1 Stalked

Raising the bullhorn to my lips I called out through it as the surf washed around my ankles, "That's far enough. You two over by the rocks you need to get back in and closer to the shore. There are dangerous undertows over there."

The two tourists I had directed my amplified voice at reacted with the typical surprise of someone being called out and quickly made away from the rocks.

"Thank you." I called out with satisfaction through the bullhorn. Letting the bullhorn fall down to brush against my thigh I ambled back along the beach to my lifeguard station.

My summer job, as a lifeguard, wasn't all that overly rewarding except for one thing. I got to be in a continuous relationship with the ocean.

Ever since growing up as a girl in Cape Town, South Africa to now studying to be an oceanographer at a university exchange program here in Oregon I had loved anything to do with the water. My parents said that I had spent more time in the water than out of it and they might just be right on that one.

I climbed up the steps to my lofty seat cast in shade by an umbrella and commenced to oversee the domain of Oregon beachfront that I was responsible for. Summer vacation had started a month back and I had wanted to go back to South Africa to visit, but one of the professors had asked for my help on a research project and so I had stayed behind.

Right now though I wish I hadn't. So much was going strangely these days and I had the innate desire to be with my friends and family as opposed to being by myself on these foreign shores of America.

I had friends here, but to them I was just the slightly odd South African Christian girl with a funny accent. If it wasn't my accent it seemed to be something about my refusal to join the party lifestyles of my fellow classmates that seemed to set me apart from the status quo of the current liberal times here in America.

I wasn't changing, however just to suit them, but I did feel very much alone and once more I regretted my decision to stay here for the summer. Speaking of being alone he was back.

I leaned forward on my perch to study the silent individual who sat about a hundred feet further up the beach in his usual spot. This man was a complete enigma to me.

He was always alone. I never saw him arrive, but suddenly he would be there sitting on the beach, staring out at the crashing waves as if wanting to be a part of the action, but apart from it as if bound by some invisible hand.

He never went into the water, but he stared at it for hours. It was the only thing that kept his attention, except for one other thing, me. He stared at me.

The way he stared at me was alarming, because I knew what he was thinking. He wanted me sexually and he did nothing to hide it, but gazed at me with a frank forthrightness that had caused me to come to silently fear just the sight of him.

He was big in a way that was more than just being tall and muscular. He had an ingrained intensity and discipline about him that said he had the ability to seize a giant twice his size and break him in half over his knee.

The degree of coldness about him was perhaps the most off-putting of all. He seemed devoid of emotion other than the urge I saw within him to be swimming in the ocean and to sexually have me.

It had gotten to the point that I hated to even walk past him, because of the way his eyes seemed to stalk after me. I did not feel safe around him at all.

Truly many men, mostly tourists, openly lusted for me in the course of my duties as I made my rounds along the beach. It was unavoidable as it seemed that most men anymore didn't seem to have any manners and in general it was easy for me to pray for them and just move on and disregard their open lust for me, as well as their called out whistles and comments engineered to spark further communication, as if I existed as some sexy playmate for their desires simply because I was a lifeguard and too many of them had grown up watching Baywatch.

Even as I disregarded them I couldn't do the same for him. I felt threatened by him and it was with relief that he was always gone from the beach before my shift was over and I had to make my way to the often vacant parking lot where I had to then wait for a taxi to pick me up.

There were no lights or security cameras and it was an unpleasant thing, as a young, attractive woman, to have to wait for the taxi to come. I'd asked to have the early shift, but my request had been declined and so I was tasked with closing the beach in the evening.

Really, I should just quit and tell my professor good luck and go home until school started up again. The more I thought about it as I gazed at the man, who had become my silent nemesis, I realized the validity of what a good idea that was.

Getting a couple of extra credits was not worth getting mugged, putting up with tourists, or of being stalked by a man that scared me. It was with surprise then that I realized something in regards to my uncomfortable feelings engineered by this man.

With all the worry and angst he had put me through I had failed to do the one thing that I should've done first. I hadn't taken it to God in prayer.

Wasting no time I closed my eyes and prayed, "Dear God, I need Your help. This man scares me and I'm not supposed to give into fear, but I have and now I'm giving You my fears. Please help me and keep me safe and show me whether I should quit and go home or not. Also, the man, even though I feel he is my enemy, is not a happy one. I don't know what he is struggling with, but I pray that You would help him and make a way by which, if he doesn't already have a relationship with Your Son Jesus that he would soon find it. In Jesus Name I ask and pray these things."

I opened my eyes and looked around. Everything was the same, but I felt emboldened.

It was time to make my rounds and I climbed down and began to make my way up the beach. Almost as if he had the benefit of sonar to aid him I witnessed my silent watcher turn his head from the ocean to view me.

His look of forlorn wistfulness that he had given the ocean now turned into one of open hunger as his eyes ran over me possessively. Perhaps that was why his lust for me bothered me so much.

Other men lusted for me, but his look said that I belonged to him, as if it was some foregone conclusion and that I had no choice in the matter. My old fears rose up sharply within me and I was on the verge of passing him by when I turned instead to approach him.

His gaze took in my advance upon him with nothing but lustful interest, where other men having been caught might have looked away and acted as if they hadn't been looking at me. Not him though.

Coming to a stop in the hot sand I spoke out my thoughts, as best as I could state them, all the while feeling like a defenseless bunny in front of a devouring wolf, "Sir, I know this is a free country and so as you have broken no law there is nothing I can do to change a situation that I do not like. I do not like the way you look at me, but as a person with a God-given choice you have the right to look at me however you wish to, but I humbly ask that you would not look at me as you do. I'm sorry if my skimpy attire is a distraction for you and perhaps what would be best is for you to pick a different section of the beach for you to sit upon. If that's not doable then I'm going to need to resign my position here and and and...." Sounding ridiculous to even my own ears, I threw up my hands and stalked away down the beach and just like always I felt his lusting gaze follow after me.

There was just no other way of getting around it, I needed to quit my job and go home. I nodded my head to that resolution as my blonde hair whipped about my face on a sudden landward breeze.

With the breeze came a spoken word into my soul that had me come to a standstill in the sand, "Jolana?"

Shaking inwardly and probably outwardly I whispered in reply, "Yes God?"

"It's too late to go home. Judgment upon this nation and the beginning of sorrows for many other nations within the world has begun, but you are set apart to Me and I've made a way by which your life will be spared, if you so wish it to be so."

Feeling tears streak down my face I asked in shock, "I can't go home?"

"Your home is in Me. I will keep you. Be patient child and you will see."

Nothing more came to me and wiping at my face I gazed around at the happy vacationers enjoying themselves in the sand and surf as if they didn't have a care in the world. I on the other hand felt like screaming at the top of my lungs in hopes of waking them up to what I had just been alerted of in the spirit to by my God.

Suddenly there was screaming and with alarm I looked up and out to sea. A surfer far out past the main traffic on the beach was floundering about and crying out unintelligibly. With focus I sprang into action as my training took over.

I raced back to my station and grabbed the preserver board and tied it off before then running down the beach and plunging into the surf. I was a powerful swimmer, but he was far out and by the time I neared him I was out of breath and taxed physically.

The situation I faced though immediately sent chills down my spine as instead of a cramped up wakeboarder I was presented with a man missing half his arm. Blood was gushing everywhere and the man was beside himself with terror.

Careful to avoid his attempts to latch hold of me and likely drown us both I pulled the preserver board close to me and began to extend it outward to him when something huge brushed by me. The water foamed white before me and broke apart, as if a wave had suddenly erupted.

The shark for that was what it was chomped into the preserver and ripped it from my hands before splitting through the water between me and the struggling man, who now screamed manically upon seeing the shark once more. I screamed too, as I was abruptly pulled through the water and then beneath it.

In terror my eyes took in the fact that I was being pulled along by the shark because of the preserver's line wrapped around my ankle. Thankfully, it pulled off my ankle and I backpedaled away from the underwater monster with my effort to rise to the surface and escape from it.

In my one track thought of escaping one threat to my life I gave authorship to another, as my head came above the surface of the water and I bumped accidentally into the injured surfer. Almost instantly my head was plunged back downward beneath the water as the surfer latched onto me.

I needed air, but the man was almost twice my size and aided by the adrenaline of fear in his effort to be free of the water he held me down. Struggling to rise up for air and break away from him I stopped in terror as my eyes took in the fast-moving object of toothed terror that was coming in fast at me from below!

Oh God, I was going to die! None of what was happening this day made sense!

Despite my training and long exposure to being in the water I lost everything to fear and screamed, but despite my cloud of bubbles nothing happened and then it did. Something slammed into the shark and blood gushed everywhere, as did the water, as the huge shark thrashed about mightily.

Unwittingly though the intense current of disturbed water forced me up to the surface and I gasped for air, only to be plunged back under by the surfer who now had a painful grip on my hair. I blinked, but the water was awash with blood and I couldn't see anything.

There was a struggle suddenly from beside me and the pressure keeping me under suddenly went slack. Something latched onto my arm and about pulled it out of its socket as it tugged me upward.

I crested the surface of the water and gasped for air, which is when I saw him. The man I'd told to leave me alone. The man I had to now credit with saving my life somehow.

His voice loud, but dim sounding at the same time I heard him call out, "You alright?"

Not waiting for an answer, he reached out and slapped me none too gently on the face, but some part of me knew that I'd needed the pain to help refocus and my breathing picked up to normal again.

I half choked out, "I'm okay." Even as I acknowledged fuzzily that I was in shock and desperately needed to get out of the water.

As if opening my eyes for the first time I gazed about. With a little scream, I shot away from the sight of something massive and bloody nearby.

"Relax its dead." Came the terse response from my nemesis of the past month.

Foggily my mind took in the fact that this man had somehow killed a shark. I had been right about him, he was as dangerous as I'd thought he was and more and yet he'd risked his life to save mine.

"Hey, Princess, you mind giving me a hand here?"

Dazedly, I spun in the water to behold my nemesis struggling to keep the unconscious surfer's head above the water, as he tried to twist off a tourniquet about the man's upper arm at the same time. Training helped me spring into action and moving forward I stabilized the man in the water so that he could focus on tying the man's arm off.

Tying it off, he took hold of the man once more and giving me a cursory look he asked, "What's your name Princess?"

"Jolana." I replied dazedly.

"Well, Jolana, we need to get to shore now. Can you swim?"

Nodding, I turned about in the water, but my sense of direction didn't seem to be working. His big hand grasped a hold of the back of my neck and he moved me around in the water in a new direction even as he dryly commented, "This way Princess."

Still dazed, I asked, "Why are you calling me that?"

His hand was gone from my neck and then I gasped with surprise as I felt it sharply smack across my bottom. I surged forward in the water away from him only to hear his words drift along after me, "Because you act like one."

I began swimming then and I didn't stop until my toes dug into the sand of the beach. Forcing myself to stop I turned to help the man bring the surfer up out of the waves and onto the beach where miraculously an ambulance was already parked with all its lights glistening.

The surfer was taken from us and very much feeling like I was functioning on autopilot, I stumbled off to my station. Clumsily claiming a hold of my bullhorn I pulled it up to announce, "The beach is closed. Please leave. I'm sorry, but the beach is closed."

There really had been no need for the words as tourists everywhere were flocking to their cars and getting the heck out of Dodge. Glancing around at the pandemonium I idly watched as the carcass of what I identified as an adult great white shark came floating bloodily in to be stranded on the sands of the beach. How on earth was such a thing possible?

I should be dead, but I wasn't just as God had told me that I would be preserved, even so I had been from certain death. And of all means of accomplishing it, God had used my nemesis of all people to do it!

I sat down upon the sand abruptly. Nothing made sense.

Pulling my knees up to my chest I pressed my face against them as I realized for the first time how badly I was shivering. A warm towel was draped around my back and shoulders, followed by a second one across the front of my legs and my feet.

Glancing up I saw it was him again and whispering out softly I said, "Thank you."

He grunted and looked away for a moment before taking his soaked T-shirt off. My gaze took in the resplendently ripped physique of not only an athlete, but one who was a warrior as well.

He was beautiful and yet I could see scars, and even what I took to be healed over bullet holes. He did nothing but stand there bare chested gazing out at the ocean once more.

Forcing my eyes to leave him I glanced elsewhere, only to take in the fact that the beach was entirely deserted of every last living soul that had just populated it but minutes before. Oh God, I was here alone with him!

I flinched slightly as he abruptly sat down on the sand beside me. Sighing, he asked out loud while still gazing out at the ocean, "Why are you so afraid of me?"

There it was an honest question. Honesty deserved an answer and my lips feeling numb, I tried to give life to one, "Because of the way you look at me. You make me feel like I'm a prey animal and that you're the tiger waiting to spring and sink its fangs into the back of my neck."

He nodded his head and then giving a bittersweet smile he said, "True enough, I guess, only it wouldn't be my teeth that I'd sink into you."

He glanced at me and not wanting to play any games with this man, I asked "Are you going to rape me?"

"Do you want me to?"

"No." I whispered back in reply.

He glanced back out to sea and so did I. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I wasn't going to leave unsaid what needed to be said, "Thank you for saving my life. Whatever you decide to do, I thank you for what you did earlier."

It was said now and with unsteady lips I continued staring out to sea, as he turned his head to look at me. Glancing away, he rubbed at his face for a moment before saying, "Actually, I have something I need to thank you for."

I glanced at him in surprise and asked, "What?"

"You got me back into the water. I.... it's been a while and I thought I was all washed up, but.... maybe I'm not. I killed a shark today." He said the last as if it was a reassuring clue of perceived manliness. What on earth could make this man lack in the confidence of his own masculinity?

He practically exuded raw maleness. A maleness that ached to possess my body and it wasn't just because I was pretty.

In my study of him this past month I'd noticed him not pay attention to any woman the way that he had to me. Why was that?

The Spirit of my Creator softly commented into my thoughts, "He's lost and like a light in the dark he's attracted to your soul, Jolana."

Feeling as if my breath had been taken from me, I silently asked God, "How far do You intend for this to go? I mean... what... I don't understand."

"I know. Child look up."

I did and when I did I gasped out loud as my eyes took in the sight of the huge fireball that seemed to take up half the sky with its brilliance as it streaked out overhead in the direction of the ocean. The man beside me saw it and cursing in exclamation he stood up, while I stayed where I was in shock.

"Everything is about to change child. How far you wish to go I leave for you to decide. Stay here on the beach and soon I will gather you along with your family into My everlasting Kingdom, as one of my favored children, or leave now with him and I will safeguard you in the difficulties of life ahead and bring forth good fruit of it."

Feeling tears streak down my face I breathed out in brokenness, "My family?"

"With Me child. They will know no more pain, only My joy."

Breathing out I said, "This is why I stayed isn't it? You wanted me here. Why?"

I glanced up to the man that stood as if spell locked, as he gazed out over the ocean at the fiery ball of color that was sinking ever lower towards the waves.

"If I stay he dies." I said softly, as if acknowledging what was already a fact.

"Yes, he will and he will be forever separated from Me."

My hand rose up to my mouth as the awful reality of what hell would be like became a full reality as I gazed upon this man, who would soon be there if I did not act. I did not like him at all or care for him, but I wished for no man what I knew to be a future without hope cast off into endless torment.

"You want me to go with him?" I silently queried seeking the support I needed of my Creator's Holy Spirit to make a choice that I never would have believed would've been asked of me.

"It's your choice Jolana."

I stood up, feeling shaken to the core of my being and still reeling with the emotion that, while still alive, I would never see my family again. I tugged on the man's arm and dazedly he glanced at me and feeling stripped raw to the depths of my spirit, I said, "Do you believe in hell?"

I didn't wait for him to answer before I continued on with intensity, "Well, I do and I tell you right now that you're headed straight there if we don't leave this beach right now!"

Again, I didn't wait for a response, but grabbing a hold of his hand, I tugged him up the beach towards the parking lot and the only vehicle left in it, his Jeep. Reaching it, I let go of his hand and went around it to the passenger door.

I'd expected him to go to his side, but he was behind me and then opening the door before me. Feeling very weird still dressed in only a bikini I climbed up to sit down into the passenger seat of the Jeep.

Oh, why hadn't I grabbed my clothes or at least a towel! But then what did it matter anyway.

He was taking longer than expected and I started to turn to look for him, when out of breath, he appeared at the driver door of the Jeep. He jumped in and tossed of all things my clothes and purse at me.

He'd even brought my shoes! Stunned, I looked down at them laying on my lap, as he brought the Jeep alive and cranked it into reverse and then forward as he peeled out of the parking lot.

Dazedly I pulled my tank top over my bikini and then precariously pulled on my Capri pants as he drove like a crazy man. Capri pants on I hastily buckled my seatbelt and wiped at the tears on my face that never seemed to stop.

Like it or not I had made a big decision in what I had chosen to do and I knew what it would surely lead to in regards to him, but it had been nice of him to get my clothes and shoes like he had done. It was nice to know that he could be nice. It helped somehow knowing that he was capable of that.

I glanced at him to see sweat rolling down his face. Feeling very calm I reached over and laid my hand on his knee.

He glanced at me and to my surprise, I saw fear; great fear. Not of me, but of something else.

Soothingly I said, "Relax, you're going to be okay, but if possible I think you need to drive even faster."

His eyes traced from me to the speedometer that was already pegged at over a 100. Not saying anything though I saw him stomp harder on the gas and I did my best then to hold onto the contents of my stomach as we peeled around curves and stopped motorists gazing off after the trail of the asteroid like bugs zoned into the bug zapper's bright glow in the gloom of the night.

"Where should I go?" He gritted out, as he dodged around a slow-moving minivan.

"Inland as fast as you can go. You need to get to high ground, preferably past Interstate 5."

His jaw moved and he pressed on the gas even more. At that moment the road heaved beneath us and if it hadn't been for my seatbelt I would've banged my head off of the ceiling.

How he kept the Jeep upright as we spun one way and then the other I do not know, other than that I could never hope to equal such driving skills. He cursed and I saw the road up ahead was blocked by two vehicles.

We were too close to stop at the speed we were going at and yet God had promised and armed me with a hope and so amazingly unconcerned I said, "I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop cursing like that. Taking the Lord's name in vain is not a good thing to do."

He spared one disbelieving look at me before redirecting focus and slamming the Jeep into neutral before then spinning the wheel hard. The jeep skidded around until its rear outraced the front, but in doing such the jeep skidded in a trajectory that curveballed through the narrow gap between the vehicles and coming to a sliding stop in the dust off to the side of the road he jammed it back into drive and with heavy treaded tires ripping and spewing sand and gravel we took off again forward with the velocity of a rocket taking off.

Feeling glued to my seat and seeing double I wasn't expecting it when he said, "I'll get right to work on that Princess."

I glanced at him. His tone hadn't been as overly sarcastic as it had been bemused sounding.

Curiously, I asked, "What's your name?"

"Orrin."

"Mine is Jolana." I stated intentionally reminding him of the fact that he already knew my name.

"As you wish Princess." He replied back with equally intentional.

I don't know why, but I smiled at his response, as we swerved about fallen rocks in the road and other vehicles with such seemingly superlative ease that I couldn't refrain from asking, "Exactly what is it that you do for a living?"

"I was a Navy Seal once and then other things, but I got washed up."

I glanced at him to see the bitterness that I'd heard in his words fully marred across his unmistakably very handsome face. Feeling around for something to say to soften the tightness that my question had brought to him I said, "You killed a shark today."

The tension in his shoulders eased slightly and then glancing at me he accusingly asked, "Why are you being nice to me all of a sudden?"

It was a hard question to answer, but finding one I tugged at my shirt hem and said, "You were nice to me."

"Just being practical."

"How's that?" I asked.

"You're distracting enough without having you permanently so."

I stared at him in surprise and then curiously I asked, "I'm not distracting you now?"

He started to curse, but he stopped mid-note. Looking over at me he aggressively said, "Why don't you just shut up!"

He returned his glance to the road ahead, as he gripped the wheel hard, before then glancing in his rearview mirror. It was clear that he was trying to ignore me, but not put off I asked, "Are you worried about dying?"

"Aren't you?" He accused harshly.

"No." I replied back with honesty.

He glanced at me uncertainly and I met his gaze for a moment before gazing away to the road ahead. We'd reached a main road and our speed was once more well over a 100.

I didn't quite know how to put what needed to be said, but I tried, "I made a big decision back there on the beach to come with you. I don't know if you've fully realized it yet or not, but life is never going to be the same. Society, everything is going to change and it's going to be a fight just to survive. For someone with your background that won't be such a problem, but you're not alone anymore. You have a woman to think of. Can you promise me that you're going to do your best to look out for me and save me, if need be, from tough situations and the abuse of others that would wish to harm me? If you can't promise that then you need to stop right now and let me out, because I'm not going another mile with you, if you're not capable or willing to be a caretaker of me."

Wiping at the trails of sweat rolling off his forehead Orrin gave me a speculative glance that said he was very unsure as to what to think of me. Stating his thoughts plainly, which was something I really liked about him, he said, "You know you're really weird!"

"Answer the question Orrin. I'm serious."

He glanced at me and for emphasis I put my hand on the doorknob. He glanced from it and then to me as with a ready intelligence he surmised the situation up by saying, "You'd really jump out wouldn't you."

Woodenly I said, "I've got nothing left to live for. My family, the people I care about most, are all dead. It would be very easy to go and join them right now." Fresh tears streaked down my face as the full memory of my loss hit home once more.

"How do you know they're dead?" Orrin asked softly.

"God told me." I responded with upfrontly before pressing hard with, "Well how about it? Are you in or out, because soon I'm out!"

My hand pulled on the handle and crying out he said, "Wait! I.... what are we even talking about here? I mean... I.....?"

"It's simple Orrin. The question is are you going to be responsible for me and care for me as a man would for his mate?"

"Why would you want me to be that?" He asked expressing genuine surprise.

I shook my head, "I don't, but I want.... I want you to have a chance. I'm willing to be used to that end to give you a chance at heaven, but I'm not making such a sacrifice for any no account stalking deadbeat that doesn't have the guts to speak up for what he wants!"

I'd said the words plainly and his response was quick and sincere, as he dodged his gaze away from the hazards of the road to me to say, "I want you and I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe! Please don't jump!"

A calm, peace settled over me and then I willingly allowed it to change me. I settled back into my seat and took my hand off the doorknob.

I heard him release a pent up breath and then he asked, "What.... why do you even trust me?"

"I don't know." I answered truthfully. I glanced at him and then stated, "I've given myself to you, but if you go back on your promise heaven help you! Now if you wish to live to claim your reward I suggest that you start driving faster."

He glanced at me with a look of both confusion and the intense passion he had for me. I pointed to the rearview mirror and he glanced at it only to then curse viciously at the sight of a towering wave in the far-off distance.

"Don't curse." I said, but my words were lost in the roar of the Jeep as he taxed it for all it was worth.

I turned my head away and gazed idly at the wave approaching from the rear. Silently I prayed, "I've done my part. I'll try my best, but I need Your help. I don't like this road You have me on at all!"

"I know child." Came my answering response and I closed my eyes, as fresh tears welled up and spilled from my eyes, as no deliverance from the future that I had agreed upon came to greet me by way of a reprieve.