“I guess I wasn’t tired as I thought. I’d like to get something to eat. Then if you have time maybe you could show me around.”
“I’d be happy to,” he said, but I could tell he wasn’t thrilled about it. He led me downstairs to the kitchen and asked the cook to give me some food. The cook explained that they were all vegetarians and proved it by serving me a bowl of soup and a sandwich without a gram of animal fat or meat. My sister, Teri would have loved the food, but I don’t think she would have liked being bald.
After I finished choking down the bland food, Thomas took me outside and started showing me around. The first place we went was the CODL garage where Sister Bonita had three white Rolls Royce’s. When I asked Thomas why she needed three identical cars he explained that they had been gifts and she couldn’t sell any of them without insulting one of the donors.
“She told me that the reason she couldn’t take me to Mammoth was because no cars were available,” I said.
Brother Thomas smiled. “The only person who can ride in these cars besides Sister Bonita and Sister Amanda is their driver.”
“Amanda?”
“Sister Bonita’s daughter.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I met her.”
He looked surprised. “What a great honor,” he said, solemnly.
I shrugged my shoulders. “How long has Am... Amanda been here?”
“She’s always been here,” Thomas said.
Now it was my turn to look surprised. “You mean you saw her here when she was a baby?”
“No one laid eyes on her as an infant,” he said. “Sister Bonita kept her isolated.”
“Why?”
“Because it was prophesied that the Chosen One would not be looked upon until her forth year.”
How convenient, I thought. “Chosen for what?” I asked.
“To lead the Children of Divine Light after the great calamity.”
“Isn’t Sister Bonita the leader?”.
“Of course. But when she passes on she’ll be succeeded by her blood daughter, Sister Amanda.”
“And what’s this great calamity supposed to be?”
Instead of answering he smiled mysteriously. I figured he didn’t have an answer to this and I was tempted to give him my theories on the subject, which had to do with Bonita getting busted for kidnapping.
“Would you like to see our airport?” He asked, changing the subject.
“Airport?”
“Come.”
We walked across the yard to the entrance. Brother Thomas mumbled something into his radio and the gate swung open.
“Do you always keep this gate locked?” I asked.
“Yes. Except during the evening services.”
I filed that away for later use and followed him along a wooded trail to another large clearing. In the middle of it was a long, paved runway. He took me into the hanger and showed me CODL’s white Lear jet and a helicopter, which he said was used for patrolling their property.
I had wondered how they had gotten Belinda out of town without anyone seeing her. Now I knew. They simply flew her here in the private jet and probably snuck her into the main house at night so no one would see her.
Airports keep records of when planes come and go. If we could prove that Bonita’s jet took off from the airport on the day that Belinda disappeared it might be enough to nail her. If I figured a way out of here, that might be something I could use.
The Grand Tour
~
Over the next several hours I learned more about the Children of Divine Light then I really wanted to know.
Thomas told me that the colored belts represented different levels of enlightenment—black being the lowest rank and white being the highest. Apparently Bonita interviewed each member every few months and decided what color of belt they could wear. Thomas wore a light blue belt, so I figured that in addition to being a guard, he was also one of the higher ranking priests.
“What about the guys who picked me up?” I asked. “They weren’t wearing robes.”
“They’re CODL employees,” he explained. “We need a certain number of support staff to help us deal with the outside world.”
“Why did you choose Montana?”
“The location was revealed to Sister Bonita in a divine revelation. She was told to come here and train a few chosen followers and their children as priests.”
He went on to explain that CODL had thousands of followers all over the world, but only the most devout were invited to enter the priesthood. And if you wanted to become a priest it was also helpful if you had a child under the age of five that could be trained. I figured that’s why Bonita had kidnapped Belinda. She didn’t have a kid of her own and she wanted a successor who was related to her.
As far as I could tell, all you had to do to become a non-priest member of CODL was to give them a lot of money. This bought you a place on what Brother Thomas called, The Sacred Scroll.
“What sacred scroll?” I asked.
“i’ll show you.” He led me to an area outside the compound that was surrounded by a chain-link fence. Inside, buried in the ground, was a huge concrete building half the size of a football field
“This is our shelter,” he said, proudly. “When the calamity comes only those on The Sacred Scroll will be allowed to enter. There are five stories beneath the ground and we have enough supplies to last us for years.”
“How many CODL priests are there?” I asked.
“We have two hundred in residence here, but there are a thousand priests worldwide.”
“You mean there are other camps?”
“We have a half dozen camps in different countries. This is the only camp in the United States.”
“And Sister Bonita is in charge of all of them?”
He nodded and looked up at the sky. “It’s getting dark. We should probably get back. Our evening service will be starting soon.”
The whole time Thomas was showing me around I was looking for an opportunity to spray him with bear repellent and run away, but I never got the chance. Wherever we went there were people around. And the later it got the more people there seemed to be.
We left the shelter and followed a path to the main house. The priests were beginning to gather outside the fence, sitting in groups divided by belt color. The kids sat towards the back. Standing in front of each group of kids was an adult carrying a stick.
“What’s with the sticks?” I asked, as we made our way through the crowd.
“Those are correction rods,” he stated simply.
“You mean you hit the kids with them?”
“No, we correct them. Spare the rod, spoil the child is our philosophy. There is much for the children to learn and we have very little time until the end. Discipline is absolutely necessary.”
Now I understood why the kids acted the way they did when their leader had banged the stick on the ground. And why Belinda obeyed Bonita so quickly when her aunt got angry with her. The kids were terrified. Correcting the children with sticks was wrong. If they beat the kids with sticks, what would they do to me if they found the photograph?
As we stood in front of the gate the priests raised their hands and looked toward the house. They began chanting. I followed their gaze and saw Bonita and Belinda standing on the balcony looking down at the crowd.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re preparing for our service,” Thomas said.
Before I knew what was happening the gate opened and he ushered me through the entrance. As soon as we were inside two priests ran over to us and took Brother Thomas to the side to talk to him. I knew something was wrong. I turned and looked at the gate, but it had already swung shut.
When I turned back, the three men were staring at me and they didn’t look happy.
Thomas was holding a photograph in his right hand.
Locked Up
~
They hurried me into the house and up to my room. I thought about using the bear repe
llent, but if I was lucky enough to get all three of them, where would I go? There were a couple hundred people in front of the house, to say nothing of the guards in the towers.
Thomas shoved me onto the bed. “Where did you get this photograph?”.
I didn’t answer him. I needed time to think.
“Where did you get the photo of Sister Amanda?” He repeated.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It was in your shirt pocket,” Thomas said. “No one is allowed to have photos of the Chosen One.”
“Well, I don’t know how it got in my shirt. I’ve never seen it before!”
“The only way he could have gotten the photo was to steal it from Sister Amanda’s living quarters,” one of the other men said.
“How could that be?” I protested. “I haven’t been alone since I got here!”
All three men stared at me. They didn’t seem to have an answer for this.
“And in the photograph, Belinda has hair,” I added. “How do you explain that?”
The two men with Brother Thomas looked confused. And for a moment I thought I might be able to convince them that Belinda wasn’t Sister Bonita’s daughter.
Thomas smiled. “The explanation is simple,” he said calmly. “Sister Bonita took the chosen one’s hair only recently.”
The two men nodded as if that was the most reasonable answer in the world. So much for convincing them that Amanda was Belinda.
Thomas walked over to the window and looked out.
“The service is about ready to start,” he said, turning to the other two men.
“What should we do?” One of them asked Thomas.
“Does Sister Bonita know about the photo?”
The men shook their heads.
“In that case, it will have to wait. I’ll talk to her after the service. She’ll know what to do.”
He was right, I thought. Bonita would know exactly what to do. As soon as she saw the photo she would probably have me killed.
“We’ll leave him in the room,” Thomas said. “I want one of you to stand watch outside his door.”
They started to leave.
“Hey, wait a second!” I yelled.
Brother Thomas paused and looked at me. “It’ll be over soon,” he said, closing the door behind him.
I didn’t like his parting words and I had a feeling that he knew that Belinda wasn’t Bonita’s daughter. When I asked him earlier if he’d seen Belinda when she was a baby, he hadn’t really answered me. Bonita must have had help kidnapping Belinda and it made sense that Thomas and others close to Bonita knew about it.
I looked out the window. It was almost dark now and the priests were filing through the open gate. The children’s groups had split up and each kid was holding hands with an adult as they walked into the auditorium.
I got my bear repellent out and walked over to the door. I took hold of the knob. On the count of three, I told myself. One, two, three... I jerked on the knob and almost tore my arm out of it’s socket—the door was locked.
“Stay away from the door!” The guard shouted from the other side.
So much for Plan A, I thought, and went over to the window to take a look at Plan B.
Outside, the gate was closed and everyone was in the auditorium except for the guards in the towers. I quietly opened the window and looked down. It was about a thirty foot drop. If I climbed out the window and dangled by my arms I could probably cut the fall by six feet, but that wouldn’t be enough to prevent me from breaking every bone in my body when I landed.
I went to the closet and grabbed the CODL belts hanging above the pack. There were four belts. I tied them together and had a makeshift rope about seven feet long. If I tied it near the window I’d knock off another six feet and have a decent chance of hitting the ground without killing myself.
Unfortunately there wasn’t any place to tie the rope! I spent fifteen frantic minutes trying to figure out how to solve this dilemma, but it was no use. It wasn’t going to work.
Plan C. I didn’t have a Plan C!
I sat on the edge of the bed in the dark, breathing deeply, trying to stop thinking about what might happen when the service was over...
I hear footsteps coming down the hall. The door opens and Brother Thomas and the other two thugs in white rush in and kill me. They take my body into the wilderness and dump it off a cliff so it looks like an accident. Bonita and Belinda take off in the Lear jet...
It would be that simple. The police would investigate, and they might even figure out what really happened and catch them, but what good would that do me?
I went back over to the window and looked down. Considering the alternative of certain death, the drop didn’t look as bad as it had a few minutes earlier. But there was one slight detail I hadn’t considered. If I got lucky and landed without breaking anything, how would I get out of the compound?
A white robe, I thought. Of course! After I made the jump all I’d have to do is to hide until the service was over, then walk through the gate with the other priests. By the time Brother Thomas discovered I was gone I would be well on my way to Mammoth Hot Springs.
I grabbed a robe out of the closet, took it into the bathroom, and pulled it over my clothes. When I looked in the mirror I noticed a slight problem with the plan. My hair.
I’m not vain and I don’t spend a lot of time looking in mirrors, but one thing that I like about myself is my hair. There had to be a way of getting out of the compound without shaving it off, but I couldn’t think of one, and time was running out.
I wet my hair down and sprayed a pile of shaving cream on top of my head and rubbed the foam into my hair. That was the easy part. I held the disposable razor with a shaky hand for a long time before I gathered enough courage to make the first swipe down the center of my scalp. The result was horrifying and I had to stifle a loud moan so the guard outside the door wouldn’t hear me.
Grimly, one sickening swipe at a time, I scraped the rest off. When I finally finished I wanted to weep. I managed to nick myself several times and had to stick bits of toilet paper on the cuts to stop them from bleeding. Theodore was going to have to do a lot better than a computer for this sacrifice.
I didn’t want Brother Thomas to know I’d shaved my head so I cleaned the hair out of the sink and flushed it down the toilet, then straightened up the bathroom as best as I could.
I went into the other room and dug out my map, compass and flashlight, and stuffed them into my hip pocket. The pack and all the other gear was going to have to stay behind. There was no way to get it out of the compound without giving myself away. I was ready, or as ready as I could get under the circumstances. I walked over to the open window and leaned out, looking for what I hoped would be a soft landing spot.
“What are you doing?” Someone whispered.
The voice startled me so badly that I stood straight up and cracked the back of my bald head on the edge of the open window.
I heard a giggle.
“You’re funny,” the voice whispered.
I looked over to my right and saw Belinda staring at me through the slats of the balcony rail.
Plan C
~
Why wasn’t she at the service with her mother?
“Come over and play with me,” she whispered.
“No,” I whispered back. “Quiet!”
“If you don’t come over here. I’ll come to your room.” She started to leave.
“No! Wait!”
All I needed was for her to skip down the hall and tell the guy outside my door that I had invited her over to play.
She stopped. “Are you going to come over then?” She asked.
I thought about it for a second. The balcony must lead to Bonita’s living quarters where there was probably a phone. I could call for help. The only reason I hadn’t considered the balcony in the first place was that I thought there might be people in the room. If there wasn’t a phone I could always tie th
e belts to the bottom of the balcony rail.
“Are you alone?” I asked.
She nodded. “Mommy’s downstairs talking.”
“And no one else is with you?”
“Nope.”
“All right, Belinda i’ll come over. But you’ll have to give me a few minutes. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Stay right where you are.”
“Okay, I promise.”
“Good.”
I popped back inside and wrapped the belts around my waist. I hoped Belinda was telling the truth about being alone. Now all I had to do was to get to the balcony without falling to my death.
I stuck my head back out the window, relieved to see Belinda still sitting there.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“I’m going to climb over to you,” I whispered back.
“Why don’t you use the door?”
“It’s more fun this way.”
There were two windows between me and the balcony and thirty feet of air between me and the ground. Some fun, I thought.
“You could fall!” Belinda whispered.
“I won’t,” I said confidently, trying to stop my legs from shaking.
I climbed outside and stood on the narrow sill and gripped the top of the window frame above my head. This is stupid, I thought, and started inching my way toward the balcony. It wasn’t bad until I got to the end of the first sill. To get to the next window I had to stretch across a five foot gap. This maneuver was further complicated by the fact that I couldn’t see what I was doing because I had to hug the wall and my robe kept snagging on the rough logs. But I made it. The next window wasn’t any easier, but I managed to get to it without falling. Now all I had to do was get across to the balcony.
Unfortunately, the gap between me and the edge of the balcony was at least ten feet across and there was no way I could stretch that far. I wanted to cry. It looked like there wasn’t any choice but to go back the way I’d come and take my chances dropping from my window. But how would I stop Belinda from running down the hallway and telling the guard?
I turned my head to talk to her and saw that she was gone! I cursed, thinking that she was probably already blabbing to the guard, then I heard a tapping sound. I looked left and right, but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. The tapping came again, only this time it was accompanied by a muffled voice.