part0033

Willa ran up the road after Nicole but could no longer see her. She stopped, breathing heavily, and peered down the side of the house. It was overgrown with weeds and tall grass growing in and around piles of lumber, bricks, and dirt. She could just make out a flattened path where Nicole must have picked her way through. The grass was already springing back up.

Her jaw clenched and her breathing quickened at the deep fear prickling along her skin. “Nicole,” she whispered and started around the side of the house, sweat trickling down the back of her neck.

She froze halfway down at the sound of a loud slap. The sound came again—a sharp smack, and again, coming faster now. Her heart thundered in her ears as she hurried along toward the back of the house.

She rounded the corner at a run and slammed into Nicole who caught her, clamping a hand over her mouth and stifling her scream of surprise. Nicole pulled her up against the rickety shed out of the line of sight of the rest of the yard.

“Shhh.” Nicole’s eyes were wide and intense, boring into Willa’s as she eased her hand from over her mouth.

“What?” Willa whispered, her pulse racing and her mouth dry.

“Look.” Nicole turned Willa’s head to the side and pointed to the back of the yard.

Willa frowned, unsure of what she was seeing. A shirtless man was kneeling on a low wooden bench, his back scored with angry red welts. The slap came again and Willa jumped when the tails of a whip snaked over his shoulder from the front, lashing across his skin.

“Jesus,” Willa breathed. She could hear him now, his voice low and unintelligible with the rumble of words punctuated with a very clear “amen” followed by the jerk of his own arm and another lash.

“What the fuck?” Nicole hissed and took a step out from the side of the shed.

“Nicole, don’t.” Willa reached for her, her arm knocking into the handle of a shovel leaning against the shed and sending it into a pile of bricks with a clatter.

“Who’s there?” The man jumped to his feet and grabbed his shirt, dragging it over his head and turning around. “Who the hell are you?” He took a step toward Nicole, his eyes narrowing, then widening in shock. His trembling hand made the sign of the cross over his chest.

“James?” Willa took a breath when she recognized him and stepped out to stand with Nicole. “James, I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to frighten you,” Willa said and plastered a smile to her face amazed at how calm her voice sounded when she felt anything but.

James’s eyes flicked to her as he approached and stared in recognition. “Willa Dunn?”

“Yes, hello.” Willa stepped forward, placing herself between him and Nicole who didn’t yet seem able to move. “How are you?”

“What are you doing here?” He looked between them both suspiciously and nodded toward Nicole. “Who is she?”

“This is my sister, Nicole. She thought she saw someone she knew come back here and she was just trying to catch up with them. We didn’t mean to intrude.”

He stood in front of them, finally. He looked far older than the forty some odd years he would be if he really had been high school age when she knew him twenty-five years ago. She had always suspected he was older, at least by five years.

She allowed her gaze a quick assessment. He was sinewy looking, his skin leathery and his hands battered from years of manual labor and he wore a large knife in a leather sheath at his hip—like his father. He needed a shave and his hair was thinning and unkempt, his eyes watery and lines of age and worry around his face deep. “Someone who?” he asked warily, staring pointedly at Nicole.

“Uh, um, a little girl,” Nicole stammered. “I don’t know her name.”

“No little girl here.”

“I saw her come back—”

“Nic.” Willa shook her head sharply. “Sorry, James, we’ll just go.”

He blinked then, as if seeing them for the first time. “Willa, it’s good to see you. Did you want to say hello to Leah?”

Willa took a step back. “No, that’s okay, maybe another—”

A loud, piercing, metal screech came from nearby.

“Jesus Christ!” Nicole shrieked and spun around.

Leah Earl stepped out from the side of the house, pulling an old rusted wagon filled with dirt. “Hello, Willa. I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Christ, Leah,” Willa gasped. “You scared us.”

“You’re taking the Lord’s name in vain,” Leah commented woodenly, her gaze focused on Nicole. “I know you.”

“No you don’t,” Nicole said.

“This is my sister,” Willa said.

“Your sister? Not the one that died.”

Nicole breathed a hysterical laugh. “Yeah, that one. Boo!”

“Uh, no.” Willa tried to fix her smile back in place but could feel the tension in her face. Leah was skeletally thin, a pale, worn sundress hanging off her and her hair hanging limply. “This is my sister, Nicole.”

Leah nodded. “Okay.”

Willa moved around Leah and grabbed Nicole’s hand, backing up and pulling her along. “We should get going. It was, uh, great to see you two.” She stopped trying to be polite and turned, hurrying them back to the road. She looked back over her shoulder as she went, wincing at the painfully loud squeak of the wagon wheel.

Betty Sims was standing on the road watching for them, worried. “There you are,” she said with relief when they hurried past her house. “Is everything all right, girls?”

“Yes, thanks, Betty.” Willa waved without slowing. She had had enough weirdness for one day.

“I’ll be right in.” Willa stopped in the kitchen and waved Nicole into the front room, having made it back to the cabin without running into anyone else.

“Holy shit,” Nicole groaned. “Why do I just feel like we just met the Peacocks?”

“Who are the Peacocks?” Willa asked over her banging of cupboards.

“You going to tell me you never watched The X-Files ?”

“No, I did.” Willa joined her with a bottle of wine and two glasses. “Oh, I get it. You mean from that inbreeding episode. It’s funny you should mention that ’cause that was kind of the rumor back in the day.” She held a glass out to Nicole. “I know it’s early but I need a drink. I guessed you could use one, too.”

“Thanks. That shook you up, huh?”

“Yes.” Willa poured for them both and settled at the table. “Didn’t it, you?”

“Yeah, that was fucked up.” Nicole sighed and took a huge swallow of wine. “Why would someone do that to themselves? Whip themselves like that?”

“I don’t know. Penance, I guess.”

Willa didn’t have an answer and opened her laptop, frowning at her trembling hands.

“What are you doing?”

She sat staring at her screen, hands poised over the keyboard. “I don’t even know. I was thinking maybe the Internet had some answers but I’m not sure of the questions.”

“The Internet does know everything. Bring it over here.”

Willa picked up her glass and laptop and relocated to the sofa. She was more than happy to let Nicole take the laptop from her and she sat back, clutching her wineglass after draining half of it, letting the alcohol ease the tension in her chest.

“What were their names?” Nicole asked.

“James and Leah Earl. Their parents were Benjamin and Diana. I think they were from Latham.”

“Huh. I didn’t think it possible that people have no online presence, but here we are.”

“I’m not surprised about that at all. They were, or are apparently, devoutly religious in an archaic kind of way.”

“Okay, moving on.” Nicole tapped away again. “David Osterhouse, forty-one, married to Harmony, two kids, blah, blah, blah, we already know all this. Facebook says they’re Disney nuts. David sells luxury cars—thrilling. Harmony is a dental hygienist—super fun times poking around in strangers’ mouths.”

Willa let out a small laugh. “That all sounds utterly predictable.”

“Oh, my.” Nicole spun the laptop to face Willa. “Check out the grieving fiancée.”

Willa stared at the not safe for work photo of Dawn Wilkins. “Is that a Tinder profile?”

“Yup. Last active three days ago.”

“Huh. Anything else?”

Nicole clicked around again for a few minutes. “Oh, man, is that Lee? She looks so young—and pissed.”

Willa jerked the laptop from Nicole, studying the photos posted by local news organizations from ten years before about the opening of Camp Prism and the backlash it caused in the surrounding communities with the “family values” people. Lee was coming down the steps of a small courthouse, her face like stone. Willa could feel her tension. Out of focus in the background were several people, faces twisted in rage and fists raised in threat.

“Oh, my god, Lee.”

All the recent stories regarding Forestlands Lake surrounded the fight around Camp Prism. Lee’s name was mentioned often as were the members of her board of directors. It sickened Willa to read what Lee went through and how hard she had to fight for her kids to have a safe place to just be kids. Willa slammed the laptop closed, grinding her teeth and breathing heavily.