Incident at Jupiter Lighthouse Part 4

Anna was alone in the house. The wind was whipping and screaming through town. Anna buried herself inside her covers and prayed.

Dear Jesus. I have placed myself where I put my complete trust in You. It is more than a Sunday service, more than a social gathering. Since my call for salvation last year, I have not placed You as first in my life. Now I’m giving up any human effort and emotion and laying it within Your power.

The wind groaned and screeched for what seemed like hours. Every creak of the old house seemed like a demonic claw ripping at the planking.

“Jesus, protect me,” cried Anna aloud.

A muffled wind shot down through the clogged chimney with a whuff-whuff sound. It was a noise Anna had never heard before. She sat up. A branch slapped at the window pane in a panicked rhythm. The back doorknob rattled and shook.

Anna gripped her blanket but prayed boldly. “I call upon your protection from the spiritual enemies, Lord. I quote Your Word: ’Greater is He that is in me that He that is in the world,’” The back door shook violently and then heaved on it s hinges.

The door exploded open and a dark horrible beast rolled and writhed into the room. Anna fumbled for a light but the grunting, growling beast smashed against the nightstand and knocked over the matches and a candlestick. She shrunk back against the wall and saw the creature roll and pitch about, knocking chairs over and slamming into the walls. It had more than four feet. It had more than one head.

The beast slashed about on the floor, but Anna realized as horrible as it seemed, she had no fear.

“It’s not going to hurt me,” she said firmly. At that point she knew. As God was her father, He was her Shield. It was more than just talk, now. It was more than memory verses or a social label.

This beast would not hurt her. She knew now that she was a child of the King.

The shadowed beast let aloud a cry of pain. It flailed about wildly and crashed into the pantry.

A burst of footsteps rattled across the back porch and old man Bannister leaped into the room. I followed him.

“Come on, Burl,” yelled Bannister. “Hurry up with that light. You,too, Ned. Git that lantern shinin’ in here.”

The constable and I both entered the doorway and held high our lamps. The light fell upon the beast on the snarling beast on the floor.

“I tell you, he’s a-killin’ me,” cried the creature. “Git him off me and I’ll give up.”

Old man Bannister dove for the window and threw it open. I squinted at the thrashing form on the floor.

“Quit yer gawkin’,” yelled the beast, “ and turn him loose of me. He’s tearin’ me up.”

The constable’s light also illuminated the room. That’s when the mystery of the beast was answered.

It was no multi-limbed beast with two heads.

It was Ral in a vise-like grip on the yellow-haired man, wailing away at him like a combination of leopard, wild boar and mother bear. He was pounding the daylights out of the yellow-haired man, who was howling in pain.

“Okay, okay, young Raleigh,” the constable called. “Let him up easy-like and we’ll grip him good.”

Anna breathed a sigh of relief. “An intruder. Then it wasn’t a demon after all.”

“Yep,” said Pa,” but demon-influenced, no doubt. And here’s the influence.” He pulled hard at something in the window opening and to my amazement, pulled a man bodily over the sill. “Here’s the answer to your problem, Miss Anna.” He held up the man by the collar. It was the Prophet. “Standing here, a-peekin’ through the window.”

The Prophet tried to gather some dignity. “I tell you, this situation-

“Hush,” I said, turning to Bannister. “A pretty fair scheme to scare Anna away. But why?”

Ral lifted the beaten man to his feet. “A false prophet trying to play God. That’s a mighty serious thing to do, and he had a reason.” Ral squeezed the yellow-haired man’s shoulder. “Care to explain, mister?”

“Don’t say anything,” demanded the man who claimed to be a prophet.

“Ah, it’s all over,” huffed the yellow-haired man. “We was tryin’ to scare the girl and her mom out of this house.”


“You know how he got that grass to grow? He wasn’t doin’ any praying,” said Ral. “Remember how he kept people at a distance while he was flailing his arms and wailing?”

“Yes, the folks all kept a respectable distance from that property, thinkin’ it was sacred of somethin’,” said the constable.

“Well, he kept them from that ‘sacred ground’ because he was slingin’ wet grass seed all over the place,” said Ral. “An’ after I got suspicious, I came up there late at night last week and happened to spy on him giving the ground a bit of a sprinkle with a bucket of water.”

“That so?” remarked Pa.

“The reason they didn’t want you to stay in that house is because of the chimney,” said Ral.

“The chimney?” asked Anna. “The chimney? I cannot see how a chimney would be that valuable.”

“It’s not the chimney itself, Anna,” said Ral, grabbing a crowbar and heading to the hearth. “it’s what’s stuck inside it.”