Clem’s hands tightened around the microphone. She was so good at this. She had the entire prayer group hanging off her every word. “Then, I walked away from her. I left her alone at that bus stop, and she yelled out at that I was in danger, that if I walked away I would regret it. I ignored her of course, and kept walking. It had started to rain by that point, and when I turned back around again to say something to her, she was gone.
“Then, I kept seeing her everywhere I went. When I was buying gum from the petrol station, she was standing outside at the bowser. When I was in a dance performance, she was sitting in the front row. She was the check out chick at the supermarket, and the bartender when I went out with my friends. Everytime I closed my eyes, I would see her. I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like I was being punished for not telling the truth to Imogene. I had spoken to her on the phone, on Skype… and not mentioned anything. That I knew Marella was alive, I knew where she was. I felt guilty for not listening to her warnings… I didn’t want to see her anymore, but I couldn’t escape it. She was like a ghost, haunting me, following me everywhere. If she had something to tell me… why didn’t she just say it, instead of scaring me?”
Clem sniffled and began to cry.
“Then, one night someone came to me in my dorm… I couldn’t explain who they were, or what they were, and they said they knew what I’d done. The secrets I’d kept, and I couldn’t bear it any longer. I had to come home and make it right. That was the same night I saw Marella in my dorm kitchen. I don’t think she was holding a knife, maybe I imagined it, because I was so paranoid… but I packed up and left that night, vowing never to go back…” Tears started to stream down Clem’s face, yet nobody moved to offer her comfort. The thought that Marella was alive, and out there somewhere sent familiar chills down my spine. But I knew Clem was a mighty fine actress when she wanted to be. It was only too bad that the TGHL didn’t have their own version of the Oscars.
“I could have said something sooner, I could have done something. It might have changed everything. She might have come back home.”
More tears. I wanted to applaud her.
As Neil began to speak in response to Clem’s confession, I was distracted by a flash of blue outside the window of the Prayer Room, darting across the paddock. Suddenly, a young girl began to climb like a deranged spider up the fence. It was a remarkable feat for such a tightly made fence, and as I began to wonder whether she’d made a plan for the barbed wire on top, the two guards who had been hot on her trail grabbed her by the foot and dragged her back to the ground. The young girl thrashed about wildly, swearing and screaming, as the guards carried her away. I hated to think where she was heading after trying to pull a stunt like that. I’d barely been in the TGHL for half a day and already feared the consequences for acting out. I realised then that the girl trying to climb over the fence had been Chloe, the dim receptionist who while we were walking up the hill, had spotted our abandoned car, which all along had been the missing ingredient in her plan to escape. The final piece to her jigsaw puzzle.
After the prayer session, I was grateful when dinner was announced. None of us had eaten all day, not since before the car had broken down, and the smell of hot food met our nostrils with delight. I joined the line behind Clem, grabbing a plate eagerly.
I always assumed from movies that places like this would have terrible food, high school cafeteria garbage. But I was pleasantly surprised at the variety in front of us, and I filled my plate with meat and vegetables. Never had I been so excited for a meal in my life.
We crowded into the wooden picnic tables with a few other members, who were having conversations in low voices. They stopped and looked at us as we approached the table, before continuing to talk as though we weren’t even there.
“Have you been to the Experiment Room yet?” The old lady on my left side asked, as I cut into my meat. I shook my head, not wanting to talk. I felt waves of irritation at the interruption. She hesitated for a second. Her wiry hair matched her wiry glasses. She had the leathery skin of a smoker, and a scar above her right eye. “I’m Wanda.” She outstretched her hand.
I stretched mine out in response. “Imogene.” I then introduced Clem, Henry and Cameron.
“You’re new,” Wanda stated.
We nodded.
“Terrible things they do here…” Wanda continued, still in a low voice, as though she was trying to avoid detection, her treason at speaking out against the kingdom. “But I still have the mind to realise it, to warn people like you.”
“What things?” Henry suddenly spoke up. I knew he was thinking about Aggie.
Wanda looked around at all of us, our eyes fixated on her. “I can’t say too much… but just a warning from someone who can still tell you… avoid the room.” Wanda then went back to her food, not making eye contact again.
Clem grimaced at me, then looked down at her food, clanging her knife and fork together over an unfinished piece of beef. She began to look slightly green.
“And the babies… you can’t begin to imagine what they do to the babies,” Wanda muttered quietly, but loud enough for us all to hear.
I got up from the table, excusing myself to get another glass of water. I really just wanted to get away from Wanda for a moment, who was beginni169
ng to give me the creeps. While standing at the water cooler, I looked around at the mass of people, all dressed in blue jumpsuits. All of them oblivious to reality, slaves to the system they’d found themselves in. I was already bored with the routine of the TGHL. All I wanted was to go home, and Aggie, our sole purpose for coming there, was nowhere to be seen.
Clem came up behind me at the water cooler, grabbing herself a glass.
“So that was some story you pulled out in the prayer group…” I said, as I sipped the icy cold liquid. “I know we said to blend in, but wow…”
Clem stared at me. “Immie, I was going to tell you sometime…”
Suddenly, I felt as though the water had turned to ice in my heart. “Oh… it wasn’t a story.” I felt incredibly stupid all of a sudden. Why would Clem have got up in that class voluntarily, only to tell a lie… because it wasn’t a lie at all.
Clem shook her head sadly. “I was going to tell you… but I couldn’t explain it. I was afraid. I…”
Before we could say anymore, I saw a man climb onto the table at the front of the hall. “Call for Mass!” He bellowed. “Call for Mass!”
Instantly, everyone leapt up from their seats, and began to quickly exit the building, unfinished food left to go cold on the wooden tables. We tried to search for Henry and Cameron in the chaos, as we were marched into the large Church, a sea of blue uniforms that quickly found themselves in two straight lines. Instantly, the lines dispersed and everyone took their positions on the floor, an arms length away from each other. I quickly followed suit, and fell in line. Slowly, their expressions became still, and gradually, their movements ceased. They became like silent statutes, bearing witness. A large door at the front of the Church opened, and a man who I gathered quickly to be Saxon, the leader of the whole travesty, took his seat on the throne-like chair on a highly raised podium. A large sword hung from the leather sheath around his waist. I could only imagine what horrible things he needed such a large sword for.
Then, with a sharp intake of breath, I saw Aggie follow Saxon out onto the podium, and settle herself into the chair next to him. I was grateful to see she was still heavily pregnant, that the baby was still safe. It meant we still had time, but time that was quickly running out. I pushed what Wanda had said out of my mind. I seemed to be becoming good at erasing my own thoughts lately.
“You have all come here seeking something,” Saxon boomed at the silent crowd. “You have come here seeking retribution, you have come here seeking answers, you have come here seeking peace.”
Still nobody moved.
“We must work together to achieve this goal. This goal of complete inner accord, of complete inner sanctity: ‘Two ar
e better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil’.”
The door flew open and two of Saxon’s soldiers marched a young girl onto the podium. They looked oddly familiar to me, as they dragged the girl across the floor, her head falling forward, her legs detached from feeling. She was completely naked, her torso, arms and legs covered with an array of bruises. They threw her onto the ground in front of Saxon and Aggie, and retreated back through the door. The girl tried to rise up from the floor, her feeble limbs betraying her. I suddenly realised it was Chloe, the receptionist who I had seen trying to escape over the fence earlier in the day.
“We are all pillars, bearing the weight of God’s word in this world. So when one of the pillars collapses, everyone feels the strain, the burden is far greater.”
Saxon rose from his chair and strode slowly towards Chloe. I willed her to rise up and fight.
“You bear witness to this event in your duty as servants to God and His work.”
He stopped and looked around the room, staring at our lifeless faces.
“Do you not want the rewards for your toil? For your hard work, for all your suffering…”
Saxon stretched out his hand to Chloe. She raised her neck up towards him, and he cupped her face gently in his hands.
“Hebrews 2:18: For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Pain must sometimes be felt, so that true retribution can be known.”
Suddenly, Saxon raised his hand high in the air, and struck Chloe across the face. She fell backwards onto the stone, a soft moan escaping her lips. A trickle of blood ran down from her nose.
Out of the corner of my eye, a woman standing two people down from me cupped her hand to her mouth in horror. I saw two soldiers appear and give a swift blow to her stomach. She fell to the ground, winded with pain. Nobody in the crowd moved a muscle to help her. Their eyes were firmly fixed on the front of the Church. I kept my eyes on Aggie, who throughout the entire event, had barely even blinked. She kept her face in a stony expression. The silent statue, bearing witness.
Saxon clicked his fingers, and the soldiers reappeared. He licked his lips, his eyes flickering with aberrant delight. I tried not to show on my face the disgust I felt inside, for fear of being struck by one of the soldiers guarding the doors. The soldiers grabbed Chloe by the arms, twisting them hard behind her back. She let out another grimace of pain, so soft it was barely audible. She was sending a message – they would never break her.
“Let retribution be known,” Saxon announced, as he began to untie the rope holding up his pants.
Chloe didn’t even have the strength to pull away as Saxon parted her legs and began his task of retribution. I felt the bile rise in my throat. I longed to be back at Johnny’s, I longed to be anywhere else. Still, I kept my eyes on Aggie, never once looking at the horrible scene in front of me. In front of this crowd. Not seeing the look of resignation on Chloe’s face, the defeat. And all the while, all I could think about was what could lead a human being to this point… To this degree of perversion, to this degree of insanity, of manipulation. The TGHL was nothing more than a means for Saxon’s own dark and twisted obsessions. What had led Chloe to seek solace in a place like this? What tragedy had befallen her, that this had become her only hope?
Saxon finished with a satisfied grunt, and threw Chloe away from him, discarding her like a used piece of paper. She lay motionless on the floor, not daring to move, as Saxon pulled his pants up and retied his belt.
“Everything you do or say, then should be done in the name of Lord Jesus, as you give thanks through Him to God the Father,” he announced to the congregation.
The occupants of the hall repeated the phrase back in mechanical unison.
Saxon gestured towards Aggie impatiently, who swiftly followed and exited the room, slamming the thick, oak door behind them. It was then I realised. The soldiers who had dragged Chloe out onto the floor were the same men I’d seen in the kitchen the night before Marella had vanished. Meanwhile, as I wrangled with this notion, nobody in the Church said a word, and the room was completely silent. Even the sound of our breathing had seemed to vanish.
17
It appeared that Chloe wasn’t the only one who was to be punished for her attempted escape. The rest of the TGHL congregation also felt the consequences of her failed plan, when we arrived back to our cabins that night to find the mattresses had disappeared. The next morning, breakfast was cancelled. As was lunch, then dinner. The TGHL soldiers also imposed an involuntary vow of silence upon the entire congregation, exercising violent force on anybody who broke the silence. The feeling of being a guest in a hotel had long vanished, and still, none of us had been able to get even close to Aggie.
To make matters worse, the four of us were put on yard duty for our work assignments, and I realised that if the TGHL, or starvation, didn’t kill me first, boredom certainly would. Physical labour after multiple nights sleeping on nothing but slats caused a pain in my back that twinged every time I bent over. In between raking leaves and prayer sessions, I could feel my brain being slowly numbed by the monotony of the TGHL routine. I started clock watching more than ever.
Four days later, at the beginning of our work duty, the yard workers were loaded into a truck and driven out the front gates. Hunger burned in my stomach, and I took a swig out of my water canister. I learned days ago from a fellow yard worker that water was the best remedy for hunger, but the magic was fast wearing off.
We were driven around the fence line, to what appeared to be the back of the campsite. A soldier ordered us off the truck. After we lined up, he told us that an orienteering expert within the camp had marked a number of trees with paint in a specific order. We were split into pairs, and given a chisel, a hammer, and a ladder. We were then instructed that we needed to chisel the snake symbol from our uniforms into each of the trees with the paint, and that it shouldn’t be too difficult, as it was the most important symbol to our congregation. The idea of standing in the bush chiselling symbols into trees actually made me look forward to the prayer session when we got back.
I was paired with Wanda, and we were taken to the furthest tree in the order. There were sixty-five trees needing the symbol, and ten workers on duty. Reluctantly, Wanda and I got to work. She set up the ladder, and I climbed up the top with my chisel, and began to hammer it into the tree. I noticed there were a number of guards about, and I never felt more like a prisoner in a corrections centre than I did at that moment. I finished the first symbol, stepping down from the ladder to survey my work. It was a bit crooked, but no doubt it was the TGHL symbol. I wanted to ask Wanda what the symbol really stood for, but the vow of silence was still enforced, even outside the camp. I’d seen people being whipped, and dragged across stone for saying even one word to the person next to them. I certainly wanted to avoid that sort of punishment, so I kept my curiosities to myself.
When we arrived back to camp from work duty, I was relieved to find that the forced starvation and vow of silence had been lifted, and that lunch had been prepared for the congregation. I could see everyone holding back, for the sake of not looking like ravenous animals… but I knew that their hunger made the sight of food seem almost biblical.
“Hey Wanda… what was all that for anyway?” I asked, curious to know why we’d spent all morning carving symbols into trees, now with the freedom to ask.
She shrugged her shoulders. “The hunters I think… the ones who catch our food. So they can find the fenceline if they get lost. They’ll probably make us do the other side of the camp this afternoon.”
I groaned quietly to myself at the thought.
During dinner, Mass was called in much the same manner as every night. People abandoned their half-eaten food, and filed into the Church in an orderly fashion. Being in the sun all day had given me a mild headache, and I couldn’t wait until the moment my head hit the pillow that night. I hoped that the mattresses had also reappeared, like the food
and our voices. We stood in our usual lines, and waited for Saxon and Aggie to appear through the oak doors. This time, Aggie came out first, followed by Saxon. They took their places at the front, before Saxon stood and gave the opening maxim,
“Everything you do or say, then should be done in the name of Lord Jesus, as you give thanks through Him to God the Father.”
The crowd repeated the phrase, as did I. I had memorized it without even trying.
“Today, we give thanks to God Almighty, for the life He has bestowed on us, and the lives he is yet to create, and bring into this world. : A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come, but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.”
Saxon looked over at Aggie, and then down at her belly.
“And this man will be our gift… The gift, the next messenger of God that we, the TGHL will give back to God at the next Full Moon, as thanks for all we have received from Him. Praise Him!”
I was trying to make sense of this phrase, as the crowd repeated Saxon’s affirmations, when he suddenly leapt out of his throne with excitement.
“Let us all see her! In all her glory! Her child will be a messenger of God! Touch the next messenger of God, feel His love! His warmth!” Saxon beckoned for Aggie to stand, and to walk out in front of him, through the crowd. She looked mortified as hands shot out from the crowd, touching her belly, caressing it through her jumpsuit. I could see it was taking every effort for her not to push them away, to curse at them for being so rude.
It was the closest I’d been to her since we’d arrived, and I opened my mouth to say something as she passed me, before rethinking and closing it again. Aggie’s eyes met mine, with a cold, sad glint to them, I wondered if she had been silently weeping on the podium. I moved slightly more to the right of the crowd so I would brush past her as she was followed by Saxon out of the Church. An icy hand met mine in amongst the sea of blue jumpsuits, the crowd so strong and excited by Aggie’s walk through the middle, that I couldn’t make out exactly where it had come from. I didn’t dare look down into my hand until I was safely back in my cabin. I locked myself in the bathroom and unfurled my fist. I crumpled piece of paper with a note scrawled in handwriting that was almost illegible, as though the writer had little time to convey their message, before being caught out.
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