In the last part the Bible club members met for a summer celebration where Jimmy Orr confessed to his May 15th intentions and then asked to be baptized. Anthony Prescott quickly devolved to his former condition of bleakness, and designed even greater destruction.

“I speak English,” T.J. reminded God. T.J. completely discounted God’s using Markus to speak to him. “You want me, you know where I am,” he thought in what he considered a prayer as he watched the meaningless sitcom his mother had tuned into on TV.

Within days of May 15, the familiar heaviness weighed down onto T.J. Though graduated from the abusive students, everywhere he went he found the same: condescending sneers, bone-crushing handshakes of would-be employers – even the women, for pity’s sake –  his mother’s saying.

“Get a job!” his father scoffed on a daily basis as if it was as easy as that without a car. “The bass boat plant is always hiring. Flip hamburgers, for cryin’-out-loud! It's been two months since you graduated!”

“Honey, you have to either sign up for Community College, or … I don’t know. I don’t think your father will let you live here,” T.J.’s mother told him.

T.J.’s spineless mother was not helpful. T.J. respected them about as much as his past school-mates had him. He continued his silent prayer: “Am I invisible, God? Can’t you see me? That black kid knows my name, but you don’t? I should’ve gone ahead and done it,” he said to himself. Then he heard his father ridicule the sitcom actors, and by transference, his mother, who liked the characters. He imagined himself walking to the front door, ever so casually extracting the Glock from the end table drawer, and then filling the room with pistol smoke – and his parents with lead. Only the thought of his father’s beating him to the draw prevented his following through, his father smashing his face with his fists. A clear enough vision of the scene: his father whipping out a gun of his own, and somehow beating him with it and his fists, completely disavowed him of any notion of shooting him while he was awake.

“In their sleep,” he thought, seeing himself in his father’s recliner, plugging every cop that entered the home until they had to climb over the corpses to get in. “Is that what it takes to get any respect?” T.J. thought. A single target, though, thinking of his father … that would be different from spraying bullets in a crowded hallway. A single target like his father would be problematic. The man could get up and kill him with a chest full of bullets. Get close enough to put a couple in his brain, and he could still awaken and snatch the gun from him. He would have to think about it.

“Maybe he could bicycle to McD’s and flip burgers. At least he could eat all the fries he wanted,” he thought. “That is, if somebody didn’t think it would be funny to dip his head into the vat of boiling grease.”

“Where are you, God, ‘cause I’m bumpin’ up against a time table here,” he lamented. “Either you talk to me, or I explode.”

+++

Emily did, indeed, win valedictorian. Her speech, though well received, was lackluster, hitting not a single point that Philip Andrews would have accented: self-reliance, independence, Washingtonian non-foreign entanglements reduced to the personal level. His would have railed against social welfare issues and government interference of any nature, though he never considered the state-offered scholarship as anything but earned and deserved. But it was not his speech to give. In fact, the only reason he attended the ceremony at all was the pressure applied by his parents. “If you expect graduation gifts, you have to wear the gown. And attend the party wearing your wool double-breasted suit.”

Two years at State, he told himself, and then he would bite the bullet and borrow enough to add to his parents’ home refinancing to afford a real school. He would get his letters in Political Science and return to change the evaluation of this podunk school to better reflect value to legacy students, students who come from founding families, the important families of the community. His changes would guarantee that the atrocity of this year would never be repeated. He would exact his revenge. The very first would be the removal of Dr. Westman, the joke of an administrator. And there wouldn’t be any illegal merging of Church and State with Bible clubs or prayers, even if student-led.

His friend Saul, going to the same state college on the same state scholarship was too pedestrian. Philip quickly brushed him aside as he would dandruff from his shoulder. Associations at this level would not enhance, but only detract from his standing and goals. These next two years, actually eighteen months with an accelerated schedule, would be like time spent in purgatory, a jail sentence, time out from his real life. He wouldn’t be bothered with anything short of entry into the University.

+++

“Oh, Man! Do you feel that?” Jimmy asked John. It was early August. John and Jimmy were double dating with Kailey and Grace. Neither certain who was with whom, both boys in the front seat and the girls in the back. No one held hands entering the movie theater. Only by happenstance the girls sat together between the two boys, Kailey near John, Grace by Jimmy. With two buckets of popcorn to share between the four of them, Jimmy and Grace accidentally touched fingers all the way to the bottom, producing bashful smiles with each touch.

“Look, there’s Goth,” Jimmy said. John was already locked onto the young man who casually walked across the front of the theater. The trailers were yet to begin. Jimmy had just sat down with the two tubs of corn. John bought the drinks from a faster clerk and was already seated with the girls.

“What’s he doing?” Grace asked.

“It ain’t good,” Jimmy answered.

John’s jawed clenched repeatedly, watching Anthony Prescott cross the room, his face turned to the mass in the center of the auditorium.

Kailey pinched her eyes shut, lost in prayer.

There to see Heaven Is For Real, John watched Anthony walk the outside aisle all the way out of the theater. This night was the last showing of this movie, but a much-anticipated God’s Not Dead movie was due to be released in the fall. Christian kids all over town had been talking about it. Though outwardly enjoying the movie as well as the company, each felt an ominous foreboding with respect to Anthony.

“I think that was a scouting trip,” John said to Jimmy the next day. “Nobody’s going to challenge a briefcase or backpack. People carry them all the time.”

“Do we go to the law?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah, I guess so. But if Anthony waits until the next Christian movie.…”

“But who says it has to be a Christian movie. It could be anything. Last night might have been a coincidence, or something. That he just happened to be there.”

The two reached no conclusion except to report what they knew, which was little to nothing.

+++

Anthony made a second PVC bomb. He also made a look-alike in which he placed three fold-up fishing poles, carrying it all around town, even into the movie theater when he went to see a superhero film.

+++

“I don’t know what to do,” Chloe said to her sister, Grace. “I want to keep the Bible Club going, but I’m not getting very much support from the kids. Certainly not the enthusiasm from last year.”

“I don’t know, Sis. I guess most of the leaders were seniors. But mostly, don’t you think that the real crisis was last year. And, you know, it’s past, behind us?”

“It isn’t over, Grace. I feel it in my heart. Don’t you… feel it? It’s like there’s evil in the air. I feel it, I smell it, I can nearly see it. But even if it is over, shouldn’t we still have a Bible club?”

Grace loved her sister too much to accuse her of nursing a hero obsession, a desire for the limelight. “Well, you know I’m in. Let’s go see Rodney and Hannah and see what we can do. Then we’ll go see Dr. Westman again, just like last year.”

+++

“Hey, Girls!” Rodney beamed as the two entered his office. His demeanor became confused, one girl’s aura cheerful while the other more somber. “Bible Club, Chapter Two. It just came to me. That way it won’t be easily confused with last year. You can sell it as Bible study and not the prayer meetings that… well, you know.”

“Great idea!” Grace returned. Chloe agreed.

“But we need a leader,” Chloe demurred.

“You have one.”

The girls stared at him blankly.

“Grace, I think you’ll agree that Chloe is the obvious option. Chloe, you don’t have to be the teacher to be the leader. Delegate.”

“Great idea, Pastor Rod. That’s a great idea.” Grace hugged her sister’s shoulder.

“Now, that’s settled. The same as last year: transportation, materials, snacks?”

“And prayer support from here and every other church in town?” Chloe added.

Smiling brightly, Rodney said, “See what I mean?”

+++

Dr. Westman was as positive as Rodney had been.

“Dr. Westman,” Chloe said with an exaggerated up-lift to her voice.

His eyes implied she go ahead and ask.

“Would you see if Mr. Kline would give his talk on grand design? Before the kids have the chapter on evolution? We didn’t get to have him last year because of, you know, and …”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “How about week two, your second meeting?”

“How about the third,” Grace countered. “We’ll have more time to advertise it, and get more people. Some might even come thinking they’ll get extra credit.”

“Won’t hurt to let them think that,” Dr. Westman said with a grin. “But girls…” Dr. Westman then thought better of admonishing the two to be wary of visions of grandeur, or any sense of superior standing with respect to their heroic acts of the previous year, knowing that not to be the case. “Oh, nothing. You’ll be fine.”

+++

“Guys and girls.” Chloe addressed the Bible club attendees, waiting for the talking to subside. “Our church has bought a hundred tickets for God’s Not Dead for us.” She waited for the cheers to diminish. “Let’s call all our past members and invite them first. Then whoever has an un-saved friend that will come. Okay? And if there are more friends than tickets we can take up a collection. Agreed?” she asked. Assents could be heard from every quarter.

“The date on the tickets is November tenth,” she added.

“The Marine Corps Birthday, hoorah!” Brett yelled. His father had been a Marine.

+++

“You gonna be here, John?” Kailey asked, receiving an assurance that he’d be home that weekend. Kailey heard about the November event and called John, hoping he would make the date with her.