Chapter 39 Unearthed
Bohemian Grove devoured the joyful clamor of children like a Venus fly trap. More yellow school buses had arrived, their empty seats a jarring reminder of the children's absence.
Only the tiny outlines of footprints peppered the dirt among the rusting swings and weed-covered slides.
No rest would come for these small souls on this night, not when David's and Tammy's silent footsteps traced a damp path to the cabins that held the captive children.
"That's where they've holed him up this year," David said.
"I don't like it here when he's around," Tammy muttered to David nervously.
David glanced at her. "Come on, don't be like that. It's an easy paycheck, right?"
"I don't like the way he looks at us. It's like he can see right through us."
"Don't be ridiculous. He's just a blind man."
"Something isn't right about him," Tammy insisted.
"The things he knows... It gives me chills."
"Be glad he travels only once a year then," David responded.
A rotund man was waiting for them by one of the cabins, his eyes staring into the distance, standing beneath the feathery leaves of an alder tree.
From the depths of the Congo, Kimfuka stepped forth, his blindness concealing a vision far keener than any mortal eye. According to his tribe, Kimfuka was believed to possess the ability to communicate with the dead and foretell the future.
His hands, roughened by the trials of life, bore curved, clawed fingernails that resembled half-crescent moons, hinting at the mysteries he held within.
Kimfuka's white stick patted the ground, sensing the energy in Tammy's and David's presence.
An icy gust of wind howled through the trees, whipping the leaves into a frenzy around David and Tammy as they approached Kimfuka's cabin.
Kimfuka slowly turned his milky eyes towards them.
"Your hearts have become more blackened since the last time I saw you both," Kimfuka uttered gravely.
"It's just a paying gig for me," Tammy replied, burying an uncomfortable tinge of unease.
David swallowed hard. Kimfuka's blackballed pupils could stare through their facade as if he could see the darkness that had taken hold of their souls.
"I told you last year. To leave this place," he warned in the deep Congolese cadence of his drawl.
"The spirits have locked onto you."
David and Tammy had been dreading Kimfuka's arrival.
The summer camps of years past had been marred by a series of mishaps, ranging from minor accidents to life-altering injuries, all occurring during Kimfuka's presence.
Whispers of a curse began to circulate among the staff, a curse that seemed to follow Kimfuka wherever he went.
Last year, Tammy's mother, a vibrant and healthy woman, was suddenly diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer that claimed her life within months.
David's father, a cautious man, was inexplicably struck by a truck while crossing a quiet street, occurring on the same day of Tammy's mother's burial.
"Kimfuka, the children are ready for you," David said.
"Are you sure they are prepared?" Kimfuka asked.
"They have not eaten," David replied.
"Everything has been set according to Bohemium Grove's specifications."
Kimfuka nodded in understanding. "Their spirits cry out in anguish. Take me to them!"
Tammy walked ahead, leading the grim procession, delegating David to babysit; she certainly had no intentions of touching him or interacting with him in any way.
Sure-footed as a deer roaming in a forest. Kimfuka's smoothed white stick was planted into the mulch, guiding him like a metal detector.
No light guided his passage, yet no errant branch snagged the cloth of his black robe—it was uncanny.
It was as if he possessed an otherworldly sense of navigation.
A series of outhouses waited for them. Dilpatidated structures with lights extinguished a long time ago, whimpering children's cries floated out the small windows, suffering bordering on blasphemy.
"Which one is it, Kimfuka?" David asked.
Kimfuka walked forward. A warmth pulsed from clawed fingers, tracing the currents of tiny fears that cursed through each building.
"Building 2A it is then," Tammy declared, going up cobbled steps to an outhouse with cracked walls.
David held the door open like a bellboy for some swish hotel.
Kimfuka followed inside. The stench of urine and feces hung thickly in the stale air of the outhouse, making them recoil in disgust.
"Such suffering with such innocence. It is overwhelming," Kimfuka said out loud.
"I'm not staying in this shithouse!" David said.
"I will arrange the pickup and meet you in the mess hall."
"They won't be long," Kimfuka replied.
Tammy twisted open the rusty locks with those familiar hands.
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Emily's eyes adjusted to the stir of bolts sliding back, clutching to her sister, feeling the rapid pounding of Lila's heart against her chest.
Their ragged breathing and soft sobs mingled with those of the other children in the dark.
An oppressive silence fell as Tammy came into view. They knew it was her again to torment them for another round of suffering.
"Shhh, little ones. Your counselor is here," Tammy cooed in her inviting voice.
Eyes glittered wet in the sorrowful dark, pupils dilated, limbs trembling yet uttering no sound.
Vice-like, they stuck to the bare wooden bunks, not wanting to draw attention to the gathering shadow of bouncing pigtails getting closer.
Tammy hummed lightly as she swept between the bunks, dragging fingers along the walls.
Her nails scratched faintly, the sound grating on Emily's frayed nerves.
One by one, Tammy was searching, selecting, her hollow face illuminated by flashes of moonlight coming through the cracked window.
"Everybody, join in. The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round."
The children squeezed their eyes shut, praying Tammy's crawling inspection would pass over them.
But Tammy's nursery rhyme stopped.
She plunged into the gloom of a little girl holding her teddy bear. The little girl felt a rush of hot breath on her face.
She dared to open her eyes, meeting Tammy's cold face inches away.
"Is it going to be you, little one?" Tammy grinned.
"Please don't take me," the little girl whimpered, clutching her bear tighter.
Her sickly sweet perfume turned her stomach. Tammy patted away the little girl's golden locks of greasy hair.
Her small voice piped up. "P-please let us go. We want our mommies."
"Mommies can't save you now," Tammy laughed right up to her face.
"Enjoy the ride, because the wheels on this bus go all day long, and you can never get off."
The children heard the click of wood. A tapping of a stick against the floor as a pair of claws curled around the door frame.
A figure filled the entrance, its robed form swaying gently like seaweed in a current.
Blind white eyes shone from a hairless head atop broad African shoulders. Kimfuka's round frame floated towards them, long talon-like claws extending from curled fingertips.
Behind him emerged nameless, faceless brutes from the Hummers. They prowled inside.
Children shrank back, but Kimfuka moved with unnatural grace between the bunks, hounding the central walkway.
His misshapen claw tapped each child in turn, eliciting tiny whimpers of terror. The talons raked softly against bare skin, leaving faint trails of blood.
His claw tapped a young boy's forehead, making him flinch back against the wall.
"Get away from me!" the boy yelled, swatting at Kimfuka.
Kimfuka tilted his head, ignoring the boy's plea.
"This one has spirit. He will do nicely."
The boy pounded his small feet on Kimfuka's robes.
"I said no! Let me go!"
The boy started crying. "N-no! I don't want to go with you!"
"Bring him!"
Brutes began scooping up the struggling prey from squalid bunks to the parked Hummers outside.
Yet two currents burned the hottest from the psychic output of Kimfuka's divining rod—twins bonded by blood.
Emily held her breath as the specter of Kimfuka's blind orbs paused before her, inspecting the very fabric of her vulnerability.
His nail dragged slowly down her cheek in a mockery of affection before pointing with a jerk.
"These are special ones," Kinfuka declared.
"They are to be kept pure. Keep them away from the others."
All Emily and Lila could see was a boogie man, too young to understand who he was or why they were there.
"Come out now, girls," Kinfuka called.
Tammy lurched the twins away from their bunk, wrestling them to the floor.
They screamed and squirmed like silkworms. Tammy pressured harder.
"Keep still both of you. Shut It!" Tammy shouted.
The claws came down, slashing a sigil of the occult upon the damp skin of their foreheads.
"They have been marked as the chosen ones," said Kinfuka.
"Is that all?" Tammy said.
"My work is done for my day," Kinfuka replied.
"Tomorrow, we start afresh. Take me to my accommodation."
Tammy got up, returning to her soft Girl Scout exterior.
The twin's heads lay on the floor, feeling the vibration of the stick and the backs of Tammy's plimsolls following the cotton of a black robe.
Then she turned back to the cowering children, face smoothing into the familiar cheerful mask.
"Now who wants a bedtime story later?" But something dark still lurked behind her eyes.
Emily and Lila watched them leave through tear-filled eyes.
Why did the scary man want to cut them? When would Mommy come to rescue them from this nightmare place?
**********
In the mess hall, Tammy and David waited at the side of the changing rooms, a pile of oversized bathrobes draped over his arm.
"Wash yourself, you filthy children," David scolded as he handed out the bathrobes to the boys.
David chuckled and added, "Don't forget to scrub behind your ears!"
Tammy took each small hand of the girls in hers, smiling that terrible fixed grin.
"In you go now; it's time to get clean before the gentlemen arrive."
Once they were showered, the girls joined the boys outside.
"We have a reward for you," Tammy said.
"Come this way."
The children gathered around a door, billows of scalding vapor rose like a hot mist from the cracks in the door frame.
David gaped the door open, revealing an abyssal sight, framing a sauna scene straight from the depths of hell itself.
Businessmen with towels wrapped around their waists reclined upon opulent divans, their eyes, like those of wolves, tasting the sight of David and Tammy pushing the children inside through the plumes of fragrant smoke.
As they entered the sauna's steamy depths, a wave of oppressive heat engulfed them.
The children's skin felt like it was being cooked from the inside out.
"It is hot in here!" the little girl cried.
Tammy snatched away her teddy bear, snapping at her angrily.
"Shut it! You little bitch."
It was a feast of flesh—the rawest of meats, the most forbidden of fruits. Between gulps of spice, men leered.
Two faces swiveled in the mist, surveying the new batch of stock, shivering in damp robes too large to belong to children.
Pushkin smiled thinly, raising a glass in a macabre toast.
"Welcome, little ones. Tonight, you will come to know us well."
Wang's fingers touch over glistening skin with the clinical touch of a butcher, selecting the fattest cuts for the tasting.
The door swung shut behind them, trapping the children inside the malice world of the global elite.
Outside, Tammy and David went off to collect their bonuses. Kimfuka was right; their hearts had blackened.