“I was returning from a week’s teaching one Friday night when I found her. She was about two miles up the road, the road you walked in on, hanging from a tree. She meant for me to find her. She couldn’t live another moment in this place, but she couldn’t live without me or Felix. She was desperately lonely and she saw no relief in her future. She didn’t write any of this down. She didn’t have to. The note read only that she loved me, that she was sorry, and she hoped that someday I might forgive her.
“And of course, I do. She wasn’t a depressive. This was the woman who I first saw laughing at the gulls. And within two years she was utterly hopeless, dangling from a tree in the woods, all alone. If I’d had an ounce of courage, I would have stolen away with her in the night and made my own way. Better yet, had I not been so selfish, I would have excused myself from the hospital room the night we met and never returned. Instead I brought her to my home and it snuffed out her spirit. It killed her.”
“I’m so very sorry,” said Lindsay. “I can’t even fathom—”
“I pray you never have to.”
“I’m sorry for asking, but…”
“Why stay? Why do what I do?”
“Yes.”
“I did run away for a while. I was gone for long stretches, lost in my grief. Fortunately Felix had been born healthy and strong and my father—his opa—doted on him. And I was in no condition to raise a child. I told myself no harm would come to the boy, even as I left him in the care of the monsters who raised me, knowing full well he’d be corrupted. But I came back. I always came back. This place doesn’t just have a darkness, it has its own gravity. It’s a black hole.”
They regarded each other.
“It’s still not too late.”
Drexler smiled, but shook his head. “I’m not swimming against the tide with the time I have left. I promised Marigold on our first night that I would never leave her side. I broke that promise, but never again. I will stay here, where she lived and died, and I will win the battle for Felix’s soul.”
Chapter 29
Ben knocked on the door to the garage and a slot opened up to reveal two angry eyes peering at him. It reminded him of a speakeasy in an old movie.
“Fuck off,” came a voice that was attached to the eyes.
Ben unwrapped Big Billy’s head from the towel. The man had been bald so Ben held the head with his hands at the ears and lifted it to the slit, fighting his revulsion. In Big Billy’s gravelly voice, he said, “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow yer house in…”
He heard the man at the door yelp and his eyes disappear from the slot. Commotion inside. Another set of eyes appeared, ice blue. Felix. He heard several latches being undone and then the door swung open. The sudden rush of it caused a visible wind in the haze of smoke pouring from the garage.
“Get in here!” hissed Felix.
The men swarmed him. It was suddenly very oppressive in the garage. Holding a severed head, plus the pain and swelling in his own head from the biker’s kick, the beer and shine sloshing in his gut, the roiling nerves, the dense smoke, the men pressing in on him…He needed air, sunshine, but he tried to take deep breaths in the dank garage and maintain his composure as best he could. This was his play.
“What the fuck, man?” yelled Felix.
“What do you mean, ‘What the fuck’?” replied Ben. “I woke up with this in my tent. Not outside it, not near it…in my fucking tent. And no, I don’t know where the rest of him is.”
“Ye gods,” said Anson.
Hendrix stepped forward, awestruck. “May I?” He looked like a child who just received the most amazing Christmas gift ever but couldn’t quite believe his luck.
“Please,” said Ben, and passed him the head.
Hendrix took it and retreated to a corner, smiling. Ben wiped his hands on his jeans.
“You mean to tell me you guys didn’t do this?”
“No!” said Felix, but he looked suddenly unsure. He looked from man to man and everyone shook their heads or put their hands up in front of them. “No,” repeated Felix more firmly.
Ben looked around. “You got a beer? When someone brings a gift, it’s customary to offer them something to drink…”
Felix nodded at Anson, who went to an old refrigerator in the corner and retrieved a can, handing it to Ben. Ben nodded and downed half of it in a gulp.
“I’m sorry, I’m just trying to puzzle this out. I thought maybe this was some sort of test, which if it had been, I’d like to think I fucking aced it by coming here straightaway.”
“Well, it wasn’t,” said Felix.
“Even so, you said anything worth knowing to bring it here first.” He nodded toward Hendrix, who had upended the head and was peering into the neck. “I figure that qualifies.”
Felix looked toward Anson. Ben could see Drexler’s son was deeply unnerved but was trying desperately to conceal it. “Breaux,” said Felix. “Has to be Breaux.”
Anson nodded. “Probably took a truck and chased them down. Or maybe they came back and he and the Black Cadre caught them.”
“That’s some hardcore security,” said Ben.
“Hardcore,” mumbled Hendrix, studying the head.
Felix wheeled on Ben. “So why put the head in your tent? What makes you so special?”
“Breaux saw me leave here the morning I found Mitchell. He’s been watching me ever since. I think he doesn’t want your crew gaining any new members. I think this was his way of not so subtly trying to discourage me.” Ben knew it was time to shore Felix’s confidence back up, help him to save some face. He downed the rest of his beer, then pointed at the man. “I think he resents you. I think he’s afraid of you.”
Felix and Anson exchanged a look.
Ben continued. “Look, I came to you for the same reason I came to the camp in the first place. I don’t want to be hassled by some bullshit authority. I wanted to be around other like-minded free men—like-minded free white men—not to play games with some ex-military psycho.”
“Racial holy war,” said Felix. A few of the men nodded and said, “RaHoWa.” Felix stared at Ben. “It ain’t just a slogan. Feel me?”
Ben looked from one to the other. “Listen. I’m going to be a father, this country is a clusterfuck, and I want my kid to look up to his old man, to know he didn’t just roll over. That he fought to put things back the way they were. That he made a mark.” He paused and stared at Felix. “And if for some reason I can’t be around, I want him to grow up safe, surrounded by real Americans, with some real values. That’s why I came to Välkommen.”
“Your woman see it that way?” spat Anson.
“She sees what I tell her to see.”
Anson looked over at Felix, who nodded. Anson moved to the workbench. He opened a cabinet and Ben heard the clatter of tools. Felix strolled over to Ben and clapped him on the shoulder.
“You wanted in, you’re in,” said Felix.
“In for a penny, in for a pound…” sang Hendrix.
Anson retrieved a map from the cabinet and was smoothing it out on a workbench. It was the map Ben had glimpsed earlier. Now he could see that it was a map of the Northeast, from New Jersey to New England. There were several red circles on it up and down the seaboard. He saw scribbles in the margins. Federal buildings, manufacturers, churches, temples. Schools.
Jesus Christ, thought Ben. This is it.
“It’s a trick my opa used during World War Two. Industrial sabotage. But we’ve thrown in some other symbolic targets as well that will send a signal to our countrymen.” Felix’s light eyes gleamed. “We’re taking our country back. This will be the first wave of RaHoWa. You down, patriot?”
Ben’s eyes were wide as he stared at the map. This was it. “I’m down,” said Ben, who then let a genuine smile break over his face. He looked at Felix. “I’m so fucking down.”
Chapter 30
The camp was calling it the Jubilee, a celebration of their swelling ranks. Välkommen had
had parties before, but nothing of this scale. The kitchen of Välkommen’s main house had worked overtime for days, preparing extra desserts, and patriotic buntings festooned the stages in the field. Lindsay noted dryly that freemen like Ben and some other segments of their population might not appreciate the red, white, and blue colors, but Drexler replied with a smile and told her that you can’t always get what you want.
The Jubilee would be marked by a concert, a jam session among the members of the camp who could play instruments. There would be several “bands,” or at least one massive band with a sloppy, ever-changing lineup. Despite their easy joking, Lindsay could tell Drexler was nervous about it. He had outlawed drugs and alcohol in the camp and his Black Cadre did their best to curb it. He was no puritan, he assured her, but adding substances to the questionable backgrounds and dangerous temperaments in a good percentage of the men was not a recipe for a peaceful settlement. Still, with the scarcity of available women, and the general restlessness that springs from the workaday boredom of living in an isolated camp in the woods, he understood the need to blow off a little steam. So tonight he would look the other way for the greater good, and the Black Cadre would be in charge of making sure the lid didn’t blow off completely. And if all went well, they would make it a weekly event. Something to look forward to.
Lindsay thought that was a great idea, and told him so, leaving out the fact that in a week’s time, she would be long gone.
What truly worried Drexler was his speech, he confided in her. He did not fear public speaking, but he wondered how receptive the restless crowd would be to hear his message. It was time to begin showing the people the true face of Välkommen, he told her. Lindsay spent all day with Henry in his cramped office, filled with Nazi memorabilia, helping him try to craft a palatable message of peace and inclusion to a hostile crowd who wanted none of it. After lunch, she excused herself to find Ben, but their tent was empty.
Chapter 31
That night, Ben shifted his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the crowd for Lindsay. They had not seen each other all day and he willed himself to calm down. He had spent most of the day with Felix, Anson, Hendrix, and the rest of their crew, stuck in a cramped, dingy garage, trying to nurse beers as the others guzzled them, and fighting a rising claustrophobia. Finally, at 6 P.M., Felix released all of them so he could “rehearse.” It was Jubilee night and he was among the performers. He had convinced himself that the few chords he knew made him a musician, and no one dared tell him otherwise. So Ben tumbled out of the garage, practically gasping for fresh air.
“McCarver!”
Ben turned back to Felix.
“Steer clear of Breaux,” said Drexler’s son.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
“And if you can’t?”
“I tell him nothing.”
Felix stared at him for a minute, then one side of his mouth curled upward in a lopsided grin. He nodded. “Be back here after the show. We got more planning to do.”
It was Ben’s turn to nod. Then he walked past the tents, checking his own tent once for Lindsay. Still empty. He followed the gathering crowd toward the stage.
As the afternoon wore on and Felix revealed new targets, the initial thrill of getting the intelligence he and Lindsay needed wore off and he began to feel as if he were slowly succumbing to poison just being in their presence. Like secondhand smoke for the soul.
But as damning as the intelligence was, as tantalizing as the prospect was of sending in the authorities to raid Välkommen, there was still the matter of cryptids. Ben had heard no stories, seen no traces, and discovered no evidence linking Drexler or anyone to unleashing supernatural creatures on the world. Severance had only been half-right: Something terrible was afoot in Välkommen, but the hate and horror were all too natural, not supernatural. What Ben had would have to be enough for now. Last night he had asked Davis for more time. After this afternoon, Ben couldn’t leave fast enough.
Lindsay, where are you?
It was near sunset now and Ben noticed the ring of torches, evenly spaced, around the field’s perimeter and on the stages. The torches reminded him of candles, sending smoke into the air. Every light in every structure was turned on, illuminating Välkommen. As people filed out of the tents and massed in front of the stage, the scene invoked images he had seen in documentaries. Photos and footage of Nuremberg, the annual rally of the Nazi Party. The Spear of Light, where all the antiaircraft lights were trained skyward, giving everyone within the impression they were inside a cathedral of ice. The curious effect, then and now, was that it made being beyond the light seem that much darker. Us versus them. Ben wondered if this was by design. He looked at the dark forest surrounding him on all sides. Shadows danced along the treeline. It was not so hard to imagine forces or folklore just out of reach of the fire’s light.
When he thought his anticipation, nerves, and frustration might burst forth in a scream, there was a clap on his back and a grip on his shoulder, the grip a little too firm to be entirely friendly. He almost jumped out of his skin. Willing himself to relax, he turned to face Breaux, who wore a wide smile.
“Having a good day, friend?”
Before Ben could respond, he saw movement over Breaux’s shoulder at the main house. Drexler was emerging, and behind him was Lindsay. Breaux followed his eye, and seeing his boss, he turned back toward Ben and winked.
“Showtime. Let’s chat after.”
Breaux moved across the field, back toward the house to intercept Drexler. A few members of the Black Cadre had emerged from another outbuilding to join Drexler and lead the old man through the crowd to the main stage. Ben willed Lindsay to catch his eye, and when she finally did, she nodded and gave him a look that said, Be patient.
He breathed a sigh of relief. She was okay. Not only was she okay, but as he had figured, she had spent the day with Välkommen’s titular head. Who knew what information she was able to obtain? Whatever it was, it would have to be enough. He would drag her away tonight if he had to. He jerked his thumb toward the other structure across the field, the second stage, where he had found Mitchell just yesterday, and she nodded. Then she disappeared in the crowd at the foot of the stage.
He leaned against one of the pillars and watched the crowd continue to grow. People streamed from the outbuildings, the Quonset huts, the tents, which had only a few days ago begun to encroach on the field but now ate half of the open space, and they pressed in on the mass surrounding the main stage, doubling it, tripling it, until the crowd began to fill the space between the two stages. He hadn’t realized until he had disengaged from the crowd how badly they all smelled. It wasn’t until he was at the edge of the woods that the whispery scent of the pine needles calmed him. Beckoned him. Now the swelling crowd encroached again, and the sharp odor of the unwashed men rolled toward him again like a storm front.
Jesus, thought Ben, we’re over a thousand now. And then he shivered.
We?
Applause and hollering pulled him out of his thoughts and he looked up to see Drexler taking the stage. “Hello,” said the old man tentatively, into the microphone, then flinched at the sound of his own amplified voice booming in the clearing. He smiled. The crowd laughed with him.
“Hello, brothers and sisters,” he continued, firmly now, and the denizens of Välkommen erupted in cheers. Ben felt the wave of energy surge throughout the crowd. He had been to concerts and seen bands whip crowds into a frenzy, but he had never seen adoration like this. For many in camp, despite their odious beliefs or criminal histories, Välkommen was the end of the line. And for all the conflicting, violent ideologies in camp, the one thing everyone agreed on was the old man. He offered them kindness in a world where it was in short supply. He gave them food and shelter and not the least bit of judgment and, so far, asked for nothing in return.
So far, thought Ben.
As Drexler raised his arms in the air and patted down the cheering like he was wafting away smoke
, Ben had no doubt that a good percentage of those now cheering would, unbidden, slit someone’s throat for the old man. Someone in the camp already had.
Drexler’s voice filled the clearing again, bouncing off the trees. “Thank you, brothers and sisters. I truly appreciate it. My word…look at all of you!”
He beckoned to the crowd before him. Again, more wild cheering.
“I’ve endeavored to speak to each of you individually as you arrived, but I wanted to say again that Välkommen means ‘welcome.’ I love you all as you are, and you are free to stay as long as you like to help me build a community we can be proud of.”
More cheers. From his vantage at the back of the crowd, Ben saw more than a few raised fists pumping into the air, and a smattering of Seig Heils. Drexler, from the stage, must have seen them too and looked thoughtful for a moment. Did Ben imagine a twinge on the old man’s face, as if it caused him pain?
“I want to speak about Välkommen for just a moment. Some of you know, but most do not, that my father was a Nazi…”
A fresh eruption of cheers from the audience, the loudest yet. Ben was not surprised and neither, he assumed, was the old man.
“Think again,” Drexler continued. “He would not have approved of this place.”
If Drexler’s claim didn’t stun the crowd into complete silence, it did wrest its attention back to him.
“For years, this home was entirely isolated, which is how my father wanted it. Not all were welcome. Only former Nazis—if there is such a thing as former—and Germans with a very specific code…”
“Fuck yeah!” came a lone shout from the crowd. Ben watched the face of Breaux, standing at the far end of the stage, unmistakably darken. The chief of security nodded slightly and two of the Black Cadre, who were patrolling the outskirts of the crowd, rifles slung over their shoulders, waded in.
“I am not here to preach to you…”
A scuffle then, deep inside the crowd. Ben craned his neck, but it was far forward of where he could see.
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