It was dark when they awoke. Timmy opened his eyes and jerked upright in fright when he remembered that they were lost in a dark forest. That woke Jack and Hezekiah too. They stood and stretched their cramped limbs, their eyes gradually adjusting to the night darkness. They looked around them uneasily, hearing strange sounds in the trees.
“I don’t like it here,” said Timmy.
“Well, I don’t think that any of us would have exactly chosen to be here,” said Hezekiah, not particularly meaning to be sarcastic.
“We need to get help,” said Timmy.
“I think we already know that,” said Hezekiah, definitely being sarcastic this time.
Jack’s tummy rumbled with hunger; it was way past dinnertime and all three of them were hungry, wet and chilled. But none of this was as concerning as the eerie glittering eyes of shadows that were watching them, that now appeared to be slowly approaching them through the trees.
“Did you see that?” Timmy suddenly took a step backwards and clutched Jack’s arm in fright.
“They’re watching us,” said Jack. “I think they probably followed us from the Fair.”
Hezekiah stood rigid and wild-eyed.
“What are they?” asked Timmy. “Shoo! Go away! We’re armed! We’ve got…” he looked frantically around for something that might help. He grabbed a stick from the forest floor. “We’ve got weapons!”
Jack heard a snigger; a cold laugh. He knew that the shadowy things were Snares and that the Snares realised that he and Hezekiah and Timmy had nothing to fight them off with. Somehow he knew that sticks and stones would have no effect on them. After all, they were shadows.
Hezekiah’s trembling hand touched his arm. “They’re Snares, Jack,” he said. “Snares!”
“What do we fight them with?” asked Jack. “What did they teach you at school?”
“I don’t remember,” said Hezekiah. “I don’t remember!”
Jack tried frantically to think what to do. Of the three of them his mind seemed the most focused and it suddenly occurred to him that his helmet was helping him to stay calm and brave. His hand closed suddenly on the Bible that was encased securely in the pouch at his side. He pulled it out and held it firmly in his hand. It shone! It was like it said in the Bible: the Word of God was a lamp for footsteps and a light for the path ahead8. In Err it seemed that this came true literally.
“Zek!” he exclaimed. “Look! My Bible!”
“That’s it!” said Hezekiah in sudden excitement. “The Bible is our weapon against them!”
There was a definite hesitation among the shadows that moved toward them.
And then one of the Snares spoke. “He’s got a Bible!” it hissed angrily. “I thought you said they had no weapon!”
“They can speak!” Timmy said faintly.
“Not that boy!” said another Snare, “the other one. The other boy! He hasn’t got anything and he’s been encouraging us all day!”
“Not me!” exclaimed Hezekiah, his voice shrill with fear.
“Encouraging?” Timmy squeaked in fright. “Do they mean me? What are they talking about? What are they? I don’t want them here! Make them go away, Jack! Show them that Bible again!”
Jack held his Bible high. It glowed strong and triumphant above them, shedding light that the Snares seemed to fear.
But they were still there beyond the light.
“Ignore that boy,” commanded a big Snare. It towered above the other Snares. “Take the other boy! The other one is ours!”
“No!” shouted Hezekiah. “You can’t take me! The Lord Jesus has set me free from you!”
“Not that boy!” the leader commanded above the confusion that Hezekiah’s statement seemed to cause. “We can’t take him, he doesn’t belong to us, take the other one!”
“No!” Timmy shouted in terror. “I’m a Christian too! I’ve got a Bible somewhere at home! I’m nothing to do with you!”
There was a moment of awful, sickening sniggering amongst the shadows.
“We are the Snares of Pride and Self and Arrogance and Boasting and Love-of-Riches and False Teaching and many other things besides,” a shadow hissed.
“You’ve been honouring us all day!” said another.
“You’ve been giving us a place in your life!”
“You refuse to turn to the cross,” another taunted. “You have chosen your own way! You belong to us!”
“I haven’t! I’m not! I’m not like that! Tell them, Jack!” Timmy’s words were tripping over themselves in terrible fright.
“You don’t have anything to fight us with!” a Snare mocked.
“He does!” said Timmy, trying to push Jack forward and hide behind him. “Tell them, Jack! You fight them! Fight them off with your Bible!”
“It’s no good boy!” the big Snare leader hissed scornfully. “You cannot claim the protection of the Bible: you don’t even believe it!”
The Snare’s big, glittering eyes looked fleetingly uncertain as he glanced at Jack and Hezekiah. Jack was frantically trying to think what they ought to be doing to help Timmy. There must be something! The big Snare seemed to know that there was still something they could do to save Timmy!
“I’ve got a book too!” Timmy frantically rummaged in his rucksack and pulled out the book ‘The Real Me: Learning to Love Yourself’’ that he had purchased at the Recycle Centre. But even as he looked at the book, Timmy was filled with sudden horror. This book about himself and how good he was would not defend him against these frightening creatures of the night. They didn’t think he was good at all!
There was no restraining the horrible mirth of the watching Snares when they saw the book in Timmy’s trembling hand.
“I helped to write that!” chortled one.
“There’s not much in that that could scare us!” another boasted.
“That’s nothing to do with the Bible!” said a third.
Many other Snares crowded through the trees and jostled around their companions, laughing at the terror stricken boy and the book that had dropped from his limp hand.
“Take him!” the Snare leader commanded.
Timmy shrieked in terror and hid behind Jack and Hezekiah, clutching at both of them wildly as if they might just save him.
Jack held the Bible high above them. The wonderful, comforting light of the Bible spilled around them. It was the only thing Jack could think of that might save Timmy from his fate. But the shadows of the sniggering Snares pressed closer and closer around them. The light from the Bible momentarily deterred the Snares from the capture of Timmy, but slowly and surely they circled closer and, notwithstanding the light they feared, the big Snare leader urged the Snare shadows forward to take poor Timmy away.
“Wait!” shrieked Timmy as a shadowy hand reached out and entwined around him. “Wait! I’ve got a DVD! I got it at the Recycle Centre!” and with his one free hand, the other still clutching wildly at Jack, he rummaged in his rucksack and drew out the ‘You are the best’ DVD.
The laughter of the Snares was horrible to hear: the mocking, the taunts as the Snares realised that Timmy had nothing left with which to defend himself against those he had drawn to him through his rebellion and unbelief. He was without hope, and whilst the Snares hissed and shrank back and cackled in fear when Jack spilled the light of the Bible on them, there were too many to be long kept from their purpose.
They dragged Timmy away from the tree where they had slept and towards the darkness of the forest. He put up a good fight with his punches and his kicks and his loud shrieks of protest but the shadow creatures held him unrelenting in their grasps and his protests only amused them.
“Your Bible!” pleaded Timmy. “Let me have your Bible, Jack!”
Jack did not need Hezekiah’s urgent pleading to keep the Bible; not for anything would he let go of that strong, unwavering source of light and strength and Timmy seemed to know it was impossible for Jack to part with the Bible.
“Wait!” shouted Jack. “Wait! Where are you taking him?”
“Where he belongs!” sniggered a Snare.
“Let’s take him to False Teaching,” suggested another, “he’ll like it there!”
“You can meet our friend Ms Palm again!”
“Your pocket, Jack! What’s in your pocket?” screamed Timmy. “Give them money to let me go!”
Jack felt in his pocket for something, anything to help Timmy who was slowly being taken further and further away into the darkness of the forest. He knew he had no money but curiously his fingers closed around the small, carved stick that old Reuben Duffle had given him in Aletheia. With sudden inspiration Jack threw the stick with all his might toward the Snares. To his astonishment it did not land short or float aimlessly through the air, but it flew like a rocket from his hand and…
BOOM!
There was a sudden explosion of white light and sparks and what even looked like fireworks. Snares fell away from Timmy in astonishment and terror and Hezekiah gave a sudden cry of excitement. Timmy yelled in triumph as he leapt free of their hold and made a dash for freedom. It seemed he would gain it too. For a moment the Snares were utterly dismayed.
“A prayer!” one hissed.
“Who’s praying?” another asked fearfully.
“Are there more prayers coming?”
“We can’t take him against that type of prayer!”
The Snare leader was re-gathering his troops and watching carefully as Timmy almost reached Jack and safety.
“Run!” shouted Timmy. “Run for your life!”
Shadows don’t worry about boys that run. They merely glide after them. The glinting eyes of the Snare leader looked victorious.
“There are no more prayers,” he hissed. “They wouldn’t need to run if there were! Take him now!”
“No!” screamed Timmy. “Throw something else! Jack!”
“It was the stick!” gasped Jack. “The stick Mr Duffle gave me! They must be to do with him praying for us!”
Timmy looked aghast. “I threw my stick away!” he said in a piteous voice. “I didn’t know they were special! How could I know? He was just a mad old man…!”
This time Timmy went quietly. The Snares closed quickly about him and grasped him in their shadowy hands, weaving their strange cobwebby bonds about him. There was no mercy in their eyes and there was no hope for Timmy. Timmy had thrown away the prayers of an old warrior; he had refused to acknowledge his need to be saved and set free from his sin; he had armed himself with a book and a DVD which had no power because they weren’t the truth of the Bible; he had devoted himself to pride and self and false teaching and everything that was rude and arrogant and against the will of God. And so, the Snares of sin that bound people who gave themselves to all of those wretched, selfish things had come to take him away. Jack watched them go, clutching his Bible in his hand, frantic that they might take him or Hezekiah too. But they feared a Christian with the weapon of the Bible and they certainly feared the light that shone from the Word of God.
Hezekiah who had stood silent and trembling and horribly frightened at the whole scene roused himself after the success of the prayer-stick. He called encouragement to Timmy even as Timmy vanished entirely into the darkness of the forest.
“You must pray, Barmy!” he shouted urgently. “Ask God to help you and set you free! Then we can come and rescue you! Remember to PRAY!”
It wasn’t clear if Timmy heard Hezekiah’s urgent pleas.
He vanished completely from their sight and at last Hezekiah fell silent.
The two boys were left alone.
