In the last installment of Super Youth Pastor SYP made some poor time choices and found himself collapsed on the ground.

As he shakily stood to his feet SYP was overcome with dizziness and had to sit before buckling again. Already he was surrounded. He tried to get his bearings as the shadows closed in on him. If only he could focus. He couldn’t remember where he was or what happened. All he knew was something was wrong. He hadn’t had so much as a cold since he became a super but this felt worse than any flu ever. He could feel the heat coming off his eyes and waves of nausea were breaking over him like the surf rolling in before a hurricane.

The closest shadow reached to him and he feebly swatted it away. It seemed his weak push was more than the shade could endure and the rest pulled back warily. SYP didn’t know how long he had before they built up the courage to come back. He tried to remember where he was but the last clear memory he had was months ago at one of the many summer concerts. As the summer dragged on more and more things were happening and it all merged into one big blur, as if everything was happening at once not in any order. The more he tried to focus on any one thing the less clear it became. He remembered dealing with the Bored of Elders. At that encounter focus impaired him as well so he tried letting the chaos overwhelm him but suddenly it was so much that he became violently ill.

As the heaving subsided he saw the shadows quickly moving in again but he didn’t have the strength to push them back. Something was pulled off of his face and light came streaming in. It was much too bright and made his head throb. The shadows seemed more solid but he could barely keep his eyes open as they laid him back down. The waves of disjointed memories ebbed and flowed all about him now. In weird moments of clarity he saw medics lifting him and heard the wail of sirens. He saw the panic on Super Wife’s beautiful face and smelled the pungent antiseptic smell of the hospital. As each fragment of clarity the anguish of losing his mind brought with it anger and depression before falling back into the sea of disjointed memories.

He heard a strange chuckle that brought about a powerful feeling of déjà vu. The lights were low but he should have been able to see someone in the room with him. A recent memory came into focus. The laugh he had heard the in the night as he left the church last night, or was it weeks ago? How long had he been in this hospital anyway?

“Are you alert this time?” SYP jumped and heard the machines quicken as his heart raced. “Calm yourself, you might bring the nurses to check on you, and you wouldn’t want them to get hurt would you?”

Was he hearing voices now? Had he completely lost his mind? Strange, he felt more sane than he had since he first awoke into the raging storm of memories.

“Don’t worry, your mind is not completely lost … yet.” The voice was both calm and menacing, but it seemed to echo around the room. “I am not one to be seen. A shadow. I work behind the scenes planning everything. When I am involved none know I exist. I am the best at what I do.”

“Who are you? What do you do?”

“I am the Planner. I have worked hard this summer to keep you busy. So busy that your own body could not save your mind. I struck only after you were much too distracted to notice. I was surprised to see that you have been recovering from my toxin. It seems your mind is suited to the mind breaking affects. I have been well paid to … shall we say remove you from the picture.”

“Wh…”

“Sorry to interrupt, but don’t bother asking who hired me. You must understand that I couldn’t reveal that even though you are about to perish. I would have finished you off earlier but I prefer to work from the shadows, it is what I do best after all. Such a forward move is usually beneath me so I waited to see if your mind really would recover before I moved. This is a first for me so you will have to excuse my curiosity. Could you please refrain from attracting attention while I study you for a bit? Some of the tests are bound to hurt, but you will need to be alert so I cannot allow anesthetic. If you attract attention others are bound to be hurt.”

“Huh?”

“Oh of course, you will need some time to think about it, but I’ll start some of the less invasive tests while you think. It really is important for me to know why you recovered so that this won’t happen again.”

With that the shadows seemed to coalesce in front of him and pull a series of instruments from the darkest part of the corner.

What is the Planner going to do? Will our hero recover enough to stop this shadow? Has SYP actually lost his mind? Find out this and more next week, same SYP time, same SYP blog.

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This is the conclusion of the story. For previous installments please visit part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.

SYP had never been so happy to see his wife. Just when it seemed all hope was lost she came in and saved the day. He had never been so tired either. All night he had been tracking down the Love Crazed Teen Zombies and battling the evil Purple. The Cool Kid claimed to be responsible for it all but somehow he slipped off during the clean up. That was pretty bad too. The building had been hosed down during the fight against the LCTZs. It seemed to be the most effective way to convert them back to their senses. The multipurpose room was the worst. Griz had activated the sprinkler system when all the remaining teen zombies had been rounded up into that room. That was also where the fight with purple took place. A great pillar of purple hued salt stood where Super Wife had destroyed the beast with her glare. SYP wasn’t sure how to dispose of it. Who knew if it might somehow cause another outbreak? It would be best to seal it up permanently.

One of the doors was completely destroyed also. The plot went much deeper than the Cool Kid. When Griz went for the Pizzas he was knocked out and tied up in his own vehicle. It took him hours to get loose and when he got back to the church he noticed his building keys had been taken as well. When no one answered his knocking he had to break in. SYP was glad they had made so much on the lock-in. He guessed most of it would go to repairing the damage.

The one highlight seemed to be that everyone had a great time. They didn’t remember their time as LCTZs but they do remember all the fun “games” and “staged” fights with over the top special effects. Everyone kept asking when the next lock-in would be. No one had any idea about who the original killer was. Of course the rest of the drama was interrupted by flesh craving zombie drama so it was unlikely anyone would guess. In the end SYP did a random drawing and one of the new kids he had never met won the Wii.

By the time parents started showing up the students were dry and ready to go. Fortunately the broken door was on the other side of the building from where the teens were leaving. None of the parents seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. The Cool Kid had driven himself and his car was gone.

SYP called the Janitor so he could get in early. They had cleaned up most of it by the time he got there. SYP was especially concerned about the pile of salt and the broken door so they made sure that was finished and at least temporarily secured before anything else got started.

“What did you do?” asked the Janitor when he arrived late in the morning.

“Yeah sorry about all this, but hey look on the bright side, it’s still cleaner than after VBS.”

“Still cleaning glitter out of those classrooms.”

“Need us to stay and help?”

“No, you’ll just get in the way. Get some sleep cuz you know the Board will be talking to you tomorrow.”

“Thanks”

“Don’t thank me just yet; I’ll be talking to them tonight.”

SYP just smiled and took his wife by the hand as they walked out to their car followed by Griz and the Naïve Intern.

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