Sunday Billy Sunday

A Memoir

Mark Wheaton

Southbound – 2009

To Phil, because this happened and we survived it...

We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.

— 1 Corinthians 10:9

Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

Afterword

About the Author

I

Good Friday meant flower deliveries for Sunday church services would start arriving around noon on that, the last business day of the week. They’d have been cut at the hot house on Tuesday or Wednesday to then be delivered to any of several dozen Dallas-area florists throughout the day on Thursday. There, they would be collaged into specified arrangements and prepped for delivery by “holiday help,” often illegal, often making only two or three dollars an hour, and working through the night.

The arrangements were all different, depending on the church. There was the Baptist Church in Arlington that made a point of using only flowers that bloomed at Easter time (snowdrops, daffodils) to suggest that, even if those particular varietals weren’t present at Calvary, they may well have been blooming on a sunny hillside in Texas as Christ was crucified half a world away. The Lutherans were all about lilies of different colors, generally yellow (the color of God’s light upon the world) and white (the color that symbolized rebirth and resurrection), but would also include in their order a thin wooden cross to be placed by the altar wrapped in ivy that included tiny purple periwinkles (the color of Lent), a specialty of a florist in Oak Cliff. The Mormons, who had one of their regional temples in Dallas, also used lilies, but only white, and in great, showy abundance. First Presbyterian didn’t use flowers at all, but hung purple-and-gold sashes around the church walls and entry way to mark the occasion. The Methodists used purple, Lenten roses, the Episcopalians tended to go with a lavender pasque for similar reasons, the Pentecostals went with golden forsythia; God’s light again.

The Catholics, well... they had recently undergone a sea change in thought.

Father William “Billy” Costa had been assigned as a deacon to the New Church of the Lamb on Coit Road in North Plano in 1994, following his graduation from the Holy Cross Seminary in Brookline, Mass where he’d been ordained. Father Billy, as everyone called him, remembered his first Easter service at the New Church, three months into his assignment, as austere. Reserved. ‘Respectful’ was another word for it.

Boring. That was a word, too.

The reason for this was the parish’s priest, Father Warren McClellan, by his own admission, had been very old school.

“People come for the ceremony,” he would admonish the associate priests and deacons of the parish. “If the liturgy is significantly different from what they remember from their childhoods, you will notice an immediate, uncomfortable shift in the pews and will weather a barrage of stern glances from the final hymn until everyone has recessed to the parking lot.”

For Father McClellan, who passed away in 2005 at the age of 83, eliciting a stern glance from a tithe-paying parishioner was the worst sin imaginable. For Father Billy, who it was soon decided would take McClellan’s place, this didn’t bother him near as much, allowing him to take more chances with his congregation, particularly in his attempt to enlarge it.

In Dallas, the largest growing segment of Catholics were Hispanic, a group Father McClellan seemed content to neglect, but one Father Billy was already a part of having had a second-generation Mexican-American father. Though Plano was predominantly a white, upper-middle/lower-upper class suburb, there had been a number of not only Mexican, but also Salvadoran, Honduran and Guatemalan families moving into the area. Father Billy spoke fluent Spanish and was a natural at making the necessary in-roads to the Latino community. Due to his ability to increase the number of his parish’s Sunday worshippers at a time when their numbers were decreasing nationwide, he quickly became a favorite in the diocese.

Admittedly, a handful of not-to-pleased white families had left the Church of the Lamb, choosing to make a thirty-minute drive in to St. Joseph’s in tony Highland Park on the handful of Sundays they actually attended, but Father Billy felt he was doing his part for the Christian mission by integrating his pews with two groups of Catholics who might otherwise never overlap socially.

This integration was never more evident than the Sundays during Lent, the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday when more people came to church than on any other day year round, save Christmas. The pews might be three-quarters full most other weeks of the year, but during Lent, especially on Palm Sunday and Easter itself, it was standing room only even with the addition of four rows of folding chairs placed at the back of the pews. For Father Billy, this was easily his favorite time of the year.

“We almost brought two trucks,” grunted the delivery truck driver, sounding like he was only half-joking as he handed an invoice clipped onto a clipboard over to Father Billy who was standing at the church’s side entrance.

“And then what happened?” Father Billy said, watching as the driver’s helper unloaded the last few stands of flowers from the back of a large van.

“Ran out of trucks!” the driver grinned, nodding to a rental company logo on the side of the vehicle. “We had to rent a couple extra ones to make all the orders on time and even then we’ll be going all day. Soon as we drop this stuff off, we’re right back to the warehouse, loading up, then making a run to United Methodist in Duncanville.”

“Well, I appreciate you stopping here first,” said Father Billy, signing the invoice and handing the clipboard back. “Makes my life a lot easier.”

The driver grinned a little, then glanced over to his helper, more than a little conspiratorially. “Can we get a blessing before we head out, Father?”

“Of course,” Father Billy nodded, as if having expected this.

The helper came over and bowed his head alongside the driver, their hands folded in prayer like dutiful school boys. Father Billy made the sign of the cross and began.

“Dear Heavenly Father, please bless these men, your faithful servants...”

After the delivery truck pulled out of the church parking lot, Father Billy suddenly worried that he was setting a bad example in allowing the extortion of blessings to ensure that the Church of the Lamb got the earliest Good Friday delivery. After a moment of worry, he decided to look at it as a sign that God’s word had spread even to delivery drivers and that it was simple good luck as now he had a little extra time to move the couple hundred pounds worth of floral arrangements into the chapel before preparing for the six o’clock mass.

Father Billy enjoyed being the only person in his church and relished the placing of the flowers as a perk of his job rather than a chore. He had hung planters on the aisle-facing ends of the pews earlier that morning where he would now set pots of alyssum that would drape down almost to the floor, as if the church was celebrating a wedding. At the rear of the pews, he would place four of the Easter lily arrangements in high stands that would appear like ushers when the parishioners arrived and would, inevitably, be knocked over at least once or twice spilling water onto the beige carpet, hopefully without staining it.

On top of that, there’d be flowers in the entryway (generally lilies), flowers in the church offices, flowers in the hallways, and flowers in the preschool and kindergarten classrooms that were used for Sunday school and Adult Day Classes on Sundays. More flowers would be placed on either side of the holy water fonts in the entry way and then two large pots beside the entrance to hold open the front when they were yawned open to allow the congregation in for services.

Which left the altar.

The Church of the Lamb had been constructed in the late 1960s, back when Dallas was rapidly expanding into the suburbs due to a tremendous influx of oil and banking money. When it was decided that Plano would become its own parish, the Dallas diocese hired a Los Angeles-based architecture firm to design the church and they went for a fairly modern style, all light brown oak wood, sharp, dramatic angles and the aforementioned beige carpeting. A large, equally-modern woodcarving of Christ on the Cross hung above the altar, but with the same kind of “impressionist” angles employed in the vaulted ceiling used to render the face, arms, body and cross. It had never been a favorite of anyone in the church and it was oft-suggested that it might feel more at home in the church of its designers. Father McClellan, however, had stubbornly defended the piece, believing that the naysayers in the congregation would miss it the moment it came down.

After McClellan’s passing and his own elevation, Father Billy had set out to find a new crucifix. While attending a conference in Leipzig, Father Billy stumbled across one in a centuries-old workshop that the proprietor told him had been carved some time in the late 1800s. The wooden sculpture, cut from a rich, dark walnut, was incredibly life-like, but instead of presenting the Lord’s agony in exquisite detail like the current crucifix, this sculptor of this piece seemed to have a very different goal.

First, there was a look of pain etched on Christ’s face, yes, but more of a willing sacrifice than a man being tortured to death for the Sins of Man. Second, and more importantly, the eyes stared out to the viewer with a look that could only be described as optimism, as if Christ knew exactly what He was doing there, that he would soon be reunited with the Heavenly Father and that you, the person He was connecting with, should know that He was allowing himself to be crucified out of His tremendous compassion for you and all mankind. The eyes were so warm, so determined and so piercing that they allowed any individual even in a group of twenty or more staring up at the crucifix to believe they were seeing the Lord looking back only at them and that he was privy to the very inner-workings of their soul.

Father Billy had been so impressed upon his initial viewing that he’d gone back to retrieve a small coterie of priests from the conference to return with him to the workshop to confirm his belief in the sculpture’s power. To a man, the priests agreed with Father Billy, one suggesting outright that the sculptor had obviously been inspired by the Divine. Father Billy purchased the piece immediately, had it shipped back to Texas in secret and then unveiled it at Easter the following year. The piece had been an instant success with the congregation and it became just another feather in Father Billy’s already plume-heavy cap.

With the sculpture in place over the altar, the very tenor of the Sunday church service was altered. The congregation was warmed by it and, if their eyes chanced up to it during one of Father Billy’s sermons, it seemed to add weight to the priest’s words, as if he couldn’t possibly be saying something untoward as the Lord was right there behind him, granting the priest His mandate.

And what better time than Easter to highlight the dual nature of the holy crucifixion? Father Billy hung a sash in the penitential purple of Lent over Christ’s shoulders and saved the most magnificent floral arrangement to put at His feet to indicate the coming rebirth of spring. This year, he chose a variety of beautiful and exotic floral arrangements to place around the church, but for the altar, Father Billy had always used simple gypsophila — baby’s breath. He felt that, with their hundreds upon hundreds of tiny flowers and thousands of attendant petals, it was the flower that best symbolized the number of souls saved and freed by Christ as they cascading across the altar and away from His feet.

As he walked the heavy buckets of baby’s breath to the altar, Father Billy imagined the effect they would have on the parishioners that coming Sunday. He hoped for a sense of wonder, like being in the theater when something particularly extraordinary happened on stage that couldn’t help but elicit gasps.

“Oh, Father Billy – even more amazing than last year,” at least one parishioner might say.

Father Billy would then smile and nod politely, only later to admit in confession that he liked hearing such things and was guilty of the Sin of Pride.

When he neared the sculpture, he took a knee at the communion rail as was his custom, even when no one was around then climbed the three carpeted steps up to the altar to begin arranging the gypsophila. The florist had outdone themselves this year, giving him an array of what seemed to be only the freshest of cuttings. Father Billy was particularly careful to avoid knocking any of the flowers off the bundled stems as he began arranging them, smaller bunches piled on the edges with bountiful heaps of baby’s breath stacked directly under the crucifix.

It took about twenty minutes to bring up all the flowers he intended to use to the altar and then another half-hour to arrange them into the effect he was going for, a veritable garden of bright white flowers exploding forth like fireworks.

When he’d confessed his prideful ways after the success of last year’s altar display to Father Shawcross, his fellow priest made an interesting suggestion for the future. Once the arrangement was complete, Father Billy reached over with two fingers and tore three flowers off their stems, leaving only jagged green stems behind that couldn’t help but alter the overall effect in a negative way. He also turned a pot on the far left around just so, breaking the perfect symmetry and making it look slightly rushed.

“If a flower’s face should offend thee, cut it off,” Shawcross had said, half-joking as he paraphrased Matthew 5:30 to the prideful priest.

Father Billy thought about this as he pocketed the petals then took a step back, seeing that the briefly achieved perfection now looked slightly flawed, which hurt his pride, the desired effect. He knew it wasn’t the same as a hair shirt or anything else so barbaric, but it gave him the same sting. He regarded the altar one last time before turning to head towards the vestibule behind the sanctuary where he’d disappear to in order to go over the evening service’s short sermon one more time.

And that’s when he heard it, the sound that changed his life forever.

It was something he would spend every day of the next three months trying to properly describe, yet never be satisfied with what he came up with. Was it a hollow, whoosh like he initially thought? Was it akin to a drumbeat? A ticking clock? An echo? A distant harmony? Some metallic reverberation, like water running through old pipes? A ringing? A deliberate melody?

No, it was none of those things, but a piece of each twisted up into the rhythmic aural collage that now gently entered his eardrums as he moved from the door to the vestibule back in front of the sanctuary.

“Yes?” he said, looking towards the back of the church, momentarily believing someone might have knocked on the door, producing a strange reverberation. But no one was there. Could it have been the wind?

But that’s when he heard it again, followed by a third and a fourth and a fifth until he finally realized that it wasn’t a single sound, but a percussive, repetitive beat arriving at a steady interval.

Figuring it must be coming from somewhere in the room, Father Billy glanced all around, but found it near-impossible to ascertain where the sound had come from, though it seemed to be all around him at once. But then he moved out until he was hanging onto the communion rail, between the pulpit and the front pew, and the rhythm got louder, pounding at his ear drums with greater force, enough to make him wince. He looked over the pews, but then realized exactly what the sound was and where it was coming from.

He slowly turned and faced the giant wooden crucifix hanging over the altar and found the eyes of the Lord focused down at him. He took a step forward, his gaze taking in the carved ridges that made up the statue’s pupils, iris, and cornea, the shadows within each what gave the sculpture such a definitive stare.

“Heavenly Father...,” the priest began, but faltered, staring up at the crucifix. “Heavenly Fath...”

The throbbing rhythm, what Father Billy realized was the heartbeat of the Living Christ coming from deep inside the Lord’s wooden chest, continued as he walked, his gaze locked in with the Lord’s the entire way. Father Billy had grown up fairly agnostic and this hadn’t changed as much as you’d think when he joined the priesthood. He saw his calling as helping his community and providing spiritual guidance to those who sought it, but he had never witnessed anything he’d remotely considered evidence of the Divine. But in an instant, that had changed.

“Dear Lord,” he said. “Why are you appearing to me? What is your meaning?”

The sound continued – lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub — but no voice came from the statue’s mouth to accompany it. Father Billy wondered if the sound was something inside his own head, but he soon shook this off, the sound getting louder as he neared the altar.

“Heavenly Father?” he said, having climbed the altar steps and now was standing at the altar with both hands pressed down on the marble countertop. “I... I hear you. What do you need of me?”

The response was merely a continuation of the rhythm. Pushing aside the sprays of baby’s breath that he’d just arranged on the altar, Father Billy pulled himself up on top of the altar and stood, now eye-level with the feet of Christ. Beads of sweat arose from his forehead and palms as he tried to maintain his balance. At the same time, he raised his hands in supplication and held them out on either side of the carved feet.

The feet were those of a man who was already thin, his skin pulled tight over the tarsal bones, which had led Father Billy to believe the man who modeled for the sculptor may have been, himself, homeless and perhaps starving. The priest liked to imagine that the artist paid for the man to sit in food and, for some reason, it brought to mind the apocryphal story that the same man who modeled for Christ in Da Vinci’s Last Supper also modeled Judas, a real-life parable of charity in the midst of an artistic rendering.

An iron spike, painted to resemble wood, had been driven through the feet directly between the third and fourth metatarsal bones, though a close inspection revealed that the hole had been carefully chiseled out beforehand, an actual stake likely to have shattered the delicate work. Father Billy’s eyes focused on the spike for a moment, but then his gaze traveled up to the shins, the thighs and then the chest. He tried to see if the chest was rising and falling with breath, but by now, his vision was becoming blurred and he couldn’t tell.

He closed his eyes and the sound continued – lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub — as he reached out to touch the feet, a little terrified of what he might feel. His hands were less than a half a centimeter from the sculpture, so close that he could feel the cool of the wood radiating up to his fingertips. He waited a beat, the sound continuing, and then – finally – reached out and wrapped his hands tightly around the Lord’s feet.

The wood felt like wood under his fingers; hard as stone, carved veins rising over the muscle as solid as bone. He ran his fingers across the hard, rounded ankle bones and down the soles of the feet behind where he could see, then under the toes. He reached up to the smooth calves to the knees, to the femur, but every surface was the same. Hard and wooden with grooves and plains whose minute angles just barely revealed the touch of the sculptor’s chisel. It was almost as if the piece sprouted forth from the soil, already in this form.

But when he brought his hands to a stop, he began to feel something moving within the wood. At first, he thought it was his own blood racing through his fingertips, but then he realized that the sensation was rising and falling perfectly in time to the sound.

A pulse; blood coursing through the Body of Christ.

“Dear God!” Father Billy exhaled, gripping the feet tighter. “What does this mean, Lord? Why have you revealed yourself to me?! Please, tell me!”

But the heartbeat merely continued, the sound penetrating Father Billy’s eardrums as the pulse resonated through his fingertips. He turned and stared up at the eyes of the sculpture which were still gazing beatifically down at him.

Suddenly, the pulse began to quicken and increase in volume until it was almost deafening, causing Father Billy’s jaw to drop as he took his hands away from the sculpture and squeezed them against his ears so hard he couldn’t hear himself screaming.

Father Billy was found on the floor in front of the altar twenty minutes later, a large bump on his head that was determined to have come as a result of him bashing his head into the pulpit as he fell. The only other injury he’d sustained was a bruised tailbone as he had landed on his rear end when he’d tumbled off, probably looking like a man who’d fallen off a stepladder as he went.

He was discovered by an assistant pastor, Alvin Sturgess, who had quickly gotten a couple of yard men doing some pre-Easter sprucing up of the church’s landscaping to help move Father Billy onto a pew. When Sturgess asked the banged-up priest what had happened, Father Billy told him that he couldn’t remember why he’d fallen.

A doctor was called and since it was so close to the evening service, the man – a parishioner – had agreed to make a house call rather than have Father Billy come into his office or meet at the nearest hospital.

“You seem to be all right,” said the doctor, checking the relative signs of Father Billy’s pupils for signs of concussion. “You have all the symptoms of somebody who had a nasty fall, but who didn’t sustain any real damage, except to your pride. One last question — prior to the fall, did you have any problem with your hearing?”

Father Billy glanced up with surprise at this last question. “My hearing’s always been fine, I think. Do you think there’s something wrong with my ears?”

“No, not at all,” the doctor replied. “Just, your ears are your keys to balance, more or less. If there was something amiss there, it could impact other things.”

Father Billy thought about this a moment, then shook his head.

“No, no,” Father Billy replied. “I think my hearing’s close to perfect. Must have been my foolishness trying to tap dance on the altar.”

“Good to know,” chuckled the doctor, heading for the door. “If anything changes, give me a call and just be more careful in the future.”

Father Billy nodded, but was already miles away.

II

“She likes you.”

“She doesn’t. She thinks I’m an idiot.”

“Well, you are an idiot, but not for the reasons you think she thinks.”

“What about that time in band hall?”

“Yeah, well, what about that time in the library?”

“That was nothing. That was stupid.”

“That was her talking to you about you. She wanted to know something about something you knew.”

Phil thought about this for a moment, glancing out the school bus window at the passing trees. The bus, one in a caravan of three, had just gotten off the highway and he figured they didn’t have far to go before they reached the turn-off for Camp Easley.

“Are you listening to me?” asked Mark, his best friend and seat mate. “Faith’s your girl for the picking.”

Phil looked up six rows up to the back of the girl in question’s head, her short, brown hair cut short for the summer in an almost boyish, Beatles-y mop top. The object of Phil’s affection was looking down, her pert nose obviously in a book, probably something lodged in fantasy featuring fairies and misty glades. He strained to glimpse the back of her neck, a single mole a few inches to the left of the ridge of her spine, the only thing darkening her otherwise unblemished skin.

Skin that he had, more than once, imagined himself pressing his lips against.

“Bullshit,” he finally said.

Mark rolled his eyes. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that? Faith wants you, simple as that. If you don’t see it, you’re blind as a bat. Heck, she probably would’ve liked to sit next to you on the bus.”

“No one wants to sit next to me on the bus.”

Mark was about to reply in the negative, but then hesitated, knowing a protest would ring false.

“You think anyone remembers that?” he said, making an unconvincing attempt at reassurance. “That was sixth grade. How many people from our junior high even ended up going to Hardin? Like, less than half. And how many of them were in band? Like, four. And how many were Catholics? Pretty much you and me.”

“And Faith,” Phil sighed, then looked out the window again as the bus took a left turn at a now-familiar bent stop sign, which Phil knew meant they were about an hour from the camp. He could see the two other busses up ahead, “Church of the Lamb” stenciled on their sides, same as the one he was riding in.

One by one, the busses bounced off paved road and continued down a dusty dirt track that led through a thick patch of woods.

Realizing Mark was still waiting for more of a response, Phil waved a hand and the air. “Whatever,” he grunted.

“Whatever?” Mark exclaimed. “You’re really not going to say anything to her? You’ve got an entire month to work out your phraseology, man. You, her, the lake, cabins, the woods, night, stars equals romance. Walk her out to the dock. Hold her hand along the way. Kiss her when you get there. We’re going to be sophomores next year, dude. It’s time to get serious. Come on!”

Phil knew that Mark meant well.

A little over a year ago, when they’d been eighth graders at Dunne Junior High back in Plano, Mark had been madly in love with a girl named Rachel Howell. She’d been receptive to his advances – Mark was undeniably enigmatic, but in a nerdy, antic sort of way – and they’d held hands during the annual band trip to Six Flags Over Texas (the same trip that, two years prior, Phil had had an unfortunate “accident” on the bus ride home following the consumption of too many poorly-prepared hot dogs leading to a couple of years of bus seat-buddy ostracization).

In the park, Mark had gone so far as to put his arms around Rachel in the cold, underground Cave ride, basically a small metal boat that sat four people canoe-style as it towed them through what was supposed to be a sort of haunted, underground surrounding complete with trolls. Mark and Rachel had rode on it four times throughout the day, each time Mark’s arms holding her more tightly in the dark, though they never uttered a word to one another on any of the trips. When they got out, they went back to holding hands and Mark continued to feel like the king of the world.

But Rachel wouldn’t let him kiss her when he tried to do just this on the bus ride home. At the time, he’d been embarrassed for trying, but six weeks later, he decided to go for it again. It was just before the end of the school year when he made his move, but this time she told him flat out that she was saving her first kiss for her wedding day. Mark was devastated as Rachel’s family was moving away that summer and he figured he wouldn’t get another chance, for awhile, at least. After she moved, they’d continued writing back and forth throughout the summer as boyfriend-girlfriend as well as into the beginnings of freshmen year, but that soon petered out. When the letters stopped coming altogether, Mark realized that she’d moved on.

Phil, of course, had known this long before Mark had, but hadn’t felt it necessary to tell him. He’d debated it, but knew that sometimes being Johnny-on-the-Spot with the information was a great way to kill a friendship.

“Fine,” Phil said, figuring he had to throw Mark a bone. “I’ll tell her how I feel before the end of camp. Maybe I’ll even try to kiss her. Okay?”

“Thank God,” Mark said, nodding his approval. “One of us should be happy.”

A few rows up, Faith, unaware of what was being planned for her at the back of the bus, stared down at the library book in her lap, hoping she’d at least get through the current chapter before they reached camp. Her mother volunteered at the local library and had arranged to renew them remotely even though the standard check-out time was three weeks. Faith was thrilled by this as her worst fear was running out of books during the camp. She’d checked out seven on her card and another five on her mom’s, filling a bag with the thickest tomes she could find including a series of four books she’d been holding off reading for months in anticipation of this trip, the first of which was open on her lap.

The girl beside her – a blonde, cheerleader-type, Leilani-something – was turned around in her seat chatting to the two girls in the row behind them, something she’d been doing since the moment they’d left the church parking lot two hours ago. Faith was actually happy about this as it allowed her to read the whole trip instead of being compelled into meaningless, time-passing conversation with a veritable stranger.

“Then, David took off his shirt and I was like, ‘Oh-my-God,’” Leilani was saying. “He was wearing these thin little sweat shorts and I could totally see his thing.”

The girls behind Faith erupted in gasps of laughter as Faith questioned her decision not to put on her headphones as she read, fearing it would run down the iPod’s batteries too quickly.

“Did he see you?” one of the girls breathlessly inquired.

“I don’t know,” Leilani said, with a coy shrug. “I just turned around and went back to the drill team room. They’d been running sprints and were really sweaty, so they might’ve been almost finished at the practice track. When I went back out a few minutes later, they were gone.”

She then added, “They were probably all in the showers. Together.”

More gasps and giggles.

Faith buried herself deeper in her book, shifting uncomfortably at the conjured image, but then looked across the aisle, having spotted a pair of eye-catching sandals, brown with red soles and pretty, interwoven multi-colored laces that wrapped up the wearers’ ankles. She looked up to their owner and saw a girl she didn’t know reading a book, similarly tuning out everything around her. She was tan-complected and had frizzy black-and-blonde hair with the occasional purple highlight running through it. She was wearing yellow short-shorts and a blue t-shirt with a frog on it that had “Rome” written over the frog in yellow letters. She wore glasses with brown frames and, try as she might, Faith couldn’t tell what book she was using them to read.

The fact that Faith didn’t recognize her wasn’t a surprise given the number of different schools that fed into Church of the Lamb. She thought she might not even be from Plano, but from down in Dallas somewhere.

“Everybody? Can I have your attention?” came a voice from the front of the bus. One of the camp counselors who had been seated at the front of the bus, a short, mousy-looking brunette named Pamela Springs, was getting to her feet and looking back over the thirty or so campers.

As the girl with the cool sandals looked up from her book, she caught Faith’s gaze and looked over. Faith, embarrassed, immediately looked away.

“We’re almost to Camp Easley,” Pamela began, only to get drowned out by a hail of cheers, particularly from Leilani and her girl friends, who Faith realized were all on the Hardin High cheerleading squad. “Star packing up anything you might have taken out for the drive. These busses will not be staying at camp with us, so whatever you leave behind, you’ll have to do without.”

As the counselor sat back down, Faith started doing just this, stuffing her book back in her purple backpack when she allowed herself another glance over at the girl in the Rome t-shirt — who was already looking back at her.

“Hi. I’m Maia.”

“Oh, hi,” Faith said, now even more embarrassed. “I’m Faith.”

“What’re you reading?” Maia asked.

Faith held up the book. “It’s about the women behind Camelot. Morgan le Fay, Guinevere, etc. They were like witches, but not really. Le Fay means ‘the fairy’ in French.”

“Wow, cool,” said Maia.

“What’s yours?” Faith asked, nodding to the book in Maia’s hand.

“It’s a biography of Sugar Ray Robinson,” Maia said. “He was a boxer.”

Faith must have given her an odd look because Maia grinned, rolling her eyes self-deprecatingly. “I just grabbed a bunch of stuff from my dad’s shelves. He reads a lot of biographies.”

Maia dug around in her bag, pulling out a handful of others. “Sammy Davis, Jr., Pelé, Douglas MacArthur, Queen Elizabeth I, a history of Motown and a book about Atlantic City casinos in the eighties. A book for any occasion or interest.”

“You’re not kidding,” replied Faith, intrigued by the esoteric selection.

“My dad’s a vet, kind of messed up, but my mom’s worse, so I live with him,” Maia said in explanation. “He works at the Salvation Army and they get so many books, they let him take home any he wants.”

Faith could hear Leilani going still beside her at the admission that a fellow camper’s father worked at the Salvation Army, obviously hoping to hear more.

“That’s... neat,” was all Faith managed in reply.

She looked at the books and saw that they did look like cast-offs, the MacArthur book having had its cover almost torn off.

“You can borrow the Queen Elizabeth one if you want to,” Maia said. “Seems like it’d be up your alley.”

“Oh, no thanks,” replied Faith, holding up her backpack full of books. “I’ll probably barely get through all these.”

“Wow – you brought homework?” asked Leilani, looking over Faith’s shoulder. “Were you in summer school?”

Faith looked up at Leilani, who looked at her so querulously that she thought she actually meant the question.

“Oh, no. I just like to read.”

“Okay,” replied Leilani airily, as if she thought Faith was making fun of her.

Faith turned back to Maia, but she was already packing up her backpack and chatting with the girl next to her. Faith looked down at the floor of the bus and sighed, wondering how she always managed to find new ways to embarrass herself.

“Tick... tick... tick... not too late to turn back.”

Cindy Elton, a lithe, blonde camp counselor with pale, intelligent eyes looked over at Pamela, the counselor who’d addressed the campers, as she leaned in conspiratorially.

“Remember last year, how they were even worse than the year before?” she whispered. “How do you think they’ll be this year?”

Cindy grinned, but then shook her head.

“I just can’t imagine summer without church camp,” she replied. “Besides, this is my last year. I know I’m going to miss it, so I might as well do one more tour. What’s your excuse?”

“My parents hate my boyfriend,” Pamela said, referring to their fellow counselor, Humberto Mendes, who was already at the camp working alongside Father Billy to get it ready for the campers. “It’s a month where I don’t have to listen to their shit.”

Cindy laughed again, but then looked back at the campers behind them.

“Come on,” she said. “Part of you wouldn’t miss dorking around with the camper-kids?”

“Not a bit,” Pamela said, shaking her head. “If the church didn’t pay me better than waiting tables, I’d be counting tips right now.”

Cindy pretended to sigh, but then looked out the window. She’d been coming to Camp Easley, first as a camper and then as a counselor, for eleven years now. Though she didn’t admit it all that often, it was what she most looked forward to throughout the rest of the year.

An hour later, the busses reached the dusty camp parking lot and pulled to a stop alongside each other. As the doors swung open, the campers – ninety-two total, all between the ages of 12 and 17 – piled out and were immediately met by Father Billy and two camp counselors, Pamela’s baby-faced Hispanic boyfriend, Humberto Mendes and the somewhat zaftig, curly-haired blonde Judy Ketonis, both in their early twenties.

“Welcome back to you returning campers, welcome-welcome to you newbie campers,” Father Billy announced as the children and teens dutifully gathered around the backs of their respective busses as the drivers opened the back doors where the luggage had been piled. “As soon as you collect got your bags, line up over here according to last name to get your cabin assignments. A to M’s – sign in with Judy. N’s through Z’s, with Humberto. While today’s a free day where you can unpack and get acquainted with the camp and other campers, you’ll also be required to sign up for your camp duties, so start thinking what you’d like to do.”

Inside the busses, the counselors who had ridden down with the campers made their way up and down the aisles to make sure nothing had been left behind and, in her bus, Cindy found it completely empty.

“Excellent,” she nodded to Pamela, who had been following behind.

“They give you any trouble?”

The two counselors turned and saw Humberto climbing up into the bus. Pamela smiled wide and raced down to embrace him, giving him a quick, discreet peck, but only after making sure they were unobserved.

“Not a bit,” Pamela replied. “Were you guys pretty lonely out here all week?”

Humberto smirked, but then nodded. “Definitely. Judy’s been her typical nutcase self – girl needs to get laid...”

“Humberto! Shh!!” Pamela admonished, nodding to Cindy, who merely rolled her eyes.

“You don’t think I’ve heard worse?” Cindy asked.

“Sorry, Cindy,” Humberto said, then continued. “As nutty as Judy’s been, though, Father’s Billy been nuttier. I mean, there’s always stuff to be done at the start of camp, but it was like he didn’t sleep. If something needed doing, he was there, on top of it, even if it was the dead of night.”

“Jeez,” said Pamela. “Hopefully, he’ll be all right now that we’re here.”

“Hopefully,” Humberto echoed, not sounding too optimistic. “But as long as you’re here, I’m not too worried.”

Pamela giggled as Humberto worked his hand around her, but she quickly batted it away, catching Cindy’s second eye roll in as many minutes.

“Later,” Pamela winked.

Cindy sighed to herself and squeezed by the two to exit the bus. As she heard them tittering and stealing another kiss behind her, she began to wonder if eleven years might prove to be one year too many.

Over at the rear of the bus, Faith was having a hard time finding her bag. Well, that wasn’t true – she saw it as soon as the driver tossed it out of the trailer — but when she went to retrieve it, another two bags landed in the way. Two more came after that and then another two and another two, each drop-off causing their owners to surge forward, pushing Faith out of the way.

“Finnegan,” she swore, a word she’d picked up from her older brother who used it instead of taking the Lord’s name in vain. “Finnegan!”

Phil happened to be standing nearby and had witnessed the comedy of errors, but also had kept track of which bag she’d reached for when the luggage avalanche began. He took a deep breath, but then started pushing past the larger kids who stood between him and the bag pile.

“Excuse me, sorry,” he said, nudging shoving a couple of them aside as he dove in. “Sorry. Excuse me...”

Wiry, glasses-wearing and pale-skinned, Phil wasn’t going to be giving any of his high school’s weightlifters a run for their money any time soon, but he was determined and quickly burrowed through the mass of fellow campers.

“Excuse you, dick,” said one of the boys – David Boss, as it turned out, the object of Leilani’s lust and a member of just about every sports team Hardin had to offer, at least ones that’s schedules didn’t conflict.

Phil looked up at David, said nothing, but then turned and reached into the bag pile and grabbed the handle of Faith’s green suitcase. It took some doing, but eventually he managed to yank it out, though he upset about half a dozen other bags at the same time to the disdain of the surrounding jocks.

“What’s your problem?” asked someone, but Phil didn’t respond, his prize already secure. He was a little off-balance and out-of-breath, but quickly righted himself before walking over to Faith and presenting her with the suitcase.

“Is this yours?” he asked.

“Nope, not mine,” Faith replied, straight-faced.

As Phil’s face fell, Faith rolled her eyes and took the suitcase. “Yes, it’s mine, Phil. Thanks. You didn’t have to start a riot.”

“Oh, you thought that was all for you?” Phil asked, nodding over his shoulder. “Actually, I was using your suitcase as an excuse to practice my pickpocketing skills. Got three wallets, four pints of cologne, ten jock straps and a thirty-two syringes full of anabolic steroids.”

Faith grinned, her brown eyes smiling back at Phil. He drank in the sight like a parched plant.

“Are you and Mark bunking together?” Faith asked.

“Yeah, probably,” Phil admitted. “If they put us in with the jocks, they’ll only be doing it to torture us. You know what cabin you’re in yet?”

“No clue. I just hope it’s close to the mess hall so I don’t always end up last in line.”

“Well, good luck,” Phil said. “And if you don’t get the cabin you want, I’d be happy to show you how expert pick pocketing can translate into some stellar food-sneaking techniques.”

Faith laughed, and then nodded. “Yeah, well. See you later.”

“Okay,” Phil nodded. “Bye.”

Faith turned and walked towards the counselors while Phil watched. It had taken everything in his being to prevent himself from reaching out and touching her hand or, worse, leaning in and kissing her. He couldn’t believe how much he was in love with her when he was on his own, much less when they were standing toe-to-toe, her Converse sneaks almost touching the tips of his Pumas. As much as he tried to play it down around Mark, he was crazy for Faith and got a reminder of that every time he was in her presence.

“That was pretty hardcore,” said Mark, who walked up with his bag. “You had a whole conversation and everything.”

“Yep,” was all Phil managed to reply, infuriating Mark.

But what was he supposed to say? That he was still too lost in Faith’s auburn eyes to speak? That he’d found just a touch of blue sapphire hidden deep within them that he thought, maybe, he was the first and only person to have ever seen? That he thought overalls were just about the cutest thing a girl with glasses could ever wear?

“Yep,” Phil repeated.

“You’re a moron,” Mark said. “Let’s go.”

The campers all checked in one at a time, Phil in the A-M line, Mark in the N-Z line a few spaces ahead of Faith. When Mark reached Humberto, he squinted up at him.

“Can I be in the same cabin as Phil?”

“You think we’re stupid?” Humberto scoffed. “Couple of troublemakers like you are going to be on opposite ends of the camp if not the lake.”

“Oh, come on,” Mark complained. “That’s bullsh...”

Humberto cut off his ‘swear’ with a look. Judy glanced over, Phil now in front of her.

“Sorry,” Mark said hastily. “But man, come on. You really think we’re going to do anything?”

Humberto took his time to consider this, but then finally nodded as if having reached an equitable solution.

“Okay, look – there are some optional Bible classes,” Humberto began. “‘New Testament,’ ‘Where Science Meets Scripture,’ ‘St. Peter and St. Paul,’ and so on. We’re having trouble filling some of them up, so if I can count on you both for at least three of those, well...”

Humberto trailed off the thought, eyeing Mark expectantly.

“We’re in,” declared Mark. “Anything you want. Acts. Deuteronomy. Proverbs. I’m your huckleberry or, well, gilded ass.”

“Excellent, then, Mark Willoughby and...” Humberto said, checking over on Judy’s clipboard and then looking back at his own, which he allowed Mark to glimpse. “... Phil Gray, I guess you’ll both be in Cabin 2.”

Mark looked from Humberto’s clipboard over to Judy’s where Phil was also already marked down for Cabin 2.

“Ah, you dick!” Mark exclaimed, looking at Humberto with incredulity.

“Hey, watch it,” Humberto cautioned, raising a finger. “We still make the work assignments. You guys could be scrubbing toilets all month.”

Mark said nothing and sullenly picked up his bag, heading to Cabin 3. Phil gave Humberto a half-apologetic shrug and followed suit.

Humberto watched them go, and then turned to Judy, who laughed.

“Sound familiar?” she groaned, eyeing Humberto.

“I know I wasn’t like that when I was their age,” he said, shaking his head.

The camp layout was simple – six cabins in two rows of three, girl’s side facing north, boy’s side facing the girls across a large courtyard area. The cabins were all fairly large and each could hold fifteen or so campers. While the cabins had windows that could be opened, they were usually kept closed now matter how stifling it got due to the mosquito population rising from around Lake Carlisle. The mess hall was similarly functional in its design, but about fifty percent larger with a dining hall separate from an industrial kitchen in back. Campers would come in one door of the dining area, proceed along racks of steam trays set up at the back and serve themselves buffet-style. When they were done, they bussed their own trays and exited out a door on the opposite side from the one they entered.

In a shed behind the mess hall were large laundry machines where they kitchen towels and aprons would be washed, as well as the camp’s linens, but napkins and table cloths were disposable and simply trashed after use. The campers were allowed to use the machines once a week for their own clothes and towels.

Beside the mess hall was another building of about the same size, but unlike the cabins, it was screened in on three sides like a porch and used as an indoor teaching facility, though this could be torture as the students would be only fifty yards of so from the lake and could easily watch other campers frolicking in the water from their desks. For the most part, however, classes were held out of doors in either a nearby atrium cut into the rocks near the lakeshore complete with wooden benches or in a small clearing in the woods behind the girl’s cabins where the “chairs” were several different-sized tree stumps set up in a semi-circle.

Separate latrines for the boys and girls were set back a little ways into the woods behind either row of cabins and had eight shower stalls and a dozen toilets (no urinals in the boy’s latrine). The latrines were fairly open-air and, at a properly elevated angle, one could see directly into the showers. But, the campers were good at policing themselves and each gender cut the other’s latrine a wide swath for modesty’s sake and even pranks were kept to a minimum.

There were only two other buildings at the camp, the largest two, and they were both at the top of the site, closest to the parking lot and furthest from the lake. One was the counselor’s cabin which was far more of a house than the single room, barracks-style living space the campers were sleeping in and had a living room, kitchen, two bathrooms, three bedrooms and multiple closets for the counselors to divide seven ways. Outside in an attached shed was the camp’s sports equipment haul which included a volleyball net, badminton racquets and birdies, snorkeling masks and baseball bats, as well as a revolving hodge-podge of footballs, baseballs, tennis balls, even a lacrosse stick as well as anything else that got left behind in previous years and never claimed.

The last building was for the camp administrator who, in this case, was Father Billy. Like the counselor’s cabins, it was semi-luxurious, complete with its own laundry facility in back, a master bedroom, a study and a large living area that doubled as a planning suite/conference room for the counselors and the presiding priest. It also had a kitchen, a bathroom and a porch complete with two rustic-looking rocking chairs that were never sat in.

The camp had no chapel as Sunday services were held in the mess hall in three shifts. There were almost no outward signs that this was a church camp aside from a large cross erected out by the lake, but that was used more as a marker by swimmers out on the lake to see how far to the left or right of the camp they were than for religious observance. The camp had a dock that extended out into the water about twelve feet, but there no boats moored to its pilings as that was the first thing the church had dropped from its insurance rider when the council felt the need to tighten its belt a couple of years back.

There was, however, a fairly large diving platform about thirty feet out from the dock. Made of wood and anchored deep below on the lake floor by chains attached to concrete blocks, it was designed to roll with the waves and winds, bobbing easily along the surface. Storms and the remnants of Gulf-borne hurricanes routinely trashed the campsite requiring serious repairs to the standing structures, but the diving platform had never so much as broken a chain or U-bolt in all its years of service.

By any standard, it was a substantial campsite, surrounded on three sides by deep forest that extended for miles. The land for the camp had been donated by an oil man, Charles Van Ness, whose company used it as an annual tax write-off and had been named for the founding priest of the Church of the Lamb, Howard Easley, who had come to Dallas in 1922 from a parish outside Pascagoula. The woods around the camp were still owned by the Van Ness Trust and were kept completely wild and uninhabited, save for a few dozen pump jacks that occasionally pulled oil from small stakes around the acreage. It was commonly believed that there was actually a vast amount of oil still under the property, but the Van Ness family had decided not to drill it yet, as if saving it for a rainy day.

Their family’s name would never recover from the events soon to take place in and around their property.

“Mind if I bunk next to you?”

Faith looked up and saw Maia standing at the foot of the bed she’d chosen, closest to the front door, but on the opposite side from the east-facing windows that got the sun first thing in the morning.

“Um, sure,” Faith replied.

“Cool,” said Maia, dropping two mismatched sports bags on the bunk to Faith’s right.

Faith eyed the bags, obviously a couple of decades old a piece, and figured them for Salvation Army refugees as well.

“So, how’s this all going to work?” Maia asked. “I’ve never been to camp before.”

“Well, we’ll have a few minutes to unpack and get settled,” Faith explained, reciting from memory the order from previous years. “Then we go out to the yard where Father Billy will talk for a few minutes and then we sign up for our work assignments. After that, everybody just kind of goes off on their own for the rest of the day and then classes and activities start tomorrow.”

“Work assignments?”

“Yeah, ‘meal-prep,’ ‘meal-prep clean-up,’ ‘laundry,’ ‘yard work,’ ‘trash and recycling,’” Faith recited. “Oh, yeah – ‘sports equipment.’ That’s just making sure everything’s back in the equipment shed at the end of the day. That’s about it. Oh, and, ‘classroom clean-up.’ I think there are a couple of others. You can sign up for your first choice, but as everyone picks the same stuff, most just get assigned.”

“What’s the worst job?” Maia asked. “Cleaning the bathrooms?”

“Latrine-clean is punishment, so hopefully you won’t get that,” Faith explained. “I like working in the mess hall. They let you play music and you just follow the recipes. You can zone out and the time goes really fast. The best thing is, everybody thinks it’s the hardest job, so no one signs up for it.”

“Oh, smart plan,” said Maia, carefully stacking her father’s biographies on the shelf behind her bed, then when silent as if waiting for Faith to speak.

Faith hesitated, unsure how much she wanted to commit to this sudden and friendship. But then she had her thoughts interrupted by a loud, brassy and big-boobed girl entering Cabin 6, talking to her friend.

“Oh, God – remember last year?” the girl was saying. “You got chiggers in the worst places. It was awful. Everybody thought you had herpes or something.”

Faith watched these girls pick bunks, a pair of flighty, popular types; the kind that ended up being assigned certain jobs like yard work and then just stood or sat around talking and waited for their two duty-hours to be up, letting everybody else do the work. Faith had gotten trapped with these kinds of girls in the kitchen a couple of times and, over and over again, the meals would almost be late, which always made her panic.

“You want to work in the kitchen together?” Faith asked, knowing the answer before asking the question. “We could sign up for the same meal-prep shifts.”

Maia smiled and nodded. “Do they ever let you make things on your own?”

“Sometimes, but the meals are pretty well planned out to avoid wasting food as there’s only one delivery truck that comes out a week,” Faith said. “They let us make extra cookies and muffins on Sunday evenings, though. Also, cakes, like if someone has a birthday.”

“Fun!” exclaimed Maia.

Faith smiled, knowing she’d made the right decision.

In his cabin, Father Billy was lying face down on the floor of the living room, his arms outstretched like a parody of a man who had fallen to Earth without a parachute and was now splattered against the ground. His nose was directly against the floor, eyes staring directly into the grain of the wood below. His back ached as did his groin, but he continued to hold this pose.

Father Billy had spent every day of the past eighty days in this exact position for at least two or three hours, deep in prayer. He couldn’t imagine a more beseeching pose for these prayers, prostrating himself like a bug willfully waiting to be squashed underfoot by an angry God. It was in this position that he’d continued to ask God for a sign, for a response, for anything. What he had witnessed three months ago on Good Friday was, to him, clearly a miracle and one directed solely at him, but he still didn’t know what it meant. Why him? And why nothing since?

The priest had wanted answers to these questions from the moment he’d risen from the pew the two gardeners had carried him to, but it quickly devolved into an all-encompassing drive and obsession. It wasn’t long before the desire for a Divine response governed his every breath, every thought and every action, driving him to nothing short of madness. Everything that had made up his old life was gone, replaced by the single-minded goal to know God’s will in revealing Himself to Father Billy.

At first, he had believed that this was the Lord’s way of imbuing him with a more perfect faith. But then, after He failed to answer Father Billy’s subsequent prayers, he thought God might then be immediately turning around to test that faith, which only opened the door to further speculation.

“What if this was the Devil?” Father Billy would ask, but somehow he just couldn’t make himself believe that. Deep down, he felt that God had reached out to touch him, but then, like a taunting child, had immediately back away. And as that was never how any of his predecessors had characterized the Almighty, Father Billy wanted to know why.

Father Billy had spent those eighty days in prayer begging God to explain Himself, but had always been met with silence. Naturally, he’d considered the idea that “the miracle” was evidence of some kind of brain injury or tumor, but after a battery of tests came back negative (followed by a second battery done under a false name in Fort Worth), Father Billy was more convinced than ever that it had been God Himself behind the pulse in the crucifix and not his own mind playing tricks.

So, he continued his daily prostrations. He begged, he flattered, he bargained. He created hypotheticals and asked the Lord for his opinion. He asked questions asked of him by his parishioners, hoping that would seem more selfless, but still nothing.

Father Billy wondered if God was punishing him by suddenly forcing him to confront his lack of faith. He knew that he was hardly the only priest who had such crises, so why punish him in this way as it was a punishment. He had been fine, a great priest in the estimation of everyone around him, but then this “miracle” was visited upon him and was now threatening to tear him apart at the seams. That’s when the begging, the flattering, the cajoling and the questioning gave way to threats.

“If you don’t respond to me, I’ll counsel a parishioner to get an abortion,” Father Billy prayed. And, when there was nothing, he did just that.

“If you don’t respond, my sermons will move against scripture,” he tried. Again, when there was nothing, he subtly began preaching things that wholeheartedly went against the Bible, but it did nothing.

“If you don’t answer me, I’ll dishonor my vows. I’ll sleep with women. I’ll piss on the cross. I’ll denounce you. I’ll invert the Communion so the congregation sups from the body of Lucifer. I will steal from the church.”

He did all of these things. He researched the Seven Cardinal Sins and found ways for not only himself to commit them, but also to convince others to do similarly so that it wasn’t just his sin, but the sins of many. He did this for the entire month of May, fighting to bring about some kind of Divine Intervention, but it never came.

It was midway through the first week of June that he got an inkling of what he intended to do next, one great sin left uncommitted. That’s when he began planning for the camp.

“We’re here now, Lord,” Father Billy whispered on the floor of his administrator’s cabin, angling his eyes up to look up at the large black leather satchel he could just glimpse under the kitchen sink, mostly hidden behind a thin red-and-white cloth curtain. “My plan is in motion and just as it is solely mine to implement, it is solely yours to end. I will not stop until you reveal yourself to me. Whatever happens now is in Your Hands.”

Father Billy looked up again, seeing the bright white glow of the summer sun cascading in through the front window, and held his breath. He didn’t know what he expected, perhaps his heart to stop beating, maybe an aneurysm that would cause his vision to explode into a thousand small pinpoints of lights before everything went black. Something. But it was just more of the same.

He continued to wait, but then: knock... knock... knock...

He looked up as Cindy, probably the best of his counselors, knocked on his door and scanned through the window to see if she could spy him. Father Billy had always liked Cindy and was glad she was back for her fourth and probably last year as a counselor. Though he knew she’d probably like to continue on, he also knew she would be moving to San Diego at the end of the summer to attend medical school now that she’d finished her undergraduate degree in Austin that spring and it would become impractical for her to be back next year. Right now, however, he just didn’t want her to discover him in this position.

Moving quickly to assume a more appropriate pose, as if he was looking for something under the sofa, he wheeled about just in time for Cindy to catch his gaze. He grinned up at her with a half-shrug.

“Come in!”

She opened the door and Father Billy saw that she was leaner and more toned this year, as if already taking the idea of a physician’s regimen of a healthy diet and exercise seriously. In another universe, she’d have been a runway model or maybe a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, but she was very serious about her medical studies. A dead aunt with a rare blood-disorder driving her ambition, Father Billy seemed to remember.

“Drop something?” she asked, helpfully.

“A pen. It’s nothing. Just making notes on my welcome speech and it got away from me.”

“Oh, good.” Cindy nodded. “The kids have started wandering out of their cabins, so I think they’re about ready to hear it.”

The kids, Father Billy thought. It wasn’t so long ago that that included you, my dear.

“All right,” said Father Billy, clambering to his feet and pulling himself up to his full height, five or six inches above Cindy. “Now is as good a time as any.”

Father Billy followed Cindy out of the cabin and onto the porch where she reached for a large brass bell that hung off one of the wooden columns. Reportedly having once hung in a firehouse that stood on the Van Ness property, the ringing of it was a sort of unofficial tradition that signaled both the beginning of the campers’ four weeks at Camp Easley, but also the close of camp, the closing bell ringing an honor reserved for the camper who most distinguished themselves over the month.

Clang... clang... clang... clang... clang... clang... clang... clang...

Father Billy tried not to flinch with every strike of the clapper, feigning a smile as the kids made their way over to the administrator’s cabin and arranged themselves in a large semi-circle around the front porch. The other counselors – Pamela, Judy, Humberto, a muscle-bound 22 year-old named George Brockington, a gangly, college senior and regular Charlie Church named Whit Taylor who’d been around as long as Cindy, and, finally, the youngest female counselor, a short-haired, shy whisper-thin girl named Constance Townsend – parked themselves next to the steps around Cindy, who stood next to Father Billy.

Father Billy waited until everyone had assembled and then smiled out at the group.

“Are we all here?” he grinned. “Good.”

His hands fumbled with his address, a piece of paper that appeared to have been folded and re-folded many, many times complete with dark creases across it as if he’d been carrying it in his wallet for weeks, analyzing and re-analyzing his words.

Eyeing this, Cindy thought this odd. There hadn’t been much difference between the welcoming addresses one year to the next to the degree she figured Father Billy must have a template saved on a computer somewhere that he just updated each year like the lesson plans for the Bible study classes.

Father Billy unfolded the paper one last time, stared down at it, then folded it back up and replaced it in his pocket. He looked out over the many faces of the kids, but then turned grim.

“I need to convey to you a message from Our Lord,” Father Billy began, his voice suddenly quivering.

Cindy’s head snapped around to look at the priest with alarm, a couple of the other counselors doing the same. This was not Father Billy’s typical welcoming address.

“The Lord tests us,” Father Billy continued. “And this summer, at this camp, He is going to test each and every one of you. I do not know why He is doing this. All I know is that He is.”

The campers, many as accustomed to the same old welcoming platitudes as the counselors, looked around at each other, surprised to have the camp open on such a serious note.

“There is always temptation and that only gets amplified when out here away from your parents’ supervision,” Father Billy announced, his voice rising a little in timbre. “But you must remember that it’s not the judgment of your parents you ultimately need to be worried about, but your judgment in the eyes of God. I hope that in our time here together, you will feel this deep inside and act accordingly so that you may stand before Our Lord with a clear conscience, keeping your soul clean as you pave your way into Heaven.”

Father Billy paused for a long moment, his face unreadable.

“Do you understand?” he asked, finally and flatly.

Confused at being faced with a question that beggared an answer, the campers, who had mostly fallen silent, answered with little head nods, though a couple of “yes’s” could be heard.

“I asked you if you understood,” Father Billy said, now more forcefully, though still sounding just within the realm of a coach giving a particularly spirited pre-game pep talk.

This time, the affirmations were much louder, though someone back in the circle of football players made a jokey remark and there were a couple of titters of laughter to go with it. As soon as they looked up and caught Father Billy’s inscrutable gaze, however, they fell silent and the priest nodded.

“That’s all I can ask of you,” said Father Billy, summing up. “And that’s all you can ask of yourselves. Keep yourself pure because you never know when God will put that test in front of you and you suddenly have to answer for your life’s deeds. Now, let us pray...”

III

Later in the afternoon, Cindy was still trying to wrap her head around Father Billy’s words, but her focus was being pulled towards signing campers up for their first week’s work assignments.

“Um... everyone is required to do ten hours of work for the camp each seven days,” she announced, trying to sound nonplussed as she held up clipboards with sign-up sheets attached. “These can be broken into one, two or three-hour shifts, so try to spread them over the week. If you want to try and do all ten hours in one day, you’re welcome to it, but I have to warn you that it can make for a pretty miserable day. Each counselor will have a different sign-up sheet, so find the one you want and get to it!”

She passed the clipboards out to the other six counselors and the campers descended immediately, signing up alone, in groups or just on the dotted line for whatever chore sounded the least work-intensive. It wasn’t long before Cindy’s clipboard was a third filled with names.

“Hey, do you have the one for cleaning up in the woods?”

Cindy turned, finding Mark and Phil standing next to her. She looked at the clipboards in her hand and shook her head.

“Try Humberto,” she suggested.

“Aw, man, he really screwed us earlier,” Mark replied with disgust. “What do you have?”

“Um, ‘trash/recycling’ and... ‘meal-prep,’” Cindy said, though Mark was already scrunching his nose. “Not your speed?”

“Thanks anyway,” Mark replied, rolling his eyes.

Mark led Phil away from Cindy, who just shook her head.

Little boys.

She watched them slouch towards the other counselors for a moment, but then saw Whit coming her way, a querulous look on his face.

“Any idea what that was all about?” he asked, clearly referring to the words of Father Billy.

“No clue,” she admitted, shaking her head. “I was going to ask Humberto and Judy as they’ve been with him all week.”

She took a breath, but then added, “What’s worse is, when I came to get him, I saw him through the window lying face down in his cabin. I thought he’d fallen down or gotten sick. But as soon as he saw me, he got to his knees and pretended like he’d dropped a pen.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“No, I just pretended like I hadn’t seen anything,” Cindy said. “It’s weird, right?”

Whit didn’t reply, but just turned his gaze over to the porch of the administrator’s cabin where Father Billy was chatting amiably with return-campers from previous years. The priest looked a little pale, but had seemingly recovered from the nervousness he’d exhibited during the welcome. Cindy looked from Father Billy, back up to Whit, who was squinting now, as if hoping that might hone his powers of observation.

“I think what we’re bumping on is that he’s never really talked like that before,” Whit said, nodding as if agreeing with his own observation. “He’s always been more about service, helping your neighbor, leaving God to God, emphasizing your personal relationship through the Holy Spirit. I mean, do you really think God spoke to him?”

Cindy rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding?”

“Not at all,” Whit said. “I mean, he’s a priest, right? He’s probably heard from God before, no? Maybe this is just the first time He’s wanted Father Billy to pass along a message.”

Cindy hesitated. She’d always believed in God, since she was a little girl, but in a distant, far-removed sort of way. She figured those who literally heard words or a message, in English, that they claimed was from God, were out of their minds or trying to sell something. For her, God was a reassuring feeling, not a shrink or a parent or a friend as if He was just another person.

But she also didn’t think this was the time to explain all that to Whit.

“Well, maybe Father Billy did get a message from God,” Cindy suggested. “If that’s the case, God couldn’t have chosen a better person. He’s great man.”

“I agree,” Whit said, his anxiety still riding right under the surface. “But for something straight from God, it’s pretty cryptic and obtuse. It makes you wonder what He thinks is going to happen.”

“Knows is going to happen,” Cindy joked. “I mean, He’d ‘know,’ right?”

Whit gave Cindy a harsh look.

“It’s not funny, Cindy. What if it’s actually serious?”

With that, Whit headed away. Cindy stared at the back of his head for a moment, thinking he looked like an egret bobbing along as he walked. She had long ago decided that she’d known Whit for too long, a sort of stepbrother at this point that she’d be relieved to be rid of by the end of the summer. It wasn’t always like that, though. She’d actually had a crush on him at one point that led to her blowing him on the last day of camp one year when they were both fifteen and she’d instantly regretted it. In fact, it had been done mostly on a dare from two of her friends, but he saw it as much more. At first, he’d treated her like a goddess for deigning to anoint him in that fashion. But when he realized that she had no idea what she’d been doing and was somewhat scarred by the incident, his ardor turned to what Cindy would thus recognize as feelings of superiority and harsh judgment any time they’d been together since.

Every time she caught him scoping her out, he’d kind of shrug with an I know what you did kind of look that made her sick to her stomach. Yes, she was glad that, soon, she’d see the last of Whit forever.

“Meal-prep?”

Cindy was yanked from her bad memories to turn in yet another direction as Faith and a new girl she didn’t recognize walk up. Year after year, Faith had proven to be one of the most reliable workers at the camp, so Cindy was more than happy to sign her up for whatever job she wanted, confident that it would be done well.

“Absolutely – take your pick of days,” Cindy said, handing her the clipboard before nodding to Maia. “You, too?”

“Yep,” replied Maia. “We’re going to tag-team.”

“Then we’ll have at least three meals a week to look forward to,” Cindy grinned. “Faith’s the best cook we’ve ever had.”

Faith reddened. “I just follow the recipes.”

“Allegedly, so does everyone, but yours always seem to turn out better. Wonder why that is?”

Faith blushed, but couldn’t help smiling.

“Okay. We’ll see the two of you in the kitchen.”

The first half-Sunday was always the easiest and this year’s was no different. This was the one day where, the counselors made the mid-day and evening meals for the campers to allow them the afternoon to get adjusted to life at camp, though most of this time was spent getting accustomed to life without: without the internet, without cell phones, without video games, without caffeine, without television. The church had started this rule the very first year campers tried to bring in cell phones, confiscating and boxing up the ones that were smuggled in for the duration, citing them as the same kind of distraction as television. The counselors were allowed their cell phones, but couldn’t get much reception out at Camp Easley, regardless, but it was the principle of the thing.

Not that there weren’t hard phone lines. The counselor’s cabin had one as did the administrator’s cabin and parents with emergencies were given the numbers to both, which additionally had voicemail if everyone happened to be out.

Beyond that, communication with the outside world was purposefully nil. These were meant to be four weeks focused solely on the presence of God in the life of the campers, who soon found that the secular world was surprisingly easy to keep out.

“Want to go swimming?” Mark asked Phil as the two lazed around on their bunks after unpacking, the only two campers who were still inside Cabin 2.

“Not really,” said Phil, insecure about how he looked without his shirt on, particularly when surrounded by a number of the church’s premiere athletes who were all currently engaged in a football game down on the beach, shirtless, and in shorts.

“You don’t think Leilani and the other cheerleaders are going to be in bikinis?” Mark suggested. “That’s worth price of admission alone.”

Phil glanced to the window. “If it was Faith down there in a bikini, that’d be a different story.”

“You’re crazy,” Mark replied. “You think she’s hotter than Leilani and all those cum-guzzling cheerleaders?”

“I do,” Phil said. “She’s smart. I can talk to her. That’s light-years hotter in my book.”

“I just don’t see it,” Mark said. “She’s like somebody’s cousin.”

Phil thought about this, feeling it well-observed on Mark’s part, but said nothing.

“Rachel, now she was gorgeous,” Mark continued. “Brown hair, tall. Those green eyes. Christ, she was out of my league.”

Phil had to bite his tongue. Rachel was, in fact, one of the ugliest girls he’d ever seen in his entire life. After he’d gotten to know her, he softened on this because her personality more than made up for it and he genuinely understood what Mark saw in her.

But gorgeous? Not by anyone’s yardstick, which is why he sometimes forgave Mark’s outright misogyny when he spoke about other women as it was obviously shtick.

“How about a hike around the lake?” asked Mark, exasperated enough to suggest anything to get them out of the cabin. “Promise to stop and flirt if we find Faith?”

Phil thought about this, then nodded and got off his bunk. “Sounds like a plan.”

As they headed out of the cabin, the division between the two types of campers at Easley were distinct and on display. Down by the water, you had the football game going on – seven-on-seven – David Boss quarterbacking. As Mark had guessed, a number of the more popular Church of the Lamb girls were gathered around watching, many of them dressed down in the skimpiest of bikinis, some borderline indecent. The counselors and the campers knew this kind of swimwear would be frowned on by just about any parent or church council member who might see, but as snapshots of such things didn’t exactly make it into the online wrap-up or the church bulletin board at the end of summer, Father Billy took a live-and-let-live approach.

“I don’t think policing wardrobe is our job, frankly,” he had now-famously (and oft-quotedly) remarked one summer when confronted by an offended counselor – a somewhat holier-than-thou fellow – who claimed to be particularly aggrieved on behalf of the congregation. “I say we just let it go and let them decide what they’re comfortable with. Trust the group.”

The counselor left in a huff and hadn’t come back the following year. No one seemed to mind.

Not that the counselor didn’t have a point. There were plenty of guys and girls who let their minds wander to matters of sex, including a number who treated the church camp as their own private summer getaway. There were whispers every spring-into-summer about which girls were planning to lose their virginities at that year’s camp, but a lot of that turned out to be apocryphal. There were make-out sessions, sure, some heavy petting, definitely a few attempts at oral sex (some less than successful, as in the case of Cindy and Whit), but incidents of actual intercourse were few and far between, even among the counselors.

For the counselors, they mostly kept up an unspoken agreement that even though they knew they could get away with it, they abstained from sex – for the most part, at least. There were some isolated incidents, usually amongst the ones that hadn’t come to the camp as couples and ended up in clumsy, late-night embraces out of loneliness or boredom, but after a barrage of single- and double-entendres from the other counselors the next morning, one night stands usually stayed just that.

But then, there were plenty of campers on the opposite end of the spectrum where the likelihood of sexual coupling was almost non-existent. This group generally kept their clothes on that first Sunday and could be found wandering around the camp aimlessly, reading, chatting or just hanging out, some because they didn’t know anybody else or didn’t fit in with any clique, but others because they fit into a subgroup of campers there solely for Bible study and were at a loss on days without classes.

The undisputed leader of this non-group was a 15 year-old pinch-faced boy named Douglas Perry who was also president of the Young Men’s Fellowship Group at Church of the Lamb. He didn’t try to hide his ambition to graduate into becoming a counselor the following year, even though that privilege was generally reserved for high school graduates. He was devout, had considered becoming a priest himself, but was now leaning more towards going into to the military at some point which better suited his martinet of a personality, likely after first going ROTC at SMU, his college of choice (partly, it was assumed, because it would allow him to continue living at home with his mother and father).

Of course, even Douglas and his group had their detractors.

“I can’t stand that guy,” Mark said every time he and Phil saw him, a running joke.

“Which guy, that guy?” Phil would always retort.

“Yeah, that guy-that guy,” Mark would reply. “I can’t stand that guy.”

And so on.

Of course, there were leftovers from the jocks and the Bible-thumpers; first-time campers who had never been away from home before, teens who figured this was the best way around a summer job or just wanted to get away from their parents, or general weirdoes, nerds and outcasts. After one summer at the camp, when they realized there really wasn’t much of a place for them there, most didn’t return. Mark and Phil were among the exceptions to that rule.

“You see her anywhere?” Phil asked, scanning the campsite for Faith as they walked a slow circuit around the cabins.

“Nope,” replied Mark, whose gaze was focused squarely on Leilani’s bikini-clad ass whenever it came into view. “Where would she be?”

“Dunno,” said Phil, but then got an idea. “The Rocks?”

“Ah, yeah. You’re probably right.”

Though the grounds around Lake Carlisle were fairly woodsy and flat, there were some areas of gradation including a short Cliffside dubbed The Rocks, which rose high over a particularly deep part of the lake. The water directly below The Rocks was deep enough to allow diving, for the most part, but the counselors frowned on it as there was no telling what kind of underwater obstacles might have made their way into the lake and secreted themselves in the murky water below the cliff during the storms and bad weather of the just-previous winter. Of course, this kept no one from trying their hand at cliff-diving, just most let a few of the bravest souls go first to test it out each new year.

Phil and Mark made the quick, five hundred yard trek to The Rocks, shadowing the lake from just within the dense thicket, filled with tall pines, blackjack oaks and red cedars. The trail was pretty sandy as long as there were trees, but then it began filling with rocks, building up towards the craggy outcropping known as the Rocks, which blocked the trail and could only be circumnavigating by swimming around it in the lake or hiking a good ways deeper into the woods. Most simply climbed up and over them as this seemed to be the shortest route around the boulder pile, but it resulted in a great number of skinned shins and palms.

“Dammit!” cried Phil, slipping off a particularly large chunk of granite and bashing his knee into a tree branch laying on the trail. He made the mistake of looking to Mark for sympathy; Mark who was overall slightly more athletic and agile.

“Piece of cake,” Mark exclaimed, making a point of bouncing up the rest of the short rocky path to the summit. Phil kept hoping his friend would miss at least one step, but sure enough, Mark was able to negotiate his way to the top like a mountain goat and swiftly disappeared from sight.

When Phil joined Mark atop The Rocks a few minutes later, any residual pain from the climb fell away as he found his hypothesis proven out as not only were Faith and Maia there, they were both reading books and it appeared that they’d been there for some time. Maia had her shirt off, revealing a distinctly unrevealing bikini top and Mark, squatting next to the two girls, kept stealing glances at her bare, chestnut skin.

Faith squinted up at Phil as he crested the boulders and smiled. “Hey, Phil.”

“Hey. Guess I was wrong about having The Rocks to ourselves today.”

“Guess so, but we won’t kick you out,” Faith said this last part with a taunting grin, which Phil seemed to feel was an invitation to sit, so he did.

“What are you reading?” he asked. Faith showed him and he nodded. “Wow. I probably checked those out just before you. Really cool stuff.”

“Did you read all four?” she asked, duly impressed.

Phil nodded and was about to offer his critical assessment when he was interrupted by Mark.

“Yeah, for weeks every time I’d go to his house, he’d be there in his mom’s hammock in the backyard, like he was reading the phone book or something,” Mark said. “Could barely tear him away.”

Phil grimaced, but liked that Mark gave him and Faith something to mutually eye-roll about.

From out of nowhere, they suddenly heard screaming echoing up from the direction of the camp and they all quickly looked over only to see that the football game had devolved into some sort of water rugby-cum-wrestling match with the boys throwing each other into the sandy water before going after the girls. The scream had come as one of the boys had gone after Becca Roy, one of the smallest girls on the cheerleading squad, and had raised her all the way over his head before throwing her back into the water. That by itself didn’t elicit the scream, however; it was the fact that her bikini top was almost torn off in the process.

But the second she bobbed out of the water, Becca ran up to the cackling perpetrator, yanked his bathing suit down before he knew what happened and her screams turned to hysterical laughter as she pointed at his pale, zit-covered ass.

“These guys all go to your school?” Maia asked, looking at Mark, voice full of derision.

“Yeah, pretty much,” he replied. “They’re the most popular kids. Our version of glitterati.”

“Really?” Maia asked, surprised. “Well, that’s wild.”

“How come?” asked Phil, having believed the hierarchical status afforded to jocks and cheerleaders was pretty much universal.

“I grew up on Army bases where the Catholic kids were never the popular kids,” Maia explained. “In fact, they were usually down at the bottom of the pecking order next to the Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Protestants – they ruled the roost for the most part.”

Maia’s words might as well have been in a foreign language as Phil, Mark and Faith were all pondering this in the same manner. The idea that there could be a pecking order based on religion just wasn’t something they were familiar with or, at least, not that they’d noticed. And Catholics on the bottom? Crazy!

“Where do you go to school now?” Phil asked.

“Crocker in Cedar Hill,” Maia said, to which Mark nodded.

“My mom substitute taught there a couple of times. Tough school.”

“Not really,” Maia shrugged. “Well, you three wouldn’t last five minutes there, but it’s not so bad.”

Mark smirked. “You think we’d get shot or something?”

“Or something,” Maia replied, sizing Mark up. “You don’t strike me as the brave type.”

This took Mark aback. He didn’t exactly relish people piercing the ever-present bubble of cocksure confidence he worked so hard to exude.

“You want to see brave?” Mark asked, a smirk in his voice. “Watch this.”

Mark got to his feet, kicked off his shoes and walked to the edge of the cliff. Phil quickly jumped up and went over next to him.

“Oh, come on,” Phil whispered. “Don’t be retarded. No one’s gone in yet.”

But Mark continued scanning the water below. Finally, he turned a grin on his onlookers.

“Then the thing to do is to not think about it, riiiiigh...?” Mark said, before stepping off the edge.

Phil instinctively grabbed for his friend, but then caught his balance and took a few steps back from the rocks.

“Oh, my God...!” Faith said, her eyes going wide as she and Maia leaped to their feet and ran to the edge.

The drop was between four and five stories straight down, but it felt like a lifetime before they heard Mark hit the water with a tremendous splash. Phil watched him the whole way down with a mix of terror and exhilaration. Out on the beach, the cavorting jocks and cheerleaders all heard the splash and were looking out towards The Rocks, wondering who had the stones to go first that year.

“Whoooooaaaa!” cried Mark as he rocketed back to the surface. “It’s fucking cold!!”

“Whooooo-hooo!!” yelled Maia in response before shedding her shorts to reveal the rest of her rust-colored bikini. She turned to Faith and grinned. “You coming?”

“Never in a million years,” Faith replied, giving her a look of and-I-can’t-believe-you-would,-either.

“Okay. Try not to miss me!”

With that, Maia backed up a few feet to get a running start, then dashed out over the edge, launching herself a couple of yards out past the cliff before gravity took over. Faith watched her all the way down as Mark, noticing he might be in the landing zone, quickly swam a few feet away.

“I can’t believe she just did that,” Faith said, finishing her sentence as Maia smacked into the lake, sending up a shower of water drops that rained down on Mark. “What if there was something under the surface?”

Phil just shrugged. “They’re lunatics, our friends.”

Down below, Maia broke the surface, pushing her tangled hair out of her eyes as she smiled up to Faith and Phil. “Oh, my God – he was right! It’s freezing!”

“More reason to stay up here in the sun!” Faith cried back.

“Whatever!” Maia yelled, splashing her way over to Mark who was still surprised that she’d so easily followed him down as he thought what he’d done required the height of courage.

Phil watched as Mark and Maia dared each other to swim underwater or race or something, but then looked back at Faith, shaking his head. “They’re made for each other.”

“You think she likes him?” Faith asked.

“What’s not to like?” Phil replied. “But he’s still stuck on that girl, Rachel and probably will be for awhile.”

“Oh, yeah,” Faith nodded. “They were a thing, right? I couldn’t stand her.”

“Hah,” Phil said. “She was okay. That said, not sure your friend is really his type.”

“Because she’s funny?” Faith asked. “Or because she’s black?”

“But she’s not black, right?” Phil countered, not realizing Faith was joking. “Not all the way, anyway. Maybe black and Mexican, but then something else. She did say she was military, so maybe she’s half-Vietnamese.”

Faith shrugged. “I don’t know what she is, but I do think she’s pretty.”

“Oh, me, too,” Phil said quickly, realizing what he was saying. “I’m just thinking about for Mark.”

Faith didn’t reply and Phil looked down at his shoes, knowing how awkward he’d made the back-and-forth when all he’d wanted to do was have a nice couple of moments with Faith to tee-up something for later. He thought about apologizing for sounding like an outright bigot, but Faith was just staring out at the lake, perhaps giving him an exit, probably wanting him to leave.

“Hey, I didn’t mean in the way it sounded,” Phil began. “I know she’s your friend. I wasn’t trying to be racist.”

But before Phil could finish, a number of the jocks who had formerly been tossing the football around on the beach bounded up the boulders to do some cliff-diving of their own.

“Watch this!” cried one of the guys, a big, linebacker-type, who did a comical kind of skydiver-style leap, arms straight out, stomach exposed for the world’s worst belly flop, which — just at the moment before striking the water – he rolled into a clean, thread-the-needle-style dive, barely making so much as a splash as he plunged beneath the lake.

Naturally, this was followed by a host of one-upmanship boastings by his comrades, all of whom began flying off the cliff into the water in a variety of dives, ranging from the clumsy to the passably expert. Faith, whom the jocks didn’t seem to notice any more than Phil, rose to her feet and picked up her book.

“It’s fine,” she said to Phil, quick and dismissive as she retreated towards the trail leading down.

Phil tried to come up with something to say back, something that would fix his error and restart the conversation, but came up dry.

“Dammit!” he cried, getting him a couple of looks from the pack of jocks that stood on the cliff’s edge.

“What’s wrong, man?”

Phil looked up and saw that one of the jocks was actually a skinny, deeply-tanned boy named Colby Keating who Phil had known since they were either five or six and who’d always been a friend to him.

“Nothing,” Phil shrugged under-his-breath, before heading down the path after Faith.

Father Billy thought he’d been about nine or ten when he’d learned that what killed you in a crucifixion wasn’t the fact that you had long spikes driven into your ankles and wrists that made you bleed out, but had been told that death was actually caused when the body succumbed to asphyxiation as it became increasing difficult over time for a victim to inhale. It was only much later that he heard that this wasn’t the case either and that most of those crucified died from rapidly-spreading infection resulting from exposure or hypovolemic shock due to dehydration. This kind of death took days and during that time, that those crucified, a word that came from the same Latin root that brought “excruciating” to the language, also endured the public humiliation of not only being nude while on the cross, but also having to urinate and defecate in front of others as they slowly died.

It seemed like an utterly humiliating way to go.

Father Billy thought about this when he’d gone to the church council to explain why he felt the giant wooden crucifix he’d only bought a couple of years before now had to be lowered, checked and later re-hung, he ran into some resistance as most believed there was nothing wrong with it. Only after he explained that he was afraid that he’d pulled it loose from its moorings when he’d grabbed for it during his fall and that it might one day collapse down on a parishioner did they decide to go along with his plan.

After professional movers had lowered it from the wall and loaded it into the truck of a parishioner named Jay Berger, Father Billy had it driven to his house where he had offered to clean it thoroughly before replacing it on the wall behind the altar. With the help of a couple of neighbors, Father Billy set it up on a pair of saw horses in his garage, thanked everyone profusely, then closed the garage door and covered the windows.

That first night, he prayed to it, lying on the cold concrete floor underneath the saw horses, thinking it might make all the difference as in the presence of the crucifix was where it had all begun. But after there was, again, no answer, he merely meditated with it for hours, laying his hands on different points on the sculpture in hopes of once again feeling the pulse that he reluctantly had to admit he didn’t believe he’d feel again. At this point, however, already into the second week of June, Father Billy’s plan for the summer camp was well under way.

He hadn’t known exactly what he was doing when he started taking the sculpture apart, but once he decided that he didn’t care if the wood ended up fractured beyond repair, it was a lot easier. After awhile, he had but one goal anyway: extract the three, foot-long iron spikes that represented the nails used by the Romans to affix Christ to the cross.

It had taken all night, but he finally managed to tear them out of the wooden limbs they’d been ‘driven’ into and weighed each in his hand. One of them had been bent at the tip when the sculptor had pounded it into the hole he’d chiseled out, but Father Billy figured he could straighten it out if it proved an impediment.

But staring at the three nails now three weeks later in camp, now removed from the heavy black leather satchel he had brought them and a handful of other, equally sinister items to Camp Easley in, he suddenly realized that he knew where the sculptor had gotten them from. Though prefabricated railroad spikes had become fairly standard in the twentieth century, he had seen photographs of the crude, poorly-patterned spikes that were used prior to this. Each one would have to be smithed individually, meaning tiny differences and imperfections in the iron would reveal that no two were identical. That was definitely the case here.

Each one was about thirteen inches long, weighed seven or eight pounds and could be easily hefted in one hand. Unlike, say, a kitchen knife that had a handle or a dagger that had a hilt, these nails required the holder to grip them just under the nail head, which could be awkward once the tip struck anything more solid than sour cream. Father Billy had experimented with downward thrusting movements involving the nails for days, repeatedly sliding his hand down the four-sided spike, which led to more than a few cuts and even splinters from residual pieces of wood still embedded on the nail’s flaws.

“It’ll take more than that to stop me,” Father Billy reflexively joked skyward as he applied band-aids to his palm.

The solution turned out to be simple enough — gloves, specifically weightlifting gloves where the padding was concentrated on the palm and underside of the first two knuckles, leaving the fingertips free with webbing around the palm to allow significant range of movement for the rest of the hand.

Satisfied that everything was in order, Father Billy carefully lowered the spikes back into the satchel, careful not to knock over a number of bottles placed on the bottom, then replaced the satchel under the sink.

For the rest of the afternoon, Father Billy spent time outside amongst the campers, getting to know the kids in this summer’s camper class. Though he’d gone over the enrollment list a number of times back at Church of the Lamb and recognized almost all of the names, these were turbulent years for a lot of the kids and even though he might think he knew a camper from a previous year, they could turn out to be a completely different person this summer.

And, understandably perhaps, he didn’t want any surprises.

Just before dinner time, Father Billy retired to the administrator’s cabin and began laying out his plans for the first night. He’d always considered a mask to be essential as he figured the element of surprise might give him a couple of extra steps, but then every mask he’d been able to track down (being summer, few stores were stocking Halloween wares) were ill-fitting and limited his vision. He tried on a motorcycle helmet and a ski mask at a sporting goods store, but the helmet was impossibly heavy and the ski mask had the same problems as a fright mask.

Then he got an idea doing a hospital visitation. He’d been with a parishioner who’d been in a car accident and had some sort of head injury that had been wrapped in gauze. Father Billy went to the drugstore and bought several boxes of sports bandages. He came home and wrapped them around his face in the mirror, replicating those from the head injury, but continuing to add bandages until his entire face was covered. He was quite happy with what he came up with, finding them easy to adjust when they moved and no hindrance to his sight. Also, if they were damaged in any way, unlike a mask, they were inexpensive and easy to replace.

In addition to the bandage mask, he also bought four black Nomex jumpsuits, the kind favored by racecar drivers that would work as a sort of uniform when he was doing the business and might hide him a little more. Between the suits, the bandages and the gloves, he imagined he’d be able to mask his identity completely, at least in the short term.

He waited until it was exactly nine o’clock, the time the campers were required to be in their cabins (lights out wasn’t until an hour later) and checked his watch against the cabin clock before rising. He went to the bedroom and slipped on the first of the Nomex jumpsuits before walking to the bathroom mirror where the first roll of bandages was already waiting by the sink. After regarding his face for a moment, as if wondering if the man looking back at him would actually be able to accomplish what he had set out to do, Father Billy began slowly coiling the bandages around his face, beginning at his neck, just above the jumpsuit’s collar line. When he finished with the first roll, just as he’d covered the bridge of his nose, he clipped a second roll to the end and continued until all but the crown of his head was covered in bandages. He stared at the small patch of black hair still spiking up over the bandages, and made a decision. Taking out his electric razor, he shaved that small remaining circle bald like a friar’s representation of a halo, creating a pastiche of the holy and the unholy.

His uniform complete, he turned off all the lights in the cabin and sat back down on the sofa to wait.

“Hey, come here...”

Cindy woke up when she heard the whispered entreaty, but then realized it was coming from outside her window. She climbed out of bed, figuring frisky campers were already mixing it up outside in the woods, but when she pulled the blinds aside, she saw that it was Pamela and Humberto, just a few feet away from the counselor’s cabin, already wrapped up in each other’s arms.

Pamela glanced up and saw Cindy in the window and smiled guiltily, but then turned back to kissing Humberto, whose back was turned to the cabin, oblivious to being spied on.

“Pamela and Humberto?” asked Judy from the bunk opposite Cindy’s, also having been awoken.

“Yep,” Cindy replied, replacing the blinds and flopping back down on her bunk. “Guess we can’t begrudge them. They are planning to get married and they’ve been apart for a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t know that if you’d been around Humberto all week,” Judy scoffed.

“What do you mean?” Cindy asked.

“He kept trying to pick me up the whole time,” Judy said. “It was embarrassing. He actually tried to kiss me. I was really uncomfortable.”

Cindy tried to imagine Humberto making a pass at the hardly-attractive Judy when he had Pamela waiting for him, but figured boys were boys.

“Why didn’t you say something to Father Billy?” Cindy asked.

“I did — over and over,” Judy said. “Father Billy just said he’d take care of it once the other counselors got here.”

“Ugh. If it had been me, I would have slugged him.”

“Yeah, but with Humberto, that just might make it worse.”

Cindy sank back onto the bunk, figuring that might be true. She wondered for a second if she should confront Humberto with it, but then supposed if Father Billy said he’d take care of it, he would.

Evan Sebag and Bobby Rusch were the biggest stoners at Church of the Lamb and everyone knew it. Year after year, they came to camp with quarter-pound bricks of marijuana in their bags that they either sold or smoked up themselves, often going through the entire stash in the first week having the hopeless lack of self-control common to many a pot smoker. They’d been smoking out almost since they’d arrived that afternoon by the open-air teaching amphitheater and, after everyone else was in bed, were now raiding the pantry of the mess hall, having jimmied the lock with a skillfully-made skeleton key that they’d now successfully utilized four years in a row.

As they munched through a large bag of chocolate chips, Evan pulled out a joint and asked Bobby if they should smoke just one more before bunking down for the night.

“Are you asking me a question?” Bobby replied.

Becca Roy, the tiny girl who had been unceremoniously lifted over a large boy’s head and thrown into the water, was out in the woods past lights-out crying her eyes out. Not because of the earlier indignity, but because she had recently discovered she was pregnant, but had no idea who the father was. It was one of four boys, but there’d been a party towards the end of the school year and she’d had a threesome with two of the senior boys from the baseball team. That same weekend, she’d also had sex with her boyfriend, Lawrence (a Baptist kid who wasn’t in attendance at Camp Easley) who she knew was cheating on her with Leilani and at least one other of the cheerleaders.

And finally, she’d also been having a sexual fling with her social studies teacher, Mr. Guardino. He was single, so that was good, but he wasn’t particularly attractive; she’d just wanted to see what it was like to have sex with an older man. He had a cheesy mustache, was slightly overweight, but was also an absolute god in bed – at least compared with any of her other hopelessly inexperienced partners. Soon, she found herself fantasizing about him every time she was with any of her more age-appropriate partners. Part of her really hoped the baby was his. She knew the other boys would just deny it or ignore her and walk away, but Mr. Guardino, Elliott, she felt would take care of her. She’d probably move into his house, he’d keep teaching and, at first, she’d raise their child on his salary. When she turned sixteen, maybe she’d get a part-time job and see if her mom wouldn’t babysit afternoons so she could earn some extra money. Elliott would be home by four, (he’d made her call him “Elliott” even though she liked calling him “Mr. Guardino” in bed) so she could work some kind of late afternoon or evening shift. It just might work.

Out alone under the stars, she tried to comfort herself with this fantasy when she heard footsteps behind her in the woods. She figured it would be the boy who lifted her over his head, Albert? Aaron? Something-‘A.’ She knew he’d be there hoping to have sex with her and she began to mentally prepare herself. She didn’t really want to have sex, but she realized that she didn’t particularly want to be alone, either.

She turned around, trying to look as coy as possible, as if it had been her idea to lure him out there in the first place and now her seduction was coming together ever-so-perfectly.

What she saw, however, wasn’t the boy with the pale, zit-covered ass, but a tall man in a black jumpsuit, gloves and bandages covering his face holding an iron spike.

He put a finger to his lips and whispered, “Shhhhh...”

IV

Faith woke up early Monday morning, even before her travel alarm went off, and climbed out of bed to take a quick shower before heading to the kitchen to cook breakfast. She looked over at Maia, who was still sleeping, and snuck out the back door to the showers.

Faith had a system when it came to the showers, same as she did in gym class. She hated her body, there were no two ways about that, so she always brought the clothes she’d be changing into as close to the shower as possible. At Camp Easley, that meant hanging them on towel hooks outside the individual stall. She would strip down, hop into the shower, bathe as quickly as possible, and then turn off the water and towel down, generally while standing in a puddle. With some difficulty, she then got dressed, trying not to let her underwear or shorts touch the floor or walls of the stall, though this didn’t always work – leaving her clothes with water stains that would, admittedly, dry out completely within the next ten minutes, but still led her to presage countless embarrassments. If this all went well, she’d then walk out of the stall fully clothed except for socks and shoes, which she’d put on after toweling off her feet a little ways away from the showers.

There were plenty of girls who simply walked out to the showers naked except for their towels carrying their bathing accoutrements in little baskets and then would walk back to their respective cabins similarly clad to change there, but Faith found this incredibly immodest. It wasn’t so much the idea of the camp’s boys seeing her, though, but the other girls.

One of the reasons she had first signed up for the breakfast meal-prep job way back when was because she knew it would mean having the showers all to herself in the mornings.

But as she stripped down, she suddenly heard the back door of Cabin 6 click shut ever-so-gently and looked over to see Maia walking over with her shower basket.

“How come you didn’t wake me up?” she asked, but then reversed herself. “Well, you did wake me up with all your clattering around, but how come you didn’t wake me up on purpose?”

Faith half-laughed at this, but as she was already almost undressed, she very quickly finished the task, hanging up what she wore as pajamas on the hooks and dove into the nearby stall before replying.

“I thought you might want a few more minutes,” Faith said. “You had your own alarm set, right?”

“Oh, I’ve been awake since around four-thirty,” Maia said as she stripped off her pajama shorts and t-shirt and entered the stall next to Faith’s.

The walls were short enough that Faith was a little uncomfortable, but as she was determined not to come off this way, she didn’t say anything and tried not to be too obvious by overly covering up.

“I’ve always been an early riser,” Maia continued, soaping her arms and legs. “In a perfect world, I’d go to bed around eight or nine every night and get up at three or four. Everybody’s still asleep, the neighborhood’s quiet. It’s fun to be up that early.”

“Really?” Faith said, a little skeptical. “Don’t you get tired?”

“Not particularly,” replied Maia. “And there’s always caffeine.”

“True,” replied Faith, shampooing her hair.

“Did you see that that one girl’s bunk was empty?” Maia asked.

“What girl?”

“The skinny one who was on the other side of the cabin. Pale, black hair, doe eyes. Really tiny.”

Faith tried to think of who Maia might be describing, but came up blank.

“Maybe she got reassigned to one of the other cabins,” Faith offered. “There are always extra bunks the first couple of days and people trade.”

“But all her stuff was still there,” countered Maia. “Bet she spent the night with some boy.”

“Could be,” acknowledged Faith casually, not wanting to sound un-worldly. “It’s pretty frowned on, though. They’ve sent people home before.”

“That’s extreme.”

“Well, if someone gets pregnant, can’t their parents can sue the church or something?”

Maia scrunched her eyebrows. “I don’t think they can sue, but they might get pretty pissed and raise a stink about it.”

“Still, it’s pretty bad,” Faith said, rapidly rinsing off soap as hurriedly as she’d applied it. When Maia eyed her haste with curiosity, Faith shrugged.

“It’s really only the first day of camp, so I know whoever else we’re stuck with in the kitchen this morning’s going to be late,” Faith said, hoping that explained it. “So, I always try to get to the kitchen a little earlier.”

“Ah, okay,” replied Maia.

Faith turned off the water and grabbed for her towel, hastily drying off, but feeling as if Maia was watching her. Even though she was still quite wet, she reached for her panties to accelerate the dressing process, only to have them immediately slip through her fingers and fall onto the floor of stall, right on the wet drain. She looked up quickly towards Maia, expecting a guffaw or at least a sympathetic look, but Maia was busy shampooing her hair and apparently hadn’t seen. Faith shook the water off her underwear as best she could and, with a grimace, slipped them on, still soaking wet.

“See you in the kitchen,” she said after throwing on the rest of her clothes and breezing past Maia’s stall, forcing a grin.

Maia turned and nodded back, but not before she caught Faith’s gaze, which was staring at her naked body. Faith’s eyes met Maia’s, which were half-surprised, half-querulous, and immediately, Faith turned bright red.

“See you in the kitchen,” was all she managed to say, unwittingly repeating herself.

By the time Faith got to the kitchen, she was still trying to talk herself out of her embarrassment. So, she’d seen Maia naked, big deal. It would’ve been worse if Maia had been looking at her naked. She decided to forget all about it and focus on cooking breakfast. When Maia came in, well, she wouldn’t mention it and if Maia did, she’d make a joke and that would be the end of it.

She hoped.

Cindy had delivered the mess hall key to her the night before at dinner, figuring rightly that Faith would be the first one to the kitchen. As Faith unlocked the door and swung it wide, the familiar musty smell of years past wafted over her. With a happy tinge of memory, she walked in, leaving the door ajar for Maia and the others.

The morning’s menu – laminated — was already lying out on the counter and Faith picked it up, scanning it quickly, though she knew without looking at the weathered page what would be called for as the same page had been in her fingertips many times before.

The first recipe was for a veritable mountain of scrambled eggs that required quite a bit of prep, but as it was an option every day of the week, she had it down to a science. She supposed she’d assign Maia to pancake/French toast duty as that required attentiveness, but not a lot of skill other than a consistent batter-pour to be sure you didn’t run out before making the daily required amount of pancakes (200) and have to quickly whip up another batch. Whoever the other two meal-prep people were could handle filling the cereal dispensers, putting out plates and utensils and getting the steam trays ready for all the food, Faith determined. It didn’t take very long and, in a pinch, Faith knew she could do it all herself if they simply didn’t show up as had happened to her once or twice before.

“Hey, where do we start?” said Maia, walking in as Faith opened up all the heavy wooden cabinets and began pulling ingredients down.

“There are only two good aprons,” Faith said, tossing one to Maia. “And that’s the other one.”

Maia grinned and put it on as Faith turned and headed towards the walk-in refrigerator to grab the eggs. She grabbed the heavy metal latch handle and swung open the door, receiving a cold blast of air for her trouble. She shivered and walked in, finding a tall stack of paperboard egg containers, 36 per flat. She pulled the top three down — the most she could carry – and walked them back to counter.

“Lot of eggs,” Maia observed.

“Yeah, gotta get crackin’,” Faith said, but instantly regretted unleashing the kind of pun she’d only ever use in front of her father.

Maia snorted a laugh, and then rolled her eyes.

“Awful, Faith. That was awful.”

Faith allowed herself a small smile and then went back to get three more egg flats.

Phil woke up with a hard-on, which couldn’t have been more embarrassing when surrounded by only male campers in various states of undress getting ready for the day. Naturally, he’d been dreaming about Faith, a bizarre, action-adventure fantasy where they were on a jungle quest together like in a movie. He waited a couple of seconds before climbing out of bed, thinking the most non-sexual thoughts he could. Phil had showered the night before and slept almost fully-dressed at camp, but still took off his shorts when he climbed into bed. Realizing that that might have helped keep his erection down, he made a mental note to start sleeping in his shorts, as well, leaving only his shoes and socks to put on in the morning.

“You ready for breakfast or what?” asked Mark, coming back from the showers wearing a towel around his waist and a t-shirt.

“I guess?” Phil said, without particular resolve as he quickly grabbed his shorts and slipped them on, belt already threaded through the loops.

“You hear Evan and Bobby went missing?” Mark asked, slipping on boxer shorts under his towel before hanging the towel up on a hook and grabbing his own shorts.

“Really?” Phil asked, dragging a comb through his hair. “Where’d they go?”

Mark shrugged.

“Snuck out and stayed out,” he said. “Probably got fucked up out in the woods. They might have to send somebody to go looking for them.”

Phil grunted and shook his head. He kind of half-knew Evan and Bobby. He’d didn’t think he’d ever actually spoken to either one, but thought they’d been in a couple of his classes here and there.

“Whatever,” said Phil, pulling on his shoes. “Let’s get breakfast before it gets cold.”

They made their way over to the mess hall and got in line, which was still short as a lot of campers from their group were still in the shower. When the line made it into the building, Phil saw Faith walking another steam tray of pancakes out to the buffet and nodded a “hello.” She smiled back, which Phil hoped indicated forgetfulness-and-forgiveness towards his comments of the day before.

“Morning, Phil,” she added merrily.

Phil noticed that she was kind of half-dancing to pop music coming out of the kitchen. It sounded like some kind of bubblegum pop from the fifties, Faith’s music of choice, and he smiled.

“Hey,” he said back, before seeing through the doorway to the kitchen that Maia was in there dancing as well, her apron liberally covered with pancake batter.

Two other girls brought out fresh plates and silverware taken from the washing machine that ran pretty much throughout the meals and gathered up the dirty dishes to take back to the dishwasher. They were currently rolling their eyes for the benefits of their friends to make their disdain of Faith and Maia’s merry mood well-known.

“Do you think she’s hot?” Mark asked Phil, indicating Maia.

“Maybe?” Phil replied, looking at Maia, who he’d suggest was more ‘cute’ than ‘pretty,’ emphasized by the purple streaks in her curls. “Why? You interested in her?”

“Maybe?” Mark replied. “I mean, everybody needs a summer fling, right? And if you aren’t going to do jack about Faith...”

Phil had told Mark about his Faith gaffe, but in doing so, had hoped it wouldn’t come back and bite him in the ass.

“What’d you guys talk about in the lake yesterday?” Phil asked, deciding to ignore Mark’s attempt to bait him.

“Best way to climb back up, basically,” Mark shrugged. “We tried a couple of places, but the rocks were too slick. We ended up swimming down to the beach, but then went to the diving platform and talked for a little while. She’s really interesting.”

Phil was surprised. When he’d run into Mark back at the cabin afterwards, he figured he’d been off on his own for the afternoon as he often was, maybe bird or animal-watching, which Mark could do for hours.

“Interesting, how?”

“Just her family, school, the Army, her dad,” Mark said, sounding as if he was making light of what might have been an actual, deep, philosophical exploration. “It’s a crazy mix.”

“But you still don’t know if you’d go out with her?”

“That’s the weird part,” Mark said. “I kind of want her to be my friend. She’s really awesome and fun to talk to, but I don’t know if we’d be good boyfriend-girlfriend material. So yeah, I’d go out with her, but more so we could talk.”

“You’re just conflicted on whether or not you want to kiss her?” Phil asked, thinking his words to Faith were about to be proved accurate. “Straight physical-attraction problem?”

“Oh, no – she kissed me yesterday when she went back to her cabin,” Mark admitted. “But it was just like she was saying ‘good-bye,’ but instead of saying the words, she kissed me — on the lips — and walked off.”

This surprised Phil, particularly since Mark hadn’t felt it important enough to mention before, but he realized that his friend really wasn’t thinking that much of it.

“Well, that’s weird,” Phil said, meaning it.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Mark said, looking back towards the kitchen from the table. “Maybe we can just hang out some more. Maybe she’ll kiss me again.”

“Do you want her to?”

“No idea, dude. Seriously. None.”

When Cindy woke up that Monday morning, she’d all but forgotten about Pamela and Humberto’s late night escapade and just needed to head out to check and make sure the assigned campers were at work in the kitchen. She was halfway to the mess hall when she remembered that it was Faith and she should’ve had more, well, “faith” in her charge. As she got closer, she heard music coming from the kitchen first and knew, judging from the fact that it was some kind of Frankie Valli greatest hits collection, that Faith was probably ahead of schedule even.

“Everything good?” she asked, nodding to Faith and Maia from the doorway.

“Yep – a-okay,” replied Faith.

Cindy nodded and walked back to the counselor’s cabin only to find Whit sitting on the porch, a mug of coffee in his hand, but a look of smug satisfaction on his face.

“There’s a new pot of coffee,” Whit said, nodding over his shoulder. “And Humberto and Pamela didn’t come home last night.”

“Oh, great,” Cindy said, rolling her eyes in dismay at the fact that the fourteen year-old campers prepping breakfast were more reliable than two twenty-somethings. “Let’s just hope they make it back before Father Billy wakes up.”

“Don’t really see that happening,” Whit said, glancing over towards Father Billy’s cabin.

That’s when Cindy heard the sound of the administrative cabin’s washing machine tumbling over and over, the priest already up and doing a load of laundry.

“Oh, Jeez,” Cindy replied. “Where are they?”

Whit shrugged, then followed Cindy as she went into the cabin, finding Constance up and making herself a cup of coffee – almost jumping at the appearance of Cindy. Cindy eyed Constance, unsure if she was naturally that jittery or if she might have known in advance that Pamela and Humberto were planning to pull a fast one and felt guilty.

“Any sign of them?” Constance asked.

“Nothing,” replied Whit, shaking his head, but giving Constance the kind of look that made Cindy wonder if the two of them were sleeping together. She didn’t know Constance that well, only that she had a younger sister who didn’t come to church and that Constance had been a foreign exchange student in France for a year when she was in high school.

“Well, should we start looking for them?” Cindy asked, turning her mind back to the matter at hand. “Or just pretend nothing’s happened and hope they come back?”

“There’s a chance they got lost,” Whit suggested. “And maybe now that the sun’s coming up, they’ll be able to find their way back. If you get lost in the dark, you’re just supposed to stay put, right?”

Cindy nodded, and then walked over to the coffee maker to pour herself a cup. She tried to calculate what the cut-off time was before they’d have to tell Father Billy. Pamela didn’t have a class to teach that morning, but Humberto had his “St. Peter and St. Paul” class first thing at nine o’clock. That didn’t give them much time.

“We could probably buy them a couple of hours if we say they’re sick,” offered Judy, coming in from the bedroom, still working the sleep out of her eyes with her fists.

This would, of course, mean lying to a priest, but worse, lying to Father Billy who each of the counselors liked and respected immensely, despite his recent erratic behavior. It wasn’t anyone’s first choice.

“Let’s just play it by ear for now,” Cindy suggested. “We’ll see if they turn up in the next hour or so and go from there.”

Everyone agreed and started to get ready for the day, grabbing showers, getting dressed and prepping for their classes, all the while glancing from the cabin’s clock to the door, coming to attention any time it sounded like someone might be heading over in their direction.

But an hour later, there was still no sign of Pamela or Humberto.

“Dammit!” Cindy exclaimed when the clock reached seven. Frustrated, she looked around to the other counselors, which now included muscle-bound George – always the last to rise as he tended to stay up late working out in his room — and shook her head. “I’m going to do a circle of the camp, see if I can spot them in the woods or on the beach, but then go to Father Billy. If they’re actually lost or worse, hurt or something, we can’t wait around worrying about how angry Father Billy’s going to be.”

Everyone agreed with Cindy, likely happy to have someone volunteer to be the sacrificial lamb who reported the counselors to Father Billy, and she headed out the door.

As she made her way across the campsite, she caught sight of one of the male campers coming back from the showers to Cabin 2 that she recognized as the Hardin High quarterback, David Boss. Still wet and wearing just a towel, the rising sun only served to cast him in a sort of golden glow that maximized his cut physique. That’s when he looked up and saw her looking at him.

She smiled and nodded a “good morning” and he replied by opening his towel, revealing his flaccid, yet still-lengthy penis flanked by appropriately chiseled quadriceps.

In the moment, Cindy knew she should be horrified, feel violated and full of indignant reproach resulting in her angrily reporting him to Father Billy (as she had counseled Judy to do with Humberto) and getting him kicked out of the camp with prejudice, but it was such a cheesy move – the kind of thing a skeevy fifty year-old pervert might do to get his jollies – she couldn’t help letting out a peal of hysterical laughter at the seventeen year-old’s exposed member.

A couple of David’s friends who had been standing just inside the cabin and cackled their approval when they’d seen what he’d done, now witnessed Cindy’s response and momentarily switched sides, laughing with her. Cindy knew the ensuing humiliation would probably keep David from ever attempting anything so gauche again, much more than a report to the camp’s administrator and she kept walking.

She had bigger fish to fry, this morning.

As she walked down to the beach, still seeing no sign of Humberto or Pamela, she saw that she wasn’t alone. An awkward girl who’d only seemed to get more awkward with each passing summer, stood by the dock staring out over the lake.

“Mornin,’ Dana,” Cindy nodded.

The girl, Dana, almost jumped a foot, so startled was she. Cindy felt the urge to apologize, but before she could, Dana began hurriedly walking away.

“Dana? What’s wrong?” Cindy asked, real concern in her voice. “Where are you going?”

The girl hesitated, as if wondering whether or not a few more steps might make Cindy forget all about her, but then she turned around.

“I’m not supposed to tell,” Dana sighed, balefully.

A moment later, Cindy burst back into the counselor’s cabin, Dana in tow.

“Turns out Humberto and Pamela aren’t the only ones missing...”

Whit and Cindy immediately went to Father Billy with the news about Evan and Bobby, which they also reported was already well-known to most of the camp, a mere accident, though, that they found out. The priest was appropriately exasperated, but also almost immediately forgiving. In a rehash of the counselor’s conversations about Pamela and Humberto, Father Billy suggested that they might have gotten lost, but then waited it out until morning to try and find the camp in the daylight.

“But we shouldn’t wait much longer to try and find them,” added Father Billy, only extending Cindy’s sense of déjà vu. “If they’re hurt, it’s important that we go after them.”

Cindy nodded and was about to head back out when Whit chimed in.

“Humberto and Pamela already went looking for them,” he lied. “They were worried about the same thing.”

“Oh, okay,” nodded Father Billy. “Humberto’s got the Peter and Paul class, right? If he’s not back before then, I’ll fill in myself.”

Cindy smiled and half-led, half-yanked Whit back out the front door. Once they were outside, she tore into him.

“You could just lie to Father Billy like that?!” she asked, perturbed.

“Where’s the harm?” Whit sniffed, unhappy to be put on the defensive. “And you don’t know that’s not the case. They could have seen those two stoners out there and gone after them.”

Cindy, now fully pissed, turned on her heel and stormed away from Whit, though part of her thought she was just mad for not coming up with the lie herself.

By the time the second and third rounds of campers had gone through the mess hall, everyone at camp knew about Evan and Bobby with a growing percentage having heard some variation of the Cindy-David Boss interchange, David’s penis being described as smaller with every retelling.

No one except the counselors knew the truth about what would easily be a great third scandal, the two missing counselors, and, for now, it appeared that it would stay that way.

At nine o’clock, the day’s activity schedule kicked in and the counselors all went to their assigned spots, Constance to teach swimming, George to teach “tricks of the trail” (which Judy joked should’ve been a required course yesterday), Cindy to run inventory and do a cabin check, Whit to lecture on the differences between the Gospels in the outdoor amphitheater and Father Billy to take over Humberto’s Peter and Paul class, which took place in the screened-in classroom.

The class was mostly assembled when Father Billy walked in, carrying a pile of books.

“Fifteen!” Father Billy exclaimed after doing a quick head count. “That’s got to be some kind of record. Did you guys miss the fact that they’re doing a swimming class out there?”

Everybody in the room laughed, even Phil, Mark and a couple of others who also appeared to have been strong-armed into signing up by Humberto as well. Father Billy’s eyes fell on Douglas Perry sitting in the front row.

“Mr. Perry, big surprise, good to see you in here, though this is your third time, no?”

“Fourth, sir,” Douglas corrected.

“Well, welcome back. Should make for some hearty debates. Looks like a good group.”

Mark slumped back in his chair with an exasperated sigh purely for Phil’s benefit. Phil smirked and leaned forward.

Father Billy set down his stack of books, the title of each relating to either Peter or Paul or both. He stared at them for a moment and then turned to the class.

“Saint Peter and Saint Paul are two of the most important figures of the Catholic Church,” Father Billy began. “Saint Paul was originally Saul of Tarsus, a vicious, anti-Christian who was subsequently visited by Christ on the road to Damascus, saw the light and became Paul, one of Christ’s most devoted followers, sometimes referred to as the thirteenth apostle for the work he did spreading the Gospel until being martyred by the Romans.

Saint Peter, of the three denials of Christ, was no less conflicted in his life, but his conflicts come directly from his interactions with Christ. After the crucifixion, Peter and his followers believed the New Age would soon be upon them and that Judgment Day was just around the corner. The sick would be healed and angels from Heaven would descend to feed the poor. When this was proved wrong, disillusionment soon befell many early Christians. Paul wrote that he believed Christ would return in his lifetime, but began organizing the church for the long term regardless.

The men knew each other well and clashed mightily at the Council of Jerusalem and later in Antioch over the interpretation of the Gospels and the teachings of the man they both wholeheartedly believed was the Son of God, the Messiah. This debate over the nature of Christ has continued for two millennia after His death and theirs and is why we consider the church to be a living, breathing thing. We still don’t know anything for certain. We still take things on faith. We still peer into the mystery looking for signs. We still wonder. That is the nature of God.”

Father Billy hesitated, his last words hitting close to the bone.

“What I’m trying to explain is that you can understand the frustration of Saint Peter, an incredibly complex historical figure,” Father Billy continued, trying not to falter. “He felt he’d been promised one thing and got another. His feeling of betrayal is, perhaps, something we have all felt and can relate to when it comes to the silence — the absence of God. In the late 16th century, a Spanish priest named Juan de Yepes Alvarez was the first to refer to this as the ‘dark night of the soul.’ St. Paul of the Cross, an Italian priest of the eighteenth century, claimed to have felt the silence for forty-five year Even Mother Teresa wrote about it in letters to Father Benedict Groeschel, claiming her ‘dark night’ lasted almost fifty ye...”

That’s when Father Billy stopped talking, his mouth hanging open midway through a sentence as he stared out the screen window into the courtyard. His students began turning to see what he was looking at as well, most momentarily unsure of what they were even looking at, but then were no less shocked than the priest.

It was Becca Roy.

She was soaking wet, as if she’d just walked straight out of the lake, but upon closer inspection, it turned out that it wasn’t water saturating her skin and clothes, but sweat.

And blood.

Only, it didn’t seem to be her own despite how overwhelmingly pale she was.

Over on the dock, Constance was one of the first to see her emerge from the woods and was now racing over to her, calling for the other counselors. Within minutes, Judy had joined her, followed by Cindy who brought a towel. By the time Father Billy and his students had emptied out of the classroom, Becca’s stunned silence had finally given way to a burst of inhuman, terrifying shrieks that echoed across the camp and throughout the nearby woods.

Cindy, the only one with real medical training, gave Becca a quick external inspection, found her unwounded, but went to retrieve the First Aid kit regardless, mainly to try and give herself a few minutes to shake off her own sense of shock. It was in the counselor’s cabin and she stopped to grab her cell phone, too, but couldn’t locate it and just ran back out. By the time she got back to the courtyard, Becca had been wrapped up in a blanket and was being guided towards the administrator’s cabin.

“What’s going on?” cried George as he and his hikers hurried back into the camp, having heard the screams from some ways away. But like everyone else, upon seeing the traumatized Becca, they now had more questions than before.

“Just... hold on a second, George,” said Father Billy, who was trying to keep everyone a little ways away from Becca. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

Murmurs went through the assembled campers, the younger ones staring at her in confusion, the older ones wondering if she’d been in a diving accident. One of the older boys made a joke that she’d been raped and a few other boys laughed as no one managed to offer him the proper reproachful scowl.

Father Billy was seated beside Becca on the edge of the administrator’s cabin porch as she buried her head in his chest, her whole body quaking with sobs. His arms tight around her, Father Billy spoke quietly to her, eliciting a couple of nods though she was obviously still being tormented by whatever she had seen.

While Father Billy consoled Becca, Cindy sought out Becca’s cabin mates to see if they could shed light on any of this, but that’s when it came to light that until she just showed up in the center of camp, she’d been as missing as Evan and Bobby.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Cindy chastened the girls, some of which called themselves Becca’s “friends,” including Leilani.

The most she got in response was a shrug, which Cindy regarded with incredulity.

Suddenly, Becca’s shaky voice forced its way up through her sobs, her first words chilling everyone to the bone.

“They’re all dead.”

Silence. No one moved.

“Who’s all dead?” asked Whit, perhaps the only one who didn’t already have a good idea.

“Bobby Rusch and Evan,” Becca began, sucking in a couple of quick breaths. “Humberto and Pamela. I saw their bodies. They were naked, in a pile. Torn apart...”

Becca’s eyes went wide with the memory and she started crying all over again. Father Billy looked aghast and stared off into the woods, as if hoping to see something that would prove these statements untrue.

“Where?” asked Cindy, stepping out of the semi-circle of campers. “Where did you see this?”

“In the woods,” Becca said, her tone full of dread. “Out there in the woods...”

Everyone shifted uncomfortably, even those who had initially believed Becca to be full of shit. For Cindy, the very fact that Becca knew it hadn’t been only Evan and Bobby missing, but also the counselors was all the confirmation she needed.

“What else did you see?” asked Father Billy, leaning down close. “Did you see who did it? Was it somebody from the camp? A hunter?”

“I know who did it,” Becca said, nodding, as if suddenly remembering something important. “He’s the one who showed me where they were and told me how he did it. He showed me the weapons – these big spikes. Then, he drew on me in blood.”

She indicated her bloody clothes. A chill ran up Cindy’s spine.

This couldn’t be anybody from the camp, she thought. This was obviously some kind of maniac, particularly if he had let Becca live to tell the tale in order to scare the others.

“Right, but who was it?” asked Whit.

“The Devil,” Becca finally whispered. “It was the Devil.”

Mark and Phil stood back in the group a little bit watching this with disbelief. Like the others, they hadn’t noticed the missing Humberto or Pamela. But it was when Becca named “the Devil” as the one who had killed the two counselors and two campers that Mark scoffed.

Phil looked over to him, surprised.

“There’s no such thing as the Devil,” Mark whispered solemnly. “I believe her that they’re dead. All that blood came from somewhere. I believe her that there’s some maniac out there, but whoever showed her those bodies is as human as you or me.”

“You don’t know that,” Phil hissed back.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do, actually,” Mark said. “There’s no more such a thing as the Devil just like there’s no such thing as God. She’s just so full of this church-crap that when she’s finally confronted with something real, well, shit – she believes whatever some crackpot tells her. Now that, my friend, is fucked.”

Phil thought about this as he looked back at Becca, who was obviously disturbed by whatever she’d seen. He realized that he had never believed in the physical reality of the Devil any more than he had God. God was a feeling, as was the Devil, not some being who walked around murdering people in the woods fifty some-odd miles outside of Dallas.

“Actually, what would be really fucked is if anybody else believes her,” Mark added. “One hysteric is enough.”

Phil turned back towards Becca, who was now crying too hard to continue her story. He glanced over to where he’d seen Faith a moment before and saw her standing next to Maia, watching intently. He suddenly felt a great need to be by her side, just to hold her hand. He made a move to walk over, but then noticed that she was already holding someone’s hand – Maia’s; their interlocking fingers going white so tightly were they gripped together.

V

Becca spent over an hour trying to lead George, Cindy and three of the older teen boys through the woods to where the bodies were, but couldn’t retrace her steps. There’d been some debate about putting campers in harm’s way as opposed to simply counselors, but it was quickly muted due to practicality. The hope had been that, in the dark, she may have mistaken “dead” for “injured” and that there was still some belief that the missing campers and counselors would be found alive, but they found nothing, not a single drop of blood. Cindy kept her arms around Becca as they walked, but could tell that it wasn’t doing much good. Becca had snapped, been functionally driven crazy by the events of the previous night, and Cindy thought it would take professional help to pull her back from whatever abyss she was currently hanging over.

They kept going, however, marching through the woods buoyed by false confidence that their friends might still be out there.

Back at Camp Easley, the campers had all been confined to their cabins, though this was soon revised to mean Cabins 2-3 for the boys, 5-6 for the girls to make it easier on the remaining counselors to keep track of them. While trips to the latrines were allowed providing there was an escort, the mess hall and classroom were locked up tight.

It was after the counselors who had stayed at the camp with Father Billy – Whit, Constance and Judy — checked back in at the administrator’s cabin, that they became the first to hear more bad news.

“The phone’s dead,” Father Billy reported, his voice gone hollow. “At least, the one in my cabin is. Have you checked the ones in yours?”

Having believed that Father Billy was the one attempting communication with the outside world, they had not. Quickly, the group moved to the counselor’s cabin only to find that, indeed, the phone were down there as well. They couldn’t even get a dial tone there, either.

“Oh, shit,” exclaimed Whit as he thudded the phone received back down into its cradle. “What now?”

“Maybe it’s just the phones,” Judy suggested, but no one bought it.

The counselors followed Father Billy went outside and followed the telephone lines that ran from the cabins out to a pole at the front of the parking lot by the church’s Jeep, which had brought Father Billy, Humberto and Judy out a week earlier. But the line looked just fine as it disappeared up the road, making them realize that if it was cut, it must have happened further down than they could see.

“How far is it to the highway?” Whit asked, staring down the road.

“Twenty miles?” Father Billy said, not really sure. “Twenty-five? It’s a ways.”

“And there aren’t any other houses out there? Nobody lives off this road?”

“Not that I know of,” said Father Billy, searching his memory. “It’s always been described to me like those big ranch tracts down by the Texas-Mexico border. It’s all private property. No one’s out here but us.”

“Christ,” Whit cursed, but then, seeing the reproachful look on Father Billy’s face, added. “Sorry.”

“Ah, it’s okay,” Father Billy sighed, rethinking his reaction. “Today’s not the day to stand on ceremony. When they find them, we’ll just put them in the Jeep and send them down the road.”

When, though Constance. She hoped Father Billy knew something she didn’t.

When Becca and the others eventually returned empty-handed, the decision was quickly made to send at least two or three people out in the Jeep to alert the police. Though it was believed they might have to drive all the way in to the nearest city, Patterson, a few miles down the highway towards Dallas, most believed that by the time they reached the highway, someone would be able to get a signal on their cell phone and could call ahead, then maybe wait at the highway turn-off for instructions from law enforcement.

That was when it was discovered that the counselors’ cell phones were all missing. It started with George, who had gone to where he plugged his in, but came up empty. Judy soon found the same to be true in her room, swiftly followed by Whit who reported that his charger was there, but no phone.

“Wait, that’s impossible,” said Whit when one counselor after another came back to him, shaking their heads. “Nobody has one?”

A hasty search was made of the area around Pamela and Humberto’s beds, but no cell phones were discovered there, either.

Cindy looked all over for hers; under the bed, on the night stand, in her pockets, in the bathroom, but couldn’t find it anywhere. She remembered having missed it that morning, but had just thought it had gotten knocked under the bed or something. As, again, no one really got signals at the camp, it wasn’t the first thing in their pockets in the morning like it was back home.

When a thorough search revealed that all seven were missing (Father Billy didn’t carry one), the true horror of the situation dawned on them.

“He was in our cabins,” George said. “Maybe even while we were here.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” replied Judy, though she sounded desperate.

“It adds credence to the idea that it’s someone at the camp,” Whit said. “An outsider would’ve been noticed.”

“I don’t think we know that for sure,” said Father Billy.

“I know you don’t want to think it’s one of the kids, but we’ve got to get serious here,” Whit countered sharply. “Somebody killed them, right? These were our friends. Who’s to say he’s not planning on killing us next?”

“Didn’t you hear what she said?” asked Judy, indignantly. “She said it was the Devil. He came to her, told her what he did, and showed her the bodies. I mean, what if she’s right? What if it literally was the Devil?”

Everyone went silent, having no idea what the response should be, but also worried about being the lone heretical hold-out who would ridicule the very suggestion in front of a priest. It was too much to fathom, but none of the counselors wanted to be the first to say it.

Finally, Father Billy did it for them.

“Becca was really shaken up, that much is obvious,” he began, speaking carefully. “She probably doesn’t even know what she saw, which might be better for her mental health in the long run. If the Devil was actually walking amongst us on Earth, I sincerely doubt this is how he would announce himself, so let’s just rule that out for the moment. I mean, if we’re going to entertain all possibilities, we have to think that maybe even one of the four who is missing is behind this and had the forethought to remove the phones.”

Cindy interrupted with a cross sound, ready to defend Humberto and Pamela, but Father Billy raised his hand.

“I am not accusing anyone,” Father Billy added quickly. “Let me be clear. What I’m saying is that we have a situation and unless we stay on top of it, there’s a chance we could let it overtake us. To prevent that, we have to be open to as many scenarios as possible. Okay?”

Cindy went silent, but nodded.

“Now, our first move should be to check the Jeep,” Father Billy said. “Sitting here thinking about it, if someone had the foresight to disable our ability to call out in hopes of trapping us, well, I don’t even what to think what might they might have done to the Jeep. Whit, will you accompany me?”

Constance gasped. No one had considered this. The Jeep meant escape. Without it...

“Whit?”

Whit looked over, having been frozen in his tracks, but then nodded and followed Father Billy out of the counselor’s cabin. It took them no time at all to reach the parking lot and they were just approaching the Jeep when both noticed that the hood seemed to be raised a crack.

“Oh, crap,” said Whit, who hurried over and raised it all the way up. Immediately, he saw that the fan belts had been slashed and the battery removed. “Oh, crap!”

Whit looked over at Father Billy, who followed him over and regarded the mess in silence, but then nodded.

“Close it back,” he said. “Let’s try not to let the campers know yet.”

Whit nodded and lowered the hood, but it wouldn’t close all the way as something had been wedged into it when it was forced open and now it was badly bent.

“Good enough,” said Father Billy, patting the terrified Whit on the shoulder.

They returned to the cabin, but as the other counselors had been watching from the windows, they knew what had happened even before seeing the downcast looks on their comrades’ faces.

When he entered the cabin, Father Billy looked around at them with real worry on his face. “If there’s a chance any of our campers sneaked a cell phone into the camp, this is the time to be thankful for those who break the rules.”

It turned out that almost a third of the campers had brought cell phones, many stating that they brought them to use on the drive in and out, knowing full-well that they wouldn’t get reception out at the camp. As the counselors moved through the cabins collecting them, word went around not only about the phone lines being cut, but also the theft of the counselor’s phones. If the campers had been frightened before, this news spread an even deeper sense of foreboding.

“I’m hungry,” Mark said, sitting on Phil’s bunk in Cabin 2, as most of the other boys in the cabin buzzed around the windows, eyes peeled.

Phil, who’d been flipping through a couple of comic books Mark had brought, dug into his back pack and pulled out an energy bar.

“You want half?”

“Surely, Shirley,” Mark replied. “Thanks.”

Phil opened it, broke it in half and tossed a piece to Mark, who ate the thing in two bites.

“You got anymore of those?”

“Don’t you think we should hold onto them?” Phil scowled.

“Oh, in case the ‘Devil’ keeps us from going to the mess hall?” Mark said. “Glad to know you’re drinking the Kool-Aid, pal. Keep it up.”

Over in Cabin 6, Faith was curled up on her bed reading her book, trying hard to force the morning’s events from her thoughts. She was only a few pages from the end now and was curious what would happen, though was also slightly disappointed that she could tell, from the remaining page count, that the book probably wasn’t going to be satisfyingly tying up all the plot lines as if purposefully forcing the reader into buying the second in the series to find out what happened.

And if that worked once, Faith imagined that the author would have little reason to not pull that trick again at the end of books two, three and maybe even four, which diminished her desire to even finish the first one. Still, it was something to do.

“When does the food truck get here?” Maia asked, looking over from her book, the Pelé biography.

“Um, Thursdays,” Faith said, trying to remember. “Good point, though. Somebody should call them and make sure they don’t deliver.”

Maia stared at Faith as if this was the first time that had occurred to her, but then she looked down, dejected.

“This sucks,” Maia said. “I’d been looking so much forward to coming to camp that it’s crazy that we’ll only end up being here so short a time. Still, it’ll probably be a little while before we go.”

“You think?” Faith said. “They got everybody’s cell phones, so they’ll just drive out until they get a signal, call the police, call the busses and we’re gone.”

Maia shook her head.

“I’m not so sure. If whoever did this knew to cut the phone lines and take the counselor’s phones, that doesn’t sound like someone who is going to be satisfied with killing four people and letting everyone else go,” Maia suggested. “You heard what Becca said. This guy’s crazy. He’s probably watching the camp right now.”

Maia lowered her voice on this last part, not wanting to alarm the already skittish girls packed into Cabin 6.

“Well, there’s the Jeep,” Faith offered.

Maia gave her an odd look. “Is there?”

Maia nodded out the window and Faith peered out towards the parking lot, seeing that, indeed, the hood seemed to have been forced open.

“Oh, my God. Do you think he did something to the Jeep?” Faith asked, alarmed. This really was starting to sound like real planning.

From the dark look on Maia’s face, she realized that this was exactly what her friend thought.

“We’re cut off!”

“Unless somebody can get a signal from one of the cell phones, maybe,” Maia said.

“They’re going to have to go pretty far down the road,” Faith said. “There were a couple of girls on the bus talking on their phones from the church parking lot all the way to the highway exit. Everybody’s phone pretty much cuts out once we’re on the camp road.”

“How long’s that?”

“About an hour, but if you’re in a car,” Faith said, her voice starting to shake. “Without one, we’re just way out here. It’s why no one ever runs away from camp or tries to go to town. There are no towns for miles...”

Maia took all this in, and then moved over onto Faith’s bunk, putting her arm around her friend.

“If this was some guy who was already out here, he may have killed those people and moved on,” Maia said, voice cautious and deliberate. “But if this was some guy who knew when we were coming and is planning to try and kill the rest of us, people are going to panic. When that happens, it’s going to be every man for himself pretty quick. I’m just telling you now, if we – you and I — keep an eye on each other and stay close, keep our heads and all that, we’ll get through this together. Whoever this is, he’s really smart. We’ve got to be smarter and sometimes smarter means letting your enemy have its pick of secondary targets. That’s what my dad used to say, despite what the Go Team, Rah-Rah Army might think.”

Faith stared at Maia, but then looked at the other girls in the cabin, all chatting, all going through their things, as if they were already starting to forget the events of that morning.

“Okay,” said Faith, leaning in close to Maia. “I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine.”

Maia nodded, but Faith could see that for all her bravado, she was still fighting back real tears, the first sign of fear Faith had seen on her face. For the second time that day, Faith reached out and took Maia’s hand, squeezing it tightly in her own.

Seven or eight of the campers’ cell phones were already charged down to nothing, leaving exactly twenty in working order. Of those, not a one could get a signal in the camp, though the counselors were optimistic now that they had at least some form of communication with the outside world, theoretically, even if it meant moving out onto the road.

“Twenty is good odds,” George confidently announced to the other counselors who had gathered in the administrator’s cabin. “We can get out at least a text or something, no problem, once we get close to the highway.”

Though it hadn’t been stated officially, the assumption had been that a group would be sent out towards the road, which Father Billy now confirmed, the phones spread out on table in front of him.

“When you face facts and look at all our options, you realize that’s only one clear path to take,” he began, almost sonorously as if from his pulpit. “We’ll send a group of about eight out towards the highway, give them plenty of water and hope they reach a point where they can call the police and paramedics on one of the cells. Unfortunately, given the situation with the Jeep and the phones already taken from the counselor’s cabin, we can figure that whoever this killer is has been watching us and may follow whoever leaves the camp. I imagine a group of eight is a good enough number to dissuade him from an attack. Additionally, it is my hope, that this group might draw him away from the camp and the rest of the campers.”

“You want us to act as bait,” stated George.

“That’s it exactly,” nodded Father Billy. “It’s going to be dangerous, which is why I can’t assign this to anybody, I can only ask for volunteers.”

George considered this for a moment, then nodded. “Count me in.”

Father Billy looked to the other counselors as Cindy, and to Cindy’s surprise, Constance, raised their hands. Judy and Whit made motions to suggest they might, but ultimately kept their own hands down.

George sneered, but Father Billy shook his head.

“Don’t begrudge anyone their decision. Staying behind may turn out to be an even more treacherous choice. We just don’t know.”

But then he turned to Cindy.

“I can’t let you go,” Father Billy said. “The campers trust you more than anybody else, so I need you here look after the camp, start moving campers into the mess hall to eat lunch, try to give them something to do to take their minds off this. If you can, try to make sure everyone stays in groups of ten or more.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for you to do that?” Cindy queried, but then realized the answer.

“I’m not going to send anybody out into harm’s way if I’m not going, too,” Father Billy explained. “We’ll recruit the other five from the campers and, like this morning, the more athletic, the tougher, the better. If there’s a fight, if we have to run, it’d be better if we had a couple of the stronger ones in hopes they make it back alive....”

Father Billy trailed off, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m having to even think like this.”

The counselors nodded. George stood up.

“I’ll go pull some of the guys. Won’t be hard to find volunteers.”

“Great – go to,” replied Father Billy, then turned to Constance. “We’ll need water bottles. I think there are some in the equipment shed.”

Constance nodded and headed out. Father Billy then looked over at Cindy.

“You have anybody you think can get the kitchen up and running for lunch?”

“Faith Tanahill and her little friend, Maia,” Cindy replied. “They pretty much handled breakfast single-handedly this morning.”

Father Billy nodded, fighting back a smile. Even he knew how reliable Faith was.

“Okay, tell her what you have to,” Father Billy said. “Make sure everyone eats, but keep your eyes on the woods at all times.”

The campers watched from their windows as George, Constance, Father Billy and a group of larger boys, including Colby Keating, made their way up the road. When they’d emerged from the administrator’s cabin, they’d been carrying plastic bottles filled with water and the campers knew that they weren’t just making a quick jaunt into the woods to look for the bodies again. Word spread quickly about the damaged Jeep, but before anyone could panic over it, Whit and Judy went from cabin to cabin announcing that lunch would be done in shifts and that it would start within the hour, restoring at least some sense of normalcy. Until then, however, everyone was to remain in their cabins.

“Faith?” Cindy said, poking her head into Cabin 6.

Faith looked up, having settled back into reading her book. Maia now sitting on the floor, leaning against Faith’s bunk with her own book (Pelé again) a few inches away.

“Can I see you and Maia a moment?”

Faith nodded, closed her book and headed for the door with Maia in tow. As soon as they were outside and Cindy turned to them, taking a deep breath.

“I know you guys already did breakfast duty this morning, but Father Billy wanted me to see if you’d be willing to come to the kitchen and help me with lunch. We have people assigned, obviously, but I don’t know how reliable they’re going to be right now.”

Faith was a little surprised, but quickly nodded. “Sure, I can do that.”

“Me, too,” Maia agreed.

“Great. We really, really appreciate it.”

The trio made their way to the mess hall, but as they walked across the camp, Faith couldn’t help but keep a nervous eye out towards the trees. She made a move to hold Maia’s hand again, but held back at the last second out of embarrassment. It took them less than thirty steps to get to the kitchen door, but for Faith, it felt like an eternity.

Cindy unlocked the kitchen door, ushered the girls in, then locked the door behind them before placing the key in Faith’s hand.

“I’ll be in and out depending how much the others need me, but when I’m gone, please, please, please keep this door locked and don’t let anyone in except for myself or one of the other counselors,” Cindy said. “We don’t expect any more attacks, but...”

Cindy accidentally made eye contact with Faith when she said this last part and it was obvious that the 14 year-old didn’t really believe her. Cindy was about to qualify her remark when Maia interjected with a question.

“What happened to the knives?”

Cindy turned and saw Maia standing next to the knife block where just about every last one of the large carving knives had been removed, including a cleaver.

“Father Billy and the others took them,” Cindy replied, figuring she had no reason to lie. “I think it just makes them feel less scared. I doubt if they’ll have to stab somebody with them.”

With every word, Cindy knew she was saying things that could only scare the two girls, but could barely keep the words in as she wanted to be honest with someone, at least. Finally, she just forced a smile.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to handle this quite yet.”

“It’s okay, Cindy,” said Maia. “I don’t think we’d know either. It’s just weird.”

“Yes, it is that,” Cindy admitted, then hesitated. “All right. I’m going to head back out for a bit to see what needs to be done, but I’ll be back. If you need anything at all, feel uncomfortable, get scared, whatever – just go out into the mess hall, which is also locked from the inside, and try to get somebody’s attention, okay?”

“Sure thing,” replied Faith.

Cindy nodded and headed for the door. She was just about to close it back when Maia called out to her. “Can we listen to music while we work?”

Cindy thought about this for a moment, but then nodded. “Okay, just keep it really low so you can hear if anyone calls out or we have to leave or something.”

As soon as Cindy closed the door, Faith ram over and locked it from the inside. She then turned back to Maia, who was holding the stack of laminated menus.

“Which ones should we do?”

“I suppose we can make just about anything we want to,” Faith said. “Are you in the mood for anything in particular?”

Maia thumbed through the laminated pages, but then spotted something that looked good.

“How about tacos?” she asked. “They’re festive. Might make people feel a bit better.”

Faith smiled and nodded her approval before Maia pulled her iPod from her pocket and walked it over to the iPod dock where she hunted around for something to play. When she found the right song, she hit “play” and soon the familiar strains of Desi Arnaz singing “Cuban Pete” filled the kitchen.

“Oh, my God – you have this?” Faith gasped, heading to the walk-in fridge to retrieve the ground meat.

“It’s my dad’s favorite, or one of them, as least,” Maia replied. “Figured it would set the tone for tacos, no?”

Faith laughed as she walked by Maia, feeling a bit of the morning’s weight lifted. Maia leaned forward as Faith passed, giving her a quick peck on the side of the head, square in the hair.

“Muah!” Maia said, exaggerating the kiss.

Faith giggled and pretended to rub it away. “Oh, come on, Mom!!”

Out on the road, the hot summer sun was streaming down on George and the others as they made their way to the highway. They’d split the phones out amongst the group, each camper getting two, Constance and Father Billy getting one extra, then George taking four for himself. Rather than run down the fragile batteries with constant checks for a signal, they decided from the outset that they’d only check once every fifteen minutes and together as a group.

The heat had made the walk particularly grueling, but Father Billy had insisted that, even though he was suffering more than most due to his age, that they regiment their water breaks in the same fashion, no one taking water until they’d already been out for at least forty-five minutes.

“I know that seems like a long time, but we don’t know how long the water will have to last us or if it’s all we’ll have for the walk back, too,” he said.

The boys had all agreed, eager to prove their masculinity, though after thirty minutes or so, they were as parched as Father Billy. Constance, unaccustomed to this much physical activity, was also having a rough time of it and had resorted to counting down the minutes until she could take a drink. Colby noticed and looked over.

“Are you going to have the bottle ready at the tip of your tongue at forty-four minutes, fifty-nine seconds?” he chided her, albeit good-naturedly.

Constance rolled her eyes, but couldn’t suppress her grin. “Not making any guarantees, but it could happen.”

She looked over at Colby, who grinned back. He was handsome, sure, but she put his age between fifteen and sixteen at best. Still, given extenuating circumstances (and these certainly qualified), she could see herself lip-locked with the camper on, say, the last night of camp or maybe in the church parking lot “after” once she was technically relieved of her counselor-duties. She didn’t exactly get around, but she certainly had a thing for cute boys.

“If I am, so what?” continued Constance, opening the door to further flirtation. “Are you so sure I won’t waste some of it by pouring it over your head?”

Colby pretended to flinch, but then leaned towards the counselor.

“Don’t joke. I’d be grateful. Any way I can help convince you?”

“Keep talking,” she said coyly. “You’re making progress.”

Colby smiled again, but then checked his watch. “Hey – forty-five minutes. See how I helped you kill a couple of minutes?”

Constance slowed, opened her bottle and took a long drink. “Aaaaah....”

Up ahead, George heard Colby and Constance’s back and forth and checked his own watch. The camper was off by a couple of minutes, but George didn’t care. He was feeling dehydrated, primarily because he’d had more than a few beers the previous night with Humberto before the other counselor had slipped out with Pamela. George had woken up feeling the effects and knew he’d better tank up on water, but then everything just kind of “happened” and he’d gotten sidetracked.

“All right, let’s stop here,” said George, pulling the four cell phones out of his pocket. “Anybody getting lucky?”

Everyone momentarily put their water aside and concentrated on their cell phones, as if willing bars of service to appear. Constance momentarily forgot just how thirsty she was in the anticipation that, this time, maybe they’d be a little closer to rescue, their ordeal over.

“Don’t forget to hydrate,” Father Billy admonished, walking up alongside the campers while pouring a few swallows of water down his throat from his own canteen. “We’ve got a ways to go, but don’t over-conserve.”

Constance nodded and started drinking more, as did the others. A few quick swallows, a glance to the phones, then a few more swallows after that.

Colby shot almost half his water bottle by the time he noticed that it tasted funny. He figured it was because the thermos had been sitting in an equipment shed for a year and probably had needed a real scrubbing instead of just the rinsing out he’d seen Father Billy give them in the administrator’s cabin sink before popping in iodine purification pills. He’d heard in Boy Scouts that the pills had a bad after taste, but this wasn’t that. It was like a flavoring had been added. The water tasted sweet, not bitter.

He looked over and saw that Father Billy was staring right at him, watching him closely. When he caught the priest’s gaze, the older man’s pursed lips unwove into a knowing smile. Colby stared at him for a moment before his vision got a little hazy and Father Billy walked away.

George was raising his canteen to his lips when, suddenly, a single blue bar of service appeared on the phone, lighting up one of four rectangles arranged in ascending order next to a symbol of an antenna. Then, as soon as it appeared, it went away, the “no service” legend returning. But it had been there and if he could get it once, he could get it again.

“Shit, c’mon!” George said, jogging a little ways ahead of the group, holding the phone aloft.

“George? You okay?” he heard Father Billy call from behind him.

“Yeah, yeah,” the counselor replied. “I think I might’ve gotten something, though.”

George kept moving up the road, waving the phone around, trying to replicate whatever condition had just allowed it to get reception. Father Billy jogged up to him and looked at the phone, too.

“How sure are you? Could it be wishful thinking?”

“I’m positive. It lit up. Just one bar, but there it was.”

As the two stared at the phone, they continued moving a few more steps up the road, but still nothing. As they went, George’s frustration grew with every step. He didn’t want Father Billy to think he was lying or, worse, going a little nutty.

But then, there it was – a single bar.

“See!” he said, triumphantly.

“Amazing,” cried Father Billy.

The instant it appeared, George froze, holding his arm perfectly still, too scared to move it one way or another. It may have been the shortest bar of the four, but a win was a win. George grinned. They were saved.

“I’m afraid I might lose the signal if I move. Will you dial?” George asked Father Billy.

Father Billy replied by stabbing one of the long, iron nails from the wooden crucifix all the way through the counselor’s neck until the tip burst through the opposite side of his throat, the tip hanging a good three inches out over his shoulder, flecks of blood and skin hanging off of it.

Rather than pain, the first thing George felt was the spike’s leaden weight bearing down on his neck, as if he was suddenly being forced to wear a heavy, ungainly necklace. Then, he realized he couldn’t take a breath.

“Gaaah!”

He turned around quickly, looking back towards the group to see if they might have a solution for his predicament, but saw that all six of them were lying on the road in various poses, clearly dead.

Father Billy tapped the plastic bottle hanging off of George’s belt as the counselor staggered about.

“If you’d only taken a drink first, this could’ve gone a lot better for you,” Father Billy said as he helped George lower himself to the ground, blood pulsing out of the counselor’s neck like an overflowing bath. “But since you didn’t, we get to have a quick conversation, you and I.”

George’s eyes, lolling around in his head, were becoming unfocused, but he seemed to be cocking his head towards Father Billy, so the priest assumed, at least on some level, he could still understand his words.

“You need to deliver a message for me. I’ve been trying to do it myself, but it doesn’t seem to be going through. It’s very, very important and, hopefully, one day you’ll realize that I’m giving you the greatest gift you could ever receive from another human being in this life. Now, are you ready for the message?”

George gave a half-nod.

It hadn’t taken long for Maia and Faith to make tacos even with Cindy’s only intermittent help as they quickly got a system down. By one o’clock, the counselors were letting groups of twenty into the mess hall to eat lunch, grab a few snacks to take back to their cabins, but then be re-confined to quarters.

Once lunch was over and everyone had been served, Cindy offered to clean up the kitchen herself as a ‘thank you,’ but Faith and Maia, not particularly looking forward to more time isolated in Cabin 6, asked to stay and Cindy let them. With the iPod still going (and now turned up a few notches), they cleaned up not only the plates and cups, but also the pots, pans and steam trays used in the preparation of the meal. After that, they wiped down the tables, wiped down the counters, cleaned the stove top, swept the kitchen floor and then put away the clean dishes out of the sanitizer.

“I really appreciate you two helping out like this today,” Cindy said, when she came back in. “I know Father Billy will appreciate it when he gets back, too.”

“When did they leave again?” Maia asked, trying not to sound as apprehensive as she felt.

Cindy looked down, about the answer. “Just past noon.”

It was now half past three.

The anticipated return of Father Billy and the others was causing a lot of worry amongst the remaining campers and counselors, though everyone had a different version of the math. A good three hours to get to the highway, fifteen or twenty minutes to flag down a motorist or reach the police on the cell phones if they worked. Another fifteen minutes for the police to reach them and start the long trek back to the camp, that made their return imminent.

The only problem was that a number of the cell phone owners were claiming that they had gotten signals up to just a few miles before the camp and word had optimistically gone round that the police would “probably show up around one,” while everyone was eating. When the clocks reached two, Cindy, Whit and Judy tried to quell fears by explaining just how far away the highway was, but half an hour later, one of the girls, a high school junior, from Faith’s cabin became hysterical.

She started by screaming, then came with tears, then threats to run up and down the road after Father Billy, followed by accusations that Father Billy and the others had left them behind to die. This all led up to a series of gasping shrieks, as if she was trying to hyperventilate herself, but wasn’t being allowed to succeed.

Cindy had left the kitchen for the umpteenth time to deal with her as the girl’s panic attack was starting to freak out the other kids who began wondering if maybe they shouldn’t be freaking out a little more, too. When it was obvious she couldn’t be calmed, Judy had taken her into the counselor’s cabin and the cries had, more or less, ceased after awhile.

Back in the kitchen, Maia tried to put a brave face on the news.

“I’m sure they’re on their way back,” Maia told Cindy as she hung up her and Faith’s aprons. “If they couldn’t get help or if none of the phones worked, they would have just turned around to come back before it got dark, right?”

“Yeah, probably,” Cindy nodded, encouraging the thought. “You girls ready to go back to your cabin?”

Faith nodded, albeit reluctantly, and followed Maia and Cindy out.

Cindy hated lying to the girls, but didn’t want to give them anything more to worry about. Before they’d left, Father Billy had informed her that if they managed to get a signal or reached the police, he’d send a couple of the athletic boys back to let the campers know what was going on so they wouldn’t be so on edge. He knew that it would take all of them as a group some time to get to and from the highway, but a couple of runners could make it back in much less time if there was news.

Cindy had nervously checked in with Whit throughout the afternoon to see if anyone had come back, but so far – nothing. When it rolled around to four o’clock, Cindy went to go stand in the parking lot herself, staring out towards the dusty road.

At five o’clock, Judy started to panic a little as the first signs of dusk began to set in and Whit had to calm her down. The campers were getting antsy, too, and a fight broke out in Cabin 2 that resulted in a broken window. A few minutes later, Whit had the involved parties shaking hands.

At five-thirty, Cindy returned to Cabin 6 and recruited Faith and Maia again to make sandwiches in the kitchen that could be brought to each of the cabins, including a lot of extras in case anyone got hungry in the night. Together, they put together around 150 sandwiches – tuna salad, chicken salad, peanut butter and jelly, and ham and cheese – and then placed them in empty steam trays to deliver. They filled additional trays with bananas, oranges, apples and pears and divided those among the four inhabited cabins as well.

Drinks were a problem, but there were an assortment of containers and canteens around the kitchen that they filled with drinking water and distributed with the food.

By seven o’clock, everyone in the camp had something to eat, though more than a few were claiming to have lost their appetites. No one had come back from the road and everyone feared the worst. What had been a growing feeling of dread became an acceptance that they’d never see their friends again. On top of that, it meant with the one vehicle dead, no cell phones and no chance of getting the word out, they were officially alone in the woods against the Devil.

VI

Clang... clang... clang... clang...

Knowing full-well he was dreaming, Phil found himself at Camp Easley completely alone, his surroundings buried in thick fog. The one thing he could hear was the distant sound of the ringing firehouse bell on the administrator’s cabin, so he tried walking in that direction, but got nowhere fast. He had no idea who was doing the ringing, though it could’ve been the wind for all he knew as the tolling grew lazy as if on a ship tossed by waves.

The main problem was, any time he thought he was making progress, moving across the courtyard and nearing the administrator’s cabin, he found himself out on the dock. He turned around, walked back into the camp, passing the screened-in classroom, the mess hall and the first cabins, but just as he was about to climb onto the porch of the administrator’s cabin, again, dock, like being in a video game that constantly shifted him back for failing to complete a level.

Finally, he decided to take a seat at the edge and looked down into the water. That’s when he finally saw what the dream might have been trying to show him the entire time. In the water, just below the dock, was the floating and obviously very dead body of Faith. She was perfectly white, her face angelically turned skyward, her eyes closed. He couldn’t see her feet, but her arms were outstretched, as if she’d been treading water.

Again, though Phil knew he was dreaming, he could still feel his panic rising. He tried to rise, but couldn’t as every time he got to his feet, he began to tip forward as if to tumble into the water as well. Behind him, the bell continued to ring, but now Phil couldn’t turn around and get off the dock. He was trapped there, staring at the frozen image of his beloved, trapped just below the surface.

A few hours later when Phil awoke, the dream was fading, but he still remembered the images, but suddenly couldn’t remember if he’d actually heard the bell ringing or if it was just a feeling, a knowledge that it was doing so without needing to hear the sound. What he did know, however, was that he was hungry as all hell.

He climbed out of bed and made his way over to the steam tray by the door, which had been delivered by Faith the previous night, only he’d been in the latrine at the time and was now kicking himself for missing an opportunity at face time. When he pulled back the loose covering of aluminum foil, he found only three room temperature chicken salad sandwiches, all of which reeked. He replaced the foil, grabbed a pear from the second tray and was on his way back to his bunk when he happened to glance to the window and saw a haggard, bestubbled Father Billy staring back in at him.

“FUCK!!!” Phil screamed, dropping the pear and staggering backwards, tripping over the edge of a bunk where he landed on top of a sleeping camper.

“What the hell, douchebag?” the camper yelled, throwing Phil off the bunk, but then he, too, noticed Father Billy at the window and froze. “Holy shit...”

The look of feral intensity in Father Billy’s eyes suggested a man who had been absent from civilization for days and days instead of twenty-four hours. He had a day’s growth of beard on his face, something the campers had never seen on him before, which only added to the surreal sight. But it was the eyes – hungry, vacant, animal – that made the deepest impression on the boys in Cabin 2.

“It’s all right, guys,” Father Billy finally said, though his voice was thin and raspy. “I just wanted to make sure everybody was still locked in and okay.”

And with that, Father Billy managed a shadow of a smile, then turned and walked away.

A second after he’d gone, a flood of boys ran towards the front door and followed after him, leaving Phil still on the floor between a pair of bunks, wondering what he’d just seen. Once the other campers had exited, Mark got up from his bed, made a big show of stretching and then threw on his shorts before helping Phil to his feet.

“At least, we now know who killed Evan and Bobby,” Mark said, a grimace on his face.

It was with these words echoing in his mind that Phil listened, ten minutes later, as Father Billy told his story to the assembled campers. It was a vivid retelling, the priest recollecting how his group – George, Constance and the others — had made it about an hour and a half down the road, still getting nothing in the way of reception, but figured they were nearing the highway. How they’d then run into the man Becca had described seeing in the woods, wearing all black, his face obscured. Father Billy went on to suggest that the man’s face wasn’t just obscured, but seemed to have malleable features, ones that swirled in and out, his eyes subtly shifting color. When he looked over to Becca and asked if this sparked any new memories for her, she quickly nodded, saying that she’d forgotten that, but now remembered the eyes changing color as well.

“He wasn’t speaking any kind of language we recognized, but the words coming out of his mouth were different from the words we heard in our minds,” Father Billy continued. “He didn’t explain himself, but merely said that he was seeking out God’s Faithful on Earth, tearing them from this mortal coil. As long as we were here doing our good works, Earth could never completely fall away from God and into Darkness, which is his fondest dream. He knew that our deaths would be as Holy Martyrs, sent to the bosom of Our Lord by the hands of Satan, which guarantees our places in Heaven, but he felt it was more than worth it as his reward would come in the taking of the hundreds upon hundreds of non-believer souls whose lives would never be touched by faith without us to show them the light on this plane. This, I’m afraid, is what God needed me to prepare you for.”

Everyone went deathly quiet. Some obviously taking Father Billy’s account for the God’s honest truth – falling hook, line and sinker. But for others, it was nearly impossible to comprehend that the Devil had just murdered another seven people, not some crazy human being. Still, no one spoke up either way.

Finally, Whit, with the voice of a child, raised a question many had considered.

“How did you escape? And where are the bodies?”

Father Billy nodded, as if expecting this, but reluctant to explain.

“He took the bodies into the woods,” the priest replied. “I don’t expect to see them again. As for me, I was allowed to leave. I couldn’t have beaten the Devil if I tried. I believe he wanted me to spread terror, drive some of you to do things you normally would not, particularly, take your own lives in fear of what he plans to do with you. But I don’t have to tell you that that’s a trick. If you commit suicide, then he has you as certainly as any soul who takes another’s life. You are condemned to Hell for all eternity.”

For another long moment, the campers fell silent. None had even considered the idea of suicide, but introduced this way, it didn’t sound as unreasonable an option.

“So, what do we do?” asked Whit.

Father Billy looked across the faces that were in his charge, now missing eleven of their number.

“We must unite our voices in prayer, all of us,” Father Billy said. “God may not hear the prayer of one man, but how can He turn a deaf ear to so many of His children, crying out for his Divine Intervention?”

Mark had watched Father Billy like a hawk the entire time he was speaking, trying to remember every inflection, each nuance of the man’s speech. He imagined himself, one day, spilling all this out on CNN or something as one of the lone survivors of what he had mentally dubbed “The Father Billy Massacre” or “Camp of Carnage.”

Eleven murders and counting.

That was more than the Manson Family, more than the Zodiac, more than Jack the Ripper, more than almost any other killer he’d read about or, more accurately, seen a movie about. He figured they’d spend the rest of their lives giving interviews about this and he was starting to feel almost duty-bound to give as accurate a retelling as possible.

“He didn’t actually say the name of the language he thought the Devil had been speaking, did he?” Mark asked Phil as soon as Father Billy had finished his exhortation for the campers to pray. “Aramaic or Latin or something?”

Phil shook his head. “He didn’t say.”

“Okay, well, I’m going to go write some of this down, which should take about five minutes and then we have to get the fuck out of here,” Mark stated, hissing the last words through gritted teeth.

“What do you mean?” asked Phil. “Just take off? Like that?”

“I mean, fuck the rest of these idiots who think prayer will do a goddamn thing – ever heard of the Holocaust?” Mark said, leaning in close to Phil. “We take whatever we’re going to take, hit the road and get the hell out of here. Immediately.”

“What about Faith?” Phil asked, trying to shock some reality into Mark.

Mark hesitated, but then nodded. “She’ll slow us down, but see if she’ll come, too. I don’t think three’s too-too many.”

“And Maia?”

“Dude, what are you missing, here?” Mark exclaimed, incredulous. “We take too many people, we get noticed and Father Billy’s going to come after us and cut our heads off or whatever else he’s doing to campers out there in the woods for whatever fucked up reason. We have to work it so, by the time they notice we’re gone, we’re halfway to goddamn Oklahoma, comprende?”

Phil stopped short, staring at his wild-eyed friend, and dug in his heels.

“So, now you’re deciding who gets to live and who gets to die?” Phil asked.

“Anyone here with half a brain is making the same plan that I am,” Mark hissed. “It’s going to be like forty, maybe thirty, maybe twenty lemmings racing in the same direction and that’s good, because Father Billy can’t kill all of us – he’s one guy, not an army. But there will be plenty of retards who swallow his line of horseshit and pray for God to rescue them as the floodwaters start to rise. You know how you’re supposed to go while the going is good? That’s five minutes from now and it’s going to expire.”

Phil thought about this, but then shook his head.

“He just killed seven people out there on the road and we don’t know how he pulled that off,” he said. “You really don’t think he’s got this covered to the point if we even make a move, he’ll be three steps ahead?”

“They were following his plan — who came along, how far they went until the kill site, etcetera,” Mark said. “Heck, he might have been killing them one at a time, starting from the rear. We’ve got the element of surprise on our side.”

Mark hesitated, seeing that Phil didn’t look convinced.

“He probably figures he’s got until Thursday morning,” Mark continued. “That’s when the delivery truck shows up with next week’s food supplies. He can kill the driver, sure, but then there’s another vehicle in play and there’s no telling if someone could get behind the wheel and get out of here before he can stop them. And then, how long does the delivery company wait before sending another driver or calling the police when the guy doesn’t come back? He’s got to have an endgame that’s less than forty-eight hours away. I don’t know why he’s doing this, but I know he’s not going to stop. The guys who died already are the first, not the last. There’s probably going to be a lot more killing before he’s done with us.”

Phil nodded, knowing what he had to do.

As soon as Father Billy’s speech ended, Douglas Perry had begun organizing a group of campers to start an ongoing fast-and-prayer vigil in the screened-in classroom. He approached a number of kids, ranging in age, to come with him and many agreed, but when he went up to Faith, she was too frazzled to understand what he was asking.

“We’re going to lock ourselves in the classroom to fast and pray for Divine Intervention,” Douglas repeated. “It’s what Father Billy told us to do. You’re either in there with us or you’re out here with the rest of the sheep getting picked off. God will protect His chosen few.”

Faith stared at Douglas’s blank, blue eyes for a while and remembered that there was a time, early on, that he’d been the class scratching post back in elementary school. The gym class bullies were relentless in their anti-Douglas Perry campaign; hanging him from basketball hoops, stuffing him in trash cans, shoving him into the girls locker room (where the girls were just as cruel to him as the boys), antics that not only the coach, a man named Jim Rogers, seemed to turn a blind eye to, but actually found amusing. Faith wasn’t sure if it was because it seemed like Douglas either suffered from serious learning disabilities or was just plain stupid. Faith had heard one of her Sunday school teachers describe it, to the amusement of a couple of parents, as if he was “born without irony.”

Faith didn’t know precisely what this meant, but in general terms thought it meant that Douglas never really understood why anything was funny. Over the years, however, he’d finally found a place where he belonged – the church — and was now considered a solid-enough youth leader capable of handling all sorts of responsibilities.

“Um, thanks, Douglas, but I think Cindy’s going to need me to stay in the kitchen,” Faith offered. “I’ll bring you guys some food.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Douglas replied, the level of urgency increasing in his voice. “We’re going to lock the doors and fast while we pray. We’re only going to bring in bottles of water. No one’s coming in or out.”

“Oh, okay...,” Faith said, wondering how to best demur.

Douglas stared at her for a moment longer, but then nodded as if he ‘understood.’

“Have fun burning in Hell, Witch,” he said, almost as if making a joke. Then, he turned and walked away.

“Finnegan,” she muttered as she went looking for Maia, who she saw running towards a commotion in the kitchen. “Oh, shit...!”

They’d been working on breakfast when Father Billy showed up, but turned off the ovens, so she didn’t think there’d be anything that had to be thrown out. But when she reached the kitchen, she saw that campers were already carting out lots of food.

“What the fuck are you assholes doing?” Maia was screaming at David Boss and a couple of his friends as they raided the kitchen, filling up random bags with food. “We need that stuff.”

“We’re hungry,” David scoffed. “Besides, there’s no way we’re getting busted for this. You heard Father Billy – this is it, no rules, no nothing!”

Faith watched this exchange for a moment, but then turned on her heel. In a huff, she marched straight across the campgrounds for the administrator’s cabin and knocked on the door, seeing Father Billy, Judy, Whit and Cindy through the window, sitting around the table. Cindy looked up, unsure if Faith had any business there, but Father Billy waved her inside.

“Hey, Faith,” he said, as she opened the door and walked in. “What can we do for you?”

“A bunch of the older kids are raiding the kitchen and stealing food!” Faith reported, flustered. “It’s David Boss and them. We won’t be able to make the recipes.”

“I expected that,” Father Billy nodded, regretfully. “We’ll go over in a minute to kick everybody out and lock it up. Thanks for letting us know.”

Faith nodded and was about to leave, when Father Billy continued.

“So, how are you doing?” he asked, almost matter-of-factly.

Faith turned, seeing the eyes of all the counselors on her, eyes that suddenly didn’t appear much older or wiser than her own. She knew they wanted her to speak for the campers, but didn’t know the answer they wanted to hear.

“Um... I don’t know,” she shrugged, though her voice was rising. “Panicked, like everybody else, I guess.”

Father Billy got to his feet and walked over to her, raising his hands.

“Don’t be,” he said. “God will protect you.”

Faith stared up at Father Billy, and then suddenly burst into tears. Even Father Billy looked surprised, but then he put his arms around her. “It’s okay. You just have to grow up a little faster this week.”

“I know,” said Faith. “I didn’t really know any of those kids. I was scared for you, not them, when you didn’t come back last night. I know that’s terrible, but it’s how I felt. I... I didn’t know what to do.”

On the sofa, Cindy blanched. She’d been with Faith the night before making sandwiches, but she hadn’t shared any of this then.

“I was scared, too,” admitted Father Billy. “I didn’t know if I would see you or any of the others ever again. But I put my faith in God and here I am. It just goes to show that sometimes, even in the face of the worst horrors imaginable, that’s what it takes.”

Faith nodded, then leaned up and kissed Father Billy on the cheek.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

With that, she smiled a half-smile and headed out of the cabin.

“See what I mean?” Father Billy said, once she had left. “Even in the darkest of times, you can always rely on ‘Faith.’”

Only Whit managed a laugh at Father Billy’s joke, Cindy and Judy too shocked at the idea of humor to laugh along.

“Sorry,” Father Billy said quickly. “I’m just not feeling myself today.”

Cindy eyed Father Billy and wondered, if only for a moment, whether or not Father Billy’s encounter with the Devil hadn’t been so without after-effects as he suggested. She peered into his eyes, wondering that if the Devil was going to come to them, in what better guise would he arrive than in that of a kindly priest?

But then Father Billy looked at her with those old, baleful eyes she knew so well and she saw the priest she knew again, at least enough of him still there to allay her fears.

Faith ran all the way back to Cabin 6, tears streaming down her face as she went. She had no idea why she was crying, but felt as if the tears had been building up inside her for much of the past twenty-four hours or maybe even longer as they were falling with such fervor. She’d put on a brave face for Father Billy, but now...

“Faith?”

Faith turned and saw Phil standing near the center of the campsite. The campers were ostensibly still confined to their cabins, but once Douglas had started his prayer circle, the whole place had seemingly gone up for grabs while Father Billy and the surviving counselors decided on the next course of action.

“Phil?” Faith whimpered, but then reached out and grabbed him around the middle and pulled him tightly to her. “I’m so, so scared.”

“Me, too,” Phil stammered, so stunned was he by Faith’s sudden embrace. “But I need to talk to you in private. It’s really important.”

“Oh, okay,” said Faith, holding her tears back for a moment. “Where can we go?”

“Just come with me.”

Phil knew there would be no one at The Rocks, so he slowly walked Faith in that direction. She figured he was going towards the dock, but as he wheeled her behind the cabins and into the woods, she tightened her grip on his arm and shot him a panicked look.

“Wait – where are we going?” she asked, her eyes wide as she stared beyond the trees.

“The Rocks,” Phil replied. “Figured it would be private.”

“No!” Faith exclaimed, terrified. “What if he’s out there?”

“‘He,’ who?”

“The Devil,” Faith replied in hushed tones, nodding towards the surrounding forest. “Who do you think?”

Phil hesitated. “I think we’ll be okay for the moment. Besides, what better vantage point than The Rocks? If we see anyone coming, we can just jump into the lake.”

Faith’s eyes darted back to the trees, but then realized the lake really was a good fallback position.

“Um, okay. But we have to be careful.”

Once they’d climbed the boulder trail up to the top of The Rocks, Phil told Faith all about Mark’s theory that Father Billy was the killer, how it couldn’t have been the Devil and why, when you went through a timeline of events, Father Billy’s culpability proved out to be the most logical choice as well.

“Who else knew where each of the cell phones would be plugged in?” Phil said, parroting a particularly compelling piece of evidence Mark had cited. “If it was an outsider, they wouldn’t even necessarily know the layout of the camp, much less which was the counselor’s cabin. Also, the phone lines? They must have been cut before we got here, but just – how many times do you think Father Billy talked to his counselors or hell, Humberto talked to Pamela, on those phones? The Jeep? Exact same thing. They probably used it Sunday morning before we got here. Only Father Billy could’ve done all of this.”

When he was finished, Phil looked at Faith for her reaction, but she just sat in stunned silence. He realized that this must be a lot to take in.

“You guys, you and Mark...,” Faith began, finally. “You guys are such colossal assholes.”

“Wait, what...?” Phil said, surprised.

“Father Billy is the Devil?” Faith ranted, getting more enraged by the minute. “That’s what you brought me up here to say? You two are crazy. I’ve heard about people being in denial, but that’s just insane. Heck, if anything, you’ve convinced me that it really must be the Devil because you’re right, it couldn’t be anybody else from the camp. But that doesn’t mean it’s Father Billy!”

Faith practically shrieked this last part, she was so upset.

She had been looking for a shoulder to cry on and had been thankful when Phil appeared out of the blue. Heck, when they’d gone up to The Rocks, he’d been so reassuring and confident and strong, not scared at all, that she felt herself pulling tighter to his side. She knew that this was an unimaginably inappropriate time, but felt if Phil wanted to kiss her up there, as wasn’t the most uncommon of occurrences on The Rocks, she’d probably let him. She even got a little bit of a thrill thinking about it, his arms wrapped tightly around her back as he kissed her on the lips, this new Phil.

But then, here was the old, dopey, easily-led Phil, accusing Father Billy of being a vicious murderer and all she wanted to do was give him a quick, hard shove backwards into the lake.

“I can’t believe you,” she said, shaking her head.

“Faith, listen to me,” Phil said, reaching out and taking her by the shoulders. “Do you really think some mysterious man appeared in front of Father Billy on the road out there speaking in strange tongues, explaining all that mumbo-jumbo about how he – the Devil – was planning to kill all the God-fearing people? That’s the insane part.”

There was maybe a second when Phil’s words gave Faith pause, but then she remembered what he was saying – that Father Billy, a man she regarded practically as a second father, at least an uncle, was a lying psychopath, capable of not only premeditated murder, but also of concocting truly outrageous stories simply to terrify his campers and counselors.

“Phil, I know that it’s been a stressful couple of days and everybody reacts to this kind of thing differently, but if you believe in God, and I know you do, then you believe in the Devil,” Faith said, choosing her words carefully. “But the truth is maybe right now when your faith is being most challenged, you’re convincing yourself that there is no God and that your knowledge is more complete than His. This is your test, Phil, and you’re failing it.”

With that, Faith got to her feet and, for the second time that week, left Phil alone on top of The Rocks, feeling like a fool.

“So, how do we wage war against the Devil?”

This was Judy’s question, her voice laced with incredulity. She really didn’t know the answer and, it seemed, neither did anyone else in the administrator’s cabin.

Whit looked reproachfully at her for even asking while Cindy stared out the window, looking anywhere but at Father Billy who seemed to be considering his answer. Something was bothering her, but she just couldn’t put her finger on what. She was worried about the campers, but not as much as she thought she’d be.

In reality, she was worried about herself.

She felt, deep down, that she could be dead soon and that all her life’s plans were well on their way out the window. After so much pressure over the past few years — to get the best grades, get into the right schools, get enough scholarship money so she’d only have to take one job instead of two — it was as if the promise of death was coming as a relief. All those old stressors felt minute compared to what she was having to face now and she felt an odd calm.

“I don’t know if we can, at least not directly,” admitted Father Billy, answering Judy’s question. “We went out there with eight people, some of the strongest boys in the camp, and were stopped in our tracks. I can’t fathom risking more lives so carelessly.”

“But staying in the camp feels like suicide,” cried Whit. “Are we just going to wait for him to show up on our doorstep like sheep waiting to get slaughtered?”

“I think that’s where faith comes in,” Father Billy offered. “We have to be firm in our belief that our salvation is in His hands. Like I said, we must stay true and reach out to Him through prayer. We are truly Daniel in the lions’ den at the mercy of Our Lord.”

“Is that what you’re going to do, Father?” Cindy asked suddenly. “Pray?”

Even Whit was surprised by what sounded like accusation in Cindy’s voice, but Father Billy pretended like he didn’t notice.

“That’s part of it, but I also see it as my duty to go back out to the woods,” the priest said simply. “If anyone is going to confront this creature, it has to be me. God has made me His vessel and if He chooses to act against the Devil, then we have to assume He will do so through me. If this is to happen, it should be away from the children.”

“But what if it doesn’t spare you a second time?” Whit asked. “We have a responsibility to these kids.”

Father Billy looked down to the floor, as if knowing full-well that he wasn’t the man for the job, probably would be killed and wished there was someone better suited. But then, he looked back up to the three remaining counselors, with a brave face.

“If not me, then who?” he asked rhetorically. “This is as much my test as it is any of yours. Keep the kids together and safe. I don’t know what the Devil has next in store for us, but I doubt it’ll be pleasant. Peace be with you and God bless us all.”

With that, Father Billy rose from his chair and walked out the door without looking back.

Whit was the first to comment, a panicked look on his face.

“He’s abandoning us...”

None of the campers noticed Father Billy’s exit. He didn’t make a show of it, certainly didn’t say any good-byes, but merely headed out into the trees with a small pack of supplies and disappeared.

Cindy still didn’t understand what was happening or why Whit and Judy would just let Father Billy leave, but she felt paralyzed. Every time she thought of a different option, the reality of the situation reminded her of some reason why that option was crazy. She had even considered giving up on the group entirely and sealing herself in her cabin room with enough supplies to last a month to just ride it out, but felt that the Devil would still find a way to get at her in there. She considered herself striking out on her own, but couldn’t escape the thought that the Devil could see inside her heart and would know where she was, killing her at his leisure.

In truth, she wished somebody would come along and take care of this problem for her, give her the right answer and send her on her way. Knowing that wasn’t going to happen, however, was driving her to distraction, which is when she decided to clear her head by making a circuit of the camp, lock up the kitchen and escape, however briefly, into routine.

As she walked through the site, though, she hadn’t gotten ten yards when a voice called out to her.

“Heeeey, Cindy! Where are you going? Why don’t you come in the water?”

She looked out to the lake and saw that the speaker was none other than David Boss, the boy who had exposed himself to her earlier that day, who — along with a large number of friends – were now splashing around in the water just offshore, same as they were doing the day before. She saw that some of them were wearing clothes, not bathing suits. A number of them also appeared drunk and she spotted a handful of liquor bottles on the dock.

“Are you kidding me?” she bellowed. “There is no drinking at camp, you guys! Who brought this?”

David just chuckled, raised a bottle that he’d taken into the water with him and threw back a slug.

“Are you kidding me?” he said, imitating her as he slurred his words. “There wasn’t supposed to be some guy killing everybody, either!”

His compatriots all laughed at this and continued their horse-play, girls and boys alike. Cindy just stared at them, disgusted. As she started to move away, David came galloping out of the water and onto the beach next to her, looking a little sobered.

“Hey, hey – I’m sorry,” he said, sounding like he half-meant it. “I know this is serious, but we all figured if we stuck together, we’ll be okay.”

Cindy hesitated, not wanting to judge these kids as she knew she wasn’t exactly handling the situation with aplomb.

“No, I get it,” she admitted. “Just, keep everybody from drowning themselves. And keep an eye on the woods. And come in before dark. And don’t do anything stupid...”

Cindy was running out of clichés. David smiled and leaned in close.

“You’re more than welcome to join us,” he said, placing his hand on her side before moving it around to her backside. “If this is Armageddon, we plan on having a bit of a blow-out tonight. That’s the beauty of it. We do whatever we want and he kills us, guess what? That’s absolution. You heard Father Billy – we’d be martyrs and go to Heaven anyway. Isn’t that God giving us a free pass?”

David’s gaze held Cindy’s for a moment as she stared back, momentarily unsure how to answer this.

But then, his grip tightened and he moved closer. His hand wandered around to her stomach, slipped into her shorts and moved all the way down to her pubic hair, which he grazed with his finger tips.

“What do you say, Cindy?” he asked quietly.

Cindy wanted to punch him, call for Father Billy to kick him out of camp, file a police report — even laugh in his face as she had done that morning. But, of course, that was “before.”

Now, she was just embarrassed. She turned bright red and grabbed his wrist, trying to pull his hand out of her shorts, but she didn’t have the strength.

“Don’t...” she said quietly.

When he shoved his fingers back in and, this time, lower, she straightened up, tears now welling in her eyes.

“You can tell me all you want that you’re not enjoying this, but your body’s telling me something completely different...”

“Don’t!” she cried, slapping weakly at his hand.

This time, David looked startled and removed his hand.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Without another word, Cindy walked away from the lake’s edge and circled back towards the mess hall, the one place she knew she could lock herself in. It only took her a few minutes to get there, but she was in tears before she got two steps away from her would-be molester. By the time she was inside the kitchen, her body was wracked with sobs and she went to hide in the walk-in refrigerator.

“Oh, God,” she whispered to herself as the tears flowed. “Oh, God...”

Cold as it was, she knew that no one would look for her there and she could be alone in her misery.

In Cabin 2, Mark was all packed by the time Phil came back in from The Rocks.

“We ready?”

Phil shook his head “no” and flopped down on his bunk.

“I fucked it up again. Faith isn’t coming. She doesn’t believe me about Father Billy.”

“Well, that’s not your problem,” Mark shrugged. “You tried. But this is about survival. Let’s go.”

Phil laid back on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. He was scared of the woods, sure, frightened of staying behind, too, but the thing that was really burning behind his eyes was the fear that, if he did nothing, Faith would be murdered. He believed this with such fervor that he was almost shaking and squeezed his eyes shut.

“I can’t go,” Phil finally announced. “I can’t go unless we take Faith. If something happened to her, I don’t know what I’d do. I’m not leaving.”

Mark stared at Phil, incredulous.

“You’d rather die than leave without her?”

Phil thought about this for a moment, but then nodded.

“I guess so. Yeah.”

Mark looked around the cabin, coming around to a feeling of acceptance, and then dropped back down on his own bunk.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “You take another shot with her tomorrow, third time’s a charm and all that, and I’ll stick around for one more night locked in here. If she doesn’t want to go then, though, you’ll come with me and we’ll get out of here together. If you promise me that, I’ll wait for Faith, too.”

“Agreed,” Phil replied.

Amy Rossmo, Shane Druitt, Paula Elliott and Bret Wimberly, all seventeen and juniors in high school, had taken up a pattern of double-dating since Bret, the oldest of the four, had gotten his driver’s license a full fourteen weeks before the next oldest, Amy, got hers. Bret and Shane had been best friends since they were eight and on the same soccer team. Paula and Amy were best friends because their boyfriends were. They all figured that, after graduating the coming year, they’d all be going to Texas A&M together and might even share an apartment after a year of living apart in the dorms. After that, they supposed a double wedding was in their future followed by a move to either Houston or even Austin just to try it out (not San Antonio, they’d agreed after a particularly un-fun road trip) and then their kids would all grow up to be friends and they’d eventually grow old and die.

It was like a pact and when one of the four seemed to be straying, it was up to the other three to rope them back in. Through a number of arguments, semi-breakups and even a round of cheating (Bret with Paula’s cousin), the plan was still very much on.

But when Father Billy had announced that the Devil was among them at Camp Easley and taking the faithful, it didn’t take long for Shane to come to the same conclusion as Mark.

“We’re out of here. Now!” he’d announced and had three quick takers.

All four were in pretty good shape; Bret and Shane were on swim team, Amy and Paula were on the drill team and all four were avid hikers. They knew that others would come around to the idea of hoofing it out of camp, but, as Bret stated, whoever “did it first” had the best shot.

So, they’d all returned to their cabins, emptied out their bags, collected food (Bret was able to grab a few pre-packaged, trail mix-type foods in the melee of the kitchen) and water to take on the trek and met back at the teaching amphitheater. Shane knew this part of the state well as his grandfather lived in Longview and suggested that if they couldn’t get a ride out on the highway, they should have enough food or water to at least make it to the closest city in either direction or, more importantly, the closest police station.

Nobody liked the idea of stopping until they were completely out of harm’s way.

They’d moved so quickly with their preparations that it was only about an hour after Father Billy’s speech that they were ready to go. Once at the atrium, they said a prayer, said their “A-men’s” and then walked into the forest, heading in a westerly direction.

They decided that rather than take the road itself, they’d shadow it from just within the woods as they wouldn’t be as exposed and couldn’t be seen from too far away. They thought that might have been what did in George and the others.

At first, they were giddy and scared, jumping at every snapping twig and hurrying along, much faster than they’d meant to, tiring themselves out so petrified were they that the Devil could be around any tree. Twenty minutes in, however, having seen absolutely nothing, they began to relax, thinking the killer was off somewhere else and they just might be home free.

They’d been gone a whole hour by the time they smelled it, a heavy, acrid stench wafting in from up ahead.

“What the hell is that?!” Paula asked, scrunching her nose.

“Smells like massive road kill,” replied Shane, shaking his head. “Like a deer...”

“... or five,” Bret chimed in. Everybody laughed.

They kept moving through the thicket, the smell getting greater and greater as if they were walking straight towards it. Shane wondered aloud if there were “big cats” in the area that might have brought down a deer or something, but no one lent that theory much credence.

It was Amy who saw the bodies first.

“Oh, my God!!”

Everyone turned to look. When Paula had followed Amy’s gaze all the way to the objects of her panic, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The bodies of George, Colby, Constance and the four other campers who had died on the road were just a few feet up ahead of them in a small clearing near the side of the road. They’d been stripped completely naked, their bodies already nibbled on by a variety of forest creatures. Eyes and testicles were the most obvious missing parts, but inroads had been made elsewhere as well.

George looked the worst, his head almost completely severed, barely hanging on to the rest of his body by thin strips of flesh dangling around a ragged neck wound.

The most startling thing, though, was that they weren’t lying on the ground or stacked as Becca had suggested the first four victims had been. Instead, each had been raised up in what looked like a crude parody of the crucifixion; seven bodies on seven short, crudely-made crosses, the feet of each corpse hanging only inches off the ground, the heads all bowing forward, looking straight down at the ground as if gazing all the way to Hell.

“Oh, my God...” whispered Bret, suddenly sounding much younger than seventeen. “Shane, we’ve got to get out of here.”

Shane nodded and turned around, coming face-to-face with a man clad in a black Nomex suit, bandages wrapped around his face, black weightlifting gloves on his hands and a small patch at the top of his skull completely shaved away. The man raised a large steel spike and drove it directly into Shane’s face with such force that it immediately cratered his nose and upper jaw, shattering his cheekbones at the same time. Shane was dead before his attacker let the body fall to the ground.

“You fuck!” Bret screamed.

Bret launched himself at the man, who, in a single, sweeping motion, turned and stabbed the oncoming 17 year-old in the breastbone with a second spike before driving a third into his ear, puncturing his brain.

The man then turned and faced off against Amy and Paula.

“Oh, God, no...,” Amy whispered to Paula, still having a hard time grasping the situation, as she backed up into the crucified body of Constance.

That’s when they realized the bodies were actually a sort of fence, constructed on the more tree-heavy side of the road. What’s more, it meant that she and Paula were trapped.

“Can we at least pray?” begged Paula, dropping to her knees before the killer. “Before you kill me? Just let me pray...”

The man pulled the spike out of Shane’s face and, without a word, stabbed Paula directly in the stomach. She rolled over, gasping for breath. The man then grabbed Amy by the hair, dragged her screaming over to Bret’s body, removed the spike that had been in his head and drove it through her throat, much as he had done with George.

“Gnh,” was all Amy managed to say as the spike was then torn out, decapitating her. Quickly, she died.

Paula, still alive, but bleeding all over the underbrush from her wound, was trying to crawl away as quickly as she could, tears streaming from her eyes. Finished with her three friends, the man walked over to Paula, rolled her over and yanked the spike out of her stomach.

“No...,” she whispered, gently shaking her head.

“I thought you were going to pray,” the man said.

Paula turned her gaze upwards at the man, momentarily confused, and he drove the spike downwards into her left eye with such force that it blasted through the back of her skull. The pressure drove the tip out of her head and into the ground now below it, blood and brains sluicing down the mail into the earth where it quickly muddied the dirt.

VII

Leilani had planned to wait until college to lose her virginity or, more accurately, the night of her senior prom. She had imagined it as a magical moment in a large, beautiful bed, probably not her own, but maybe in a luxury hotel somewhere, hopefully near a beach. She’d heard of seniors pooling their money and renting houses down around Galveston or even Corpus Christi on prom weekend and liked that idea quite a bit, but thought she’d like the five-hour straight shot to Galveston better than the eight or nine-plus hour drive to Port Aransas, Mustang Island or any of the other beach spots further down the Gulf, though they’d likely be more secluded.

That seemed romantic, so if the actual act was as painful and as much of a letdown as everyone said, at least she’d be somewhere beautiful. Despite having made out with a few boys at church camp here and there, even letting some of them feel her up, she never remotely considered that as a suitable location to have sex for the first time and cross that bridge into womanhood.

But, that’s what happened.

Going even more against the fantasy, she never thought it would happen in the lake, in front of about two dozen people, her hands gripping the dock and her mouth full of vomit, either.

She’d been drinking about as heavily as everyone else and a couple of guys had been intermittently kissing her. She played them against each other, kissing each back and had even noticed the hard-on’s in their wet shorts as everyone splashed around them in the lake. When one maneuvered her over to the dock, she wasn’t so drunk to not know what was coming next and she quickly reached back and grabbed his erection, as if to inform him who had the upper hand. Instead of being dissuaded, the next thing she knew, her bikini bottoms were being gruffly yanked down by the senior who, a second later, was easing his penis inside her from behind.

She’d gasped at the feeling, more from outrage than pain, but then it kind of dulled out as he humped it further into her. He made a couple of drunken grabs for her hips to steady himself and she eventually reached back and took his hand, planting it firmly on her ass to help him along. It seemed to her that most of her peers thought they were just fooling around, making a spectacle of themselves, but as the water sloshed to this side or that and revealed, indeed, they were doing the deed, gasps and incredulous laughter erupted from the group. Leilani twisted around and saw their faces, clocking hungry, jealous looks from the boys, shock and vitriolic judgment from the girls. This made her smile, albeit drunkenly, happy to have provided even more shock on a day already full of such events.

Tim (she’d finally remembered his name) “finished” after a long few minutes, the alcohol playing hell with his erection, and stepped back, red-faced and out of breath as his hard-on withered. As he quickly hiked up his trunks, Leilani turned around, exposing herself from the front now as she tried to collect herself. Rather than slink away to assess any physical or mental damage, however, she glanced at the mortified girls staring at her privates and coyly spread aside her bikini top, revealing her breasts. She then looked around at the other boys with a big smile on her face.

“That can’t be all you guys have, can it?”

Sitting in the walk-in refrigerator, Cindy found herself praying, the act she’d just been so incredulous over Father Billy suggesting as a course of action. She hadn’t prayed for real in awhile, but could remember the first time she had and the first time she had prayed and been denied. She’d been in second grade and there had been a raffle at her elementary school for two large stuffed animals, a pink horse and a pink teddy bear, though she couldn’t remember what for. She’d prayed and prayed and prayed that she’d win and when she didn’t, she asked her mother why God hadn’t made it happen. Her mother brushed her off by saying that that wasn’t the kind of thing you were supposed to pray for (the winners were twin sisters whose mother, the president of the PTA, had bought up more than half the tickets to guarantee the win) and left it at that.

Since then, Cindy was far more judicious with her prayers, but even when it came to things you were “supposed” to pray for – serious illness in the family, life questions, issues of faith – she never felt any kind of answer that she wasn’t able to explain away as something she was already considering or could’ve found her way to anyway. Because of this, the last time she’d prayed not in church or with a group might’ve been five or six years ago now.

But here she was, silently praying for her life and the lives of her fellow campers. When she was very little, she’d always been able to imagine God listening on high, but not responding for one reason or another that she’d then try and puzzle out. This time, she found it impossible to imagine Him there at all, each silent, prayerful word her lips mouthed feeling more insignificant and useless than the last.

“I just don’t understand how Phil can believe that,” Faith told Maia.

They were seated at the water’s edge where Faith was filling her in on Phil and Mark’s theory, a couple hundred yards from where David, Leilani and their clan were now mostly passed out by the dock, their mid-day revelry winding down.

“It’s crazy, right?”

Maia remained silent, however, not offering an immediate response. She turned and stared out at the water and Faith thought she might actually be considering the plausibility of Mark’s theory.

“Right...?” Faith pressed.

“I’m thinking,” Maia retorted, sounding perturbed, enough that Faith shut up.

Finally, she turned, a resigned look on her face.

“I don’t think it matters.”

“What do you mean?” asked Faith, surprised.

“I don’t think it matters who it is – Father Billy, the Devil, some crazy man in the woods, one of the other campers, the result is the same,” Maia explained. “If we’re fated to die out here, we’re going to die. If we’re not, we’re not. It’s as simple as that.”

Faith fell silent, unsure where this was going.

“And if there’s anything I do know, it’s that you can’t change fate,” Maia continued. “Mark may be right in that the way to survive is to leave the camp.”

“But if we go into the woods, we’ll be killed!” Faith protested.

“I didn’t say go into the woods,” Maia said, her voice affecting a certain calm. “I don’t think we can make a break for it like Phil’s suggesting. It’s too much of a risk. But, we also can’t stay here in the cabins, either, as that’s where this guy expects all of us to be. We have to find somewhere else, isolated and defensible.”

Faith thought for a moment.

“What about The Rocks?”

“Nah, too many other people know about it,” Maia said. “We let our guard for a second, someone could creep up there without us seeing them. We need some place where we’d know if somebody was coming from a mile away. Almost like up on the roof or something.”

Faith thought about this, then let her gaze wander out towards the water. She spied the diving platform, riding out on the gentle waves towards the middle of the lake, and turned to Maia.

“What about there? Nobody could sneak up on us out there.”

Maia looked out to the platform and her face lit up.

“We’ll have to bring something to make a shelter, like a little tent, but I think it could work,” Maia said, enthusiastically. “We’ll bring food and clothes, too – enough to last us.”

“Don’t forget books,” Faith interjected.

“Books, sure,” joked Maia. “Lots of books. Maybe if we stay out there for a couple of days, everyone else will forget all about us.”

“Totally.”

David Boss had planned to try and steal a couple of bottles of Scotch from his parents’ liquor cabinet and sneak them into camp, but he chickened out at the last minute for fear of getting caught, both by his parents, but also Father Billy and the camp counselors. A couple of other boys, though he wasn’t sure who, did manage to bring bottles of booze to the camp, so when all hell broke loose, there was more than enough to go around. The surprising part to David was just how much there was as every time they went back to the cabin to grab another bottle, there was plenty, like in the Bible story with Jesus and the wine. He thought that Evan and Bobby must have brought some in, probably to sell.

“Hey, their loss,” he joked with his friends as they raided every hiding spot in Cabins 1-3, coming up with at least a couple of cases worth, so much that they thought some might be left over or forgotten from previous years.

David chose a bottle of tequila for himself and shot that all afternoon until he’d polished off the whole thing himself. He felt sick and woozy for about half an hour, and then threw up into the lake, to the disgust of everyone around him. He immediately felt better and began drinking again, this time Scotch. Midway through the afternoon, he and the others trotted back onto the beach and, one by one, started passing out on the shore. Not going fully unconscious, mind you, but out of their heads enough to realize staying in the water was no longer a viable option as most were no longer able to swim or stand.

As David’s head lolled around, he looked straight up at the sun, his vision becoming blurry, going black and white like the fuzzy snow on an old television set. He had to fight through it to see anything real, but was only able to catch the vague outlines of people at best.

That’s when the cloudy sky began melting from blue to purple to red. David thought this was pretty funny; his face and fingers going numb at the same time. He looked back over to his group of friends, twelve other guys, nine or so girls, their bodies moving in and out of focus as they were also semi-collapsed on the sand, just trying to move. That’s when some distant alarm bell went off in the back of his head.

He stared at the faces of the other campers, people he’d known for years, and realized that there was something very, very wrong. Someone else was among them, moving from body to body, crouching down as it drew closer to him. At first, he thought it must be some kind of animal, but then realized that not only was there was more than one, they also weren’t hiding behind his friends, but actually entering their bodies, their presence then revealing itself behind the friend’s eyes.

David’s jaw dropped as more and more of his friends were slowly taken over in this way, immediately changing them.

“David? You’re not looking so hot, man,” said Tim, the guy who’d taken Leilani’s virginity. “Too much booze, too much sun. Boy, I’m feeling it, too.”

David stared at the boy who was talking to him and saw what Father Billy had been describing earlier; how you’d know the Devil if you heard different words in your head than the ones pouring out of his mouth. Now terrified, David forced a smile at “Tim” or whatever Tim had become.

“Yeah, man – I’ll bet you’re feeling it,” David said, his hand slipping over to grab a large rock. “How ‘bout you feel this, too?”

David whipped the rock around and smashed Tim in the face with it, splintering his nose and driving shafts of bone directly into his brain. Blood exploded out of his newly shattered skull, splattering on the other campers who now looked up at David in terror.

Well, some of them, at least, thought David.

His eyes flitted to the ones who didn’t look scared at all, the ones who seemed to be enjoying, even feeding off the bloody spectacle. To them, he smiled back.

“Demons,” he whispered.

“Where the FUCK are you!?!?!”

Father Billy stormed around in the woods, his bellowing up to the sky.

“Don’t you see what I am doing?!?” he cried. “How can you let this happen?! Are we worth so little of your time that you can’t do something about this? About me? Look at your followers! They believed in you and look what you have allowed me to do to them!”

Father Billy’s words echoed through the woods as the man fell to his knees. He’d never felt so depressed in his life.

“And you see what’s happening now, don’t you? They’re going to slaughter each other. They, not I. They are the mortal sinners now committing murder, condemning their souls to Hell all on their own. How can you possibly justify allowing this to continue?!? What do you have to say to that?! This is an abomination!”

The woods were silent, apparently having nothing to say about that at all.

All the way inside the walk-in refrigerator, Cindy could heard the screams coming from outside the mess hall building. She got to her feet, grabbed the latch and pushed open the heavy metal door. As she moved into the kitchen, the sounds of terrified campers only increased. For a moment, she believed that the Devil had finally arrived and was harvesting the campers, but then she moved into the mess hall where she got a front-row seat to the horror.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, staring at the terrifying sight.

It looked to her like four or five of the largest boys, including David Boss, had just suddenly lost their minds and were violently lashing out against their friends. It wasn’t like a fight, however, as David and the others were going after the others with murderous intent. Some of the campers were trying to rescue the injured and fight back, but it simply wasn’t working as the killers were too quick and too vicious, too determined to kill.

Cindy could tell that at least two campers on the beach appeared to be dead and as much as she wanted to run out there and stop David Boss and his crazed allies, she could tell that she’d be just as quickly dispatched.

Turning around, Cindy slunk back into the kitchen and out the side door, making sure to close it as quietly as possible. Just as the latch clicked, someone shrieked out by the lake, covering the sound, but making Cindy jump. She turned and eased her way through the woods, avoiding being spotted while making a beeline for the administrator’s cabin. Coming up on it from behind, she slipped past the washing machine and dryer, which were on, and found the back door unlocked. She pushed it open, still keeping low in case someone might peer through the windows and hurried inside.

“What the hell’s going on out there?” cried Whit, who she saw crouched down by the window alongside Judy, watching the fight unfold from what they hoped was a safe distance.

“I don’t know,” Cindy replied, joining them. “I heard screams and when I looked, they’d all gone crazy, fighting, bashing each other with rocks. I think they’ve already killed a couple! It’s like they’ve just gone insane!”

“Or like they’re possessed,” Whit said, simply.

Huh, Cindy thought. Why didn’t I think of that?

David, besieged by what he saw as demons, fought against them with all his might, but had help. To his right was Jeffrey Moffat, one of Hardin High’s offensive lineman and to his left, Scott Doha, a running back, but a good, physical blocker in the pocket. Additionally, two other guys – Troy Lopez and Peter Broderick, both tall, lanky fellows from the basketball team — had joined David’s side, recognizing through their own mental haze the danger that David had first identified as otherworldly and supernatural.

If anybody could put down a demonic assault, he supposed it was these guys.

“If we don’t stop them now, they’ll tear through the other campers like they were nothing,” David shouted, as if calling a play in the huddle. “This is it. This is the test.”

Jeffrey nodded, the red eyes of his enemies glowing so hot that he felt sweat dripping from his every pore. He looked over and saw that Scott’s eyes were drooping, almost closed, as he’d taken serious damage at the hands of a possessed kid named Lee Cooke, who was actually good friends with Jeffrey’s younger brother. Jeffrey played out how he’d have to explain to Owen about the Devil inhabiting his friend and trying to kill him, which forced him to bash Lee’s brains all over a rock.

He was confident that Owen would understand.

“You guys are all possessed!” screamed one of the demons, a girl who had once been a person named Penny Mendenhall, one Jeffrey had always felt had nice tits. “You have to fight against it!”

Beside him, David laughed, raised a stone and hurled it straight at the girl’s right eye. The rock connected and she screamed, dropping to the ground as blood poured out of her eye socket.

“You’re think we’re the possessed ones?” David yelled. “You’re the possessed ones!”

In the screened-in classroom, Douglas Perry and the other members of the prayer circle were witnessing the carnage up close, watching as the campers tore each other to pieces, bashing each other with rocks, clawing at eyes, tearing hair, strangling throats, biting. It looked ridiculous, not like a fight in a movie at all, but when the bodies of their fellow campers stopped moaning and fell silent, a lot of the younger prayer circle members began to cry. They’d never seen anyone killed in front of them before and it disturbed them to no end.

Douglas, however, watched the deaths with smug satisfaction. There wasn’t a person among the fighters he didn’t despise and he felt, even more than before, that the prayer circle had been the right idea. After letting his small flock soak it in for a moment longer, he raised a hand and cleared his throat.

“Everyone? Turn away from that and look to me.”

The campers did what they were told; those who had gotten up to get a better look now slowly returning to their seats.

“We did not ask God for proof of the Devil’s plan, but He gave it to us anyway,” Douglas said, indicating the windows. “This is what becomes of the faithless – they tear each other apart. But we... we are here together, the faith-ful. We have been chosen as witnesses. We will bear witness and we will continue to pray so that God can continue to communicate with us. Thank you, God.”

Variations of “thank you, God,” murmured through the group. Douglas smiled.

One of the twelve year-old boys, Ben Bermejo, raised his hand.

“Yes, David?” nodded Douglas.

“I’m hungry,” the boy replied.

“That’s because we’re fasting, Ben, as a sign of our faith,” Douglas explained, as if to a five year-old. “When we are to eat, God will let us know as surely as he just let us know of the demons that exist beyond that doorway. Until then, let your body and spirit be sustained by prayer.”

When Penny was struck by the rock and went down, screaming in agony, Faith began screaming as well. Penny had been another long-ago friend, someone Faith had been in band class with throughout junior high and a girl Faith really looked up to. She and Maia had been on their way to the kitchen, just missing Cindy, when they saw it happen.

But it was when David made his way past his other would-be attackers (“demons” to use his parlance) and leaned down to Penny, placing his hands around her throat to finish her off, that Faith began running towards her.

“No!! Stop it!!” she shouted. “You’re killing her!!”

“Faith!!” cried Maia. “Don’t!”

But Faith kept going. She was almost to Penny’s side when Maia caught up with her, half-tackling her away towards the woods.

“Don’t!” screamed Faith, hauling off and punching Maia square in the face to get her off of her.

The punch barely connected with the side of Maia’s nose, but it caught her off-balance and she tumbled to the ground, letting go of Faith. Faith turned back around, but just in time to see David snap Penny’s neck, killing her.

And then look over towards Faith.

Quickly, Faith dropped down out of sight, her eyes filling with tears at the thought of the dead girl, but then she heard Maia groan from behind her. Turning around, she saw a thin trickle of blood coming out of Maia’s left nostril, Maia looking at Faith with surprise and some fear.

“Oh, my God,” Faith whispered, immediately contrite. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Faith,” Maia said, with deadly seriousness. “We help each other and no one else. That’s the deal we made. That’s how we survive. It sucks, but if we get involved, we’re going to get killed. We can’t let our emotions get the better of us. It’d be easy to get caught up in all of this, but if we do, we die – simple as that. Those are the stakes.”

“I know,” said Faith quietly as David, losing interest or having not seen them in the first place, moved away. “I’m sorry.”

Maia nodded, but then carefully got to her feet, staying low.

“Let’s get to the mess hall,” Maia said. “We’ll be safe there.”

Faith nodded and they slowly made their way to the kitchen. Faith still had one of the keys out from Cindy, but they were still worried they’d find people inside.

As soon as they determined they were the only ones inside, they locked the doors up tight and Faith began cleaning up Maia’s nose. She took her time as it was something to focus on as the screams of the fighters out on the beach continued, seemingly getting worse with time. The sun was beginning to set and Faith could only imagine what it would be like in the camp once the killers were able to work under the cover of darkness. She tried to block this out, however, and focus on washing the dried blood off Maia’s face.

“There,” said Faith, once the last of it was washed off. “I’m sorry.”

“You mentioned,” Maia said, but then softened. “It’s okay.”

A blood-curdling scream echoed in from just outside the walls and both girls jumped as the fight was obviously moving closer. Maia looked Faith in the eye, then turned and clicked on the nearby iPod dock, turning the volume way down. A Frankie Valli song began playing softly and Maia nodded.

“The sun’s almost down,” Maia said evenly. “Let’s stick to the plan, finish what we’re doing here and head out to the diving platform as soon as it’s dark. If we go far enough into the woods, they won’t see us go in. Then, we’ll just start swimming as fast as we can.”

Faith’s face was only a few inches from Maia’s, which was cast in shadow. They hadn’t turned on any lights to avoid being found out and the yellow glow of sunset was all that was illuminating the room. Faith nodded in response to Maia’s words, but she realized that what she actually wanted to do was lean forward and kiss Maia on the lips. She had no idea where this impulse was coming from. She’d never kissed a girl before, but she’d never really done much kissing with boys, either, and hadn’t wanted to. Not like the way she wanted to kiss Maia at this moment, anyway.

Maia seemed to notice, but did nothing to encourage Faith forward, just holding herself in place as if daring Faith to do it and wondering if she might like it, too.

Finally, Faith inhaled sharply and turned away, puncturing the tension.

“We’d better finish up,” she managed to say, breaking away and heading for the walk-in refrigerator.

Outside in the camp, David and his cohorts had managed to kill over a dozen campers, mostly people they’d so recently called “friend,” Leilani among them. That said, a couple of their would-be victims — two girls, in fact — had managed to stab a heavy branch into Scott Doha’s throat and bleed him out before David and Jeffrey managed to kill them in revenge. There were a number of wounded teens still on the ground, too, bleeding and moaning, but most of their wounds looked mortal and David knew the cries wouldn’t continue for much longer.

“We did it!” exclaimed David, proudly, though he was bleeding heavily from gashes all across his own body. “We beat back the demons, maybe even the Devil. How bad-ass is that?”

He was trying to catch a breath when he turned and looked over to the administrator’s cabin, seeing a light on inside. A thought entered his brain that he immediately knew as truth.

“More there,” he said, half-pointing. “There are more demons in there.”

Jeffrey, Troy and Peter, the three remaining would-be demon extinguishers, followed David’s gaze towards the administrator’s cabin. Despite their injuries, all three quickly fell into step behind David and marched on the administrator’s cabin.

Troy, for his trouble, had a broken arm and a broken foot, but didn’t even realize it, so high on the PCP Father Billy had laced the so-called “hidden” booze with was he. Peter had a punctured lung and could barely stand, but he, too, moved forward behind David, hungry to kill more demons.

Inside the administrator’s cabin, Whit, Judy and Cindy saw the boys coming and knew it meant trouble.

“What weapons do we have?” Cindy asked, looking around.

“You want to fight them?” asked Judy, shocked. “We can just lock the door!”

“They’ll come through the windows – look at them!” Cindy cried. “They’re clearly out of their minds. We’re going to have to kill them. There’s no other way.”

Cindy went to the kitchen sink, shoving aside the curtains and finding only a fire extinguisher under it. She picked it up anyway, figuring it might be useful. Though Judy appeared to be paralyzed, Whit followed Cindy over and selected a knife from a kitchen drawer, holding it out for Cindy’s approval.

“There are four of them,” she said. “Use your head.”

Whit looked around, saw a frying pan and picked that up instead. Cindy thought it was a slight improvement, but didn’t have time to say as such before a voice came calling through the front door as the brass bell out on the porch began ringing maniacally – clang... clang... clang...

“Cindy! Get your sweet tits out here, bitch!” yelled David, sounding like he was half-kidding. “Come on, baby! We’ve been out here doing your job for you! Time to pay the piper.”

Cindy hesitated for only a second before walking straight over to the door and swinging it wide. She surprised David, who was standing in the doorway and soon found himself staring down the barrel of the fire extinguisher hose she held in her hand. Before he could move, she raised the hose and blasted him and the three other boys directly in the face with retardant.

“Fuuuuck!!” screamed David, staggering backwards. He grabbed onto Peter, but he was flailing around, too, so they tumbled to the ground together.

Troy was the first to sweep the stinging retardant out of his eyes and looked up at Cindy, seeing the glowing red eyes of a demon staring right back at him.

“They got you, too, huh?”

“What are you talking about?” Cindy barked, but Troy could see other words being formed by her mouth. He smiled a nasty little grin, then charged up the steps towards her.

Cindy wheeled back with the extinguisher, ready to bash him in the face, but Troy’s broken foot buckled at the last minute and his tackle went low, right under the arc of the swinging metal canister.

“Oof!” cried Cindy as Troy caught her at knee-level, driving her through the doorway and onto the wood floor. He immediately he pounced on top of her, pinning her limbs.

“Fuck you, bitch!” Troy said, giving her scrunched face a lick. “Gonna burn now!”

Cindy, now in full panic mode, twisted around looking for Whit, seeing him standing nearby, frozen in place.

“Hit him! Now!” she cried.

But Whit couldn’t move. He just stared at Troy as the boy opened his mouth and moved it towards Cindy’s face, as if planning to bite it off.

“Help me!!” Cindy screamed, still trying to lift the extinguisher, but Troy’s legs were just too heavy against her arms.

“Raaaaaaah!!”

Everyone turned as Judy suddenly appeared from out of nowhere, carrying the kitchen knife and running straight for Troy. Before he could raise an arm, she’d stabbed the blade directly into his throat.

Blood erupting from the wound and splashing down onto Cindy’s face, Troy clawed at his neck. Judy ripped the knife out of his throat and drove it back down into Troy’s upturned face, entering just under his eye. Howling in pain, the knife still protruding from his head, Troy fell off of Cindy and flopped onto his side.

Judy stared at this in horror, shocked at her own actions. She was just turning a look of triumph towards Cindy when her face went ashen and she grunted.

“Guuuh...”

Judy looked down and saw a sharp, broken wooden post from the cabin’s porch being jammed through her stomach, having been stabbed in from behind by David. As the post wriggled around inside the wound, it wound squirted even more blood onto the already blood-soaked Cindy, who scrambled to her feet and tried to free the other counselor from the jutting spear.

“Stupid bitch,” David said, moving around the impaled counselor to shove Cindy away. He then raised his foot and planted it on Judy’s posterior, giving her a sharp kick that sent Judy’s body vaulting forward, sprawling to the floor like a ragdoll with post still stabbed through her torso.

David turned his attention to Cindy and Whit, his arms covered in blood all the way to his elbows.

“You ready to make this easy?” he asked, as casually as someone might ask for directions. “I mean, you’ve seen the alternative.”

Cindy responded by reaching down and yanking the knife out of Troy’s face. She took three quick steps towards David only to have him grab and twist her arm around until she dropped the blade. As she cried out in pain, David picked her up and half-shoved, half-threw her over the coffee table and onto the sofa.

When she landed, her legs were outstretched and her shorts hiked up a little. David stared down at her long, tanned legs.

“We’ve been dancing around this all day,” he said, moving over to her.

“Whit!” Cindy screamed, furious at the other counselor’s inaction. “Do something!”

Whit stared at her in horror, still unable to move. He’d gone white as a sheet and she could tell that he’d actually urinated in his pants as the front of his shorts were wet and there seemed to be liquid dribbling down his thighs.

“Whiiiitt!” Jeffrey mocked, coming into the cabin now, followed by Peter. The linebacker picked up the knife David had wrested out of Cindy’s hand and moved over to Whit, holding it in front of him.

“Whiiiiit!!!” he said again, curling his lips in a twisted grin.

Whit started to smile back and Jeffrey immediately drove the knife into his chest, screaming the name again into his victim’s face. “Whiiiiit!!!”

As blood misted out of his lung, Whit dropped to his knees, holding the hilt of the knife as Jeffrey laughed. David glanced over, shaking his head.

“You’re such a pussy, Whiiiiit!” he said, mimicking Jeffrey’s voice.

When David looked back down at Cindy, her eyes were ablaze with anger.

“I told you, you were with us or against us,” he teased, this time softly as he leaned down and roughly grabbed the back of her shorts.

That’s when Peter’s head exploded.

Or, at least, that’s what it looked like had happened. A baseball bat had struck it perfectly at the back of the skull, causing such an instant build-up of pressure that parietal bone splintered through the scalp and the boy’s eyes popped directly out of their sockets like in a cartoon.

Peter immediately hit the ground and the bat swung again, a powerful, determined swing, but this time aimed downwards and crushed whatever was left of his skull. The holder of the bat, a fifteen year-old named Ian-something that Cindy hadn’t given much thought to over the years, walked in followed by two other kids that seemed to have raided the sports equipment locker for this very purpose.

“Hey, dickhead, what’s with the bat?” slurred Jeffrey, standing over Whit’s corpse, obviously unaware how dire his situation had just become.

Without a word, Ian swung the bat again, this time aimed at Jeffrey’s head, though it had the exact opposite effect on his head from Peter’s. Instead of blood and popped eyeballs, there was only a sick, echoing “thock!” that sent Jeffrey, stunned and concussed, to the ground. Ian nodded to his two friends who walked over, pulled out a broken ice skate and slit Jeffrey’s throat with the blade.

David stared at Ian’s eyes, but saw no sign of red there. He quickly shook his head, as if meaning to correct a simple clerical error.

“No, no – we’re on the same side, man,” David explained. “These are demons.”

Thock!

The bat smacked into the side of David’s head, sending him smashing against the window behind the sofa, shattering the pane. With a viciousness he hadn’t shown with Jeffrey or Peter, Ian bashed away at David’s torso with four or five more thwacks and then yanked the football hero’s body back off the sofa, where it crumpled onto the floor. Ian nodded to his two friends a second time and they walked over to cut David’s throat as well. Despite the savagery of Ian’s attack resulting in countless broken bones and internal damage, David was obviously still alive and gurgled blood as they did so.

“Demons, man...,” he whispered as he died.

Cindy rolled over on the sofa and stared over at Ian in surprise. The boy’s blank expression hadn’t changed through the entire affair.

“You’re welcome,” he said, exiting the cabin, followed by his two friends.

Mark and Phil had watched this all from the windows of Cabin 2.

They’d seen the initial fight on the beach, of course, even the attack on Penny, who Mark immediately admitted to Phil that he’d once had a crush on. Then, they saw Faith running towards the melee, only to be grabbed back by Maia, which caused Phil to breathe easier, though he hadn’t made a move towards the door himself. Other kids had exited the cabin, taking nervous, curious steps towards the center of camp as if planning to take on the David themselves, only to scurry back when spotted.

It was when David had turned his attention towards the administrator’s cabin that Ian Hester rose from where he was watching. Ian was a semi-gothy stoner-type who had always told anyone who’d listen that he planned to go into the Navy and hopefully even the SEALs when he graduated. Ian looked around at the handful of other campers taking refuge in the darkness of Cabin 2 and sneered.

“Nobody’s going to do anything?” he said, disgusted.

He nodded to a couple of his friends and they slipped out a side door, making their way over to the sports equipment shed.

“They’re fucking dead,” another camper said, though Phil couldn’t tell who it was.

Outside, Troy led the attack into the administrator’s cabin and though everyone kind of half-cheered when they saw Ian moving stealthily up to Peter with a baseball bat, they all winced when he plowed it in to the kid’s head. Still, there was some elation. A point for their team.

“Christ,” grunted Mark, turning away. “He’s the psycho I always figured for ‘Most Likely to Columbine Our School.’ Guess I was kind of half-right. Glad now.”

Phil kept starring through the window, unable to take his eyes off the particularly grizzly train wreck unfolding before his eyes and the rest of his body went along with it.

When Ian and the others finally emerged victorious from the cabin, Phil managed to look over at Mark.

“Tomorrow morning, first light – with Faith or without her,” he said, hoarse. “Okay?”

Mark looked back at him and nodded.

“Oh, you betcha.”

At the exact moment of David’s death, Faith was taking her first step into the lake, barely troubling the water as she held her clothes and supplies up in a garbage bag over her head. She and Maia, at the last moment, had decided to swim out to the diving platform naked, bringing towels in the bags as the sun was now completely down and they wouldn’t be able to dry out in the sun anymore. This meant swimming one-handed, which was initially difficult, but Faith got the hang of it after a few seconds and was able to push ahead into the lake.

“You okay?” she called back to Maia, who seemed to be having trouble keeping up.

“I’ve got it,” Maia replied, then made a big effort to prove it by launching herself past Faith, splashing her with water as she went.

“Oh, you’re going to get it,” Faith said, accelerating.

The two continued this merry back-and-forth as they left the shore behind them, laughing and splashing all the way to the diving platform. It took a good twenty minutes to reach it, the pair having underestimated the strength of the waves at night.

Faith got there first, tossing her bag up onto the planks and climbing out of the lake, happy to have won the de facto race.

“Tada!” she cried, dancing around in a circle, wrapped in darkness.

Maia, feigning annoyance, tossed her own bag onto the platform and climbed up, taking a seat on the edge.

“At least it’s still a little warm out,” she said, pouting a bit.

“Oh, that’s what you noticed? Not the fact that I beat you?” teased Faith. “Because, if you didn’t notice, perhaps I should remind you, I did! Me. Better swimmer. Faith over Maia. Maia loses to Faith. Big time.”

“Better one-handed swimmer,” Maia corrected, feigning annoyance. “Not the same thing. You’ve won only the hollowest of victories.”

“Oh, bull,” Faith laughed, opening her bag and removing her beach towel.

The girls dried off, bumping into each other as they did, so small was the platform. It got worse when they tried to put on their clothes, Faith almost knocking Maia into the lake at one point.

“Oh, sorry!” she cried, grabbing for her friends arm again.

“Keep that up and you’ll be right back in the lake,” Maia growled, giving Faith her most threatening glare.

Instead of a chuckle or reply, she found Faith staring at her again, illuminated only by moonlight. This time, rather than wait around, Maia reached forward and pulled Faith towards her, kissing her squarely on the lips.

Maia had never considered herself a lesbian, didn’t even really know what that meant. So when she kissed Faith, she waited for when it was going to start feeling weird, but it never did. When Faith kissed her back, putting her arms around her and drawing her close, she thought she’d never felt anything more right in her life. They didn’t say a word for the next half hour or so as they continued kissing, their sense of urgency rising and falling with every breath.

By the time the moon reached its apex, they had fallen asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms as the water gently lapped against the platform.

VIII

On Wednesday morning, Father Billy awoke with the sunrise out on the forest floor. It was a beautiful summer day, sun streaming through the tree canopy, a blue, cloudless sky high above. The smells of the lush forest floor permeated his nose and made him inhale deeply, enjoying their rapturous scent.

His mind wandered back to reality and he kind of half-wondered what was going on back in the camp. One scenario that he imagined was that David and the others he’d drugged had managed to kill everybody and then overdosed and died themselves, but that didn’t seem very likely. That said, he figured they’d done at least some of the work for him. How much, well, that was still a mystery.

He was hungry, so he decided to head back to camp, but realized that he still had on one of the black Nomex suits and the gloves. His facial bandages were strewn all around him as if he’d tried to tear them off in his sleep, which he figured wasn’t too far from the truth. He felt around in his pants pockets and was relieved to discover all three of the nails in case he ran into anyone.

That’s when he turned and saw Mark and Phil standing a few feet away from him, both wearing their backpacks, obviously on their way out of the camp. They were just staring at him, both with quizzical looks on their faces and, for a moment, Father Billy wondered if they were actually there or were some kind of hallucination.

“Hey, Father Billy,” Mark said, trying to sound blasé. “What’s new?”

Father Billy considered nodding a “good morning” and letting them pass unmolested only to catch up with them a few minutes later, but then he looked down and saw that his Nomex suit and gloves were still covered in the blood of Amy, Bret, Shane and Paula. He looked back up to the boys and a long silence passed between them. But then, Father Billy started eyeing Phil peculiarly, as if noticing something odd.

“What?” asked Phil.

“Why are you all wet?” Father Billy inquired.

Phil sighed.

When Phil had woken up that morning, Cabin 2 was completely empty. For a moment, he thought he was in another dream or, perhaps, dead and now haunting the camp, which he thought would suck. But then, he had gone to a window and saw that the surviving campers, t-shirts or towels tied around their faces, were helping Cindy pick up the bodies of the dead from the night before and carry them into Cabin 4. It was a gruesome sight, lifeless limbs and grotesque, ragged wounds, but Phil saw Mark among the detail and realized that he should have been taking part.

“What’s going on?” Phil said to Mark, who was helping one of Ian’s throat-slashing accomplices heft a body into the “corpse cabin.” It actually took Phil a moment to recognize the body as Leilani.

“Jesus...”

“Yeah,” said Mark. “There’s like, twenty-four dead bodies. It’s like Jonestown.”

“Jonestown?” asked the boy holding Leilani’s feet.

“Mass cult suicide,” Mark replied, matter-of-factly. “Seventies. It was religious lunatics there, too.”

The boy nodded, pretending he understood, as he and Mark lifted Leilani past the steps and into Cabin 4. The moment Phil walked inside behind them, the smell of death hit him like a freight train and he knew why everyone had their mouths covered. He had to fight to keep from vomiting right there amongst the dead

“Aw, Christ,” he said, turning around, only to bump into a couple more people bringing in the body of Penny Mendenhall. “Sorry.”

When the doorway was clear again, Phil quickly exited out into the yard, walking a few feet away from the cabin to try and inhale some fresh air. Before, the deaths had been offstage, up the road or in the woods. Seeing the actual bodies reminded Phil of when he’d glimpsed a motorcycle accident he’d seen on the highway late one night when being driven back from a band competition in Austin.

He’d heard dead bodies described as ‘meat,’ but to Phil’s eyes, they looked like broken robots, not anything from the butcher counter. Eyes popped out, too-long-to-really-be-human tongues lolling over bottom lips, fluids leaking out. They needed repair, not burial and then they’d be right back on their feet. This thought made Phil realize that that was how he felt about most of these kids when they were alive, too.

This feeling elated Phil and he knew why. He was one of the living, a survivor, not the perished, and it made him feel good. He took a few more deep breaths and was glad that he didn’t have to actually touch any of the bodies.

“Hey.”

He turned and saw Mark walking up to him, wiping his blood-smeared hands in the grass to clean them as he went, doing the same with limited effect to his shoes.

“What’s going on?” Phil asked.

“Cindy has some kind of plan,” Mark began, dismissively. “She’s going all Boudica and wants to make wooden weapons to fight the Devil with. She has some kind of new theory that it’s not the Devil, but some possessed guy out there who’s been possessing others. So, they’re going to get the Jeep and try and roll it down the road and out of here, like some kind of tank.”

“A tank for how many people?” Phil asked.

“Thirty or so,” Mark replied. “Doug Perry and the prayer circle bunch are still waiting until they get the word from God or Father Billy to go, so it’s just the rejects.”

“Fuck ‘em. When is Team Cindy leaving?”

“Soon as they make the weapons.”

“When are we leaving?” Phil countered.

“Soon as you’re ready.”

Phil nodded. “Where’s Faith?”

Mark hesitated just a beat, but then turned and pointed out towards the water. Phil saw, out in the distance, two people on the diving platform.

“You coming?” Phil asked.

“This is your quest, Bedivere.”

Phil gave Mark a bemused look, but then headed down towards the water’s edge. As he went, he noticed that the ground was particularly muddy, but then he realized he was walking across earth still so soaked with blood that the dirt hadn’t been able to absorb it all yet like after a particularly heavy rain. Disgusted, he moved closer to the girls’ cabins, eschewing the bloody center of the camp, and finally made it to the lake.

“Heeeey! Faith!!” he called.

When neither Faith nor Maia reacted, he realized they couldn’t hear him. He quickly took off his shoes and socks, placed them to one side and waded out into the water, which was still cold from the night.

“Faiiiiith!!!”

He finally saw that their backs were to him and they were eating something for breakfast. He then saw Faith lean over and kiss Maia on the lips. Just a peck, but Maia grabbed her and pulled Faith’s lips back to her, giving her a longer, more lingering kiss before they both laughed and looked back out to the water.

“Gunh,” said Phil.

It was like somebody had grabbed Phil’s heart and was refusing to allow it to beat, much less allow Phil’s lungs to take in breath. Every feeling in his body was draining out through his feet and he felt limp.

Phil found himself remembering something Mark had said about seeing Rachel after they’d broken up. It was all about in the body language. He didn’t even have to see the kiss to know where he stood. Whenever Phil was around Faith, she reacted to him like she did to everybody else. She was closed off, kept her arms against her body and never opened up, really.

But now he was seeing what she looked like around somebody she like-liked. She was looking at Faith in a way he’d never, ever seen her look at somebody before. She was giddy, she was flirty and she was in love; her face and the angle of her movements telling the whole story. She looked free, more than anything, as if finally having tossed aside whatever shackles had been keeping her down for so long.

Phil looked to the greenish water swirling around his freckled, pasty shins. He knew he should just turn right around and go with Mark, leave the camp and never look back, but he couldn’t do it. Instead, his face red with anger and humiliation, he pushed himself forward into the water and began swimming to the diving platform.

He swam quickly, but was hardly the world’s most graceful swimmer. The further he got from shore, the more the waves pummeled him, splashing in his face and sending him under. He kept going, however, so driven was he and was soon within shouting distance of the platform.

“Faiiith!!” he cried.

Upon hearing her name, Faith whipped around, getting quickly to her feet and grabbing one of the last knives that had been left in the kitchen which she and Maia took out to the diving platform. Maia got up as well, but merely eyed Phil with suspicion.

“Phil?” Faith asked, surprised. “What are you doing out here?”

“We’re leaving — me and Mark are leaving — right now,” Phil said, out of breath as he treaded water a few feet from the platform. “I want you to come with us.”

Faith stared at Phil as if he’d suggested she sprout wings and fly, but then shook her head.

“We’re going to stay here,” Faith said. “But good luck.”

“No!” Phil demanded, the vociferousness of his voice causing Faith to jump. “If you stay here, Father Billy’s going to kill you. You know how many people died last night? Twenty-four.”

“But they killed each other,” Faith retorted. “How can you still say that’s Father Billy?”

“He made them kill each other!” Phil exclaimed, though even he didn’t know how that could’ve happened. “He drugged them or something. This isn’t over. He’s planning to kill all of us. That includes you guys. The only way to avoid it is to leave.”

“If he — if the Devil — or anybody, for that matter, comes out here, we’ll hear him long before he can get to us and we’ll either fight him off or swim away,” Faith replied. “We’re safe.”

“What if he swims underwater?” Phil said, as if incredulous that they hadn’t thought of this.

Which made Maia laugh.

Phil stared at her with venom. “Fuck you!” he yelled. Maia looked at him with surprise, so he added, “You heard me!” For emphasis.

“Phil?” asked Faith, scrunching up her nose. “What the heck?”

Phil looked around, almost crying now. He stared out past the platform to the far sides of the lake. He felt like diving under and never surfacing.

“This should have been us out here,” Phil said, looking right at Faith. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. You, Faith. That’s all. I wanted to be your boyfriend.”

Faith stared at Phil and knew what he was saying was probably true. She thought back and figured she’d considered him as a potential boyfriend here and there, but never seriously. More like a friend she could go to Homecoming with or a band dance or something. She “liked” him, but every time she thought she might be coming around to really liking him, he did something that pulled him up short in her eyes and she let it go.

“Phil, I’m sorry,” said Faith quietly, squatting down on the platform to be closer to him. “The last couple of days have really made me think about things and this is where I belong. I don’t know if it’s where I belong forever-for good, but it’s where I belong for right now. And as I have no idea, and neither do you, how long ‘right now’ is, it may as well be forever...”

Phil didn’t let her finish, but simply turned around and started swimming back to shore, unwilling to show her his crying eyes. He was in real, physical pain, wasn’t even sure he could make it all the way back, but kept his arms pumping away as his heart and mind raced. All he wanted to do was head into the woods, find Father Billy or the Devil or some other demon-possessed kid and ask them to stab him dead right there and send him straight to Hell.

“I fell in the lake,” Phil told Father Billy, finally.

Father Billy scoffed, but then got to his feet, extracting the iron spikes from his pocket, an act that couldn’t help but change the tenor of their palaver.

“I’m going to tell you what I’ve told everyone else,” Father Billy began, wearily. “When I kill you, I need you to tell God that without Divine Intervention, I will just keep killing, make others kill, and make people kill themselves. I will not stop. You two will die because of His inaction, not my action.”

Phil stared at Father Billy and now knew that not only was Mark right about who was behind the killings, but also that Father Billy was completely and totally out of his goddamn mind. He had acted normal, obviously for some time, but this was the real man they were seeing for the first time; a loony who had detached himself from rational thought entirely. A man who was using mass murder as others might use a telegram.

But all that said, Phil couldn’t escape the same question facing the priest – why hadn’t God killed him?

Phil turned quickly to Mark, but saw something on his friend’s face that he recognized as sympathy.

“Shit – that’s why you’re doing this?” Mark said, regarding his would-be killer wearily. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?” Father Billy asked.

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Mark replied, sounding annoyed. “I, we, have known you for awhile, so we have to figure something happened to you. Something changed.”

Father Billy stared at the two boys for a long moment, but then nodded. He hadn’t told a living soul about the pulse in the sculpture and even though he didn’t particularly like Mark that much, he’d always known him as a curious kid who never failed to raise interesting theological questions, even if he was doing it just to piss off his Sunday school teachers who may well have no idea the answers.

“Have a seat,” Father Billy said, nodding to the ground in front of him.

Mark sat down, but Phil remained standing. He blinked, as if he was going to bolt, but Father Billy was back on his feet, faster than any human Phil had ever seen. He raised an eyebrow at Phil, who finally sat down, his eyes like those of a rabbit who finds itself down a foxhole.

“It started on Good Friday, this year...”

Father Billy told them his story from start to finish, the sound of the beating heart, the feeling of the pulse, the fall to the pulpit, the lies, the prayers, the counseling of sin and the ensuing silence from God leading him to his current course of action. All through the story, Mark nodded and clicked his tongue, engrossed, all the answers falling into place.

Phil, however, didn’t hear but every third word. He’d focused on the feeling of a nail being driven through his skin. How many stabs would it take to kill him? Could he get away? Could he play dead? Could he fight him? Should he strip off his backpack to move faster? Should he try to strangle Father Billy? Why was Mark taking this lying down? What the fuck? This was supposed to be their escape. Why did he listen to his jackass best friend? They were going to die and there was absolutely, positively nothing they could do about it but wait.

Phil focused on creating a single image in his mind, that of Faith smiling at him, and knew that he wanted it to be the last thing he ever thought of. He started to focus on it, almost as if he was meditating. His eyes began to close, but neither Father Billy nor Mark seemed to notice.

“And that takes us to this morning,” Father Billy said, finishing up. “If you’d kept walking, you would have found the bodies of Shane, his friends and all the others.”

Mark nodded for awhile, processing the information, but then turned back to Father Billy.

“If I was a priest and I felt God had done that to me, I would respond in the exact same way you have,” Mark said with a sigh. “In the greater scheme of things, I think you’re completely justified in your actions.”

Father Billy nodded gently, smiling over at Mark, his first real smile in quite some time. “Thank you.”

“That said, I don’t know if everyone will understand it in the same way,” Mark continued. “You get blinded by worldliness and think only about your life on Earth, not the more important part that comes after.”

Father Billy grunted. “You’re right. It’s true. Phil?”

Phil’s eyes blinked open and he looked over at the pair with rage. He just shook his head, having heard this last part.

“I guess I understand,” Phil began, his voice shaking with anger. “I just don’t know why Mark’s being so full of shit right now.”

Mark turned to him with surprise, seeing tears in Phil’s eyes.

“What do you mean?” Father Billy asked.

“Mark’s an atheist,” Phil replied. “So am I. We don’t believe in any of this shit. He won’t say it, but we both think, you’re just a psychopath.”

Father Billy turned his heavy-lidded gaze to Mark. “Is that true?”

“Well, yeah,” Mark said, taking a deep breath before elucidating. “But God didn’t show me a miracle. I’ve never seen a thing on this Earth that’s made me think there’s any kind of God up there in the sky or, more importantly, anything that happens to us after death. To me, there’s no God. When you drive that nail into me, there’s still no God. If I died seventy years from now instead of today, still no God.”

Mark hesitated for a moment, staring at the ground, but then looked back at Father Billy, who looked surprised at his words.

“That’s why it’s pointless for you to kill us,” Mark added, like an afterthought.

Phil snorted. Father Billy did not, but instead, just eyed Mark, waiting for an explanation.

“God asks one thing of us, right? Faith. I don’t have it, Phil doesn’t have it. You kill us and, if you’re right, we’re going straight to Hell anyway no matter who does the deed. We’re not going to see God or see Heaven, it’s Outer Darkness for us.”

Father Billy got to his feet without a word, extracted two of the nails and walked over to Mark, placing them both at his throat, but the boy didn’t flinch. Father Billy tensed, as if he was about to stab the nails right into Mark’s neck.

“I need to know,” Father Billy said, in a beseeching tone. “I know what I saw. I know what I felt. It was real. It wasn’t in my head. It was in front of my face.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Mark replied. “Like I said, I’d need to know, too. But as I said, it wasn’t my miracle. You telling me does nothing to make it more real.”

Father Billy stared at Mark for a long moment, but then, finally, took away the nails.

“If I don’t kill you, would you see that as a miracle?”

Phil turned and looked at Mark, suddenly wondering if their salvation was a possibility.

“Fuck no,” replied Mark, derisively, but Phil could tell his voice was quivering.

This time, Father Billy took the nails away for good and, after a moment, stepped away from the two boys for good.

“The rest have to die,” Father Billy stated, unequivocally.

“Unless God stops you,” Mark offered.

“Yeah, unless God stops me,” Father Billy agreed. “If I let you have the rest of your lives, what I need from you is twenty-four more hours of mine. A full day before you call the police. And, you have to swear to God. My God. And you have to know that, if you’re wrong and I’m right, that’s on your soul.”

“I swear to God,” said Mark.

“Swear to god,” whispered Phil, suddenly quaking all over as if from a chill.

“Go,” Father Billy commanded, finally. “God be with you.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I hope He’s with you,” Mark replied.

Father Billy nodded, and then walked away into the woods.

As soon as the priest had completely disappeared into the trees, Phil began crying hysterically, dropping to the ground as he gritted his teeth and made all kinds of strained, keening sounds. Mark squatted down next to his friend and put his arms around him, hugging him tightly. They sat there for a number of minutes, Phil clinging onto Mark like a drowning man.

Finally, Mark made a move to lift Phil to his feet.

“Let’s go,” he whispered.

Phil nodded and the two boys staggered forward through the trees.

Back at camp, Cindy was overseeing a massive operation. Kids were tearing up floor boards, pieces of porch, columns, shelves, you-name-it, all in the name of creating weapons with which to fight the Devil.

“We have to think of this differently, now,” Cindy announced that morning to the surviving campers who had gathered in the mess hall. “We have to assume that, perhaps, Father Billy was wrong and the man in the woods isn’t the Devil at all, but a man possessed by the Devil, like David Boss and the others were last night. If that is the case, then maybe we can fight him the same as we fought them.”

She paused a moment to allow the campers to reflect on the fact that, yes, they had done the impossible and successfully fought off the forces of darkness. Or, at least, Ian Hester and his two friends had.

“What we cannot do is to allow our actions to be governed by fear,” she continued. “If we’re too afraid of this man to fight him, then the Devil has already won. If we do fight him, God will surely be on our side. That is the test Father Billy told us about.”

Not all of the increasingly traumatized campers believed her that the murders were the result of possession rather than the Devil himself appearing on Earth, a point particularly countered by Becca Roy.

“You don’t know,” Becca yelled at Cindy. “I met him. I saw him speak. I saw the bodies. He was the Devil. We can’t fight him.”

It became quickly obvious that Becca’s was the minority opinion and she left the group to join Douglas and his prayer circle in the classroom. Cindy had originally gone to Douglas, explaining the situation to him and his acolytes and inviting them to come with her, but he would have none of it and advised the others of his group to not go along with her, either.

“God is the only salvation, here, and we have put ourselves in His hands,” Douglas said, icily. “Not yours.”

Cindy nodded and didn’t try to convince them otherwise. She had secretly hoped that would be their response as she didn’t think fifty people on the road would be anywhere near as manageable as the thirty she had planned for. The only thing that was still troubling her was the absence of Faith and Maia.

Throughout the day, she’d glanced out to the diving platform where the girls had erected their lean-to to keep out of the sun and were, it appeared, happily reading their library books. She’d called out to them a couple of times, but there was no response. She didn’t intend to swim out there, but she also had no idea what she’d tell their parents when she came back without them.

But part of her hoped that, by then, she and her group might’ve killed whoever the man in the woods might be – if there even was one – as easily as Ian had killed David, Peter and Jeffrey the night before. Then, they’d reach civilization and would be able to send back busses for the prayer circle kids as well as the two girls on the diving platform.

Ian, she sighed.

After cleaning herself up the night before in the counselor’s cabin, she’d tracked him and his friends down, singling out her savior. He smelled bad, as if he hadn’t managed to shower over the past forty-eight hours which, she supposed, not many had. He knew why she’d come looking for him and obliged her by following her to the counselor’s cabin where she tore his clothes off and, for lack of a better phrase, “fucked him raw” all night long until they were both dehydrated and soaked in sweat.

She then moved him into the shower and fucked him in there, too.

He hadn’t been sexually experienced in the slightest, admitting the following morning that he’d been a virgin aside from a couple of blowjobs from an equally inexperienced girlfriend the previous school year, but Cindy hadn’t minded because she’d been in charge from minute one and she’d enjoyed every physical second of it. She’d been so close to death, so close to what she figured might be even worse (rape by someone possessed by a demon – what if she’d gotten pregnant?!), that she just wanted to feel alive and knew this would fill the bill.

And the best thing was, it wasn’t even awkward around the camp the next morning. Everyone knew what she’d done, that Ian had been little more than a willing participant, but rather than feel embarrassed, Cindy only felt emboldened in her new leadership role. She’d never felt so good as she did that morning.

Ian had tried to talk to her when she’d run into him the next morning, even give her a kiss, but she was already past him, which he soon realized. She was nice about it, but it was, after all, only a fuck.

“If there’s an actual physical confrontation, some of you simply won’t be able to stab another living human being and that’s okay,” Cindy announced, recalling Whit’s less-than-heroic defense of her the night before. “But this is not a human being anymore and never will be again. If he attacks and you just manage to keep him at bay until one of the older campers can get there, that’s as good.”

As she was saying it, she thought to herself that she must sound out of her mind, like she was living in a world of dream logic. She had set three o’clock as the departure time, partly because she felt it would give them more than enough time to get to the highway, but also, if it failed miserably and they were routed, she thought that it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have darkness on their side in order to make it back to the campsite.

She checked in with her campers who were filling the broken vehicle with water, food and weapons and saw that everything was running smoothly.

“All right,” she said. “Make sure everybody’s together. We’re just about ready to go.”

Excited, the campers fanned out to announce to the others that they were leaving for real this time. Cindy, however, had one more stop.

She made her way to Cabin 4 and slipped inside, covering her nose with her shirt, though that did little to keep out the stench of the many corpses lying on the bunks as well as the floor within. She headed straight for Whit’s body, which she discovered midway through the room on a bunk, covered with a bed sheet. She pulled it back and looked down at his rigid, sallow corpse. She thought he looked more like a mannequin than anything that so recently was inhabited by a soul and all she saw was his fragility.

All morning, she’d been surprising herself with how much angrier she was at him than David or her other attackers. They had an excuse, they’d been possessed. Whit had been content to stand by and let her die. What was his excuse? Being a spineless weasel? It was a feeling of utter betrayal.

But now he was on the slab and she was the last counselor standing. Fuck. Him.

“I’m glad you’re dead,” she said to the body.

She stared at him for a moment longer, but then reached down and undid his fly, tugging down his pants to expose his flaccid, useless penis. Realizing that that didn’t have enough of the effect she was looking for, she pulled his pants all the way down to his ankles and throwing the sheet aside. That’s how she wanted him to be found, as humiliated in death as he was going to let her be in the last moments of her life.

Now satisfied, she turned and walked out of the corpse cabin, gently closing the door behind her.

At the moment Cindy’s group took to the road, Faith was in the midst of plowing through the third book of her fantasy series, having been able to finish Book 2 that morning under her and Maia’s lean-to. She’d been right, the authoress making the ending completely unfulfilling in order to force the reader to read on and though Faith was a little disappointed, she turned right around and began hungrily devouring the next book.

Upon seeing the campers gathering to leave, carrying few belonging and eschewing water and food primarily for the wooden weapons they’d been fashioning throughout the morning, Faith suddenly felt a pang of panic. She looked over to Maia who seemed to be feeling the same way, staring intently on the retreating group as if they might be the last people to ever see them alive.

“Should we be going with them?” Faith asked, her voice rising sharply.

“I don’t know,” Maia replied, sounding like she meant it.

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know?’” Faith said, the hairs on the back of her neck rising. “If they make it out, that leaves us all alone with whoever it is out there.”

Maia thought about this, staring out at the weapons carried by the group, but then finally shook her head.

“We decided the way to survive was to rely on each other alone and I still think that’s what has kept us alive this long,” she said. “As much as I wish this was over and we could just get out of here as one big collective, I simply don’t think that’s true.”

Deep down, Faith knew she felt the same way.

“I know, it’s hard,” Maia continued. “But this is too crazy to take chances with. If there’s even a chance that the Devil planned for this and they’re walking into a trap, we’re still a wild card the longer we stay out here.”

“Okay,” Faith said, nodding. As Cindy’s campers disappeared, Faith returned to her book and tried to force the bad thoughts out of her mind.

In the screened-in classroom, Douglas could tell that plenty of his charges wanted to go with Cindy, but he also knew that most were too weak by this point to make the walk, himself included. They’d consumed most of the bottles of water they’d brought in, some kids simply taking sips in order to have something to put in their mouths before Douglas realized he was going to have to ration them.

“God will come, but for us, not them,” Douglas said, his voice hoarse, but nonetheless triumphant. “You will see soon enough.”

He looked around at the kids, seeing at least some hopefulness on a their faces, which made him feel hopeful as well, his message getting through.

He smiled. “Let us pray.”

It took Mark and Phil three long hours after their encounter with Father Billy to make it to the highway. They hadn’t said a word for the first half of that trek and barely a word for the second half either, a couple of grunts as they traded food and water from their packs. It was if they were terrified that the dream would end if they spoke aloud and it would turn out that Father Billy had killed them. Or, more likely, was walking just behind them, waiting to correct his earlier mistake in letting them go.

But that was really only part of it.

Both were still extremely troubled by the promise they’d made to Father Billy and felt the eyes of God staring down at them in anger. When they finally made it to the highway, they still had a few more miles to go before they reached a gas station where Mark used a pay phone to call for a cab to pick them out. In his wallet, he carried an emergency credit card in his name, but this was the first time that he’d actually planned to use it. He told Phil that he thought he could withstand the wrath of his parents when they got the bill.

“How long before they get out here?” Mark asked the dispatcher at the cab company. “Yeah, sorry about that. We’re way out.”

After he hung up (“Probably a half hour wait,” he told Phil), both boys looked at one another and knew they were both considering picking the pay phone back up and dialing 911 to bring in the police, paramedics, the National Guard, whatever it would take, but they just couldn’t do it.

“He’d get arrested, he’d go to jail and he’d just start killing people in there until God stopped him there, too,” Mark rationalized. “Maybe this is our test to see if we can keep our word to God...”

Phil shot him a look and Mark just sighed. They went inside the gas station and bought some food as well as a couple of drinks, eating and drinking them in the parking lot as they waited for the cab. When it finally arrived, forty-plus minutes later, their salvation finally felt real and immutable.

“Where to?” the cab driver asked when they piled in the back seat, Mark slamming the door behind them.

“De Soto,” said Phil. “I’ll give you better directions once we get closer, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

Phil sank back into his seat and, within minutes, fell asleep even though he’d initially fought against it. Mark, too keyed up to do same, stared out the window, forcing himself to look at nothing at all.

It was mid-afternoon when they reached De Soto city limits, Mark gave the driver directions to Phil’s house, where they’d decided to camp out as Phil’s father and stepmom were currently out of town, visiting with Phil’s grandmother in San Antonio. Ten minutes later they arrived, Phil waking up as the cab pulled into his driveway. Mark signed the credit card receipt, leaving a forty percent tip, and they both grabbed what little gear they had and headed inside.

As they walked in, Mark immediately went for the freezer in the kitchen, seeing a stack of frozen pizzas waiting.

“Want me to nuke you one?” he asked, turning to Phil, but his friend was already gone. Mark closed the freezer door and walked down the hallway towards Phil’s bedroom, stopping short at a closed bathroom door.

“Phil?”

“I’m going to grab a shower,” Phil called from the other side of the door as he turned on the water. “I’ll get something when I come out.”

“Okay,” Mark nodded and headed back towards the kitchen.

In the bathroom, Phil sat on the toilet seat, staring at his shoes as the water in the shower stall whistled down the drain. He hesitated, but then put his hands together, interweaving his fingers.

“Dear Lord, I know I’m the last one to be asking for favors, but it’s not for me,” he began. “What I mean is, there are a bunch of people who could really, really use your help right now...”

Thirty-one campers, one more than a third of the number that had brought in a mere three days earlier, made their way out of the camp right around the time Phil began his prayer. Cindy had counted them twice, partly to know how many to keep track of, but also because she wanted to look in their eyes and see if they showed any signs of possession. Of all the campers, these were some of the ones she knew the least with a few exceptions, but when she looked into their faces, she saw one thing unifying them; they were all survivors. Each had that look of nervous awareness on their faces, a certain distrust of the rest of the pack that had kept them alive this long. She wondered how that would work in a fight as any feeling of teamwork might fall away under pressure and it might become every camper for themselves.

But she was optimistic.

“All right,” she told the group, now assembled around the broken Jeep. “We’re going to take turns pushing the vehicle, four people on the back bumper, one on either side with one driver.”

A 16 year-old girl named Nancy Powell had been tasked with sitting in the driver’s seat to steer and brake. Cindy had selected her because not only was she one of the lightest people in camp, maybe 100 pounds soaking wet, but also because she was a nervous type and the last thing she wanted the driver to do was allow the Jeep to pick up any kind of real speed and get too far ahead of the rest of the campers. While the Jeep wasn’t an absolute necessity, Cindy had said that some of the kids might get tired and it would be okay for them to sit in the back for some of the journey.

The real reason, however, was that she felt it would have the psychological effect of giving people something solid to hide in if things got bad, even though it couldn’t fit all of them at once. A group of thirty on open ground was one thing. That same number gathered around a would-be tank that could be locked up tight should the Devil attack, well, she hoped it made everyone feel less exposed and more confident in their mission.

“We’ll be working in shifts, so everyone’ll get a turn on the Jeep,” Cindy continued. “It is the job of everyone else to be the eyes and ears of the group. Eyes on the road, eyes on the woods. Anything out of the ordinary and you call out. No one will be left behind, but we need everyone to stay close to the vehicle at all times for this to work.”

After a moment spent surveying the faces of her charges, she added, “May God be with us.”

The kids nodded and Cindy let a camper named Patrick Noto lead the group in prayer. As soon as they had all said their last “A-mens,” Nancy climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep, Cindy took up her position pushing the vehicle on the driver’s side door and the group began moving it out of the parking lot. It was only a few seconds before they started picking up speed and a minute later, they were out of the parking lot and onto the road. There were a couple of furtive glances back in the direction of the screened-in classroom where the prayer circle was staying behind, but pretty soon, the camp was well behind them and they were a few hundred yards down the road.

For Cindy, leaving the camp had a euphoric effect.

At first, everyone had been incredibly cautious and as quiet as the surrounding woods, which betrayed nothing of what might lie just within the trees. But as time passed and everyone shared in the burden of pushing the Jeep, some climbing on top of the hood or the roof with their stakes, the atmosphere changed to one more akin to a jovial nature hike. People made jokes that had nothing to do with their current situation, there was some horseplay and when the Jeep did pull ahead, the kids all had to run to catch up, laughing all the way.

When Cindy finished her turn pushing, she walked out ahead of the group, figuring that was where a leader should be and looked out ahead with no fear. She looked up to the blue, cloud-strewn sky and imagined, for a moment, that the Devil had finished his business with them and was content to leave them be. The possession of David and the others turned out to be him “doing his worst” and now, once repelled, he wasn’t about to try anything.

The open road ahead seemed to confirm this line of thinking and Cindy began imagining herself at home, in bed, soon after dark. She wondered what that would be like, trying to assimilate back into her old life after all of this. Would it even be possible? Would she even want to?

“Smoke...”

Cindy turned around, having heard a word spoken, but wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. It turned out to have come from a boy named Andre Gonzalez who was pointing out towards the horizon from his perch on top of the Jeep.

“Smoke,” he repeated.

Cindy looked where he was pointing, seeing a thick plume of black smoke coming from the woods directly ahead of them. Her first response was to feel relief, seeing it as a sign of humanity that might ensure a rescue even earlier than they’d anticipated. But then, she realized the cloud was too thick for a camp fire, too expansive.

Two other campers soon chimed in.

“Smoke! Fire!!” they cried, alarmed.

Cindy wheeled around, having heard something different in the voices of these two kids and saw that they weren’t, in fact, referring to the smoke she and Andre were looking at. Instead, they were pointing at a dark, ashy cloud rising directly over the woods to their right. She could smell the fires now, the scent of burning wood and foliage hanging in the wind.

Suddenly, there was a distant, muffled explosion and a camper screamed, who Cindy recognized as Nancy, the Jeep driver. Everyone looked left and saw a rapidly expanding cloud of smoke and fire shuddering through the woods to the east, causing the trees to shift as if having been blown by a heavy wind.

“What the heck is going on?” Cindy exclaimed, confirming to her charges that she was as intimidated by this turn of events as they were.

Then, they heard a second, distant explosion followed quickly by a third, even further away; each time the scent of burning trees hitting them first followed by the sight of black smoke rising over distant trees. Cindy, her eyes going wide, looked all around and saw that the first plume they’d spotted had now been joined by four more on the horizon. They were still easily a quarter of a mile away, but as the plumes all seemed to be moving towards them, the blood in her veins went ice cold.

That’s when she realized that they’d walked right into the Devil’s trap.

“Oh, God.”

IX

“Hey! Hey, quit it! Seriously – it’s getting in my eyes!!”

But Faith was laughing too hard to hear Maia’s words as she splashed her friend. They had decided to explore the lake, look for signs of life or a means of escape, more out of boredom than hopes of actually finding anything. They never went onto land, but would occasionally be enough in the shallows that they could stand up for a moment on the lake bed, which is when Faith took the opportunity to splash Maia again.

“Stop it!!” Maia howled, then found her footing and splashed Faith back. “You’re like a two year-old!”

Faith laughed, ducked under the surface and swam over to Maia. When she got there, she tried to yank her under, but Maia managed to wriggle away, pushing herself out of Faith’s arms as she tried to swim to safety, but Faith managed to grab her again anyway. Maia splashed her in the face, causing her to lose her grip and Maia dove under the water and away.

“Truce!” Maia called when she broke the surface again, a few feet away from the maniacally-grinning Faith. “Truce!!”

Faith pretended she was going to splash her again, but then wrapped her arms around Maia’s torso and brought her in close to kiss her. They’d both tiptoed around the previous night’s make-out session that morning, each wondering if they were going to keep it up or if it was an embarrassing one-off. But then, for no reason whatsoever, Maia had kissed Faith on the cheek, a sweet kiss more than romantic and after that, they’d found themselves kissing each other at odd intervals, two people just happy to be falling in love.

Another reason they’d taken to the water was because they’d gotten pretty sunburned that morning and they were looking for shade. They found it under high outcroppings like The Rocks (which they quickly deemed too unsafe to hang around under for long) or overhanging sweet gum trees. Naturally, they kept an eye on the woods knowing that anybody could be right there within the trees, but they shared an unspoken belief that “whoever” the killer was would be preoccupied with Cindy and the others and wasn’t going to stoop to stalking nobodies like them.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful out here,” exclaimed Maia, momentarily slipping away from Faith and floating on her back out away from the shore for a moment.

Faith swam over, treading water and stared up at the sky as well. Striations of white, puffy clouds had etched their way through the blue like lines on sheet music, stretching from one horizon to the other which dulled the brightness of the sun. Maia reached over and held Faith’s hand as they floated along.

“If this is the Rapture and we’ve been left behind on the Earth with the others, I’d love to just find a place far away from everybody; learn to farm, learn to hunt, maybe, and just live in the middle of nowhere,” Maia said. “We knew some guys like that in Colorado. They’d saved up all through high school, bought a van and drove it to the base of the Rocky Mountains where they were trying to start a marijuana farm. It was like they were functionally homesteading.”

Faith nodded, though she wasn’t entirely clear on the concept of “homesteading,” much less farming pot, but she liked the idea of moving to Colorado, though, getting away from her family and school and, most importantly, being with Maia.

“Can you imagine?” Faith asked. “Forget all this college prep crap, getting a job, graduating at the top of the class, GPAs – just know what your life is going to be and starting it right, right now. No more waiting for it to happen.”

Maia nodded, holding Faith’s fingers a little tighter in her own. “Just you and me...”

“You and me,” Faith echoed, closing her eyes as she let the water splash up against her half-submerged face and around her body.

Suddenly, she felt Maia’s fingers tense and pull away.

“What?” she asked.

“Look,” said Maia, now upright and treading water, pointing back across the lake towards the camp.

Having thought Maia must’ve seen somebody in the woods or, worse, coming towards them in the water, Faith was surprised when she looked out to the west and saw a tremendous black cloud of smoke moving across the horizon like a thunderhead. It looked like an atomic mushroom cloud rising out of the woods, but unlike with an explosion, this pyrocumulus monstrosity was expanding without hurry, fueled by one great ongoing blaze rather than a single, over-and-done calamitous event.

“It’s a forest fire!” exclaimed Maia. “And it looks like it’s coming our way...”

Faith stared on the smoke and knew immediately that it was anything but a natural event.

It didn’t take long for panic to descend on Cindy’s group. The counselor had suggested that they move forward, try to outrun the gathering fires as they connected in front of them, but after only a few minutes of pushing on, every camper could see the same thing happening – the plumes of smoke joining to form a sort of great horseshoe of fire, with them in the center. Even worse, they began seeing orange flames licking the tops of trees in each direction, some as close as a few hundred yards away, rapidly encroaching on their position.

Though they didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger of being burned alive, the smoke had begun to flow in with the ferocity of a sandstorm. Hot and thick with embers, the wind carried it directly in the lungs of the campers who were then wracked with coughs as their body attempted to expel it. It was seconds later that the first kid collapsed, clawing at their throat as they began asphyxiating.

A more terrifying sight the campers couldn’t imagine. Though many could barely see through her tear-and-ash-filled eyes, the group quickly broke ranks and started trying to outrun the blaze back to camp.

But the more they screamed and the harder they ran, the quicker they pumped the smoke into their lungs and moved that much closer to their deaths.

Flight paths.

This was what had concerned Father Billy when he’d been considering hi methods of last resort should large groups of campers attempt to leave Camp Easley before he was finished with them. He knew that the smoke from a fire out at the lake would take hours to be substantial enough to alert people on the ground as the highway was so far away and it wouldn’t be seen in the next town, or, at least, recognized as anything other than a distant cloud for hours.

Better yet, if it happened in the afternoon, it would easily disappear into the night sky at dusk, which would only be a couple of hours away, giving him an additional dozen hours or so, which he figured would be more than enough to accomplish what he’d hoped to.

This left one problem – flight paths. At night, though the smoke would go unseen from the ground, the glowing orange of a real, multi-acre forest fire would be unmissable from the air.

So, he did a little research on flights coming in and out of DFW and Love Field in Dallas, knowing that planes not on approach or departure would be at too great an altitude to see the fires unless they continued for days. In fact, he discovered that there was only one commercial flight, a commuter route that went between Baton Rouge and DFW, that even came close and it would have to be a few miles off course and directly above it for even the most eagle-eyed passenger to spot it. He felt confident that it would be a non-issue.

So, when he’d surreptitiously watched Cindy assemble her children’s crusade to head down the road, he knew that it would be far too many people for him to fight on his own and the impetus to start the planned conflagration was upon him. He had not expected to live through the entire camp experience, truly believing that God would eventually have to strike him down, but if this did not happen, having the entire place razed by flames might give him an out that would allow him back into civilized society with no one the wiser, which might allow him to try again somewhere else.

With that in mind, he had left the campers to their weapons-building and moved out the trees one last time.

“You love the faith-inspiring coincidence, correct?” Father Billy murmured as he moved through the woods, occasionally glancing skyward. “This way, you don’t even have to take a human life. Send a thunderstorm, send a light shower and you’ll save all these lives, Father. Anything like that could be seen as an everyday meteorological occurrence, but these children wouldn’t have to die. I’d know, but I’d be the only one. Please, God. This burden delivered unto me is too heavy. I beg you. Let these killings end.”

Father Billy stopped in his track and actually waited for an answer this time. He looked up to the late afternoon sun and wondered if it would be the last sunset he’d ever see and, if it was, was he at peace with that?

The fires were to be started by sixteen propane tanks suspended around the woods at hundred yard intervals on ropes. The plan was to go around, light fires underneath them and wait for the flames to superheat the tanks, which would then explode. He’d cut rough trenches from each blaze to the road which he’d filled with accelerant, a mix of kerosene and gasoline, which he hoped would direct the blaze. Combining that with the dry underbrush of the drought-stricken thicket, the truth was, the fire might even burn out of control through potentially dozens of square miles, maybe even hundreds if it went unnoticed and picked up steam. In fact, it might cost more lives than just the campers.

But as he mapped it out, he knew that if it got to this point, he would no longer care.

He’d wanted to be stopped. He’d begged God to turn the poison in Constance and the others’ canteens to sugar. Demanded He grant him heart attack the second before driving a spike into the neck of the whimpering Pamela as she stood over her dead boyfriend’s body a night that felt like it was almost a lifetime ago. His fondest heart’s desire was to have but one camper fight back against him with the strength of a lion and slay him first or even that the PCP-afflicted athletes simply wake up with headaches instead of being driven into a kill-crazy rampage.

But this didn’t happen and it was taking apart Father Billy’s soul. He had never felt so far from himself in his life.

As he began joylessly lighting the fires under the propane tanks, he imagined lying down next to them, allowing himself to be immolated as well and letting the cards fall from there. He wondered if the rains might come then, once his life was extinguished, but then everything he’d have worked for would prove meaningless and that was one option he ultimately wouldn’t allow himself to consider.

Cindy ran and ran and ran, her lungs aching, her eyes burning with every step, but she continued on regardless. All around her, she saw flames creeping through the trees, sending burning trunks down into her path. She has started out with a group of campers, but they had all fallen away. She knew they were dead and knew she would soon be as well, so grossly had she underestimated the inferno.

She looked up as a tree consumed by fire cracked in half and came barreling down straight for her and replayed the events of the last twenty-four hours quickly in her head.

How could she have been so wrong?

Back at the camp, Douglas Perry and the prayer circle campers smelled the coming smoke as it wafted into the camp, but they continued praying.

“The flames won’t reach us,” claimed Douglas, who stared out the windows towards the woods, watching the smoke waft closer. “They will stop before they reach the camp and go no further.”

His followers, weakened now from over twenty-four hours of fasting, could only nod and continue their prayers.

Out on the lake, Maia and Faith circumnavigated the shoreline until they were on the opposite side from the camp, about a half mile of water between them and the swift-moving blaze. Though the initial retreat had been frantic and harried as they started smelling smoke almost immediately after seeing the cloud, once they were far enough away, they actually felt safe enough to climb out onto the shore and try to dry off.

“We can always jump right back in,” Faith said. “But I’m pretty sure the Devil’s occupied.”

As they looked back towards the great black cloud another word rising over the distant woods, they were in awe, the setting sun casting it all in an orangish-red, Apocalyptic glow. Unlike a more typical atmospheric formation, this one appeared to be boiling up out of the earth itself as if a volcano had suddenly made its presence known in the East Texas woods.

“I wish I had a camera,” said Maia, watching the smoke rise ever-higher. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Faith nodded, but said nothing. She was staring at the tiny pinpoints of light that occasionally showed themselves, fire rising off the tree tops. Every so often, a tree would bow then fall, soundlessly, out of frame. She knew that off in those distant woods, this great, crashing torch was likely destroying anything unlucky enough to be in its path, Cindy and the other campers likely in the midst of the maelstrom, but from where she stood, it might as well be happening on the moon for all the effect it had on her enjoyment of the sight.

That’s when Maia glanced down to her shoulder, a strange look on her face.

“What is it?” asked Faith.

“Rain,” said Maia with surprise. “I felt rain.”

“Our Channel 7 exclusive Doppler Radar Report brings us news of a thunder shower developing east of here, currently in the Patterson/Lake Carlisle area,” said a nattily-dressed man in a bowtie on the television. “There’s no telling if it will reach us here in Dallas, but we could certainly use it, couldn’t we, Dave?”

The anchorman to whom the TV weatherman was making his joking aside to duly nodded, and then suggested “in all seriousness,” that indeed, Dallas could use the rain.

“Wow – that’s gotta suck for whoever’s still out there,” said Mark, who was munching on his second microwave pizza. “Wonder what God, in His infinite wisdom, is trying to pull with that.”

But Phil couldn’t be flippant. Staring straight at the radar image on screen, his panic was rising.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed.

“What?” asked Mark.

“What do you mean, ‘what?’” Phil replied, disgusted. “Faith and Maia! They’re out on that diving platform. If it starts pouring down, they’ll have to come on land. And if they do that, they’re screwed. How the hell can God do this?! It’s like he’s helping Father Billy! What the fuck?! Rain?!”

Mark reached over and tapped on the phone. “We could call the police. Right now. All this ends.”

“No!” Phil cried, shaking his head. “We made a promise to God. What if this is tied to that? What if by making that promise, we effectively traded Faith and Maia’s lives for ours?”

Mark stared at Phil.

“You can’t be serious,” he said. “When did you start believing in that shit?”

“When somehow, some way, we escaped a homicidal maniac today!” Phil roared, clambering off the sofa. “I’ve been praying ever since. I don’t know why we were spared, but we were. God has a plan for us and I don’t know what it is, but we made one stupid little promise to Him and then – suddenly – we were allowed to live when everyone else has to die. What the hell is that?”

“You think God had anything to do with that?” Mark cried, setting down his pizza. “No, my friend, that was me, your one friend crazy enough to be able to bullshit his way past a psychopath. Don’t mistake dumb luck and a roll of the dice for the work of the Almighty. We survived because we didn’t fall for all this God-shit like all those other now-dead idiots who thought it was the Devil. You want to go back on that now?”

Phil thought about this for a moment, but then turned around and walked to the garage.

“Where are you going?” yelled Mark.

“Back,” said Phil. “I’m going back for Faith. Fuck this and fuck you.”

The rain was a miracle. Within moments, it had saved the woods around Camp Easley, dousing the flames and preventing the immolation of probably hundreds of acres of old-growth forest, the northwestern tributaries of the Big Thicket. It had begun suddenly, emerging out of a weather system that had moved up from the Mississippi River Delta, crossed over into Texas around the Sabine National Forest and finally reached its saturation point just past Lake Carlisle, sending its liquefying payload back to the earth as rain. The storm was brief and well-timed. Besides putting out the fire, the lesser plant life around the lake sorely needed a drink and the area’s water table, while not empty, would need replenishing sooner or later before the fall heat set in and this served that purpose.

On top of that, it began the rotting process for the trees and plant life that fell in the fire that would eventually provide shelter and food to several generations of insects that would, in turn, become a food source to generations of birds and small mammals. The culling of the tallest trees would also allow saplings, long in the shadows, to realize their growth potential as their highest leaves could now stretch to the sun. The rotting foliage would also become fertilizer as it sank into the ground, making the rich soil even richer with nutrients, strengthening the woods as a whole.

The rain, however, did not save Cindy’s campers.

Eighteen died in the first few minutes after they’d left the Jeep, three more died soon thereafter on the road and, half an hour after the fires began, the remaining nine were scattered along the lonely stretch of road, all having taken off in the direction of the camp, only to be overtaken by the smoke.

The last to die had been an unusually strong runner named Jenny Forrestal who actually lived long enough to feel the first drops of rain, but her lungs were too far gone and she breathed her last mere seconds before her clothes were soaked through.

Her body would eventually be found only three hundred yards from the Camp Easley parking lot.

The campers were all dead, but the person who had led them out onto the road in the first place, Cindy, had survived. She had done the impossible, outrun the smoke. And though there was plenty of it still in her lungs, when the rain came she’d gotten the reprieve she needed and made it long enough to reach the camp alive; coughing and choking, but able to breathe.

With the rain puddling around her, her clothes and hands covered in mud, she walked until finally collapsing in a heap in front of the counselor’s cabin, which she’d only left four hours earlier. With wild eyes, she stared up into the dark, wet skies above.

“WHY?!? WHY?!?!” she demanded angrily in a strangled rasp. “WHY?!?!?”

Why was she alive and every last person whose safety and well-being had been her responsibility was dead? It was as if, by allowing her to live, God was making some kind of sick point about the pronounced and absolute nature of her failure and now Cindy wanted answers.

Why a miracle, but too late to do any good?

“WHY!?!?!” she roared again, squeezing her fists in anguish, her eyes streaming with tears. “You bastard!!! WHY?!?!?”

But the rain continued to pour, as if taunting her from high above, mocking her tears as she envisioned the faces of her dying campers. She had never known anger or anguish quite like this before and felt as if it was driving her just a little mad. That’s when she looked over and saw a light on in the administrator’s cabin, peering through the darkness.

Slowly, she lifted herself up out of the mud and walked over to it. Her shoes and socks were drenched and slowed her down, so she kicked them off and walked barefoot. Her muscles ached and she was still choking out ash, but she kept going. When she reached the porch steps, she tentatively climbed up, barely noticing that the rain was finally beginning to slacken. She reached the door and looked in, seeing Father Billy lying on the sofa completely passed out and oblivious to the world.

She stared at him for a moment, as if not recognizing the man lit only by a small lamp in the window, but then something, somewhere finally made a connection and she nodded to herself.

She opened the door, only a little surprised to discover that it wasn’t locked, and moved inside. At first, she was very quiet, as if hoping not to wake Father Billy, but then saw him staring back at her through the darkness, two tiny, glowing specks of white reflecting from his eyes like those of cat.

“Did I wake you?” asked Cindy.

“No,” replied Father Billy, casually. “I woke up when it started raining.”

Cindy noted a change in his voice. There was something coy, searching, and maybe even feral in there. She instinctively took a step back as Father Billy reached over to a nearby switch and turned on the overhead lights. When they came on, Cindy saw that the bloodstains from the previous night’s attack were now dried on the floor, some even on the sofa under where Father Billy had been napping.

“Oh,” Father Billy said, as if noticing the stains for the first time. “I was so exhausted when I came in, I didn’t manage to turn on the light. Do you know what happened here?”

Cindy thought the first part was plausible, but didn’t answer his question. She nodded to the back door.

“You managed to start your laundry,” she said, the only sound in the room being that of the washing machine clunking along in the background. “Guess you weren’t too tired.”

“I suppose so,” he replied, making no effort to explain. “Where are all the campers?”

Cindy had no idea how to answer this succinctly, but as she stared at him, the answer came easily enough.

“You know where they are,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“I do?” he asked.

“Yes, because you killed them.”

As the storm made its way across the lake, Maia and Faith took refuge from the downpour underneath a stand of trees. There had been no lightning, so they weren’t afraid of being electrocuted, but, still in their swimsuits, they were starting to get very cold as they couldn’t get dry. Finally, they decided to make their way back to the camp side of the lake, staying as close to the water as possible in case they ran into anybody and needed to make a quick escape.

The biggest problem wasn’t the visibility, but the fact that they wouldn’t even be able to hear someone sneaking up on them so hard was the rain pelting the lake’s surface.

“I’ll bet our clothes aren’t even there anymore,” Faith said, trying to spot the platform through the rain. “Or our books.”

“I’m sure the library’ll cut you some slack,” joked Maia, picking her way over a fallen branch. “And you didn’t take all your clothes out, did you? Aren’t there still some in the cabin?”

Faith stopped short. “You actually want to go into camp? I thought we were just going to go find a place to hide out.”

“I mean, what else can we do?” Maia replied. “We can’t stay out here in our swimsuits and a quick raid will get us everything we need. I mean, if we’re really careful, I think we should be okay.”

“But he’s probably there right now,” Faith said. “If the fire was to drive everyone back off the road...”

“Well, then, God sent the rain,” Maia said, her tone almost sing-song. “And if He sent rain to stop the fire, then He must be working against the Devil, no?”

Faith thought about this for a moment, then nodded.

“All right. But as soon as we get our clothes, we split, okay?”

Maia nodded. “Definitely.”

Back in the administrator’s cabin, Father Billy looked up at Cindy with genuine curiosity, unsure how she’d come to that conclusion.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, simply.

“Because,” she said. “I prayed and God told me it was you.”

Father Billy stopped short, having no idea what to make of this statement. He felt stung, wondering if it could be true, but then he looked at Cindy and knew it had been a feint, one he’d walked right into.

“So, it’s true?” Cindy asked. “Why? I don’t understand.”

“To make God stop me,” Father Billy said. “And as you just found out on the road, He’s not interested in any of us.”

“Well, He saved me,” Cindy replied. “Maybe He wants me to stop you.”

“To what end?” Father Billy said, rising to his feet, an incredulous look on his face. “Everybody’s dead. Why kill me now and not yesterday or the day before or the day before that when it could have counted for something? Why would He do that now?”

Cindy thought about this, but came back only to her earlier thought that God had a sick sense of humor.

“Well, why else would He keep me alive?” Cindy weakly countered.

“I don’t know,” Father Billy admitted, moving to the center of the room. “But I’m pretty tired of this and am ready to ask Him myself.”

Father Billy raised his hands, as if to indicate that he was no longer willing to fight back.

“Why don’t we test your theory?” he said, nodding towards the coffee table.

Cindy looked down and saw one of the long crucifixion nails on the table and picked it up. She saw dried blood on the tip and looked over at Father Billy.

“How many people did you kill with this?” she asked.

“Does it matter?” Father Billy replied.

Cindy hesitated for a moment, weighed the spike in her hand and then shook her head.

“I guess not.”

With a cry, Cindy launched herself at Father Billy, expecting to plunge the nail directly into his chest. But Father Billy immediately sprang into action, grabbing her wrists and twisting her arms around.

“Fuck!” she screamed, trying to pull away from him.

“After all I’ve been through, you thought I was going to roll over and die?” asked Father Billy calmly and mostly rhetorically. “If God is on your side, I want to know. Heck, I want to feel it.”

Cindy wrenched herself away from Father Billy and punched him in the face, sending him sprawling backwards. He caught himself on a chair, but Cindy was already upon him, slashing wildly with the nail, which sliced into his cheek. As blood dribbled out of the admittedly superficial wound, a surprised Father Billy still flinched away.

“Still thinking God’s not on my side?” Cindy asked, trying to catch her breath.

“If you see even that as miraculous, you don’t deserve to be His vessel,” Father Billy sneered.

“Fuck you,” Cindy replied, swinging at him again and pushing him further back into the cabin.

But then, Father Billy saw an opening and lunged at Cindy, catching her mid-torso and throwing her to the floor. Stunned, she looked up in time to see Father Billy balling up his fist, which he promptly bashed into the side of her face.

“Gnnh,” she grunted, realizing that he’d just knocked two of her teeth loose.

The good news was, his punch had momentarily made him shift his weight, which allowed her to angle her arm up and whip the nail around. She plunged it directly into his side, burying the tip a good three inches in.

“Aaaah!!” cried Father Billy, falling back and away from Cindy, his hand pressed against the wound, just below his ribcage. Blood was already bursting out of it.

As Father Billy scooted backwards across the floor, Cindy leaped to her feet and raised the nail. As she walked over to the wounded priest, his blood pumped out of his side, fast and thick.

“Guess God’s on my side,” Cindy said, blood dripping off the nail’s tip. “Time for you to go to Hell, Father Billy...”

“Gladly...” Father Billy whispered and closed his eyes.

But as Cindy brought the nail down in a fast, arcing motion, they were interrupted by what looked like a bolt of lightning blasting in through the open door which struck Cindy directly in the spine. Whether it was lightning or not didn’t ultimately matter as the result was that Cindy was on fire — her back, her hair and soon her face.

“GAAAAAHH!!!” she screamed, dropping the nail as a thick, burning gel oozed across her skin and scalp.

She twisted around towards the doorway as the flames ate through her hair and quickly burned through skin to skull. In the doorway, she saw an emaciated Douglas Perry holding a flare gun, looking terrified.

“Demon!!” he screeched, pointing at Cindy as she toppled over, her hands clawing at the air. “Demon!”

When she hit the ground, it seemed to snap Douglas out of whatever trance he was in and he walked inside the cabin, reloaded the flare gun, stood astride Cindy and aimed straight down.

Then, he pulled the trigger.

With a quick whooosh, the flare blasted out the tip of the gun and buried itself inside Cindy’s chest, directly below her breast bone, setting her diaphragm and soon her lungs on fire. She stared up at Douglas in disbelief, the fire spreading across her forehead and down to her eyeballs. A second later, her body gave out and her burning face smashed down onto the wood floor.

Father Billy, in a state of shock, stared over at Douglas.

“She was going to kill you,” Douglas whimpered. “I had to do it...”

Father Billy didn’t reply for a moment as he was still trying to figure this out in his mind. He had believed, wholeheartedly, that God was working within Cindy. He was more than twice her size, yet she’d been seconds away from killing him. But then this? It felt like the Lord was at the point of playing with human life just to taunt him.

“Jesus Christ,” Father Billy said, spitting out the words.

Douglas looked at him like he might cry as Cindy’s body crackled and burned, sending up cinders from her burning clothes. “Are you okay, Father Billy?”

“I am,” said the priest as he rose and went to the kitchen sink.

He took a rag, hosed it off under the faucet and quickly cleaned up his already clotting wound. As Douglas watched, he put bandages that were only recently tied around his head around his torso. The youngster noticed the oddly-shaven part of Father Billy’s head, evident to him now with his back turned, but didn’t say anything about it as the priest cleaned himself up and drank a glass of water. After Father Billy had taped off the bandages, he wheeled around to the boy, his face already contorting as he readied his next – and last – big lie.

“This?” Father Billy said, pointing at Cindy, his voice shaking. “This is the end. I made a mistake. I thought we were still on Earth. Oh, ho, ho – no. I was wrong. We’ve been in Hell this entire time, we just didn’t know it. The Devil won. He has conquered mankind. It never made sense how he could be here, freed from the Inferno, but it was we who were in his domain not the other way around.”

The room fell silent as Father Billy stared at Douglas, still holding the flare gun. The boy looked back at Father Billy, his face completely blank as she tried to make heads or tails of Father Billy’s words.

But then, his eyes went wide and he nodded.

“Oh, God...,” said Douglas. “Oh, God. What do we do?”

Father Billy’s mind raced. Keep it coming, keep it coming...

“God told me there was one road out of Hell, but it’s only for the most faithful,” Father Billy began, haltingly. “It’s the ultimate test of your belief in Him in these new, dire times. What you have believed your entire life to be the most mortal of sins, the taking of a life, is now the one thing God asks of you.”

“But I just did,” Douglas said quickly, pointing to Cindy. “I just took a life.”

“No,” Father Billy replied. “You took the life of a demon. You must take the life of a human and since it is the duty of everyone, the life you must take is your own.”

Douglas’ eyes went wide with fear.

Father Billy nodded gently. “I know it must sound terrifying, but it will bring you into the bosom of Our Lord, where we all belong and where we spend our entire life trying to get to.”

Douglas looked at Father Billy and the priest could see just the beginnings of skepticism.

“Of course, I’ll be right beside you when you go,” added Father Billy to seal the deal.

“You will?” Douglas asked, as if this would make it all right.

“Absolutely.”

“Then... will you help me tell the others?”

Father Billy nodded. “We’ll tell them now. Together.”

Maia and Faith made it back to the camp about an hour past dusk, the rain clouds finally receding off to the east, allowing the moon to peek through the gloom. The girls had just slipped past The Rocks and were nearing the dock when they saw Father Billy and Douglas walking towards the screened-in classroom.

“What’s going on?” Faith asked, staring at the bandaged wound on Father Billy’s side and the gash on his face.

“I don’t know and from the look of it, we don’t want to know,” Maia replied. “We’re here to get our clothes and go, that’s it.”

Faith nodded and the pair altered their trajectory, looping around the camp and giving Father Billy and his charge a wide berth.

On the floor of the administrator’s cabin, Cindy’s heart continued to beat deep within her torturously burned body though her brain was no longer functioning at any kind of level that could lead to a successful revival. She was dead and gone, her spirit, her soul, her memories, whatever made her the person that had so recently lived and dreamed and been loved, literally up in smoke.

In her last moments of life, her thoughts were a haze. She envisioned her parents, her home, a couple of friends, her grandmother, but more than anything, she caught fleeting memories of her night before with Ian, which gave her some peace. Cutting through all this, though, was the recurring image of Douglas standing in the doorway. But she realized that it was Douglas she was focusing on, but something behind the boy. She tried to look harder, but the pain she was in was remarkable in its intensity. Finally, she was able to glimpse what it was — a great, yellow-and-white light, but in the shape of a person. That’s when she realized that it was an angel. Douglas’s actions had been governed by an angel.

She couldn’t believe this. She tried to cry out or, at least, turn to see if Father Billy had seen the same thing, but the flames ate through her brain stem and half a second later, she had thought her thought.

But even then, the last image she watched fading in her mind, was of that angelic glow. Not a face, not a wing, but what she could only describe as holy light as might emerge from the eyes of God Himself, staring down from Heaven.

X

The children of the prayer circle took the news about the Devil surprisingly well, better than Father Billy or Douglas Perry had expected them to. Having fasted for so long, many were simply happy to know that the end, any end, had finally arrived. Some were afraid of the violence involved with their coming end, but Father Billy assured them that it would be painless. They would be provided with shallow bowls of warm water from the kitchen and they were to place their arms in them after cutting their wrists length-wise from halfway up to the elbow all the way to their palms. Long before their blood drained all the way out, Father Billy explained, they’d fall unconscious and would quietly pass over in their sleep.

“And then, like Christmas morning, you will awake in the arms of Our Lord!” Father Billy exclaimed. “Your families are already waiting there for you, watching you do this brave thing. You’ll just slip from this life into that. The reason the Lord wanted you to fast was to ease this transition. It will only make it that less painful.”

As Father Billy spoke, Douglas walked through the classroom laying knives beside each of the children. One of the kids, a thirteen year-old named Ronald Green, looked up at Douglas with wide eyes.

“Will you help me? I don’t know if I can do this.”

Douglas was about to answer in the affirmative when Father Billy shook his head.

“You have to do it yourself,” Father Billy stated, leaving no wiggle room. “If someone else takes your life, it’s murder and you’ll be trapped here in Hell.”

Ronald stared up at the priest, but then nodded, which made the priest feel a momentary pang of guilt. He was just spinning stories now. This was no longer about putting God to the test, this was spitting in His face by killing those He most beloved.

But then Father Billy took a deep breath and pushed these thoughts out of his mind. This was his mission, all the way to the end.

When Douglas reached the last person in the room, Becca Roy, he found her smiling.

“I knew this would come to pass,” she said. “I’ve known since I met him.”

She touched Douglas’s hand, her eyes long glazed over with hunger.

“I can’t wait to see you over there,” she continued, running her fingers over his knuckles and tracing designs on his palms. “Thank you, Douglas. And thank you, Father Billy. I would be lost without the two of you.”

Without another word, Becca picked up her knife, closed her eyes and violently punctured a hole in her left wrist before winding the blade around her arm, cutting a long, continuous circular pattern all the way up to her elbow like someone attempting to peel an orange with a single cut. She did this again to her right arm, more jagged now as she was right handed. On top of that, the blood cascading down her left arm made the knife handle slippery, but she finally managed to finish and placed both arms in her bowl of water.

Everyone was surprised with the ease with which she did it, though Father Billy knew it was hardly the first time she’d cut herself. She looked around at the others, a little wistfully.

“Come,” she admonished them. “We’re doing this together.”

No one wanted to go next, but then Ronald Green picked up his knife and cut his arm, just not deep enough.

“No, no, like this,” said another girl, who demonstrated by slashing deeply into her wrists, but then gave a gasp so intense was the pain.

“Oh, my God!”

“It’s okay,” said Father Billy. “It’s all okay. You just have to be brave for a moment and then everything will be fine. Besides, it’s not really pain, just your surprise at a new feeling. There is no pain!”

The room went quiet for another few seconds before, one by one, the children nervously took up their knives and followed Becca and Patricia’s motions. Very soon, a foul stench filled the room as more than a few bladders loosened as the campers placed their torn up wrists into bowls of lukewarm water, swiftly reddening with blood, and lost control of their bodily functions.

“Douglas?” whispered Becca.

Douglas, who hadn’t slashed his wrists yet, turned to her, a questioning look on his face. Rather than speak, she leaned over and gave him a light kiss on the lips.

“It’s really, really okay,” she murmured, then slipped into unconsciousness.

Douglas stared in horror as Becca face-planted onto the table in front of her, her arms flopping to the side as her bowl careened onto the floor. With a great clatter that seemed to continue, a number of other children around him began fainting as well, dumping over their own blood-filled bowls as their bodies plunged forward or they fell clumsily out of their seats. As their collective wounds continued to bleed out, bloody water splashed up onto Douglas’s shoe, causing him to flinch.

That’s when he felt Father Billy’s hand on his shoulder.

“It’s your turn,” said the priest.

“I thought we were all going to go together, Father,” Douglas said. “Where’s your knife?”

Douglas suddenly felt one of the nails digging into his side as Father Billy moved in close, the spike gripped in his fist.

“I was curious, Douglas,” Father Billy whispered, ignoring the chastising tone in Douglas’s voice. “Where did you get the flare gun?”

“Found it,” Douglas said defiantly through gritted teeth.

“Found it where?”

“Behind your cabin, near the washing machines,” Douglas replied. “By all of the fan belts you tore out of the Jeep. And those black work suits you keep washing the blood out of.”

Father Billy nodded, having figured as much.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did,” Douglas replied. “To God, over and over and over again. I told Him it was you, but He didn’t listen. He didn’t do anything to stop you.”

“But you’ll tell Him now, won’t you?” Father Billy said, pressing the nail harder into the boy’s side.

“No,” Douglas said.

“No?”

“He’s not there,” Douglas said, plainly. “He probably never was. We’re all idiots.”

Douglas fell silent for a moment, holding Father Billy’s gaze.

“But, I would never have known that if it wasn’t for you. So, I have you to thank for that.”

Douglas suddenly raised his knife and Father Billy stepped back, afraid what the boy might try. But then, Douglas simply slashed his wrists, deep and with great violence. Father Billy was momentarily taken aback, but then kept the boy’s gaze until, a half-minute later, he passed out as well, his body tumbling to the wet floor with a splash.

Father Billy stared down at the body, still thinking about Douglas’s words. He found them strangely moving, but knew that only a few seconds later, Douglas would discover their inaccuracy on the other side, just not in the Heaven that the priest had promised.

That’s when he heard the most bloodcurdling of screams from behind him:

“AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

Deep and tortured, it came from just outside the screen door in back of the priest. He whipped around and saw Maia looking in at the room full of dead children. Her gaze moved up to Father Billy, but then down to his hand where he still held the blood-stained nail in his fist.

“Maia...,” Father Billy began, but as soon as he spoke, the girl turned around and ran away into the darkness of the camp.

“No!” he cried, then raced for the door. But by the time he ran out, Maia had already disappeared.

“Damn...”

The rain had stopped for the most part and the camp was now completely bathed in darkness, save for the lights in the classroom and one still glowing in the administrator’s cabin. Father Billy stormed to the dead center of the campsite, removing a second nail from his pocket and holding them both out in hands.

“Where are you?!” he roared into the night. “You run, you hide, you just make it harder on yourself!”

He looked all around, but saw no sign of the runaway girl. He was furious at having been caught. Another person who would have to die. But God put her there, didn’t He? If she’d just stayed wherever she’d been hiding. The diving platform.

The rain.

God had forced her to shore.

That’s when Father Billy sank to his knees, his hands falling dully at his sides, the nails tumbling into the mud. He thought about Douglas’s words, about Cindy’s, and about Mark’s and whether or not he put any stock in them. It was a miracle. He knew this. No tumor or hallucination. It couldn’t possibly be. But how could all of this have resulted from a miracle?

He didn’t know the answer and his eyes began to throb even as he thought about them. What was worse, he didn’t feel one step closer to the truth than he had three months ago. Doubt, the killer of faith.

After a long moment, he finally reached down, picked up the nails and got back to his feet.

“Maia? Faith?!”

Father Billy had stalked around the perimeter of the camp site for almost twenty minutes before deciding the pair were in one of the camp buildings. He’d moved back towards the screened-in classroom and checked the mess hall first, looking under every table and bench, his dark silhouette shadowing over everything thanks to the rising moon. Frustrated, he kicked over a few of the benches, hoping the sound might spook the girls into rabbiting.

Girls, plural, of course. It had taken a few minutes, but he’d come to realize that if Maia was around, Faith must be, too. She hadn’t been with Cindy’s group or the prayer circle and he didn’t think her the type to strike out into the woods on her own. Anyway, she’d been on the diving platform with the purple-haired girl, so it was safe to say she was now here in camp.

“FAITH!!” he shouted, storming into the kitchen.

He opened cabinets, pushed aside the large mixing bowls and pieces of equipment just in case the girls had managed to squeeze back there, but then turned his attention to the walk-in refrigerator.

With one of the nails raised in case someone came flying out the second he opened it, he grabbed the steel latch and swung it wide — only to find it as empty as the mess hall.

“Shit,” he cursed.

He left the mess hall and scanned the dark woods beyond, wondering again if they were somewhere out there, but then began going cabin to cabin. In each, it was more of the same. He overturned bunks and tore through wardrobes. He searched cupboards and looked behind shelves. He considered the idea that they had somehow gotten under the cabins, but when he checked the crawl space grates, he found them rusted shut, so he quickly surrendered that idea.

When he came to Cabin 4, the smell of the place hit him before he even opened the door – well over twenty rotting corpses. He covered his face and imagined that if Maia and Faith were going to hide anywhere, it would be in here. He moved through the room, angrily pulling back the covers on the bodies – David, Judy, Leilani, Penny, Whit, etc. — many of whom looked badly bruised as the blood remaining in their bodies had pooled against their backs and extremities. The violence of misshapen necks, gouged eyes and broken limbs was that much more obvious against pale, bloodless skin and Father Billy had a hard time children could be to blame for their injuries.

The bodies were also beginning to bloat, likely aided by that afternoon’s heat working in concert with the rotting, partially-digested food in their stomachs. It disgusted him, but not so much the smell as, but again, the recurring belief that this was how little God cared about his people.

He made his way to the back of the cabin, but soon saw that neither Faith nor Maia were in this cabin, either. He looked out the window towards the parking lot, but knew that if they’d tried the road, there was very little he could do about it. He sat down hard in a nearby chair and was just about ready to decide that that’s what they’d done.

That’s when he looked down at the floor.

Faith and Maia had been hiding in the counselor’s cabin for the better part of an hour, but in opposite corners of the building. They had split up in case Father Billy came in and they needed to decoy him back out or something; the “something” being a hastily-made and instantly regretted agreement that if he caught one of them, the other wouldn’t stay and fight, but would run away as fast as they could and not stop. The only reason they hadn’t taken to the road before was because Father Billy seemed to have the ability to appear anywhere in the woods at any time. They figured he must have some other, hidden form of conveyance (a four-wheeler?) or simply a better knowledge of the woods than any of the campers. They hadn’t considered that it was more like good planning, exploiting a few short cuts and dumb luck, but they were in a heightened, paranoid state-of-mind.

They had first gone into the administrator’s cabin, but upon seeing Cindy’s burned-up body, which Faith initially believed meant that she had gotten caught up in the forest fire, but somehow made it back, they decided to go elsewhere.

“If she’s dead, that means we’re the last ones,” Maia had whispered.

“Mark and Phil...,” Faith replied hopefully.

“If they made it out, they would have called the police first thing,” Maia said. “We’d be rescued by now.”

Faith agreed, which led them to the counselor’s cabin. There were closets, cabinets, nooks and crannies galore and they prayed that Father Billy wouldn’t know all of them.

They’d easily found their respective hiding spots, Maia behind a hot water heater and Faith in a small, attic-like crawl space above what had been Cindy and Judy’s room and waited. It was just when Faith began thinking they were home free that the lights of the cabin snapped on and Father Billy called out to them.

“Faith and Maia,” he said, evenly. “I know you’re in here. I’m going to find you within seconds. I don’t expect you to believe me, but if you want to just come clean now, I’d like to talk to you both.”

Faith, tucked in a tight corner, held her breath, unsure what to do. She didn’t believe Father Billy, of course, but it sounded like he believed himself, which gave her pause. Regardless, she stayed perfectly still.

She strained to hear Father Billy’s footfalls, but he had gone still. She wondered if he’d left, but then he appeared in the doorway of the room she was in and she felt her heart leap into her throat.

Faith looked down through the slats of the ceiling as Father Billy turned on the light, which was so close to her face she was momentarily blinded. When she got her eyesight back, she saw that Father Billy wasn’t searching the room, but was on his hands and knees, looking at the floor. In this fashion, Father Billy moved from the doorway, past Cindy’s bed and over to the shelves that Faith had used to climb up into the crawl space and seemed to know exactly where she was as if he’d acquired the abilities of a bloodhound and had scented her all the way across the room. He looked from the shelves all the way up to the slats in the ceiling and Faith realized he was looking straight up at her.

But that’s when Faith looked down at her feet and saw it: mud.

In their haste, Faith and Maia had left an easy-to-follow trail leading directly to their hiding spots. Faith held her breath, imagining that the next sound she heard would be Father Billy rapidly ascending the shelves, pushing aside the crawl space door and yanking her to her death, kicking and screaming. Her whole body went cool with dread.

But then Father Billy did a strange thing. Still eyeing the ceiling, he let a wry sort of smile cross his face and reached into his pocket where he withdrew something long and shiny – one of the nails – and set it on the bed. He looked back up to Faith, but then turned and walked out of the room without a word.

Faith focused on the object on the bed, unsure what it was, though it looked like some kind of oversized tent spike. Why would he leave that behind? She didn’t understand, but didn’t plan on asking him any time soon.

Faith waited for a few more seconds, thinking he’d be coming right back, but then heard a horrifying shriek coming from the other room.

Maia.

Faith leapt into action, kicking through the crawl space door and scrambling down the shelves leading to the floor. She was halfway to the doorway when she stopped, looked back at the nail and went to pick it up. With it clutched in her fist, she ran into the living room.

“FAITH!” Maia screamed the second she saw her friend enter. “Run!!”

Faith looked at Maia and saw that she was being held tightly by Father Billy, who had one of the other nails at her throat. Maia looked terrified, like how she had been not even an hour before when she’d rushed to Cabin 6 to tell Faith what she’d seen in the screened-in classroom.

“He’s going to kill me,” Maia whimpered. “You have to do what we said. You have to run!”

“Father Billy, don’t...,” Faith whispered, beseechingly. “Please. Please.”

“Faith, but it’s already been a long, long day of too much talk,” Father Billy said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

With that, he raised the nail and drove it directly into Maia’s chest.

Maia exhaled as if punched, her breath tinged with a blood-red mist indicating a punctured lung. an expanding splotch of blood swelled around the deeply embedded nail and soaked the t-shirt she’d thrown on after discarding her bikini back at the cabin. It was the one Faith had first seen her in, the one with the frog and “Rome” written over it.

Father Billy turned and let her sink gently back onto a nearby chair, extracting the bloody nail as he did, leaving a ragged, gaping wound.

“NO!!!” screamed Faith, eyes exploding with tears. She raced to Maia’s side, throwing her arms around her friend. “Oh, God, no, please, please, no, no, no...”

Faith looked into Maia’s eyes, which were already rolling back into her head. She grabbed Maia’s face, trying to focus the girl’s gaze.

“Look at me, Maia, please,” said Faith. “Stay with me. Please. Please, Maia. I love you. Please, just... God, let her stay with me. I can’t live without this person. Just this one... please...”

Her last “please” was in a tone so hushed that Father Billy could barely hear it. He was almost embarrassed by the sound, as if eavesdropping on someone’s loneliest prayer.

“Faith?” he said, touching her shoulder.

“Fuck you!” she roared, batting him away. “Fuck you!!”

She turned back to Maia and, for a quick second, it looked as if Maia was staring right back at her.

“Hey,” Faith whispered gently. “I’m here. Talk to me. Please, honey. Talk to me. I love you...”

But the fluid that was building up in Maia’s brain chose that moment to flood over, pushing blood out through Maia’s eye sockets and tear ducts. Father Billy had driven the nail through her breastbone, directly into her heart. She’d been alive for maybe a second after it had pierced her skin, but was gone by the time Faith had reached her side.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...,” whispered Faith, holding Maia tighter and tighter as she sobbed, her lips curling back and body quaking as her hands dug into Maia’s hair and pulled her close. “No, no, no, no, no...”

Faith cradled Maia for a long time and cried, Maia’s blood soaking Faith’s clothes. Faith didn’t make a sound, not really anyway, but shook every few seconds or so as her tears kept coming.

When she finally went still, Father Billy spoke.

“Faith, I know you’re angry and that’s anger I needed to create...,” he began.

Faith whipped around, her face filled with fury.

“You evil bastard. You sick, mean man. She was all I wanted out of the whole wide world.”

Father Billy was shaken by Faith’s words and was surprised to feel tears rising behind his eyes, so startled was he by her passionate and emotional outburst. He reached out to her, but she batted his hand away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, meaninglessly.

“Fuck you!”

Without another word, he walked over and picked up the nail that she’d dropped to the floor when he stabbed Maia and placed it next to her hand. She looked down at it, then back to Father Billy, incredulous.

“I need you to kill me,” Father Billy said haltingly. “I wanted to give you the anger you’d need to do it with supreme justification.”

“You what?” Faith cried, incredulous.

“It’s for God,” Father Billy said. “You have to do this to punish me. For God. He’ll forgive you. It’s righteous vengeance.”

Faith looked down at the nail and certainly considered it for a moment. She couldn’t believe Maia was dead and the pain was incredible, but she just didn’t have it in herself to pick the nail up.

“You’re going to have to kill me, too,” she said, finally. “I’m not going to do it. You started this, you finish it. I don’t care. I just want to be with my friend and if not here, then in Heaven.”

Father Billy hesitated, but then rose to his feet. He didn’t know what to do next. God had obviously continued to outmaneuver him and killing Faith would do absolutely nothing. He turned to head out of the cabin, no idea where to go next. He was a man alone and he’d never felt the impact of that greater than in that moment.

“Wait, I need your help,” came Faith’s voice from behind him.

Father Billy turned, surprised to see Faith looking back at him, however miserable.

“I just don’t want her to be... you know, another number when the police and everybody get here. She wouldn’t want to be found that way. Help me. Please?”

It took some doing as Faith was exhausted and dehydrated, but she and Father Billy finally made it all the way out to the dock carrying Maia’s body.

“What now?” Father Billy said, gently lowering the corpse onto the end.

As an answer, Faith kicked off her shoes and stripped down to her underwear.

“We’re not done,” she replied and climbed into the still, moonlit lake. The water was cool, made more so by the rain and vestigial breeze, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Father Billy realized what was required of him and kicked off his boots and clothes as well before following Faith into the water. Together, they gently lifted Maia off the edge of the dock and brought her into the lake. Once there, she was light as a feather and Faith was able to carry her more by herself, though Father Billy helped steady the body.

“Come on,” she said bluntly, beginning to swim Maia out towards the diving platform.

Father Billy nodded and swam along.

It had turned into a gorgeous night, the ink black lake sparkling under the moon, a vast array of stars blanketing the sky, the kind of astronomer’s dream you only get far removed from city lights. Faith made the mistake of looking down at one point and saw a brilliant constellation, Cassiopeia, reflected in Maia’s half-opened eyes. The sight made her gasp and choke with tears all over again, but she fought back the tears and kept going.

It took them ten minutes to get all the way out to the floating platform. Once there, Father Billy began lifting Maia out of the water, but Faith merely shook her head.

“No. She stays in the water.”

Father Billy nodded simply and moved to hang onto the platform while Faith took Maia’s body and swam a few feet away. It wasn’t hard for the priest to imagine the two as dancers, playing out some beautiful, barely-lit pas de deux under the watchful eye of the moon as Faith moved her friend in a long, arcing circle through the water. One last time, Faith drew Maia near and leaned forward, kissing her gently on the lips.

“I’ll always love you,” she whispered. “Forever and ever.”

With grim finality, Faith let Maia’s body go and it soon sank a few inches below the surface, her face still visible. Her shoes weighed her down, but didn’t sink her. As Faith watched, the waves slowly began to carry Maia away and under, the glow of her body quickly receding. Faith closed her eyes tight, burning the image into her memory.

After a moment, Faith turned and swam back to the diving platform. Father Billy was still there, treading water as he bobbed up and down with the tide. He stared at her, trying to read her face, but seeing only darkness where her eyes might be.

“Faith...,” he began, but was suddenly cut off by a horrific, piercing pain that exploded from his torso.

“Oh, God!!” he croaked.

He reached down and felt the nail that Faith had just driven into his belly and left there. His hands came up lubricated with blood and he looked at her, staggered with shock.

“That wound won’t kill you,” Faith said evenly, hushed to the point of a whisper. “But you can let it by staying here in the water. You’ll eventually lose consciousness and, though it’ll be the water that killed you, I’ll still be your murderer in the eyes of God and, in your version of things, I’d still go straight to Hell for it.”

Father Billy wanted to cry out, his face twisted in pain, but Faith gave him a hard stare and silenced his groans.

“But if you were to, say, swim for awhile, exert and exhaust yourself, bleed out even more quickly, then slip under the waves and drown, that’d be your doing, no?” Faith postulated. “You’d be actively bringing about your own death, a suicide. Then, you’d have saved me from Hell in the process, no? It’s a choice, like everything. That’s why it’s a real test.”

Faith went quiet, staring at Father Billy as both of them wondered which he would choose. Finally and without another word, she turned and swam back to shore, leaving the priest alone in the lake, his features paling in the moonlight.

It took Mark and Phil much of the night to make it down the highway all the way to the exit that led to Camp Easley on bicycles. It had been a long, grueling marathon in the dark, often lit only by the moon or the headlights of oncoming cars. They kept their bikes far, far off the shoulder, bouncing along in the grass-strewn gravel on the side of the road and even though Phil had printed up a map off the internet to make sure they wouldn’t get lost, they hadn’t had to look at it once.

That said, when they finally got to the exit marked only as 42B, they might’ve missed it as it was backlit by the morning sun newly rising in the east, casting the face of the exit sign in shadow.

But Phil was being guided now more by instinct than road signs and easily made the turn, standing up on his pedals to ascend the ramp up to the small paved road that, down another three miles or so, would connect with a left-hand turn-off at a bent stop sign and take them the final twenty miles to camp.

The two boys knew the last stretch wouldn’t take anywhere near as long as their night ride because not only would they be able to see where they were going, they also wouldn’t be constantly worrying about being struck by cars. They figured, rightly as it turned out, that no one would be along at this hour and they’d have the road to themselves.

A few minutes later, after they made the unmarked turn-off to Camp Easley, Phil’s stomach began filling with a dread that adrenaline had successfully pushed to the side all night. He had wholeheartedly believed that they would find Faith alive, relieving him of his guilt about leaving her in the first place, but what if they didn’t? What if they found Father Billy and he decided that, this time, he was going to kill them?

But then Phil thought, if that was the course, then so be it. He’d decided to return. He could take the consequences, even if that meant he’d soon be staring down at the dead body of the girl he loved.

It wasn’t too far down the dirt road that they began inhaling smoke from the smoldering remains of the short-lived forest fire Father Billy had started the afternoon before.

“What happened here?” Phil whispered, staring at the blackened, fallen trees that suddenly surrounded the road as they bounced over scorched earth.

“I don’t know,” said Mark, taking in the spectacle. “Maybe a lightning-strike fire. The rain seems to have put it out, though.”

That may have been the most logical answer, but somehow, it didn’t ring true to either boy after the events they’d witnessed and they discussed it no further. They continued biking down the road, next coming across the camp’s Jeep, which had been completely gutted by flames.

“Jesus,” exclaimed Mark.

When they saw the bodies on the road behind the Jeep, ones that had fallen early to smoke inhalation, but were subsequently immolated by the fire, Mark hesitated and stopped pedaling.

“This isn’t what we expected, is it?” he asked Phil, fear creeping into his voice. “We don’t know what’s going on. This could be really, really bad.”

Phil, who was checking over the bodies to see if Faith was among them, shook his head.

“Father Billy said that this was Hell, right?” Phil replied glumly. “Where’d you think we were going?”

Mark nodded and they kept heading towards the camp.

Faith was sitting on the end of the dock watching a brilliant sunrise over the far side of the lake. A few low-hanging clouds were being illuminated by the spectacle, which made it almost look like the sky was on fire – a dazzlingly beautiful sight burning a pattern high into the atmosphere. As she stared at it, she thought about Maia and Colorado and the vanquished idea of a life lived alongside each other, a calendar of endless sunrises. Though she was incredibly sad, Faith understood for the first time what people at funerals meant about keeping someone in their heart after they died. Maybe she wasn’t dealing with the death properly or, more likely, wasn’t dealing with it at all yet, but she was able to perfectly imagine what Maia would say about the sunrise, how much she’d enjoy it, how her hair would look reflected in the glow and so forth as if she wasn’t dead, but was, in fact, sitting right beside her.

She had an overwhelming desire to lean over and kiss this hallucination, which she imagined was resting her fingers gently on her hand. But, of course, Maia wasn’t really there and Faith had to fight back the urge to cry.

“Faith...?” a voice said, far away. “Faith?”

Faith ignored this sound and closed her eyes, thinking of Maia. She thought of her first sight of her back on the bus, beginning with her sandals, though Faith now realized she’d probably been staring at her slim, sylphlike ankles. She thought of horsing around in the kitchen, thought of the two of them swimming, thought of the feeling of her arms around her, thought of when she finally let Maia’s body be engulfed in the waves of Lake Carlisle.

Remember, remember, remember, remember, she chanted to herself. Remember her eyes and the taste of her lips. Remember her beautiful hair and her beautiful feet. Remember the curvature of her body pressed tightly into yours...

“Faith!!” the voice – Phil’s – jumped up an octave and she knew she’d been found.

She heard the sounds of two pairs of footsteps.

Remember.

She figured Phil must’ve brought Mark. Mark from band. Mark who she didn’t really like so much, but who had been right about Father Billy.

Remember. Remember.

“Faith!” Phil cried, clambering down the beach and across the dock as Faith got to her feet and turned around. “Faith!”

Phil wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. She could tell he was already crying. She held him back and saw Mark coming up behind him. To her surprise, she saw that Mark was in tears, too. He made it to where the beach met the dock, locked eyes with Faith and the two of them, in that moment, came to an understanding.

After a few more seconds, Faith pulled away from Phil, smiling at him.

“Phil!” she said. “You came back for me.”

“Yeah, we both did,” Phil said.

“Thank you,” she said, putting her hand on his.

“Where’s Father Billy?” Mark called out.

“Gone,” sighed Faith.

“Did you kill him?” Mark asked simply.

Faith didn’t answer immediately, looking from Mark then to Phil then back to Mark.

“I don’t know.”

Mark seemed satisfied with this response and jerked his head back towards the bicycles.

“We should get you the heck out of here.”

Faith heard these three words and, for some reason, a bolt of panic flashed through her body. She couldn’t imagine leaving Maia here all by herself. She knew Maia’s body wasn’t her body anymore, but still, it was all that was left of her and she couldn’t escape the idea that it would be so lonely without her...

“Okay,” Faith said, her voice cracking.

Phil looked at her and knew that Maia was gone, but didn’t say anything. He put his arm around her and walked her back to the two bicycles.

“It’s all about who you trust,” said Mark, picking his bike up. “My handlebars or his?”

Faith feigned a half-smile and walked over to Phil. “Sir?”

“Madam,” he said, holding the bike steady as she climbed on.

Mark smirked, but then stood up on his pedals and pumped them up and down, racing past the screened-in classroom, the mess hall, past the cabins and back to the road. When he saw the old firehouse bell hanging in front of the administrator’s cabin, he slid to a stop, picked up a rock and heaved it at it. It missed, but Mark didn’t care.

“Clang,” he said, dryly, and then pedaled ahead.

Faith closed her eyes as Phil pedaled after Mark, her mind trying to block out the horrific images she now associated with these structures. She knew what was just past the doorstep of Cabin 4, bodies piled upon bodies.

She glanced back towards the lake, but Phil thought she was looking at him and he forced himself to look grimly determined at his task.

“You okay?” he asked, trying to sound like a soldier, unaffected by anything.

“Yeah,” she replied, and then looked over his shoulder at the water.

She thought she’d only take one last glance, but she ended up staring at its blue waters, the white-capped waves lolling up on the shore as the sun rose higher in the sky. She watched it until the lake was obscured by trees, though she knew which direction it was in and kept her eyes fixed there, as if hoping it might make itself visible one more time. When this didn’t happen, she focused on the few colors left of the sunrise, little pinks against the cotton ball clouds, dissipating up into a sheet of perfect blue.

When there was nothing left, she faced forward as the bicycle bounced along through the still-smoldering forest. As they went, two words repeated themselves in her mind like a totem:

Her angel, her Maia. Her angel, her Maia...

Afterword

I wish I remembered more, but I don’t. Names and faces blend together after awhile and junior high yearbooks, church photos and the recollections of others only took me so far. I can say, with all honesty, that Father Billy has stayed with me my whole life thus far and the memories of him, aside from those few days chronicled here, are pleasant. Those of a man who cared deeply about his congregation, who was a great leader to his students and campers in and out of the church (I didn’t mention it in the text, but he was actually the leader of the church’s Boy Scout troop, too, of which I was a member). I will never understand what he came to believe as his final “mission on Earth,” but I hope, in the writing of this, maybe you will.

-Mark Wheaton

Los Angeles

November 22, 2009

Mark Wheaton is a horror screenwriter (Friday the 13th, The Messengers) and graphic novelist (The Cleaners). Sunday Billy Sunday is his first horror novel, having previously published two horror novellas straight-to-Kindle (Last Tuesday, Bones). A print anthology is forthcoming with the additional story, The New Guy.

Cover design & illustration by Rahsan Ekedal

HTML coding for Kindle by Joshua Tallent (http://www.ebookarchitects.com)