Faith looked down through the slats of the ceiling as Father Billy turned on the light, which was so close to her face she was momentarily blinded. When she got her eyesight back, she saw that Father Billy wasn’t searching the room, but was on his hands and knees, looking at the floor. In this fashion, Father Billy moved from the doorway, past Cindy’s bed and over to the shelves that Faith had used to climb up into the crawl space and seemed to know exactly where she was as if he’d acquired the abilities of a bloodhound and had scented her all the way across the room. He looked from the shelves all the way up to the slats in the ceiling and Faith realized he was looking straight up at her.
But that’s when Faith looked down at her feet and saw it:
mud
.
In their haste, Faith and Maia had left an easy-to-follow trail leading directly to their hiding spots. Faith held her breath, imagining that the next sound she heard would be Father Billy rapidly ascending the shelves, pushing aside the crawl space door and yanking her to her death, kicking and screaming. Her whole body went cool with dread.
But then Father Billy did a strange thing. Still eyeing the ceiling, he let a wry sort of smile cross his face and reached into his pocket where he withdrew something long and shiny – one of the nails – and set it on the bed. He looked back up to Faith, but then turned and walked out of the room without a word.
Faith focused on the object on the bed, unsure what it was, though it looked like some kind of oversized tent spike. Why would he leave
that
behind? She didn’t understand, but didn’t plan on asking him any time soon.
Faith waited for a few more seconds, thinking he’d be coming right back, but then heard a horrifying shriek coming from the other room.
Maia
.
Faith leapt into action, kicking through the crawl space door and scrambling down the shelves leading to the floor. She was halfway to the doorway when she stopped, looked back at the nail and went to pick it up. With it clutched in her fist, she ran into the living room.
“FAITH!” Maia screamed the second she saw her friend enter. “
Run!!
”
Faith looked at Maia and saw that she was being held tightly by Father Billy, who had one of the other nails at her throat. Maia looked terrified, like how she had been not even an hour before when she’d rushed to Cabin 6 to tell Faith what she’d seen in the screened-in classroom.
“He’s going to kill me,” Maia whimpered. “You have to do what we said. You have to run!”
“Father Billy, don’t...,” Faith whispered, beseechingly. “Please.
Please.
”
“Faith, but it’s already been a long, long day of too much talk,” Father Billy said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”
With that, he raised the nail and drove it directly into Maia’s chest.
Maia exhaled as if punched, her breath tinged with a blood-red mist indicating a punctured lung. an expanding splotch of blood swelled around the deeply embedded nail and soaked the t-shirt she’d thrown on after discarding her bikini back at the cabin. It was the one Faith had first seen her in, the one with the frog and “Rome” written over it.
Father Billy turned and let her sink gently back onto a nearby chair, extracting the bloody nail as he did, leaving a ragged, gaping wound.
“
NO!!!
” screamed Faith, eyes exploding with tears. She raced to Maia’s side, throwing her arms around her friend. “Oh, God, no, please, please, no,
no, no
...”
Faith looked into Maia’s eyes, which were already rolling back into her head. She grabbed Maia’s face, trying to focus the girl’s gaze.
“Look at me, Maia,
please
,” said Faith. “Stay with me. Please. Please, Maia. I love you. Please, just...
God
, let her stay with me. I can’t
live
without this person. Just this one...
please
...”
Her last “please” was in a tone so hushed that Father Billy could barely hear it. He was almost embarrassed by the sound, as if eavesdropping on someone’s loneliest prayer.
“Faith?” he said, touching her shoulder.
“Fuck you!” she roared, batting him away. “
Fuck you!!
”
She turned back to Maia and, for a quick second, it looked as if Maia was staring right back at her.
“Hey,” Faith whispered gently. “I’m here. Talk to me. Please, honey. Talk to me. I love you...”
But the fluid that was building up in Maia’s brain chose that moment to flood over, pushing blood out through Maia’s eye sockets and tear ducts. Father Billy had driven the nail through her breastbone, directly into her heart. She’d been alive for maybe a second after it had pierced her skin, but was gone by the time Faith had reached her side.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...,” whispered Faith, holding Maia tighter and tighter as she sobbed, her lips curling back and body quaking as her hands dug into Maia’s hair and pulled her close. “
No, no, no, no, no
...”
Faith cradled Maia for a long time and cried, Maia’s blood soaking Faith’s clothes. Faith didn’t make a sound, not really anyway, but shook every few seconds or so as her tears kept coming.
When she finally went still, Father Billy spoke.
“Faith, I know you’re angry and that’s anger I needed to create...,” he began.
Faith whipped around, her face filled with fury.
“You evil bastard. You sick, mean man. She was all I wanted out of the whole wide world.”
Father Billy was shaken by Faith’s words and was surprised to feel tears rising behind his eyes, so startled was he by her passionate and emotional outburst. He reached out to her, but she batted his hand away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, meaninglessly.
“Fuck you!”
Without another word, he walked over and picked up the nail that she’d dropped to the floor when he stabbed Maia and placed it next to her hand. She looked down at it, then back to Father Billy, incredulous.
“I need you to kill me,” Father Billy said haltingly. “I wanted to give you the anger you’d need to do it with supreme justification.”
“You
what?”
Faith cried, incredulous.
“It’s for God,” Father Billy said. “You have to do this to punish me. For God. He’ll forgive you. It’s righteous vengeance.”
Faith looked down at the nail and certainly considered it for a moment. She couldn’t believe Maia was dead and the pain was incredible, but she just didn’t have it in herself to pick the nail up.
“You’re going to have to kill me, too,” she said, finally. “I’m not going to do it. You started this, you finish it. I don’t care. I just want to be with my friend and if not here, then in Heaven.”
Father Billy hesitated, but then rose to his feet. He didn’t know what to do next. God had obviously continued to outmaneuver him and killing Faith would do absolutely nothing. He turned to head out of the cabin, no idea where to go next. He was a man alone and he’d never felt the impact of that greater than in that moment.
“Wait, I need your help,” came Faith’s voice from behind him.
Father Billy turned, surprised to see Faith looking back at him, however miserable.
“I just don’t want her to be... you know, another number when the police and everybody get here. She wouldn’t want to be found that way. Help me. Please?”
It took some doing as Faith was exhausted and dehydrated, but she and Father Billy finally made it all the way out to the dock carrying Maia’s body.
“What now?” Father Billy said, gently lowering the corpse onto the end.
As an answer, Faith kicked off her shoes and stripped down to her underwear.
“We’re not done,” she replied and climbed into the still, moonlit lake. The water was cool, made more so by the rain and vestigial breeze, but she didn’t seem to notice.
Father Billy realized what was required of him and kicked off his boots and clothes as well before following Faith into the water. Together, they gently lifted Maia off the edge of the dock and brought her into the lake. Once there, she was light as a feather and Faith was able to carry her more by herself, though Father Billy helped steady the body.
“Come on,” she said bluntly, beginning to swim Maia out towards the diving platform.
Father Billy nodded and swam along.
It had turned into a gorgeous night, the ink black lake sparkling under the moon, a vast array of stars blanketing the sky, the kind of astronomer’s dream you only get far removed from city lights. Faith made the mistake of looking down at one point and saw a brilliant constellation, Cassiopeia, reflected in Maia’s half-opened eyes. The sight made her gasp and choke with tears all over again, but she fought back the tears and kept going.
It took them ten minutes to get all the way out to the floating platform. Once there, Father Billy began lifting Maia out of the water, but Faith merely shook her head.
“No. She stays in the water.”
Father Billy nodded simply and moved to hang onto the platform while Faith took Maia’s body and swam a few feet away. It wasn’t hard for the priest to imagine the two as dancers, playing out some beautiful, barely-lit
pas de deux
under the watchful eye of the moon as Faith moved her friend in a long, arcing circle through the water. One last time, Faith drew Maia near and leaned forward, kissing her gently on the lips.
“I’ll always love you,” she whispered. “Forever and ever.”
With grim finality, Faith let Maia’s body go and it soon sank a few inches below the surface, her face still visible. Her shoes weighed her down, but didn’t sink her. As Faith watched, the waves slowly began to carry Maia away and under, the glow of her body quickly receding. Faith closed her eyes tight, burning the image into her memory.
After a moment, Faith turned and swam back to the diving platform. Father Billy was still there, treading water as he bobbed up and down with the tide. He stared at her, trying to read her face, but seeing only darkness where her eyes might be.
“Faith...,” he began, but was suddenly cut off by a horrific, piercing pain that exploded from his torso.
“Oh, God!!” he croaked.
He reached down and felt the nail that Faith had just driven into his belly and left there. His hands came up lubricated with blood and he looked at her, staggered with shock.
“That wound won’t kill you,” Faith said evenly, hushed to the point of a whisper. “But you can
let it
by staying here in the water. You’ll eventually lose consciousness and, though it’ll be the water that killed you, I’ll still be your murderer in the eyes of God and, in your version of things, I’d still go straight to Hell for it.”
Father Billy wanted to cry out, his face twisted in pain, but Faith gave him a hard stare and silenced his groans.
“But if you were to, say, swim for awhile, exert and exhaust yourself, bleed out even more quickly, then slip under the waves and drown, that’d be your doing, no?” Faith postulated. “You’d be actively bringing about your own death, a suicide. Then, you’d have saved me from Hell in the process, no? It’s a choice, like everything. That’s why it’s a real test.”
Faith went quiet, staring at Father Billy as both of them wondered which he would choose. Finally and without another word, she turned and swam back to shore, leaving the priest alone in the lake, his features paling in the moonlight.
It took Mark and Phil much of the night to make it down the highway all the way to the exit that led to Camp Easley on bicycles. It had been a long, grueling marathon in the dark, often lit only by the moon or the headlights of oncoming cars. They kept their bikes far, far off the shoulder, bouncing along in the grass-strewn gravel on the side of the road and even though Phil had printed up a map off the internet to make sure they wouldn’t get lost, they hadn’t had to look at it once.
That said, when they finally got to the exit marked only as 42B, they might’ve missed it as it was backlit by the morning sun newly rising in the east, casting the face of the exit sign in shadow.
But Phil was being guided now more by instinct than road signs and easily made the turn, standing up on his pedals to ascend the ramp up to the small paved road that, down another three miles or so, would connect with a left-hand turn-off at a bent stop sign and take them the final twenty miles to camp.
The two boys knew the last stretch wouldn’t take anywhere near as long as their night ride because not only would they be able to see where they were going, they also wouldn’t be constantly worrying about being struck by cars. They figured, rightly as it turned out, that no one would be along at this hour and they’d have the road to themselves.
A few minutes later, after they made the unmarked turn-off to Camp Easley, Phil’s stomach began filling with a dread that adrenaline had successfully pushed to the side all night. He had wholeheartedly believed that they would find Faith alive, relieving him of his guilt about leaving her in the first place, but what if they didn’t? What if they found Father Billy and he decided that, this time, he was going to kill them?
But then Phil thought, if that was the course, then so be it. He’d decided to return. He could take the consequences, even if that meant he’d soon be staring down at the dead body of the girl he loved.
It wasn’t too far down the dirt road that they began inhaling smoke from the smoldering remains of the short-lived forest fire Father Billy had started the afternoon before.
“What
happened
here?” Phil whispered, staring at the blackened, fallen trees that suddenly surrounded the road as they bounced over scorched earth.
“I don’t know,” said Mark, taking in the spectacle. “Maybe a lightning-strike fire. The rain seems to have put it out, though.”
That may have been the most logical answer, but somehow, it didn’t ring true to either boy after the events they’d witnessed and they discussed it no further. They continued biking down the road, next coming across the camp’s Jeep, which had been completely gutted by flames.
“Jesus,” exclaimed Mark.
When they saw the bodies on the road behind the Jeep, ones that had fallen early to smoke inhalation, but were subsequently immolated by the fire, Mark hesitated and stopped pedaling.