#2 White Sheets

by H. D. Gordon

  I looked over at Fae, who had a confused and genuinely afraid look on her face, but snapped into action like the good little soldier she was. She clapped her hands rapidly. “All right, children,” she said. “Line up, now. Line up quickly! Father wants us at the church, so hurry now.”

  I swallowed hard as all the children began to obey; all except Madison, who was doubled over by her desk, the medicine they’d given her this morning either worn off or ineffective. She turned her head and looked at me, her flushed cheek pressed against the table top, and I knew I needed to act, and act quickly. I could not allow these children to be taken to that big white house where that crazy man waited.

  Fae was busy hurrying the children, so she didn’t see it when I took the big wooden cross off of one of the walls, my hands trembling and my legs shaking.

  “Come on, children!” she said. “We must hurry! We must—”

  I heaved the cross back and knocked Fae over the head with it, trying to hit her just hard enough to knock her out and not kill her. But I had no way to calculate that, and I cringed as the wooden cross met with her head, making a thunk! sound I’d only ever heard the likes of once in my life, when I’d had to knock my father out with a frying pan as he’d stood smiling over my burning mother. The way Fae crumpled to the ground brought that terrible memory back in full force.

  I swayed on my feet, dizzy with adrenaline, staring down at Fae’s unconscious body, and totally aware that all of the little eyes in the room were on me. A vision swept over me then, blacking out the swimming world, and I had to grasp the back of a chair to keep standing. It was just a flash of an image, but it was enough.

  Dorie Dunham was coming to the childcare room. She was coming right now.

  Shit! I thought. Shit shit shit shit—

  It was the only thought I could process, until something warm tugged at my hand. I blinked, bringing reality back to focus, and the first thing I saw was the striking green of Madison’s eyes. I shook my head and glanced all around, my eyes settling on the storage closet in the back of the room.

  Scooping Fae up under her armpits, I began dragging her over to the closet door. Madison saw what I was doing and ran over to open it for me. I thought then that if we got out of this, the first thing I was going to do was buy this little girl an ice cream cone. She deserved a medal for her bravery.

  The rest of the children were staring at me in wide-eyed horror. “Come uh-uh-on, kids,” I panted out, still dragging Fae toward the closet. I tried to sound as authoritative as I could manage, because if there was one good thing about all the brainwashing these poor children had undergone, it was that they didn’t argue with authority. And right now, their lives depended on their obedience.

  “In th-th-the closet,” I said. “Guh-get into the cl-cl-closet right now!”

  The harsh sound of my voice jolted the children into action, and they all started to file into the stuffy little closet, looks of shock on their faces as they stepped over Fae’s unconscious (or so I hoped) body.

  I had just shut the door to the closet when I heard the door to the childcare room open and…

  Chapter 56

  Dorie

  …Dorie Dunham stepped inside, but the childcare room was empty. She let the door slip closed behind her anyway, because she hadn’t seen the children on the way to Father’s house when she’d walked up here…so, where could they be? Was it possible she’d missed them?

  She stared around the room for a moment in silence. The light had been left on. It wasn’t like Fae to leave the light on. Fae knew how much Father hated waste. Dorie stood still for a moment. Something wasn’t right. Father had been right to send her here to make sure the children were coming, because something wasn’t right.

  After several long moments, she turned to leave, but then her eyes caught on the wooden…

  Chapter 57

  Joe

  …cross, the wooden cross! I’d left the wooden cross on the ground where I’d dropped it after hitting Fae over the head. Was Dorie still in the room? I was pretty sure she was still in the room, and it had been too long. She should have left already after seeing the children weren’t here.

  The reverend’s voice cut into my panicked thoughts as he spoke over the speakers again, muffled through the door of the small closet.

  “Come, my children! Let us pray together in our church! The time is here for us to stand strong against those who seek to destroy us…”

  I didn’t hear the rest, because I could see the children starting to stir. They were all sitting on the floor of the closet, but at hearing the reverend calling them again, a few started to stand…then a few more, and just by the looks on their faces I could see they would not keep their silence much longer.

  I pressed my ear to the door, cringing every time one of the children let out a sniffle or a cough, feeling but not registering the pain as Madison’s little fingers dug into the flesh of my calf, where she was all but wrapped around my legs.

  Dear God, I thought, why won’t she leave? Why won’t she just…

  Chapter 58

  Troy

  …leave so that he could get in there. He needed to get in there, and get in there now! He hadn’t seen the children or Joe exiting the building, so that meant they had to be in that room. If Dorie—the crazy bitch—didn’t walk out soon, he would need to go in and incapacitate her.

  Just when he was about to do that, Dorie appeared from the doorway that led to the hall holding the childcare room. Troy held stalk-still as she went stomping passed him, and let out a breath of air he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when Dorie didn’t seem to notice him standing behind the door. He caught it before it could close and slipped inside the hallway. Then he waited a moment, seeing if Dorie would come back. When she didn’t, he raced down to the childcare room and…

  Chapter 59

  Joe

  …the classroom door opened again. I jerked my hand back from the closet doorknob, the sound stopping me just before I could push it open. I held my breath. Had she come back? Why had she come back? I needed to get these children out of here. I was wasting too much time.

  One of the children spoke out then, shattering the silence in the closet, making my heart stop dead in my chest.

  “Father is calling us,” said the child; a little boy no older than five by the name of Nicholas. “We need to go cuz Father is calling us!”

  I tried to shush him, but knew it was too late and all I could do was watch in horror as the doorknob to the closet twisted and…

  Chapter 60

  Troy

  …Troy pulled it open. There, stuffed inside the small closet, was Joe and all the children. Troy let out a long breath of relief but it went away as quickly as it came when he took in the look on Joe’s face. Sweat was sticking her dark hair to her forehead and her silver-blue eyes were as wide as disks.

  The reverend’s voice sounded again over the speakers. Troy didn’t know it yet, but it was a voice that would later haunt his dreams.

  “Come, my children! The hour is upon us! Come to me and let us battle the devil as one! Come mothers and brothers and children!”

  “See?” said a little boy who could be no older than five. “Father needs us! We need to go to him!”

  Troy ignored the child and focused on Joe. “I switched the boxes,” he said, panting with adrenaline. “You were right. Three boxes of the pretzels were ordered to be delivered to the church this afternoon. If those were the ones with the poison, they’re not anymore. I made sure of it.”

  Joe nodded. “Th-thank God.”

  “Now what?” Troy asked. “Everyone is already inside or heading to the church right now. The reverend will notice the children’s absence soon.”

  “Luh-let him,” Joe said. “The important th-thing is guh-getting these children to s-s-safety.” She ran over to the back door, the one that led out to the playground tucked behind the big building, and pushed it open. “Guh-get them out of here, Troy. Just t-t-take t
hem into the cornfields and muh-make sure no one sees you. Duh-don’t come out until…”

  “Until it’s all over,” he finished for her.

  A small moment passed then where all Troy could do was stare at the raven-haired girl with the stunning eyes, and marvel at the bravery she was exhibiting. It was even present in her next words.

  “Right,” she said. “Just guh-get them out of here. Guh-get somewhere and c-call for help.”

  Troy nodded. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure I got rid of the poison, but the reverend’s nut-job sons have guns. Big guns, that’s why I’m—”

  “I’ll fuh-figure it out,” Joe said, cutting him off and giving Madison a gentle shove toward him. “Just go! Go nuh-nuh-now!”

  Troy nodded and began leading the children outside, out into the cornfields where they could hide. Luckily, he’d stashed his radio out there, and if he could get to it, he could call in his boys to help. His entire unit had been waiting at the ready in their vans just down the road since he’d contacted them this morning to let them know bad things were going to happen today.

  If he could get to his radio, his team could be here in less than five minutes. He just hoped it would be soon enough, because despite her bravery, something told him Joe was going to need some serious…

  Chapter 61

  Michael

  …backup. He was only here for backup. Mr. Landry had assured him several times during his crash-course training that it was more than possible that Joe would have already found a way to diffuse the situation, but that didn’t steady Michael’s racing heart as he climbed in through the second-story window of the big white house and eased himself into an upstairs bedroom. It didn’t calm him as he hefted his black bag through the window and glanced around to make sure he was alone.

  He tried to keep the old man’s instructions in his mind and nothing else as he knelt down, opened the black bag and began assembling the sniper rifle on the bedroom floor. He’d managed to get his assembly time down to two minutes, but hadn’t accounted for the way his hands were shaking. He could hear the crowd thickening in the church below him, in the room where Joe’s drawing would soon take place.

  It seemed to take an eternity to put the weapon together, and Michael had to keep replaying the old man’s words in his head to steel his shaking legs.

  Just be calm and breathe. You can do this. If you really love her, you can do this. And you might not even have to fire. If you’re lucky, you won’t even have to fire.

  Finally, Michael had the sniper fully assembled, but his grip on it was slick, so he wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and took a deep breath. She needed him. Joe needed him. He’d come this far, had slept in his car with Mr. Landry for the last two days on the service road that led to the rear of the ranch, waiting for just this moment. The old man had taken him to the shooting range on the days before that and made him practice with the rifle until his stomach hurt from lying on it for so long. He was as prepared for whatever came next as he would ever be.

  “It’s time to go,” Mr. Landry had said, sitting up straight in the passenger seat of Michael’s Lexus. “I can hear them all. The whole lot of them. The reverend is calling them to the church, telling them to come to him.” The old man had looked at him then with a grave look in his blue eyes. “It’s time to go, son.”

  Michael had swallowed hard, his heart stalling in his chest. He hadn’t been this afraid since…well, since Daniel Deaton had tried to gun him down at UMMS...since Joe had stopped Daniel Deaton from gunning him down at UMMS.

  He’d come this far, and he refused to fail her. He was already inside. All he had to do now was get to the room where they were all gathered, get to that balcony above the…

  Chapter 62

  Middle Man

  …church, where all of his people were beginning to file in. He glanced around, spotting Dorie, who was heading quickly across the room toward him, an anxious look on her face. When she reached where he was sitting in his big chair on the dais above all the people, she leaned down and whispered in his ear.

  “The children weren’t there, Father,” Dorie said. “I couldn’t find Fae, either. They weren’t in the childcare room and they weren’t in the Family Building or anywhere else I looked.”

  It took every ounce of strength he had in him not to slap the shit out of her right then and there. How the fuck did someone lose over thirty small children? What the fuck was going on here? They’d been plotting against him, that’s what. He’d known it all along. There were still traitors in the mix.

  He needed to make an example. He needed to make an example right away, before things got out of hand. He gripped Dorie’s arm now hard enough to leave bruises. “Bring me that traitorous little bitch, the one with the child that spoke out against me the other day,” he said, his voice low so only she could hear. “Is she still alive? Or did she follow that bald-headed fuck to hell already?”

  Dorie nodded immediately. “Christine. She’s alive,” she said. “She’s tied up in the basement. I’ll be right back.”

  He settled back in his chair, practically choking on his anger. Where the fuck was Fae? And where the fuck were the…

  Chapter 63

  Madison

  …children were obviously afraid but they followed dutifully behind Troy. Maddie slipped further back in the group as he led them toward the cornfields. She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t leave when her mother was still in there somewhere, probably being hurt by that nasty, evil man.

  She needed to go back. She needed to get her mommy and get Joe too and get the heck out of here. She continued to fall back behind the group, and once the last of them had slipped into the cornfield, Troy too distracted to notice, Madison turned on her heels and began racing back toward the big white house, even though every instinct in her small body was telling her to do otherwise, screaming at her to go the opposite way, while she still could.

  But she had to find her mommy, her mommy, her…

  Chapter 64

  Christine

  …little girl, she had to find Maddie. Where in God’s name was her little girl? What had happened? Christine wracked her fuzzy brain, hoping it would clear with shear will power, but whatever drug they’d been giving her was making it hard to even walk as Dorie Dunham dragged her up the stone steps and out of the basement they’d locked her in.

  Christine took a deep breath of the fresh air, blinking her eyes rapidly at the light coming through the windows up here. The smell. The smell in that basement had been unbearable. The bald-headed man who’d spoken out at the dinner had been murdered by that crazy sonofabitch Bobby—the reverend’s youngest son, whom she’d known was trouble right when she’d met him—right in front of her eyes. She’d been yanked out of her drug-induced sleep as the older man’s blood had splashed across her face, and had only seen the smile on Bobby’s face and the dripping blade in his hand before she was dragged back under.

  But that had been days ago…or weeks, maybe. She couldn’t tell. She’d been unconscious too much of the time to keep track. Now that she was awake, and being dragged toward the big room where church services were held, her panic was clearing her mind quickly enough for her to realize that she had no idea where her daughter was or what was being done to her. She tried to yank out of Dorie’s hold, but she was too weak. Too weak. All of this was her fault because she’d been too fucking weak to stand up that piece of shit that was Madison’s father, too weak to make it on her own, so she’d come here and accepted their handouts and of course, like everything else in her fucked up life, it had all been too good to be true.

  And now her little girl, her precious little Madison was going to pay for it. Christine didn’t know what was going on, other than the obvious fact that all these people had lost their goddam minds, but as Dorie led her into the church room, and she looked up to see Jesus, hanging on his cross and staring down at her with pity, and she saw that all the residents of the ranch had gathered in t
he room, and Dorie was leading her up the steps to the reverend, who had the look of a devil behind his eyes, and she glanced around and saw that her baby, Madison…

  Chapter 65

  Joe

  …was here. My heart stopped as I saw a flash of her striking green eyes as she slipped through the doors with the last of the stragglers. I got the overwhelming urge to scream then, and had to bite my tongue to keep the sound from ripping up my throat.

  She wasn’t supposed to be here. Maddie wasn’t supposed to be here. I began moving through the crowd, all but shoving people out of my way, trying to the reach the little girl who had managed to make me fall in love with her in less than a week. Maybe it wasn’t too late. If I could get to her, maybe I could sneak her out of this hell-room before—