Chapter 4: Mission Assigned

Holly just finished preparing dinner as the last of the boys, John and Enrique, came walking through the door. They crept in with disappointment and frustration on their faces as they kicked off their shoes and headed for the kitchen.

Holly gestured for them to sit down as she prepared plates to serve them. Joseph, Joan, and Marko had already taken their seats and they watched them curiously as they took theirs.

“You guys don’t look too happy. What’s the matter?” Joseph asked, eagerly awaiting their response.

“We ain’t find jack shit!” Josh exclaimed bitterly with annoyance in his voice. He looked at Joan, anticipating a savvy. But she sat their silently.

“Now what’s wrong with her?” Josh asked, continuing to look at her unchanging expression. She looked back at him and sighed softly.

“I’ll talk about it in a little bit,” she responded hesitantly, which was very unusual for her. “We should break the ice first. Talk about what we found, and I’ll go from there.”

“Gotcha chief,” Josh said as he lightly rubbed his forehead.

During this conversation, Holly distributed all the dinner plates to everyone and then seated herself. She baked chicken topped with various vegetables and peppers along with rice and beans as sides.

They all began to eat and looked around awkwardly at each other, waiting for the first person to share their experiences from the day.

Joseph seemed to get the most direct looks at him, obligating him to be the first to speak. He then began to collect his thoughts and figure out where he wanted to begin.

“Well. I guess I’ll start then,” he said with a soft cough to clear his throat. “Honestly. We came across a lot of information, but it’s difficult to tell what’s useful or not. A lot of it is very unclear and just kind of weird, frankly.” He began to explain, and Marko nodded his head in support.

With everyone’s attention fixed on Joseph, most had stopped eating, and stared at him curiously.

“So, for starters. We ran into some kids that were drawing pictures of angels and demons. Curious as to why they were doing this, we ran inside and asked their mother. She explained to us that her mother was constantly warning of a blood red rain coming one day, signifying the rapture or something. She then explained that this would result in some fight between the devil and an angel. Following so far?”

His roommates nodded their heads and continued to carefully listen to his story.

“Right. So, we weren’t too interested in this jargon, but we noted it. However, what we discovered that was very strange was that the kids had actually flipped the drawings on us, claiming that the devil is really the angel and the angel is really the devil. I don’t know. Didn’t make a whole lot of sense and I’m still scratching my head about it. And even weirder than that, one of the kids drew a picture of me. And the kid had never even looked at me. He started drawing the picture before we got there. And not only that but it actually has a lot of my features correct.”

As Joseph finished explaining that portion, he handed the picture to Holly to pass around to everyone. That all cringed at it, trying to figure out exactly what was going on in the drawing.

“So, some random kid drew this?” Josh asked, raising an eyebrow as he received the picture from Holly.

“Yes. That is correct, but don’t underplay it. I think there’s something strange going on with that kid. He gave me really uncomfortable vibes.”

Josh continued to study the picture, finding more questions to ask about it.

“Okay. So, what exactly is significant about it? That he drew it without looking at you? That doesn’t seem to tell us anything about the rain.” Josh criticized the information and passed the photo to Enrique.

“It doesn’t tell us anything about the rain yet, but I think that we may be able to learn something from these kids. Like we said before. Their grandmother made predictions about the rain decades before it started.” Joseph explained desperately as he struggled to find the best words to outline the significance of the drawing.

“If you’re still not following,” Marko intervened. “We know that those kids know something about the rain that we don’t. I’m also starting to think that maybe there is a bigger picture than the rain because of what the kids were drawing, and because their grandmother may have known things she shouldn’t have known, we’re thinking it’s very likely that these kids might also.”

“Yeah. I don’t get it but please continue!” Holly exclaimed excitedly and smiled brilliantly at Joseph who panicked at the sudden change of pace.

“Oh right!” He said as he collected his thoughts once more. “Umm. Well anyway. Forget about the drawing for now. We continued our trip to the religion department of our school and found Dr. Kilmer in his office. He’s a new professor here, but he had probably the most useful information we got today. He told us that the rain started seven years ago at Yellowstone National Park near the super volcanoes.”

Joseph shocked the audience as they glared at him enticingly. This was a particularly interesting find as they were previously led to believe that the rain was confined only to their area and occurred for the first time merely three years ago.

“Seven years ago? And it wasn’t even here?” Joan asked feeling incredibly unnerved from everything she’d experienced throughout the day.

Joseph nodded his head and surveyed the room for other lingering questions, but the room was mostly silent as everyone tried to piece together different sections of the puzzle.

“Enrique, you haven’t said anything. What are you thinking?” Marko asked, failing to fully grab his attention as he continued to stare down at his plate below him silently.

The whole room was silent as Enrique continued to keep quiet though the question was directed explicitly to him.

After a long awkward pause and anxious anticipation, Enrique spoke. “Well, I’m trying to think. There’s not really enough information to say anything yet, and I want to piece together as much as I can to come up with something. Just keep talking. When I get to that point, I’ll let you know.”

“Why do you always gotta keep your mouth shut ‘til the very end. You should speak more. I don’t want to forget what your sweet voice sounds like.” Josh said, nudging his quest partner on the shoulder playfully.

“How do you think I keep it this sweet? I like to think of my voice as a sweet homemade sangria – the kind you make only for very special events and for very special guests. You don't want to use it all the time and for every event because then it's not as sweet. You know? That's what tequila is for," he said with a sharp Hispanic laugh that he was clearly acting out for effect.

"You're right. Preserve that sweet sangria voice of yours. Don't even waste it on me!" Josh said jokingly.

"Ahh you see now? Your voice is more like tequila. Which is a good thing in your case because you can talk all day and no one's ever going to get tired of you."

"Ahh shucks, Enrique! You keep up them compliments and you might see me blush for the first time!”

“Can your dark ass even blush?” Enrique triggered an outburst of laughter from everyone including Josh who took no offense to his slightly racist remark.

“Shit. Keep talking the way you do and we gone find out. I’ll tell ya that much,” Josh and Enrique continued laughing until the room was awkwardly silent again.”

“Alright. We went a little off the rails with that, but I think it’s Joan and Holly’s turn,” Joseph regained their focus and gestured to the girls.

“We’re not sure if we found anything, but this book I grabbed is really weird,” Holly explained as she reached down to the floor below her and picked up the book to show to everyone.

“It’s called The Devil’s Uprising,” she said as she passed it along to everyone. Josh received it first and began to flip through the pages, quickly realizing that it was full of blank pages.

“So what’s so special about an empty book?” He paused and continued to flip through the pages. “Besides from it being empty?”

“Well there’s actually one page that has something written on it but it’s in some weird language that we don’t understand. But the contents so far are not what’s interesting. What’s interesting is that when I grabbed the book, I instantly felt like I was freezing – colder than I had ever felt in my life.” Holly continued to explain as the book was passed down to Enrique. He looked at it briefly, sifted through the pages, then passed it to Marko.

“You felt cold when touching it? Like you were experiencing something supernatural?” Joseph asked as he was incredibly familiar with the bizarre and discomforting feeling.

“Exactly. It might sound like a leap, but I think that maybe there’s more to this book than it appears.” Holly shrugged her shoulders uncertainly and looked over to Joan who was still considerably shaken up.

“Wait a second, Joseph—” Marko paused and showed a page of the book to him. “Look at this.” Both of their eyes widened, and their mouths gaped open as they stared at a shocking piece of information.