Rebekka Franck - 03 - Five, Six ... Grab Your Crucifix by Willow Rose Page B

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