Showdown by Ted Dekker

Author:Ted Dekker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

PARADISE

Saturday afternoon

THE RED marble didn’t budge for two hours, at least not that Johnny had seen, and he’d watched it pretty close. It wasn’t that he was still so fascinated by the shooter, but that he was out of alternatives. He should be doing something to fix the predicament they were in, but he was at a loss.

He couldn’t phone out. He didn’t want to go out. He didn’t want to stay in either, but that was all there was to do now. Stay in his room, a ball of frayed nerves, and watch the marble while his head spun through possibilities.

He thought he heard his mother stirring down the hall once, but he couldn’t be sure with all the wind banging things against the house. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to confront her now.

Black was bad.

Black was good.

Black was a demon from hell who’d come to destroy and kill and do whatever demons do.

Black was an angel sent from heaven to expose the evil in the hearts of Paradise and give them all a message of hope and grace.

No. Black was bad, period. Nothing good could possibly cause any of this, unless of course Paradise was a modern Sodom and Gomorrah and this was all a new kind of fire and brimstone.

Either way, Johnny was a boy caught in the middle, powerless to do anything about Black, regardless of whether he was a demon or an angel or just a psycho preacher who had drugged the town.

“What ya doin’?”

Johnny’s eyes jerked away from the marble. Sally stood in the hall, staring at him. She wore one of the new outfits she’d bought in Grand Junction, brown slacks and yellow silky-looking blouse. She’d done her makeup and brushed her hair, even put on a gold necklace and hoop earrings.

“Nothing.”

She walked forward, smirking. “Is that so?” Her eyes weren’t right. They were glassy and slightly bloodshot.

“Did you drink any more of the water?”

“Don’t be silly, Johnny. Why wouldn’t I drink the water, hmm? Because you turned it off, that’s why. How do you expect me to flush the toilet?”

“You turned it back on?”

“Why not? Tastes just fine to me.”

Johnny felt nauseated. If his mother was gone . . .

“Why are you staring at the marble?” she asked, crossing slowly toward the dresser. “Hmm?”

“It . . . I don’t know; I think it moved.”

Sally picked the red shooter up.“It did, did it?” She turned it around in her fingers. Then she lifted it up, pressed it against her right eye, and faced him.

She looked like a red-eyed dress-up doll.

Sally released the marble and let it fall to the carpet. It landed with a thump.

“Looks like a regular marble to me,” she said, walking toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to go,” she said.

Johnny scooted to the edge of his bed and dropped his feet to the floor. “Where? Outside?”

She turned around and curtsied. “I have a date, Johnny. You like?”

A date?

“With who?”

Sally winked, then turned and disappeared down the hall.

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