The fog clears not long after we’ve left Sacramento, but the sky stays overcast. The road we’re on is wide and winding, with acres of open space on either side. It’s not long before we see signs pointing us in the direction of San Francisco and Point Reyes. Beside me, driving, Peter is fidgety and distracted. I know he still believes we’ll find his father at the end of this road, and he has just as much a right as me to try. I reach over and take his hand into mine. Behind me, I hear the telltale rattle of Harp’s bottle of Xanax. None of us quite know what to expect from this—I wonder if for Peter and Harp, as for me, the worst-case scenario would be nothing at all.
The road we take from Sacramento leads, after two hours, directly into Point Reyes Station, a town thoroughly abandoned. The buildings are short and squat and empty; some of them have charred-looking roofs and front porches, as though the people in them were burned out. We pass the barber shop Goliath told us about—the windows are all smashed in, and like Harp’s old house in Pittsburgh, the word “SIN” has been spray-painted across the front door.
It’s past noon by the time we finally find ourselves on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. The road is long and winding and narrow, surrounded by dense trees on both sides. This is the point where our information just stops. We don’t know how far onto the road we need to travel, or how deep into the forest we must venture once we do. I don’t even know what we’re looking for. I stare into the trees as we pass, thinking I’ll see—what? I look for lights, for smoke, for signs of movement. Any sign or symbol that would indicate we aren’t the only ones here. Eventually and accidentally, we get off the road, and onto one that brings us a bit south. This road is thin and seemingly untraveled, and the forest on either side is taller and more menacing. About half an hour into our drive we have to stop, because a fallen tree lies across the road, blocking us from driving further. The three of us leave the car to examine it.
“I didn’t see any ‘Welcome to the Church of America’s Secret Headquarters billboards,” Peter says. His voice is light, but he looks disappointed. “Did you?”
“Is this hopeless?” I ask. “This place is huge. How are we supposed to find a hidden compound in it?”
“It couldn’t be that secluded,” Harp says, “because Frick had to have been able to find it. And he was, like, really old, and possibly senile.”
Peter nods and climbs over some branches and piles of leaves to the base of the fallen tree. “Also,” he calls out, “this has been sawed down. It didn’t fall naturally. I think this might be a good sign—a secret security fence. We should keep going on foot.”
Harp fills a bag with water bottles and food from Wambaugh’s cooler, and I grab the sledgehammer from the trunk—just in case. We climb over the tree and continue down the road beyond, which becomes even more overgrown and impenetrable; the grass is up to our knees. But it doesn’t seem wild enough for an abandoned road—on the contrary, the grass is lush and green and level as far as we can see. There’s an eerie calm all around us. I can’t hear anything, not the chirping of birds or the distant highway, not even the wind rustling in the trees. Something weird is happening in this forest. Something artificial. Above all, I have this funny feeling that the three of us are being watched.
We walk slowly, for well over an hour, scouting everything in our immediate vicinity for signs of life. We stop by a creek to eat our sandwiches, but my stomach is in knots and Peter’s hands are shaking. Harp takes a bite of hers and then wraps it back up in its plastic bag. While we’re sitting there, the sun comes out, peeking down through the canopy of leaves, but that just reminds me that it won’t be long until it sets. We continue forward, but I can’t stop thinking about the approaching night. We don’t have a tent; we don’t have blankets; we don’t have much food. We assume that at some point we’ll have to leave the road and trek into the forest—but when will that be? What if we’ve already passed it? What if we never find it? I am more frightened now than I have ever been in the presence of Believers. Believers are just people—I know what they are and what kind of danger they pose. This forest is different, though, and unknown. I worry that it will swallow us whole.
“Maybe we should turn around?” says Peter after another hour. He’s taken off his hoodie and slung it over his shoulder; the hair on the back of his neck is wet with sweat. Harp slaps bugs off her arms. I’m trying to catch my breath. “I feel like we should have passed it by now.”
“Maybe we have,” I say. My throat feels tight and the words come out in gasps. “Or maybe it’s still ahead. We could keep going and have missed it, or turn around and never see it.”
“Viv?”
I feel the dread rising in my lungs like smoke. I’m choking back tears. “We’re never going to find it. It’s hidden for a reason; it’s hidden from people like us.”
“We’ll find it,” says Peter. He reaches to pull me into a hug. “We’re not in any rush.”
“We are in a rush,” I yell, pushing him away. “The world’s going to end in three months, and we’re going to still be in this forest, rationing bites of Wambaugh’s sandwiches, looking for a secret place that might not even exist!”
“Uh … guys?” Harp says softly. She’s wandered a few steps off the road and stands between two slim white trees. “I don’t want to interrupt Viv’s nervous breakdown or anything, but you don’t think this could be a sign of anything, do you?”
We join her at the side of the road and look down. There, in the mat of dead leaves that makes up the forest floor, are six smooth white stones—four make a vertical line that ends at Harp’s feet, and the other two lie on either side, turning the arrangement into a unmistakable cross. Harp points, several yards further into the forest, where another stone cross lies. When we look straight ahead into the trees, we can see another, and another, forming a path that leads to a point outside our line of sight.
“Holy shit,” Peter whispers.
“I’m going to get credit for this, right?” Harp says giddily. “Like, when we all look back on this moment, you’re going to say, ‘And it was Harp who had the clear thinking to notice the path of crosses in the trees?’”
“You will get so much credit.” Peter grabs her and hugs her with one arm. “I will personally ensure that those are the exact words engraved on your tombstone.”
My best friends look at me. My face is still wet with tears. I take a step forward and put one arm around Harp and the other around Peter, turning us into a proper triangle.
“I’m sorry, guys,” I say at the ground. “I got scared.”
“It’s okay, Viv,” says Peter. “That’s pretty understandable.”
“Totes,” says Harp brightly. “Now can we go find this motherfucking compound?”
We follow the crosses deeper and deeper into the forest. At first they’re maybe three or four yards apart, but as we get further, more and more space lies between them, so that we’ll pass one and have to keep walking uncertainly for a few minutes before another appears to assure us we’re still on the right path. More than once we have to stop and recalibrate by moving back to the last cross and starting again. Once we’re fairly deep into the forest, the crosses curve abruptly to the right, taking us several miles south and east, until I imagine we can’t be too far from where we left the car. Nobody speaks. Each time we see a new cross, one of us points to acknowledge it, and we trudge on. All joking and talking has stopped; I don’t hold Peter’s hand or link arms with Harp. Dusk begins to fall, but I’m not scared of the dark anymore. I know we’re being led to the end of our journey, and even though I don’t know yet what that entails, there’s a sense of relief in its drawing nearer.
It’s becoming harder to see Peter and Harp in the dark, and the last cross we passed had to have been up to ten minutes ago, when all of the sudden the trees clear abruptly. In the dark, it’s hard to make out just how big it is, but in front of us looms a large, beautiful wooden building, like a hunting lodge or a really wealthy person’s version of a log cabin. We’re still a front lawn’s distance from it, and the forest floor in front of the lodge has been cleared of leaves and branches. There’s a small garden of nearly life-size stone statues, guarding the lodge like sentinels. Without speaking, the three of us trudge across the fresh, new dirt, to examine them.
Peter takes a quick inhale of breath as we get closer to the first one. “Well,” he says softly. “I guess we’re in the right place?”
Even in the dark, it’s impossible to mistake the statue for anyone but Frick. The sculptor has done a good job of capturing the businessman slick of his hair, each of his individual teeth. He stands with his hands clasped behind his back, staring up at the sky like an old friend. A small plaque at the bottom reads, “Beaton Frick, Prophet and Messiah.”
“Ick,” Harp says.
Even though there’s no light emanating from the building in front of us, all three of us move carefully and quietly, and speak only in whispers. There are a number of additional Frick statues, all portraying him reverently as an obviously holy man. “Frick Receives Divine Inspiration” reads the plaque on the one in which Frick scribbles furiously into a stone notebook, while three genderless winged angels stand behind him, looking down at him lovingly. “Frick Is Shown the Holy Land” depicts the chapter in the Book of Frick where Jesus takes Frick to the Lincoln Memorial, and Lincoln himself steps down to converse with them. Frick looks concerned and determined in this one, gesticulating his mouth open, while Jesus and Lincoln look interested and thoughtful, like they don’t have better things to do. Then there are a number of statues of men in suits, none of whose names I recognize, and whose connection to the Church isn’t explained. When we reach the last statue, Peter makes a quiet angry noise.
The man has thin, smiling lips and crinkled eyes. He stands with chest protruding and his hands on his hips, like a superhero. Behind him is a small group of women, all carved together out of one rock. “Adam Taggart,” the plaque reads, “Enforcer.”
“This is disgusting,” Peter murmurs.
“I guess Frick really, really liked your dad,” I whispered.
Peter shakes his head. “Not that. I mean the women.”
I look again at the women gathered behind Taggart. They’re the only women depicted in this garden of statues, and they are all cartoonishly buxom, wide-hipped. The artist has carved skimpy clothes onto them, so I guess they’re meant to be the Church’s interpretation of prostitutes, which is to say, most women. I take a closer look at their individual faces and am startled by the realistic looks of pain and agony. It’s only then that I realize that stone flames lick their bottom halves. In a circle around the unit of women, the artist has printed the words, “She shall be burnt with fire …” The statue depicts Peter’s father burning a group of women alive.
“This fucking religion,” Harp says.
I can feel my skin pucker with goosebumps, though I’m not at all cold. Now that we’re here, I could not feel more sure we shouldn’t be. I know we came all this way, through violence and hunger and hippies, but if one of my friends suggested that we turn back around at this moment, I would do it so happily. Peter and Harp bound up the steps to the cabin and up to the front door, and I follow. Please let it be locked, I ask the Universe, let us not be able to get in. It’s locked, but Peter doesn’t hesitate. He takes the sledgehammer out of my hands, and uses it to smash in the nearest window. He leans the sledgehammer against the wall and climbs through, then helps Harps and me maneuver around the broken shards. Inside, we stand together in the dark, trying to let our eyes adjust, but the sun has fully set now.
“Is there a light switch?” asks Harp. She feels her way along the wall nearby. “Or do they just use fiery torches, Bible-style?”
“Harp,” I say nervously, “I don’t think it’s a good idea—”
But she finds it, and flicks it, and everything in front of us is suddenly suffused with light.
I forget the sense of anxiety in my gut and gaze around in wonder. The inside of the compound looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. We’re standing in a huge open space, lit by an enormous chandelier that hangs from the high, sloping ceiling. The floors are made of sanded stone; the walls are red wood. It looks like the inside of a magnificent treehouse. Lining the walls are lofted walkways and staircases leading to several floors of doors shut on rooms whose insides I can’t even imagine. Straight in front of us, there’s a huge stone fireplace, and above that a giant, inexplicable movie screen.
“This is really nice,” Harp says in naked admiration. Peter and I look at her. “Well, isn’t it? It’s like a fancy hotel in the woods.”
“The Church of America is a multimillion-dollar corporation,” Peter reminds her. “Frick was super-rich.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Did he live here?”
“I thought so,” Peter says, wandering off to examine what looks like a small office behind a panel of glass, “but this seems like more than that. What are all these rooms?”
Harp and I move in the opposite direction, studying the row of doors along the west wall of the building. As we get closer to the last one, we see that there’s a handwritten sign suspended from a nail in the top center. “Ulrich-Zaches,” the sign says. Harp looks at me and I shrug. She tries the door, and it opens.
I walk in first. The room is dark, but the light from the chandelier outside reveals three sets of stark-looking bunk beds lining the walls. The beds are tightly made, and there’s nothing on them to indicate that anyone has slept in them recently. I turn and find a mirror hanging on the wall behind me, and a small writing desk. There’s no paperwork on the desk, no pens or pencils. It’s like the room is waiting for someone to come and inhabit it. But who? I run my finger across the surface of the desk, and it comes away dark with dust.
“This is creepy,” Harp says. I look up and see that she hasn’t moved from the doorway; her hand is still on the knob. Her face is tense, uneasy. “There’s nothing in here. Let’s move on.”
We return to the main room just as Peter emerges from the office. He’s got the same look on his face that Harp does, only he’s directing it right at me. I feel my palms go clammy.
“There are some empty cubicles in there,” he explains when he reaches us. “A couple of phones, disconnected. But there’s also—Viv, I don’t know that this even means anything.”
“What?”
“There’s a file cabinet. Locked. I tried to jimmy it open, but …” He shakes his head. His blue eyes are wide. “The labels on the drawers have last names on them. A to D, E to J, K to M. The first last name on the first drawer is Apple.”
“Well, that could mean anything,” I say. I can hear the panic in my voice but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything. I feel like my head has disconnected from my body and is floating several feet about us. “That could be just Church records, or—what do you think it means?”
“I don’t know,” Peter says.
“Let’s get out of here now,” Harp says again. “I mean it. I just—I have a bad feeling about this place. I think we need to go. I think we need to find the police.”
“Oh, no point in that,” says a voice behind us. “The sheriff is miles and miles away.”
Harp cries out. We whirl around, and even though I know who and what I will see when I do, I still feel the floor beneath me lose some of its solidity.
He stands now in front of the stone fireplace with a pleasant smile on his lined face, radiating an otherworldliness, a ghostliness. He is tall and commanding and bigger than life.
“Frick,” I whisper.