Terrorist: Chapter one

I have been writing off and on, have a number of books started on flashdrives. So, I am going to actually start sharing chapters from this book. Not going to tell you what the premis is but let you figure it out for yourself. Here is the first chapter (rough draft) of the first book, "Terrorist":

“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior?” asked the low, soft female voice at the front of the meeting hall. “Have you accepted God as the one, true God, and Christianity as the one, true faith?”


Phinn stood to the back of the hall, leaning casually against the wall near the door as she watched the small woman at the front of the crowd work the room. And she was small, perhaps even tiny, in her small pink channel suit, tiny glasses perched on a button nose through which peered tiny, almost rat-like blue eyes. The only thing that could be called big about Millicent Smith Hartford was the strange fluffed up and twisted mound of blond hair on top of her head, like someone electrocuted a yellow cat and then set it on her head to recuperate.

Another thing that could be called big about MS. Hartford, a more terrifying and sinister thing, was the number of people who followed her, listened to her, praised her, and drank every last word she had to say like it was sweet tea in the summer. But, though they sounded sweet, her words were poison.

“There is no other God, no other faith,” Hartford continued to the cheers of her audience. “There are those who call themselves Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, Heathens, Pagans and all sorts of other nonsense, but I know what they are. We all here today know what they are. Do you see it? Do you really know? Can you see through their lies and demonic ways what they truly are?”

The crowd was whipped into a frenzy at this point. Shouts of agreement, of anger, of “demons” and “devil-worshipers” and a variety of other words and phrases filled the hall, making the blue walls feel that much darker, stealing the light from the room and making it feel suddenly much closed in on Phinn. She kept her breathing steady, feeling the cold silver of the pentacle hanging under her sweater, between her breasts.

She had been to a number of meetings like this before, even a few which were headed by Hartford. The words were no different, and yet something felt very different this time. Maybe it was because the crowd was larger this time, hovering somewhere around maybe 100 heads. Or perhaps something else. Something was different, though, and Phinn began considering whether or not now would be a good time to slip out of the hall and be on her way.

“They are terrorists,” Hartford proclaimed, really emphasizing the word “terrorists” in a sinister, hissing sort of way that made Phinn’s skin crawl. “Spiritual terrorists bent on destroying our Christian nation, poisoning the minds of our young, defiling even the words of Christ himself and the Holy word of God for their own demonic ends.”

Hartford stopped her pacing across the front of the room and stared hard at the crowd, her beady eyes piercing the souls of those she looked into. Phinn felt her gaze moving across the crown, slowly up the center and towards her. She quickly pulled up her defenses and steeled her mind as the woman’s penetrating glace reached her at the top of the center aisle by the door. Hartford’s gaze lingered on her for a moment, looking the tall, willowy young dark-haired woman up and down to get her measure. She broke her gaze and continued on her diatribe.

“I have given many, many of these talks across several states,” she stated in a low, smooth voice that felt like silk around one’s throat. “I have spoke to many, many people who feel as we do, who are waiting and wondering when these terrorists will be dealt with. They are in our schools, our towns, even some of our homes. If the Taliban had invaded our country as these spiritual terrorists have, we would have had a call to arms, routed them out and destroyed every last one of them. Why have we not?”

Hartford paused for a moment. Phinn could have heard a pin drop at the deep silence in the hall, if it wasn’t for her heart pounding in her chest. She knew she had to stay to the end, or be seen as suspicious, but she wanted to run screaming from the hall.

“We have not,” she continued, “because our government will not declare one true faith so that we can outlaw the others and begin the eradication of these spiritual terrorists. But, that ends soon.”

And then she smiled a big, wide, Cheshire cat sort of grin, like someone who had just been given the key to all things possible. There had been rumors, sure. There have been rumors for years. Phinn’s watch group had been hearing them from fanatics and their groupies for a few years now, but none of the rumors ever panned our, was always just a way to get butts in the seats, money in their coffers and keep their people fired up. But, there was something about the way Hartford looked right now, the width of that smile and a light in her eyes that made Phinn wonder if this was really the day.

“I have been in talks with a large group of legislators on the state and federal level,” Hartford purred, so obviously proud of herself. “ I believe, as do that, that the country is finally ready, that there is finally enough support across the board, to bring a bill to congress declaring Christianity the national, and only, religion in the United State of America.”

It was as if a bomb exploded as the crowd became one roaring, cheering voice of ecstasy. People were hugging, crying, praying and praising together in this melee of happiness. People had rushed the front of the hall, wanting to touch the person who was their salvation from these “spiritual terrorists”, and she, arms wide like some pink, cotton-candy colored messiah accepting and embracing her disciples.

In the pandemonium, no one had noticed that the tall, willowy, dark-haired girl in the back had slipped out the door, racing to the car and her partner waiting outside.

Phinn nearly pulled the handle off the car door in her frenzy to be quit of that place. Trembling and in tears, she sank down in the passenger seat and closed her eyes as they pulled away. She always thought there would be more time, that it would never come to this. She always hated to be proven wrong.