Mall-Knapped

Welcome to Flash Fest December!

I have some author friends who have joined me in this challenge, and are contributing to the prize baskets!

This week’s prize basket:

• $10.00 Amazon gift card
•  your choice of one of my ebooks
• swag bag
•  handcrafted quality jewelry!
• ebook of Clockwork Nutcracker

This is how the prize giveaway will work:

Leave a comment throughout the week on any blog post, whether it’s the blog hop, flash, guest spot, or weekend writing warriors. I will select one of the commenters through Randompicker and post it on Monday’s post ( or rather Tuesday as it’s been lately, since my internet connection has been sketchy.) That person can contact me on Facebook or email me at: l.e.mcatee@gmail.com.

Winner for the week of December 17 thru December 23- Carol Gyzander!!!

The challenge is to write a flash piece, 500 to 1000 words based on a Holiday tune as a prompt. The author was given the option to select their own or I would assign one. Trust me,  my list of holiday tunage is anything but traditional!

Christmas Shopping Song

by Bev Harrell

Mall-knapped

by Cindy Webb

Christmas was over.  The January retail slow down had hit. When I cashed my drawer at J.C. Penney, I was in a hurry to get to my youth meeting. I was twenty but my favorite people were there.  I made the long trek to the employee parking lot to my Chrysler Calais. When I took off, I heard breaking glass. Apparently, someone had place bottles in front of my tires.

Later, I would figure out that ugly green car that went speeding off had left them for me.  That same car tracked me onto I-55.

 The driver hollered out the window,  “Hey lady, you have a flat tire.” He wove in and out of traffic relentless until I pulled over.

I am embarrassed to tell you this next part, but I got out despite my better judgment. This guy was unintimidating, even pitiful.  His university sweatshirt and pants were baggy. His high top shoe-laces were not tied. He was homely.

Huge black circles indicated he wasn’t getting much sleep.

I checked my own tire in the dark. Seemed fine to me. There were no cell phones. I didn’t have a flashlight. The shoulder of the highway was dark. I argued that  I couldn’t see anything wrong.

 He checked the pressure with a gauge and insisted on checking my trunk for a spare. He gave me a little push. I pushed back. Heels and all.

I said “Hey.” and told him I was in a hurry and I would just pray. I told him that God would take care of me. He always had and He would do it again. He offered to pray with me.

We did. I went to get into my car.

 He insisted on airing my tire up but, he had made me miss the ramp to the gas station. Annoyed and needing to get this over with, I caved.  I got into his car.

He put in a Wayne Watson cassette and played “Watercolour Ponies”.

When he headed down to the apartment entrance, a bad feeling swept over me. I knew I was in deep trouble. I clenched my knees together. Why did I wear a bubble mini-dress today?

 I figured out quickly that he parked too close to the nearby car for even my tiny frame to open the long heavy door.  I panicked. I got mad. I tried and tried.

My inner voice cried out to God! I turned to the man.

He had a gun pointed at me. I threw my head between my knees like some kind of ostrich, putting my hands over the back of my head. My imagination produced images of brain splatter of the car window.

 I couldn’t breathe.

My heart pounded in my ears.

 I reasoned with God. “I thought you had good plans for me. I thought I was going to do great things for you. I thought I would go into ministry. But if this is it, I know I am safe with you.” I know, I heard the God of the Universe shake me out of my tail-spin.

 A still small voice said, “Cindy, guys do not pull girls off of the side of the road, just to kill them.”

I answered in my head, “NOOOOOOOOOO! Not this way! It is not ending like that.”

At that point, I stepped through the iconic eye-of-the-needle.

I asked God, what to do.

He said, “Ask him, why is he doing this.”

So through tears, I asked.

That’s all it took.

He began to talk to me. He told me he was going to commit suicide. He even set the gun down.

He poured out his heart about how terrible his life had been. Story after terrible story of how he had lost family members in tragic accidents.   Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I was counseling him.

I would listen and tell him about my God who cared.

I talked to him about how God is love and how I wouldn’t want to go to hell because love must not exist there. In my head, I was standing on scriptures I had heard at a recent meeting.I was thinking about how a little old lady had subdued a burglar with nothing but saying scripture out loud.

To him, I was just willing to let him talk to someone. I kept praying under my breath. Throughout the conversation, he kept scooching further over onto my side of the car. I told him that there were angels right in that backseat. I told him we were not alone.

 I offered to pray with him. He let me.

Then he came too close. I put my hand on his chest and commanded him to get back on his side of the car. To my surprise and relief, it worked. He took his gun and threw it out of the window and into the nearby weeds then offered to let me go.

I had to promise that he could come see me at my work. He even gave me his full name and made me promise not to call the authorities. I knew I had to.  I also knew that I had to get free. I agreed.

He took me to the gas station and sped away.  I asked the gas station attendant if I could use his phone to call the police.

“Why lady, did your boyfriend just dump you off? Did you have a fight?”

“No. I was kidnapped and I used the power of Jesus’ name to get away.”

 “You know what, I believe you,” he walked me to the phone.

The next couple of hours I sat with the crime unit.  I still couldn’t tell you the make and model of the car. Mine was covered in fingerprint ink.   I honestly could not relay a good description of his face.  In the darkness, I just saw a weary, worn, desperate young man.

I had won his trust. He had given me his full name. It was strangely close to that of an author I had followed as a child. I gave that to the police.   I arrived home around 2:30 am. I reveled in my relationship with Jesus.  When I got under the covers, I sought out scripture to relate my experience to and found this:

Psalm 18 New King James says: 1) I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. 2)The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower, 3)I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. 4)The sorrows of death encompassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. 5)The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me .6)In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.

About the author:

Cindy A. Johnston Webb

CINDY WEBB has a desire to inspire and entertain while exhorting others through life experiences. As a wife, mother, lay-minister and this comes naturally. Her life has been full of endeavors such as selling out everything to go to Rhema Bible Training Center, pursuing an acting career and pioneering a church. Her greatest accomplishments are not in the things that she does, but in being obedient to do what her Heavenly Father has called her to do. Cindy has been a faithful much member of Victory Church in Pevely, MO over thirty years serving in a wide scope of lay-ministries.

Leave a comment and let Cindy know what you think!

Write on my friends, write on!