Greater Love by J.B. Jones (best books to read for students .txt) 📕

You cannot survive this.

It will hurt and you will die.  End of story.  Your own mom would beg you not to get involved. 

In bizarre and unsettling confirmation, a frightening mental image of himself curled into a fetal position, clawed hands reaching for salvation, appeared.  The corners of his eyes squinched and his lips curled into a moue of distaste.

The car rocked on its suspension.  Streaks of rubber,  a yard or more long, trailed away behind it. The result of the panic stop resembled a pair of exclamation points.

He didn't know when he'd gotten out of the car.  He also didn't know why he'd exited the vehicle.  He stood next to it, searching various pockets, praying he'd find the cell phone that he never brought on these early morning jaunts.  His head swiveled on a neck stiff with the tension of unimaginable horror, seeking...well, he wasn't aware enough to know what he sought. Eyes wide, his jaw slack, he stood next to the vehicle, shocked into temporary idiocy by the horrible view and the first pained and terrified wail of hopelessness - (Mommy!  Mommy, it hurts!). 

Jesus!  This sucks. 

He slapped at the onslaught of airborne particles that sought out the exposed skin of his face, the backs of his hands, the spreading bald spot at the crown of his head.  They swarmed, flaring and flashing, and where they found purchase, deposited sharp pin-prick stings and painful bites. 

The disturbing vision brought with it a cascade of physical reactions.  Clammy fear-sweat trickled from pores to etch chilly trails over his ribs. With a shudder, he rolled his shoulders, pinching them toward his spine to dislodge the curious itch-tickle that began there and rocketed down the entire length of his backbone. The glacial chill spread.  Savage depictions of evermore creepy imaginings trailed in its wake.  A watery feeling in his bowels accompanied the surge of adrenaline percolating into his bloodstream. The acrid, ammonia scent of his perspiration combined with the stench of his surroundings.  He gagged and forced down the rise of bile that scorched his throat.  Temples throbbed in lock-step with the galloping pace of his heartbeat.  The woeful pictures he conjured gave way to a fiercely insistent voice that urged him to

Run!  Run NOW.  GO!

 Bleak and malignant thoughts of cowardice grew in his mind and gripped it with a merciless chokehold. 

Anchored in place by indecision and thoughts of self-preservation, he was jolted by some thing inside of his head that railed against his inaction.

You big pussy.  Do something!

He felt impotent, powerless to counter the alien and malicious entity that had taken control and frozen him into catatonia.  He shared his mind with a demented but believable doppleganger that spewed a vile message.  It echoed and rebounded in an endless loop that always resolved to the gruesome core belief that he would die in great and certain pain.  Unaware that his head nodded in profound agreement with that disturbing logic, he stared in shock at the hellish scene that played out before his disbelieving eyes. Nourished by his well-developed insecurity, an invasive spawn of nervous tremors took hold.

... and he that believeth in Me shall never die.

His chattering teeth clacked to an abrupt halt.  That voice, he recognized.  He cocked an ear unconsciously in an effort to discern the source of this newest contribution.  It was unnecessary, though.  He had heard - could hear now - the comforting and resonant voice of Father William Vogt deliver that snippet of prayer.  Recollection of his service as an altar boy assisting the priest in an assortment of ceremonies crowded out the frightful tableau before him. 

It was replaced with a comforting blend of memories. A sweet and tangy scent of incense wafted out of the fuming brazier suspended from the hand of a young boy caught up in the solemn pageantry that was Sunday Mass. A flower-bedecked altar clad in snowy linen.  The dignified intonations of the Latin the priest prayed and the respectful responses of the gathered congregation.  Kaleidoscopic vignettes of sunlight reflected in myriad hues after piercing the artful mosaic of stained-glass windows, the life-sized crucifix behind the altar bearing the figure of the Son of God,  a golden Tabernacle and Chalice, the flickering twinkle of candles...

The reverie was torn to tatters by the heart-rending scream which begged God's - or anyone's - intervention.

He muttered a fervent and informal prayer of his own from a throat gone dry with terror. The raspy croak triggered a coughing fit aggravated by the unholy environment surrounding him. He knew that if he could look into a mirror a distorted caricature of his normally ordinary features would stare back. Desperate fear mutated his expression into that of an animal ensnared in some fiendish trap.  The whites of his eyes reflected scarlet and orange highlights that seemed to dance as his heartbeat soared. Those haunted eyes darted about in a maddening and fruitless search for someone who might help.  Rivulets of scalding tears flowed from them, soaking his cheeks and tracing serpentine paths until they dripped from his quivering chin.

Dear God, please!  I can't do this. Why me?  Can't YOU help?  

For just the briefest moment, a crazy thought took root and sprouted in the fertile soil of his imagination. 

I am.

That thought was flushed away, carried off by the roaring flood waves of anxiety born of panic.  A plaintive moan followed as he realized that no help, either Divine or mundane, was going to arrive in time to take this cup from his lips.   He trembled violently with tension fueled by adrenaline. Some childish corner of his mind worried that he might pee his pants. He attempted to restrain the flow with clamped legs and an unconscious tensing which did nothing to lessen the urge.

There was no event in his routine, predictable life that prepared him for this. Heroics were not his stock in trade.   He was a regular guy who paced through life with a practical passivity and knew with bone-deep certainty that he was not up to this astounding challenge. 

The lethal possibilities flashed, unbidden and unwelcome, across his mind's eye, diabolical cue cards of mayhem. In hysteria-driven cut scenes that might have been torn from the depths of a Hell that he hoped did not exist, he created an eerie slideshow of horrifying results.  Assaulted from every corner of his morbid subconscious, he faltered in the twin faces of cold dread and astonished dismay as the awful pictures of carnage were rendered in obscene and graphic detail.

A self-deprecating observation - You're stalling, you cowardly, faithless, thing. 

He felt damned.  Fists clenched, he roared his indignation and anger into passive heavens which spared him no notice.  In the background, a sound that resembled the static of a mistuned radio station grew by the second until it became the roar of a curse uttered by demons. Nearby, a dog barked in a frantic, staccato rhythm that his fevered mind translated as

Act!    Act! Act!

 ...condemnation of his self-preserving hesitance.  A horrid paralysis, confining as stone, rooted him where he stood. He wiped sweat from his stinging eyes, now aware of the dark and unnatural nimbus that blotted sunlight from the sky. He breathed with great, racking gasps heaved from lungs brutalized by the foreign atmosphere.

Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee…

He recited the little-used Act of Contrition he’d learned at his mother's knee with a reverence and fervor that had never come from him before this crushing moment.  He had been taught that this prayer could save his soul from the eternal torment that was the sole reward of sins unforgiven. It was a staple of Father Vogt's Last Rites, the cornerstone of the final ceremony dying parishioners experienced. He prayed hard. 

God?  I hope You weren't kidding.

With haste born of fear, both the physical sort for the injury he was certain to endure, and the psychological horror his grim imagination conveyed, he bull-rushed the demonic threat. A gutteral and aggression-filled growl spilled from lips drawn back in a rictus of determination. He peeled away his sport coat and tie, tossed them behind with unconscious negligence as he charged destiny.  He crossed his arms over his face in an effort to protect himself as long as possible.  With embarrassment so acute he cringed, he peed down one leg as he ran.  He did not stop, though.  With unshakeable certainty, he knew that to hesitate was to fail. 

Another of his mom’s bed-time prayers surfaced in the violent maelstrom of this terrible ordeal.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

The horrified and ravaged scream drowned the distant wail of emergency vehicles. The hair on his arms and at the back of his neck stood.  It continued, rising in pitch and volume,  until the barking dog whimpered in pain and a frisson of arctic chill detonated inside of him. Hopeless shrieks of desperation, mixed with piteous and ragged prayers for deliverance, fortified his decision.

So be it, God.

The headlong momentum of his blitzkrieg exploded against the weakened door and he plunged into the burning building.

“I’m coming! Where are you? I’m coming!”

 You have to play.

Sure, sleep is important.  In fact, you ought to do a bunch of it.  You two-leggers don't sleep enough, if you ask me.  You're always so busy and even when you aren't dashing around, you don't just flop on your bellies and bask in the warm comfort of bright sunshine or snooze under the shady stillness of a pleasantly scented bush.  What's up with that?  Try it!  Go ahead and curl up on that throw rug in front of the fireplace, close your eyes and dream.  The four-footed amongst us do it all the time and we're ok.  (If you try to get comfy in those places where the cats lay, along the humped back of the sofa or on that southern facing windowsill that provides a view of the backyard, the sleeping thing might get a bit complicated, though.  Just saying.)

And then when you wake up you can go play! 

Of course, that will have to follow the delightful experience of a jaw-clicking yawn accompanied by that curious little squeak that canines make. (Although, I don't remember ever hearing you squeak, now that I think of it.)  It'll have to wait until you take the time to str-r-r-r-etch your muscles, too.  Those feel so good.  What?  You don't believe me?  Stick your front limbs way out there, now bow your back 'til your tummy brushes the floor and don't forget to keep your haunches high as you wag...oooops, forget that wag stuff.  Then do it all backwards.  Get all your limbs under you and arch your back like you want to touch the sky with it.  (It pains me to admit it, but cats have this humpback business down to a fare-thee-well.  Need proof?  When was the last time you saw a stretching dog Halloween decoration?  The Defense rests, Your Honor.)

Oh, and I almost forgot.  Before you earn some recreation