After the Woods
Chapter One
Ricky's face was red and his lips were cracked. Even inside his gloves, his hands were stiff. The woods in February were not a comfortable place to be, and he wasn't supposed to be there, but anything was better than watching Mother with her newest friend. Mother loved her scenes, but did he have to hear the same stupid lines over and over? Even in the cold, the silence was better. From a summer visit, he remembered a shack ahead that had once been used for making maple syrup. The boards were loose and cracked, but would offer some shelter. As the shack loomed in the distance, Ricky's steps became faster. He was almost there when he heard sounds that had been lost in the biting wind. He peered through a space between the boards gratefully noticing the feel of warmer air on his face. A heater had been set up inside near a mattress occupied by a man and a woman. They were making the kind of sounds that he sometimes heard from his mother's room when she was with one of her friends. Ricky was about to turn away, but curiosity overcame the grossness factor and he watched.
"Do it now," the woman urged, holding out a scarf. She smiled as the man pulled it around her neck and she flailed against the mattress. Her smile faded as he pulled it tighter, her lips forming the word "stop," but the man continued to pull until she was still.
As Ricky gasped, the man turned at the sound. Ricky ran. It began to snow, swirling around him and filling his tracks. Pulling off his snowy things when he finally reached the safety of his mother's rented cottage, he retreated behind the door of his room. He could hear his mother still playing a scene. She didn't know he had broken the rules by going out and he was afraid to confess. He knew only one way to shut out the memory of what he'd seen at the shack. He pulled a notebook out of his suitcase and huddling under the comforter on his bed, began to write.
"Come on Rick, it will be fun," Justine urged. "We can take a boat out to the island with Bobby and Jerry. They said there's all kinds of cool music and a whole arcade of games. It'll be a blast."
Rick wasn't sure. He had a new story idea he was working on and he wanted to get it down on paper. But Justine was insistent and when she didn't get what she wanted, well he just didn't get any. "All right" he agreed, "we can go for the weekend."
The motorboat delivered them to the dock, where Bobby and Jerry greeted them with smiles. "Rick, you are going to love this place," Bobby assured him. "Just wait until you see the new Star Wars video game. It's incredible."
Rick found the game to be as described and played enthusiastically with Justine cheering him on, until the rumbles in their stomachs became impossible to ignore. Bobby and Jerry led the way to a large dining hall. Most of the tables and benches were empty, but there was a buffet table featuring barbecue and pizza and a dispenser offering an array of soft drinks. "Who pays for all this?" Rick asked.
"Oh there's some rich guy who got into drugs as a teenager. When he finally got off them, he set up the island as a safe place where we can just come and have fun," Jerry explained.
Rick thought the explanation sounded a little strange, but he never turned down a free meal. The pizza was good, but had a strange aftertaste that Rick couldn't identify. There was plenty of soda to wash it down and the taste disappeared completely in the spiciness of the barbecue. He was feeling a bit sleepy when Bobby and Jerry ushered him into a cushion filled room where Rick could just hold Justine and drift with the music.
Rick didn't know how long it had been before he woke up in a bunkhouse. There was no sign of Jerry, Bobby, or Justine, but there were about a hundred other people about his age, sleeping on thin mattresses, barely covered by blankets. They all wore the same gray sweats over thin bodies. Suddenly loud music poured from a speaker on the wall, and the occupants of the room came to instant alertness. Pulling on worn gray sneakers, they walked toward the door, where a black shirted man waited. When Rick was alone in the room, sitting on his bunk, the man in black approached. "Join the others." he ordered.
"Join the others for what?" Rick demanded. "Wheres Justine? Where are Jerry and Bobby?"
"That's not your concern," the man answered, pulling Rick roughly to his feet. "You belong to Joshua now. You'll do what you are told or you will suffer the consequences. Now join the others!"
Rick was pushed toward the door and out. It was barely light, but he immediately saw a large field with rows of plants. The other residents of the bunkhouse were already working, pulling weeds and breaking up the soil. Rick's captor forced him to his knees. "Now work."
"No," Rick argued, his words immediately met by the bite of a riding crop across his shoulders.
"I said work," his punisher repeated.
Rick could feel blood seeping into his shirt. He reached out for the plants the other workers were pulling from the ground. "That's right," the black shirted man told him. "All of Joshua's children obey."
The sun rose higher in the sky and Rick was bathed in sweat when a whistle blew. All the workers around him rose and began to walk away from the field. Glad of the respite, Rick followed to what he recognized as the dining hall. There was no pizza or barbecue that morning, just oatmeal, which he had never liked, with no sugar or cream to improve it. Despite his distaste, he could see the black shirted man watching him and ate with the others. Rick had just put down his spoon when black shirt announced the recitation of the creed. The workers around Rick stood, urging him with their eyes to stand with them. The words were a rumble around the tables. Joshua is our father. Joshua is the source of all. Joshua commands and we will obey.
Black shirt came toward Rick, menacingly raising the crop. "Say it!" he commanded.
Haltingly Rick repeated, "Joshua is our father. Joshua is the source of all. Joshua commands and we obey."
Rick was sent back to the field with the others. He worked until his hands were raw, his shoulders screamed, and it was too dark to tell one plant from another. After a minimal meal of bread, apple butter, and water, and another recitation of the creed, he was finally allowed to return to his bunk to fall into exhausted slumber.
The pain in his hands and shoulders woke Rick before the music played in the morning. He could see that the occupant of the next bunk was shifting painfully, awake as well. "Hey, Rick whispered, "there are only a few of the black shirts. If we all joined together, we could take them easily and get off this island."
"How?" his bunk mate asked. "They only keep one boat here and the men who guard it have guns, not riding crops. Besides, haven't you heard the creed? We belong to Joshua. Most of these guys have repeated it so many times they believe it. They'll do whatever the black shirts tell them to do."
"But you don't believe it," Rick observed.
"I haven't been here that long," the young man answered, "but sooner or later I probably will. The way they almost starve us, after a while it dulls the brain. People don't think anymore, they just obey."
Martha paced the floor of the Green Room, then tried to call Rick for the hundredth time, but the phone just rang. Something was very wrong and she was going to find out what. At the stage door she found Smitty, a retired cop now in charge of theater security. He could tell from the look on her face and the slightly imperfect makeup job, that she was upset. "Problem, Martha?' he asked.
The pitch of her voice was deep with worry. "Smitty, I think there is, and I need your help."
Martha, Smitty, and Byron James chose a back booth in a little cafe and kept their voices low. "Smitty asked me to poke around," Byron told Martha, his Brooklyn accent a sharp contrast to his poetic name. "No one has seen your son for over a month. He and his girlfriend Justine were hanging with some guys, I just heard Bobby and Jerry, no last names. I looked into them a little deeper, Justine too. Kids who have hung with the three of them end up disappearing. The word I've heard is that they're recruiters for some kind of cult this guy Joshua has on an island up the coast."
"A cult?" Martha repeated? "I can't imagine Richard wanting to join a cult."
"I've just picked up on little bits and pieces," Byron explained, "but from what I heard, membership isn't voluntary. The kids go to the island and can't come back."
"Can't someone do something about that?" Martha asked, horrified. "If someone is kidnapping kids, shouldn't the FBI be involved?"
"The problem," Byron clarified is that this Joshua has set himself up as some kind of religious leader and no one has actually managed to file a verifiable complaint. They may be brainwashing the kids into being loyal to that jerk. So far all that's out there is rumors. The FBI has no basis to interfere."
"So what can be done?" Martha asked.
"Essentially, we have to stage a kidnapping of our own," Byron offered. "We go to the island, reconnoiter and see if we can grab your son. Hopefully he'll actually want to come."
"He'll want to come," Martha assured Byron as she tried to reassure herself. "He has the Rodgers stubbornness. His brain won't wash easily."
"All right," Byron agreed, "I'll get some people together, check out the island and plan the operation. I'll call you when I have it set up."
Martha thanked him and silently prayed the call would come soon.