Elysium: Book Six of The Liminality

Chapter 44: The Team

Alec stumbles through the shrubbery, guiding himself back only by the light of a half moon that is about to be snuffed out by an advancing cloud bank. He doesn't dare turn on his torch lest he be spotted by the night staff of the golf club or worse.

He knows when he reaches the power lines that the red pines lay just beyond, but he is not as confident that he is crossing at the right point. Now, he is kicking himself mentally for not purchasing a GPS unit. If he is ever involved in a rescue attempt of a person from a religious cult again, he will know how to do it better.

The pines are painful. So many sharp and jutting branches poke into his ribs and scratch his face when he blunders into them. Once he breaks through to the other side, he pauses to regain his bearings and is thankful to see that the church compound has floodlights positioned along the opposite side of the berm to let him know he has arrived at the right place.

He makes his way back to the general vicinity of where he had left Karla. He has taken full advantage of his return to town to pick them up some more food. He has two orders of fish and chips in a plastic sack and they are still warm and fragrant.

"Oh Karla! Yoo-hoo! You here? Karla?"

There is no response.

"Karla?"

He stomps around, looking for the eroded cleft in the berm where they had taken refuge from the altar boys. After a time, it seems like he has located it, unless he has simply stumbled upon another spot with similar topography.

He gets down on his hands and knees and feels around, reacting with disgust when his fingers drag through the cold slime of a decaying mushroom. He wipes his hands on his pants and keeps searching until he kneels on the hard and angular shaft of a golf club.

With a little more patting about, he finds her lying all tangled in the weeds. He extracts her from some vines, sorts out her limbs and lays her on her back on the picnic towel. She is breathing well. That is good. Even, measured breaths. She sounds so relaxed, he almost wants to cuddle up and take a nap next to her. After supper, maybe.

"I don't suppose you're only just sleeping?" he whispers. "No, I don't suppose you are. Not after all that rearranging. This is one of those spells, isn't it? Ah well. Who knows how long you might be yet. Might as well have my supper. Yes? You'll forgive me, won't you?"

He wads up his jacket and tucks it under her head for a pillow.

"Found a good parking spot! It's a little-turn in off the main road, right up against the wood. I backed in, covered the front with some shrubbery. Should make for a smashing getaway when the time comes. Yes?"

He listens for a change in her breathing but her diaphragm cycles as steadily as an aquarium pump.

"I have to say, hanging with you has been a blast. All I ever did in Inverness was get wasted. I'm not really a journalist. Never was one. It was just a temp job I had. I don't even think I would want to be one. It was just a line I use to interest the girls. You're the first one it ever worked on. Ah well."

It sure is easy to talk to an unconscious person. They're such good listeners! As he reaches into his paper sack for a chip, his phone buzzes. A text has come in.

He fetches his phone from his pack. It's from Robbie.

"On our way. Bringing whole North Ayrshire rugby club."

But that is an older message that he hadn't noticed before. There is a new message from Robbie that has just come in.

"Almost there."

"Say what?"

He tries to remember what he had told Robbie earlier that day. He had certainly given him the name and address of the Retreat Centre, but he was also fairly certain that he had that Robbie was to meet up with them in Stirling, to plan the intervention. He never expected them to be arriving this late at night.