Day 3: Gossip in the Religious Routine

I can only compare the 02:19 wake-up call to a boot camp built right into your childhood treehouse. Having a tank's echo was the real blistering fire finger poker to my headache. Bunked near Ron, I followed him toward the howling echo octaves bolstering of a dying bat squeal out of the bellend that rang deeper and lower the closer you were by the inch. Their solution to this explains the why on the journaling exercise, demented spirits or not, it’s smarter to have pen and paper in this damp, hovering humidity cesspit of body odors before the raid.

Everyone knows everything, yet it was the first time I saw Snowwoman Shawna since the hospital. Startled awake but looked more nauseous than anything. She slid past in a blink and figured now wasn’t the time, regardless. He had taken the time to get fully dressed to don a reflective vest. I’m typically a nude sleeper, but would’ve worn underwear if it was a problem. But they had the nicest team sweatpants, which, with my boots and reflective vest, was all else I had. Looking at the other new faces’ impromptu attire, I’ve become the bell of the neon ball. The lineup was essential to the crisis at the cave mouth. Everyone at Moon Phases Five and above was sent out to follow up and expect further instructions before returning to base. I overheard amongst the panicked chatter things like “secure the boats between the two docks” and “weather-proof the Stack.”

Being picked last wouldn’t have hurt if I knew the nature of the problem. Running into havoc was a long-standing symptom of my mortality's disregard. No matter how Wolfman Patrick saw the emergency, lucky is an insult to its creator with my name involved. The alarm silenced, and Bluemoon Lilian June stormed past me, hooking me with a finger curl and a ‘stay on my heels.’

“What’s the problem, flooding in our future?” I asked

“Every job, task is handed out based on your forte test. Having not been tested yet, we take turns babysitting.”

“Right, where do you need me? What am I doing?”

Simply put, I believe she expected more pushback. Down the steps out to the coastline, and scoping out the shore, then a sharp right turn up the slope. I swear there wasn’t a path to look forward to, no matter how smooth her journey up the pitch-black micro forest was with her little miner cap. No point in getting blinded again and I should just stick to her pocket flashlight blindness, my knees and toes are used to stumbling without care around furniture. The summit was starting to look worth it, with the first and only clearing bathed in a Matte deep blue of stillness, with shadows itching to move at the slightest breezes. The Blue Moon June, unbeknownst to me, was crouch-walking beside me.

“Okay, it’s pretty, get down, idiot.”

“Pretty high up to be getting low. Aren't we the only ones this far out?”

“You’re gunhoe,” she responded.

“Just easier to know who or ‘what’ to avoid when I move,” I said, trying not to put vocal air quotes on ‘what.’

“You see that island—more to your left, the backmost.”

Down the bayou, the first thing I get in my scan is the lack of elevation. I’m aware of the implications of the term sea level, but the height had a blithering sense of isolation, looking over the edge where my hand sent off a few flailing leaves was a mountain range starter lounge. Waters hold their murky quality against a vicious light reflecting poorly off the surface. The stars are nice, and as I no longer stand to wax poetically, I noticed the black smoke rising in thick plumes from a once-controlled source. The local response being so timely was this place's red alert.

“I figure this level of hiding came with some Envious Emmas and Larry Lawmen,” I said.

“Where in the states do you hide when you don’t need questions about local moonshine experts?”

“Ah.” I started. “We’re looking like a research collective in case they just ratted on themselves.”

“Cops or reinforcement, it’s about not being bothered. What are you running from, right?” she asked.

“Done with running; I’m here.”

“I’m not a researcher, and you’re just a failed—”

“I know, but why can’t I be running to and this be it?”

“Because you think like a fugitive trying too hard in the stained cassock.”

“I’m stubborn.” And I typically am.

“And suddenly defensive,” she said.

“Because I'm picking up on that WE don’t like idle hands, and that smoke is getting larger.”

Through her binoculars, she watched. We were lying on our stomachs in a hard, hand-brushed section at the edge of the cliff. No matter how many pebbles, stones, or sticks I removed, something sharper would jab me next. It’s why I missed the abrupt growth in the mushroom cloud of white smoke, one plume heading straight up but infecting through the trees to slide across the waters for an even coating. No rumble, but a slight aftershock wind blast as the white briefly overtook the black completely. The Blue Moon June flashed her light down like a signal to someone below, two blinks, a long, two more shorts, and a long. I tried to see who was receiving it, but she handed over the binoculars as if I asked. “Three blinks for coast guard or police, two blinks for civilian. No voice and use this flashlight, the green lens.”

I looked at her as she walked into the woods with disregarding disdain and said, “And you had that extra the whole time?”

Bird’s eye view didn’t cover it; I expected as much, being thoroughly winded, now, overlooking the commotion beneath this place, it is deceptively high. All I could truly make out was a collective of juveniles hiding fireworks and porno-mags before the parents' keys finished jangling in the lock. The authorities approached with respect for the damage the wake would do. This overwatch position was the first cool air he had felt in days. Sure made watching nothing easier. It would’ve been flawless if Ms. June knew how to keep those bushes quiet. How crazy would it be if I didn’t have a curious bone in my body? Why does that island matter to us? What did they do to create such a wild, fireless effect? Why is everyone assuming they’re guilty from a good half a mile away? DO they know why they should feel guilty? Personally, what the hell is she doing?

03:49; two blinks. Now, even Wolfman Patrick was wearing a reflective vest. They zoomed by toward the smoke two at a time across the wider straight behind the Island of Secret Hangings. I began to remember my arrival, the fight through the brush I could’ve called miles long with a hurricane eye to remind you you’re still on Earth. But since security took that guy down already, I can’t imagine that an issue that small would have Blue Moon June believing that hocus pocus. they found the discarded dinghy with the note, so I'm told. It was scrawled on the shadowed brow of her competing headlight like a tattoo.

I knew I had gotten off easy when they sent Cornman Ron to find me. The rustling in the bushes. Not important enough for a walkie-talkie aside, I’m appalled he took a direction. I could’ve been more focused on the horizon and the stars; it’s no longer hiding while he argued with Harvestman Jerith. They told him I was lost without a light, and I reminded him they’ve been here for years, and they walked me to my post; why would they think such a thing? Sure enough, I could almost see the glimmer of the handcuffs waved like a kinky threat; there won’t be enough witnesses to confirm the tale. I figured at least one boat would double back for witness statements, but they left. Smoke continued to pour from a consistent flame deep within the center far into the morning. Five arrived surprisingly quickly, so it had to be my distance that caused the trick in the scene.

One boat with two officers, and since Wolfman Patrick handles his own press relations, three questions before his freaky, obsessive talking drove them off. To be fair, outside of Harvestman Jerith’s armament, things were smoothing out for them as well. I changed the channel on the radio for a bit. Cornman Ron wanted us down there to question the Almighty Interrogators. I dropped on him the mission I was given, regardless of when I first knew the second and third boats landed at our dock. One pointed behind them, talking to what had to be their superior. Hands on pistols and hands going up in unison. Harvestman Jerith did some talking and a manila folder, then backed up to resume the peace keeping position. Three of the officers looked over it, then took it with them. Guess there was someone on that island, too.

Breakfast was late.

Apparently, this was a perfect evening for a boat tour from Iceman Xavier, forman park ranger, and last-minute addition, Growing woman Gwen. ‘You’ve seen the tops,’ Wolfman Patrick was suggesting, ‘You’ve drank at the bottom; behold the surface.’ Truthfully, it was a scouting mission under the cover story of, with competent enough credentials, environmentalists surveying the effects the disasters had on the aquatic and wildlife. Traces of smolder lingered in the blackened brush, and on it, a few investigators sifting through charred remnants of some sort of structure. Iceman Xavier talked a lot in the vein of spontaneous combustion from one evolutionary standpoint, and me using as the suspicion-dousing I saw it as, didn’t sit well with him.

I hated noticing that they didn’t treat the title as a rank in the witchy royal hierarchy. Didn’t mind that it’s a practice forgotten about by most when Wolfman Patrick or Blue Moon June wasn’t around. It was bringing this up after Gwen finished her recorded loop of the island, focusing on the scene betwixt the trees. She intended to come back later for a walkabout when a boat was free, and fewer boats patrolled the area. Iceman Xavier whipped a U-turn to duck into a narrow passage of small watery mounds and trees. Focusing on avoiding the occasional shallow bits gave Gwen the courage to find my face in the shade, burnt to black-orange, spurred by a sun sinking in with the gators.

“How—umm. What are you doing here?” Gwen asked.

“To awaken something, to embrace a new beginning. Snow—Shawna suggested this could be interesting.”

“If you’re waking up, what was the nightmare?” she asked.

“Who says it was—”

“Look at where you are, how you got here. We’re all about transparency—do you see us wearing orange bubble vests? What was your life like?”

“Nothing of notoriety until recently. *sigh* The mind and whoever commissioned its build can fuck right off, and the perfect memory on top, that just isn't funny. Only one place to send people like that, and I don’t like the food.”

“Hint of the crazies,” Iceman Xavier said. Gwen waved off that talk without turning to face him.

“But you’ve been hospitalized for whatever it is. It's more than just dreams.”

“I couldn’t take it. You know it feels like an interrogation before I get wise and remember my rights--like it's not mine to make suggestion, my brain thinks I'm like a hanger on, Guess now a groupie. Since I'm dedicated this much to finding it.” I paused, and they did too. But you know that conversational itch, where the momentum is built, that answer is a layup, and the silence of trinkling water rippling around the low idle engine just stings? “You know it wasn’t the unfolding existence before my eyes attempting to indulge me into the black and white shows that rips from what’s real to demand I take on a hyper equivalent, where the next victim is a man in an oscillating noose tie covered in box cutter razors?”

“Hallucinations? Are they continuous?” Gwen asked.

“Paracusias, Parasomnia, somnambulism, occasional delusion of grandeur, no significant triggers or brain anomalies. Even micronaps can be an unanesthetized surgery for days.”

“What’s your take on the welcome speech?” Gwen asked and, unlike the timidity of her former questions, abruptly left no space between my periods. Right, back to interrogation mode, huh? “And be honest. I like your journal so far.”

“You sound like my answer is scripted already. To tell you the truth, this is an independent study of my own; keeps me level to gauge any, if any, changes occur.”

“Patrick would say so,” she replied.

“I’ve grown comfortable with the fact I’m surrounded by murderers. As calm as I can be, chanting next to an indiscriminate rapist, or that prick that cleans out your retirement and shrugs like the victims should've known. Agree I do not, and preferably not amongst them is best but to each is their own until the daggers go flying. When I taught, it was for anyone willing to learn. If I’m offered a classroom, why not accept?”

Gwen stared, mouth agape, and Xavier slowed the boat. They were tucked near running-a-ground on a two-person mud island with small vines and bushes. I knew we had to be close to a mile away, and none of the different authority agencies caught our trail. My perspective on distance is way off here.

“Why don’t you tell us what you mean?” she said.

“Feels too soon to judge, if I cared to, but this place, how you handle emergencies, mystic shit is one amongst the better reasons to stroll off the grid. It had felt suited me since I was born, you can say, to take the witch doctor journeyman course. Just grew up too white bread, I suppose. My curiosity is unshaken.”

“Observant. Do you think we’re mad? All your sulking while we’re squawking about rules and protocol, how we do think of the things we do to survive.”

“June is a little intense, but I feel bad; everyone looks like they are at work. Feels almost too normal,” I said.

“You want more to do?” Iceman Xavier asked.

“Notes are plenty. Stress is an igniter for all that worse stuff, that kind that moves the body at night. However, driving me mad wouldn’t go a miss a possible endeavor to record for this Venture.” I said.

“Glad we could be so accommodating,” Gwen asked.

“A new capability, I assume. Last year or two, right?”

“Learning curve. Can’t fault that,” she said. "Well spotted."

“How long before Patrick’s life’s work felt worth the ordeal to you?”

“Immediately,” Iceman Xavier interrupted.

“Why are you here?” Gwen interjected. “A cure doesn’t seem like you and Ron is such an obvious—”

“You want a motive that explains the Wolfman’s singling me out?” I didn’t need her confirmation. They abruptly became gossipers in the back of the classroom, called out by an annoyed instructor. “Look, I wrote some stuff inspired by nightmares that examined the principle of human motivation when further enticed by the notion of death and near-death experiences, and the dwelling on its inevitability, and he liked—”

“The wording! I see. Are you ready?” Gwen asked.

“The last thing. Shawna read some of the collection I had at the ward—why has she been so quiet?”

Iceman Xavier started the boat. I didn’t hear what he heard on the walkie that could’ve erupted into a burst right into a brush. There wasn’t much to think about until I remembered Shawna’s brother, Kieth. Gwen sized me up good and proper when I asked, only looking at me as if she couldn’t see my mouth moving. It was about that level of darkness as the last shred of daylight drained into night. In open waters, Gwen took a last picture of the island as Xavier did a rushed, slow-down pass, now that the straggling authorities vamoosed. Going by the Island of Secret Hangings, a trail on the backside, closer to the Ocean, from whatever those cops found. We were shown how to approach the landing by the Iceman. I’ve been known to have a certain face when I can't tell how to see things. June’s face said she had never seen or felt a hug, and Gwen tried to appear tough shit, but looked like someone who was invisibly being tickled all the time. Apparently, my sensuality is undetectable, and if I’m upset with you, doesn’t matter whether I know you or not. If I were a woman, I’d be accused of having resting bitch face instead of just another reason you clutch your clutch when I walk by. Maybe I was by why she double-checked our distance before speaking…

“If you’re not serious about our research, Hayman Nielson, be serious; he’ll know. She’ll know. There are 400 years of research on this. You’re not confined here.”

“Understood, Growing-woman Gwen.”

“Jeez—like a blank slab, this guy,” Iceman Xavier said.

The southern-style stir-fry wasn’t half bad. I’ll try to catch up with Snowwoman Shawna tomorrow. Figure out a good way to thank her.

Bed right after dinner.

Nightmare Addition:

I explore the D.A.S. Atrium alone seconds after falling asleep. The flood everyone is prepared for happened. The water could’ve slammed me on every wall, but it stopped after I was bloody head to battered soles. How it singled me out before diving down the throat, expanded to drown me in a fisting motion, dilating and bursting organs one by one, it couldn’t go any slower. My soppy corpse is the D.A. Redhead. I only say because I wasn’t allowed to fight or die, wait. It's hate wanted more suffering out of me. My scream was the siren that woke me at 02:18.