A Haunting We Will Go "A Second Ghost Story"

"Oh my Yudda Yudda! Where do I start?" He said to himself as he stared out of the eyes of his best friend and buddy, Jemmie Stewart.

"Start from why you're trying to possess me."

The red being, with huge saucer eyes and brown antenna and lots of pink spots and candy stripes running up and down its ghost body, twitched uneasily. "Well, it's not exactly like that."

"Then what is it exactly like?" Jemmie asked, looking at himself in the mirror image of himself on the crashed flying saucer's highly polished metal...which also happened to be stretched across about ten acres of cow pasture, with cows mooing up a storm from the sudden flaming intrusion of this bizarre space alien.

"Yudda told us. Well he told our forefathers that we would never die as long as we had a second ghost."

"I'm not a ghost."

"No, but you're making it possible for me to be one. A second one."

"I don't get it." Jemmie snapped angrily.

"You come crashing down out of the sky like you're hell-bent for leather, scare the crap out of all my cows, which will probably not give me any milk for the next year now, and almost hit me on top of it. How's that make me anything but angry as hell?"

The Second Ghost shrank back in the mirror view and actually popped out of Jemmie's body to stand on the broken turf of the meadow. It trembled uneasily. "That better?"

"Yeah...but."

"But what?"

"If you're a ghost, how are you standing on anything?"

"It's complicated."

"Try me."

"It's like this, when the Great Yudda Yudda made the universe...."

"You mean God."

"No, I mean the Great Yudda Yudda. The One who eats us all and bears us as fruit of his labors."

"Now that sounds just strange." Jemmie barked at the Second Ghost, who shrank back even further, trembling even more.

"No need to get nasty about it. We can have our own Gods. Your people have a history of having many gods, so what's one more?"

Jemmie, tired of all the wrangling with the desperate alien ghost, picked up his shotgun, and turned to go home.

"Wait." The Second Ghost hollered and shot in front of him, blocking his way.

"I need you."

"No, you don't."

"You need me."

"Like since when the beginning of the earth?"

"No, since the date you have tonight."

Jemmie froze. "How'd you know that?"

"I can read your mind."

"All of it."

"Yes. And you humans have very bizarre mating rituals, I will tell you. Now when we want to go biodualistic, we..."

"Pardon?"

"Bio...it means making babies."

"Oh. You make babies?"

"Only on two days of the year, when the Great Yudda Yudda smiles on us, then we can have babies."

"Sounds boring to me."

"Not at all, it leaves the other five hundred and fifty two days free for us to go mushy mush."

"What's mushy..." Jemmie stopped. "Don't tell me, I don't want to know. I'm going home."

He hopped into his jeep, jammed the pedal to the medal, frightening his herd even further, but hurrying to get away from that strange alien. The army, navy, air force, black ops, somebody would be out soon to check out the crash, and he wanted to be as far away as possible when that happened.

He jammed the jeep around a hard curve, then shot onto the main road that paralleled his pasture, and hurtled at top speed for about three miles. He had a lot of land. Shot down the road, his hair blowing in the crisp night air, which was close to freezing now. He didn't slow until he saw the solar lights at his drive entrance, winking blue and green.

He slowed, braked, then swung onto his small patch of road and slung the jeep into a sharp ninety degree angle, slamming to a stop in front of his three bedroom two story house, that he had built himself. He was quite skilled with his hands, his father had told him, and his mind. Because inside the house he had a computer lab setup for his telescope he kept in the attic with the night sky revolving window, so he could watch Mars and Jupiter for signs of alien aircraft. 

That's what had gotten him into the crazy mess with the Second Ghost to begin with. Imagine that, he mused, the ghost of a ghost. It was just crazy, he thought to himself, wincing at the incredible irony of it. How could a ghost have a ghost? Must be short on bodies where the thing came from.

He slung his shotgun under his right arm, hopped from his jeep, then opened his front door with his left hand without slowing. He had done this so many times, that the door was like a greased monkey, it moved so quickly and effortlessly. Course he had greased it enough for that to happen. It also had  sensor which  pulled it quickly open on his touch of the front door knob.

Yeah. He was also an inventor of sorts.

He ate a quick can of pork n beans, chugged down a half quarter of milk. Ate an apple, and a Twinkie, then shoved away from his hand made kitchen table, tossed the wrappers and can into the garbage,  put away the rest of the milk, shut the lights, kicked off his shoes by the front door for ease of getting to them on the morrow, then headed up the spiral flight of stairs he had made. He had fixed the railing so it was wide enough for him to ride it down.

Like the little kid he was in some ways, he still tried to make up for those missing years of his childhood when he had been in a coma for about three years, his parents praying for him to get better, but looking like end times coming anyway.

On the day they pulled the plug, he'd popped out of his wherever he'd been and never been the same since. It was like he had been born twice, with a genius mind, some abilities that quite frankly astounded and scared the crap out of him, and the desire to grow up as fast as possible.

So once he had shifted from middle school to high, he crammed four years into one, then got a free ride to Cal Tech, where he put in some time working on his Doctorate in Quantum Mechanics. He had even got some coaching on the internet and in person from the great Steven Hawkins. Once he graduated, he'd put all his degrees in a milk bottle, shoved it into a trunk, then used his grant money he'd been saving to put a down payment on his farm.

His parents were sad to see him go, but they were getting older, and the farm quickly became a source of income for them and him, and they didn't mind so much, especially since he had built them a home about two acres away from him with a connecting road so they could visit whenever they chose.

He slipped his clothes off, and got into his shower, complete with Jacuzzi shower head and stripped the sweat and cow smell from him, as well as the grease and smoke from the saucer. It had been quite a mess when he found it.

As he dried off, he remembered finding the dead alien. It looked like one of his cows, but with huge saucer shaped eyes and lots of yellow spots. Later, after the Second Ghost had appeared and tried to take him over, he had learned that the ghosts of those aliens were actually more intelligent than the aliens themselves.

He slipped on his jammies, then went up the spiral ladder in the hallway to his attic lab. Yeah. He sure liked those spiral stair things

He turned on all his hand-made equipment and the room came to live with buzzes, hmms, and haws, humming, zpps, and slurrs and his telescope descended from the ceiling with the Captain Kirk Command Console Chair. He strapped in and allowed the chair to orbit him below the revolving attic telescope, where he could watch the heavens.

But tonight he wasn't into Jupiter or Mars, he wanted to know if any of those crazy Men in Black were creeping around the meadow yet. He looked into the eyepiece for his telescope and the Second Ghost was in there waving at him.

He freaked.

He slammed the console to the floor and hopped off as the Second Ghost zipped out of the lens, then made itself comfortable on his Captain Kirk Command Console. The Second Ghost sprouted a Grouch Marx mustache and hairdo, then lit one of its fingers. It had twenty to each hand, and then began sucking on another finger. It blew out pink spiraling smoke and smiled.

"I think it's gonna be a cold day in hell when  you get rid of me partner!"

"Quit haunting me!"

"I'm not haunting you, partner, I'm moving in."

The Second Ghost shot towards Jemmie so fast and flew into his body so hard, that he fell back across the room onto his butt. Jemmie sat there stunned. It was gone. He looked around. He couldn't see it anywhere. He smiled. Finally, he could relax.

He went to his bedroom below and tucked himself in, then he felt an urge to go to the bathroom. He stood in front of his toilet to go, and admired his reflection for a moment. "Ain't no such things as ghosts. And definitely not Second Ghosts.  I've just been working too hard."

"Yudda Yudda." The Second Ghost said as it smiled at him from his reflection. "You just go ahead and tell yourself that!"

Jemmie screamed!

The Case of the Good Doctor and Nurse Pennymucker "A Sherlock Holmes Story"

The Doctor had just come home from a weary night at the hospital. He went to his bed and examined a small bottle with something invisible to anyone else's eyes and smiled happily, even though it was a tired smile. He stripped is clothing off to prepare for bed and in the process accidently knocked the bottle to the floor beside his bed. It rolled a tad and stopped against a foot warmer. The cap on the bottle came loose and rolled away.

Twas the night before Christmas, not even a mouse stirred, but something moved in the shadows beneath Doctor Wayne Spickermore's bed. Something dark and dreary. With an agenda that was not its own.

The good Doctor had been at work all day examining the mouths of numerous patients who complained of the local cough that had been going around London for the last several weeks. It was believed to have been imported from the India Isles, as it had all the markings of the Kali Flu that had struck the Britains this time a year ago.

He was bushed. He and Nurse Pennymucker had been working since the early hours of the morning and both hadn't slept much the night before, nor did they intend to this night either, for both their spouses were gone for the holidays, visiting relatives. She was expected to arrive any minute and he had been hoping for a relaxing bit of play before rest. 

The good Doctor was an honest man in all ways, but that of matrimony, as was Nurse Pennymucker, but they had underestimated the alertness of their mates. They had been seen sneaking into the Late Night Waldorf for a snack and a snack. Their way of saying fooling around with a good stout in one hand and something a bit more lewd in the other.

Neither the husband, or the wife had said a thing, but rather it had solidified their own plans, which all along was to end their relationships. But how could anyone have dared to assume or cognize that these two upper-middle class citizens would ever resort to violence?

"I say Holmes, this is really quite awful to look at." Watson said to Sherlock as they puzzled about the way that the good Doctor had died in his sleep. 

"Most puzzling as well, Watson, I fear." Sherlock mentioned.

Inspector Bloodstone entered abruptly, disturbing their melancholy.

"We've just finished the interviews with the husband and wife, and both have legitimate alibis."

Sherlock and Watson exchanged knowing glances. They'd seen this kind of thing before. There was always an alibi. Always!

"I'd like a go at them." Sherlock suggested. "Would you be so kind as to escort them here."

"It's rather late, don't you think?" The Inspector asked.

"Not at all. It's still Christmas and since none of us have anywhere else to go at this time, I can't think of anything better to do." Watson ventured.

Sherlock looked at Watson. He knew that Mrs. Hudson would frown at such words, but he also knew his companion was a sounding board that was a requisite in their partnership.

"I agree." Sherlock said finally.

The Inspector left and the two men searched the room, ignoring the bloated body of the good Doctor, and his eyeballs which had fallen out of their sockets and exploded.

Sherlock pulled a bible down. A Saint James version and rifled its contents, finding old portraits of the good Doctor's wife when they had first married and a picture of a tombstone with a baby's name upon it. His eyebrow rose at that, but he said nothing and put the picture back into the Bible and on the shelf he had found it.

Watson, meanwhile expanded his search into the living room area, and came across a locked desk with a secret compartment beneath it. He had found it by running his hands all over the wood. Another ploy of criminals was to hide their secrets in such ways.

"Ah-ha!" He announced to no on e in particular, and then opened the secret compartment with a surgical tool he retrieved from his black bag, where he always kept his medical supplies, and forensics tools.

"Something?" Sherlock inquired, leaning over.

"Likely." Watson replied, sliding open the secret compartment to reveal a stack of letters. The reek of sweet perfume caused him to be repelled for a moment, then he retrieved them and sat down on a two seat Edwardian Saddle Sofa. where one person faces front and one back. He began going through the letters.

"Holmes, look at this." He lifted a letter for his friend.

Sherlock took it and examined it closely a moment, then nodded.

"As I thought. The plot runs deeper than we surmised."

They continued their search.

The Inspector, meanwhile, abruptly showed up with the two suspects, who were watched over by Constable Evans, who kept a sharp eye on the nervous duo.

"Well now." The Inspector announced as he entered the living room.

Sherlock and Watson looked up from their work and nodded. 

"Just a moment more, Inspector, then we will attend to your friends."

The husband and wife glanced nervously around as if expecting some kind of monster to hurtle from the walls and snatch them into oblivion.

Through, Sherlock nodded to Watson, who went back into the bedroom, while Sherlock began pacing the living room with his hands behind his back. His cape flowed from the movement, giving him a kind of mysterious look in the semi-lit room.

"Inspector, I see no reason to keep either of these people here a moment longer."

The Inspector gave him a shocked look.

Sherlock turned around to face the couple.

"Undoubtedly you both had evil expectations of the good Doctor, and possibly for good reason, but I'm sure that your heart of darkness had nothing to do with his untimely death."

"How so, Sherlock?" The Inspector asked as the relieved couple were allowed to sit down at the French table in the center of the room where a beautiful set of Prussian Candlestick holders sat in a buffet of glass roses.

"Watson!"

Watson came back into the room and held a set of tweezers up. A roach struggled to get free from its grip.

The couple gasped.

Sherlock smiled.

"What makes this all so ironic is that the good Doctor had planned all along to dump Mrs. Pennymucker once he had secured your divorce, good lady."

The wife shriveled at that accusation. "He would never have left me."

"I agree." Sherlock said, inclining his head.

He held up a stack of letters. "But these proclaim otherwise."

He held up a pink letter. "Addressed to a Shaman in the India Isles. A very well known follower of Kali and a practitioner of the black arts, which I'm sure you'll agree Inspector are nothing to make light of."

The Inspector inclined his head.

"But how could his magic have possibly struck us from there?" The husband inquired, genuinely puzzled.

"By special delivery. Watson!"

Watson held up the roach again.

"His intention." Sherlock laid down all the letters on the table in front of the couple. "His intention all along was to have our tiny guest deliver a good-bye message to you, in hopes of not having to face the stigma of a public divorce, and a sanctioning by the Church."

The wife pale.

"Are you saying that foul insect killed my husband?"

"No. I'm saying that it was the device of his surmise." Sherlock responded pleasantly. "Watson?"

"You see, this little fellow is capable of carrying an inordinate amount of deadly poison in its front legs. It has tiny pouches on both legs, which when warmed to a certain temperature, open up and deliver their contents."

"Then it wasn't the dark arts that killed him?" The husband spoke up.

"Actually. It was. You see this tiny fellow will only wake up when it is shaken from its rest and then warmed to a certain temperature. The good Doctor knocked off the bottle that held next to a foot warmer he kept at the side of his bed."

"Yes." Sherlock said, pausing to light his famous pipe, take a few puffs, then smile at the surprised couple. "So you see the message he had intended for you dear madam, he instead inadvertently delivered to himself."

Later on Sherlock and Watson sat before their fireplace at 221B Baker Street and reminisced about the episode of the murder.

"It's funny, Holmes."

"How so?" Sherlock inquired, his long thin fingers dancing on the tip of his knees as he played them to a tune only his great mind could hear.

"In the India Isles they believe in karma. That what you put out comes back to you."

"Indeed. And it looks like this time it came back instantly, didn't it?" Sherlock replied with a wry smile. "The good Doctor's karma quite literally bit him in the..." Sherlock smiled again more broadly. "...the you know."

Both men laughed.

Outside a few late night Christmas Carolers stopped, seeing the lights on upstairs in 221B and began to sing "Silent Night."

But no one heard them above, for Sherlock and Watson had both earned a good night's rest, and were both fast asleep on their chairs.

Zombies Of The Stratosphere - Commando Cody, Chapter 10

Zombies Of The Stratosphere - Commando Cody, Chapter 9

Grab the Man with the Cape "A Cartoon Story"

I looked at her as she slept on my couch, all snuggled beneath the comforter I had given her. It was still blowing hard rain outside. I could hear it pelting the window panes and the door of my living room. Didn't seem to bother her one bit, even though it had awakened me. Something was odd about the rain. I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I sat down in my easy chair and pulled up a comic book. Yeah. That's what I do when I'm worried. I read. Comic books. So?

It was Batman, the Caped Crusader. I loved his stories. Here was a mortal man facing off adversaries that many times were larger than life, and even terribly powerful. No complains, no I'd rathers, just grab the cape and go punch someone out, or head them off with a trick or two up his sleeves.

I grinned. Amazing how many gadgets he had. Not only was he clever, but brilliant as well. In the movies they had him getting his hardware from Alfred, but in the editions I had bought, the earlier ones, he didn't rely on anyone, but his own cleverness and quick moves. 

I closed the book and laid it on my lap. The dim lamp I was reading by was killing my eyes. I was tired, so it didn't take much.

We had a terrible weekend fighting off that Zombie King at the shopping mall, and there's been hell to pay the night after, trying to explain to the police why we were killing people. The only thing that saved us from being accused of murder was they couldn't find any murder weapons and no one would testify against us, even though a reporter had caught some shots of us tearing into the zombies.

The reporter very kindly, later on, had admitted he never saw us killing a living person, which is the solid truth. Cartoon and I never kill the living, only the dead, near dead and the ghoulish, wicked and sinful demonic types. Which means everything that, basically, wasn't human and had been written about in comic books at one time or another? 

I just prayed we didn't get any of those gigantic robots, the Sentinels that the X-Men faced off against. I hadn't a clue how to defeat things like that.

Thud!

That was loud enough to not only shock me from my musings, but hurl me from my chair, reaching for the sword that had vanished when I put away my Thor comic book. I hadn't been able to get a handle on the hammer thing. Too heavy, so I had settled for a sword, which somehow I was able to manage. Maybe later a hammer or something similar. This comic book hero magic was very unpredictable, except that it usually provided me with the tools to defeat my enemies, but not always at once, and not always without a few lost ounces of blood or skin to boot.

Thud!

That did it. I ran into the kitchen and came out with my butcher knife. No hero now, just cautious. Cartoon laid there on the couch, her skin giving off a golden comic book glow, her physical form partially in her world and mostly in mine for now. Didn't stir. Now that's what I call...tired.

Nothing else happened, so I was about to put my wickedly long and deadly butcher knife down...actually it was just a butter knife...but I have a great imagination...when the front door flung open and my brother stood there, dripping wet. He flung his hair back to shake off some of the rain, and managed quite well to wet my nice rug...well, second hand...but clean.

"Brother." He greeted.

"You could have knocked." I answered.

"I did. Thud. Thud." He grinned mischievously.

"I could have stabbed you with my butcher knife." I protested, waving my butter knife at him.

He broke into laughter. "You can't even make a real peanut butter sandwich with that thing and you're worried about killing me? Get real!"

I shrugged, then remembered that Cartoon was on the other side of the couch, he was facing.

"Look, it's the middle of the night. Why are you here?"

He shut the door, then placed his umbrella against my nice new...well third hand...coat rack. He sighed. "I have a little problem."

"How little?"

He grinned. "Louisa. Spanish doll. About five five."

"And?"

"She's pregnant."

He suddenly looked dangerous and defeated at the same time. Dangerous to him and defeated because for once he had a situation he couldn't talk himself out of.

"Look, bro, I don't do marriages."

He snapped out of it and snarled at me. "I'm not asking you too. I just want some moral support is all."

"Since when?"

He took a deep breath, his temper on the edge of exploding. We were like that to each other, perfect mirrors. Me with my don't take prisoners attitude and his with take everyone prisoner.

He slumped to the rug and put his head in his hands. "I just don't know how to handle this anymore. At first..."

He began to sob.

I grew weary then. He never sobs. Suddenly, that knife felt like a weapon again.

"I was hoping you would give me a chance..."

He looked up and his eyes were blood red and horns sprouted from his forehead. "To eat you!" He screamed, then leaped from the floor, like a giant frog and grasped for my throat. 

I sidestepped him and slammed the knife into the back of his skull, butt first.

He slammed to the floor, rolled over, and sprouted ten pairs of wicked looking claws that would give a butcher a nightmare. 

"So you want to play before you die, wise guy?"

I shrugged. "Is that what they call it in hell? Play?"

He began to rise and slowly he grew taller and taller, until his head was knocking against the ceiling.

"Be careful of the paint job. I just finished it yesterday." I warned him.

He snarled angrily and rushed me. 

I backed up and my hand brushed the Batman comic book.

Suddenly I felt t his gray cape in my hand. I swung it in front of me, and sidestepped, letting him charge the cape instead. He passed through it into the kitchen, where I heard the smashing of glass.

I groaned. "I just bought those plates and glasses." I screamed.

I rushed into the kitchen and he was getting up from my fourth hand kitchen table which had been on its last legs, and now had no legs at all to stand on.

He grabbed a leg and rushed me with it.

I threw the cape at him and it wrapped around him.

He tried to unwrap it and stumbled, knocking a piece of my kitchen doorway into shatters, then went into the living room, like a dancing mannikin, blinded, but furious.

I went to the front door, opened it quickly, and then kicked him in the behind, so that he hurtled towards the balcony. As he struck it. Iron. He flamed on like one of the Fantastic Four, screamed, then tumbled from view, a holocaust of fire and smoke.

I stepped to the balcony railing and looked down. He was dissolving in the swimming pool several feet away, smoke and no flames now. The rain continued to pelt. The gray cape became a soft gray mist, and then drifted away, followed several moments later by the demon impersonating my brother. The pool had some ashes in it, but otherwise looked normal. Dirty.

I shut the front door and Cartoon sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Is it time to get up yet, Johnnie?"

I grinned at her, and then yawned. "Nah. Get some more shut eye."

I tucked her in again and she smiled up at me.

"I feel so safe with you." She said softly, her eyes growing heavy with sleep.

"Yeah. I do that to girls."

She laughed lightly, then her head rolled to the side and she began to snore lightly.

I tucked her in better, and then headed for my bedroom.

It's tough being the man with the gray cape. But its tougher still going all night without sleep. I jumped onto my bed, clothes and all, and went fast asleep.

Zombies of the Stratosphere, Chapter Nine

Angels, "A Samuel Light Story."

Jimbo rubbed his nose vigorously, trying not to sneeze. Samuel was opposite him on the other side of the walkway, which was lined with heavy shrubbery. Their hiding places. That darned fly kept coming back and tickling his nose. He could have swatted it any other time, but he didn't want to make any loud noises. The terrorist group Mahmud, dressed in blood red, with dark red knives holstered through red belts and short snub nosed Rat guns, a new release from the Iranians that combined the power of a machine gun with a snub nosed pistol. It could fire hundred two caliber hollow point bullets in less than a second.

One might think that's not so bad, until you realize that at the velocity the bullets travel they will open a tenth penny hole on one side of you and blow out the other the size of a silver dollar. In other words size doesn't matter. Power and point do. You're dead. Bleeded out within several seconds.He'd seen them practice with one of the weapons on an Egyptian soldier who got in their way. The man hadn't even been able to scream in pain. His body looked like Swiss cheese on one side and shredded tissue paper on the other. He had died instantly. No one walked away from a stream of those bullets.

Samuel could feel Jimbo's anxiety and let his hand rise several inches. A soft radiance glowed about it and then vanished.

Jimbo couldn't see the radiance when it struck him in the heart, but suddenly he felt as easy going as a smooth banana crème pie. 

The troops finished passing and he and Samuel rose from their hiding places. Samuel pointed to a building to their left and Jimbo hightailed it there, knowing Samuel would be behind him. Only thing was, when he got to the building, Samuel was nowhere in sight. Then he heard the unmistakable rattle of the Rat guns.

"Damn it!" He roared, then hightailed it down the path, hoping he wasn't too late.

Samuel stood at the other end, surrounded by the Mahmud, their weapons smoking in their hands and everyone of their bullets smoking in a heap about Samuel. Not one bullet had struck him. Samuel just stood there with the most devilish of smiles, his hands out, the palms glowing a brilliant white.

Finally, the Mahmud ran. Not towards Samuel, but towards Jimbo.

Jimbo dove from their path. Not one of them slowed to try and catch him. He saw a brief glimpse of the face of one of them as he passed and the man's eyes were as big as moons. He ran as if all the Ifrits in Arabia were after him.

"They are." Samuel said as he gave his friend a hand up.

Jimbo turned to watch the Mahmud scramble for their jeeps, hop in, swerve in circles of dusty clouds, then race towards the horizon, leaving the grassy area Jimbo and Samuel stood within untouched and unharmed.

"But not for long."  Samuel answered to Jimbo's unspoken thoughts. 

"You're right." Jimbo said. "We've got work to do."

And they did. Rescuing the son and daughter of a teacher who was preaching peace to all men in the Middle East. His name was Gandhi Mohammed, and he bore an uncanny resemblance to all the portraits that had come down through time of the real Mohammad. His eyes were large and luminous and his children were all equally as bright and beautiful in their own ways.

They reached his humble abode, which had been surrounded by the brief grounds of shrubbery and grass. To the sides were simple gardens, with vegetables growing and clothing hanging from clothing lines strung from one post to another, flapping in the hot, arid winds of the desert they were in.

"God is with you." Gandhi told them as they hustled up to his porch, both breathing hard.

"Grab your children. We must hurry before they realize those weren't real demons after them." 

Samuel croaked, his throat dry from the hot desert air and the exertion of will he had just made to defend the humble abode.

Gandhi smiled patiently. "I will not be leaving here. Not now. Not ever."

Samuel and Jimbo exchanged looks of surprise.

"But I thought you hired us to rescue you." Samuel finally blurted out, confused and puzzled by the man's attitude.

Gandhi motioned to them. "Come inside. My daughter and son have prepared something to drink and eat for us."

They went inside. The interior of the home was as simple and humble as the exterior. All the furniture were handmade, and carefully crafted. The stove was a clay stove on the floor in front of which Darmilla, Gandhi's oldest daughter squatted warming up flat bread for their repast. Several moments later Desh, the son, came inside with a bucket brimming with fresh well water. He brought it to a counter, also handmade and then began filling clay mugs from it.

Gandhi said no more, but helped his children distribute the bread and water about the table, motioning to Jimbo and Samuel to sit as he did so. They sat, no longer confused, but wondering if the man had lost his mind.

Finally, Gandhi sat down and began breaking his bread. Before he put it into his mouth, he dipped it into water. "May the waters of Allah purify my soul."

He raised the wet bread to his mouth. "May the bread of Allay feed my heart and mind."

He ate the bread.

The children repeated the prayers, then looked sideways at Samuel and Jimbo to see what they would do. Samuel grinned good-naturedly, and repeated the prayers, followed by Jimbo, who said God instead of Allah.

"Sorry, Mister Gandhi, but I'm not really the Allah type of fellow." Jimbo apologized.

Gandhi and the children burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"Allah and God are one and the same. There is no difference. You drink water in America. You drink water in Arabia. Water is water." Gandhi explained.

Samuel smiled at the confusion on Jimbo's face. "Just accept it, Jimbo. You won't win this one."

Jimbo nodded and began tearing into his bread big time. In a matter of seconds he had it finished and Darmilla scrambled back to the oven and pulled out a warming plate of ten or more to place on the simple table they sat at.

"But you still haven't explained why you're not leaving." Samuel said, after having ate one piece of the bread, which felt light in his stomach and very filling.

Gandhi finished his own bread, as if having not heard a word, then wiped his hands on a simple cloth and looked into Samuel's eyes.

"There never was any danger."

"What do you mean?"

"God tests us all, Mister Light, does he not?"

Samuel shrugged. He didn't disagree, he just didn't get the point.

Gandhi smiled. "I just wanted to see the two of you, and to thank you for the service you have offered my people and the people of the world. That is what I wanted the rescue from. From not thanking you."

He rose, then motioned to the door.

"When you return tomorrow. All will be explained. For now, be at peace and God be with you!"

Samuel and Jimbo got up. Jimbo snatched a couple more slices of the flat bread. The children burst into renewed peals of laughter, but said nothing.

Jimbo blushed and hurried outside, and Samuel followed him.

"Man, that has got to be one of the strangest dinners I've been invited to." Jimbo finally said, after polishing off the last of the breads.

They cut to the left and sought the shelter they had made earlier in the day. It was well hidden in the sands of the desert, using a cloth that blended with the sand colors. Beneath it was their jeep and supplies. Both men settled in for the night and laid down quietly to rest.

"Sammie."

"Yeah."

"Do you believe in demons?"

"Not really."

"Do you?"

"Not really. Why?"

"Nothing. Just wondering is all."

Samuel was just about to drift off to sleep when Jimbo spoke again. "I believe in angels."

Samuel sat up so fast  he banged his head on the open door of the jeep. "Owww!"

"Sorry."

Samuel rubbed the sore spot and lay back down.

"What brought that burst of silliness?"

Jimbo rolled over and looked at Samuel, the faint moonlight of the desert Moon shining inside their camouflaged tent.

"I don't know. We've been through so much by now. I've got to start believing in miracles sometime, even with all your stupid powers."

Samuel laughed. "Go to sleep. We got to get up early and say goodbye to Gandhi and his children."

"Yeah. There's that." Jimbo said with a yawn. "Night, pal."

"Good night." Samuel said, falling into a peaceful sleep that night that he hadn't experienced in a long time.

When he woke up in the morning, Jimbo had everything packed and ready to go. Even the tent was down and packed into the back of the jeep. Samuel rolled up his sleeping bag, tossing out a lizard in the process. He picked it up and put his hand on it. "Sorry little guy."

The lizard's head perked up and its eyes rolled as a gentle green light flooded its shape. He set the lizard down and it looked up at him, then almost smiled and shot off like a rocket.

Jimbo started up the jeep and headed back towards the house. As they drove Samuel and Jimbo became more and more alarmed. The shrubs were gone. The path was gone.

Jimbo looked at his dash. "We should be seeing the house, where is it?" 

He pulled the jeep to a stop and they both climbed out. They walked the area for about twenty yards in all directions, but no signs of anything having ever been there before.

Then they climbed back into the jeep and rushed towards where the other jeeps of the Mahmud had  been. No marks there either.

"No storm last night." Jimbo drawled in his husky Texan accent.

"Jimbo. I get it." Samuel said, relaxing against his seat finally, the tension flowing away.

"Get what?"

"Why you should believe in angels." Samuel answered cryptically.

They spent the rest of their drive pondering what they had experienced, and it wasn't until both of them climbed off the stairway from the Southwestern Airlines flight into Las Vegas that Jimbo announced. "They were angels. Damn!"

Samuel smiled. "Al would be glad to hear you believe in him."

Al appeared in front of them grinning. Samuel waved.

"He's there?"

Samuel nodded.

Jimbo talked towards where he thought Al was. "I think I believe in angels now."

But Al was not in that spot. He was to the right. A very pretty red head was in Jimbo's line of vision. She perked up at his words, then grinned.

She came to him and reached out a hand. "You're from Texas, aren't you?" She asked.

Samuel nodded to Jimbo and he headed towards the lounge with the redhead, talking up a storm. Al dropped back alongside Samuel as he headed for the lounge too.

"Can't win them all, Sam."

"How about one?"

Al laughed, then like the wise man he was...he vanished.