Our Master of Zed

Between Boise, Idaho and Idaho City, Idaho; USA. Present Day…

The quarter-sized white delivery truck made its way off the two-lane highway that lanced all the way from Boise. The two employees of Panorama Home and Garden Maintenance were doing their last client for the small mom and pop company and were both anxious to have the day over! On their paper-invoice, the header read, “Our Master of Zed,” as the client on the work-order.

“Wow, that looks like something straight out of Medieval Europe,” Jonah Macks, the trainee of the duo, said from the passenger-seat as he craned his neck to get a look at the crimson bricked institution. Indeed, the isolated edifice had the echoes of ancient Europe with its elongated profile and towering spire. It looked as if the 21st century had built Boise but decided to leave a sampling of antiquity in the middle of an open prairie field ten miles from Idaho’s largest city!

Kathie Lott, in both the trainer- and driver-seat, silently nodded at her new co-worker’s observation. She slowed the speed of the work-truck upon approaching the institution.

“Kathie,” the thirty-something Jonah said to her; his voice at a whisper even though they were, yet, about a football field away from the building, “there’s something I just remembered what I heard about this place…It finally hit me after we passed that young guy walking up and down the road—”

“Yeah, what the hell was that all about,” the twenty-something, female maintenance crew member asked; driving almost at a crawl, now.

“I don’t know what that kid was doing—handing out religious tracts or something—”

Kathie turned from looking at the institution and set her eyes on Jonah; glaring! “Out in the countryside, Jonah? Who’s going to pass by this relic way out in the boonies so they can try to proselytize them?”

“Look, I remembered what that tour-guide told me last year at the capitol…she said there was some isolated church, temple, or something—west of Boise that some cult sends their priests to when they get into trouble. I’m certain this is what she was talking about!”

Kathie took another long look at the sturdy, looming structure. As they slowly got closer to the facility, both employees noticed about three or four middle-aged men loitering—taking a break, perhaps?—on a balcony of the building. All wore dark-blue apparel. Some of the relatively high landscape with its high vegetation obscured the men—adding to the mystery of Jonah’s urban legend.

The two maintenance workers shared apprehensive looks!

“If you’re right,” Kathie said, “makes you wonder what kind of trouble we’re talking about?”

Now it was Jonah that was silent…

As Kathie pulled the truck closer to the receiving section of the institution, there was another young man walking about on the grounds several yards away. He wore what appeared to be a casual version of the older men’s outfit—dark blue slacks, as he slipped off his sweater to reveal a simple t-shirt. Finished jogging or some field work?

She parked the utility truck to the side of the wide docking area—which was unusually clean for such receiving area for any building, aside from a couple of vehicle-fluid stains and one or two laundry bags that were left out next to a few benches for another contractor to pick up. Kathie and Jonah’s job was yards away—at the edge of the paved docking lot, where just in front of a grove of trees was a rather unusual, small structure that looked akin to a home-made fire kiln with its base looking more like an ancient Egyptian mastaba, and atop of it an American Southwest-puebloesque dome that seemed to serve as a chimney…all under a wooden superstructure that looked similar to a Japanese garden torii.

A rather eclectic, cultural affair for such an isolated congregant out in the prairie fields of Idaho…

“So now, what are we supposed to do here,” Jonah inquired; a hint of incredulity in his voice as he inspected the odd structure further. He noticed that the dirt around the foundation of the boxy-understructure had been recently dug up and the tiny walkway leading to the base had been poured just days previously; based on the texture compared to the rest of the institute’s docking area.

Kathie, with an uncertain shrug, once again took out her work-invoice and read, aloud, “Shore-up the foundation, tidy-up the ground surrounding the structure, and under no circumstances are Panorama employees to go into the structure.”

Both stood for about ten seconds; thinking on the instructions. Then Jonah noticed something else about the project.

“What’s that symbol on that small door? I haven’t seen it anywhere else on the church grounds.”

Kathie was shaking her head as she folded up the invoice and began to unload equipment off their truck. “That, my friend, is above our pay-grade…want some gloves?”

Two Hours Later…

The two-person maintenance crew proved their worth on fortifying the eccentric structure’s foundation and cleaning up the unfinished-looking grounds on which it stood on. Jonah followed Kathie’s instructions of Panorama’s procedures on upkeeps of bare ground—extending a trench here; implanting natural, branch-spikes there; mixing up some cement and patching up chips and gouges on the bricks of the mastaba… In all the time the two Panorama employees worked the structure, not once did any of the institution members go out to meet them.

She made sure to take a couple of pictures of their completed work and messaged them to the general manager of Panorama in a text for confirmation of a job complete.

About a minute later, while Kathie and Jonah were putting away their equipment, they both got a text on their respective smartphones, “Good job. Please leave a copy of the invoice in the small structure.”

“ ’ the hell?” Jonah looked up from his phone and to his supervising co-worker.

She, in turn, gave confused looks between all the work they had just done on that small structure, and then back at her text on her own phone. “I’m calling…”

“No doubt.”

By the time Jonah finished putting away all their equipment and tools back into the white truck, Kathie had called their general manager about three times, and still no answer!

“Say, Boss,” Jonah asked, exhaustion in his voice, “is it such a big deal that the clients get their invoice? I’m mean—” he wearily pointed to their work, “—there’s all the proof we did the job!”

“Yeah, but it’s company policy to leave every client with an invoice—never know when one of them might accuse any of us workers of not doing our jobs! Always good for legal reasons to have a paper trail.”

Kathie shrugged as she put away her smartphone.

“Ok,” Jonah continued, “but on that very same invoice, we’re told not to go into the structure ever…” His turn to shrug. “Would it be a big deal to put it under one of those extra bricks we had laying around by the front door to the structure? That way everyone—”

“But the general manager just text us that we are to place it into that structure!”

“You know how it goes with top management, Kathie…they don’t know all the details! He probably doesn’t even know that the invoice work-order says for us not to go in…” A more confident shrug from the young man.

Though he had a good point, Kathie was still not convinced! A thought occurred to her. “Why would he tell us to place it into a job he knows we just worked on? Why not text us to leave it at the back door?”

“And why didn’t he text us to simply go to the back door and ring for the church members to meet us for a signature?”

Jonah’s last point really struck Kathie…

“This is getting too weird,” she finally said as she took the invoice in question and strutted over to the small structure. “I like your idea, Jonah…” She took a brick that was among a stack of them and placed the invoice under it by the small front door of the small structure—

Jonah watched as Kathie froze on spot after weighing down the invoice by that tiny door. “What’s wrong, Kath—”

“Get in the damn truck!”

Kathie had already quickly walked by Jonah and he followed suit without any more questions.

Jonah noted that Kathie drove the truck a little faster than how she drove into the institution…he had the impression that she was trying not to tip the members of the institution that they were fleeing!

At almost the same distance from that ancient-looking edifice, the Panorama maintenance crew saw that young man out on the side of the road, having in his hands not religious tracts, Kathie and Jonah now could see…rather, in his hands was a large pile of invoices.

That was Kathie's and Jonah’s first time at the institution. Kathie had heard other Panorama workers that had always quit the job upon taking this particular client. But for some reason, no one was able to contact them after that…

fin