Shadows on Light: Rise of the Dark Shark

By Scott Jeffrey

Shadows on Light: Rise of the Dark Shark" is a contemporary supernatural/spiritual thriller about the complexities of good and evil, clashing and colliding into each other in modern times, much like a lethal virus attacking a healthy cell. The novel tells the fictional account of two ex-specially trained military men, who together, competing in

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Jeffrey Dugas
• Release date: Aug 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781737131427

Scott Jeffrey

Scott Jeffery, the book's author, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1968, he received a full scholarship to play college football at the University of Utah. It was on a spring break in 1969, around Tuscan, Arizona, that he decided to act on a vocational pull - a "nudge from God" as he terms it - to enter the seminary to study for the Roman Catholic priesthood. He was ordained to the priesthood as Reverend Scott J. Dugas in 1977 for the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux. Presently, Scott Jeffery (his pen name), or "Rev. Scott", as he is called by other ministerial colleagues, works - even though actively retired from the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux -as a pastoral-priestly administrator within the Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, to assist the pressing needs of the Mississippi Missions. It is a "blessing" he has engaged since 2010.He has special love for counseling and assisting wounded veterans, no matter their religious affiliation, or disconnection from denominational practice, especially at various VA facilities and health care centers in both Mississippi and into Louisiana. "Rev. Scott" also has assisted the needs of veterans caught up in the prison system, where invited, to provide counseling and spiritual direction. Some partial proceeds of his book trilogy will be utilized to assist veterans struggling with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and to support "The God Understands" outreach project in curtailing and preventing the increasing problem of veteran suicides.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Send me your light and truth to guide me. Let them lead me to your holy mountain, to where you live. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God who is my joy and happiness.

—Psalm 43:3-4

How fragile—so very fragile—is the swimmer caught in the stormy undertow of a near midnight tempest. Jonathan Yerris knew this horror and had lived it over and over again in his daydreams and nightmares, especially when violent weather enveloped his surroundings. But this horror was all too real for his soul to bear in that lonely room of the rectory.

Yerris, as a twenty-two-year-old Navy SEAL on a challenge maneuver with a Norwegian counterpart, felt anew the violent storm-tossed surf during that turbulent night in July of 1972, just off the Rocky Point coast in southern Jamaica. Yerris’s naval commander, J. W. Alexander, had selected the then twenty-one year old warrior to compete for his SEAL team against a similar select team from Norway. Initially, each team started the day with the best five of their commandos. By the time of late evening, the numbers dwindled down to two: Yerris and his Norwegian competitor who shadowed his every move through the moonlit streams of light that made their way into the water, despite the gathering storm clouds above the Caribbean surface.

Yerris saw this day as the endurance of another Hell Week (the secret rite of passage for becoming a SEAL—Sea-Air-Land commando) all rolled into one excruciatingly long day, from sunrise to midnight. It was just two months earlier that Yerris barely made it through his first Hell Week as a Naval Academy graduate stationed in the resort town of Coronado, jutting just across the bay from San Diego, California. SEALs believe that a man who is driven to the limits of his endurance during Hell Week can withstand the rigors of SEAL combat involving the waterborne operations of scuba diving, underwater demolitions, coastal raids, and river combat. Those who quit during Hell Week—more than half do—are the ones who would quit in their real-world missions. The Hell Week challenge teaches a potential SEAL commando to turn off pain in order to focus on the task at hand.

Now it was the totality of Hell Week all over again in this last challenge: a two mile scuba trek to get to the winner’s flag planted on Rocky Point Beach where occasional Reggae concerts are held throughout the summer season. The U.S. Navy had secured the beach this evening away from the viewing public. This night the beach was completely deserted.

The dive-swim was just about neck and neck between the two commandos when the surge of the undertow hit them at full force around three hundred yards from the beach. Yerris could feel the fury of the water’s power as it knocked him over backwards and tossed him about like a rag doll. Yerris’s counterpart was also floundering helplessly against the enormous pressure of the undertow. It was no longer a challenge match between two equally fierce competitors. This was about survival against nature’s cruel sneak attack. After righting himself into swim position, Yerris took off the scuba tanks, flinging them away from his body as quickly as he could, even though he was near complete exhaustion from the day’s rigors. With a full gulp of oxygen already secured in his lungs, the Navy SEAL furiously swam upwards to the surface. The Norwegian was copying his every move. They were aquatic silhouettes highlighted by the lightning flashes above them. The raindrops were penetrating the water at this time like an out-of-control Uzzi machine gun’s bullets.

Finally, Yerris summoned forth the inner strength to break through the undertow’s vise-like grip in order to propel himself above the surface waves, so turbulent in their intensity and impact. The intermarriage of moonlight streams and lightning flashes made for an eerie, surrealistic scene. The Norwegian broke through to the surface, gasping for air like a helpless newborn child. Yerris flung off his scuba mask and saw that he was about four hundred yards from the shore. The undertow’s force still pulled against his body, and he could no longer swim on his stomach because of cramps and fatigue. As a large wave crashed into his head, a thunderclap resounded from above. Yerris knew he had to get out of the water as quickly as possible. He immediately turned over on his back, flailing both his arms and legs against the rainstorm’s fury. Somehow, someway, he was succeeding in swimming to the beach, maybe setting a world record for the backstroke in the process. Yerris whispered a prayer to overcome the paralysis of fear that began to consume his sanity: O Lord, pull me through to safety. Let me get through this with the strength of your grace strength. Please help me to keep going—as well as this other guy that I cannot reach out to.

Yerris kicked the water with all the strength he could muster from the inner resolve that got him through the Hell Week of early May. Moving ever closer to the shore, he faced the stormy sky, fearing a lightning strike right into the water at any moment. The rain was coming down so hard against his exposed face as he kept reaching for the beach behind his head. Once he kicked into the shallow depths of the beach sand, he willed his body forward to get out of the water.

Yerris’s sense of humor surfaced when he blurted out, Thank God I wore a wet suit and not swim trunks which would certainly be out to sea by now. He saw the Norwegian rise out of the surf about thirty yards to the left; Yerris’s rival was not about to give up. They both had survived this challenge; but now came the race to get to the winner’s flag that was down about another two hundred yards from where they surfaced from the water.

Yerris coughed up the water in his mouth and spewed it forth so that be could take a deep breath to begin his sprint on the beach. This was gut-check time, just like it was at the end of football practice in college at the Naval Academy. Every muscle in his body was throbbing with intense pain—his head dizzy, his vision blurred. Yet the red flag was still visible, illuminated by the lightning getting ever so closer. Yerris summoned forth an energy that propelled him into a maniacal charge on the rain-soaked sand. The Norwegian, not to be denied in this final duel of both troop and individual superiority, courageously roused himself from the shallows. He, too, knew where he had to run. The flag seemed like a powerful magnet that pulled both men to its grasp. The rain intensified with a renewed fierceness around the flag’s position. As fast as Yerris could run, he could not out pace his counterpart. The Norwegian had somehow caught up about fifty yards from the flag stand. Yerris was surprised by his competitor’s tenacity. The will to win empowered both men, in spite of the fatigue, the pain, and the overwhelming fear inspired by the storm’s zenith.

It had all come down to this—a mad sprint to acquire a diminutive flag, anchored into a sand mound, eroding ever so slowly into the sea. The two men were practically shoulder to shoulder about thirty yards from the end of their torture, about thirty seconds from the start of a new day. Then, as they started to lunge toward the flag ten yards ahead, a resounding clap of thunder shoot them. Immediately, a jagged lightning bolt hurled itself down directly in front of the two men, incinerating the flag with a ferocious impact and catapulting the two commandos into the Jamaican night. They crash landed slightly apart from each other upon the burning, rain-soaked sand.

Yerris’s head was spinning from the collision with the beach. He slowly raised his head to see that the Norwegian also was alive, but groaning in pain about twenty feet away. Both their eyes briefly locked into each other’s groggy gazes over their resultant fates. Jonathan, disoriented and hurting, tried to crawl over to his wounded rival, but he could not will his body to move. Yerris would never forget the hissing, sizzling sound of fire, sand, and water all around him. He was paralyzed by a morbid fear of burning to death right there into the sand. He prayed weakly to be spared from such a hideous death. For some strange reason, Yerris thought he saw Satan and his angels standing in fire all around him. Were they thrown down out of heaven as chapter twelve of Revelation had indicated? Was this the reality that had come upon him and his fellow rival? Yerris’s delirium appeared all too real as he began to lose consciousness when the rescue squad came upon them. He faintly heard his name called out by the onrushing squadron that appeared like ghostly human torches set upon the beach; and the thunder and lightning faded into the breezy calm of a now moonlit, tropical night, awaiting a new dawn.

*   *   *   *

All of this came back to Jonathan Yerris once more, even twenty years after it took place. Yerris looked out the window of the rectory office and saw the same kind of Jamaican moon that beamed down on him that fateful night of 1972. Only this time the desk calendar read July 15, 1992—his birthday. The time was around 9:00 p.m. Not even the cold chill of the air conditioning could freeze the palpable sweat imprinted on Yerris’s rugged face and glistening in the moonlight. He could not believe that he lived to be forty-two, in spite of the many nightmares he endured over the years about that particular hell night in Jamaica. But he survived them. Certainly, he weathered their torments over the years; however, it was not by his power, but rather the Lord’s. This was reinforced in his consciousness when he picked up the small desk plaque that read, Christ Above All. He stared not only at those words but also into their markings, which by now had become etched on his soul. He quietly whispered Yes, Lord, you picked me up and carried me through this scar of a memory—and you are still carrying me through its ongoing assault, so relentless in its pursuit of my sanity.

Yerris said each word of the prayer as if to reinforce his faith in the Lord’s strength to endure through the lonely doubts and fears, especially numbing and paralyzing to his meditative disposition on this fading birthday night. Alone in his reflections, Yerris thought he heard a knock on the front door. He slowly rose from his chair, a little annoyed about the disruption. He thought of possible birthday surprises from the office staff; but this was highly unlikely on a weekend night. He was reaching for the doorknob when the door opened almost full flush into his face.

Oh, Father, I’m sorry! a familiar voice exclaimed.

It was the voice of his secretary, Sania Wilkers, who had come back to the office to retrieve some outgoing mail she had forgotten to take with her at the end of the day on Friday. Awidowed mother of an eleven-year-old son named Jobie, Sania had been the secretary of Our Lady of the Holy Cross Church in New Loraholmes, Louisiana, for the past ten years. She was proud to be part of one of the oldest black Catholic churches in southwest Louisiana. Sania was of Creole-French descent, and she was fiercely protective of her black Catholic heritage in an area that had seen its share of racial strife over the years. Her husband Lenny was killed in the helicopter crashes of the failed rescue attempts for the U. S. hostages in Iran. Lenny and Jonathan were the best of friends as Navy SEALs back in the early seventies. Jonathan decided to enter the seminary in 1974, while Lenny continued in the service as a special SEAL commando. Lenny’s death in Iran really was a shock to Yerris who suffered through enormous guilt feelings over his buddy’s death. But it was Sania’s quiet, courageous strength that reassured Yerris that he made the right decision in studying for the priesthood. Sania even told Jonathan that Lenny was very proud of his decision to be a priest, though many of Yerris’s fellow SEALs thought it was a tragic waste of his skillful abilities.

Sania felt a special kinship to Yerris, not only because he was there for her after Lenny’s death in May of 1980, but also because he understood her weakness when she got pregnant for Jobie. Sania was so sorry that Jobie could not be the son whom Lenny always wanted. The boy’s father knew nothing about Sania’s pregnancy. She had no one to turn to except Father Jonathan Yerris, who welcomed her with the position of secretary at his new pastorate in 1982. Jobie had grown up to be the captain of the junior altar servers for the Church. Yerris saw Lenny’s spirit in the boy’s eyes whenever he volunteered to serve Mass in a clinch at the last minute. Lenny was like that, always willing to volunteer for the tough assignments. Yerris thought this was very peculiar—even more so, since the boy was not Lenny’s son, as related to him by Sania’s account.

Sania reassured the startled priest of her apologies. Father Jonathan, I’m very sorry about surprising you like this. I thought you wouldn’t be home this evening based on what you were saying when I left Friday. Oh, by the way, happy birthday to you!

Sania reached out to the still flustered priest to hug him. Her boundless enthusiasm was like the force of an onrushing wave you could not escape, and her hugs were full of heart-reaching emotion that embraced both body and soul. Yerris could feel his eyes bulging out of their sockets and his lungs collapsing from the sheer strength of this lithesome figure of a woman.

Sania, you scared the you-know-what out of me—from almost both openings! the breathless priest exclaimed in a voice that was more playful than angry. I was a little uptight tonight—not so much about the birthday, but about my mortality," the priest conveyed in a voice that sounded highly vulnerable in its melancholy.

Sania motioned for them to sit down in the chairs by the front door hallway and said, Father, I have a little time to listen right now since Jobie is with my mother at the house. Besides, you look like you need someone to talk to. Usually it’s the other way around.

Yerris appreciated her thoughtfulness. Yeah, you’re right, Sania; thank you. I guess the minister needs ministering to right now, Yerris softly related with eyes that had that forlorn gaze which Sania had come to know all too well over the last ten years. I had another flashback to my lightning strike in Jamaica in 1972, Yerris haltingly continued. I heard the rumblings of an approaching storm earlier in the evening while I was going over some notes in the office. Suddenly a lightning bolt flashed all around me. I think the electricity went off for a moment. I felt paralyzed in the chair— couldn’t move even my toes. It was exactly how I was on the beach after the lightning hit in front of me. I was reliving the whole horror over again, from the struggle with the undertow in the water to the beach run during that late evening tropical storm.

Yerris stopped abruptly as he got up from the chair and stood before the window that framed a calm, moonlit evening highlighting the sugar cane fields in back of the church next to the rectory. The priest’s voice was just barely audible at this point, as Sania went over to him, placing her hands on the back of his broad shoulders.

Sania, I could hear Lenny calling out to me as I lay on the beach, the priest continued. I could not answer him. I wanted to, but I couldn’t do it. I was aware of all the guys in my unit picking me up very carefully, and then placing me on a MASH stretcher— rushing to get me to a hospital. The next thing I knew, the lights came back on in the rectory; but I could almost feel the moonlight still shining in my face when, still sitting in my chair, I came back to my senses. I think I told God, ‘Lord, I didn’t need this to occur on my birthday. Please don’t let this become an annual present.’

Yerris turned around to face Sania who could see so much bewilderment in his gaze.

Sania, I know in my gut that I survived Jamaica for a reason. I wish to God I knew why—why me, and not Lenny? Why did I live after a meaningless commando challenge; and why did Lenny die doing the real thing to save lives in Iran?

Yerris could feel the emotion rising in his voice. He moved away from Sania to face the crucifix hanging on the wall—the one Lenny had given to him as an ordination gift before he left to go to Iran to free the hostages.

I’m supposed to have the answers to questions like this, Sania, the priest whispered. I know all the standard lines about what to say to others. They don’t work on me. Funny, isn’t it? This is the sad irony for me.

Yerris went to touch the crucifix as if to resurrect his doubting faith. A ray of moonlight seemed to fall on the head of the bowed Christ enshrouded in the dark shadows away from the ceiling lights. Jonathan could only stare at the symbolism and ponder its significance.

Just then the phone rang from Sania’s office across the hall. She asked the motionless priest if he wanted her to answer it. As if coming out of a deep trance, he finally looked at her

Yes, go ahead. It may be the answer to my birthday prayer, Yerris remarked with a tinge of sarcasm.

Sania hurried across the hall to get the phone before the answer machine clicked on after the seventh ring. Since it was almost 10:30 p.m., he thought it was an emergency call. Sania hurried back to tell Yerris that it was a personal call from a J. W. Alexander. Knowing who that was, he told his protective secretary that he would take the call.

Sania hugged the priest again before leaving the rectory. I’ll be here around noon tomorrow because of Jobie’s appointment with the doctor—just a regular check-up, nothing serious. The money counters for the weekend Mass collections will come here around noon, so I’ll be here if you’re not, reassured the conscientious secretary who left only after the priest convinced her that it was okay to leave.

J. W. Alexander was Yerris’s Navy SEAL commander back in 1972. Now in his early sixties, Alexander had moved on from the Navy into a successful early retirement in Houma, Louisiana, about sixty miles southwest of New Orleans. Alexander, also a military lawyer, had established a prominent law practice in the Deep South, which was noted throughout the gulf region. Yerris was anxious to speak to the man who was constantly beside his hospital bed after the lightning strike. The man, as gruff as he was, nevertheless possessed a compassionate heart for his men. Yerris was his favorite because he never complained about all the grueling training the commander had put his boys through in that initial Hell Week all potential SEAL candidates must endure in Coronado, California, a resort area just across the bay from San Diego. It was Alexander who had proposed the hell-like competition with the Norwegian crack tactical unit back in July of 1972. This was the same man who started the winner’s-flag competition with other foreign commando squads competing against a select group of U. S. Navy SEALs off the southern coast of Jamaica.

Yerris had a gut feeling that Alexander’s call was not about pleasantries pertaining to his birthday. It was too late for that.

Jonathan, pick up the damn phone, Alexander bellowed.

Yerris rushed quickly to his office phone, knowing the volcanic nature of his ex-commando’s temper. Sir, sorry to keep you waiting. I was in prayerful meditation, the priest responded with tongue firmly in cheek.

Good to see that you still know who to talk to after all these years as a priest. I’m sure the Lord will excuse the importance of this interruption. Oh, by the way, happy birthday—what’s left of it, Jonathan.

The priest could only smile at his ex-commander’s vain attempt to be sincere.

Anyway, Jonathan, I need your spiritual expertise about a situation in which U. S. Senator Phillip Volcarr, a good friend of mine, is personally involved, Alexander solemnly related.

Yerris knew that Senator Volcarr was from nearby Lafayette, Louisiana, and had pushed through congress many pieces of legislation that were pro-family oriented. He also knew that the Senator had visited Holy Cross Church’s parishioners at their annual parish picnic about a year ago. The Senator was proud of his black constituents who enthusiastically supported his re-election to congress in 1991.

Alexander continued the conversation. Jonathan, Senator Volcarr’s daughter, Jennifer—she’s seventeen, just graduated from a Lafayette high school—had become horribly addicted to amphetamines throughout her high school years. By the time she graduated in May, the kid almost didn’t make it. She overdosed on crystal meth during the senior trip her classmates took to Cancun in early May. Phil had enough of this by the time of her graduation in mid-May. He told her that she was going straight into a drug rehab program the Monday after she graduated. Sheriff Davis LeRay is a good friend of Phil’s. He recommended that Jennifer go to a special drug treatment facility for youth which was recently opened in Negril, Jamaica.

Yerris had to interrupt at this point. Sir, the west coast of Jamaica has gotten pretty wild recently with all those infamous hedonistic resorts. Even some of my parishioners have gone down there. Confessions went up for me big time during Easter week. I can’t believe that someone is running a drug rehab center right in the midst of the so-called ‘Garden of Hedo’.

Alexander had to jump on this revelation by his former subordinate. Yerris, don’t pass that knowledge off on your poor parishioners. From what I can remember, you readily volunteered to move the winner’s-flag competition to weekends at Negril Beach, or was it ‘Nude Beach’? Anyway, this new detox youth center has been the source of some controversy. The kids call it ‘Stairway to Heaven’ after an old rock song by…

Led Zeplin, Yerris interjected.

I was going to get it, Father. I knew it was one of those contemporary bands that played around the time of Lawrence Welk, Alexander imparted with a touch of flippancy. Jonathan, I’m not going to keep you much longer with the details, Alexander stated, still in that Texas drawl never to be cajunized after all the years living in south Louisiana. The FBI has sent a field agent down to the center. The agent is working undercover as a member of the promotional staff for the facility, which is named Heaven’s Light. The founder and program director is a man named Nason Harliss whose nationality is believed to be Dutch. The FBI suspects Harliss of confiscating the drugs the kids bring with them and then reselling them on the black market. But that’s not all.

Alexander paused in such a way that Yerris knew he would personally be involved somehow, someway in the matter. Jonathan, this man Harliss is a millionaire many times over with connections in U.S. oil operations and Scandinavian telecommunications. He is a special congressional lobbyist for Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are worried that the U.S. will cut down on their reliance of Middle East oil because of the recent Gulf War with Iraq. The Arabs are afraid that the U. S. will go to other countries in Africa or South America for oil production opportunities. The Saudis are relying on Harliss to lean on the members of Congress who have influence with the oil companies.

Yerris began to show some impatience about where this was all leading. Sir, I don’t understand why you are telling me all this. How does this stuff concern me?

"Jonathan, this Harliss character is very savvy. He knows that these congressmen are having problems with their teenagers because of various drug addictions. The Washington, D.C. social scene has been pretty wild lately. I guess it is the euphoria over winning the Gulf War. These kids are dabbling not only in drugs but also in the occult. Harliss encourages the Senators to send their kids to Heaven’s Light so that he can heal them. Whatever he does, it works in getting the kids off the drugs. However, as I said earlier, the FBI suspects that the drugs are not destroyed. The drugs are certainly not turned over to U. S. Customs in Jamaica. Harliss states that the drugs are destroyed on the property, but there is no evidence of this. The FBI suspects that Harliss is getting the drugs back to the Saudis who, in turn, are making a financial killing reselling them in Kuwait."

Yerris was growing tired of the conversation, noticing that it was almost midnight. He was about to end Alexander’s monologue when suddenly a sweep of dark, wispy clouds shown transparently through the moonlight. The priest was transfixed in his gaze from the office chair. He was mesmerized over the entire lunar translucence as he looked out the picture window behind his desk.

Jonathan, are you still there? Alexander practically shouted to jar Yerris into some response.

Sir, it’s getting late. I’ve got to get some sleep. It has been a long day for me. I guess birthdays are too exciting for me now that I’m into my forties.

Alexander relented to conclude with this plea: Jonathan, Senator Volcarr would like for you to talk to his daughter, Jennifer. Something is not right since she returned from Heaven’s Light. She is withdrawn, very depressed. The doctors have ruled out Mono; and they don’t think it is related to drug withdrawal. She has horrible dreams about a shadowy figure coming to her at night, sucking the breath out of her while she is sleeping. When she wakes up, she has no energy. She doesn’t want to get out of bed. Phil is afraid that she is becoming suicidal. Jonathan, as a favor, please call Phil and arrange a meeting with Jennifer. She is my Godchild.

Yerris could tell that Alexander’s emotions were plaintive in their desperation. The priest knew he had to honor the request.

"Sir, give me the Senator’s number. I will call him in the morning. We’ll see what happens. It all depends on whether or not the girl wants to talk to me. That has to be determined. She has to freely want to talk to me. I’ll do my best to see if a meeting can be arranged."

Alexander gave the priest the Senator’s private numbers in both D. C. and in Lafayette.

Jonathan, thanks a lot. I’ll be in touch with you shortly. I hope to see you personally in the near future. Who knows, I may want you to hear my confession if you can spare three hours, Alexander chuckled, knowing he would never give the priest that satisfaction.

Good-bye, sir; your confession could be another hell week I don’t think I want to endure. I’ll be in touch.

With that, the priest hung up the receiver and stared one last time out the large window. A shadowy cloud had stationed itself over the moon, blocking off any moonlight. The priest exhaled slowly into the darkness enveloping every corner of the office as a new day chimed its arrival.

CHAPTER 2

Monday, July 16, began as a typical, sultry Louisiana day in summer. The early morning temperature was eighty degrees, and the humidity was a stuffy ninety percent. The heat index combined with the humidity was stultifying even to the birds that remained in their shady branches. Father Yerris did not need the local report on the Weather Channel to relay the mistake of the songwriter in Summertime from the musical Porgy and Bess: "Summertime and the living is not easy," at least in Louisiana, Yerris thought as he walked from the rectory to the church to celebrate morning Mass.

The regular Monday morning participants were an elderly couple in their eighties who had kept the same routine for the fifty-plus years of their marriage. Yerris regarded the Broussards as the cornerstones of his parish and compared them to the stately gargantuan oak trees that flanked the entrance of the church. Yerris had lost count of the many 6:30 a.m. Monday Masses when just the Broussards and himself were present.

The priest knew which Monday Masses would bring sparse numbers; and they all would begin with the first Monday in June and extend to the Monday after Labor Day. Nevertheless, he displayed a soldier’s determination always to be there for his parishioners. He would earnestly pray in the sacristy, where he would sometimes struggle to put on his vestments, that the Lord would give him the enthusiasm, the spiritual coffee-aided boost, to say the liturgical prayers as if it might be his last Mass, no matter the numbers present. But this was a Monday for extra prayers, for the groggy priest got little sleep the night before from his tossing and turning over the phone conversation with Alexander. Something about the Senator’s daughter was troubling him. He kept dreaming about his late sister, also named Jennifer, who was strangled to death in an attempted car-jacking in 1985 outside the downtown area of Atlanta, Georgia. She was eighteen years old, starting her first year of college at Georgia Tech. Yerris and Jennifer were very close. She was the one who heartily supported his decision to study for the priesthood in 1974 even when Yerris’s parents were lukewarm about his decision to enter the seminary at St. Meinrad’s in southern Indiana.

After celebrating Mass, Yerris slowly meandered to his office at the rectory where he picked up the desk note containing the scribble of phone numbers Alexander had given him. The priest was always uncomfortable about calling problem references. This was even more troubling because it involved a respected U. S. Senator, who, nevertheless, had received much negative publicity from the media over his voting record favoring questionable alliances with Saudi Arabia, both financially and politically, since the conclusion of the Gulf War.

Yerris, however, was not going to disappoint a needy request, whatever the reservations. He called the Senator’s Washington office only to be told that the Senator and his family were on vacation. Volcarr’s secretary wondered how the priest received the private number. He mentioned Alexander’s name; and immediately, the secretary relented that the Senator could be reached at his Lafayette, Louisiana, residence. Yerris stated he had the phone number and silently debated whether or not to call the Senator while on vacation. Volcarr’s secretary seemed intuitively to read Yerris’s thoughts and assured him that the Senator was expecting his call. Alexander typically had covered all the bases, letting Volcarr know about his clerical protégé. Yerris thanked the secretary for her help. As he pressed the numbers on the telephone console, he sighed in relief. Better that the Senator knew about his expectant call rather than be surprised. The image of Yerris’s sister, Jennifer, plaintively reaching out to him, came into his mind’s eye. There was no turning back now. Someone’s life—someone’s soul—depended on him for assistance. He just knew his sister would be pleased that he could try to help a namesake in distress.

For some strange reason, Yerris’s call to Volcarr’s Lafayette residence could not be completed. Finally, after several direct dialing attempts, the priest pressed for the operator.

She related that Lafayette had been experiencing a severe thunderstorm for the past half hour, causing widespread power outages that were disrupting phone calls to the area of Volcarr’s residence. Here it was around 10:00 a.m., and already the summer heat was bubbling up into the kind of steamy fury that creates intense, blinding showers accompanied by bomb-like explosions of thunder and lightning. These were all-too-common weather conditions for southern Louisiana during this time of year. However, the intensity of these storms had become more violent and destructive recently. Yerris decided to turn to his old standby, the Weather Channel, to get the latest information about the severe weather around the Lafayette area. The color radar depicted various shades of yellows and reds for the thunderstorms pelting the Lafayette sectors less than fifty miles west of New Loraholmes, much like the cluster bombs that rained down on Iraq during the Gulf War. He had no choice but to delay the phone call to Volcarr.

Keeping the TV set on the Weather Channel, Yerris turned down the volume control on the remote. He felt uncomfortably helpless about the futility of his predicament, but he was prayerfully grateful that the storm’s severity was moving northward away from New Loraholmes. Ever the Navy SEAL about taking matters into his hands, he decided it was imperative that he drive to Lafayette to see the Volcarrs; and he would try to reach them from his car phone along the way. He wrote a note to Sania to explain where he could be reached only in case of an emergency. As he went to turn off the TV, he glanced at the crucifix Lenny had given him; and he paused to say a safe traveler’s prayer similar to the ones he said as a Navy SEAL going on maneuvers: Lord, please guide me safely through whatever obstacles and challenges come my way. Help me to overcome any fears and worries that threaten to overwhelm me. Be my rock, my refuge, and my strength. Lord, lead me to where I must go to help those in need of your comforting presence. The priest touched the crucifix and left the rectory confident about what he had to do in the Lord’s name to help a hurting family.

Before going to the garage to get into his car, Yerris remembered that he needed some more blessed oil and holy water for his sick-call kit and would have to walk over to the church to obtain these sacramental items. He knew he could help people using his basic skills as a counselor-minister; however, he realized—albeit humbly sometimes—that he must give way to God’s power called forth through prayer and sacrament. Inside the front doors of the church was the baptistery set off to the side within a garden-like atrium. This was Yerris’s pride and joy. He personally helped to build this replica of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman at the water well, a scene from St. John’s Gospel, Chapter 4. It was constructed as a walk-in type of fountain split into two halves. While one side was shallow enough to baptize babies and small children, the right side, where the Samaritan woman statue was sitting across from Jesus’ sculpture, was deep enough for an adult baptism of total immersion. An electric pump kept the water flowing during the baptism services. Yerris loved to see and hear the gurgling, bubbling aqua come alive, depicted life-giving water, surging and pulsing in its energy to cleanse, refresh, and renew one’s spirit.

The water was quiet now, placid like a liquid mirror. As the anxious priest bent over the well’s ledge between the two biblical sculptures, his weary visage reflected a ruddy, handsome face highlighted by greenish-blue eyes so penetrating in their contemplation of life’s twists and turns. At times, Yerris wondered if he were seeing his true self in the pool’s reflection. His forty-plus years were clearly evident. Yet he was always at peace around this aquatic symbol of rebirth and new life. No matter how troubled he may appear, when gazing deeply into the still waters, he always felt a meditative calm about facing the unknown. Suddenly, Yerris pulled back in horror as what looked like a flash of lightning came forth from his reflection below. He struggled to regain his composure, wondering if he was hallucinating about a past event—his being struck by lightning twenty years ago—now merging into the present as a possible warning for his future. Was the tranquil calm now going to give way to complete chaos, just as it had for him on that deserted Jamaican beach back in 1972? Yerris grabbed the flask filled with holy water and rushed to get into his car so that his fears and apprehensions would not ensnare him in complete paralysis about the commitment awaiting him in Lafayette.

It was a little past noon when Nancy Volcarr, the Senator’s wife, decided to check on her daughter, Jennifer, in her upstairs bedroom. The intense summer storms had finally subsided, but the electricity had not come back on throughout the neighborhood. Though streaks of sunlight were appearing at various intervals around the stately antebellum mansion, ominous dark clouds prevented the sun’s rays from penetrating the recesses of the rooms. The effect was almost eclipse-like, too eerie for its occurrence at this time of the day.

Jennifer, are you all right? Mrs. Volcarr’s voice reverberated from below the staircase. There was no response. The Senator was still outside checking on the scattered horses in the pasture. She picked up a lit candle and called out once more in the midst of the semi-darkness.

Jennifer, are you okay? I’m coming up to check on you. Just stay where you are in your room.

Still there was no response. The panicky mom hurried up the stairs with the flickering candle almost falling from its holder as she reached to top. Jennifer’s room was located across from the top of the staircase at the other end of the hall, but the shadowy darkness forced Mrs. Volcarr to stop abruptly before proceeding to her daughter’s room straight ahead. The breathless, trembling mother could vaguely see that the door of her daughter’s room was slightly ajar. In the sinister silence and darkness, Mrs. Volcarr struggled to move at a quicker pace as the candlelight seemed to fade in its glow about thirty feet from her daughter’s room.

A few steps from the bedroom door, the anxious mother suddenly stood still for a moment when she heard panting sounds, much like belabored breathing, coming from inside her daughter’s room. Frightened, she called out from the darkness, Jennifer, please tell me you’re okay. I have a light with me. Stay where you are, honey.

There was no audible response. The flame of the candle flickered wildly back and forth, but there was no discernible draft, the air conditioning had stopped when the electricity had gone off two hours ago during the storm. Mrs. Volcarr wanted to move forward, but her fearful concern for her daughter paralyzed her in a momentary, motionless stance. In an instant, the candlelight went out. She then heard Jennifer’s gasping, muffled cries from within the room; and an