Liana clutched at her throat and gasped.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t breathe. Oh god! I need to get out of this car. Now!” She banged a fist on the door and shouted, “Pull over! Pull over!” Mike angled onto the narrow shoulder. The sound of plants and a rock scraping underneath echoed inside the car. Liana threw open the door and lurched out into the trees before he stopped completely. She slipped on loose pine needles and mud and slid down the embankment into the forest. She tumbled ten feet or more down an embankment before catching hold of a tree to stop her descent. She held on as if it were a piece of floating debris in a vast ocean, rattled from the sudden drop, and the breathlessness overwhelmed her. She gasped and pulled for air. Her lungs filled with it, but the suffocating sensation remained. A few seconds later, she heard a loud horn blaring behind her and a shout from the window of some throaty monster vehicle passing by on the road above. She looked up to see an ashen-faced Mike, scrambling down the hill after her. He skidded on his heels, using the trees for stability until he reached her.
“Are you okay? What the fuck was that, Li?”
She took another deep breath, trying not to hyperventilate, but unable to rid herself of the irrational feeling she was underwater. “I panicked. I’m sorry.” She took another huge gulping breath and let the cool forest air fill her. Everything smelled like pine and earth. She tried to focus on the scents and the feeling of breathing instead of the other sensation that had sent her into a panic. “I felt like I was drowning.”
“You’re not drowning.”
“I know that.” She put a hand on Mike’s arm and let him help her up. Together, they climbed back up to the car, idling with her door hanging open as if they’d pulled over to take a quick picture of a scenic overlook. Mike circled around the rear of the car, and stopped to look for traffic before heading for the driver’s door. No one was coming. He paused when he saw Liana still standing beside her door, not getting in. “What is it?” he asked.
“I’m not drowning.”
“No. That’s what I told you.”
“I thought I was, but I know what it is.” She looked over the roof of the car and said, “Mike, I think they buried her.”
“What?”
“I think they buried Sophie alive.”
34
One of the weekend holy warriors dragging Mitch along grumbled about doing all the work. The man on his other side told the guy to be quiet and hold him up while he unlocked the door. He shaded the keypad with a hand, entered the code, and threw wide the door before grabbing hold again of Mitch’s arm to drag him inside. Mitch resisted the hands pulling at him, wanting to see—needing to know—where they’d taken Sophie. The goon’s fingers dug deeper into his bicep and he was roughly ushered into a narrow stairwell. At the bottom of the stairs waited another armed man sitting in a folding chair outside a closed door. Like Mitch’s guides, he wore all black “tactical” clothing and a God’s Warrior T-shirt. The door behind them slammed shut with a bang echoing in the hallway that made Mitch want to be sick. He hesitated and one of the goons bounced him off the wall. He stumbled and feared that his guide would let go and let him tumble down the hard steps, but the man’s grip didn’t loosen and he was righted and steadied before being escorted down. On the landing below, the men spun him about and another wave of nausea hit him, blurring his vision and disorienting him to his surroundings. The guard on the plastic chair said, “Another one for the fire?” and they all laughed. He heard the sound of keys jingling and then a click before the hands were back on him and he was flung backward, this time with a hard shove in the chest that did send him sprawling.
“Church starts at dusk,” said the one who’d shoved Mitch. He lay on the floor listening to the sounds of laughter and another door slamming that echoed through the room. Mitch was wracked with several cramping dry heaves. He’d never felt thankful before to have an achingly empty belly. With all of the indignities of the day, not lying in a pool of his own vomit seemed like a small mercy. He rolled over and pulled his knees under him letting the dirty linoleum cool the side of his face. Sleep hovered at the edge of his consciousness, tempting him. The auto exhaust from the long car ride wasn’t in his lungs anymore, but he guessed it was still working in his bloodstream and brain. He got up onto his hands and knees and pushed himself up onto his heels. Opening his eyes, the fluorescent lights above made his head ache. He squinted at the door. There was no window in it. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see through. He knew there was an armed man keeping watch on the other side. So many guns. He didn’t know if anyone on the compound was actually willing to shoot—he figured they’d all be willing to draw at least—but the pistol on the guy’s hip convinced him to come up with a plan before trying to walk out of the room. He didn’t feel the need to learn by experience. Do your time smart, not hard, had been his mantra, but Mitch had no intention of doing this time at all. And he sure as Hell wasn’t waiting around for “church,” whatever that entailed.
It took a minute to fully comprehend where he was. The room looked like a cafeteria, maybe. There was what looked like a shuttered serving window at one end and a small stage with an upright piano at the other, and in between, a lot of open space. A dining room, maybe. If it was, the tables were gone and only a few plastic folding chairs remained. Scattered around the room, a handful of other people looked at him with a mixture of apprehension and a little pity. They reminded him of the anger management group therapy sessions he used to attend. A couple of them seemed surly and impatient, on edge, and ready to explode. The rest appeared tamed by the experience, if not broken. The group was mixed evenly, men and women, and the atmosphere held that essential blend of I don’t want to be here and whatever it takes to get out that always seemed to fill the inmate classroom.
One couple sat on a pair of old sofa cushions shoved up against the wall. Two more people sat a short distance away from them, also resting on pillows on the floor instead of one of the chairs. One man sat with his legs stretched out ahead of him, ankles crossed. His wife, Mitch guessed, lay on her side with her head in his lap. She wasn’t sleeping; her haunted eyes stared into the distance. A man in an ill-fitting suit with his tie loosened looked over from where he leaned against a square post, gnawing on his thumbnail like he was trying to get to the chewy center of his digit. On the small stage at the far end of the room, a single woman picked at a worn spot in her jeans, worrying it open wider. In the far corner, another lone woman sat in a folding chair. She stood up and approached him. No one else moved.
He tried to get up from his knees, but his vision swam a little and he stayed put. Although his head was clearing, it still wasn’t completely clear. Another wave of nausea swept over him before receding again like the last remnants of a hangover. He was sweating and felt his heart beating hard even though he hadn’t done anything exerting. If he’d been in a bed, he imagined it would be spinning.
The woman took him tenderly by the arm and helped him to his feet. She led him toward a plastic folding chair and eased him down again. Unlike the goons who’d brought him there, she let him do most of the work, offering just enough support to steady him. She crouched in front of him and asked if he was okay. She raised a hand, letting it hover in front of his face as if she wanted to wipe something off his forehead, but was afraid of hurting him. He wiped his fingers at the spot her eyes seemed focused on and they came away stained with dark, half-clotted blood. Junior must have been wearing a ring and cut his face when he sucker punched him. Mitch wondered what kind of horror movie victim he resembled and looked around for a reflective surface. Aside from the woman’s wide eyes, there were none. He took a deep breath, trying to find that center of calm he sought in hard times. It eluded him.
“What is this place?” he asked. His voice was rough and his throat hurt. He tried clearing it, but that only made the pain spark, and did nothing to improve the quality of his voice.
The man on the sofa cushions s
norted and answered. “This is the ‘Parents’ Ministry.’”
“Yeah, I got that much from the...” He almost called them “screws,” but changed his mind. He’d put a lot of effort into shedding that skin; he didn’t want to crawl right back into it, no matter how familiar and comfortable. Moreover, he didn’t want these people to think of him as a con, ex or otherwise. Not if he needed their help. “I got that from the guards. What’s that mean? Parents’ Ministry? What are we doing here?”
The man leaning against the pole huffed, pulled his thumb out of his mouth long enough to say, “It’s a waiting room,” and returned to work on the nail. The woman on the stage snorted at his statement and the guy shot her a nasty look.
“What are you waiting for?”
“To atone for our sins.”
“We’re all here because we have kids who died,” said the man on the floor. He stroked his wife’s hair as she continued to stare silently from his lap. “You do too, or else you wouldn’t be here.”
“She’s not...” My child? “She’s not dead,” he said. The woman who’d helped him into the chair sighed. She pulled a chair up next to him and sat, holding his hand. He didn’t know her; she had no reason to want to console him. But she did, and he didn’t push her away. The small touch helped him keep calm. She didn’t say a word of comfort. She seemed to just need to make contact with another person. The couples had each other, and the man on the post and the woman on the stage didn’t seem interested in cuddling.
“You sure about that?” said the thumb-chewer.
Mitch didn’t answer. Getting Sophie back was more important to him than arguing with a guy over semantics. He’d have plenty of time for a therapeutic awakening when Sophie was back with him and they were out of this asylum. This room was just another symptom of the larger problem plaguing him: he might be outside the walls, but he was still doing time with his head down. Always a step behind when it came to their well-being, and letting other people lead him around. Being a pacifist and hiding in the shadows wasn’t making life easier. In fact, it had the opposite effect up to this point. He felt like he needed to do what he’d done when he first went inside: make a clear declaration he was no one’s punk and hurt someone. If he didn’t stand up and do something decisive to ensure his survival and hers, someone else was going to solve their problems the way they thought best. If it wasn’t already too late to prevent that.
He looked at the woman sitting next to him and said, “What’s your name?”
She blinked rapidly, and she replied in a small voice, “I’m Amye, with an E at the end. My son’s name is Brendan. Who are you?”
He looked in Amye’s face and saw a spark of expectant hope that he would be the one to help her out—out of the room, out of the compound, out of trouble. He’d seen that look before. Until now, he was nobody’s savior except his own. If she was willing to help him, however, he decided they could help each other. Instead of doing things the way he always had, he took the lesson he’d learned from Liana. He shouldn’t be so quick to turn away an ally. “I’m Mitch. They have my niece, Sophie.”
She pointed toward the couple on the sofa cushions and said, “That’s Steve and Izzy. Their daughter is Michelle. Over there are Nick and Alexa; they have a boy named Jack. Sitting on the stage is Kristin. Her daughter’s name is Cassie.” Kristin looked up from her jeans at the mention of her name. She had a black eye and a swollen bottom lip. It looked like he wasn’t the only one who’d had to be convinced to come to the Parents’ Ministry.
“Don’t you want to know my name?” the man against the post asked.
Mitch turned to face him. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether or not you want to help us get out of here.”
The man huffed a laugh through his nose. Mitch clasped his free hand over Amye’s for a moment and squeezed. He let go, stood, and took a step toward the man, holding out a hand to shake. The man didn’t take it.
“Don’t bother,” Kristin said from her perch on the stage. “The rest of us are here because we don’t want to go along with this shit. Byron there is locked up because he’s too fuckin’ eager to get started. Aren’t you, you son of a bitch? Why don’t you tell him what you did?”
The man took a step toward her. “You shut your mouth, whore, or I’ll—”
Mitch gave the man a hard stare. Byron stopped and considered Mitch for a moment, making the decision whether this was a ring he wanted to step into. He had no choice, though. Whether or not he wanted to participate, the fight had already chosen him. Mitch wasn’t offering monkey dance posturing and hollow promises of conditional violence to come—he promised a present brawl with pain and consequences. Violence was here. The man backed away, trying to look nonchalant instead of cowed. “That true, Byron? Do I need to worry about you?” The man didn’t reply. He kept his eyes focused over Mitch’s shoulder instead of returning his gaze. He wanted to escalate the fight with the girl, not Mitch. That made him a punk. And that meant he was the one Mitch had to keep the closest eye on if he didn’t want to be blindsided.
He turned toward Kristin, careful to keep Byron in his peripheral vision. “That guy, Roper, called it the ‘New Life Church,’ but this isn’t like any church I’ve seen. What is this place?”
“It’s a religious retreat,” Byron said. “Pastor Roper hosts spiritual getaways here where we study and pray and learn to be our best selves.”
“All that’s missing is the Kool Aid,” Kristin said.
Nick pushed up, trying to straighten his spine without ejecting his wife from his lap. She protested and he caressed her hair. “Kristin’s right,” he said. “It’s not a church; it’s a compound, and this is a doomsday cult. It might be wrapped around the semiotics of a kinder religion, but it’s no different than the Branch Davidians or the Church of Starry Wisdom.” Mitch didn’t understand everything Nick said, but he heard “cult” clear as day.
While Mitch and Kristin showed signs of coercion, no one else did. He didn’t imagine all of them had been abducted at gunpoint. “So how’d you all end up here if you’re not true believers?”
Nick fought back tears, his eyes glistening. He looked like he’d reached the limit of his ability to stay strong for the woman lying on his lap, and might break any minute. Still, he held it together and said with a clear voice, “Our neighbor is one of them. Her daughter... came back too. We were taking care of Jack and her... and then Abby convinced us to bring them both here. She said that Pastor Roper had... ‘a special insight’ into the kids and wanted to help. As soon as we saw what was going on, we knew that ‘insight’ was more bullshit. We tried to leave with the kids, but they stopped us and locked us up in here.”
“My ex-husband brought me here,” Kristin said. “He forced me to come here.”
“I came with my husband,” Amye said. “He said it would save our marriage. I mean, we started coming here before, you know, they came back. I thought this place was good for us. He was depressed and drinking a lot after Brendan died, and I was all alone. We started listening to Pastor Roper’s sermons and coming here and he stopped drinking and spent more time at home. I had people who’d listen to me. But then Brendan came back and they changed. Everything’s changed.”
“That’s true,” Steve said. “We had friends who said he could help, but when Pastor Roper started preaching about stuff like demons and exorcisms and whatnot, we got scared.”
The air felt like it was getting thicker. It was starting to remind Mitch more and more of the counseling circle. He was out of the trunk, his head was clearing, but he still wasn’t free. Eventually the conversation would circle around to him so that he could confess his wrong doing and why he was there. But he wasn’t going to confess. No amount of mea culpas and making moral inventories was going to get them out of that room. He had nothing to atone for, and neither did anyone else who was doing the best they could for their children.
“That’s all... I appreciate you sharing.
But I’m getting the fuck out of here. Anyone who wants to come with me should get ready to go.”
“The kitchen’s locked up. We tried it. And the windows don’t open either,” Kristin said. “What makes you think you can find a way out when the rest of us haven’t come up with anything in a day and a half?”
Mitch pointed toward the way he came in. “There’s the door right there. I’m walking through it.”
“Leaving isn’t as easy as arriving. It’s locked, with an armed guard on the other side,” Nick said.
“I’m aware.” Mitch walked over to a tapestry hanging on the wall and tore it down. At the top, a rigid wooden dowel squared the fabric on which had been printed an image of a blond, faceless Crusader on horseback. At the bottom of the flag it read, Behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth JUDGE and make WAR. Next to it hung another, depicting a more troubling image with the scripture, And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. It unsettled Mitch to think of the focus all around the room paid to judgment and violent death instead of redemption and life. He doubted he’d find a tapestry here telling anyone to turn the other cheek or love thy enemy. They all depicted warlike angels and saviors. All of them with faces as smooth and featureless as mannequins. He shoved the dowel through the end of the tapestry, dropping the cloth on the floor. Without the flag attached, it felt light in his hand, but it was still almost three feet of inch thick pine dowel. As a truncheon, it wasn’t cracking any skulls, but he reckoned it wouldn’t feel good across the bridge of someone’s nose. Thus, it was better than nothing. There were maybe a half-dozen tapestry flags including the one he’d just defiled. Enough for everyone who wanted one. He swung the improvised baton and said, “He’s armed, and now so am I. Just because he’s got a pistol and a ninja costume, doesn’t make him god damn Franco Nero.”
Come to Dust Page 16