Chapter 37 Woods

It was a steamy mid-July day in Monte Rio, California, with the loamy scent of moist earth as sunbeams penetrated through the emerald green leaves of ancient redwood trees.

Julia Grey stared blankly out the exhaust-fumed window at the back of a yellow school bus, pressing her daughters Lila and Emily close.

Being deep in California's woods seemed like an alien world from their London home.

Around a turnpike, the three yellow school buses rolled into a clearing with picnic benches facing a simple wooden stage at the center.

The children streamed out cheering as the summer camp leaders excited their imaginations with tales of the fun activities planned for the next two weeks, for what promised to be the best camp experience ever.

Julia was on high alert. Why had they been brought halfway across the world for this?

A blonde camp leader bound onto the stage, pigtails bouncing, her senior Girl Scout camping badge flashing proudly on her chest.

"Hey campers, I'm Tammy! You all pumped?"

"Yeah!"

"Get psyched for s'mores tonight! Do you want some milk n' cookies?" she said, looking out at the eager faces of the children.

"Yeahhhhh!" The children replied in unison, their excitement reaching new heights.

"Milk and cookies once were done, everyone," Tammy grinned from ear to ear.

"But first, it's a secret—where we're going. So moms, you just need to sign a permission slip before we can go to the secret place."

As papers circulated and were signed. Camping assistants served milk and cookies to everyone.

"Alright, kids, off you go! Explore, but stay close!" Tammy continued once the forms were collected.

She laughed at their whoops with a contagious smile that could brighten anyone's day. They scattered into the woods.

One mom reminded her daughter not to wander too far. Another told her son to check back with her in five minutes.

For the children, the forest came alive—a magical realm to discover. Voices and laughter ran through the interwoven pine needles as they found hiding spots or tracked tiny pawprints in the dirt tracks.

In the trees, a pair of chattering squirrels chased each other from bark to branch.

Elsewhere, a hawk tilted silently in the breeze, its sharp eyes searching the ground for prey.

Julia had stayed behind with two crestfallen hearts, watching on like forlorn spectators yearning for nothing more than to be free, frolicking carelessly with the giggling children in the woodlands.

"Mummy, can we go outside and play too?" Emily asked with her best puppy dog eyes.

Julia grasped her daughter's hands tightly. "Just stay close to me," Julia replied.

"We won't go far," Lila assured her mother.

"Please Mummy, please?" Emily begged.

"The answer is no!"

Tammy checked through the signed permission slips in the center of the glade and counted, noticing she was one short.

Julia watched Tammy stride on board with a waiver form and a brochure.

"Would you like to join us? It's a beautiful day for some outdoor fun," Tammy suggested.

Julia hesitated, trying not to give in to her daughter's pleading eyes.

"We are good; thank you," Julia replied politely.

Tammy nodded understandingly and handed Julia a brochure with the attached permission slip, which Julia took, using it as a makeshift handheld fan.

"I notice you have a British accent," Tammy observed. She looked at the girls' sad faces.

"It's a long way to travel from England to be cramped up inside this hot bus all day. Don't you think?"

"Travel, if that is how you want to phrase it," Julia replied with a tone of annoyance.

"I would say forced against our will."

Tammy perused down a checklist of crossed-out names from her trusty Girl Scout manual.

"You must be Julia Grey," Tammy said, looking up.

"And these two must be Lila and Emily," Tammy continued, gesturing towards the twin girls.

"I am she," Julia said.

"Nice to meet you," Tammy replied with a practiced smile.

Just sign up here, and we can get started with the camping trip. We have a lot of fun activities planned for everyone to enjoy."

"Why should I sign anything?" Julia said firmly. "I don't know your intentions here."

Tammy paused, her smile fading slightly. "It's for liability purposes only. These woods can be dangerous if you don't know your way.

All I want is for the children to enjoy their camp experience safely." Tammy said, waving away her concerns.

Julia returned the glossy brochure and permission slip, unconvinced by Tammy's disingenuous, soothing tone.

"I understand," Tammy said.

"We get a lot of city folks who are not used to the big outdoors. But trust me. When we get in camp, you will see how beautiful it is out here."

Julia looked sideways at the parked-up convoy of heavily armored Hummers, their windows tinted under the cloak of anonymity, obscuring any glimpse of the occupants inside.

Their captors had trailed the buses along the serpentine mountain roads.

Upon arriving in America, the nameless, faceless men treated them with a veneer of cordiality, a deceptive facade masking the reality of their captivity.

Their freedom, a mere illusion, was held hostage under the watchful gaze of relentless surveillance.

"They are there for our protection," Tammy said tactically, though her face looked strained, to Juila.

"You know how dangerous the outside world has gotten these days."

"Quite ironic, really," Julia replied.

"Considering that they pose just as much of a threat as anything else out there."

Tammy diverted her eyes to the camp assistants rounding up the children with the mothers, unsure of how to respond to Julia's statement.

"Anyway, it is time we move along," Tammy said.

The children piled back onto the buses, covered in mud. Soon, the buses wound through winding roads, singing campfire songs.

The air became cooler when they ventured deeper into the wilderness. Trees grew ever thicker, closing in around them, blocking out most of the sunlight.

Pines scraped against the windows until they brushed away, revealing an open dirt road. Julia spotted brief flashes of movement that unsettled her deeper in the woods.

Trackers dressed in camouflaged field craft uniforms stalked the bus's movements. When she pointed them out to Tammy, the counselor smiled and dismissed them as wildlife. Julia had countered that wildlife couldn't carry machine guns.

"I don't like it here," Emily said.

"Nor do I, darling," Julia said, "but we don't have much of a choice."

Beyond them, clustered on either side, timbered lodges with weathered wood walls nestled in small clearings amidst the burnt redwood barks - an aftermath of the California wildfires.

The dense forest above barely let any sunlight filter through, bathing the lush undergrowth in an eerie green-tinted gloom.

Straight ahead, a military checkpoint loomed—tall metal fencing and barbed wire wrapping around sandbag bunkers—where guards in faded camo patrolled with sunglasses and machine guns, watching every approach through the woods.

They scrutinized the children, waving the drivers past a brown road sign that read, 'Welcome to Bohemium Grove'.

Bohemium Grove swallowed the buses into a long road of thick shade. It was only a short ride until they reached the camp's entrance.

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Children pressed their faces against the windows, taking in the unfamiliar sights of this secretive place.

Julia paused to take in the sprawling layout—rural lodges spaced between cabins and a central lodge with flickering lights.

The buses pulled to a stop in a central clearing, and Tammy clapped her hands together.

"Alright campers, listen up! It's time to unload and get settled into your tents. Counselor David here will show you where to stash your things."

A smiling man with sun-bleached hair waited at the front of the parking lot.

The children could barely contain their excitement when they dashed from the buses.

Emily and Lila tried to jostle away from Julia's tight hands, wanting to join the colorful uniforms sweeping across the field. David greeted the children with an enthusiastic wave.

"Alright campers, follow me to the lodge so we can get started!" he called. As the lines began filing toward the building

Tammy approached the parents. "We'll get everyone checked in shortly. Please wait here," she told the moms cheerily.

"Checked into where?" Julia challenged. "I'm not leaving them alone."

Tammy's practiced smile faltered. "The rules are in place for their safety. I assure you."

"And what happens if rules are broken?" said Julia.

"Then we don't get happy campers," Tammy said, walking away.

Once they were inside the main lodge, David's beckoning hand led the excitable boys and girls through a starkly empty recreational hall with canteen-style benches.

A couple of locker rooms lined one side, while the other held nothing but shadowy doorways, with a service kitchen at the end of the hall.

"Breakfast is served at 8:00, lunch is served at noon, and dinner is served at 6:00. Any questions?"

"Nooo!" replied the children.

David gestured to the locker rooms. "On your left is the girl's changing room. And on your right are the boys.

Stow your bags and gear in the cubbies. Be quick about it now so we can start the fun."

Julia watched the children escape into the open air, instinctively trying to stop the twins from running away after them.

When she caught sight of David calling them over, she forced herself to let them play despite every instinct screaming to keep them close.

Tammy's voice rang out over the camp’s P.A. system.

"Alright campers, time for your first activity! Head to the big field outside. Let's do paintball!"

The children cheered and stampeded forward following David, crashing through the pine-wooded trail with moms following behind, leading to an open grassy area with a fishing lake that cut off the land.

Black hummers dotted the perimeter of the field; heavily armed men stood watch in front of the bumpers; a squad was positioned.

Children hurried onto the lawns, thinking it was a game.

The guards' stone-like faces gave nothing away. In unison, they started marching around the edge of the field, circling in on the unsuspecting children. Emily and Lila backed away.

"Mommy! Mommy!" cried little Emily, her tears streaming down her face as a guard roughly grabbed her arm.

Lila, her eyes wide with terror, clung to her sister, her small frame trembling uncontrollably.

"What's going on?" Julia cried, grabbing Tammy's arm. But Tammy just smiled empty-eyed at the unfolding scene.

More dark vehicles pulled up behind the mothers, blocking their path; men filed out.

A chorus of screams erupted from the terrified youngsters, darkening the field.

"Don't take my babies," a mother cried.

Her face contorted in anguish as she lunged forward with her arms outstretched in a desperate attempt to reach her children.

She was met with a barricade of impassive faces, ruthlessly forcing her back.

Julia rushed forward wildly. Screaming. Children were being dragged away into the hummers, including the twins.

Two shadows materialized behind her, twisting her up in a grip that Houdini would have trouble escaping from.

"Please, let them go!" Julia pleaded, her voice hoarse with desperation.

"They're just children!"

Hummers, their engines roaring, convoyed away onto a patch of trail, disappearing under the treelines of the forest with children severed from their mother's umbilical cords.

The melody of their cries dissolved into the distance, leaving behind an awful silence.

Moms who had been assaulted were carted off the ground, and transferred to waiting rides.

Julia was still fighting, wrestling to escape from her captors. Tammy appeared calmly at her side with David.

"They'll come to no harm, I assure you; I forgot you didn't sign the waiver, did you?" Tammy said.

"Now come along quietly before things get unpleasant."

"Fuck you!" Julia spat.

Tammy turned to David. "Well, that wraps up the first activity," she remarked casually.

But a predatory beam had entered her eyes. David returned her eyes with one just as cool and predatory.

"It is just natural selection," David replied.

**********

Twilight was given over to darkness at Bohemium Grove. Crickets began to stir in a nocturnal philharmonic ensemble of chirping. The captured families had been separated and hauled into the encroaching shadow of the great redwood forest; their fates had become uncertain.

Outside, raucous laughter carried on the balmy breeze spilling into the early hours of the night from the staff's camp.

Tammy and her companions, their faces flushed with intoxication, guzzled from bottles of hard liquor.

David, his eyes glazed, stood at the edge of the open firepit, brazenly relieving himself into the dancing flames, his act of defiance a jarring contrast to the horror unfolding elsewhere.

In the mother's cramped confinement, Julia wore tracks on the dirt floor with her incessant pacing.

As each agonizing minute passed without word, she missed Thomas more and more, wondering if he was still locked up in HMP Liverpool.

Around her, muffled weeping and gasping sobs blended, all stunned into a dissonant dirge of grief from the other imprisoned mothers. Sleep was beyond any of them that night.

It was not much better in a ramshackle outhouse at the forest's edge.

Emily and Lila huddled on a bare plank bunk; splinters and loose nails dug into their skin, sniffles and shivers their only movement in the suffocating dark.

The acrid stench of urine thickened as more lost control of bodily functions in the nauseating squalor.

Too terrified to use the bucket, dignity meant nothing to small ones in such a hell.

Row by row, wide eyes stared unblinking from gaunt faces in each bunk. Only the occasional whimper cut through the bone-deep silence.

Their only solace was a grimy window framing a view of a lone road winding into the gloomy woods and whatever deliverance its passengers might offer.

Tammy's and David's drunken, sneering faces banged at the doors of the lock-up enclosure.

"Quiet down, you little rats!" David shouted at the girls and boys whimpering inside. David sniffed his nostrils up in the air.

"Who's messed and wet themselves in here?"

Tammy shot him a warning look. "Don't be so vulgar, David!"

"Oops, sue me!" David retorted.

"Check on the moms. Then you can sign off for the night. I'm off to get some shut-eye before the next arrivals."

"Very well," she said, her face expressionless.

"I know you need your beauty sleep, David."

Tammy slipped off among the outhouses, with David splintering off to his tent.

He would allow himself a smile privately before he fell asleep, proud of the seeds of fear he had sown.

The twins heard the rolling of wheels and the sounds of engines coming from afar, hoping somebody was coming to rescue them.

"That might be Daddy coming to get us," Lila said.

"People want to hurt us. Lila!"

"It might be; how do you know? Hoist me up. I wanna see," Lila said.

"Ok, just for a bit, but I'm tired."

Emily got off her bunk and waited for her sister to place her foot into her clasped hands.

Once she did, Lila managed to get a curious view out of the poor excuse of a window. Stretched limousines piled along the road past her line of sight.

One limo started to slow down in front of a speed bump as it approached the building.

"Driver, slow the car," said President Wang from the backseat.

The car rolled to a stop, and Wang rolled down his window.

Lila found herself staring into the polar opposite, staring eyes of Wang, his face leering out from the darkened interior of the limo.

"What do you see?" President Pushkin asked Wang, who was sitting beside him.

Wang never took his unblinking stare off the petite child framed in the small window.

"I see a child," Wang said.

"Do you see the fear in her eyes?" Pushkin said dispassionately.

"The appropriate level of fear that is deemed necessary for now, from what I see," Wang replied.

"That is very encouraging," Pushkin remarked.

"Indeed," said Wang. "Drive on, driver."

"My arms are getting tired," Emily shouted from below as she started to slouch down under the weight.

Lila tore her eyes away from Wang's unsettling stare and lowered herself back down when the limo drove on.

"It's not Daddy, is it?" Emily asked.

"It's not safe here," Lila said, shuddering as she returned to their shared bunk with Emily.

"I told you, Lila. This is not a good place."

Through the dappled pigmentation of frosted glass, Julia and the moms caught the familiar outline of Tammy, smiling blandly as ever, finishing off her check before signing off from her night shift.

She checked the locks, ensuring that they were secure.

Julia bound up to the door. "Where are they?" Julia spat through clenched teeth.

"Now, now, no need for such long faces in there. The children are being well looked after as we speak", Tammy said.

"If anything happens to my children..." Tears of rage streamed down Julia's face.

"Temper, temper," Tammy said coolly with an infuriating calm.

"All will be revealed in good time."

Julia pumped her fist against the rattling glass. "You fucking bitch!"

"Goodnight, ladies," Tammy said, wandering off.

Julia and the other moms would go on to spend the night dreading what other horrors this cursed place might yet reveal.

When sunrise had settled, more chauffeured cars had arrived. By the time the clocks had swung around to midday, business magnates had gathered with institutionalized bankers in the company of presidents over a lavish lunch.

Tammy sprang up to put her war paint on for the day, softening her face with a light layer of peach blusher, wrapping her hair in pigtails.

She jumped on one of the yellow school buses with her Girl Scout cookies and milk cartons in her backpack, waving to the guys in the Hummers.

A fresh batch of happy campers would be welcomed and groomed. Transported into the trap of Bohemium Grove.