The Otherworld

by Mercedes Lackey

  He frowned. "This looks like an AK-47. The clip curled out, like this?"

  She nodded vigorously. "Uh-huh. They had other guns—.45s, shotguns, 30-30s. My husband owns a World War II Luger. He has it with him. But I saw an awful lot of the ones with the curled clip."

  "Christ on a crutch," Frank muttered. "Just what we need. A nest of crazies with assault guns in our hills, waiting for Commies."

  "It's the same group," Bob interjected. "The same ones we know James Chase was with. And we know he took the boy and vanished when they did. Isn't that enough for a search warrant?"

  Frank gave him an opaque look. "To search for what, exactly?"

  "To search for Jamie. That's why we're here today," Al pointed out.

  Frank frowned, and said slowly, "I'll talk to the DA, but I don't know. I would have said `yes,' but that was a while back. I've already locked horns with these crazies and come off losing too many times. There were some things about this cult that I thought were cut and dried, but I was dead wrong. Can't shut someone down for their religion, no matter how weird, and their lawyer knows every angle of religious-discrimination law. And they've tied themselves in to being a Christian group, and Christians have the swing around here. That's the story."

  "How much evidence do you need?" Cindy said, sounding mystified. Al was just as frustrated, a hard ball of tension forming in the pit of his stomach. He could not believe this group was getting away with so much, as Frank phrased it, right under their noses. Brother Joseph is a shrewd one, to have picked this community. He did his homework.

  "I understand your frustration, Miz Chase," Frank said, rubbing his temple with his knuckles, as if his head hurt. "And I have my own set of frustrations. I'm the only one around here who wants to get excited about it. I think part of the problem is folks around here, they don't quite grasp the magnitude of what's taking place. Those people don't come into town, not even to shop. They do that in Tulsa, by the truckload. Most of them stay cooped up in that complex. Those that do leave, they leave their guns behind, except for maybe rifles in the gunracks in the cab window and big crucifix stickers, and you see that everywhere." Frank shifted in his chair, looking thoughtful. "What I've seen up close I don't like either. They have guards at the gates leading into the complex, and they politely ask me to leave whenever I show up. There are probably more children in that place than we realize, but I've only seen a half-dozen of the kids go to the schools here."

  "They what?" Cindy said, sitting up. "Is Jamie one of them?"

  Frank shook his head, and motioned for her to calm down. "Don't think so, ma'am. I mean, I can't be sure without checking, but I truly don't believe they'd let him off their grounds if they have him. I've talked to some of the teachers. Kids seem to be from all over the country, complete with school records. They're legit, all right. But, the teachers say the kids are basically quiet; sort of keep to themselves, don't say much about religion or anything else. They don't trust the other kids. They move around in a tight little huddle, staying together. You can talk to them, but they won't talk to you. They just stare at you till you go away. And that pretty much describes everyone at the compound."

  "Could I talk to one of them?" Cindy asked hopefully.

  Frank shook his head. "Even if you could get one to talk, might not be a good idea. Could tip them off. If they sent your husband and Jamie out of this county, there's nothing we could do about it. My guess is these kids are brainwashed to the point of being `safe' to let outside the group. Doubt you'd get much more out of 'em than I have."

  Soon, after more dead-end discussions, both parties came to the conclusion that there wasn't a great deal that could be done right then. Cindy's frustration was obvious even to the deputy; Bob had his jaw clenched tight, and Al felt the muscles of his back and shoulders bunching with the need to do something. But there was nothing to be done.

  Legally.

  And that's the real trick, isn't it?

  Frank wished them well and gave them each his card, with his home number on it, along with instructions to call him "if anything came up." Al noted later that the deputy seemed embarrassed that he couldn't do much. Something else was holding him back, but Frank wasn't saying what it was. He also had the feeling that if they did something a little on the wrong side of the fence to get information, Frank would look the other way, even cover for them. He didn't come out and say that, but he kept giving both him and Bob significant looks whenever he mentioned how much his hands were tied.

  That doesn't matter; we don't really need him now. We know their location, some of their habits, and we have a lead, he thought, plans of his own beginning to form, as they left the county courthouse. I think I should go check out these people myself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The day after Jamie and his father had gone to Tulsa for supplies, Jamie gave up the search for allies, especially regarding the question of his missing mother. Nobody, including Joe, wanted to discuss it.

  That negative reaction from Joe had been a disappointing surprise. He'd always thought he could tell Joe anything—and he knew how much Joe loved his mother, even though he never said much about it. He was always taking her bunches of wildflowers. He'd thought Joe would understand how much he missed her. . . .

  Anyone he'd even mentioned his mother to specifically forbade him to bring the subject up with anyone else; so by the time he talked with Sarah, he had already decided to keep quiet about it, even with her.

  But today he was having second thoughts about that, as the situation at the vacation place began to weigh more heavily on him. They still weren't letting him eat anything, and the juice they gave him never came close to filling him up. Hunger pangs came and went, with increasing frequency and intensity. Sometimes lately he had trouble standing up, and he always got dizzy if he walked too far. If he was getting sick, he knew it would be his own fault because he didn't have faith in Brother Joseph; at least, that was what everyone else would tell him. Then they'd tell him he had to confess his lack of faith and be healed.

  Not a chance! He'd rather just suffer. Brother Joseph was too frightening to trust, but try to get the rest of them to see that! If you had faith, everyone told him, you wouldn't get sick. If you didn't, you did.

  So he didn't tell anyone about the fainting spells, but he knew the time would soon come when he wouldn't be able to keep them secret.

  In the meantime, he drank all the juice they'd let him have, and lots of water. He was still allowed to do that, and if you drank enough, the hunger went away. For a little while.

  He had trouble sleeping again that night, and not just from the hunger, since Daddy had brought several bottles of joy juice to their room, the strong, amber kind, in funny-shaped bottles. The only word he could read on the label was Kentucky, and why it was on there he didn't know, 'cause that was a state. When Daddy drank that kind of joy juice something happened to his throat that made him snore real loud, and he rolled around on the bare mattress in his sleep. To keep from getting squished Jamie slid off the mattress and curled up in the corner with a blanket that was covered with tiny bugs.

  But that didn't really matter to him. He just wanted to sleep. The bugs didn't bother him as much as usual.

  He got up before Daddy did and went down to the showers, where other kids were getting ready for school, too. He had forgotten to wash his clothes out the night before, so he would have to wear them again, with that funny smell they got when he slept in them. A week earlier one of the other boys had stolen his clothes and hidden them down the hallway while he was in the shower, but his daddy caught him and whipped the living tar out of him. Jamie overheard some of the things they said, things he didn't like. The daddy told the boy that Jamie and his dad were poor and homeless before joining the Sacred Heart, and that it was wrong to pick on needy people like that. Jamie never thought of himself as poor, and he knew they had a home; Mommy was there, or at least that was what he thought, since she wasn't in Tulsa.

  Now the boy would hav
e nothing to do with him, and had turned the others against him as well, because he'd been punished. The other kids said nothing as they got cleaned up, and Jamie started to feel a little bit to blame for the whipping the first boy got. It hurt when they ignored him, although it made him even more grateful that he had Sarah for a friend.

  School that day was a little different. They didn't talk about Jews and blacks much, or Israel or the divine plan Brother Joseph had in store for them. Part of the day was spent studying a machine for making drinking water. The process was called "reverse osmosis" and Miss Agatha made them memorize it and spell it fifty times on the chalkboard. "There will come a time when we will need this," the teacher admonished; Jamie didn't understand the need for the machine when you could just turn a faucet on, but he didn't ask any questions. Miss Agatha would just have made him write something else fifty times on the chalkboard, and it would probably be nasty and full of hate.

  During lunch break, Jamie was sent to a room all by himself with his juice while the other kids went on to the cafeteria. He was still under orders to not eat until they summoned the "Holy Fire," Miss Agatha reminded him.

  He tried to make the juice last, but it was gone all too quickly. Funny, he'd never liked V8 before, but now he would have drunk as much of it as he could have gotten. He wished that Brother Joseph would go and get it over with. His stomach was not hurting as much anymore, but he did feel weaker today. Daddy had slipped him some crackers and cheese the night before, and that helped a little, and there had been Joe's Tootsie Pop. But sitting here alone in the empty, thick-walled room, with nothing but a chair and a lightbulb, made him want to cry. He heard Miss Agatha say something about "sensory deprivation" and this room, but didn't understand any of it. He just knew it was boring in here.

  Nobody was around, not even Miss Agatha. After a while, he realized that would make it easy to talk to Sarah.

  "Sarah," he offered cautiously. "You there?"

  :Right here,: she said, her voice filling the space between his ears. Jamie had put a pair of stereo headphones on once, and this was the same kind of effect. :They're all gone?:

  "To eat," Jamie said dejectedly. "There was something I wanted to talk with you about yesterday. But I was afraid to."

  Jamie sensed anger, which quickly dissipated. :You don't have to be afraid to talk to me. You know that.:

  "Sorry," he said. "It was just, I was confused, you know? First Daddy gets weird, then Joe yells at me. . . ."

  :It was about the milk carton, wasn't it?:

  "How did you know?"

  Silence.

  "Okay, okay," Jamie said, a little sullenly. After all, she was only a girl—she didn't have to rub it in how much more she knew. Everybody here said girls weren't as important as boys. "You know a lot more than I do. You already told me."

  :I see more, is all,: Sarah said, impatiently. :And you know everything else they tell you is a lie. Why shouldn't I see more than you do? Because I'm a girl?:

  He blushed with embarrassment at getting caught thinking nasty thoughts. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Just, they keep telling me—"

  :And it's hard to keep remembering how much they lie. I know, Jamie. What's bugging you?:

  Jamie had the feeling she already knew, but he told her anyway. "I haven't seen my mother in a long time. Daddy said she'd be in Tulsa, but she wasn't there. Nobody around here wants to talk about it. What's going on?"

  :I'm not sure, right now,: Sarah said, hesitantly. Jamie didn't know if he could believe her or not. It wasn't like her to not know everything. :Look, it's not 'cause I can't tell or won't find out. I need more—stuff. Think about your mother. Think about what she looks like.:

  Jamie did, fully aware that Sarah could see exactly what was going on in his mind. This once made him uncomfortable, when he remembered all the bad things he used to think about girls, and even some of the mean tricks he used to play on them at school in Atlanta. But if Sarah saw these things, she didn't let on. She accepted him unconditionally, the only one besides his mother to ever do that. He reminded himself just how much he trusted her. Hey, she'd even been nice when he was thinking girls weren't as good as boys. . . .

  :She's not here, not at their Sanctuary anyway,: Sarah said suddenly. :But I think . . . she's close. Nearby. She's not as far away as Atlanta, anyway.:

  Hope flared. "In Tulsa?"

  :I don't know. Don't give up, all right? I'll keep looking. Until I find her, though, you can trust Joe. I think I could even talk to him directly, if he didn't close his mind off the way he does. He has . . . things he can do, but he doesn't want anyone to know, because of what they would all think about him. They'd figure it was the work of the devil, and there's no telling what they would do about it.:

  There was a warning in her voice that made him shiver. Miss Agatha had hinted some horrible things about what was done with people who were "possessed of the devil."

  "I dunno," he said doubtfully. "I mean, his daddy is Brother Joseph. I don't think he'd snitch on me, but—"

  :His father might be Brother Joseph, but that doesn't mean Joe's like him. There's a lot of good in Joe, and he doesn't agree with much of what his daddy does. He'll help you, the same way he tried to help me.: She sounded very positive, and very tired.

  But he hadn't known Joe had been helping Sarah. "What happened, you know, with you and Joe?"

  Again, silence. Jamie had learned that this usually meant she didn't want to talk about something, and he let it rest. He sat on the crude chair for some time, wondering if she had left, when she spoke again.

  :Joe will see you after school. Go with him.:

  And she was gone. Her presence vanished, like a candle blown out by the wind. In the past he had tried to get her back, but once she was gone, he knew that it would be a while before she would return. He wished he could have had time to say good-bye. As usual, he didn't. That was just Sarah's way. Maybe she didn't like saying good-bye. . . .

  Joe will be there, after school. We'll get to go do something, maybe go outside, Jamie thought, as the lingering traces of Sarah disappeared. The prospect of being with his "big brother" was enough to dissipate the misery, even enough to make him forget his hollow stomach. Oh boy!

  And even though his gnawing hunger made him forgetful, so that he made mistakes when Miss Agatha asked him questions that afternoon, talking with Sarah must have brought him luck. Miss Agatha just nodded indulgently, said something to the others about "the special Gift Jamie has is coming through," and prompted him until he got the answer right. That didn't earn him any friends among the other kids, though, because Miss Agatha was even harder on them as if to make up for being easy on him—

  But in the end, he didn't care. He had Sarah, he had Joe. If the other kids were going to be dumb-butts because of something he couldn't help, let them. They were jerk-faces anyway. If he'd been home in Atlanta, he wouldn't have hung around with any of them. All they did was parrot Miss Agatha's hateful stuff and play games like "coon hunt" and "burn the nigger." That was what they called blacks; niggers. Jamie knew that wasn't right—his teachers in Atlanta, the ones he trusted, said that calling a black kid a "nigger" was like calling a kid in a wheelchair "cripple" or "freak."

  After school was over, Joe was waiting outside for him, just like Sarah said. It wasn't the first time Joe had met him afterwards, but since his guard duty usually ran past the time school was out, it was rare to see Joe right after class. As always, he was wearing his uniform, with his AK-47 slung over his shoulder alongside a backpack.

  The other children coursed around him like a flooding river around a solid rock. Some shot him angry glances, including Miss Agatha, who sniffed as she walked past. Jamie had sensed the contempt earlier, some sort of jealousy over his relationship with Joe, and as usual he disregarded it.

  "Wanna go fishing?" Joe asked right away, and instantly, Jamie's world lit up.

  "Sure!" he replied enthusiastically. Then he frowned, not knowing where exactly you could fish around h
ere. Unless Joe wanted to go to a park somewhere else; but that would mean leaving the vacation place, and he had never been allowed to do that, unless he was with his father. After drinking as much joy juice as he had the night before, James wouldn't be very good company today. "Where?" he asked doubtfully.

  Joe chuckled. "There's a pond over near the north side of the complex. Only a few of us know about it. We'll have to stop and get a bow to fish with, though."

  Jamie had thought the only way to fish was with a pole, or maybe even a net. But as they walked, Joe explained how it could be done with a bow and arrow, if you were good. There were plenty of hunting bows in the armory. Joe had a special bow in mind, one his dad had purchased for him when he was Jamie's age.

  After the revelation that Joe was Brother Joseph's son, Jamie had begun to see that his friend had a few more privileges in the Guard than others his own age. They were, he realized, exercising some of them now; nobody else had unlimited access to the armory. At least, not among the kids.

  "Let's walk," Joe said. He had talked about borrowing a motorcycle, but had apparently decided against it. "It's not as hot today. Rained this morning."

  Living underground, you didn't notice things like rain or sunshine. Jamie squinted at the bright glare of the sun. It reminded him again how dim it was below. They passed by guards periodically. Joe waved and they waved back, letting them out of the complex without question. The boy knew that the story would be different when they came back through, when they would be searched. But he wasn't going to worry about that yet. When they came to the final gate, Joe told the guard they would be fishing a while and would be back before too long. The guard wished them luck and locked the tall chain-link gate behind them.

  It occurred to Jamie that if they caught fish, he might be able to get a bite to eat. But eating meant cooking, and cooking meant a fire and things to cook with, things they didn't have. Jamie remembered something called sooshee that was raw fish, and before today the idea never appealed to him. Today was a different story. If Daddy could cheat and sneak him some cheese and crackers, maybe Jamie could do the same with the fish they could catch.