Camp damascus, p.14
Camp Damascus, page 14
“Hey, honey,” he starts, his tone jovial.
“Dad,” I falter. “Hi.”
A brief moment of awkward silence.
“What’s up?” he finally questions. “You gonna be home soon? Dinner’s on.”
His familiar tone immediately puts me at ease as we slip into our well-worn father-daughter cadence. “Yeah. Sorry, I just … I wanted to get your advice on something. There’s a few girls spreading rumors about me. I’m not sure how to handle it.”
“Oh, honey,” my father offers soothingly. “Come right home and we’ll pray on it. Whatever it is, God’s gonna sort this out for you.”
“You’re right,” I offer, unconvinced of how effective that might be but happy to follow along. I’m suddenly wondering if I’ve overreacted. My encounter with Ally could unravel this whole thing, but it could just as easily not.
“Lot of rumors going around these days, you can’t trust ’em,” Luke continues. “You hear what they’re saying about butter?”
“No,” I reply, a little confused.
“I could tell you but I don’t wanna spread it.” My father hits the punchline hard.
This is normally where I’d sigh loudly and get secondhand embarrassed, but his cheerful nature in this tense moment is enough to warrant a full cackle of unexpected laughter to erupt from my throat.
It feels so much better than a single fly spit take.
“Don’t worry, Rose,” my father insists. “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”
He called me Rose, I realize. It’s honey or hon, sometimes even Honeysuckle, but never Rose. Not unless I’m in major trouble.
“Seriously, Dad, thank you,” I reply. “I’ll see you soon.”
I pull the phone away to hang up, but in this split second my ears catch something that sets me on edge. It’s the beginning of a phrase, four words yelled to someone else as my father ends the call. I’m not sure what it means, but his tone is as different as night and day. He is shouting at someone, firm and sharp in his demeanor, just seconds after our gentle moment.
“Let me talk to—” he shouts, then silence.
I wait a beat, then finally pull back onto the road. I’m not sure what to make of this, but it’s not enough to turn around. Even if it were, where would I go?
For now, I only have one option. Stay the course and hope for the best.
I’ve gotta be more careful. No more close calls like this.
Ten minutes later, however, I start wondering how much of a close call it really was.
I turn onto my street and find my mother posted on the corner, tears streaming down her face and a duffel bag gripped tight in her hand.
I slam on the brakes, clumsily coming to rest in the middle of the road as the two of us gaze at each other through the windshield of my borrowed car.
The last time I had a standoff like this I was staring down a literal demon, but this moment is equally terrifying.
I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.
Dad’s words rip through me like a bullet, repeating over and over as the blood gushes from my heart and spills everywhere.
It’s instantly clear someone has tipped my parents off. They know their daughter isn’t satisfied with the answers she was given, isn’t ready to go back to the way things were and pretend none of this ever happened.
The way I acted with Ally was desperate, or maybe I wanted to get caught, to close the curtain on this awkward farce I’ve been struggling to maintain.
My mother’s expression is a lot of things, angry and frustrated and devastatingly sad. Her eyes are locked onto mine, somehow conveying an ocean of emotion without uttering a single word.
Finally, I creep forward, pulling up next to her and rolling down the window.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mom demands, fuming with rage as a shockingly rare curse word makes its appearance.
“Nothing,” I insist. “Just coming home.”
“You’re asking people about Camp Damascus,” Lisa continues, her expression faltering as devastating sadness overwhelms her. “Why are you asking about that camp, Rose?”
I consider denying this line of questioning outright, but I stop myself. I can’t keep this up any longer.
“You sent me there,” I retort.
“Because we love you,” she hisses, seething with rage. “Do you realize how much we spent to save your soul? Do you have any idea?”
“Half a million dollars,” I flatly reply. “Then three hundred a month after that.”
Lisa hesitates, struggling to maintain her composure as I reveal just how much I already know. I can see the quiet cadence of a desperate prayer dancing across her lips as she takes a moment to gather her thoughts.
Eventually, Mom points at a house to the right of my idling vehicle, a familiar blue rambler with a white picket fence circling the front yard. The Martinsons live here.
“Sexual deviance,” Lisa announces, her jaw trembling as she speaks. “The daughter thinks she’s in love with a whore.”
I know what she’s asking of me, but I refuse to play along.
“Sexual deviance,” Lisa repeats, her gaze burning a hole through my head as she struggles to stay calm. “What would you do to help her, Rose? What’s the right thing to do?”
I shake my head, lips sealed tight.
“Get out of here,” my mom finally blurts. She pushes the duffel bag through my window, the heavy canvas tote landing on my lap with a thud.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” I stammer.
“Was it worth it?” my mother demands.
Now directly confronted, I decide to finally answer. I’m no longer conflicted in my response, no longer overwhelmed by any judgment-based household thought experiment.
“Yes,” I tell her bluntly, holding my mother’s gaze. “It was worth it.”
Mom stares back at me. She’s trying so hard to stay angry, but there’s simply not enough hate left to fill her veins.
She wants to see me as a heathen—a lost cause—but right now she sees her daughter.
“This was all for you,” Lisa groans. “Your dad’s waiting back at the house with some men from the congregation. They’ve got zip ties and duct tape. They’re gonna take you back to Camp Damascus whether you like it or not, and I can’t watch you go through that again. You might not remember it, but I will.”
I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.
“So don’t let them,” I demand.
Somehow a smile manages to break out across my mother’s face, Lisa briefly chuckling at this suggestion before sadness gradually creeps back in.
“It’s so far past that now, Rose,” she says, shaking her head. “You have no idea how hard it was to convince the congregation to step back after your crash, but you still couldn’t stop looking for answers. Well, now they think you’ve found some, so it’s not really our decision anymore.”
I open my mouth to speak, but the words catch in my throat. I’m not sure what to say.
Suddenly, Mom’s phone rings. She clears her throat and sniffles the congestion from her nose, stepping away from the car and picking up.
I hear the muffled sound of my father’s voice on the other end of the line. I can’t make out the words, but his tone is deep and frightening, the polar opposite of his casual tenor during our last discussion.
Our final discussion.
“No, I don’t see her yet,” Lisa offers, staring right at me. Her goodwill is barely hanging on by a thread. She listens for a moment, then loudly continues. “Sure, I’ll let you know when I see the car. Okay. Yeah.”
She hangs up.
“They’re waiting to take you back,” my mother reminds me. “You need to get out of here. Now.”
I don’t protest, rolling up my window and putting the car in reverse. I start backing away, but only get a few feet before a final thought surges through my mind.
I recall my mother’s favorite house from our walks, the one tucked back in the woods where nobody can see it. There are no bake sales or women’s worship groups there, just a quiet little cabin at the edge of the world.
I slam the brakes and drop my window once again, calling out to my mother.
“You should leave, too” is all I can think to say.
Lisa hesitates, her eyes burning through me. At first I think she’s chosen silence as a final goodbye, but at the last moment she opens her lips to offer a parting phrase. “You are so, so spoiled,” my mother says in disgust.
I continue my retreat to the main road. It feels as though my heart is connected to a string, this spiritual cable stretching like taffy as I back away. It battles to hold me in place, but the once-sturdy rope has frayed beyond repair.
The farther away I get, the more taut this string grows. It aches so badly, but finally, it snaps.
The strangest thing about all this is that I physically feel it happen, sense the very moment my heart breaks. It’s a quick jolt to the chest, shocking me briefly then fading away.
I take one last look at my mother, offering a slight wave and receiving nothing in return.
As traumatic as all that was, my body somehow keeps me from accepting the full weight of what just happened. I’m strangely calm, despite my skin tingling and my head throbbing.
Everything else is operating on autopilot.
My hand mindlessly reaches up to pull the blinker as I turn onto a long, desolate backroad, and at the stoplight I have no problem pressing the brakes, then starting again when the light turns green. My body is a shell, the space within me hollow and empty, a blank void.
* * *
The only sound is the hum of my tires on the road, and this lonesome song stretches on forever as I cruise deeper into the woods. The trees fill in thicker and thicker on either side as Neverton disappears behind me.
I can sense fleeting emotions as they creep back into my brain, filtering through my mental safeguards one by one. Every time I accept a new portion of this awful reality, it stings and aches and hurts so bad that I want to scream, until eventually that’s exactly what I do.
I open my mouth and let out an unbridled shriek, the fury spilling forth like I’m vomiting it from the depths of my soul. I pound the steering wheel with my fist, only stopping long enough to catch my breath and then erupting in another horrible, strangled bellow.
The car swerves a bit, not equipped for this kind of volcanic emotional display, and with the last bits of common sense I have I manage to pull off the drag in a plume of crunching gravel, rumbling down a side road and throwing my vehicle into park.
I scream again and hold it, my throat now burning from the abuse. I scream so hard I think I might throw up, and moments later that’s exactly what I do, opening the driver’s side door and ejecting my lunch and, somewhere in there, a single Americano sip across the ground.
When I finish, I wipe my mouth and fall back against my seat.
It’s hard to remember the last time my body was this exhausted, but my mind keeps spinning away. While I’d love to take a break from any rational thought, I don’t have that kind of time.
Technically speaking, this vehicle doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to Luke Darling.
I’ve been driving his car since mine was totaled, but I’m guessing the police will soon be put on notice to get it back.
I take a deep breath, my eyes shut tight as I hold air within my aching lungs. I slowly let it out.
I realize now that I’ve been doing my finger patterns across the steering wheel. There’s something deeply soothing about this orderly procession, every tap in its right place while the rest of my world falls apart.
A few verses about perseverance pop into my head—Matthew 24:13, Romans 2:7, and of course, Galatians 6:9—but I immediately push them away. Now is not the time for obtuse, two-thousand-year-old advice from dead men.
Instead, I look inward, crafting a proper verse of my own.
Rose 1:1–2. She raised a flaming sword, not to rend her heart, but to seal the wound where a heart had been. For those who cast her out did not know this steadfast flame, alight with righteous anger, would never cease until the heavenly kingdom fell.
As dire as this moment is, I can’t help the smile that creeps its way across my weary face. That was pretty good.
I reach into my center console and pull out the list of campers, opening it up and taking a look. I’ve made notes along the margins for each potential target, ranking them by level of church involvement and marking the ones I’m comfortable approaching.
It’s not much to go on, just small hunches based on whatever comes up when I run the names through an online search. A few have addresses scribbled beside them, and it’s here I center my attention.
I select the address farthest out of town, making a mental note for tomorrow.
Rose 2:6. And when the morning came she pushed onward, because the wicked and the vile bore down from every side, and onward was the only direction she had left.
8
HOUSE OF SAUL
There’s a beauty to the long golden grass, an Old West cowboy ambiance to the way it stretches on and on around me, but as I roll through this sweeping landscape of farmland, I can’t help feeling like I’m on the way to the gallows.
This is the place.
I stop my car, then pop the cap off my pen. I place my page against the steering wheel, drawing a line through the next name on my list: Saul Green. Attachment: Mephasser.
While previous investigations had brought me to pristine suburban locales, this address is a far cry from the rest. I’m parked in the middle of nowhere, arriving at the end of a long dirt road and flanked by unkempt fields. A few scattered trees frame this vast landscape—sporadic forests popping in and out while glorious Montana mountains rise far beyond—but for the most part the plains are nothing but yellow waves.
I climb out of my car and glance around, taking in this unfamiliar scene as the afternoon sun beats down from above. This particular acreage features a rare cluster of trees, tucking me away from the outside world.
Before me is a large farmhouse, the looming structure surrounded by vehicles in various states of disarray. Most of them are tireless and covered in rust, weeds grown up through their bodies over time and protruding from their engines in frozen eruptions of yellow and green. The farmhouse looks equally unused, the windows dark and a screen door barely hanging from its hinges. At one point, this home was likely a sight to behold, but the wear of age has really done a number on it.
Beyond the house is an enormous metal barn, this structure much fresher than the rest. It’s large enough to evoke a full-sized airplane hangar, towering behind everything like a shimmering silver ghost.
Suddenly, a cacophonous sound erupts through the air at such a deafening volume it makes me jump in alarm. A flock of resting birds takes this as their cue to leave, leaping from their perch on a gnarled tree and escaping into the blue sky above.
My heart is pounding even harder as I struggle to understand the bizarre racket echoing across the landscape. It sounds like a sickening combination of sped-up secular rock and slaughterhouse animal squeals, a pig recorded midtorture and now someone’s messing with the tape.
I glance back at my car and consider making an early exit, but the moment doesn’t last. It’s an instinctual reaction, not a thoughtful one.
I know what I have to do.
Focusing on the task at hand, I make my way out into the mess of mangled automobiles. The earsplitting noises are coming from the giant hangar, so I head directly for it.
The closer I get, the more my surroundings reveal themselves. While the aural cacophony is difficult to understand, it gradually dawns on me that this is music—barely—a screeching, grinding clutter of thrashing guitars and guttural vocal howls. It’s just about the most unpleasant sound I could imagine, but I’m relieved to know I’m not privy to the actual death squeals of terrified swine.
I also understand the landscape much better, a clearer perspective as I approach the colossal hangar. There are even more cars parked directly in front of the building, but these vehicles are distinct from the rest. Here, sit beautiful automobiles in pristine condition, protected from the sun by a large sheet-metal overhang.
I’m not one to know much about makes or models, a blind spot in my trivia-hungry brain, but the vehicles appear quite luxurious. These are classic cars, either unused for decades or restored with breathtaking care.
A realization dawns on me. This dilapidated farmhouse isn’t the sign of a resident who doesn’t give a darn about anything, it’s the sign of a worker so deep in their craft they can’t find time for much else.
The massive hangar doors are cracked open, so I carefully limp around the edge and peer inside.
More cars are waiting to greet me, stuffed into every corner of this already crowded structure. It’s an engineer’s dream, chains dangling from the ceiling and vehicle parts stacked high on enormous cargo shelves.
A cascade of dancing orange sparks immediately catches my attention from across the garage, beckoning me onward.
I slink closer and closer, approaching a tall, mysterious figure in a metal welding mask. He’s hunched over an engine block, diligently working away as sparks continue to spew from the vehicle’s open hood and embers dance wildly across the ground.
Meanwhile, thunderous music churns from a nearby stereo, its volume cranked up so loud I can actually feel the vibration in my chest.
I stand watching for a moment, not entirely sure how to interrupt this engineer so deeply consumed by his work.
Eventually, however, I catch his line of sight, offering up a cautious wave.
The figure turns off his welder and stands upright, walking over to the audio system and killing the sound. He removes his enormous metal mask.
The face underneath is handsome, dark-skinned, and midtwenties, featuring a faint cascade of stubble along his broad jaw. His hair is messy and his eyes are strikingly light, but the most notable thing about this man’s face is its expression.
He’s overwhelmed with emotion, a nostalgic sadness welling behind his eyes while a smile of recognition creeps its way across his mouth. He knows me, and while this was a terrifying prospect in Ally’s case, there’s something deeply assuring about this man’s demeanor.
