Dark Lord Rob's DarkForce

Brother Woodbine

     The rest of the tour took about fifteen minutes, which doesn't seem like much until you consider that this was basically someone's backyard. The estate covered a lot of acreage, and these Guardians had been really busy! There were the gardens I mentioned, an exercise yard with all kinds of track and field equipment, a martial arts training field ("We're peace-oriented, but the spiritual challenge of martial training is beneficial," Steve said cryptically), an outdoor stage with a screen ("movies every Saturday!" Steve enthused)... and a rifle range.
     Nathan asked him about that. "Aren't you supposed to be 'peace oriented'? Nathan asked. "What's with all this James Bond stuff?"
     "Well, it's this way, boys," Steve said, carefully, "We're on the leading edge of the millennium here, and the apocalypse could be around the corner. When that day comes, there will be a pitched battle between Good and Evil; and we believe that battle will be a physical reality, not a metaphor. Good must be armed and ready, lest Evil triumph. We can't keep Satan at bay forever." An odd look came over Steve's face when he said that, like he let something slip. It was a weird thing to say, at that.
     "Brother Woodbine will explain it to you further. He's very anxious to meet you." The chevy pulled up to the rear entrance to the main house, a vast and imposing edifice. Did I say imposing? Hell, it gave me a complex!
     An edifice complex. Get it?
     Anyway, we got out of the car and walked up the marble steps. There were some women and children outside near the house, the women sitting in the sun reading (the Bible, no doubt) and the children running around. "I thought that women weren't allowed here," Nathan said.
     "Those are the wives and children of some of the Brothers. By their wedding vows they have bound themselves to our cause; our danger is their danger. We just don't wish to place outsider women at risk. It's not a sexist thing; on that Fateful Day that must come our women shall fight tooth and nail at our sides. I look forward to seeing the look on the Dark One's face when he sees that his minions are being swept away by the fair sex!"
     The more Steve tried to sound unsexist the more sexist he sounded, broom metaphor and all. But Nathan let it slide. We were about to meet the head honcho. Brother Woodbine.
     "Brother Woodbine's office is in here, in the back of the building. He could have taken any of the luxurious parlors out front, but instead he chose this humble room behind the kitchen, in what once were the servants' quarters."
     I looked at Nathan and could tell that he was thinking the same as me. Public relations. What better way to distance one's self from the Jim Bakkers of the world than by choosing to live humbly amidst splendor? And it made great copy; after all, we were pretending to be student journalists.
     Steve knocked on the door, and a voice inside said, "Come in." We entered.
     Brother Woodbine sat behind a desk that was overflowing with paperwork. His office was pretty small, lined with old books and rock concert posters. There was a water-cooler and a coffee machine, and several TVs turned to different channels, all with the sound turned down. A CD was playing on a boom box that was perched precariously on a cluttered and too-small shelf, some sort of Christian Alternative Rock. Ugh.
     As we had expected, Brother Woodbine was indeed the man we had seen preaching on cable access the night before. He was out of uniform, wearing just a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He stood up as we entered, grinning.
     "Welcome, boys! Welcome to the Doorway to Hell!"

Next: We Learn Some Stuff

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