head. Normally, he didn’t get to be with Susan much. This was as good as life ever got now.
Nearby were long tables with neat rows of paper cups, each filled with unsweetened red Kool-Aid, John knew from earlier white nights. John knew everything about to happen but one thing. Father would talk and then they’d all drink the Kool-Aid and then if they were all still alive forty-five minutes later it meant the mercenaries in the jungle were really just their own church members firing into the air on Father’s orders as part of a loyalty test.
John hoped the mercenaries were real this time. He hated this place. All he did was blister his hands in the fields by day and listen to Father by night and fear all the time about saying or doing something to get himself punished again, dropped in the well with the snakes, or stripped naked with only a wire wrapped around his pee-pee giving him electric shocks. He was ready to leave now. Ready for heaven.
Chapter 12
Marilyn awoke from a shallow, fitful sleep, somehow knowing enough to blame a distant sound in the woods. She cocked her ears and scanned past the nearby sequoia trees and the sleeping people chained to them. Her body shivered in the cold morning air. Her chilled bones ached where they met hard earth or tree bark. She heard a steady rustle deep in the woods.
Footsteps. Shortly, a dozen or more Earthbound members bounded up the trail, led by The Wizard. They walked in a tight bunch, clapping now with the artificial enthusiasm of restaurant wait staff about to sing Happy Birthday at a dinner table.
“What the fuck?” John said, stirring to life, along with the other new recruits.
The Wizard halted his troop in the center of the grove. He spoke above their continued clapping. “Congratulations, my new friends! Congratulations on a truly impressive demonstration of commitment to the environment!”
Freed from her shackles, Marilyn stood and stretched. It wasn’t very long past dawn. The sun hadn’t yet mounted the high Sierras, and the sky was the solid gray of pond ice.
Mick’s drug-induced sleep continued—despite all the clapping and clamor, despite his being released from the chains, despite his two liberators imploring him to wake up. John stepped in and shook the boy violently until his eyes opened.
The new recruits were ushered along a winding path with paint-marked trees. It took them farther up into the foothills. Marilyn waddled along, due to the repellent sensation of feces moving across her bare, burning bottom. The wretched stench of stewing excrement nearly overcame her at times, while humiliation added weight to her arms and legs, like a double dose of gravity.
The path emerged in a flat meadow with a stream-fed pond, about twice the size of a municipal swimming pool. On the far bank, towering oak trees hugged the shoreline. Nearby, a huge granite boulder sat imprisoned in shallow water. Brown-backed osprey sailed overhead. One made a surgical strike into the water, emerging moments later with a fish, just as the sun’s top rim peeked above the mountains, casting the first rays of sunshine.
“Strip down, people!” The Wizard shouted. “Completely!”
The diapers, he instructed, were to be emptied in a pile next to a tangle of brush at the water’s edge. Bob Marsh stood there now, gesturing the new recruits toward him with both arms.
“Over here, people,” he said. “Let’s go, let’s go! Don’t tell me you want to stay in those yucky things! Well do you?”
Marilyn was the first one out of her clothes and diaper. “Way to go, Marilyn!” Bob said. He gave her a cheesy thumbs up before handing her a small bar of environmentally correct soap.
She leapt into the pond on a run, shrieking from the water’s cold as it splashed against her skin. The sandy bottom beneath her feet turned mossy, causing her, instinctively, to tread water. She swirled her body around to face the others on shore.
A few recruits had
Nearby were long tables with neat rows of paper cups, each filled with unsweetened red Kool-Aid, John knew from earlier white nights. John knew everything about to happen but one thing. Father would talk and then they’d all drink the Kool-Aid and then if they were all still alive forty-five minutes later it meant the mercenaries in the jungle were really just their own church members firing into the air on Father’s orders as part of a loyalty test.
John hoped the mercenaries were real this time. He hated this place. All he did was blister his hands in the fields by day and listen to Father by night and fear all the time about saying or doing something to get himself punished again, dropped in the well with the snakes, or stripped naked with only a wire wrapped around his pee-pee giving him electric shocks. He was ready to leave now. Ready for heaven.
Chapter 12
Marilyn awoke from a shallow, fitful sleep, somehow knowing enough to blame a distant sound in the woods. She cocked her ears and scanned past the nearby sequoia trees and the sleeping people chained to them. Her body shivered in the cold morning air. Her chilled bones ached where they met hard earth or tree bark. She heard a steady rustle deep in the woods.
Footsteps. Shortly, a dozen or more Earthbound members bounded up the trail, led by The Wizard. They walked in a tight bunch, clapping now with the artificial enthusiasm of restaurant wait staff about to sing Happy Birthday at a dinner table.
“What the fuck?” John said, stirring to life, along with the other new recruits.
The Wizard halted his troop in the center of the grove. He spoke above their continued clapping. “Congratulations, my new friends! Congratulations on a truly impressive demonstration of commitment to the environment!”
Freed from her shackles, Marilyn stood and stretched. It wasn’t very long past dawn. The sun hadn’t yet mounted the high Sierras, and the sky was the solid gray of pond ice.
Mick’s drug-induced sleep continued—despite all the clapping and clamor, despite his being released from the chains, despite his two liberators imploring him to wake up. John stepped in and shook the boy violently until his eyes opened.
The new recruits were ushered along a winding path with paint-marked trees. It took them farther up into the foothills. Marilyn waddled along, due to the repellent sensation of feces moving across her bare, burning bottom. The wretched stench of stewing excrement nearly overcame her at times, while humiliation added weight to her arms and legs, like a double dose of gravity.
The path emerged in a flat meadow with a stream-fed pond, about twice the size of a municipal swimming pool. On the far bank, towering oak trees hugged the shoreline. Nearby, a huge granite boulder sat imprisoned in shallow water. Brown-backed osprey sailed overhead. One made a surgical strike into the water, emerging moments later with a fish, just as the sun’s top rim peeked above the mountains, casting the first rays of sunshine.
“Strip down, people!” The Wizard shouted. “Completely!”
The diapers, he instructed, were to be emptied in a pile next to a tangle of brush at the water’s edge. Bob Marsh stood there now, gesturing the new recruits toward him with both arms.
“Over here, people,” he said. “Let’s go, let’s go! Don’t tell me you want to stay in those yucky things! Well do you?”
Marilyn was the first one out of her clothes and diaper. “Way to go, Marilyn!” Bob said. He gave her a cheesy thumbs up before handing her a small bar of environmentally correct soap.
She leapt into the pond on a run, shrieking from the water’s cold as it splashed against her skin. The sandy bottom beneath her feet turned mossy, causing her, instinctively, to tread water. She swirled her body around to face the others on shore.
A few recruits had
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