John Frum The Reluctant Messiah

Hide and Seek

"The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously,"  John said to no one in particular. Em was puzzled. 

"What?" 

"Henry Kissinger," John said, nodding. "Henry Kissinger said that. Whenever I realize I'm agonizing over a decision that in fact I have no choice? I say that to myself." 

He smiled at her, "Stop eavesdropping!"

"He's coming this way!" Ethan quickly bent down, pretending to tie his shoe. 

"Dude, you're wearing loafers." John said quietly. 

Ethan's head didn't move. The fashionable delivery driver continued walking directly towards them, but the humongous elephant exhibit was between them and blocked their view of his approach. He never reappeared prompting the trio to walk to the other side of the mastodon. Sure enough, disguised as a large rock there was a doorway which led to a downward spiral staircase. 

"Down! That's it! They're here, right here, but they're down, they're down below us!" Ethan realized.

 "Shall we?" asked Em. 

John and Ethan looked around nonchalantly and followed her down the staircase. It led to a small, nondescript room, a series of hooks holding smocks and lab coats, the only decoration next to a solitary door. They pulled on the handle, but it was locked by a security keypad. 

"Well, anybody bring their lock pick set?" asked John. 

"That's the one thing I don't have but..." Em dug in her bag. "Ya'know, it's a long shot but..." 

She pulled out the paper from the street magician and punched in 1 5 2 3 0. She grasped the handle, her eyes grew wide, she smiled. 

"We're in!" 

That single, nondescript door however led to a massive warehouse filled to the ceiling with crates, sculpture, paintings- all in various stages of restoration and repair. This was obviously a work area normally filled with specialists and restoration artists, but it was lunch hour, and most were away from their work spaces. 

"Look at all this! This is honestly the biggest warehouse I've ever been in. What now?" Em said softly. 

"First we put these on." John handed each of them a grey lab coat. "Then we locate Ethan's phone. Activate your LuvBug thing." 

"What Luvbug thing?" Em asked. 

"It's an app I developed," Ethan explained. "You enter a description of yourself, a description of your dream date and if the two of you happen to be within range....it lets you know that it's a match and the two of you are in the same area, even the same room. It works by using a combination of NFR and next-gen Bluetooth type thing. Pretty cool." 

"Great. Booty call tools- just what we need," Em concluded, her eyes continuing to scan for the crates. 

"Yeah, but this booty call is for some serious Nephilim love,"defended Ethan with a smile. 

"So, Ethan, me and my phone are just dreaming about a guy like you. What do I enter to describe you?" John asked him. "Give it to me exactly the way you entered it so that we're sure to get a match." 

Ethan was silent and suddenly had a deer-in-the-headlights look. 

"Hey, c'mon. How did you describe yourself? So, I can pinpoint your phone?" 

"Ughh, alright..." Ethan let out a big sigh and with great reluctance began to recite the description he had entered for himself. 

"Tall, dark, athletic build with deep-set, bedroom eyes. Witty, humorous....financially set Calvin Klein jeans model." 

"Is that it? Sure, you didn't... cure any diseases or anything?" John said, shooting a look towards Em while holding back his laughter.  John entered the info and activated the app. 

"So, what now?" Em asked John. 

"We scour the place and hope that Ethan's phone had a full charge. And the app actually works."

 They began going down each aisle as quickly as possible, a difficult thing for Em to do as there were so many distractions. 

"Oh! this is amazing! It's from the Paleozoic era!" Em gushed as she gingerly picked up a stone carving from the shelf. Ethan and John looked at each other nodding in complete agreement while completely clueless as to what in the world Em was talking about. Still, John couldn't resist.

 "Are you sure?" 

"Yes, I'm sure! It's certainly not the Cenozoic. The Cenozoic spans only about 65 million years, from the end of the Cretaceous Period and the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs to the present." 

"Certainly." Ethan's facetious deadpan expression caused John to bite his lip. 

"Just so you know, you two are.... stupid. Stupid one and stupid two," she said, pointing at each of them. 

With that she turned on her heels, threw her head back and headed towards the back of the warehouse. Suddenly a door opened, and a worker wheeled a cart towards them. They quickly scrambled into the first available door and hid behind a line of file cabinets. The worker was collecting a few samples and stopped to look at his phone. John peered out the lone window in the door watching and waiting for him to move on. 

"Geez," whispered Ethan. "Crop circles, the Bermuda Triangle,the lost Pyramids... is there any weirdness these guys weren't involved in?" 

He and Em were already passing the time by going through some of the file cabinets. 

"When you understand just how strong these guys were? Building things like Stonehenge, the pyramids aren't so mysterious," Em whispered. "Just think what a bunch of them could do!"

 "Amazing." Ethan said. 

"Yeah. Amazingly scary. You'll never learn about their involvement in all sorts of unexplained things from any history books," Em added. 

John held a finger up to his lips. The worker had finally left but there was some activity in the adjacent room. He pointed towards the door. There was light coming from underneath it and shadows indicated someone was walking on the other side of it. The door swung open, and the trio got their first glimpse of one of the crates. Two men were prying open the lid with a crowbar. Once the lid was removed, another man approached and peered inside. 

"Remember the alleyway? That's the same ugly giant- the one who disappeared!" John whispered. "And the same one at the airstrip. How can he get around so far so quick!? That's just impossible!" 

"And the guy with the buzz?" Ethan noted, "Wait till he turns around- one hundred percent positive that's our delivery driver. I just remembered. He's the guy we saw the next day at-" 

"The Red Witch, yes!" John excitedly finished his sentence. 

The men began picking through the skeletal remains. The huge guy pulled out a small animal hide purse from its chest area where the heart had been and carefully opened it. There was a manuscript rolled up inside it. 

"Out of the abundance of the heart..." Em mumbled. 

"The mouth speaks," John answered her. "That's what we've been looking for. We've got to get that scroll.""