“You don’t think . . .” Hannah’s soft voice held a thread of worry. “You don’t imagine there are girls . . . that they’re smuggling girls or women? If there are girls being kept there, maybe there is no one to let them out.”
“I’m going to call the sheriff’s office and give them the info. I won’t say where I heard it, but you’re right . . . with everything going on in the world, we can’t take a chance.” I called the sheriff’s office, gave my name, and told them what I was worried about. Then, to be sure, I texted Virgil with Hannah’s fear. She sighed with relief. She had a hero-worship faith in Virgil, which I completely understood.
“Now, how do we get Gordy out of there?” Zeke asked.
I sighed. He was not going to leave it alone, and they were going to hate what I had to say. “Hannah, Zeke, I’ve tried talking to him. But he’s a man, an adult, it’s up to him now. It’s time for him to take responsibility for what he believes.”
“But Felice is a grown woman,” Zeke said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. His acne-scarred face was becoming red with emotion. “Shouldn’t you be letting her live there if she’s made up her own mind?”
Hannah put one hand on his arm to calm him, but he had a point. I was treating the two differently, though I thought I had good reason. “I get what you’re saying, Zeke, truly, I do,” I said gently. “But the Light and the Way Ministry is a cult that specializes in making women believe that they are to be submissive. They expend a lot of energy in sermons and rules to make women knuckle under. Felice appears to have bought into it.”
I still had a feeling Felice was hiding something. I was hoping she’d freely tell me whatever it was she was holding back, but I didn’t know. “I have to go,” I said, standing, then leaning over and hugging Hannah. I was heading to the door, saying goodbye over my shoulder, when we were dramatically interrupted.
There are certain people who seem destined to be forgotten. Isadore Openshaw is one of those, a woman so mute and reserved she disappears in a crowd. I had heard from Virgil, of course, that he had come across Isadore in the prophet’s secret shack, but I had once again forgotten her and the mission she had embarked upon. So it was enormously surprising when she burst into the library, her strawlike hair sticking up all around her head and her eyes wide and bulging.
“Isadore, what is it?” I cried, bolting toward her.
“You . . . you have to come,” she said, panting and clutching the door frame. “Out to the camp . . . Mr. English. Mr. Dread. They’re headed out there to get Gordy!”
Chapter Twenty
I clutched the steering wheel hard and cursed fluently. Of all the harebrained . . . what the hell were those two old dudes doing heading out to the encampment? I followed Isadore, but she is a poky driver. I honked loudly and roared around her, taking off like a rocket. Doc English is my only connection to my past and he is a dear old soul I love like the grandpa I had never known. I’d be damned if I was going to let him go out there with that skunk Nathan, weird Barney, and the possible murderer Prophet Voorhees and scary Mother Esther about.
I didn’t think that Doc would even be able to make it through the fence, but he was stubborn as a goat, and twice as feisty, so who knew? Nor was I aware that Hubert Dread still drove; that was a chilling thought. His eyesight is almost as bad as Doc’s. I knew he had a car, but as far as I knew he had not driven it in three years, he just loaned it out to various family members who took him places.
I pulled up behind an old Skylark—the car I knew was Hubert’s from seeing it in the Golden Acres parking lot—parked haphazardly on a crazy angle half in the ditch. It was empty. “Oh no, oh no, oh no!” I muttered. I was not dressed for this, and a cold wind shuddered along the road as I scrambled up the rise to the gate, which had been damaged badly by Virgil and Dewayne charging through it the other day. It hung haphazardly but had been resecured with ropes and a chain. I shinnied again through the gap between the gate and gatepost, my jacket catching on a nail. I pulled hastily on it, ripping it away. I was fated to ruin many a sweater and jacket on that nail, it seemed. As I topped the rise and started across the grassy expanse I saw a confrontation.
Nathan, the jerk, had Hubert Dread, who was a foot shorter than he, by the shoulder and was yelling into his face. Hubert is hard of hearing, but not deaf. I ran the whole way, noticing at the last minute that Gordy Shute was also running toward us. I’d like to say I knew he’d step in, but I was not so sure of Gordy anymore, sadly.
“You take your (and here I swore, a lot, and proficiently, something I haven’t done for years) hands off that man!” I yelled, coming in hot.
Women were heading toward us, and a gray-haired guy from another angle, as Gordy reached them at the same time as me. I was panting like a bulldog running a marathon; Gordy was red-faced but fine. The gray-haired dude turned away. I felt like I recognized him, but I didn’t have time to think about it.
“What’s going on?” Gordy said, looking between his great-uncle, who—fists clenched at his sides, corduroy trousers hitched up to his chest and elbow-patched cardigan flapping in the breeze—was defiantly staring up at Nathan.
I reached out to Doc, who, a gappy grin on his puckered face, looked up at me. “Hey, Merry . . . ain’t this the bee’s knees? I haven’t had this much fun since Dotty Levitz lost her teeth in the soup pot!”
“I thought you had more sense than this!” I hissed, clutching him firmly to my side.
“Nah, sense is for the birds,” he said, leaning on his quad cane on the uneven terrain. “If I’m gonna go, I’ll go out swinging.”
“Nathan, what gives?” Gordy said, prying his so-called friend’s fingers off his great-uncle’s shoulder.
The stiffening breeze fluttered the fellow’s perfect hair and he swept it off his forehead, turning to glare at Gordy. “He started it, telling me we’re a bunch of commies!”
I almost snorted in laughter. Whenever Hubert didn’t like someone he called them a commie pinko, the worst criticism he could think of, I guess.
“These old men are on our private land,” Nathan continued. “What the hell are they doing here?”
Where were the police when you wanted them? Earlier they hadn’t been able to find him, and here he was. This was the perfect time to nab him. I spied Mariah, lingering nearby with a couple of children, who were wide-eyed and frightened, clinging to her, but I didn’t see Felice, nor did I see Barney or the prophet, who was probably off in his lair getting stoned and eating Funyuns while he waited for his next prophecy to come to him on Facebook.
“This is my Uncle Hubert!” Gordy yelped, smacking Nathan’s hand away and placing himself between his uncle and erstwhile friend. “He can visit if he wants. And that’s his buddy,” he finished, hitching his thumb over his shoulder at Doc English, who, having broken away from my hold, was still grinning and shadowboxing shakily, his quad cane swinging on his bony wrist.
Mariah tried to intervene, her expression one of deep worry, but Mother Esther had arrived on the scene and held her arm in a hard grip. “All of you girls go back or risk the wrath of the prophet!” she said sternly to the gathered younger women. Some obeyed, sulkily. This was probably the most interesting thing to happen in a while. My gaze flitted over them, looking for Felice, wondering if any more of these girls were among the missing, but I still didn’t see her. I was seriously alarmed, and disturbed by Mother Esther’s behavior. Some of the remaining women looked frightened, retreating but not disappearing, and others looked mutinous.
Isadore stomped up to us across the grassy expanse. “Hannah is calling your husband,” she muttered. “And Zeke is following me.”
“Good. Something is going on here, and I’m not sure what.” There was something more beyond two old men and two young men in a standoff. There was a feeling in the air, an aura of turmoil. The women were upset about something, but because they were accustomed to deferring to Mother Esther, those left did nothing but stand in groups and talk softly to each other.
It looked like they were arguing.
Peaches broke away from the other girls and approached Gordy. She stood on tiptoe, whispered something, and he nodded.
“Nathan, you leave my uncle and Doc here alone,” Gordy warned.
I liked his firmness.
Nathan got an ugly look on his face, a sneer that mingled contempt with dislike. “Who died and made you boss, Gordy?”
“Who said you had the right to grab an old man, Nathan?” Gordy shot back.
I wanted to cheer. Go, Gordy!
Peaches stepped up to the two men. “Mr. . . . I mean, Doc English?” she said, touching my old friend’s arm. “Are you really a medical doctor?”
He straightened and peered at her through his ever-smudgy glasses. “I am . . . or I was for fifty years. Dr. Theodore English, at your service,” he said with a courtly bow. He is ever a gentleman, especially with a pretty young lady.
Peaches, tears welling and dripping down her cheeks, sobbed, wringing her hands. “Can you help? I’m afraid one of the women is really sick. She’s been throwing up blood, and we don’t know what to do, and Mother Esther won’t let us take her to the hospital!”
“Take me to her,” he commanded, even as Mother Esther shrieked her disapproval, her long robe flapping in the chill wind. Doc looked back to me; my goofy friend had disappeared, to be replaced by an elderly but professional medical doctor. “Call an ambulance, Merry, right now. Vomiting blood is potentially lethal. We can’t let her stay here untreated.” He said that loud enough that even Mother Esther heard. She balled her fists at her sides and fumed, at least now in silence.
Gordy half supported, half carried my beloved old friend to the hut and I followed, dialing 911 and giving as precise directions as I could, telling them to contact the police for help, since Baxter and Urquhart both knew exactly where this encampment was. I was furious that Esther had tried to block the woman from getting help, and proud of Peaches for being bold enough to do the right thing.
It wasn’t until I got into the hut that I realized, with horror, that the sick woman was Felice Eklund. Barney hovered nearby, looking uncertain. I didn’t say a thing, afraid to scare him off, but the first chance I had I would be telling the cops that both Nathan and Barney were now at the camp. I wondered, did they have the prophet yet? Was the raid going ahead on the prophet’s shack? I needed to tell someone what I suspected, that there was illegal activity going on not just on the Light and the Way Ministry property but also on a portion of Bob Taggart’s farm!
“Who are you?” Barney said to Doc. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh my god, Felice!” I cried, scooting across the creaky hut floor. It was cold in this shack, and she shivered, pale and writhing in pain. There was red all over her nightgown, and the metallic tang of blood drifted in the frigid air. I whipped off my jacket and laid it across her, feverishly hoping the ambulance came quickly.
Doc could not physically help Felice—he had worn out every last bit of strength he had, and collapsed on a chair, supporting himself with his cane—but he did tell Peaches and the other women how to help her. I was a weeping mess, afraid Felice was dying, a million fears coursing through my brain. How would I tell Alcina? How would she feel, if her mom died?
Isadore Openshaw patted my back and muttered “there there” every few seconds. It was oddly comforting. I put my arm around her and squeezed, making her yelp in disapproval and back away.
“What’s going on?” Barney said. “What are you people doing here?” Suddenly his head went up and he froze. The wail of an ambulance in the distance pierced through the muttering and weeping. “What the hell . . . ? Who said you could call an ambulance?” he asked, directing his ire at me, logical since I still had my phone out. “She’s my wife. She’s not going anywhere!”
I strode over to him, and said, through gritted teeth, “So help me God, if you get in the way or object, I will peel the skin off your body with tweezers, a skinny strip at a time!” I do not, to this day, know where that threat came from, but I stand by it.
The ambulance arrived. Like Dwayne and Virgil, the ambulance driver pulled right up through the gate to the encampment, turning and backing closer, directed by one of the women, the beep-beep-beep of the backing alarm shrieking through the jabber of the women as Barney melted away and disappeared. The paramedics swiftly cut through the babble and assessed Felice with the aid of Peaches and one of the older women.
I waited until they had Felice on the gurney, IV hooked up, monitoring equipment telling her medical story, and trotted up to it, tears still streaming down my face.
She opened her eyes and saw me. “Merry!” she cried, grabbing my hand. “Merry, where is Alcina? Is she safe?” She was deadly white and shivering.
“Yes, Alcina is safe and at her dad’s place. I should have gotten you a message,” I babbled, sobbing. “But it’s all been so chaotic. She is safe, Felice, and it was her choice to leave. I hope you know that and don’t blame Lizzie.”
“I know. It’s okay,” she said, tears running down her face into her hairline. “I should never have c-come here! It’s been so awful, and I was so s-scared—”
Of what, I wanted to ask . . . but it was not the moment. “Don’t worry about anything but getting better right now, Felice,” I said as her ice-cold hand was tugged from mine by the paramedics, who loaded her into the ambulance. “I’ll make sure Alcina knows you’re at the hospital!” I called out. As the doors closed, I added, for my own comfort, “You’re going to be okay now, Felice! Everything’s all right.”
But as the ambulance pulled away and I followed out to the clearing, I could see the drama continued. Hubert Dread had his great-nephew by the shoulders and shook him, his arthritic grasp surprisingly strong. Gordy was stubbornly looking off into the distance. Nathan was pacing in the background. Peaches avoided Nathan.
“Gordy, you gotta listen to me!” Hubert said, his crackly voice louder than I had ever heard him. He stared up at his nephew, his dark glasses shielding his rheumy eyes. “My boy, all those stories I told you when you was a kid . . . it was all fun and games! I been telling tall tales my whole life. You gotta believe me now . . . I never meant you to take ’em seriously.”
Gordy shook his head and firmed his lips, still looking off into space. He appeared unwilling to argue with his uncle, but was still firm in his opinions.
“Listen to me!” Hubert said again, his tone becoming frantic. “Dontcha think if Elvis was really an alien he woulda gone off on a spaceship, not died on the john?”
My young friend finally met his uncle’s gaze. “Uncle Hubert, I don’t believe Elvis is an alien; not anymore,” he said with withering sarcasm. “But there is so much more going on in the world that none of you know about. Our government is experimenting on us, poisoning us with chemicals to make us easy to control. Big Pharma is proof! Antidepressants, vaccinations . . . all that crap that’s in them . . . they want to poison us! And the worst of it is chemtrails!” he said, pointing up to the sky where a contrail lingered. “What do you think that crap is, if not chemicals sprayed down on us to make us easy to control?”
“Gordy, think about what you’re saying!” I had to chime in to support poor Hubert, who was clearly perplexed and exasperated. I jammed my hands down in my sagging sweater pockets—I had left my jacket over Felice—and steadied myself against the stiffening breeze. “You’re saying that all the leaders in the world got together and agreed to use chemicals to control their citizens. How would that even work? How would they keep it a secret?”
“They haven’t, but some people are too naïve to believe what’s in front of their own eyes,” he countered.
That was rich; he was accusing me of naïveté. “Gordy, come on . . . how would the chemicals not fall on their own people, their families and friends and loved ones?” I said.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Those people have an antidote, or something. You don’t know like I do. You’ve clearly never investigated like
I have the New World Order! It started with the Bushes . . . the 9/11 attack was our own people!” His voice was rising, the wind whipping his words back and forth as he got louder and more shrill, his eyes wide with alarm. The contrail above us was feathering into oblivion, much like Gordy’s poor evaporating sanity. “That’s why there was no debris at the Pennsylvania site where the supposed plane crashed! Those so-called families of the victims were all crisis actors. It’s been proven! I’ve seen the pictures! I’ve done the research. There is so much evidence! You’re all just . . . just sheeple.”
I fell silent and stared at him, tears in my eyes. Much of what he said was a mystery to me, but I had done some research on conspiracy theories while trying to figure out how to combat Gordy’s growing disaffection. What he believed appeared to be a stew of many of the most prevalent crackpot theories. We had lost the Gordy I had first met three years ago; we had left it too long. Even attacking the logic of his beliefs wasn’t working because he shifted to another conspiracy theory, or another, all connected in some vast monolithic New World Order mishmash conspiracy. As if anyone could get governments to agree on anything, even combating climate change, for heaven’s sake. Afraid to correct him, loath to be combative, we had let Gordy go on with his “research,” what we thought was harmless. After all, everyone has a crazy uncle who thinks that nobody landed on the moon, or the earth is flat, or Elvis never died; we thought Gordy was speculating.
But it led to this.
Zeke had arrived in the meantime and heard the last bit. He eyed his old friend—they had known each other since grade school—with pity, and with love. He stepped up, inserting himself between our friend and Hubert. “Gordy, I’m sorry you thought I abandoned you,” he said, tackling one of their more recent conflicts. “I never meant for you to feel that way. I got caught up in things, and didn’t spend the time with my best friend, like I should have.”
Nathan surged over to Zeke, pointing and yelling, “You think you’re better than us.”
Muffin But Trouble Page 22