“In here!”
It was Belinda. She was standing at the window I was clinging to, waving her hand. I almost fell over backwards. In the process of regaining my balance my flashlight slipped out of my pocket and fell to the ground—so much for light. I motioned for her to open the window. She dragged a chair over and flipped the latch. I helped her get the window up and climbed through.
“Hi,” she said shyly.
“Hi.” I looked around the dark room.
“This is my mommy’s room,” she whispered. “We’re not supposed to be in here.”
“We’ll leave soon,” I told her. “Does you’re mommy have a phone in here?”
“She takes it with her.”
I remembered the cordless phone Bonita had with her earlier in the day. “There must be another phone.”
“Yep,” Belinda confirmed, nodding her head.
“Great! Show me were it is.”
I followed her into the next room. There was a wood stove in the corner and several chairs and sofas strewn about.
“So, where’s the phone?” I asked.
“Here!” She exclaimed, holding up a walkie-talkie.
Perfect, I thought. I can use it to call the CODL guards and tell them I’m about to escape. “Is there another phone?” I asked hopefully.
Belinda shook her head.
So much for that option. I took the radio from her anyway and put it in my back pocket under the robe. I could always throw it away if I didn’t find a way to use it later.
“What time does your mommy finish talking?”
She giggled and point to my new hairdo. “You got paper on your head.”
I brushed the bits of toilet paper from my scalp. “So what time does she finish?”
“Why do you have so many belts?” She asked.
“Belinda, I need to know what time your mom gets up here so we won’t get in trouble.”
“My name is Amanda now.”
“Fine,” I said, impatiently. We didn’t have time for this. “When will your mom get here?”
“Soon.”
That’s what I was afraid of. I went out onto the balcony and began unwinding the belts from around my waist. Belinda followed me.
“I have to go,” I said.
“Why?” She asked loudly.
“Shhhhh! You’ve got to be quiet or we’re going to get in trouble.”
“You said you’d play with me,” she said and started to cry.
All I needed was her to throw a tantrum on the balcony and attract the guards in the towers. I took her hand and led her back inside.
“Belinda, this is serious. If I don’t get out of here I won’t be able to come back and play with you ever. Do you understand?”
She nodded, but the tears kept rolling down her little cheeks. “I don’t have anyone to play with.”
“I know,” I said, wondering what Bonita would do with her once she figured out that people on the outside knew she was here. Theodore thought that Bonita would take her away and hide her, but what if he was wrong? Cults sometimes did weird things. The newspaper was full of mass suicide packs, murders, and other horror stories. What if something happened to Belinda because I’d shown up at CODL? How would I feel?
Not good, I concluded. Not good at all. And I knew then that I was going to have to figure out a way to take her with me. That’s what Philip Marlowe would do. I guess it was time for me to start acting like a real operative.
I told Belinda to stay on the sofa and I walked out to the balcony. The chances of making it to the ground without one of us getting hurt were zero. There had to be another way.
I walked back inside and sat down next to her. She had stopped crying, but she was still very unhappy. I not only had to find a way out of there, I also had to talk or trick her into coming with me willingly.
“Your daddy’s waiting for you,” I said.
“My daddy’s dead,” she said, sadly.
“No he’s not,” I insisted. “I just talked to him. He’s waiting for us in the woods.”
She shook her head. “Mommy said he died.”
“Well, she was wrong. Because he’s waiting for us in the woods.”
“Are you lying?” She asked.
“Nope. He wants us to go to him.”
“I have to ask mommy.”
“There’s no time,” I insisted. “We have to leave now or he’ll go away again.”
“Mommy will be mad if I don’t tell her first. She’ll hit me!” She said, glancing at the wall near the wood stove.
A correction rod was leaning against the wall. I walked over and broke it over my knee.
“Your daddy doesn’t want you to be hit ever again,” I said, stuffing it into the wood stove. “No more corrections!”
I couldn’t tell if Belinda was going to cry or laugh, but breaking and burning the stick sure got her attention.
“You’ll have to do everything I say,” I told her.
“I don’t know,” she said, still wavering.
Time was running out. My new plan was to sneak downstairs and hide outside until the priests started to leave. I was hoping that we’d be able to join them without being noticed. For this to work though, I needed Belinda’s help.
I rubbed my scalp, desperately trying to think of something to say that would convince her that it was all right. Then it came to me.
“You’re daddy has your hair,” I said.
“He does?”
“Yep. But he’s going to throw it away if you don’t go see him.”
“I want my hair.”
“Then you better come with me.”
“I better ask Mommy.”
“There’s no time!” I said. “We’ve got to go now or you’ll never have hair again.”
“I want my hair back!” She said with certainty.
I had her!
“Okay, Belinda. If you want your hair back, then you’ll have to do exactly what I tell you to do.”
“I promise,” she agreed.
“Good. The first thing I want you to do is show me your room.”
She led me into a small room that was furnished like the room they had put me in. In other words it didn’t look at all like a little girl’s room. There were no pictures on the wall, no toys—just the bare necessities. I opened the closet and found the clothes Belinda had been wearing when she was kidnapped.
“I want you to put these on,” I said.
“Mommy says I can’t wear outside clothes anymore.”
“Just put them on, okay?”
She pulled her robe over her head and I helped her put on the jeans, red tee-shirt, tennis shoes, and pink coat. I slipped her robe over the top of the clothes and tied a black belt around her waist.
“I wear a white belt,” she said. “Like mommy.”
“Not anymore. You’ve been demoted.”
The white belt would be like a neon sign around her waist. For this to work she had to look like all the other little kids. And she did, except for a little lumpiness caused by the clothes under the robe. I hoped that in the dark no one would notice.
We walked back into the other room and I took out the bear repellent and put it up my sleeve. I wanted it handy just in case the next part of my plan didn’t work.
“What’s that?” Belinda asked.
“Bear spray.”
“For when I get my hair back,” she said, happily.
Cute kid. “Exactly,” I said, not correcting her.
I opened the closet door near their front door and looked inside. It was perfect. All I needed now was a way to lock it. I found wooden chair in the living room that might do the trick.
“Okay, Belinda,” I said. “We’re going to play a game.”
“Good! I like games.”
“What I want you to do is to open the front door and tell the man in the hallway that there’s something bad in the closet. Then I want you to run to your room as fast as you can and hide under your bed.”
“Ok
ay,” she said, eagerly.
I hid behind the closet door and told her to go ahead.
She open the front door and shouted, “There something in the closet! It’s bad!”
Belinda ran to her bedroom and I heard the guard hurry down the hallway. When he got inside he walked right into the closet. I slammed the door shut and jammed the back of the chair underneath the doorknob. After I was sure it was secure I ran into Belinda’s room and got her from under her bed.
“What’s that noise?” She asked.
The guard was trying to beat the door down.
“Ghosts,” I answered, taking her hand.
Escape From The Wicked Castle
~
We made it downstairs without any problems. As we walked by the hallway leading to the auditorium we heard music playing and people chanting. It sounded like the service was in full swing and I hoped it would stay that way until we found a place to hide outside.
I opened the front door and pulled Belinda through quickly, closing the door behind us. We hurried over to the small stand of trees near the foot bridge and squatted down in a place where I hoped we couldn’t be seen from the house or the guard towers.
My plan was to wait for the priests to start filing past, then simply stand up and walk out of the compound with them. I figured that it would take awhile for Brother Thomas to explain the situation to Bonita. Then she would have to figure out what she wanted done about it. By the time they discovered that we were gone, Belinda and I would be well on our way.
I realized that there were a couple of major flaws in my plan. The fact that it was dark was both good and bad. It would be hard for them to find us in the dark, but it would also be hard for us to get around. Another glitch was that I didn’t exactly know how to get back to Mammoth Hot Springs. I had an idea of the general direction, and I had my map and compass, but I wouldn’t be able to use the map in the dark. The other problem was Belinda. She was going to slow us down considerably and I had no idea how long it would take for her to get tired of the whole thing and tell me that she wanted to go back home.
“We’re going to play another game,” I whispered.
“I like games,” she whispered back.
“Good. It’s called, Escape From the Wicked Castle. In order to play we need to follow the ghosts through the castle gate. But to make it to the woods safely we have to fool the ghosts into thinking that we’re ghosts too.”
“How?” Belinda asked.
“By not talking.”
“Why?”
“Because these ghosts don’t talk, and if we talk they’ll know we’re not ghosts.”
“What happens if they catch us?”
“They’ll take us back to the castle and eat us.”
“I don’t want to be eaten,” she said.
“Me either. So we’ll both have to keep our mouths closed.”
She nodded and I asked her to tell me the rules again.
“We don’t talk so the ghosts think we’re ghosts so they don’t eat us,” she said. “And when we get to the woods I become a princess.”
“Exactly,” I said, smiling at her new ending.
The front door to the auditorium swung open and the priests began to file out. Several of them flicked on flashlights. They walked in complete silence, their lights casting strange shadows across the compound. I was half convinced that they were ghosts. Settle down, Briggs, I told myself.
“Okay,” I whispered, nervously. “Here come the ghosts. Not a word from now on.”
The priests started across the compound towards the foot bridge. The wrought iron gate opened and I had to will myself not to jump up and run through it ahead of them. Our only hope of getting out of the compound unnoticed was to fall in behind the last priest in line.
It seemed to take them forever to make their way across the foot bridge. As we waited I imagined Bonita holding the photo in her hand. She was probably feeling the same panic I was experiencing hiding behind the tree. In a matter of minutes Brother Thomas would discover we were gone and the search would begin.
Finally the last of the priests started over the bridge. Belinda and I left our hiding place and quietly fell in behind them. One of the priests glanced back at us, but he didn’t seem concerned that we were there and continued walking. With each step toward the gate I expected to hear shouts of alarm behind us, but nothing happened. We simply walked through the gate with the other priests. When we were through, the gate closed.
We followed the group down the path for a little ways, then I pulled Belinda off into the woods.
“We win,” she whispered.
“Not yet,” I said. “We still need to be quiet.”
I pulled her robe over her head and saw that her coat was going to be a problem. The pink seemed to glow in the dark. I checked the coat’s lining and was thankful to see that it was dark blue. I unzipped it.
“It’s cold,” she complained.
“I know,” I said, taking it off. “We need to change the color of your coat so the ghosts don’t see you.”
I turned the coat inside out, then helped her back into it.
“They won’t see you now,” I said, taking off my robe and dropping it next to Belinda’s. “As soon as we bury these ghost costumes we can go.”
“And find my daddy,” Belinda said.
“That’s right.”
“And my hair.”
“Exactly.”
She helped me cover the robes with dirt and leaves. I glanced at the house and saw the light in my room go on. They would start searching the house now and it wouldn’t take them long to discover that we weren’t inside.
The chase was on.
The Dragon
~
As soon as we started walking through the woods I knew my initial plan wasn’t going to work. Belinda was just too small to step over the fallen branches without stumbling. I picked her up and headed toward the main road. She was heavier than she looked. When we reached the road, where she couldn’t trip over anything, I set her down and we started walking again.
“Where’s my daddy?” She asked.
“A little further into the woods,” I told her.
“How long before we see him?”
“Pretty soon.”
By now they knew we weren’t in the house. The way I figured it, Bonita had a couple of choices. She could get in her Lear jet and leave the country or she could come after Belinda. I would know soon which choice she had made.
“Now what are we going to play?” Belinda asked.
I had to think about this for a minute. “We’re going to play, Escape from the Dragon,” I said. “It’s kind of like Hide and Seek. Have you ever played that?”
“Sure,” Belinda said. “But how do we know if the dragon’s coming?”
“By looking for the light of his fire,” I told her. “Every time we see a light we need to hide in the forest. If the light touches us we’ll catch fire.”
“But it’s not for real,” Belinda said.
Just as she said this, headlights appeared from behind us.
“Yes it is,” I said.
I grabbed her and jumped off the road. We were near one of the cabins. The windows were dark and I thought about hiding inside, but decided not to. Instead, I carried Belinda to the woodpile outside the cabin and hid behind it.
The car stopped on the road and a man got out with a flashlight. He was bald like a CODL priest, but instead of a white robe he was wearing regular clothes. He must have seen us, I thought, taking the bear repellent out of the holster. But instead of looking around, he walked straight down the path leading to the cabin and knocked on the door. The lights went on inside and the door opened. I couldn’t believe that I’d thought about hiding in there.
“Were you asleep?” The man with the flashlight asked.
“Just about. What’s up?”
“I’m not sure. Apparently someone’s missing or lost or something. Brother Thomas wants us to meet him at the ca
thedral. They’re setting up search parties and Sister Bonita wants to talk to us.”
“Who’s missing?”
“Don’t know. But he said for us to put on outside clothes. Sounds like a long night.”
“Sure does. Come on in while I change.”
The man with the flashlight stepped inside and couple minutes later they both came out and walked back to the car parked on the road.
“Belinda you were great!” I said, and I meant it. The whole time they were talking I was afraid she was going to move or say something, but she didn’t.
“Those weren’t dragons,” she said. “Those were priests.”
“But they work for the dragon,” I said, picking her up.
From their conversation it was pretty clear that Bonita wasn’t going anywhere until she found Belinda. I’d have to stay off the roads and stick to the woods even if it meant carrying Belinda the whole way. At least I was in pretty good shape from football practice. I felt like a halfback on a thousand mile playing field and Belinda was a thirty pound football. How was I going to avoid all the CODL linemen, and more importantly, which direction was the goal?
***
A couple hours later I stopped to rest in a little clearing near the edge of what looked like a steep ravine. My back and arms ached from carrying Belinda, but we had covered a lot of ground and hadn’t run into one person, which I was very happy about. I wasn’t exactly sure where we were and I wished the sunrise would hurry up so I could look at the map. The only thing we had to guide us was my compass with the luminous dial. Mammoth Hot Springs was somewhere to the east of us.
“I’m tired,” Belinda whined. “I want to go home.”
So do I, I thought. The only thing that surprised me about her complaining was that she hadn’t done it sooner. She was a great kid and very trusting. It must have been a cinch for Bonita to snatch her. This was something Belinda’s parents were going to have to work on with her. Providing I got her back to them.
“I want to go home,” she repeated.
“What about the dragon?”
“There’s no such thing as dragons,” she said. “That’s just a game. Take me home.”