by Willow Rose
"As a matter of fact I am. It is my birthday and I want to celebrate," she answered and then she followed him to an apartment not far away where he knew some fun people who 'would love to party with a nice girl like her.'
After that everything went very wrong for Mette Grithfeldt. The people in the apartment were nice enough once she got there. They offered her drinks and they played nice loud music. After an hour or so Mette felt very dizzy from the drinks and put her head down on the pillow on the couch and fell into a deep heavy sleep. When she woke up, she had no idea where she was.
Later someone told her it was Hungary.
CHAPTER 21
IT WAS TOUGH for all of us to see my dad in the hospital bed. He was still unconscious and breathing through tubes. I cried and put my head on his chest, listening to his weak heartbeat and his heavy breathing. Julie had tears in her eyes when she hugged his hand tightly. Then she hugged me.
"He'll be fine, Mom," she said. "I just know he will."
Somehow that felt really reassuring coming from her yet disturbing that she was suddenly so grown-up trying to calm me down when it was supposed to be the other way around.
We were told by a nurse that Dad needed rest and we could come back later in the afternoon. We decided to drive back to Arnakke and find a decent place to eat lunch. The hospital was in Holbaek, the closest big city to Arnakke and it took fifteen minutes to get back to the small town by the fjord. We found a small inn located on a small hill with great views over Isefjorden. It was spectacular for such a small local place. The interior wasn't much to brag about, though. It was very old, had low ceilings and doors and it hadn't been renovated in many years. It was clearly a place where the locals hung out drinking beers. The heavy snow had driven more than usual to go there, the owner told us while she wiped a table clean so we could sit there.
"People drive each other crazy being buried in the snow like this on a Saturday," she said. "Then the men come here, to get out of the house. They cross snow and icy winds just to get away. It's either that or listen to the old wife all day. That's the way it has always been. Snow is great for business." She burst into huge laughter. "Who would have thought that, huh?"
We smiled and sat down at the table. Three guys stared at us from the pool table in the corner. They still wore hats to warm their ears. They were talking and drinking beer while shooting pool. At the bar I saw one woman sitting alone and two men sitting not far from her without uttering a word to one another. Four elderly men were sitting next to us still wearing their big winter jackets like they were leaving in a minute. A couple of younger guys entered just as we sat down, dusting off snow from their shoulders and taking off their jackets and hanging them on a rack on the wall. They had red noses and cheeks from the cold wind and had probably walked there from their houses. The owner who called herself Yvonne handed us menus.
"I'll be back to take your orders in a minute," she said and left us.
"I want a burger," Julie said.
"Me too," Tobias followed. "And fries."
I was about to argue that they might want to choose something a little healthier but stopped myself. This was not the time. This was the time to enjoy each other and be thankful that we were all still alive.
"I think I'll have the lunch-platter with fish and open faced sandwiches on rye-bread," I said and looked at Sune.
"I'm hungry. I think I'll grab a steak with fries."
Yvonne came back and we gave her our orders.
"Great choices," she said with a huge smile.
"Let's have a couple of beers with that," I said. "And sodas for the kids."
"Sure."
Sune looked at me and smiled.
"What?"
"Nothing. You just read my mind. That was exactly what I wanted," he said.
"Me too," I said and looked at Julie. I really needed a beer to calm my nerves down. I craved a cigarette to go with it but resisted the desire.
"So all the locals hang out here?" I asked when Yvonne brought us the food.
She shrugged. "Well the ones who drink beer, that is."
I chuckled. "Of course. So what is the word about the two people who have died at the camp?"
"I assume you mean what has happened at the Ranters' camp?"
"The Ranters?"
"That's what we call them around here. Because they like to run around naked like the Ranters did in sixteen-something in England or something. I don't know the exact story, but some people have seen them run around naked up there in the woods, so they got the name from that."
"Oh," I said. "What else do they do?"
Yvonne shrugged. "Who knows? Worship that Priest guy like he is some kind of God himself and then have sex with him. That's what I have heard."
I was startled. I hadn't heard the part about nakedness and sex before. That was new and a little disturbing to me. "So what are people saying about the two men who have died?"
Yvonne sniffled. "That they had it coming, I guess. They all have. Running around in there acting like crazy doing stuff to each other. Driving out devils, screaming like only crazy people do. If you ask me they attract evil by doing all that stuff. If sin is a problem that only leads to hell like the pastor of our church - who by the way often comes in here - says, then they are in serious ankle-deep shit, if you want to know my opinion."
I drank some of my beer while wondering. "What kind of stuff are they doing to each other?"
She shrugged. "I don't know much. Just what people are telling me. But I guess God finally found out what they are doing and now he's wiping them out. About time, if you ask me."
"So you think it is some kind of divine punishment?" Sune asked.
"If there is a God, then them dying certainly proves it to me. We don't need people like that around here."
"Does anyone have any idea how they died?" I asked.
"No. But I might have," she said with a chuckle.
Sune and I both looked up at the big woman with the wild curly hair in front of us.
"You do?" Sune asked.
"Sure. Either God finished them off by letting them rot up from the inside - or the devil did and God didn't give a damn."
Yvonne left on that last sentence and I looked at Sune. We tried hard not to laugh. I ate with butterflies in my stomach. I wanted so badly to write the story about this place, about this sect. I wanted so badly to be the one, the first journalist to actually get in there and talk to some of the members. It would be a hard article to write because it would be a lot of speculation and rumors like the ones Yvonne had just presented for me. A closed community like this sect would always be surrounded by mystery and rumors. It would be hard to decipher what was actually the truth and what was just talk and gossip from the townspeople. If only I could get them to talk. I couldn't present a story based on rumors and talk, but if I could get some of them to talk to me - even just one person - then I could at least have their side of the story and I would have an article to write. Two people had died at that camp in the last two days, somewhere in there was a story hidden, one that was important and needed to be told.
After finishing my food I went to the bar and talked to Yvonne.
"Do you know anyone who has actually seen these things? Who has actually seen them run around naked or drive out devils or something like that?"
Yvonne stared at me with slight disbelief. Then she nodded.
"I might know someone who would talk to you," she said.
CHAPTER 22
METTE GRITHFELDT SAT down at her bed feeling the anxiety grow strongly inside of her. She was looking at the crucifix above her bed in her small room which contained only a bed, a dresser and a lamp under the ceiling. There were no mirrors at the camp since the Priest believed mirrors were made for vanity and none of his disciples should ever care about what they looked like. He wanted to drive all these fleshly thoughts out of them that kept them in bondage. Vanity was one thing, greed another. Mette Grithfeldt hated greed more than anything. That
was why she had donated all of her money to "The Way" when her parents died in a car accident in Southern France a couple of years ago. The Priest had told her that the money she inherited would only end up devouring her, leaving her always wanting more, never being satisfied.
"Aren't you happy here?" he had asked lying naked in his bed with her under him, tied to the bed with rope, while entered her with the same wildness and passion that he always did, slapping her across the face, holding her throat till she would almost suffocate.
Mette liked not having to look in the mirror ever again. The Priest was so right. They didn't need all this stuff and she certainly didn't need the money.
"Blood money," the Priest had called it while he beat the greed out of Mette till she broke down and cried for God to forgive her sin, her lust for money while the Priest entered her from behind and humiliated her by letting his semen wash all those sinful thoughts off her face afterwards. The night after she met with the lawyer, who told her about the millions and millions of dollars her parents had left her, the Priest punished her for hours for her impure thoughts. He smelled it on her skin, he said. She wanted that money for herself, and even worse she wanted to make more. She desired the money and let greed devour her.
"It will eat you alive, this desire," he yelled again and again while the strokes from the whip burned her back and blood started running down her legs. "The devil has taken a stronghold on you. These are impure thoughts coming from the devil. You must repent! Repent child before it is too late!"
"I repent! Please forgive me, please I don't want to be like this," she had cried almost falling unconscious from the pain.
Yet he hadn't stopped. He had continued for hours and hours, making her take his sex in her mouth, beating her with his belt, with a stick and then the whip again. Hanging her from the ceiling by her arms while he took her as he pleased and punished her as he willed.
Mette Grithfeldt didn't want to admit it but she had liked it. And she had liked the Priest. In fact she loved him. A lot. She enjoyed serving him and coming to his room when he told her to. She enjoyed the humiliation, the pain, the lust. She could even lie awake some nights thinking about it, craving it, lusting for the touch of his hands. But she never told him that. What if he thought it was a sin. What if it was a sin? Would she go to hell for this? For wanting to be with him? Even if she knew she had to share him with the other women in the camp it was all worth it. Was that why the Priest had died? Was that why she was going to be next? Were they in fact being punished? If so then by whom? God or the devil? Did it matter?
Mette Grithfeldt stood up and walked to her window. The sun was about to set behind the black pine forest. In an hour it would be pitch dark. She shivered in fear. She hadn't been this scared since the morning she first woke up in Hungary, in that filthy bed that she had to share with six other girls from countries all over Europe.
Mette sighed as she pictured Nadja. Nadja was from Russia and she was the only one who had taken care of Mette in that place where men came and took the girls as they pleased. Hundreds of men a day entered that door and chose one of them to have sex with on the filthy bed where roaches lived under the mattress. Nadja had taught her to close her eyes and think about being in another place, about leaving your body mentally to keep the mind sane. She had taught Mette to only accept the pure drugs, those they were certain weren’t filled with all kinds of shit that every now and then killed one of the girls in the room. The next day a new girl would arrive and the body would be dumped somewhere.
"You don't want to end up like any of those girls," Nadja had told her. "When they give you drugs you take them and give them to me. I know how to see if it's pure or not. Never take anything without having me check it first, okay?"
Mette had nodded and done exactly what Nadja had told her. Nadja had kept most of the drugs to herself once she checked it, but Mette had gotten just enough to keep her from thinking too much about what was happening to her, just enough to be able to separate the body from the mind.
"They can have your body but they can never have your mind," Nadja had taught her. "It's the only way to survive."
So Mette had survived. While most of the other girls in the room eventually died and were replaced, she stayed alive. Three years she spent in the dark room in Hungary with the help from a Russian girl named Nadja.
Until one day when Nadja had told her it was time to leave. "We escape tomorrow," were her only words.
Those were the last Mette ever heard her speak.
CHAPTER 23
SUNE STAYED WITH the kids while I drove out to meet with the source Yvonne had arranged for me to talk to. He lived on a farm on the south side of Arnakke about five minutes by car from our rented cabin.
The farm was old yet well maintained. The man who opened the front door was probably in his sixties. He was wearing overalls and clogs. I noticed a smell of wet dog in the hall as I entered the front door and took off my heavy coat.
The hall was decorated with heads and skins of deer and foxes. As was the rest of the house. Antlers and rifles hung on all the walls along with hunting trophies. I took off my boots as well since they were filled with snow. I walked on my socks into his living room where he asked me to sit on the couch in front of the fireplace. He smiled a little shyly when he brought cups and coffee in a pot. His hand holding the tray shook slightly.
"Let me help you," I said and grabbed the cups before they fell off the tray to the ground.
"Sorry," he said. "The wife is out visiting her sister, so I feel a little lost here."
"It's okay. You really don't need to serve coffee," I said even if I could really go for a shot of caffeine right at that moment.
I grabbed a cup and poured some coffee in it from the pot. The man named Bjarne Larsen sat in a big chair in front of me. I handed him the first cup and then poured another for myself. Bjarne nodded and sipped his coffee.
"So Yvonne tells me you like to hunt?" I began in order to break the ice.
Bjarne nodded slowly. He was a man of few words, I thought. Maybe he just needed to be warmed up a little.
"Did you shoot all these yourself?" I asked and pointed at all the antlers and heads hanging on the walls. It felt creepy, like the black empty eyes were all staring at me.
"Every single one," he replied.
I sipped my coffee. It tasted horrible. Way too strong for my taste. I spotted milk on the table and poured some in. It helped a little. Not much, though. It was almost undrinkable.
"So I guess you must hear and see a lot of stuff in the woods when you're out there hunting?" I said.
"I have and I do. Lots of stuff through the years," he said.
"Well I'm interested in doing an article about the sect living up at the camp a little north of here. You know, where the members of ’The Way’ live. The Ranters I believe you call them?"
"That's what we call them, yes."
"Why is that?"
Bjarne smiled widely and leaned over in his chair. "Because they like to run around naked, like they were a freaking nudist camp."
"Have you actually seen them?"
"I haven't but my son has. I never go on the other side of their fence, but the young boy likes to do it. It is private property so technically he is not allowed to go in there. I have told him a hundred times to not go in there, but you know how boys are."
"I won't tell anyone. This is just research. Could I speak to your son? Is he here?" I asked.
"Sure." Bjarne got up and went to the stairs, before he yelled. "Ole! There is some woman here to see you! Says she is from a newspaper."
Bjarne came back to me. "You'll have to excuse him. He's not all well up here." Bjarne pointed at his forehead. "My wife worries about him, but I tell her he is just fine. The teachers in his school think he is a little slow, but I tell them that he's just fine. Nothing but a slow learner just like his dad. I'm not book smart either but look how well I've done for myself. Ole is going to take over this farm one day, no ne
ed for him to sweat over homework if you ask me. He knows what he needs to know and the rest I will teach him. He'll work for me. That's how my dad taught me, and that's what I teach him. But these days everybody has to be alike, you know. Everybody must have the same education, they teach them the exact same things whether they're going to be a plumber or a professor. As soon as someone turns out to be a little different they want to put a diagnosis on his head and give him medicine."
Someone entered from the corner of the room. A face of a young teenager appeared in the light. He was tall and skinny with a shy look in his eyes that kept avoiding mine. I got up and reached out my hand.
"Rebekka Franck, Zeeland Times," I said.
He pulled his hand out of the pocket on his shirt and shook mine. His eyes dropped to the floor.
"Ole," he stuttered.
"Hi Ole. Your dad and I were just talking about hunting and he told me you like to hunt as well. Is that true?"
"I guess," Ole answered and came closer.
I signaled that he could sit down. He chose the couch opposite mine.
"Who do you hunt with?" I asked and sipped more coffee forgetting how bad it tasted.
Ole shrugged. "Mostly alone."
"And your dad tells me that you sometimes climb over the fence to the camp on the North side of the forest where the members of 'The Way' live?"
Ole dropped his eyes. Then he looked at his dad. Bjarne slapped him on the back. "It's okay son, she is not going to tell the police. She just wants to know about the things you have seen up there."