Error in Terror.
Michael got himself a hooded shirt and some fresh pair of jeans at a nearby boutique, he dropped the clothes he wore earlier in a refuse dump on his way down an alley, he took a cab to go meet his new acquaintance, Big Grandy, and at exactly eight in the morning, Big Grandy was at the spot. Michael whistled from across indicating a signal of invitation and Big Grandy walked towards him, the two men walked away from Big Grandy’s domain and into a small restaurant nearby, they both ordered some light food and Michael explained to Big Grandy that he needed his help to settle some scores but that he only required a backup buddy, sort of a sidekick and offered an attractive amount Big Grandy could not refuse. The two men arranged to get a car from the ghetto and some tools to run their mission. Michael also promised more cash to Big Grandy if the mission went successful, Big Grandy was happy either way. ‘My baby’s momma gonna be happy with me man, this will cover my butt for eight months man. I am down for whatever, Mr M,’ said Big Grandy, while counting the cash offered to him by Michael.
The two men left the restaurant after Michael paid the bill, Big Grandy ran back later into the restaurant and picked the full bottle of soft drink and a burger Michael left on the table and rushed out as he glared at the old couple on the other table.
Michael and Big Grandy got the right vehicle they needed for the job, and also some guns and enough bullets for a small assault enough to take an entire football team, but manoeuvring through the city with such heavy gear would put them in trouble with the law, especially with the current situation in the city and around the world and constant presence of law enforcement agents in and around the city. Big Grandy came up with an idea, he virtually knew all the officers in the city, thanks to his record-breaking jail time served. He had been in and out of prison and jail cell quite enough to have some inside men especially the patrol officers. The men decided to make their move after sun down, so they planned to meet at twelve midnight.
To cover up what they would carry, Big Grandy planned to hide the weapons in frozen food packages just in case anything happened, it was a good idea but Michael felt stuffing them inside a deflated spare tire in the trunk would be best, they ended up using both methods. However, Big Grandy added some icing on the cake by inviting his cousin for the party, Michael wasn’t comfortable having a third person but in the end, he agreed because Big Grandy’s cousin looked tougher than the two of them combined and after a short chat, Michael left the two cousins and took a cab back to town. They agreed to pick him up at the rendezvous point at the appropriate time.
Michael arrived at the church on the hill side, paid the cab fare and entered the church, he sat down on the seat on the second row looking at the giant crucifix hanging up on the wall in the church. Michael didn’t come to pray, he only wanted to get things clear with the preacher and his wife concerning what they told him the other day. After a while, Pastor James saw him and came to him, he directed Michael to the basement to show him something, and Michael went after the preacher down the basement through an entrance from the right side of the church altar.
There they met Sabrina serving food to a man, as Michael climbed down the stairs he noticed a man wearing a white seamless robe, the moment their eyes met, Michael stopped. Pastor James turned and smiled at Michael, inviting him to come down. Michael did but his eyes were entirely focused on this man he was seeing for the first time. There were half burnt candles lit all around with one new candle on the old table at the centre of the room. Sabrina smiled at Michael like she always did and he sat down as directed, opposite the man.
Sabrina brought some food to him and there was a small basket of fruits on the table as well, but it was obvious Michael wouldn’t eat. Sabrina and her husband, the preacher, excused the two men and went up, leaving Michael staring at the man opposite him at the other end of the table.
The man did not say a word to Michael, he laid his spoon back in the plate on the table and sipped the water from the glass cup served to him by Sabrina. ‘Do you love sports?’ asked the man, who was now looking at him, but Michael did not talk.
‘Funny how a little accident that dislocated your big toe makes you despise sports, but you wouldn’t have been a good player anyway, you were not moulded for such skills,’ added the man.
‘How did you know about that? I never . . . told anybody, not even my wife,’ said Michael.
The man smiled and reached for an apple from the fruit basket and after taking a bite, Michael noticed that the fruit melted in the man’s mouth like cotton candy as the man looked at the apple and said, ‘I knew its name before it was brought forth and it was predestined to be served to me on this day at this hour, just like this, while you are seated on that very chair, Michael.’ The man leaned his right elbow on the table and said, ‘we cannot go talking about things I know that you do not know or the things you’d later find out which your spirit has found out but your flesh is yet to accept its reality, like you’d asked me how I knew that you have been moving around with a loaded semi-automatic pistol. Your friend Grand S. Simons aka Big Grandy did tell you how to use it safely, didn’t he?’ added the man. ‘The gun would go off in the elevator when a lady who was out walking her two dogs in the hotel premises walks into the elevator, they would make the other woman in the elevator, who was cynophobic, jump out with fear and hold you accidentally triggering the pistol in your pants, and you and I both know that you strapped it in the wrong position, Michael,’ said the man, who took a bite at the apple again.
Michael quietly pulled out the gun from his pants and realised it was loaded, he then disengaged the safety and kept the gun on the table without uttering a single word.
The man kept the half bitten apple on the table, he smiled at the apple and the apple went back to its natural order, back to its untouched form as if no one had ever eaten it, Michael was amazed. ‘I can make your life worth and fulfilled my child, blessed and crowned with such glory more beautiful and healed than this fruit be,’ said the man, as he stood up from his chair and moved to the chair next to Michael.
‘Everything that you see unfolding in your life and around the world is far beyond your understanding of things, this is the time that mankind hoped it would never come, the time both the heavens and the damned are all aware of its inevitability, the line has been drawn, Michael, and I do not expect you to fathom any word I shall utter to you for now but I guarantee you that if you will keep aside what your heart intended to do after sun down, then I shall guide thee and be with thee and use thee for a far more glorious, heroic journey. You are more than what this world intended to make out of you, you are more than an unforgiving cold-hearted killer triggered by the loss, and what this cruel world and its wickedness schemed to implant in you. You were created a king to fight alongside a glorious army to usher in a glorious beginning that had for long passed in the realms of the Father, a heavenly army such that no man nor the damned have seen, so do not take that path for you won’t like what your canal ears shall hear! It will destroy the man in you if I step aside and let this wicked world take thy heart hostage,’ added the man, looking straight into Michael’s wandering eyes. ‘The entire plan of what came, what is, and that which is to come is all in the good book that you so trusted until the night Jana’s spirit departed from this world.
I know your pain my child because I know thee before thou formeth in Esther’s womb,’ the man said, smiling at him. Michael was shocked because this man knew his mother’s name. ‘Yes, I do know Esther and the names of her forefathers and ones before them. The time of the reign of darkness has come to its edge, the time of light is here to stay that is why things are as they appear now, darkness is giving way to light and it does not like what was decreed by the Father and so shall not vanish without a fight. Here lay little or no time for the dark one to devour and take the ones who put their trust in him as fast as he can, but I ask that you lay down the sword of this age that you carry and follow me, and I shall speak into thy hands a great and mightier sword. Take the vengeance off against men who wronged thy humble heart and do not let it be corrupt by what the dark one has put thee through, thou art a man of great integrity and countenance. Let not what is meant to pass away hold thee from passing through the golden gates, which is laid open for all they that received the free gift of the Father.’ These words came from the man.
Michael stood up quietly without saying a word to the man, he was about to leave and then remembered to pick his gun, and after picking it, he strapped it on the left side of his waist and as he was about to walk up the stairs, the man said, ‘woe unto man whose enemies trampleth upon his purpose and wageth ceaseless war upon it before he knoweth why he walketh the earth! Do not let what is of this world deter thee from thy sole purpose bequeatheth by the Father unto thee, Michael.’ He stopped, sighed and then walked away without turning back neither saying a word to the man, all the while the man kept his eyes on Michael and kept smiling until he disappeared. ‘I shall be when thou seeketh and shall appeareth when thou needeth me whenever thou art ready my child.’
Those were the words that echoed like a whisper in Michael’s heart as he walked up the stairs.
In the church were the preacher and Sabrina are on their knees praying, the sound of Michael’s footsteps made them stop praying and they both turned. Michael was walking fast going out of the church building. Sabrina quickly stood on her feet and followed him calling but he didn’t turn, he ran out of the church and far away into the bushes, Michael ran until he almost lost his breath, he stopped under a tree and lay on the ground looking up at the sky through the leaves. Michael was totally confused, he had no idea what just happened, he took a nap under the tree and by the time he was up, it was already sunset so he rushed to the hotel and on his way, he got a call from the detective that Junior was planning to meet the two men around midnight at the address he sent to him earlier. Michael thanked the detective and hung up and as soon as he ended the call he scrolled through his phone and dialed Clara’s number, she told him that Junior said his father’s body won’t be put to rest till the killers are caught and put to justice. She sounded worried about Michael and he told her he was doing fine and thanked her for her concern, she wished him well and told him to take care of himself and his daughter, telling him that she was planning to leave town the next day to a much safer place but would come back when things calm down or for the old man’s burial when the date is set. She also explained to him that a circular was posted and the company was closed for a week or until things settle as the country itself is bracing for defence against threats by terrorists and other neighbouring nations, all government offices were shut down and all private companies were advised to go on a lockdown until the country is safe for business.
On reaching the hotel, Michael waved at the receptionist who smiled at him and made his way to the lift, there were two people inside—a man wearing a black shirt and a woman in a pink gown—and as the lift was about to close, a woman with two dogs pressed the button and entered with them, this made the other woman in pink ran behind Michael screaming and shaking. Michael quickly pressed the button and the lift opened again, Michael then asked the lady with the dogs to please kindly move out and take the stairs with her dogs that the other woman was afraid of dogs. The lady with the dogs was offended but she had to go out as the two men stared at her, after she walked out, the woman in pink thanked Michael and he said no word but smiled at her as the lift closed.
Michael got back into the room and met his daughter with Paul and Samantha. Gillian jumped on him, smiling. He sat down, ate some food offered to him by Samantha, and thanked the two for looking after Gillian. He lied to them that he went to the office to have some issues cleared, he then asked Gillian to excuse the three of them so she went to the bedroom leaving them by the diner in the parlour. Michael was quiet at first and after a long silence he removed the pistol and kept it on the table, scaring Samantha. Michael also kept the pictures of the two men he got from the detective and explained to them how he got it and what he intend doing that night, they tried to talk him out of it but he refused to listen. He told them that he needed to do this for Jana.
‘What do you think Jana would really want, Michael? Take matters on your own and stain your hands with blood? What if the authority finds out? Think about Gillian!’ said Paul. The two tried to persuade Michael but he kept a deaf ear to their voices.
While they were talking, Gillian walked excitedly and asked Paul and Samantha to tell her father about the man that came to see them. Michael hid the gun under the table cloth. ‘What man, sweetie? What man is she talking about . . . huh?’ asked Michael, who turned to the couple.
Paul and Samantha looked at each other and Paul said, ‘it’s the um . . . Ambassador, he was here.’
‘What Ambassador?’ he asked. His daughter, out of excitement, described the man and the description matched that of the man he encountered at the church basement. Gillian went ahead to say that the man was the same man she kept seeing in her dreams whenever she was attacked, but that in her dreams he was always shining brightly with such great light. ‘Remember that man I told you, Daddy, that saved me from the lions in my recurring dream the other day?’ said Gillian as she sat on his thigh, smiling.
Michael asked gently about the time the man came and when they told him, it was about the same time he was down at the basement in the church. What marvelled him was how the man was able to be in two places at the same time. Paul told Michael he had a confession to make, he explained to Michael that he and Samantha have been under attacks and many mysterious things have been happening to them, that was why they left their town and ran to the city after Samantha had an encounter with the Ambassador and He told her in a dream that safety would come through this land and so they packed and moved here before the chaos hit the city, the idea of Paul coming for an assignment was a cover up not to make him think they were weird or crazy if they had opened up to him in the first place. They told Michael that Samantha has been having miscarriages whenever she took in since their marriage for four years, and it has not been easy for them since until they decided to sincerely pray over the matter, but the lord has blessed her womb and she was three months pregnant and that they believed this baby was here to stay, the two looked so happy talking about their unborn child.
Samantha explained how she saw herself carrying rocks in her stomach which were put inside of her by Hibnus who came in the form of a dark-figured woman in a dream, and the Ambassador appeared and Hibnus fled, so the Ambassador removed the rocks from her stomach and told her she shall be the joy of many as her womb shall bring forth what it was moulded to hold for nine months in the shortest time possible known to man, and that the Ambassador has been visiting her night after night and had appeared to Paul too several times. Since then, the two were instructed to come to the city according to the instructions by the one they called the Ambassador. He told them that shelter shall be laid in the midst of darkness in this very city. Michael felt the couple were losing it, he began to think that everybody around him was either running mad or that they were playing pranks on him, he wanted to laugh and call them fools but his mind was on his mission.