“Then perhaps it was my Inviso-Bug Spray which I brought to summer camp that made us both invisible.”
“Actually,” Cody corrected, “it just made our clothes invisible.”
“Ah, yes.” Willard nodded. “That was rather embarrassing. However, I promise you there will be no such occurrences on this occasion.”
“Don’t you think we should at least test them?” Cody asked.
“Under normal circumstances, yes, you would be correct. A positive outcome of a trial run is crucial before the operation of any new device.”
“Good!”
“However, we have no time.”
“Bad!”
“I assure you, all my data indicates these shoes will perform perfectly.”
Cody gave him a look. He knew Willard wanted to help. He also knew that not a single invention of his had ever worked … well, had ever worked the way he’d planned for it to work. Still, Willard was right. The family was in trouble, and they had no time to waste. So, with a heavy sigh (and a prayer that someone somewhere would someday find their bodies) Cody slipped into the shoes and laced them up tightly.
Willard reached for the control panel strapped to his wrist and hit a fl ashing red button. “Hopefully, we won’t have any problems. Hold on.”
“What do you mean, hopefully?” Cody’s voice cracked again. “And what do you mean, hold on?”
“I mean…
“WHOOOAAAAAAAH!”
Suddenly Willard shot up and hovered in the air. For that matter, so did…
“WHOOOAAAAAAAH!”
… Cody.
There was only one minor problem.
“We’re upside down!” Cody shouted, dangling from his feet. He kicked and spun around in the air as he tried to right himself.
“Yes, I am aware of that fact, however …”
“However what?”
“We have no time for repairs! We must depart now!”
Before Cody could protest, Willard pushed a little joystick on his control panel, and they took off. Still upside down. And still shouting.
“WHOOOAAAAAAAH!!”
Mom and Dad pulled to a stop at the agreed-upon location: the parking lot of the Desert Sands Motor Lodge. They sat quietly in the Jeep, holding each other’s hand, waiting eagerly and impatiently for their children. Dad tried to relax, nervously drumming his free fingers on the dash while Mom peered anxiously into the night.
“Mike!” she suddenly shouted.
He sat up and looked through the window, just in time to spot a pair of headlights coming up the highway. They belonged to the RV.
“It’s them!”
Piper, peering out the window of the RV, gave a start. Her heart leapt as she cried out. “There they are!”
“I see them!” Zach exclaimed. He pressed down on the accelerator, urging the old vehicle forward.
Piper spun around and, in her excitement, gave Elijah a hug. The family would be together again at last. Maybe now things would finally get back to normal. No more kidnappings. No more escapes. Soon they’d be back home in the family room, munching popcorn, and watching the latest DVD.
The motor home pulled up beside the Jeep, and the doors to both vehicles flew open. Zach, Piper, and Elijah spilled out of the RV, while Mom and Dad raced out of the Jeep. Before they knew it, everyone was wrapped in one giant bear hug.
“Okay, okay,” Zach gasped. “I can’t breathe, give me some air.”
Piper was enduring her own brand of suffocating, but the love felt too good to complain.
Finally they broke up, Mom wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. “Are you kids all okay?”
“We’re fine,” Piper said, blinking back her own tears. “What about you guys?”
“Couldn’t be better,” Mom laughed and threw her arms around them again for more hugs and suffocation.
“Whew,” Dad waved his hand in front of his nose. “Son, what’s that smell?”
Piper rolled her eyes. “Nuclear Burrito breath.”
Elijah giggled as the family joked and hugged and teased. After all this time, they were together. How long they stood in the parking lot like that, nobody knows. But eventually, they split apart and headed back to the vehicles. Mom and the kids would ride in the Jeep, while Dad would follow behind in the RV.
It was time to go home.
Zach slid into the front seat beside Mom as she started up the Jeep and pulled onto the road. Elijah sat with Piper in the back. He snuggled against her and quickly fell asleep.
“I’ve got a ton of questions,” Zach said.
“Me too,” Piper added.
“Me three,” Mom exclaimed.
“Okay,” Zach said. “It was kinda weird when we came home from school and there’s the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the floor — ”
“Along with all the clothes from the dryer,” Piper added, “and the dirty dishes piled up in the sink.”
“Yeah,” Zach said, “it was like you guys got raptured or something.”
Mom nodded. “Okay, let me tell you what happened. I was watching the news on television when — ” Her eyes caught something in the rearview mirror.
“What’s wrong?” Zach asked.
Piper turned and saw Dad flashing his high beams at them. “Mom?”
“I see,” Mom said. She had also seen the bright blue lights of a police car fl ashing behind Dad.
“Oh, no,” she groaned.
“What?” Zach asked.
“Your father is getting pulled over.”
Trapped by Shadows
Softcover • ISBN 9780310711957
Elijah is captured, and his family must enter the Abyss to save him. The deeper they plunge into the caves, the greater the danger to them all, but they are not alone. Heaven is on their side.
Available now at your local bookstore!
Chamber of Lies
Softcover • ISBN 9780310711964
Zach, Piper, and Elijah are reunited with their parents. But when Elijah is lured into the Chamber, he must face the Shadow Man in a bale for his soul. Only heaven can help him now.
Available now at your local bookstore!
NIV Adventure Bible
Softcover • ISBN 9780310715436
In this revised edition of The NIV Adventure Bible, kids 9-12 will discover the treasure of God’s Word. Filled with great adventures and exciting features, the NIV Adventure Bible opens a fresh new encounter with Scripture for kids, especially at a time when they are trying to develop their own ideas and opinions independent of their parents.
Available now at your local bookstore!
NIV Adventure Bible Book of Devotions
By Robin Schmi
Softcover • ISBN 9780310714477
Get Ready for Adventure!
Grab your spyglass and compass and set sail for adventure! Like a map that leads to great treasure, the NIV Adventure Bible Book of Devotions takes kids on a thrilling, enriching quest. This yearlong devotional is filled with exciting fictional stories about kids finding adventure in the real world. Boys and girls will learn more about God and the Bible, and be inspired to live a life of faith—the greatest adventure of all. Companion to the Adventure Bible, the #1 bestselling Bible for kids.
Available now at your local bookstore!
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