An idea forming that I'm working through in my head...This one should be pretty good if I ever decide to sit down and work on it.
Prologue
Amanda was still trying to calm her four year old daughter’s tears when she heard her husband crawling across the dirt floor towards her once again. The smell of damp dirt and human waste filled her nose, and the growling of her stomach echoed in her ears, mixing with the sounds of Faith’s crying. Their family had been in many hopeless situations, but she’d always managed to, despite all, cling to the last shred of hope that they would make it out okay. No matter how insane it was. Now she didn’t dare to hope. “Any luck?” she whispered.
He shook his head, then realized there was no way she’d be able to see him in this thick, inky blackness. “No,” he whispered back, taking his daughter into his arms and cradling her feverish forehead on his shoulder. He settled down next to Amanda and held her hand tightly as he rocked Faith back and forth in his lap, trying to succeed a bit more in what his wife could not. “It’s okay,” he tried to reassure them, though to him it seemed so obvious that his tone was devoid of any hope. “We’ll get out of here.”
“Yeah right,” a voice said sarcastically from a few feet away. Amanda and Brett’s heads turned to search for their teenage daughter sitting somewhere, but they couldn’t find her; they could only guess where she was by the sound of her voice. “There’s no way we’re going to make it out of this hell alive,” she said, her voice tinged with anger and bitterness. It was also quite obvious she had been doing some crying herself. “Let’s face it,” she said, no longer trying to hide the anger. “It’s over. We’re through. I tried to tell you this insane ‘God-given mission’ would get us all killed someday.”
“Shut up, Erin,” said her older brother sitting next to her. “You’re not helping.”
“What’s to help?” she demanded. “It’s hopeless. You know it just like I do, Derrick.”
“Shut up, Erin!” he said again, this time more angrily.
“Hey, guys!” Brett said, trying to calm them down. “Fighting and arguing is not going to get us anywhere.” He squeezed his wife’s hand. “We will get out of this alive. I just don’t know how yet.”
“We don’t even know where we are!” Erin cried, her tears becoming more obvious in her voice. “All we know is that we were thrown into underground into some sort of tiny, cramped cell with dirt floor and rats, and the ceiling’s so low, I can’t even sit up straight. We can’t see anything, we can’t hear anything, we haven’t eaten or drunk anything in over twenty-four hours, and it’s getting harder to breathe.” Her voice fell down to a whisper. “Just accept reality.” She took a deep breath and let it out again. It came out wavy and filled with anguish. “We’re all going to die down here.”
Derrick groped in the darkness for her, found her knee, and gave it a squeeze. She curled up to his touch, and he wrapped her arms around her as she silently cried on his shoulder while he shed tears of his own.
Brett and Amanda just sat silently, listening to Erin’s last haunting words still echoing in the darkness.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
What it all boils down to...
We leave for Kenya in just two days. Less than. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the goodbyes start, where the pain revives, and where faith truly begins. This is what it all boils down to: do I trust God enough to know what He's doing, or do I not?
~Emily
~Emily
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
What the Silence Screams
This is dedicated to one of my friends. I wrote it earlier this month, and because of my serious lack of ability in writing poems, have been afraid to show it to anyone until now. I posted it on facebook first, so most have already read this, but I figured I might as well post it here too. So please don't expect this to be some great spectacular thing. It's not. It is only the thoughts of my heart written in words for all to read. For it is something that needs to be said. If you think it is written for you, you are most likely wrong. The one who would not expect this is the friend who needs to hear it most. Perhaps someday I will get the courage to read this to my friend. Or perhaps someday, words will not be needed: my actions in the silence will be proof enough.
But this is for you: this is what I read in you. This is what I hear in the silence. This is what my silence speaks to you:
What the Silence Screams
You came to me when you knew I needed you.
Now I see you sitting off by yourself.
You look up as I approach,
And your eyes Scream what I read from your body language.
You’re done.
I sit with you.
You say nothing.
I don’t either.
But the silence is not uncomfortable.
I watch you distance yourself.
Quite often you push me away.
But while it hurt at first it doesn’t now.
Because now I know.
Now I understand.
For you are simply doing
What I do best.
You're hiding in your Silence.
Your guard is up.
Your heart is closed.
So I sit with you through the Silence.
I just let you know you’re not alone.
I do not understand exactly what you are thinking
Or what specifically drives you to do what you do.
But in the same way I know why you do it.
For I do the same thing.
I watch you suffer in Silence
At the hands of others’ misunderstanding
And at the fear of Intimate friendships.
I watch you clam up
And I watch you mask it
And I wonder if others See what I do.
Because I am Not fooled.
For I know what you’re feeling.
No matter how hard you may push me away
I will Always come back to you.
I will Always keep fighting
To gain a window into who you really are,
The person you let few people ever See.
You don’t need to talk with me.
You don’t need to keep me entertained.
I’m here for you.
That’s all you need to know.
I will not be chased away as others were,
You may Fight all you like.
But I know what you’re feeling.
And I know deep down inside what you need.
You need to know I’m not Scared of your mask.
You need to know I’ve got one too, but it can come off.
You need to know I’m here for you.
I will sit with you in the Silence.
I will walk with you through the dark Night.
I will do my best to understand.
I will Search until I find you.
You need to know I'm your friend.
You Need to know I Love you.
But this is for you: this is what I read in you. This is what I hear in the silence. This is what my silence speaks to you:
What the Silence Screams
You came to me when you knew I needed you.
Now I see you sitting off by yourself.
You look up as I approach,
And your eyes Scream what I read from your body language.
You’re done.
I sit with you.
You say nothing.
I don’t either.
But the silence is not uncomfortable.
I watch you distance yourself.
Quite often you push me away.
But while it hurt at first it doesn’t now.
Because now I know.
Now I understand.
For you are simply doing
What I do best.
You're hiding in your Silence.
Your guard is up.
Your heart is closed.
So I sit with you through the Silence.
I just let you know you’re not alone.
I do not understand exactly what you are thinking
Or what specifically drives you to do what you do.
But in the same way I know why you do it.
For I do the same thing.
I watch you suffer in Silence
At the hands of others’ misunderstanding
And at the fear of Intimate friendships.
I watch you clam up
And I watch you mask it
And I wonder if others See what I do.
Because I am Not fooled.
For I know what you’re feeling.
No matter how hard you may push me away
I will Always come back to you.
I will Always keep fighting
To gain a window into who you really are,
The person you let few people ever See.
You don’t need to talk with me.
You don’t need to keep me entertained.
I’m here for you.
That’s all you need to know.
I will not be chased away as others were,
You may Fight all you like.
But I know what you’re feeling.
And I know deep down inside what you need.
You need to know I’m not Scared of your mask.
You need to know I’ve got one too, but it can come off.
You need to know I’m here for you.
I will sit with you in the Silence.
I will walk with you through the dark Night.
I will do my best to understand.
I will Search until I find you.
You need to know I'm your friend.
You Need to know I Love you.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
I See...I See a Light...A Light?...Yeah. Over There.
"There's a light at the end of this tunnel..." says Third Day. I'm not sure I believed it there for a while, but I can see it now! Seventeen more days, and my horrible nightmare sophomore year will be over! YAY!!!!!!!! So close!!
~Emily
~Emily
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Hidden Secrets Prologue Part 2
Here you go, Sarah and Skyeler, the second part of the prologue. I hope it does not disappoint.
August 2, 1943
Treblinka Extermination Camp
Zook was here again for the second time in a week. Not a good thing.
It was putting him in a rotten mood.
Wilhelm, however, was in joyous spirits. He and Stangl were getting along grandly, and Wilhelm was having a good time.
Zook still didn't know why he was here. The stench of constant death was getting to him. After the train had been unloaded of its passengers, he and Wilhelm had gone to Stangl's barracks where they were invited to rest and eat some dinner before continuing on their way. So in the middle of this hell on earth, Zook was expected to enjoy dinner while hundreds of bodies were gassed and burned nonstop. It was nearing four in the afternoon, and he was feeling hungry, but his mind refused to let his stomach think about food.
He'd made some sort of excuse and left the barracks.
They'd just sent people up the path - also known as the "tube" - to the gas chambers here recently. They would be gassed and then burned overnight. Zook kept his eyes open for the Jewish girl, but he didn't see her. It had been three days since she had been taken here. Most of the forced laborers at Treblinka II never lived past five days. He knew it was practically hopeless to expect her to still be here.
And yet he still looked.
He was hoping to get some fresh air, but he wasn't sure if the air in Stangl's place wasn't cleaner than the air out here. As he walked he passed by several Jews standing around. They looked like corpses themselves, already welcoming the effect of death in their lives. He knew that every three to five days the Treblinka crew was completely new. How many of these three hundred people every night resulted to committing suicide instead of facing another day in this camp where thousands of their people were killed every day?
Suddenly there were gunshots, screaming. Guards yelling. Jolted from his thoughts, Zook glanced wildly around. What was going on? More gunshots, a woman was screaming. An SS officer ran by. Zook recognized him as a guy who had introduced himself as Kurt Kuttner. "The prisoners are making an escape!" he yelled as he ran by. "Alert the guards! Alert the guards!"
The prisoners were revolting?
Several buildings around Zook, some barracks and sheds, ignited into fire. He saw several Jewish men run away from the flaming buildings. Some of them carried small guns. Where did they get those?! Zook pulled out his gun and ran after them, yelling at them to stop. He began shooting, and brought a couple down. The last two kept running. "Halt!" he yelled, picking up his pace. He didn't trust his aim while running. He didn't want to kill them, just bring them to the ground.
More SS guards were running after them. All the Jews were gathering towards the main gate. Machine guns spattered from the guard watch towers, and the majority of the Jews fell to the ground; they did not move again. Zook forced his feet to move and broke into a full run. They couldn't let the rest of them escape!
As he ran he noticced several SS guards down on the ground, some of them dead. He recognized some, not others. Although compelled to stop and see who was still alive and who was truly dead, the prisoners were his first priority.
He darted around a building when one of the prisoners turned and shot at some of the guards. A guard in the watchtowers shot and killed him. Zook peeked around the corner to see if the coast was clear. Something moved and caught his eye. To his surprise he saw the teenage girl he'd been looking for run out of another building and head towards the barbed wire fence. She had pliers in her hands. With the guards in the watchtowers distracted, Zook watched as she managed to cut a small hole in the fence, almost large enough for her to slip through.
What are you doing? Get out there and stop her!
His feet were no longer frozen to the ground, and Zook bolted towards her. "Halt!" he yelled in German, then Polish. "Stop it right now!"
She froze and looked up at him as he aimed his gun at her. He was stunned at the change in her. Her eyes were wild and crazed, and they held no hint of the sense they did the last time he saw them. The fire, the personality, was all completely gone. Her eyes showed no recognition of him, or a sense of her surroundings. He didn't even know if she was all there anymore.
"Please..." she whimpered in Polish as she fell to the ground on her knees. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Just kill me."
Zook stood there, frozen in time. Mixed cries of victory and anger filled the air as many Jews broke through the gate and fled. Her one request kept echoing through his mind, chilling him. Just kill me...just kill me...just kill me...
It was the right thing to do. It would put her out of her misery, without the shame and torture of being gassed. He tried to convince himself of that. She had asked for it. Pleaded for it, actually. He should grant it. She was an escaping prisoner anyway. He needed to deal with that as he would any of the other prisoners.
Zook raised the gun and put it to her head. She looked up at him once more as he put his finger on the trigger. The pliers in her hand dropped to the ground, kicking up a small pile of dust. He watched it settle, thinking of the ashes that would come from this girl's body as it burned. His finger came off the trigger.
He searched her eyes for a minute. She looked straight back at him. They were different all over again. Her deep brown eyes were still filled with tears and pain. But this time they weren't depthless from loss of her mind. He could drown in the meaning they held. He closed his eyes, tried to breathe. Then he sucked in a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and rested his finger once more on the trigger. Re-situated the gun to her head. He said the one thing that came to his mind - in Polish.
"I'm sorry."
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Bury My Secrets - Prologue
First a little background on my writing history is needed. I count this as the first book I've ever written. In 2007 I wrote out a story on notebook paper that I called "Forgiveness" and I was so proud when it came to fifty pages. But if you dwindled down my handwriting closer to the size of most people's handwriting, and you took out all the sentances and words scribbled out in pen, it would probably total more like 30 pages.
Then in 2008 I wrote on the computer a story entitled "God's Work" and it came out to 60 pages. I was ecstatic. As soon as that was completed, I started this story. It was originally called "Hidden Secrets," and the first draft was 112 pages. This story has a background of its own, for I am only responsible of writing about a third of it. Elizabeth and Victoria Brook are responsible for the other two thirds. It is a version of a "house game" we once played, right before I left for Kenya. All three of us were the main characters. As soon as we were done playing this house game, I had vowed that I would write it down - all of it. I kept my vow.
When I finished Hidden Secrets, I sent it to Elizabeth, Victoria, and Skyeler Syrek. It was an instant hit. We would discuss it in great lengths in our emails, and even sign off our letters as the name of the character we played in the story. (I'm a guy named "Heinrich", Victoria's a girl named "Victoria", and Elizabeth's a girl named "Sarah". These characters are also known as "the General", "Stickyfingers", and "Elizabeth" for reasons that will be explained later in the book.)
Well, that was all great and grand for about two years. After that, I realized how bad my history was, how bad my plot was, how bad my character development was, and how bad my writing style in general was. I decided Hidden Secrets needed some editing - no, I decided it needed re-writing. Badly. And thus I have begun. I have re-entitled it "Bury My Secrets" and this is my second attempt to the prologue; so far I am rather proud of it. This may take a while, but I hope to publish chapters as I go. Let me know if you enjoyed this first part.
Warsaw Ghetto, Poland
Late July, 1943
I, DIEDRICK ZOOK, DID THIS.
It didn't sit well in his gut.
Zook looked down into all the faces of the tiny, half-starved children sitting on the ground before him. They were all looking up at him, quiet, waiting to see what he would do, and the silence was ringing in his ears at just the right pitch that gave him an eerie feeling. He couldn't make himself ignore it.
I did this.
He turned his face away from the older Jewish woman. She lay dead on the floor in a pool of blood, bullet holes running through her head. He gave a wave of his hand. "Take her away," he muttered to his soldiers.
They obeyed, hauling the body out by the arms. The head fell on the limp neck and the top of it dragged and scraped up against the ground. It left blood and pieces of dark, curly hair caught on the little niches in the rough cement floor.
He closed his eyes. I'm going to be sick.
Some of the children were crying now. One girl who looked to be about five years old was crying particularly loud. Zook wondered how well the little girl knew the woman he'd just given the command to shoot and kill. Maybe they were good friends. Maybe they were related. Maybe it was her mother.
One of the guards yelled at the children to shut up or he'd shoot them all. He yelled it in German, and Zook wasn't sure how well the little ones understood him. But he knew the young woman standing in the back corner of the crowded room heard and understood. Her face hardened. The crying little girl, her long hair tied up with a piece of string, jumped up and ran to the young woman, who took the girl in her arms. She held her, rocking her back and forth, pressing the girl's face into her skirt, and doing her best to hush her cries.
Zook made eye contact with the young woman. At second glance he decided she couldn't be a day over sixteen, but she'd obviously been helping with the teaching in this illegal underground Jewish school. She glared at him instead of lowering her eyes, and his eyebrows arched. This one meant trouble. She would continue to oppose - he could see the fire in her eyes.
"Take her," he said to his soldiers, nodding his head in the direction of the teenager. Two of them moved to obey his command, and dragged her away by the arms. The girl clung to the teenager's skirt, screaming. A third soldier ripped her hands away and practically tossed her aside like a little rag doll. She hit the floor, still crying.
Zook gestured towwards the door and the group of soldiers that had broken into the underground school with him started to filter out of the door and back up into the weak sunlight. It was July, the warmest month in Poland, and temperatures weren't rising above sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit this year. They walked out to one of the main streets, where soldiers were gathering together a bunch of Jews to load into the waiting freight train.
Zook felt like he was going to be sick again. He knew where those Jews were headed.
He didn't even know why they were here. They were supposed to stop the transport of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto months ago.
His soldiers dispersed; he approached the ones still holding the teenager, and gave them orders to let the girl go before she was picked up as one of the chosen.
They let her go with a rough shove. She fell to the ground, but didn't cry out. She looked up and glared at them and one of the soldiers leaned down and gave her a solid slap on the face with the back of his hand. Zook grimaced and watched her cheek swell up purple and blue.
"Zook!"
He looked up to see the leader, a tall, large muscled, big-boned, blue-eyed, and blond-haired man, beckoning him over to his side. The man was already talking by the time Zook was six feet away from him. "I want to see how many we can pack into each car," he said, surveying the already large group of frightened, rigid Jews standing in the middle of the street. "The more we can transport over to Treblinka, the better."
Zook nodded as Wilhelm continued to talk.
"And I want to make sure - hallo, what's this?"
Zook snapped his head up from where he had been staring at the road, and watched his leader stride over to intercept a little boy about five years old running across the street with abandon. The leader's huge hand engulfed the starving boy's bony arm, and lifted him upa s if he weighed nothing. "You padded a little well there, boy?" the leader said loudly in German, shaking the child in front of his face.
He found among the boy's clothes bundles of bread and some potatoes. Zook swallowed. The boy was just one of the hundreds that were smuggling food across the ghetto to keep their families alive. The leader took the potatoes and threw them against the pavement with all the strength in his mighty arm. They splattered on the road, wasted. Next he stomped on the bread, treading it into the ground. All the while the boy he held up high in the air never made a sound.
"Something wrong with the food we provide, huh, Jewish boy?" the leader demanded, shaking him. "Is there something wrong with it?"
The boy shook his head, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks.
"However it no longer matters." He dropped the boy on the ground. "Food now is the least of your concerns." He nodded at a nearby soldier and gave him the command. "Take care of this one. And any others that you catch for that matter - I'm sick of dealing with them."
The soldier nodded and prepared to shoot.
There was a blood-curdling, ear-ringing, high-pitched scream, and the same girl that Zook had just told his men to set free threw herself at Wilhelm. "No, stop!" she cried in Polish, then she changed to broken up German with a thick accent. "Please, no!"
Her unrestrained emotion and rebellion took Zook by surprise. It made him take a second look, and he could easily see the similarities of face between the teenage girl and the little boy. No doubt Wilhelm saw it too. Siblings, Zook concluded.
"Please," she begged hysterically, falling to her knees in front of the German. "Please I beg of you! Take me away! Take my life. Do whatever you want with me. Only let him live!"
"You chose the wrong person to have sympathize with you, girl," Zook muttered under his breath. He watched his friend and Gestapo leader's face as it curled up into what could almost be mistaken for a smile - a cruel one.
"What's your address number?" Wilhelm asked her.
She didn't want to give it. Zook watched her fight with the decision. The soldier - who had let the gun drop - raised it once more and aimed at her brother again. She stiffened.
Wilhelm rubbed his forehead with his fingers as if he were extremely stressed. "Really, Jew?" He sighed, "I am so sick of playing games. Are you all really so dense that you can't see if you cooperate with us it will make your lives so much easier? Now I don't want to have to ask again. What is your address number?"
She blurted out her street and house number, but Zook did not breathe a sigh of relief. He caught that distinct nod that was communicated from Wilhelm to the soldier. And he felt sick.
The soldier put down his gun. The little boy bolted and the girl's shoulders sagged with relief. Just as the boy as about to turn the corner, Wilhelm jerked the gun from the soldier, aimed, and shot one single shot. The boy was a lifeless body before it even hit the street. It all happened so fast it even took Zook a second to register it, and he had seen it coming.
The teenage girl screamed again and threw herself at Wilhelm, pounding him with her fists, still screaming at him like a banshee. It was more than useless. Wilhelm was the biggest, strongest, and most muscled guy around. The girl was almost half-starved herself, short, and small statured. Zook waited for Wilhelm's anger to flare, but instead the man just laughed. He wrapped one arm around her upper body and pinned her arms to her sides as he gestured to his men. "You heard the house number. Go take care of her parents, and anyone else you find." Four Gestapo soldiers all with guns ran off in the direction of the house.
"No, no, no!" she cried alternately in Polish and German. "Please, no!"
He tossed her aside to another soldier. "Load her up with the others."
Zook closed his eyes.
"I hate you!" the girl screamed in German. She swore several times in Polish. "I hate all of you! May God curse you all!"
Wilhelm just laughed at her. "You still dare to mention the name of God, Jewess? He abandoned you long ago. Zook, load them into the train."
Zook turned and directed his men, the girl's screams still ringing through the air. They herded the Jews like cattle through the Warsaw Ghetto gate. There were hundreds of them.
They would all be dead by morning.
Treblinka Extermination Camp
Zook stood next to Wilhelm on the porch of the fake railway station as the soldiers opened the groaning, creaking sliding doors to all the freight train cars. He looked up at the sign hanging above him, painted white with big, black letters: Treblinka.
Soldiers started pulling stunned, weak, and confused prisoners from the cars, and out onto the platform. Zook hadn't been here at Treblinka in a year, and he could tell that the commandant was someone new. Back when he was here in 1942, with Irmfried Eberl as commandant, he could smell the death camp several kilometers away. Dead, rotting bodies were always strewn about the railway tracks and other buildings. Eberl had been ousted on account of lack of efficiency in running the camp in September of last year.
Wilhelm voiced Zook's thoughts. "I'm glad Stangl tries to keep things a bit more clean around here," he muttered uner his breath. "Makes things a bit more...civilized. Never did like that Dr. Eberl. The man had no idea what he was doing."
As if Wilhelm was an expert.
Zook found himself looking for the teenage girl he'd been forced to throw into one of the freight train cars filled with Jewish men. As the cars emptied, the blue squad Jews from the camp entered into them and pulled out the bodies of those who had preferred to kill themselves some way or another over dying at the hand of the Nazis. The bodies were taken to be burned in the pits along with all the others. The buckets of waste were also thrown out.
Then Zook caught sight of her. She'd thrown up all over herself, and it had stained her clothes and clumped in her hair. She was pushed and shoved along with all the others past the platform and toward the barracks. This was where they would all be stripped and their belongings taken before being pushed up the trail naked and into the gas chambers. The women would have their hair shaven off. Wilhelm was busy talking with someone else, most likely Stangl, and Zook bolted off the railway station porch. He pushed through the soldiers, yelling at them to move out of his way, and they obeyed. He pointed to the girl and four others that looked stronger and healthier than the others and commanded that they stay and work in the camp as the sondorkommandos.
"Put her in the red squad," he said, pointing to the teenage girl. "Put the rest in Totenjuden." He wasn't sure if he was just being more cruel. Should he just let the girl be gassed today and die? End her misery? Or should he extend her life and see how well she survived? He'd tried to do what he could - he'd put her in the group that was in charge of undressing the prisoners and taking their belongings. It was better than the Totenjuden, or "Jews of Death" who were responsible for taking the gassed bodies from the gas chambers and burning them in the pits. They also had the horrendous job of taking any leftover recognizable parts out of the burning pits and grinding them into pieces.
The girl's eyes met his for a brief second, and he saw within them his daughter back in Germany whom he had yet to meet. She was coming up on her fourth birthday this November. He only knew what she looked like through pictures and his wife's description: "She looks just like you - except your nose is bigger."
This teenage Jewish girl was someone's daughter.
Don't mistake my decision for compassion, he wanted to say to the Jewish girl. You'll be wishing you were dead by nightfall.
Then in 2008 I wrote on the computer a story entitled "God's Work" and it came out to 60 pages. I was ecstatic. As soon as that was completed, I started this story. It was originally called "Hidden Secrets," and the first draft was 112 pages. This story has a background of its own, for I am only responsible of writing about a third of it. Elizabeth and Victoria Brook are responsible for the other two thirds. It is a version of a "house game" we once played, right before I left for Kenya. All three of us were the main characters. As soon as we were done playing this house game, I had vowed that I would write it down - all of it. I kept my vow.
When I finished Hidden Secrets, I sent it to Elizabeth, Victoria, and Skyeler Syrek. It was an instant hit. We would discuss it in great lengths in our emails, and even sign off our letters as the name of the character we played in the story. (I'm a guy named "Heinrich", Victoria's a girl named "Victoria", and Elizabeth's a girl named "Sarah". These characters are also known as "the General", "Stickyfingers", and "Elizabeth" for reasons that will be explained later in the book.)
Well, that was all great and grand for about two years. After that, I realized how bad my history was, how bad my plot was, how bad my character development was, and how bad my writing style in general was. I decided Hidden Secrets needed some editing - no, I decided it needed re-writing. Badly. And thus I have begun. I have re-entitled it "Bury My Secrets" and this is my second attempt to the prologue; so far I am rather proud of it. This may take a while, but I hope to publish chapters as I go. Let me know if you enjoyed this first part.
Warsaw Ghetto, Poland
Late July, 1943
I, DIEDRICK ZOOK, DID THIS.
It didn't sit well in his gut.
Zook looked down into all the faces of the tiny, half-starved children sitting on the ground before him. They were all looking up at him, quiet, waiting to see what he would do, and the silence was ringing in his ears at just the right pitch that gave him an eerie feeling. He couldn't make himself ignore it.
I did this.
He turned his face away from the older Jewish woman. She lay dead on the floor in a pool of blood, bullet holes running through her head. He gave a wave of his hand. "Take her away," he muttered to his soldiers.
They obeyed, hauling the body out by the arms. The head fell on the limp neck and the top of it dragged and scraped up against the ground. It left blood and pieces of dark, curly hair caught on the little niches in the rough cement floor.
He closed his eyes. I'm going to be sick.
Some of the children were crying now. One girl who looked to be about five years old was crying particularly loud. Zook wondered how well the little girl knew the woman he'd just given the command to shoot and kill. Maybe they were good friends. Maybe they were related. Maybe it was her mother.
One of the guards yelled at the children to shut up or he'd shoot them all. He yelled it in German, and Zook wasn't sure how well the little ones understood him. But he knew the young woman standing in the back corner of the crowded room heard and understood. Her face hardened. The crying little girl, her long hair tied up with a piece of string, jumped up and ran to the young woman, who took the girl in her arms. She held her, rocking her back and forth, pressing the girl's face into her skirt, and doing her best to hush her cries.
Zook made eye contact with the young woman. At second glance he decided she couldn't be a day over sixteen, but she'd obviously been helping with the teaching in this illegal underground Jewish school. She glared at him instead of lowering her eyes, and his eyebrows arched. This one meant trouble. She would continue to oppose - he could see the fire in her eyes.
"Take her," he said to his soldiers, nodding his head in the direction of the teenager. Two of them moved to obey his command, and dragged her away by the arms. The girl clung to the teenager's skirt, screaming. A third soldier ripped her hands away and practically tossed her aside like a little rag doll. She hit the floor, still crying.
Zook gestured towwards the door and the group of soldiers that had broken into the underground school with him started to filter out of the door and back up into the weak sunlight. It was July, the warmest month in Poland, and temperatures weren't rising above sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit this year. They walked out to one of the main streets, where soldiers were gathering together a bunch of Jews to load into the waiting freight train.
Zook felt like he was going to be sick again. He knew where those Jews were headed.
He didn't even know why they were here. They were supposed to stop the transport of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto months ago.
His soldiers dispersed; he approached the ones still holding the teenager, and gave them orders to let the girl go before she was picked up as one of the chosen.
They let her go with a rough shove. She fell to the ground, but didn't cry out. She looked up and glared at them and one of the soldiers leaned down and gave her a solid slap on the face with the back of his hand. Zook grimaced and watched her cheek swell up purple and blue.
"Zook!"
He looked up to see the leader, a tall, large muscled, big-boned, blue-eyed, and blond-haired man, beckoning him over to his side. The man was already talking by the time Zook was six feet away from him. "I want to see how many we can pack into each car," he said, surveying the already large group of frightened, rigid Jews standing in the middle of the street. "The more we can transport over to Treblinka, the better."
Zook nodded as Wilhelm continued to talk.
"And I want to make sure - hallo, what's this?"
Zook snapped his head up from where he had been staring at the road, and watched his leader stride over to intercept a little boy about five years old running across the street with abandon. The leader's huge hand engulfed the starving boy's bony arm, and lifted him upa s if he weighed nothing. "You padded a little well there, boy?" the leader said loudly in German, shaking the child in front of his face.
He found among the boy's clothes bundles of bread and some potatoes. Zook swallowed. The boy was just one of the hundreds that were smuggling food across the ghetto to keep their families alive. The leader took the potatoes and threw them against the pavement with all the strength in his mighty arm. They splattered on the road, wasted. Next he stomped on the bread, treading it into the ground. All the while the boy he held up high in the air never made a sound.
"Something wrong with the food we provide, huh, Jewish boy?" the leader demanded, shaking him. "Is there something wrong with it?"
The boy shook his head, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks.
"However it no longer matters." He dropped the boy on the ground. "Food now is the least of your concerns." He nodded at a nearby soldier and gave him the command. "Take care of this one. And any others that you catch for that matter - I'm sick of dealing with them."
The soldier nodded and prepared to shoot.
There was a blood-curdling, ear-ringing, high-pitched scream, and the same girl that Zook had just told his men to set free threw herself at Wilhelm. "No, stop!" she cried in Polish, then she changed to broken up German with a thick accent. "Please, no!"
Her unrestrained emotion and rebellion took Zook by surprise. It made him take a second look, and he could easily see the similarities of face between the teenage girl and the little boy. No doubt Wilhelm saw it too. Siblings, Zook concluded.
"Please," she begged hysterically, falling to her knees in front of the German. "Please I beg of you! Take me away! Take my life. Do whatever you want with me. Only let him live!"
"You chose the wrong person to have sympathize with you, girl," Zook muttered under his breath. He watched his friend and Gestapo leader's face as it curled up into what could almost be mistaken for a smile - a cruel one.
"What's your address number?" Wilhelm asked her.
She didn't want to give it. Zook watched her fight with the decision. The soldier - who had let the gun drop - raised it once more and aimed at her brother again. She stiffened.
Wilhelm rubbed his forehead with his fingers as if he were extremely stressed. "Really, Jew?" He sighed, "I am so sick of playing games. Are you all really so dense that you can't see if you cooperate with us it will make your lives so much easier? Now I don't want to have to ask again. What is your address number?"
She blurted out her street and house number, but Zook did not breathe a sigh of relief. He caught that distinct nod that was communicated from Wilhelm to the soldier. And he felt sick.
The soldier put down his gun. The little boy bolted and the girl's shoulders sagged with relief. Just as the boy as about to turn the corner, Wilhelm jerked the gun from the soldier, aimed, and shot one single shot. The boy was a lifeless body before it even hit the street. It all happened so fast it even took Zook a second to register it, and he had seen it coming.
The teenage girl screamed again and threw herself at Wilhelm, pounding him with her fists, still screaming at him like a banshee. It was more than useless. Wilhelm was the biggest, strongest, and most muscled guy around. The girl was almost half-starved herself, short, and small statured. Zook waited for Wilhelm's anger to flare, but instead the man just laughed. He wrapped one arm around her upper body and pinned her arms to her sides as he gestured to his men. "You heard the house number. Go take care of her parents, and anyone else you find." Four Gestapo soldiers all with guns ran off in the direction of the house.
"No, no, no!" she cried alternately in Polish and German. "Please, no!"
He tossed her aside to another soldier. "Load her up with the others."
Zook closed his eyes.
"I hate you!" the girl screamed in German. She swore several times in Polish. "I hate all of you! May God curse you all!"
Wilhelm just laughed at her. "You still dare to mention the name of God, Jewess? He abandoned you long ago. Zook, load them into the train."
Zook turned and directed his men, the girl's screams still ringing through the air. They herded the Jews like cattle through the Warsaw Ghetto gate. There were hundreds of them.
They would all be dead by morning.
Treblinka Extermination Camp
Zook stood next to Wilhelm on the porch of the fake railway station as the soldiers opened the groaning, creaking sliding doors to all the freight train cars. He looked up at the sign hanging above him, painted white with big, black letters: Treblinka.
Soldiers started pulling stunned, weak, and confused prisoners from the cars, and out onto the platform. Zook hadn't been here at Treblinka in a year, and he could tell that the commandant was someone new. Back when he was here in 1942, with Irmfried Eberl as commandant, he could smell the death camp several kilometers away. Dead, rotting bodies were always strewn about the railway tracks and other buildings. Eberl had been ousted on account of lack of efficiency in running the camp in September of last year.
Wilhelm voiced Zook's thoughts. "I'm glad Stangl tries to keep things a bit more clean around here," he muttered uner his breath. "Makes things a bit more...civilized. Never did like that Dr. Eberl. The man had no idea what he was doing."
As if Wilhelm was an expert.
Zook found himself looking for the teenage girl he'd been forced to throw into one of the freight train cars filled with Jewish men. As the cars emptied, the blue squad Jews from the camp entered into them and pulled out the bodies of those who had preferred to kill themselves some way or another over dying at the hand of the Nazis. The bodies were taken to be burned in the pits along with all the others. The buckets of waste were also thrown out.
Then Zook caught sight of her. She'd thrown up all over herself, and it had stained her clothes and clumped in her hair. She was pushed and shoved along with all the others past the platform and toward the barracks. This was where they would all be stripped and their belongings taken before being pushed up the trail naked and into the gas chambers. The women would have their hair shaven off. Wilhelm was busy talking with someone else, most likely Stangl, and Zook bolted off the railway station porch. He pushed through the soldiers, yelling at them to move out of his way, and they obeyed. He pointed to the girl and four others that looked stronger and healthier than the others and commanded that they stay and work in the camp as the sondorkommandos.
"Put her in the red squad," he said, pointing to the teenage girl. "Put the rest in Totenjuden." He wasn't sure if he was just being more cruel. Should he just let the girl be gassed today and die? End her misery? Or should he extend her life and see how well she survived? He'd tried to do what he could - he'd put her in the group that was in charge of undressing the prisoners and taking their belongings. It was better than the Totenjuden, or "Jews of Death" who were responsible for taking the gassed bodies from the gas chambers and burning them in the pits. They also had the horrendous job of taking any leftover recognizable parts out of the burning pits and grinding them into pieces.
The girl's eyes met his for a brief second, and he saw within them his daughter back in Germany whom he had yet to meet. She was coming up on her fourth birthday this November. He only knew what she looked like through pictures and his wife's description: "She looks just like you - except your nose is bigger."
This teenage Jewish girl was someone's daughter.
Don't mistake my decision for compassion, he wanted to say to the Jewish girl. You'll be wishing you were dead by nightfall.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Camden
Another assignment for apologetics. This one was fun. I struggled with ending it. :D I just wanted it to keep going!
CAMDEN
“Ready?”
Maddie grinned at him and gave him a thumbs-up. “Ready. Are you?”
Camden swatted at several mosquitoes buzzing around him, and mopped off the sweat running down his brow in small streams. It had run down his neck and back, soaking his shirt. Maddie had decided to be nice and not comment sarcastically on how the dense jungle atmosphere was bringing out the best in Camden. Davin hadn’t been so nice. Maddie had stayed out of the heated argument that had followed after that. To be totally honest, the atmosphere, the heat, the bugs, and this assignment was bringing the worst out in all of them.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Camden replied to her question.
Camden looked up to their party’s third member and leader, Davin, and said, “Wheel us down.”
Davin started cranking the wheel, easing out slack in the rope attached to the vests Camden and Maddie had secured around their bodies. Holding onto the now taut rope, they walked down the steep walls of the cave that ran almost perfectly vertically to unknown depth into the earth.
It was almost an instant change of climate. As they made their way down into the cave, the air was much less humid, and it was cooler. The farther down into the earth they went, the colder it got. Camden felt chills crawl across his skin as his sweat dried.
The wall they were walking down suddenly jutted out and they cautiously followed it, the lights on their helmets sweeping through the vast space below them, looking for an end to this pit that felt like it could go on forever. Maddie kept looking down, looking for a floor to this thing, but she found none.
She felt Camden tap her shoulder and they both halted their descent. They had come a ledge in the wall. It jutted out a bit, then the wall resumed its course straight down. They steadied their feet on the ledge and rested for a minute. Looking around to see exactly how far the ledge extended, Maddie caught something in the beam of her head-light.
Was that…was that…?
Her heart started racing, pounding in her ears, as she carefully bent her knees to reach for the object. She picked it up, and tried to remember how to breathe. “Camden…”
He looked over at what she had, and a few words slipped out of his mouth. He reached over and took it from her. It was a flashlight that looked like it had been chewed in half. Blood stains covered the smooth plastic surface. There was no point in trying to see if it still worked. The entire bottom half had been brutally shredded off.
“How in the world…” he muttered in shock as he turned it over in his hand. “It must be from the party that went down before us a couple of months ago.”
Maddie looked over at him. “What in the world’s down here?” she whispered.
His face, illuminated in her head beam, told her his answer. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
They’d already had to deal with the rumors and myths of the native tribal people about this place. It came with the job. It was sacred and holy ground to the neighboring tribes. They held human sacrifices here every season in order to keep their god appeased. Most parties of investigators or archaeologists paid no heed to the warnings the tribes desperately forced upon them. And most of the members in all parties never returned. Davin had insisted they try a new way. All three of them had gone through enough to know most of the time rumors didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. There was always a seed of truth somewhere.
It was that seed of truth they needed to be able to discern, interpret, and act upon, Davin said. Be cautions, not paranoid. “We’re here for a reason,” Davin had instructed them before they went down. “We do have a mission in mind. But I don’t care what any government says. Your lives come first, before whatever treasure we’re supposed to find down there. If something happens, you get out of there.”
But Camden wasn’t about to give up yet – not so soon. “Come on,” he whispered. He didn’t know why they were whispering. This place demanded quietness. It practically shouted not to be disturbed. “Someone must have stumbled across something they weren’t supposed to. We have the warning, and now we know we need to be even more careful.”
They continued on down.
They could barely see the light of the hole above them by the time the floor came in sight. Long before they stepped foot down on ground once again, they halted and took a long, careful inspection. “Looks like sand,” Maddie commented.
“Yeah,” Camden agreed. “Swept clean. Pure white. Not many people have tracked through here.”
She gave him the Look. “That’s not funny.”
“I didn’t think so either.”
The coast looked clear, so they climbed down the remaining twelve feet and their feet were finally rested on the soft, smooth sand. If Maddie was expecting something to come lunging out of the darkness towards her throat the second her feet touched ground, it didn’t happen.
The cave now stretched to the right and left, and the ceiling would quite obviously get much lower. After some discussion and looking at an old, rough map that nobody knew for sure whether it was correct or not, the two decided to head to the right.
Maddie could stand up straight as they went along, but Camden had to crouch.
The further along they went, the more the chill on Maddie’s spine grew. She knew Camden felt the same way, because he was joking around. “Look’s like no one’s home,” he said, grabbing her arm when she tripped over something and almost went sprawling onto the floor. She steadied herself and they plunged on.
“That’s not funny, Cam.”
“Well, wouldn’t you agree? If they were, don’t you think we’d be down in the grave by now?”
“Well, I’d be in heaven.”
“I’ve known a lot of women, Maddie,” Cam scoffed. “And a lot of them would say the same thing. Some of them I can see in heaven singing in the angel choir, but not you. Good grief, I know you too well. You really think God would let you in heaven?”
She knew he was teasing, but it still hurt. Camden had been her friend for a long time now. He’d known the Maddie that drank and partied and did other things she shouldn’t do. He knew that even now she was struggling with breaking her smoking habit. He was also one of the few friends that had decided not to disown her when she “got religious.” He’d stuck with her, even though he commented all the time on how she had “gotten weird on him.” It got tiring, his teasing did, but he never deserted her, and she appreciated him for it.
“I still don’t see how you can believe in the existence of a God, Maddie,” he said as they walked on. “When evolution has proved itself time after time, and there are still people in this world like you who refuse to give up the old faith. Just accept the truth of it, Maddles.” She could hear the earnestness in his voice. “Science has proven the Christian God doesn’t exist. I know it’s nice to believe that there’s someone in control over all this mess we human beings are in, but it’s just…not so.”
She shook her head, and her light moved with her, jiggling from side to side with her head. “I’m sorry, Cam. But I have to disagree. Science has not proven that the Christian God can’t exist. God is omnipotent, and everywhere at once. First of all it would be impossible prove he doesn’t exist. But creationists have so much backup for God creating the world.”
“You talking about the Intelligent Design movement?”
“Well, it’s most definitely a start.”
“What grounds to they have for their beliefs?”
The air was still cold, but it was getting dry, stiff, and thin. It was getting more difficult to breathe. Maddie took slower breaths as she tried to explain. “You’ve been around enough to know how complex this world is, Camden. Everything hangs in a delicate balance. Stray but just a little from one side or to the other, and life as we know it would cease to exist. That’s a lot of chance in and of itself, but when you look at the numbers, it’s even more stunning. Take the earth for example. Say there are 1022 planets in the universe. The chances that our planet would form naturally by chance is 10138. That’s huge!”
“That’s just one example.”
“Did you major in a science?” she said sarcastically.
“Yeah, biology. Why?”
“You should know this. The distance of the earth from the sun. If it were just a little bit closer, we’d burn. If it was just a bit farther, we’d freeze. The size of the moon. If it were much larger than it was now, the tides would be way too big. The tilt of the earth is exact for the livable climates humans need. If the gravitational force were altered by just 10-38, the sun and earth would cease to exist. All of these are just a few examples of how precise our earth and universe have to be. The chances are not even imaginable. And yet evolutionists still expect the world to believe it all happened by random chance? That takes more faith than it does for me to believe in a creator God, Cam!”
“To tell you the truth, Maddie, I’ve thought about all this. And in my most honest moment of truth, like now, walking with you deep in the center of the earth, I would agree with you. It doesn’t make sense that evolutionists hold to their ideas.”
“So let me get this straight. You believe creationism makes more sense, but you don’t want to believe it?”
“Sort of.”
“Why?”
Camden opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, he stepped on something that crunched brutally underneath his weight. The breath was sucked out of both of them as he jerked back like a spring, grabbing Maddie and pulling her back as well. He searched the floor with his light, looking for the source to the sound.
There, wedged in the sand, was what had once been a complete human skull, before Camden had crushed it underneath his boot. He swallowed, and looked over at his friend. Maddie’s face was white, her eyes wide. “What was that you were saying about God?” he asked.
Her eyes flicked over and met his. “You’re scared of dying, aren’t you?”
He serenely nodded. Oh, the depth to that statement.
Maddie ached for her friend. She wanted so desperately for him to find the peace she’d only recently discovered. She slipped her hand into his, gave it a squeeze, then pulled away. They walked on, stepping on several other human bones along the way. A femur here, a hand with fingers there. Maddie just tried to ignore them, her eyes snapping shut each time she heard and felt a crunch underneath her boot. Camden was there, quietly breathing beside her, touching her shoulder every once in a while to let her know all was well.
“So what are some other evidences for a God?” he asked her after a while.
His voice, though hushed, sounded harsh and loud in the still air all around them. She had to force herself to speak up enough for him to hear her. “I’m sure you know about the oxygen levels in the air. There’s 21% oxygen in the air. If it was 25%, we would all blow up. If it were 15%, we would all suffocate.”
A sudden stench filled the air, and she almost gagged. They both stopped. Camden took in the air, but Maddie covered her nose. “Man, what is that?”
“I have no idea!” he whispered. He sounded amazed. “Man, there’s something strangely alive in a deathly way down here.”
Well, the live human sacrifices every season had to disappear somewhere.
What a pleasant thought.
“Hey, Maddie, look.” He touched her arm, and she looked to where he was pointing at the ground. There was a large, smooth stroke in the sand, almost like a ripple, only much larger, much wider, and a bit more shallow. It was about eight feet long, a foot and a half wide. There were more, too, suggesting something of much larger size. “What do you suppose that is?”
She recognized the pattern, but only on a much smaller scale. It made her heart race. “It’s a slithering snake track, Cam.”
“Then what’s that?”
Near the slithering tracks was a huge imprint, about twice the size of Camden’s head. Around the imprint were three pricks in the sand. Claws.
“This thing slithers and crawls at the same time?” Camden breathed.
“Cam…” Maddie said. Their eyes met and she knew they were both thinking the exact same thing: snakes don’t crawl. Other land animals don’t slither. What is this thing?!
“Well…” Camden straightened up again as best he could and motioned for them to keep on. “Life goes on. What about intelligent design itself? Any argument for that?” They started walking, talking even quieter now.
“Yeah. You remember that flashlight we found on the ledge way back?”
“Mm-hm.”
“When you were looking at that, did you ever consider that it had been there for ages, and through time it had just evolved alongside the rock walls?”
“Uh…yes. I did.”
She gave his arm a swat and he chuckled. “No, Maddie, I didn’t.”
“Why?” She answered her own question. “Because looking at that it was obvious that intelligence was behind the design of that flashlight. It was obvious someone made the parts specifically to go together, and then put them together in a pattern that made sense, that had a purpose, and that portrayed the intelligence of the creator. The earth is the same way.”
The stench was getting stronger with every step, more putrid, more rotten smelling. It became overwhelming. They had to stop once because Maddie vomited on the side of the path. Camden stood and held her hair back from her face until she was through, and they slogged on, despite the fear that was no longer settling as a chill in their spine. It was coursing through their whole bodies, surging through their veins and nerves.
“Are you afraid to die?”
Camden’s voice was soft, low, hushed. Maddie shook her head. “No, I’m not. You don’t have to be either, you know.”
His answer was even softer than before. “I know.”
Movement ahead of them. They both jerked to a stop. Camden’s light flickered, then went out. He swore under his breath. Two seconds later, Maddie’s did the same thing.
More movement ahead of them. Something was breathing. Something big.
Camden’s arm came out of the darkness and swept her back up against the wall with him. They stood there, trying to quiet their breathing, chests rising and falling with quick pants. The hair on the back of their necks was standing high, and their hearts were in their throats.
The thing moved again. There was a slight hissing sound, followed by a throaty growl that sounded like it came from deep within a monstrous beast of humongous size. Camden’s fingers brushed down her arm until they found her hand. Then his hand captured hers and squeezed. I’m here. You won’t die alone.
She squeezed back. I’d rather not die at all, but thanks anyway.
It hissed again, this thing they’d stumbled across that they couldn’t see, but could only hear, and easily smell. It was moving again, towards them. It could probably see them. If not, it could most definitely smell them.
Camden took a deep breath and closed his eyes, though the darkness was no different. And he prayed his first prayer. Okay God, I leave it up to you to interpret all that’s in my heart. I know the story, I know the steps. But I’m kind of running out of time to spell it all out. I think you know already. Maddie says you do. Let’s just leave it at this: I’ve been pushing you away for far too long. I’m done doing that. Oh, and one more thing. This he said out loud, so Maddie could hear him. “I’m not afraid to die, God.”
That just might be his first and last prayer.
CAMDEN
“Ready?”
Maddie grinned at him and gave him a thumbs-up. “Ready. Are you?”
Camden swatted at several mosquitoes buzzing around him, and mopped off the sweat running down his brow in small streams. It had run down his neck and back, soaking his shirt. Maddie had decided to be nice and not comment sarcastically on how the dense jungle atmosphere was bringing out the best in Camden. Davin hadn’t been so nice. Maddie had stayed out of the heated argument that had followed after that. To be totally honest, the atmosphere, the heat, the bugs, and this assignment was bringing the worst out in all of them.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Camden replied to her question.
Camden looked up to their party’s third member and leader, Davin, and said, “Wheel us down.”
Davin started cranking the wheel, easing out slack in the rope attached to the vests Camden and Maddie had secured around their bodies. Holding onto the now taut rope, they walked down the steep walls of the cave that ran almost perfectly vertically to unknown depth into the earth.
It was almost an instant change of climate. As they made their way down into the cave, the air was much less humid, and it was cooler. The farther down into the earth they went, the colder it got. Camden felt chills crawl across his skin as his sweat dried.
The wall they were walking down suddenly jutted out and they cautiously followed it, the lights on their helmets sweeping through the vast space below them, looking for an end to this pit that felt like it could go on forever. Maddie kept looking down, looking for a floor to this thing, but she found none.
She felt Camden tap her shoulder and they both halted their descent. They had come a ledge in the wall. It jutted out a bit, then the wall resumed its course straight down. They steadied their feet on the ledge and rested for a minute. Looking around to see exactly how far the ledge extended, Maddie caught something in the beam of her head-light.
Was that…was that…?
Her heart started racing, pounding in her ears, as she carefully bent her knees to reach for the object. She picked it up, and tried to remember how to breathe. “Camden…”
He looked over at what she had, and a few words slipped out of his mouth. He reached over and took it from her. It was a flashlight that looked like it had been chewed in half. Blood stains covered the smooth plastic surface. There was no point in trying to see if it still worked. The entire bottom half had been brutally shredded off.
“How in the world…” he muttered in shock as he turned it over in his hand. “It must be from the party that went down before us a couple of months ago.”
Maddie looked over at him. “What in the world’s down here?” she whispered.
His face, illuminated in her head beam, told her his answer. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
They’d already had to deal with the rumors and myths of the native tribal people about this place. It came with the job. It was sacred and holy ground to the neighboring tribes. They held human sacrifices here every season in order to keep their god appeased. Most parties of investigators or archaeologists paid no heed to the warnings the tribes desperately forced upon them. And most of the members in all parties never returned. Davin had insisted they try a new way. All three of them had gone through enough to know most of the time rumors didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. There was always a seed of truth somewhere.
It was that seed of truth they needed to be able to discern, interpret, and act upon, Davin said. Be cautions, not paranoid. “We’re here for a reason,” Davin had instructed them before they went down. “We do have a mission in mind. But I don’t care what any government says. Your lives come first, before whatever treasure we’re supposed to find down there. If something happens, you get out of there.”
But Camden wasn’t about to give up yet – not so soon. “Come on,” he whispered. He didn’t know why they were whispering. This place demanded quietness. It practically shouted not to be disturbed. “Someone must have stumbled across something they weren’t supposed to. We have the warning, and now we know we need to be even more careful.”
They continued on down.
They could barely see the light of the hole above them by the time the floor came in sight. Long before they stepped foot down on ground once again, they halted and took a long, careful inspection. “Looks like sand,” Maddie commented.
“Yeah,” Camden agreed. “Swept clean. Pure white. Not many people have tracked through here.”
She gave him the Look. “That’s not funny.”
“I didn’t think so either.”
The coast looked clear, so they climbed down the remaining twelve feet and their feet were finally rested on the soft, smooth sand. If Maddie was expecting something to come lunging out of the darkness towards her throat the second her feet touched ground, it didn’t happen.
The cave now stretched to the right and left, and the ceiling would quite obviously get much lower. After some discussion and looking at an old, rough map that nobody knew for sure whether it was correct or not, the two decided to head to the right.
Maddie could stand up straight as they went along, but Camden had to crouch.
The further along they went, the more the chill on Maddie’s spine grew. She knew Camden felt the same way, because he was joking around. “Look’s like no one’s home,” he said, grabbing her arm when she tripped over something and almost went sprawling onto the floor. She steadied herself and they plunged on.
“That’s not funny, Cam.”
“Well, wouldn’t you agree? If they were, don’t you think we’d be down in the grave by now?”
“Well, I’d be in heaven.”
“I’ve known a lot of women, Maddie,” Cam scoffed. “And a lot of them would say the same thing. Some of them I can see in heaven singing in the angel choir, but not you. Good grief, I know you too well. You really think God would let you in heaven?”
She knew he was teasing, but it still hurt. Camden had been her friend for a long time now. He’d known the Maddie that drank and partied and did other things she shouldn’t do. He knew that even now she was struggling with breaking her smoking habit. He was also one of the few friends that had decided not to disown her when she “got religious.” He’d stuck with her, even though he commented all the time on how she had “gotten weird on him.” It got tiring, his teasing did, but he never deserted her, and she appreciated him for it.
“I still don’t see how you can believe in the existence of a God, Maddie,” he said as they walked on. “When evolution has proved itself time after time, and there are still people in this world like you who refuse to give up the old faith. Just accept the truth of it, Maddles.” She could hear the earnestness in his voice. “Science has proven the Christian God doesn’t exist. I know it’s nice to believe that there’s someone in control over all this mess we human beings are in, but it’s just…not so.”
She shook her head, and her light moved with her, jiggling from side to side with her head. “I’m sorry, Cam. But I have to disagree. Science has not proven that the Christian God can’t exist. God is omnipotent, and everywhere at once. First of all it would be impossible prove he doesn’t exist. But creationists have so much backup for God creating the world.”
“You talking about the Intelligent Design movement?”
“Well, it’s most definitely a start.”
“What grounds to they have for their beliefs?”
The air was still cold, but it was getting dry, stiff, and thin. It was getting more difficult to breathe. Maddie took slower breaths as she tried to explain. “You’ve been around enough to know how complex this world is, Camden. Everything hangs in a delicate balance. Stray but just a little from one side or to the other, and life as we know it would cease to exist. That’s a lot of chance in and of itself, but when you look at the numbers, it’s even more stunning. Take the earth for example. Say there are 1022 planets in the universe. The chances that our planet would form naturally by chance is 10138. That’s huge!”
“That’s just one example.”
“Did you major in a science?” she said sarcastically.
“Yeah, biology. Why?”
“You should know this. The distance of the earth from the sun. If it were just a little bit closer, we’d burn. If it was just a bit farther, we’d freeze. The size of the moon. If it were much larger than it was now, the tides would be way too big. The tilt of the earth is exact for the livable climates humans need. If the gravitational force were altered by just 10-38, the sun and earth would cease to exist. All of these are just a few examples of how precise our earth and universe have to be. The chances are not even imaginable. And yet evolutionists still expect the world to believe it all happened by random chance? That takes more faith than it does for me to believe in a creator God, Cam!”
“To tell you the truth, Maddie, I’ve thought about all this. And in my most honest moment of truth, like now, walking with you deep in the center of the earth, I would agree with you. It doesn’t make sense that evolutionists hold to their ideas.”
“So let me get this straight. You believe creationism makes more sense, but you don’t want to believe it?”
“Sort of.”
“Why?”
Camden opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, he stepped on something that crunched brutally underneath his weight. The breath was sucked out of both of them as he jerked back like a spring, grabbing Maddie and pulling her back as well. He searched the floor with his light, looking for the source to the sound.
There, wedged in the sand, was what had once been a complete human skull, before Camden had crushed it underneath his boot. He swallowed, and looked over at his friend. Maddie’s face was white, her eyes wide. “What was that you were saying about God?” he asked.
Her eyes flicked over and met his. “You’re scared of dying, aren’t you?”
He serenely nodded. Oh, the depth to that statement.
Maddie ached for her friend. She wanted so desperately for him to find the peace she’d only recently discovered. She slipped her hand into his, gave it a squeeze, then pulled away. They walked on, stepping on several other human bones along the way. A femur here, a hand with fingers there. Maddie just tried to ignore them, her eyes snapping shut each time she heard and felt a crunch underneath her boot. Camden was there, quietly breathing beside her, touching her shoulder every once in a while to let her know all was well.
“So what are some other evidences for a God?” he asked her after a while.
His voice, though hushed, sounded harsh and loud in the still air all around them. She had to force herself to speak up enough for him to hear her. “I’m sure you know about the oxygen levels in the air. There’s 21% oxygen in the air. If it was 25%, we would all blow up. If it were 15%, we would all suffocate.”
A sudden stench filled the air, and she almost gagged. They both stopped. Camden took in the air, but Maddie covered her nose. “Man, what is that?”
“I have no idea!” he whispered. He sounded amazed. “Man, there’s something strangely alive in a deathly way down here.”
Well, the live human sacrifices every season had to disappear somewhere.
What a pleasant thought.
“Hey, Maddie, look.” He touched her arm, and she looked to where he was pointing at the ground. There was a large, smooth stroke in the sand, almost like a ripple, only much larger, much wider, and a bit more shallow. It was about eight feet long, a foot and a half wide. There were more, too, suggesting something of much larger size. “What do you suppose that is?”
She recognized the pattern, but only on a much smaller scale. It made her heart race. “It’s a slithering snake track, Cam.”
“Then what’s that?”
Near the slithering tracks was a huge imprint, about twice the size of Camden’s head. Around the imprint were three pricks in the sand. Claws.
“This thing slithers and crawls at the same time?” Camden breathed.
“Cam…” Maddie said. Their eyes met and she knew they were both thinking the exact same thing: snakes don’t crawl. Other land animals don’t slither. What is this thing?!
“Well…” Camden straightened up again as best he could and motioned for them to keep on. “Life goes on. What about intelligent design itself? Any argument for that?” They started walking, talking even quieter now.
“Yeah. You remember that flashlight we found on the ledge way back?”
“Mm-hm.”
“When you were looking at that, did you ever consider that it had been there for ages, and through time it had just evolved alongside the rock walls?”
“Uh…yes. I did.”
She gave his arm a swat and he chuckled. “No, Maddie, I didn’t.”
“Why?” She answered her own question. “Because looking at that it was obvious that intelligence was behind the design of that flashlight. It was obvious someone made the parts specifically to go together, and then put them together in a pattern that made sense, that had a purpose, and that portrayed the intelligence of the creator. The earth is the same way.”
The stench was getting stronger with every step, more putrid, more rotten smelling. It became overwhelming. They had to stop once because Maddie vomited on the side of the path. Camden stood and held her hair back from her face until she was through, and they slogged on, despite the fear that was no longer settling as a chill in their spine. It was coursing through their whole bodies, surging through their veins and nerves.
“Are you afraid to die?”
Camden’s voice was soft, low, hushed. Maddie shook her head. “No, I’m not. You don’t have to be either, you know.”
His answer was even softer than before. “I know.”
Movement ahead of them. They both jerked to a stop. Camden’s light flickered, then went out. He swore under his breath. Two seconds later, Maddie’s did the same thing.
More movement ahead of them. Something was breathing. Something big.
Camden’s arm came out of the darkness and swept her back up against the wall with him. They stood there, trying to quiet their breathing, chests rising and falling with quick pants. The hair on the back of their necks was standing high, and their hearts were in their throats.
The thing moved again. There was a slight hissing sound, followed by a throaty growl that sounded like it came from deep within a monstrous beast of humongous size. Camden’s fingers brushed down her arm until they found her hand. Then his hand captured hers and squeezed. I’m here. You won’t die alone.
She squeezed back. I’d rather not die at all, but thanks anyway.
It hissed again, this thing they’d stumbled across that they couldn’t see, but could only hear, and easily smell. It was moving again, towards them. It could probably see them. If not, it could most definitely smell them.
Camden took a deep breath and closed his eyes, though the darkness was no different. And he prayed his first prayer. Okay God, I leave it up to you to interpret all that’s in my heart. I know the story, I know the steps. But I’m kind of running out of time to spell it all out. I think you know already. Maddie says you do. Let’s just leave it at this: I’ve been pushing you away for far too long. I’m done doing that. Oh, and one more thing. This he said out loud, so Maddie could hear him. “I’m not afraid to die, God.”
That just might be his first and last prayer.
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