Chapter 4 – Ashes of American Flags
They were deep in the trees now. Two hours into the wilderness that ran alongside the river, Highway 503 turned into evermore of a lonesome road on that last stretch toward Spirit Lake. Nearly a hundred miles of dense, scenic woods toward one of the still active volcanoes along the ring of fire. At least on the mainland United States. Sure, it had been decades since tons of deadly ash was thrown up into the air. That didn’t make it any less dangerous.
Apollena had the window down in the passenger seat. Her monthly ‘gift’ didn’t lend itself to comfortable travel. She’d loosened Lane’s pair of blue jeans she’d continued to wear and reclined in the passenger seat. Her swollen eyes watched the rays of noon light sift through the trees, strobing across the empty highway.
“Did you ever read about the guy who died here during the eruption?” Luna asked, massaging herself. Her face scrunched up, fighting back the latest bout of cramps.
Lane kept his eyes on the road, “Yeah, I think a few dozen people died when it erupted back in 1980. Did you mean someone specific?”
Luna nodded and groaned, “There was this one man, Harry something, in his late eighties. He refused to evacuate as the lava came down the mountainside. Kinda makes you wonder, huh?” There was a palpable pain in her words, not just from the cramps, the motion-sickness, or bloating. A deeper sorrow hung in the air that neither of the twins wished to acknowledge lest it become tangible, real. One more ounce of trauma to deal with.
“I suppose if there wasn’t anything left…” Lane considered. He watched the lonesome road while the end of that sentence rolled around in his mind. He had a mental picture of the man staying behind with his meager earthly belongings as twelve-hundred-degree molten lava gradually made its way toward him. It wasn’t a quick way to die. Lane’s parents had impressed upon him that material goods were never more valuable than any one person’s life. Even the memories attached to trinkets weren’t really a part of the items themselves, but locked away in the individual’s mind. If the mind was lost, that was where the true tragedy lay. Lane grimaced. He pitied the man who died for stuff and chose not to save himself.
Luna groaned, “There’s always something left to discover. The man probably had no hope left. He’d forgotten that tomorrow always comes.”
Lane scoffed, “That’s funny.”
Still massaging her stomach, Luna countered, “No. That’s the truth.”
“Sorry, I meant, ‘Tomorrow always comes,’ is almost the exact opposite of what Uncle Dan told me this morning while you were… Busy entertaining.” Lane caught himself. They’d lived with each other long enough that there was a quiet, respectable dance around openly talking about sexual partners. More often than not, however, Luna was the one who danced right over that line. Lane was always the one to keep more of a healthy distance from that subject.
“You two were talking behind my back?” She tried to force a wink but ended up scowling through another bout of cramps. “Shock.”
“No, not directly. When we saw the black wolf—” Again, Lane bit his tongue. He couldn’t just enjoy the silence, could he?
“Wolf? What wolf?” Luna asked in a near growl. Lane drummed on the steering wheel, hesitant to answer. Luna insisted, “Ursa Major?”
“I don’t wanna break my promise,” Lane sighed out. He kept his eyes on the road, the pines, the blue sky obscured behind the branches reaching over the road. He couldn’t look at his sister. He felt her disappointment and the guilt that came rolling behind those magnificent green eyes.
A moment of silence finally passed between them.
Up ahead, a barely noticible wooden sign: Trillion Pine’s Youth Camp, next left.
“You saw another creature, like the one on the shore, didn’t you?” Luna whispered.
More silence filled the jeep.
With both their windows down, the wind rushed through their hair. Birds cawed in the distance. Forest creatures chittered somewhere in the woods. The mix of unseen sound and visible stillness all around them was unsettling, lonely, foreboding.
Luna’s judgement continued to hang as a knife in the air.
“Uncle Dan speculated that wolf and the leopard, or whatever they really were, might be an omen,” Lane started. He waited for his sister to chime in, but the unsettling silence remained. “He suggested it’s on us to live in the moment, not worry about the future. I made a promise. I’m keeping it. We’re on vacation. No mysteries. No missions. Just us taking our time—”
Luna reached over and grabbed Lane’s hand in hers. She gave it a soft squeeze. That was all he needed to feel reassured that whatever doom was headed their way, The Twins would tackle it together just as they always had. Or, maybe for once, they could ignore it entirely.
“Looks like we’re here,” Luna said, and pointed to a driveway up ahead.
A weathered oak sign pointed toward a nearly invisible driveway in the thick line of pine trees off the main road. Turning left off the two-lane highway, the orange Jeep tumbled over well-worn asphalt. Being conscious not to jostle the Jeep too much because of Luna’s state, Lane carefully maneuvered forward over the driveway.
They made their way up a modest incline and found themselves at a fork in the road. To their left, a gravel road wound deeper into the thick woods, seemingly to nowhere. A line of mailboxes on a wooden hitching post suggested private residences beyond the twisting driveway. In the center of the fork was a small pond with a model lighthouse floating on a pontoon. Their destination was to the right. On either side of the road stood two massive black oak totem pools with a carved sign that arched high over the road:
WELCOME TO TRILLION PINES YOUTH CAMP
Lane studied the carvings and a chill ran up his spine. From the base to the top, intricate and surreal depictions of a leopard, a wolf, and a lion all stood intertwined together. At the top of either pole, the animals held up a stoic woman that appeared half-deer, half-human. Each Deer Woman held their arms outstretched to hold up the carved welcome sign.
“She’s got a nice rack,” Luna said.
Lane raised an eyebrow.
With a pained chuckle, she pointed, “…Of antlers?”
“Sure,” Lane winced and rolled the jeep forward under the sign, into the camp. The asphalt road snaked upward at a steady incline. It was a few minutes before they saw any visible clearing in the dense mess of trees and brush. Off to their left was an empty football-field-sized stretch of open lawn with a steep downward slope. There were chalk marks along the edges at regular intervals. Probably an actual football field, albeit one that heavily favored one side over the other.
After a few meters on their right, almost directly across from the sloped field, Luna pointed to an asphalt clearing with a row of portable bathrooms.
“That better not be the only lavatory up here. I’d rather shit in the woods,” Apollena spat in indignant ire.
They drove a few minutes more and finally came to a less dense space in the forest. Another fork, another sign, and a welcomed absence of creepy animal totems. If they continued forward, the road took a sharp upward incline into thicker woods. To the left, however, was the first semblance of civilization.
The left road dipped down into a horseshoe-like cul-de-sac; most likely a drop-off for buses full of campers. At the base of the horseshoe was a large log cabin. It held a distinct blend of modern and western-heritage styles in its design; large stained-glass windows, stone brickwork along the base, and thick cedar support pillars lined the forward deck. Uncle Dan would certainly have opinions on the architecture.
To the left of the main cabin was a combination infirmary and post office. Maybe a gift shop? The building was one-fourth the size of the main cabin, but of similar design.
On the right, sat an odd, tilted two-story building that resembled two original McDonald’s drive-thrus stacked on top of the other. Or, perhaps more locally, two Dutch Brothers Coffee shacks mounting one another. An unlit neon sign hung above a metal garage door: SNACK SHACK, and another sign posted above that was labelled STAFF LOUNGE.
The twins parked their Jeep Compass in front of the main cabin and let it idle. Lane checked his watch. They were exactly an hour early. Other than the occasional crow or breeze flowing through the massive pines that towered above them, there was not a soul to be seen or heard.
Reluctantly, Lane cut the engine and opened the door. His feet stepped onto the gravel driveway and crunched toward a circular flower garden across from the Main Lodge. A bronze bell with a large crack running down its side sat in the center among several lilies waiting to bloom. A bronze plaque and inscription were posted at the base of the bell:
“Arise, arise, arise, arise, and lift your spirits to the skies
Gift me your flesh to the earth
Upon your climax shall I pull you into my depths
Ring, ring, ring, ring, together we shall sing and conclude our dance around the stars.”
— Xwa’ni Creed (Cowlitz Tribe, 1806)
Apollena clicked her tongue and cocked her head, “Don’t think I’ve heard that one before.” Lane tapped his temple. An old habit, taking a mental snapshot of the inscription.
Before adding another wry remark, Luna doubled over and groaned.
Rushing to her side, Lane’s concern was waved off by his sister; “I’m fine.” She groaned again. “I’ll just die here. Maybe go fetch a shovel?”
“Luna, the infirmary is twenty paces to our left. Let’s at least get some Benadryl or Midol in you,” Lane urged, trying to help his sister to her feet.
Again, she declined, suggesting, “How about you find the meds and I wait here by the Jeep? Not moving around sounds like a good idea.”
Lane nodded and sprinted over to the infirmary. The place seemed vacant. No lights on inside. A thick layer of soot and dust caked the exterior windows. He brushed through a spider web while trying to peer through one of the windows.
Nobody home.
Pivoting on his heels, Lane called back to Luna, “I’m gonna try the staff lounge.”
Luna offered a pitiful thumbs up and climbed back into the passenger seat of the Jeep.
Much the same as the infirmary, everything was dark, locked, and appeared abandoned. He’d also made a quick circle around the Main Lodge to no avail. In the back of his mind, Lane knew his sister would be fine. This wasn’t her first period, after all. He’d been there for that. Whether it was being this far out in the wilderness, the eerie stillness, or lack of humanity, panic nevertheless begun to flirt at the edges of Lane’s nerves.
He came around to the front of the main lodge once more, Lane remembered his standard operating procedure. Start at the edges, dummy. He stopped and scanned his surroundings. Sure enough, there was a signpost to the side of the staff lounge he’d overlooked. Several wooden boards cut into arrows, pointed to their respective dirt trails:
BOYS’ BARRACKS – SOUTHWEST TRAIL
POTTER’S FIELD (Formerly Potter’s Lake) – EAST TRAIL
GIRLS’ BARRACKS – SOUTHEAST TRAIL
STAFF CABINS – WESTERN TRAIL
UPPER FIELD/LOW ROPES/HIGH ROPES – NORTHWEST TRAIL
Staff Cabins. Surely somebody had arrived before them. At the very least, there would be evidence of where the rest of the staff might be meeting. Lane jogged along the white sand trail lined with rocks and small solar-powered foot lanterns intermittently jutting out of the soil on either side. A quarter mile later, he’d arrived at a complex of five gray, rustic cabins.
Five old wooden steps led up to a raised deck that connected the small, three-man cabins and a sixth building directly across from him. In stark comparison to the five neglected bunkhouses, the sixth building appeared brand new: warm cedar siding, fresh paint, stone accent around the base. Steam wafted up from the back of the building as Lane approached the new cabin marked: BATHHOUSE.
Crossing the length of the gray deck, Lane heard running water. He reached his hand out and tapped on the door. Unlocked. The heavy cedar door opened without a creek and a wall of steam enveloped Lane’s face.
As the steam cleared, there was a clear stylistic shift from neglected Western American architecture to culturally appropriated Japanese. This bathhouse was an elaborately decorated and furnished onsen complete with personal bathing stations, an ‘L’ shaped hot pool in the upper right corner, and a bank of private toilets in the opposite corner. Along the walls was a beautiful, elaborate black and white wrap-around tile mural of tree branches that reached out like arms toward the same Deer Woman as seen at the Trillion Pines Gates.
“Are you here to help me?” asked a silvery, pained voice that floated up from the bath.
Lane’s scattered thoughts shifted focus to rescue mode: someone was in trouble and needed help.
“Yes. I can help. Can you describe what’s wrong? Are you injured?” Lane spoke calmly, scripted. The first aid and water rescue training that was beaten into him played back with perfect synchronicity. It wasn’t until Lane caught sight of the young woman reclining in the bath that his well-played record skipped a beat.
Flawless alabaster skin, silvery hair that went down past firm, honeydew breasts. A petite frame that was neither to athletic nor unfit. Natural, unshaven, silver hair between her legs matched the long locks that floated around her head like a neutron star.
Lane cleared his throat. Stick to the script; “Are you in any pain?”
“Yes,” she gasped, “I’ve been marked.”
Lane kicked off his boots and waded into the hot tub. The water was scolding, but he approached the girl cautiously, checking for wounds, gashes, slits… Stop staring, you idiot, and get to work! Lane kept to the script, “Miss, my name is Lane Woods, I’m certified in water rescue and first aid. I’m going to help you out of the tub. Do you understand?”
“Lane,” she repeated, reaching up for him with both arms.
Lane paused, “Before I move you, does it hurt to move your neck, arms, legs?”
“I’ve been marked. I need your help,” she repeated, making more of an effort to reach out to Lane. He leaned back just outside of her fingertips. Rookie mistake, don’t let a potential drowning victim pull you under.
Okay, Lane thought, at least she’s bending at the waist, able to move her head and neck. No visible surface lacerations. Lane made the call: a spinal injury was unlikely. Her speech was slowed, dazed. Her sapphire eyes were heavily dilated. Drugs? Maybe a concussion?
Lane positioned himself to carefully lift the girl. She barely weighed anything at all. Cradling the back of her neck as steady as he could, Lane lifted the young girl out of the shallow pool and gently set her back on the cedar deck. “I’m going to find some towels to get you dry. Try and remain still.” Lane was about to climb out of the pool himself. Instead, the girl’s long arms and feet wrapped around his neck and waist.
Lane was ensnared.
“Please, you have to help me. I’ve been marked,” The girl whispered as she brought her wet, wanting lips up to meet Lane’s.
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