The Seventh Day of Christmas

Josh immediately got to his feet and ran to the front of the building. He felt no pain in either leg. He felt no fatigue at all. He barely noticed the pounds of water hanging from his back. His supernatural strength stood in stark contrast to his desire for death just a short time before. Then Josh saw him, a man, bound and lying on the front doorstep, clear for anyone to see. He stopped dead in his tracks and, for a moment, could not move. The two men locked eyes. The sacrificial man was on his stomach, hog-tied with his arms and legs pulled backward in the air and tied together. A piece of duct tape covered his mouth, which in turn seemed permanently opened, as if a sock or other object was shoved inside. This man moved his eyes, the only part of him that was mobile. He did not know who Josh was, or what his intentions were. He was clearly scared. Josh stood there stupidly, until an invisible hand seemed to shove him forward, and a silent instruction resounded in his mind, GO GET HIM! Without another moment’s hesitation, Josh shed the pounds of water from his back and darted forward toward the prisoner. To his left, as he passed the windows at the front of his house, he saw those terrible skulls on the fireplace mantle, holding the stockings in place. The room was brightly illuminated this time, and there was no mistaking what they were: evidence of evil; evidence that other rituals like this one had not been interrupted in the past. Josh reached the man and realized he had no tools with him at all. He had no knife with which to cut the ropes binding the man’s hands and feet. He whispered to the man, “I’m not here to hurt you. Hold on, I’ll try to set you free.” But still, there was nothing with which to free him. Josh looked around frantically. He patted his pockets as if he would have accidentally stashed a blade there without knowing. He felt so suddenly hopeless. He remembered the source of all hope, but powerful doubt flooded his mind. How could God intervene here? Where was there room for the Lord to come to the rescue? But Josh subdued this doubt. He had seen too much evidence throughout his life to become a doubter now. He felt as if he had been led here for this purpose. He had not set out to accomplish this task on his own, so it was not his responsibility to solve the problem on his own either. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, folded his hands, and said in a whisper, “Lord, help. Please.” Immediately he lifted his head. He felt like he would find the answer in the water bag somehow. That didn’t make sense, he reasoned. He knew there was no knife in the water bag. But he ran back to it anyway, unwilling to ignore the response he had gotten. The prisoner on the front stoop made a noise, barely audible through the object in his mouth and the tape covering it, but Josh heard it. The man was scared of being left alone again. Josh recognized this but said nothing. Now was not the time for reassurances. Time was of the essence. He heard a low chanting coming from inside the house, and felt his insides turn cold. At the water bag, he picked it up off the ground, and desperately searched through all the pockets he could find. He opened the main flap and ran his hand over the inner waterproof bag. He found nothing. His mind was racing. “Lord, help,” he repeated. “I don’t see the answer!” He immediately turned his head to the right, for a reason he could not fully understand, and there, beneath the bush against the house, he thought he saw an object. It looked like a rock, but Josh moved to it anyway. Through his mind raced possibilities laced with doubt. Am I supposed to use a rock to cut the ropes? Will that work? Then, like an evil temptation, Am I supposed to use the rock to put the man out of his misery? Josh grabbed the item, which was, indeed, a rock, and picked it up to figure out what to do with it. But as he lifted the rock, he noticed there was something under it! In the sheer amazement that comes only as a result of watching divine intervention unfold, he again stood there stupidly, unable to fully comprehend what he now saw. Laying there in the dirt, completely covered by a barely visible rock until just now, was a box cutter, buried in the earth except for its very tip. Josh unearthed this treasure, and verified it had a working blade. He then ran back to the man, and went straight to work. He cut with tremendous violence and with such disregard to safety that later he marveled that he had not cut either himself or the other man. As he sawed away, he felt certain that the murderers inside would hear him or interrupt him in some way. He demanded of himself that these thoughts be suppressed. He would not have been brought this far only to fail. Failure was not an option. After a seeming eternity, Josh finally cut all the way through, and the ropes fell from the other man’s hands and feet. He fell onto his side as the blood suddenly returned to his limbs. His eyes closed in relief. Josh knelt down and grabbed one end of the tape. He whispered, “This might hurt. Do not scream.” He ripped the tape off the man’s mouth with great force, and saw his face contract with pain. There was a clear red mark where the tape had been, and this mark was surely to get worse as it swelled. Josh saw that it was cloth of some kind, but not a sock, that had been stuffed in the man’s mouth. He saw the man try to grab it but his coordination was off, as his arms and fingers were still numb. Josh grabbed it and pulled it out. He saw it was a piece of a shirt, a sleeve with a portion of the shoulder. To Josh’s horror, he saw that it was stained red with what he could only imagine was blood. He did not imagine the blood belonged to this man. Suppressing a gag of sickness, he said to the man, “Get up now. I know it’s hard but we have to leave now.” The man fumbled around as he tried to gain his balance and footing, but it was taking too long. Josh, without thinking, grabbed the man around his chest under his arms and lifted him into the air, carrying him away from the front door and back to where the water bag still lay on the ground. Josh released the man onto his own feet, and he shook and wobbled but managed to stay upright. Josh looked him right in the eye and asked, “Can you walk?” The man looked back at him, his eyes wide open in amazement. He said, slowly, as if dreaming, “Yes, I – I think so.” “How far do you have to go?” “I don’t know where I am.” “You’re on Maybury Lane in –” “Maybury,” repeated the freed prisoner. “Yes, I know where that is. I don’t have far. Maybe a mile.” “I can’t travel with you,” said Josh, realizing again that he was on a journey of his own, and had a family at home who were worried about him. “I understand.” Josh pulled one of the bottles of water from a pocket in the water bag and handed it to the man. “I’m sorry I can’t give you more. The rest is for my family.” The man nodded, still looking Josh straight in the eye. He simply could not believe what had happened in the last few minutes. Josh stood there as well, unwilling to break the eye contact. But as the chanting from inside died down, he resolved to move. “I have to go,” he said to the man. “God be with you.” He moved past the man while slinging the water bag onto his back, and moved back toward the rear of the house, to return to the woods. Before he had taken two steps, the man said, “Wait.” Josh turned around to look at him again, for the last time. “Thank you,” he said. “My name is Peter.” “Go home, Peter,” said Josh. “I’m Josh. God willing, we will see each other soon, under better circumstances.” He turned around again and headed back on his own journey.