Chapter 7: 2,335.44 Miles
Lizzie wasn't sure what to make of anything anymore. The headlight of the oncoming traffic whizzed by her as she starred out the window of the van she had entered just a few hours ago. The van was full. Kate was sitting to her right in the first row, and Derek was right in front of Lizzie, driving.
Lizzie looked around at the various people that were joining her on this adventure. Next to Kate was a middle-aged looking man whom Lizzie had seen at the seminar, but his cell phone had been replaced with a blank stare. He seemed almost in shock that he had nothing to do. In the row behind Lizzie and Kate was the shy girl Lizzie had also seen at the seminar. She had her head pressed up against the window, looking like she wished she were invisible. Next to her was a larger woman who looked like a mother. Lizzie wondered if she had any children and where they were. Next to that woman was a bald man with what looked like the beginning a beer belly. He himself seemed to fit the stereotype of a smoking alcoholic with his thinning, ripped t-shirt and stained jeans.
Behind that row was a girl who looked about college age with beautiful brown hair that cascaded down her entire back. She was very pretty, and she looked like she had all the confidence in the world. In fact, she was the only one in the van that looked confident at all. Next to her was a guy that looked about five years older and was sporting horn-rimmed glasses. His nose was huge. Lizzie felt bad for him. He looked rejected and lost based on the forlorn stare that took over his entire face. Next to him was an older looking man. Lizzie guessed that he was a widower. Behind that row was one more row of four people. None of them looked any happier than the rest of the van. The only other person on the bus was a man with bright red hair sitting in the front passenger seat. He was young, but Lizzie couldn't tell anything by the look on his face. It was completely blank.
Almost the entire 2,300 mile, 35 hour ride to West Virginia was silent and forlorn. Nobody seemed interested in talking, and the silence was starting to get to Lizzie. All she could do was think, and she did.
Lizzie thought about her parents and wondered how they had reacted to her note. Did they even believe that she would be gone forever? And what about Matt? Lizzie had been the only person in the family to honestly offer up her blessing for him and Malina. Lizzie really did care about Matt. She felt most guilty about leaving him. Lizzie also wondered about Gordo. He probably didn't even know that Lizzie was gone. But when he found out, she doubted he would be upset. She also wondered about Parker's family and how they were dealing with her loss. She would never know. And was Tudge really becoming a druggie alcoholic? Maybe if she had stayed, she could have helped… And Ethan? He was close to both her and Kate. And Ronnie. Lizzie had grown quite close to him in college. Maybe if she had stayed, they would have eventually dated. And maybe even gotten married… But most of all, Lizzie worried about Miranda. Lizzie felt sick every time the thought of Miranda popped into her head. Lizzie didn't even know if Miranda was alive, and if she did make it, how would she deal with the disappearance of her best friend?
"Hey, why the long face?" Derek asked, sitting down next to Lizzie, his arm slung casually around the back of the bench behind Lizzie. His question snapped Lizzie out of her torturing thoughts.
Lizzie noticed that Kate had taken over driving.
"Oh, not much. I'm just second guessing myself again. This silence is almost deafening."
"The trip East will be the hardest part. Generally, the people who join Lamb of God are going through some tough stuff in their lives. The community is much more upbeat than this crowd. But don't worry, everybody will heal as time passes at Lamb of God."
The 35 trip felt more like a year, but eventually, the bus roared into the Appalachian Mountains, and excitement level grew when the endless highway pulled away from the exit the van made. About an hour after the bus left the highway, it pulled up to a non descript white building. Everybody was ushered off the bus by two women wearing long navy blue skirts and white button-up blouses and two men wearing navy blue pants and white polo shirts.
The group was separated by genders as they got of the van. The women were put into a large room where the two women in the navy blue skirts ordered the women to take off their clothes and put on uniforms that matched what the women were wearing. The outfits weren't very flattering at all, and there were no pockets for Lizzie to hide her pictures in, but she couldn't bear to part with them. She folded them in half and subtly slipped the pictures into her left shoe without anybody noticing. Then, she put on the white sneakers she was given, and put her old outfit in the black garbage bag that was circling the room.
After everybody was seated back in the van, they were all blindfolded for the three hour trip to Lamb of God. Lizzie was confused as to why they had to be blindfolded, but she decided to just go with the flow and wear one. She could feel the van bump and lurch as Derek drove over the twisted roads filled with sharp curves. After three hours, the bus finally came to a lurching halt. The new members were instructed to take off their blindfolds as they got out of the van.
Derek took Lizzie's hand, and helped her off the bus. When she looked up, she gasped.
In front of her stood a giant majestic stone building. It looked like a mansion with its five floors and towering windows. In front of the building was a huge luscious green lawn and a stately driveway circling around the lawn up to the front of the building where there was an overhang probably used for protecting people as they went inside from their car. To the right was another large majestic stone building. The driveway brushed the front steps that led up to two large dark mahogany doors. Towering about the doors was steeple, and on the side of the building were stained glass windows. It was clearly a chapel. In fact, it was the kind of chapel that Lizzie always dreamed of getting married in. It seemed to come straight out of a story book. The only other building Lizzie saw was a five car garage off to the left. It looked more like a carriage house with five separate wooded garage doors. The stone covering the remainder of the building matched the house and the church. Everywhere Lizzie looked there were green trees reaching towards the sky and digging their roots deep into the steep mountain slopes.
Lizzie was hoping that Lamb of God would be a fairly nice place to live, but this was way beyond her wildest dreams. Suddenly, leaving her life in California to join Lamb of God seemed like the right thing to do.
When Lizzie turned around, she noticed a majestic looking cast iron gate. The gate was connected to two large stone pillars. The fence disappeared rather quickly down a slope. There was another gate about 50 feet away from the other one where the other end of the driveway met the road. The cast iron fence connected the two gates together and continued into the trees on the other side. Lizzie thought she noticed a high chain linked fence with barbed wire on the top. Lizzie wondered who or what the fence was trying to keep out… or in.
"Come on, Lizzie! We're going to see our room assignments now," Kate exclaimed, pulling Lizzie by the arm towards the main building. Lizzie followed, but the picture of that barb-wired fence didn't leave her mind as she let Kate lead her towards the mansion.
