<< Go Back

Missionary Kid Chronicles: The Naga Trilogy: Journey

By Sean Sanborn

Order Now!

1. Demon Cat
Finally, today they were going on a dragon hunt. Chaz’s adrenaline had awakened him early, and he dug out some eye grit as he scanned through the pre-dawn, gray haze that settled over his front yard. Sitting on the front step, his shorts soaked up the dew.
Maybe I should go back to sleep. I feel like a rickshaw ran over me.
Only a week ago, Wednesday, he would have been preparing for school, but today he was embarking on an adventure. He intended to make this summer the best in history, and a dragon hunt was sure to make that happen.
The McDermond’s truck ambled up their driveway. Chaz went over to greet Derek, Fred and Alice McDermond, who were members of the same mission as the Stevens, which meant their two families spent a lot of time together. Derek’s freckles and red hair encouraged a lot of attention from the locals. Even though Derek’s behavior was often annoyingly spoiled, Chaz still considered him his best friend.
Chaz looked around and then asked Derek, “Where’s your bag?”
Derek slapped his forehead then turned to his mom and whined, “Mom, I forgot my backpack.”
She sighed and rubbed her eyebrows with her thumb and index finger. “I’ll bring it to you at the church.” Alice climbed back in her truck.
Chaz grinned at Derek, “Ready for an adventure?”
Derek hopped down and said, “Always. Let’s go!”
“My dad went out for more supplies, so we won’t be leaving right away.”
“What should we do until then?”
“No idea,” Chaz said yawning and stretching.
Two local village boys, whom Chaz had met before, passed by in front of the Stevens’ two story house carrying a large cage. This behavior struck Chaz as extremely unusual, and he felt compelled to investigate.
“What sort of animal do you think they've got?” Chaz asked.
“Who cares,” Derek said. He didn’t seem interested at all.
“I’m just curious.” Chaz started walking. “Let’s go ask them.”
“I guess,” Derek sighed. “At least it’s something to do.”
The boys went to the front gate and turned left along the potholed asphalt street.
His dog, Saint, came over to join them, but Chaz sent him home. As Saint dejectedly retreated, Chaz felt convinced that Golden Retrievers were clearly the best kind of dog, ever. He wished his dog could join their upcoming dragon hunt.
A soft, warm breeze jostled the nearby trees. The base of the mountain was the perfect place to live. Not only was it cooler here, but Chaz could easily just walk up the undeveloped hill for adventures. Chiang Mai, Thailand was a jewel of the orient, filled with smiling faces. Sure, like most places, there was a seedy underbelly, but most people he encountered were kind and gentle. He didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.
Up ahead was a little mom-and-pop shop that offered a wide variety of merchandise crammed within two narrow aisles.
The village boys walked past this shop and turned right through the gates of a small community crematorium. By now, Chaz could tell there was nothing inside their cage. When there was a Thai funeral, a cremation ceremony would be held here on weekends, but today it was deserted. The atmosphere smelled of death and decay.
This place creeps me out.
The two boys were dressed in worn out clothing, and Chaz wondered if they lived in the thatched shack village near the Buddhist temple. They walked past a cement court, which the young people used for basketball, soccer and other sports. Then they searched through the rows of gravestones. Chaz thought it odd for there to be gravestones at a crematorium, but obviously, people of other religious beliefs used this place for their dearly departed as well.
Chaz held his hand out in front of Derek’s chest and said, “Let’s wait here,” motioning towards a circular cement table with four benches and an unfinished game of chess between them. Chaz liked chess but had never played here because this slab was usually in the scorching heat. But today, the morning was crisp, and the air smelled fresh.
Before Derek sat down, he swiped the water away. Chaz didn’t care; he just plopped right down on the dew laden bench. His shorts were already soaked from earlier. He’d change later.
One of the boys walked past the gravestones, picked up a well-groomed black cat and started petting it. The cat looked familiar, but Chaz couldn’t place it. The boy quickly shoved it inside the cage.
Chaz sat upright saying, “Did you see that?” Derek tilted his head but didn’t reply. Scrutinizing Derek’s quizzical face, he could tell he had seen it, too.
“Maybe it’s theirs?” Derek asked. The cat meowed and tried to paw its way out. Chaz finally recognized it as the cat that belonged to the owner of this very shop. The front grill of the shop was locked, so it was likely the owners were still asleep. He was quite sure the cat’s name was “Noi.”
“No, I know that cat, and it’s not theirs.”
Why did they just kidnap that cat?
Chaz and Derek waited patiently, pretending to ignore the young boys who raced past them.
“What now?” Derek asked standing up.
“Let’s follow,” Chaz said and grinned.
As soon as the boys went around the bend and out of sight, Chaz and Derek followed after. Chaz figured they were heading towards the temple. When they reached the temple, there was no one around, so it seemed probable that they went inside.
Chaz said, “Let’s go around the side and cut through the village.” The boys turned right, down a dirt path, which led them through a small farming community, comprised of bamboo shacks and thatch, lean-to houses.
A stinky sewage drain drizzled down the middle of the street, and they easily hopped over the rut. No one was around, and Chaz figured everyone had gone out to the rice fields. A couple of dogs followed at a distance and barked at them.
At the end of the village, they walked left towards the temple. A large oak tree’s branches hung majestically over the temple’s walls. It was an easy climb, and soon they were both peering over the high white wall into the temple’s grounds.
“Let’s stay in the tree,” Derek said. Chaz nodded in agreement.
An impoverished family sat in front of a line of fifteen chanting monks, all clad in bright orange robes. The repetitive, low-toned recitations vibrated the ground.
The man, whom Chaz assumed was the father, clasped his hands in a waii, high over his head, as a sign of great respect. Everyone in the family immediately followed suit. Symbolic tattoos covered a shriveled, high-ranking monk, who was sitting in a lotus position. The ancient monk dipped a branch of thatch into a pot of water and shook it, generously sprinkling it on the family until their faces glistened. One by one the family approached to receive bracelets of gray thread.
“The monk is putting demon protections on them,” Chaz whispered.
“You think I don’t know that?” Derek looked at Chaz with irritation.
“Oh, sorry.” Chaz wasn’t always sure how much of Thai culture Derek understood because Derek’s Thai speaking ability was rather limited.
A man and a teenaged girl, his daughter perhaps, carried an emaciated, pale, little boy up to the senior monk. They lay him down, and the monk wrapped a bracelet around the child’s frail wrist.
The father reached into his pocket, pulled out a large wad of money and put it neatly in front of the head monk. Chaz speculated this amount was way beyond what the poor family could afford.
The monk gestured for the father and the girl to hold the child down. The father held the wrists, and the girl held the ankles. The boy trembled as the chanting grew louder.
Chaz still didn’t see any sign of the two boys, but he now saw one of the novice monks carrying the caged cat towards the group. He set it down next to the child. The senior monk pulled out a jeweled knife and set it on the cage.
Derek jolted upright. “They’re going to sacrifice the cat!”
“We don’t know that yet,” Chaz hissed, holding his hand in front of Derek’s chest. “Besides, that doesn’t sound like something a Buddhist would do. They believe humans shouldn’t even kill a mosquito, much less a cat.”
“We’ve got to stop them,” Derek said.
“What could we do?” Chaz held his hands out in frustration. “Besides, this is their country.”
“I feel so helpless.”
“Let’s just see what happens.” Chaz adjusted to a more comfortable position in the nook of the tree.
The chanting became louder still, and the child started shaking intensely. The senior monk put one hand on the boy, and with the other hand he picked up the ornate dagger.
Chaz and Derek tensed. The monk touched the cage with the knife and the child convulsed, as froth burbled from his mouth. At the same time, the cat began scratching and trying to paw its way out.
Soon the child settled down, and the monks stopped chanting. The cat thrashed around in the cage. The cage flipped down the red-carpeted steps, and a frenzied cat bolted out of it.
The boys watched in alarm as the cat raced towards them. They pounced down from the tree, so as not to be seen, but also to avoid the path of the wild cat, which ran at full speed along the top of the wall, leapt into the tree and then jumped down a few feet from them.
“Let’s follow it,” Chaz said, already running.
How in the world did a non-Christian cast a demon out of a person?
The boys were no match for a crazed cat running at full tilt. They watched it as it grasped and scrambled its way up a tall pine tree.
“What do you think?” Derek asked.
“Go after it?” Chaz asked.
“It would claw us to death.”
“I want to get it.”
“Why? I mean it’s scared and will just go home when it’s ready.”
“No, I don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to do. There is something seriously wrong with the cat, and if we don’t bring it home, then I don’t believe it will ever return.”
Derek spied an old rice bag half-buried in the mud and picked it up. As he pulled it out, it slurped loudly.
“How about we use this?” Derek suggested holding the bag out to Chaz.
“Nice,” Chaz said and nodded. “Let’s do it.” He grasped the bag and ascended the tree after the cat. Derek followed.
As they got closer to the cat, Chaz saw its eyes were wide with terror. It clung to the tree trunk as the boys braced their feet on branches, on either side, at a safe distance.
The cat hissed at them with a sound that to Chaz’s ears sounded a lot like, “Leave.”
“Did you hear that?”
“I think I did, but…”
“Flee us,” the cat hissed more clearly.
“Now that I heard,” Derek said.
“Shut up, Demon,” Chaz said. He surprised himself. The words just came out, bypassing his conscious thought. The cat glared at him with intense hatred. “Oh, yeah,” Chaz cleared his throat and added, “In the name of Jesus.” At least now it wasn’t hissing at him anymore.
“Possessed?” Derek asked shrugging his shoulders and raising his eyebrows.
“Guess so,” Chaz said.
A talking cat? Now that’s new. My dad will know what to do.
“Distract the demon cat, will you?” Chaz edged closer so he could grab it.
“How?” Derek asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, I have an idea.” Derek waved at the cat to get his attention while saying, “Hey, how do you get a one-armed demon out of a tree?”
While the cat looked at Derek, Chaz used the distraction to plunge the rice bag over its body. In one quick movement, Chaz yanked the lip of the bag across the branch to dislodge the cat’s feet. The cat tumbled into the bag. The sudden weight jolted Chaz’s arm, and he nearly lost his balance.
“Good catch,” Derek said.
“I almost fell,” Chaz said lifting the bag higher and away from his body. “Hey, impressive distraction.”
As it clawed and thrashed, one paw became completely entangled in the woven fabric.
“So, what’s the answer? How do you get a one-armed demon out of a tree?”
Derek held his hand up and waved, “You wave at it.”
“Nice. What about a four-legged demon cat?”
“I distract it, and you bag it.”
“Well, it looks like we sure have the cat in the bag,” Chaz said.
“Leave the jokes to me, okay?” Derek said.
“That’s easy. You are the joke.”
“Cute comeback. But like I said. Leave it to me.”
The boys carefully made their way back down the tree, as the cat tried to wiggle and claw its way free. Chaz shook the bag a couple of times to get it to stop fussing, but that only made it more crazed.
The boys retraced their way back through the village to the main road, where the family they had seen in the temple was now strapping their sick child to the sidecar of a motorcycle.
“How is your boy?” Chaz asked the family in Thai. Chaz loved how easy it was to start conversations with everyone in Thailand.
“We don’t know yet,” The father said.
“What happened to him?” Chaz asked.
“Demons came on him, and he hasn’t eaten any food since.”
“Did the monks help?”
“This is our third time here. The hospital won’t help. We have no money left, so if our boy isn’t healed this time, we don’t know what we will do.”
“I think my dad could help you,” Chaz said.
“We have no money.”
“We don’t want money. Follow me.” Chaz swung his arm over his head in a welcoming gesture. “My family is experienced at helping people.”
“I don’t…” the man started to say, then he looked at his teary-eyed wife. “We will follow.”
The wife kick-started the motorbike, and the girl got on next to her brother and mother.
The father walked alongside the boys as they headed to Chaz’s home.
“Is your father a doctor?” The man asked as he strolled alongside them looking curiously at the shaking bag. Chaz didn’t think it was wise to divulge his secret in the bag.
“No, but we know the greatest doctor in the universe.”
“Will I meet him?”
“I hope so.”
“What’s in the bag? Dinner?”
“No. This is not for eating.”
“Why do you speak flawless Thai?”
Chaz looked at Derek and wondered how much of the conversation he understood. Then he said, “We’ve been here a few years.”
“It’s easier to learn when you are young.” The boy’s father put his hand on Chaz’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I don’t speak your language.”
“Don’t worry about it. English is unusually hard to learn. This is our house right here.”

Order Now!

<< Go Back