CAMPSITE SIX

CAMPSITE SIX

JAN FALLON

SHE WANTED TO GET AWAYSHE DIDN’T KNOW HOW FAR SHE WOULD GO

A NOVEL BY

ScriptArt Publishing

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resem-blance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

CAMPSITE SIX By Jan Fallon © 2018 Jan Fallon

Published by ScriptArt, LLC P.O. Box 150334 Lakewood, Colorado 80215

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without the written permission from the publisher.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

ISBN 978-0-9892782-2-5

Cover and Interior Design by ScriptArt, LLC Illustrations by ScriptArt, LLC

© 2018 ScriptArt, LLC

Printed in the United States of America

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CHAPTER 1

The city stood erect and imposing. Crowds walled within its maze moved in streams of color and shadow, with an urban pulse cours-ing through each running, rattling member.

Evie was one of them.Rushing through her morning routine she ascended from her

garden apartment, ready for the energy of the day to push her for-ward. The city told her where to go, what to do, and who to do it with. Evie wasn’t quite the mover and shaker of a bustling city, but she had her own network of connections, people she relied on and who relied on her for day-to-day decisions and operations.

She ran across East Street, jacket open, scarf and hair braided by the wind, blown forward by a rush of rusty bus exhaustion; she calculated how much time she had to grab a latte and catch the train to get across town. She joined jittery lines feigning movement with urgent calls, news updates, and text messages, hurriedly cupping coffees and jumping back into the push.

Pressed against other commuters in the already full cabin, Evie watched as the doors opened with a pneumatic cry to embrace and expel riders en route; she offered a faint smile toward each new pas-senger, which was met by drawn faces not as ready to meet the day.

Evie’s smile hid her anxiety. She wasn’t looking forward to

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presenting her report at the early morning meeting, now just min-utes away, as she trailed under the city to her job at Sorenson and Thompson, mind lost in last-minute details with reminders not to forget this and to remember that.

Suddenly, the train braked hard, throwing Evie awake to now. It groaned against its hurling momentum, the pain of strained

metal howling to a screeching halt, biting smoke fuming oily aro-mas with an exhausted, diminishing hiss.

Evie’s heart raced, while her stalled mind watched bodies fling in slow motion toward the front and then back of the car like pen-dulums anchored to seats or poles to which they desperately clung. Frozen under a flickering light, Evie scoped the damage, while those around her did the same, staring through eyes glazed with the sur-real. She watched them scurry to grab belongings shifted out of place and press their clothes back into shape with stressed hands.

One alarmed voice asked questions to no one in particular. “Oh my God! What is happening? Will someone please help

me?” the nervous woman said on the verge of tears. Comfort came from a nearby passenger who pulled a jacket and purse from the floor and placed them in the woman’s open arms.

“I can’t believe this,” a businessman said. “I can’t be late for work again!”

Evie reached for her cell, then heard someone offer the frus-trated report, “There’s no blasted signal.”

With one final blink, the flickering light went dark.Staring up toward the blackened bulb Evie felt familiar panic

rise. Everything around her evaporated as her fear surged, gurgling up, ignoring her attempt to stifle its flow that spewed through her, shaking her convulsively when the images flashed behind closed eyes that couldn’t block them. The stunned crowd didn’t notice her braced shoulders pushing against the memory. They didn’t see her grab the steel pole to stand still in a train that had already rocked

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itself asleep under its cement and steel cover.She was alone with the memory. His bristled jaw across her cheek, the heavy breath in her nos-

trils, the eager grasp holding her to the sticky ground. She knew he was somewhere in the city, an undressed rat in one

maze or another.Where didn’t matter—he was always as close as the darkness. She wanted to run, get far away. She was about to scream, so

she swallowed hard to hold back the verbal bile pressing to escape through white clamped lips.

As she watched the unwelcome scene run through her mind, one brave soul said a prayer for God to protect them, which was echoed by one lonely “Amen.”

Evie searched for the face of the man who prayed, urging her eyes to find him in the shadows of the cabin. She wanted to nod a thank-you, and it bothered her that she couldn’t. She mumbled a similar plea, eyes glancing past the cabin ceiling, but it rang hollow in her ears and that frightened her.

Her mind flooded with alarm.Would she be trapped so long she would have to pee in the cor-

ner? Go hungry and vie for scraps or try to escape with MacGyver-like strategies to save not only herself but also those around her?

Two questions terrified her the most: Would I die today? Would this place mark my entrance into eternity?

She moved one rung of posts forward, toward the voice of the man who prayed, looking for some distant comfort, which would be better than no comfort at all.

Quiet conversations took place as people wondered what went wrong.

Was it a bomb? Were they in danger? No one dared utter these words for fear they might be true. They

preferred to believe it was just another day in the city.

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When a light illuminated up the track, all faces turned in its direction, bobbing eagerly between heads to sneak a peek at the approaching beam. Evie could see the light bounce between the train and subway wall, blinding eyes and pitching darkness as it swung in the pointing hand of the engineer. He stopped to give reports to each car, then moved down the tracks, leaving applause in his wake.

“Let’s all remain calm. Is anyone hurt?” the man asked in a reas-suring, all-in-a-day’s-work tone. When no one spoke up he contin-ued, “A mishap up the tracks stopped the train. Once it’s cleared, we’ll move you to the next station where you can go up top and catch the bus.”

He offered a flashlight to no one in particular, which was grabbed by the nervous woman, who flashed it around the cabin to reveal flinching eyes then threw the blinding beam up the tracks to highlight any forward movement.

The engineer moved on to the next car before anyone could claim injury or inquire about how long it would be before they reached the surface. Stalled conversations returned with more vigor and anima-tion; illuminated cell phone screens, still unable to connect, played across relieved faces as minds shifted from life and death to this’ll be a story to tell.

The car finally bumped forward and slowly edged toward the next station to cheers and relief. Evie grabbed the open door facing the platform and toed her foot across its threshold, quickly becom-ing lost in the sea of faces eager to return to the surface of the city for fresh air and renewed life.

Evie made her way to the office, the few blocks between the sta-tion and work replacing her worried frown with the safe smile of familiarity.

“What happened to you this morning? It’s not like you to over-sleep,” her assistant said, mistaking her disheveled hair and weary eyes as a simple turn of the alarm.

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Evie pushed into the conference room to impatient applause, which, considering her ordeal, made more sense to her than they could know. Her associates followed with platitudes, dismissing her morning as trite and boring.

“That’s the subway for you,” her boss summarized.Taking the hint, Evie prepared to give her report on “The Pro-

jected Swing of Fall Market Trends,” amazed she still cupped the morning’s coffee in her trembling hand.

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CHAPTER 2

She tossed dark and light pieces of clothing in piles of nos and yeses, the latter hastily folded and shoved deep inside a canvas bag big enough to swallow Evie whole. Jeans, socks, underwear, cargo shorts, flannels—as much as she could fit—filled the bag until it landed with a deep thud against the windowed wall, jarring the huddled dove off its ledge with wings whirring into the morning sun.

Evie was running away. It was her trademark move.She’d had a horrible week; her captivity in the lower entrails of

the city prompted her to end it with a reservation at a new camp-ground, one she found online.

“Campsite #6,” she said, clicking the reserve button. “It better be as good as the pictures.” The serene setting at the tail end of the lush forest camp had only fifteen sites, no RVs, and no electricity, and promised to be as peaceful as the garden of Eden.

It was just what she needed. A solitary place for her emotions to erupt—away from curious glances and her mother’s intrusion.

Evie’s independence was an intentional snub to her loneliness. Going to an isolated campground was nothing to a young, traveled professional. Yet she wished she wasn’t going alone.

“I need a dog.”

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Evie pivoted to view her small, square apartment decorated sim-ply and easy to scan, satisfying her mental checklist: turn off the lights, leave the hall light on. Check the windows—locked. Iron’s not on—don’t have one. Some of her stress came from being slightly compulsive, an inner strength forged by need, then fashioned into skill, which helped her strive in her career. It also brought her inter-nal demons with her wherever she went. She hoped it wasn’t the case this time.

A buzz slowly entered her thoughts and she didn’t know if it was the bell or her cell. The second buzz pulled her to the door with quick steps and ready lips to dismiss the intruder. Instead, Evie made every effort to be reasonable, another trait that made her want to scream.

“No thank you. Not today. Maybe next time,” she said to the young man dressed in a nice shirt and tie. Why do they send people door to door with invitations to church? When I want God, I’ll ask for him, she thought, her recent plea on the subway pushed a safe distance below the surface.

Evie grabbed the remote to catch up on news, traffic, and the weather before heading out.

With bag and gear set securely in the back of her rented Jeep, Evie took off down the street, expecting the long drive to settle her nerves, stress, disappointment, weariness—whatever you call it. Evie’s specific cocktail of pain.

She kicked her wheels fast in the dust as she drove with the shrap-nel-and-shard cityscape in her rearview mirror, weaving through sleepy bedroom communities until canopied byways opened their branches to the away she was looking for.

Pieces of static-stilted words broke through the air as Evie searched for a station she could sink her mind into, happy when familiar words of an old favorite played at the first chorus.

This trip was a good idea, she thought, turning up the volume

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to blanket herself in music. Rounding each curve in the widening country, she opened her airways to sing along and loud, her face spotlighted by sunrays channeling through the Jeep’s open roof.

Setting up camp was easy on the pine-needled ground in the softening daylight.

Evie hoisted and stuffed rods and sunk pins until the nylon fab-ric in her hands took shape. The small orange dome stuck a glowing tongue out if its gaping door, inviting her to rest and think about things in a whole new light. The garden-like setting was pretty close to perfect, and she was glad she came, even though she came alone.

There was that dog thought again.“I should find a dog to rescue,” she said out loud. The embar-

rassment she felt talking out loud to herself was unfounded. No one heard her voice or saw her blush.

As a young girl she talked and waited for someone to listen, for someone to respond. She disappeared in a family of two, an only child who faded into the bleak background of a preoccupied par-ent. It was one of those demons that tortured her from time to time when she allowed herself the pity party. She tried to brush it off to the distant past, but the loneliness often caught up with her.

The quiet campsite didn’t relieve her unrest. With little to dis-tract her she was face-to-face with a laundry list of sorrow, includ-ing the coarse memory in the train that left a sticky residue she was desperate to wash away. Evie willed herself to think of other things and peered into the woods to find anything that could captivate her and steer her away from her internal battle ready to wage.

“Stay close by,” she heard a mother’s voice curtailing her excited children ready to wander, padded by “Come here, girl” to a dog bark-ing eagerly. Evie imagined the setting—tails wagging, kids imme-diately stenciled with dirt, parents clanking utensils and chopping firewood in muffled sounds that were easy to ignore.

Evie propped herself up cross-legged at the picnic table worn by

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rain, sun, and years of use, took a deep whiff of fresh pine from nee-dles new to the ground, then munched the last few salty chips from her road trip. Mindlessly allowing her eyes to follow birds overhead, she traced a kingfisher to a stitch of wildflowers with a sparkling stream weaving through.

Intrigued by the path that led up the hillside, Evie struck out in search of another measure of peace—if it could be found.

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One to Light

Black as blue can beA dark cacophony

Whose very essence screams its intent and hastening

A shrewd malevolence needs a place of mediocrity

And found a spot in core and heartto rest its head and do its part

And as its indentation layimpressing spirits not to delay

The host in which it made its nest shook off the tart unwelcome guest

And though alone they parted wayseach to opposing corners grave

One to light its harsh truth humbledand the other to encumbered trouble

And so the soul in question airedits laundry list of dirt laid bare

And Cobalt stood with finger pointedevil cast on the anointed

As if the sin exposed by rainhad power to relay his claim

The Imbecile in grimace wagedand lost her who was found by Grace

by Jan Fallon

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About The Author

Campsite Six is Jan Fallon’s debut novel based on parts of her story that are fictionalized in its pages through the life of Evie Clayborn.

“I enjoy writing about the ways of life and the ways of God, which are at the same time both worrisome and wondrous. Stories of the Bible can leave me wondering about the areas we see only through a darkened glass (1 Corinthians 13:12). I write to answer this wonder with plausible possibilities that are close to home and bring readers closer to God.”

Campsite Six, a quick-paced, speculative-suspense novel filled with what-ifs is such a story.

Her fictional piece written in the style of The Screwtape Let-ters by C.S. Lewis entitled, Your Affectionate Uncle, Screwtape, was sought as an example with permission to quote it and other writings. This interest lit the fire that eventually prompted her to write Camp-site Six.

Jan has two published articles; Sex was my Last Priority on Today’s Christian Woman, and What a Good Marriage Can Do on Growthtrac Magazine. Her personal story, Courage to Change, weaves through Campsite Six in various threads. These and addi-tional writings can be read on janfallon.com.

She resides near the foothills of Denver, Colorado with her hus-band Chuck Fallon, LPC, author of Marriage Recall, and happily near their three grown sons. Jan is a graduate of Colorado Christian University and is a graphic designer and owner of ScriptArt, LLC.

For more about the author visit:

Web: janfallon.comEmail: jan@janfallon.comFacebook: @byjanfallon

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Cast of Characters

Altrus – Father of the edenic people and their distant kinsmen of the far-away land.

Damien – A man from the edenic fiscian tribe who befriends Evie.

Darrell Clayborn – Holly Clayborn’s husband and Evie’s father.

Dr. Lewis Scott – Evie’s attending resident at Everett Hospital.

Dr. Timothy Slaski – Medical examiner at Everett Hospital.

Evie/Evania Clayborn – Holly’s daughter and camper at White Pines Rec-reation Area.

Helen Sundquist – Holly Clayborn’s estranged mother.

Henry Sitcolm – Chief of Police over the county surrounding White Pines.

Holly Clayborn – Single mother of Evie Clayborn.

Jeremy Main – Park Ranger at White Pines and associate of Ranger Sheryl Amorsen.

Norm Beaudry – Holly Clayborn’s new friend and constant companion.

Peter Galloway – Lead Park Ranger at White Pines under Captain Roger Endler.

Roger Endler – Chief Ranger and Captain of White Pines Recreation Area.

Sandy Steadman – Evie Clayborn’s childhood schoolmate and best friend.

Sheryl Amorsen – Park Ranger at White Pines in charge of Holly Clayborn.

Steve Steadman – Sandy Steadman’s husband and ADSAR recruit.

Stuart Wilcox – Park Ranger at White Pines Recreation Area and associate of Ranger Peter Galloway.

William Stockton – Helen Sundquist’s Attorney at Cooper and Blansfield.

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CONTENTS

One – Transit ..................................................................................................... 7 Two – Away ...................................................................................................... 14 Three – Edge .................................................................................................... 18 Four – Holly ..................................................................................................... 21 Five – Damien .................................................................................................. 25 Six – Paruba ..................................................................................................... 28 Seven – Dad ..................................................................................................... 32 Eight – Cobalt .................................................................................................. 35 Nine – News ..................................................................................................... 40 Ten – Assault ................................................................................................... 46 Eleven – Intruder ............................................................................................ 54 Twelve – Pete .................................................................................................... 60 Thirteen – Kinsman........................................................................................ 63 Fourteen – Hannaford’s ................................................................................. 67 Fifteen – Ranger .............................................................................................. 72 Sixteen – Enclave............................................................................................. 77 Seventeen – Beckoned .................................................................................... 80 Eighteen – Talitha Koum ............................................................................... 84 Nineteen – Eternity ........................................................................................ 89 Twenty – Chosen ............................................................................................. 92 Twenty-one – Fishing ..................................................................................... 98 Twenty-two – Thank You ............................................................................. 102 Twenty-three – Church ................................................................................ 106 Twenty-four – Warden ................................................................................. 109 Twenty-five – Desire ..................................................................................... 112 Twenty-six – Picture ......................................................................................117 Twenty-seven – Pledged ............................................................................... 122 Twenty-eight – Dusk .................................................................................... 126 Twenty-nine – The Call ................................................................................ 131 Thirty – Paths ................................................................................................ 137 Thirty-one – Daylight ................................................................................... 142 Thirty-two – Monday ................................................................................... 144 Thirty-three – Parallel .................................................................................. 148 Thirty-four – Meeting .................................................................................. 153

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Thirty-five – The Station .............................................................................. 159 Thirty-six – Helen ......................................................................................... 163 Thirty-seven – Lost ....................................................................................... 166 Thirty-eight – Urgent ................................................................................... 170 Thirty-nine – Voices ..................................................................................... 176 Forty – Clues .................................................................................................. 181 Forty-one – Camp ......................................................................................... 187 Forty-two – Hike ........................................................................................... 193 Forty-three – Newscast ................................................................................ 199 Forty-four – Evidence ...................................................................................202 Forty-five – Search and Rescue ...................................................................206 Forty-six – Dark Forest ................................................................................208 Forty-seven – Ravens .................................................................................... 214 Forty-eight – Wound .................................................................................... 217 Forty-nine – Steadmans ............................................................................... 221 Fifty – Petition ............................................................................................... 229 Fifty-one – Off Trail ...................................................................................... 232 Fifty-two – Pain ............................................................................................. 237 Fifty-three – Pete ...........................................................................................240 Fifty-four – Bargaining ................................................................................242 Fifty-five – In Flight ...................................................................................... 250 Fifty-six – Rescue .......................................................................................... 255 Fifty-seven – Code Blue ............................................................................... 258 Fifty-eight – Pathology ................................................................................. 263 Fifty-nine – Recovery ...................................................................................266 Sixty – Waiting .............................................................................................. 270 Sixty-one – Interview ................................................................................... 273 Sixty-two – Mother ....................................................................................... 278 Sixty-three – Aftercare ................................................................................. 281 Sixty-four – Home ........................................................................................284 Sixty-five – Closed ........................................................................................290 One to Light ................................................................................................... 294 About the Author .......................................................................................... 295 Cast of Characters ......................................................................................... 296 Glossary .......................................................................................................... 297 Contents ......................................................................................................... 298