Page 12 of Believe in Caloosa Springs

We’d driven most of the night, stopping to snooze for only a few hours in the parking lot of a mini-mart.

I should be exhausted, too, but something about running away from my entire life in the blink of an eye had me buzzing with terrified excitement. I kept checking the rearview, like I was going to see someone chasing us.

“Maybe we’re too early?” I worried. “What time did they say we were supposed to show up?”

“The email said anytime after eight.” Henry glanced at his phone screen. “It’s nine-fifteen.”

“I think someone’s coming,” I said, crouching down to get a better look through the windshield. “Yeah, there’s a truck coming.”

The truck slowed as it got closer and the gate began to open in towards it. Once the entrance was clear, I put the car in driveand pulled into the property, stopping to talk to the person in the truck for further instruction.

It seemed to take him a minute to realize I was waiting for him, and then another moment of his trying to figure out how to roll the window down. Consequently, it took a bit for me to get a good look at him for the first time

Most of his hair was coal-black, with long, choppy pieces that framed his face—except for a large section that hung down over his forehead that was intensely…pink.I’d never seen anyone with that color hair before. He had a silver stud in his nose nestled next to a matching hoop. Another silver ring clung snug to his bottom lip on the opposite side. His left shoulder was exposed, displaying alotof tattoo work covering every inch of his skin from his left collar bone down to where his wrists met his hands. There were bats and pumpkins, a scary looking tree with various symbols and other intricacies that would make my mother drop to her knees and beg God’s forgiveness for even having laid eyes on it. I’m not going to lie; he immediately made me very nervous. Dideveryonehere look like him?

Was he, like… adevil worshiper,or something? Was this a cult? If anyone had us accidentally join a cult, it would be Henry. Oh, Lord, what had we done?

Free room and board… yeah, I bet.How gullible could we be?

“Good morning,” he said, flashing me a surprisingly warm and nice smile. “Um, I think if you just go ahead and pull up to the house, Mandy and Tyler are trying to get everyone situated.” He held his hand out the window and pointed up the drive. His voice was soft—the complete opposite of what I had expected him to sound like.

I nodded and faced forward, taking my foot off the brake and rolling slowly towards the house ahead of us.

“He was scary,” Henry said quietly, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

I didn’t respond. I was a little embarrassed by having felt the same way, and having made immediate assumptions of the guy from just looking at him. The whole point of getting out of Salt Lake was to meet new people who had different viewpoints, and to try to figure out how andwhereI fit into this world. Alternative people weren’t necessarily devil worshipers. Evil worshipers wouldn’t sound shy and polite, right? I was, by that point, aware that so many of my thoughts were the result of a life of religious programming fed to me to inspire fear and submission to the church’s control.

“You need to shake that mindset, Porter.”

“Huh?” Henry grunted.

I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud. “Nothing.”

I let the car coast up to the house, not wanting to accidentally kick up rocks with the tires. I knew making a good first impression was a big deal. Especially with people who were going to be providing my housing and a paycheck for the next year. That’s how long the initial contract Henry and I had signed with Baker Productions lated. They had told Henry many times that this was just the initial, and that, if all went well, they would offer extensions. That was a nice gesture, I guessed, but it was hard to imagine anything past tomorrow. Or the day after that, even. This was definitely going to be alive by the momentkind of experiment.

All I knew was that I better find what I was looking for soon, because I’d lied to my entire family. I’d skipped out on my mission, which would pretty much automatically excommunicate me from the church, and the people I’d grown up with my entire life would disown me. Lost in desperate thoughts, I pulled the car up to a large wooden fence beside another car parked similarly and turned off the engine.

Neither of us seemed to be in a hurry to get out.

“Ready?” I asked after a long moment.

“Yeah,” Henry answered immediately, nodding his head.

We continued to sit there until the scary boy in the truck pulled up on the other side of the car. I got out of the car, Henry quickly following suit. We stood awkwardly at the trunk of the car and waited.

“Should we get our stuff?”

“I don’t know, Henry,” I replied testily. “I’ve never done this before.”

The boy climbed out of the truck and took a few steps before coming to a stop a few feet away from where we were standing. He looked around for a second and then began to kick at the dirt with the toe of his shoe.

“So, uh… should we get our stuff?” Henry asked, his voice a bit shaky.

It took a bit for him to stop moving his foot and look up at us. “Are you talking to me?”

Henry nodded.

“Oh, I have no clue,” he answered, shrugging his tattooed shoulder, and biting his lip. He looked…nervous.“I’ve never been here before.”

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