Rebekka Franck - 03 - Five, Six ... Grab Your Crucifix

  He ate his breakfast consisting of only boiled carrots and oatmeal while studying the new young ones who arrived at the camp just a few days ago. Like all newcomers they looked scared and insecure, trying hard to fit in into this new life that had been given to them. Trying hard to grasp this new chance to start over in life that had been handed to them. Until now they thought they were only supposed to be here for a short period of time, which was what they were told.

  Soren Sejr had recruited the four of them himself.

  He found one in the nightlife of Holbaek right outside of a club, lying drunk on the ground alone, abandoned by his friends who didn’t care enough about him to even help him, leaving him in the hands and fate of complete strangers like Soren Sejr. Soren had talked to him and realized the boy had nowhere to go since his parents had thrown him out and now he stayed with a friend in his apartment but since the friend had found a girl that same night, the young boy had to sleep outside in the freezing cold. Soren had told him he knew a place they could go and get a nice meal and somewhere to sleep for the night. The young boy had said he thought it sounded wonderful and followed Soren Sejr into his van.

  The second youngster he had found among the drug addicts in Copenhagen. He always knew where to look, in a stairway in Vesterbro next to the Central Station. The young kids would sniff glue or take the needles left there by the real drug addicts and take the leftovers in them and inject them in their veins with the risk of getting all kinds of diseases.

  The third was a girl he rescued from the hands of a violent boyfriend. They were arguing in an alley, both of them very drunk and he was slapping her across the face. Soren parked his van and grabbed his baseball bat. Then he rescued the girl by beating the boy senseless.

  He told the girl he would take her to a place where she could meet friends and people like her. Drunk and high, she accepted his invitation not knowing what else to do or where to go. She fell asleep in the backseat immediately after Soren had started the van.

  The last one had been a lot harder to get to go with him in the van. This girl had been quite resistant when he approached her at the train station where she was on her way home after a night in town. Soren sat on the bench next to her and started talking to her, asking her where she was going. She had gotten up and left telling him that it was none of his business and to leave her alone. Soren didn’t like to be too pushy so he stayed in his seat trying to figure out what to do to help this poor girl find the true purpose to her life. She was so beautiful, he thought to himself. So young, with skin so tight and smooth. Her short dress showed her long legs in panty hose and her low-cut shirt revealed her fleshy breasts, so juicy and sensational. Soren loved the young girls the most and even more he loved to help them get away from this horrific world that only wanted to exploit them and use their young bodies. This was his calling in life, to change the course of these youngster’s lives. It was his mission and he adored it, he thought as he approached the young girl from behind with a cloth of chloroform holding it against her face while she struggled to get free. He loved the power, the strength that the good Lord had given him to help these people. He knew that even if they tried to fight him now they would eventually end up loving him. Like a slave learns to love her master. Some day they would thank him for what he had done; thank him for helping them get away from this world and all its atrocities.

  Yes Soren Sejr was a happy man this morning, happy because he was alive and no one else had died last night, and happy because this was the day when he started training his new recruits. Today was the day he started shaping them into real servants of God.

  Chapter 32

  Sune let me sleep in the next morning and took care of the kids. I heard them downstairs but still managed to get an hour or so more of sleep. Around eleven the kids couldn’t keep out any longer and came into my room.

  “Mom? Are you still sleeping?” Julie whispered.

  “Not anymore,” I said and opened my eyes. I smiled when I looked into her deep blue eyes. Then I grabbed her and pulled her into the bed where I started tickling her.

  “Stop!” she laughed.

  Then I kissed her and held her tight. “Grandpa is better,” I said. “He woke up yesterday and talked to me. Do you want to go with me to the hospital today and see him? I think he would like that.”

  Julie’s eyes smiled. Then she nodded. “I miss him, Mom.”

  I sighed and kissed her again. “Me too sweetie. Me too.”

  “His breakfast is better than Sune’s.”

  I laughed. “What did he give you?”

  “He tried to make oatmeal but it tasted horrible. I had some cornflakes instead,” Julie said.

  I chuckled. “I could go for one of his big breakfasts right now. I’m starving.”

  I had a bowl of cornflakes when I got downstairs and ate it while letting my mind wander. Sune grabbed another cup of coffee and sat at the table while reading the newspaper.

  I looked at him and felt suddenly emotional. “I’m scared, Sune,” I whispered.

  He put down the paper. “Of what?” He said.

  “That woman dying. I’m not sure how to live with myself if she dies.”

  He reached out and grabbed my hand. “She’ll be okay.”

  “I keep thinking about her and wondering where she came from, who she was. They said she didn’t have any papers or even a wallet. Who walks around in the middle of the forest on a snowy night without anything, not even a jacket?”

  “Sounds weird to me too,” he said and sipped his coffee. “Maybe she is a psychiatric patient? Maybe she escaped from somewhere?”

  I nodded pensively. “Or maybe she was running from something.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sune asked.

  “I might be. If you’re thinking she came from the camp. I was driving right past it at the moment. I didn’t see what direction she came from, but she could have come from up there.”

  “That was exactly what I was thinking,” Sune said.

  “She had also ripped her arms and legs on barbed wire, the doctor told me. Sounds like she climbed the fence.” I felt a pinch in my stomach. “She was sick,” I continued. “She was throwing up. Wasn’t that what the Priest was doing before he died? According to the statements we read he was vomiting blood. So was she.”

  “What about the other guy that died?” Sune said. “According to what I heard on the radio then the police were investigating it like it was some kind of food poisoning.”

  “Could it be some kind of collective suicide pact?” I asked. “Could this woman be trying to escape from it because she didn’t want to do it?”

  Sune shrugged. “Sounds plausible. Lots of sects commit collective suicide. Maybe she regretted it at the final moment.”

  “Isabella Dubois did keep talking like it was the end of the world or something. Like an apocalypse. Maybe they believe that and now they all want to die before the end is coming.”

  “Like the religious group Heaven’s Gate who committed suicide in the late nineties?” Sune asked. “Remember them?”

  “Yes. They killed themselves following the comet Hale-Bopp. Wasn’t it in order to reach some spaceship or something? I don’t remember the details, but you get the picture.”

  Sune nodded. “It could be something like that. Lots of religious sects have done similar things.”

  I finished my bowl of cereal and put it in the dishwasher. “I think we should go to the hospital right away,” I said and wiped my mouth on a paper towel, then finished my glass of orange juice. “I promised Julie to take her to see her granddad today and I really want to talk to Dr. Wad about that woman and make sure she is still alive. I might have to contact the local police as well and tell them my theory. There might be a lot of people in that camp who are forced to participate in this if so it needs to be stopped immediately.”

  I stopped on my way to the living room. Then I turned and looked at Sune.

  “I know,” he said. “You do
n’t have a car. I called the towing company but they have a lot to do today, so they couldn’t promise that they would be able to bring it back today. Maybe tomorrow, they said.”

  “We’ll take a cab then.”

  Chapter 33

  My dad was sitting up in his bed when we entered the room. It made me smile. Julie ran to him with a shriek.

  “Grandpa!” she yelled and hugged him.

  He chuckled and hugged her back. I kissed him on the cheek. “How are you feeling today?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Still a little weak, but definitely better. But enough fussing about me. How are my munchkins?”

  Julie and Tobias looked at each other then they laughed. “Sune made breakfast,” Julie said. “It was really bad. And yesterday he tried to make dinner, pork chops, but he screwed that up too.”

  “Don’t say that Julie,” I said. “It was really nice of Sune to take care of you. Tell him you’re sorry.”

  Julie looked at Sune. “Sorry,” she said.

  Sune smiled. “It’s okay. I’ll try harder.”

  Dad laughed. It felt nice to see him happy again. He had even regained a little color in the cheeks. “It’s nice to know that I have been missed,” he said. “How long do you think I need to lay around here? I really want to get out now.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t talked to the doctor today.”

  “It sounds like you need me at the house, so if you could, tell him I really want to go home today.”

  “I will, Dad. But once we get you home you have to remember to rest too, okay?”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to be really annoying about this,” he said. “I’m not dead yet, you know.”

  “No, but you could have been.”

  Dad ignored my remark and concentrated on the kids. They talked about the snow that hadn’t stopped falling since yesterday. They told him what they had been doing and about the snowman in the yard that was now covered in so much snow they were thinking about making him into an igloo instead. Dad enjoyed listening to them. I looked at Sune.

  “I’ll go talk to the doctor. Be right back,” I whispered.

  “Okay,” Sune said and kissed my cheek.

  “Ew,” Julie exclaimed.

  I shrugged and sighed. Then I left the room. I went into the hallway and found a nurse who didn’t seem to be busy. “Excuse me, do you know where I can find Dr. Philipsen?” I asked.

  “Actually I just saw him attending another patient. If you wait here he’ll be out in just a minute.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  I only had to wait for a few minutes before a door opened and Dr. Philipsen showed his face. He spotted me immediately and as soon as he had talked to a nurse and given her what looked like instructions he walked towards me.

  “Rebekka Franck,” he said. “I just told my secretary to call you a minute ago and tell you to come in.”

  “Well here I am. Hopefully you have good news for me?” I asked with a knot in my stomach fearing that he didn’t. “I mean my dad is already much better. He was sitting up when we came in this morning.”

  “That he is,” Dr. Philipsen said but his face remained serious. A little too serious. It scared me. I couldn’t figure out if that was just his professionalism, this distance, or if he was about to tell me some bad news. I hated that about doctors. You could never read their faces.

  “We’re all very pleased to see his improvement,” he continued.

  “Why do I feel like there is a ‘but’ coming up?” I asked nervously.

  “Because there is,” he said.

  I froze. I really couldn’t bear any more bad news. I was an emotional wreck already.

  “Remember how I told you that the lab needed to run more tests on your father?” he asked looking at me over the top of his glasses. It made me feel like a child standing in front of my teacher.

  “Yes. You told me they detected something unusual in his blood sample that they wanted to look into,” I said my voice trembling slightly. I was already imagining the worst kinds of things that could be wrong with my father.

  “Well yes. They did and I just received the results. I have to say that what they came up with is quite unusual and slightly disturbing.”

  I swallowed hard. What was he saying? Was my dad seriously ill or something? Was this the moment where he told me my dad only had a few months to live? Or maybe just a few weeks?

  Oh please don’t say something like that. Please let it be good news, please.

  “What kind of result?” I managed to ask while a knot of tears was growing in my throat making my breathing troubled. Many thoughts ran through my mind. It doesn’t have to be bad news. He only said it was disturbing and unusual. It doesn’t have to mean he has to die, does it?

  “Well it is quite strange, I might add, but it appears they found small traces of polonium in his blood. It was almost microscopic but still traceable.”

  I stared at the doctor with wide eyes. Had I heard right? “Polonium?” I asked. “Isn’t that some sort of radioactive material?”

  “I’m not an expert on chemistry, but yes it is. Normally, radioactive polonium is almost impossible to detect because - forgive me if I get a little technical here - it does not emit gamma rays. Therefore it doesn’t show up when using gamma ray detectors as you’d normally do in the lab if it is suspected that a patient has been exposed to radioactive material. But someone in the laboratory was clever enough to try and test your dad’s blood for alpha-emitters using special equipment. Apparently the test was positive. What we found in your father’s blood is far below a deadly dosage, keep that in mind. But still enough to be able to cause damage to the tissue and we believe now that it has caused the blood to clot in his leg.”

  I was staring at the doctor in great disbelief. “What are you saying?” I said while shaking my head slowly.

  “That your father somehow has been exposed to a radioactive material. We will need to test you and your family as well to see if any of you have been exposed to this as well. It is very deadly if a person is exposed to polonium in a higher dose than what your dad has been. Especially if it is ingested or inhaled.”

  “But having it in the blood, will that kill him eventually?” I felt my heart racing rapidly now. What the hell was going on here?

  The doctor shook his head. “We don’t believe it will. The dosage is - as I said - very very small.”

  “But you don’t know,” I stated.

  “No. We don’t know the long term effects of this. It might give him other health issues like more blood clots. Radioactive isotopes are absorbed via respiration and with food and water. These very small particles are transported throughout the body via the blood and lymph systems. While in contact with the lining of the vessels – and incidentally the gut – the isotopes cause damage to the cells via release of radiation. Whether that will happen to your father or not, I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. But we need to find the source of this and I have contacted the proper authorities. They will begin an investigation as soon as possible. The center for radiological protection, SIS, will be here soon and will check all of you for any exposure and determine if they need to check the place you live. I believe you’re only here on vacation, right?”

  “Yes,” I said not believing a word the doctor was saying. So much information at once that was hard to comprehend.

  “The authorities need to make sure there hasn’t been a spill somewhere. There is radioactive material in many things in our lives. Like smoke detectors, chemistry labs in our schools and even here in this hospital and so on. Maybe something was spilled into the water around here, if so they need to detect it so no one else is exposed to it.”

  “So what are you telling me?” I asked.

  “We have to keep your dad for a few more days in the hospital and you need to stay here at the hospital too until SIS arrives and tells you what is going to happen. They’ll take it from h
ere.”

  “Do we need to be afraid?”

  Dr. Philipsen exhaled. “I don’t know Rebekka, I honestly don’t know.”

  Chapter 34

  Soren Sejr started with the girl from the railroad station. She had been locked in the isolation room for three days now and it was time to break her. He had been listening to her kick and scream on the other side of the iron door. He knew she would eventually become quiet. They all did sooner or later. This morning as he walked towards the dining hall to eat his breakfast, he realized that the time had come. He hadn’t heard a sound from her room. She had gotten tired and now it was time to start breaking her down.

  There was a fuss at the camp since they realized that one of the church members had gone missing during the night. Mette Grithfeldt, one of the members of the leader group that Soren Sejr was also a member of, had vanished from her room. Rumors went that she had escaped; surveillance cameras had shown her climb the fence ripping her arms and legs on the barbed wire. How she had managed to get out was beyond Soren’s understanding. But he knew that it would only be a matter of hours before the search group found her. They always did.

  Like they had done with Soren Sejr when he tried to escape once. Then she would be punished just like he was. Like it was proper for someone who tried to bail on the rest. They had to be punished, to set an example. At least that was what the Priest had told Soren when he had tried to get out of there.

  Only twenty years old Soren Sejr had first met Anders Granlund at a get together for UFO aficionados in Hamburg, Germany. Anders had brought enlightenment to Soren’s life. He had invited him to his hotel room where he stayed during the convention. They came here every year, he told Soren Sejr. “To find the lost people and bring them back to their purpose in life.” Anders explained that his group believed that people like Soren who were fascinated by UFOs and anything extraterrestrial had “lost their way and needed help to get back on track.” There was nothing wrong with believing in these things or being fascinated by them, he told him, because they didn’t know what they were doing. That was why Anders was there, to teach the lost souls that God wanted them to come back to him, He wanted them to know that it was the devil putting up obstacles - or distractions - so they couldn’t hear God’s voice, God’s guidance in their life. Soren had thought Anders was a nice guy and listened to every word he had told him thinking it made perfect sense. Later he had said goodbye and Anders had given him his card. “Stop by our camp anytime, even if you just need a place to spend the night,” Anders had said. Soren had kind of liked that but never thought he would actually use the offer. Not until two years later when he found himself on the street after a bad break-up with his girlfriend that ended in financial turmoil. Not knowing where else to turn, he found a phone booth and called Anders Granlund asking him if he could ‘spend a couple of nights’ at his place.