THE CAMP (CHAPTER 9)

‘Hey man, wake up!’ Someone shouted at me. The voice started to shake me.

I opened my eyes. I stared at a bearded face, one with big brown eyes. ‘We found you on the beach passed out, man. You okay?’ I raised my body by pressing down on my elbows. ‘What happened, where am I?’, I mumbled.

‘You’re in the camp man!’ The bearded face answered back. ‘You’re with the disciples now, you’re safe.’

I stood, looking at the man. He was in his early 30’s wearing a long dusty coat with strange insignia on it. ‘My name is Caspar, what’s yours?’

Before I answered, I took a long look around.

The camp was located in a clearing, surrounded by woods on either side.

It was filled with tents, maybe 20 of them. There must have been over 100 people here.

It was still raining and the steam from the fires filled the air.

‘Martin”, I answered the man. ‘My name is Martin Cole’.

The man who’s called himself ‘Caspar’ produced a smile.

‘Let me get the others and let’s gather ‘round at the fire. Dying to hear your story buddy!’

People started coming out of their tents. Women were carrying young children.

Men were looking at me suspiciously.

‘Let’s gather ‘round everyone, meet our new friend, Martin Cole’, Caspar shouted as more people joined them around the camp fire.

People started forming a circle around the fire as they sat down.

‘Let me introduce everyone’, Caspar said. ‘This is Velvet and Julie’, the two women were sitting on the opposite side of me. ‘Next we have Brandon, Li and Clark.’ I started to study them.

‘What a weird bunch’, I thought as I finished scanning all of them. After Caspar had given them a few moments to introduce themselves, he started explaining what the camp was all about.

‘We are all disciples of a higher force we call GEIST. We were all initiated by the Wanderer. It all started when the pandemic had ravaged the lands and we were forced to flee from the cities. We are immune to the virus and have maintained our independence from the Watchers. We settled on the surface, in the wilderness, in the forests and we can survive in daylight. What you see here is the literally the remainder of humanity in one spot.’

Caspar lowered his eyes and stared at the fire. After a few moments he continued…

‘We followed The Wanderer for a long time until he just recently disappeared’, Caspar continued. ‘he had taught us so much and it wasn’t easy for us to carry on being hunted by the machines day after day. It’s not easy to hide such a huge camp from the Watchers. We have to be constantly on the move. But hopefully one day The Wanderer will reappear… we have so many questions for him…’

I had heard about this mythical figure they called The Wanderer. A strange man who walks the earth and takes paths no-one else has taken. A man filled with history and the wisdom of the old days. It was said that The Wanderer carried The Book Of Light with him. A tome that contained the key to the next chapter of humanity. An evolutionary blueprint. And the people here in the camp were his students, his followers, his disciples.

Caspar interrupted my thoughts.

‘You may have noticed little yellow stickies on your way down through the labyrinth’, Caspar stated with a slight grin. ‘We posted them for people just like you to be able to find us.’

‘Yellow Stickies?’, I thought, this was beginning to sound like a high school reunion.

‘Yeah, I saw something like that in the subway station’, I replied.

I could vaguely remember a yellow post-it note with a red circle and a white “D” in the middle.

‘Machines have a hard time reading them’, the guy they called Brandon said.

‘When everything went digital, handwriting was outlawed and only a few could actually remember how to write with pen or pencil. That was a chance for us to sneak messages through, informing others out there about our existence and to come and join us.’

I looked at Brandon with astonishment. ‘How could a geek like him know about this?’

I thought.

But Caspar had mentioned something else too, The Watchers?

‘What about The Watchers’? I asked.

Clark who hadn’t said anything at all, suddenly came to life.

‘That’s some dark shit, man. They say The Watchers were brought to this earth from deep outer space to control the conversion of the ones who live underground. Personally I’ve never seen one in the flesh, but I hear they are scary as hell. And speaking of flesh, from what I hear they consist of this unknown translucent material you can see through. Creepy, man just creepy’ Clark took a big swig out of his beer can. ‘I’d keep my eyes open if I were you, man!’

‘I studied their behavior and it’s quite peculiar’, the Chinese girl named Li spoke softly for the first time. ‘Remember when the Chinese probe landed on the moon in late 2020 to collect samples? My father was part of that science mission. They found something in the samples the probe returned.

No one could explain it. No one talked about The Watchers.

After his discovery my father came home a changed man, he never talked about what had happened but he became gravely ill and died a few years ago. I went through his research papers and found what looked like alien drawings, lines and digits that could pass for some kind of language.

I’ve been studying the language of The Watchers ever since.’

Li stopped talking and looked at Brandon.

He returned her gaze with loving eyes.

‘They can’t read our thoughts’ Velvet said quietly. ‘The only chance we have to communicate is through telepathy. We must learn to understand and appreciate this gift The Wanderer gave us.’

All eyes were now on Velvet.

Martin studied her. The woman they called Velvet was in her early sixties with dark curly hair with white streaks shimmering through. Immaculate skin. Her face a sculpture of beauty and wisdom. She was wearing a rainbow colored robe. Her dark green eyes were staring intently at the fire in front of her.  ‘She may be a medium’ I thought. ‘She certainly has that aura about her.’ The others fell silent as Velvet continued…

‘There is a war coming between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. An eternal struggle that is coming to an end. The balance has been broken and the light has all but vanished. The Wanderer has left us and we are in the midst of the final act. I have seen what’s coming. We must all leave our individualities at the door and take on a collective soul. Only then might we stand a chance against what is coming.’

With that statement, Velvet let out a deep breath and leaned back, away from the fire. The others around Martin seemed to be in a daze. For a few minutes, no-one uttered a word.

‘Yeah, but they don’t have The Book Of Shadows yet!’ The girl named Julie almost shouted out. ‘I’ve been checking with the machines and they are still looking for it. Without this book their final solution isn’t going to happen, right?’ Julie started rocking back and forth on her blanket by the campfire.

‘Shut up, Julie! Don’t mention that blasphemy by name out loud!’ Velvet admonished her. Velvet turned to Martin.

‘You must understand that this little tramp here has a unique ability to look inside the machines. She’s goes into a trance like state and becomes one of them for a while. She can read what they are planning until they shift patterns of communication.’

‘They haven’t caught me yet!’ Julie barked back. ‘I’m invisible to them!’

‘Maybe just for now, Julie, just for now.’ Velvet lowered her head. The sunset was upon them and the light started to give way to a cold dark night.

‘Let me see if I understand you guys right. So, there’s a Book Of Shadows that contains the blueprint of destruction of all what is holy to us,’ I started to explain to myself out loud. ‘The Wanderer has vanished and with him the Book Of Light, the antidote. Am I correct so far? And when is this all supposed to happen?’ I looked at Caspar who was throwing more branches on the fire.

‘When the Singularity arrives, that’s when. We need to find out for sure what they are planning at The Complex.’ Caspar answered. ‘We are breaking camp tomorrow morning and these guys around the fire here will be your new companions, Martin.

Get some rest, man.

I will tell you more about all this when we are on the road.’

With that the others started to get up. Brandon and Julie stretched out their bodies and everyone started making their way towards the tents.

‘Guess I’ll find out more tomorrow,’ I thought as I took a last sip of wine from the bottle that Caspar had left behind.