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It's been abandoned for years when you arrive. The paint is peeling, the walls sagging, the buildings seeming ready to fall down at a breath. The Freedom Falls of your memory was always relentlessly scrubbed clean, paint so bright it made your eyes ache.
Now the sky is as blue as it ever was, but everything else is different. You find yourself checking the signs more than once, fiddling for the map in your pocket, like you might have found your back to the wrong fucking hellcamp by mistake.
You lead Zosia across the campus, narrating the locations for her like a tour guide: this is where we had morning prayer, this is where we had breakfast if we were lucky enough to earn it, this is where we lay in our cold beds and jerked ourselves off with bloody palms over our own mouths, this is where he told me how holy I was while he held me down and--
The words from your mouth like glass, scatter across the ground. She listens, nods, makes soft noises of sympathy. You know she remembers doing at least some of this to you, maybe all of it, they can't all have died when the world did.
You wonder if he is somewhere in there, living behind her eyes, if his love was real enough to bleed through the connection and infect the whole world. You don't ask, because it doesn't matter; even if he's not in there, there's a whole planetful of rapists who are. Saints and monsters and sad fucks in between, all braided into the same person, and in your weaker moment you thinks it's the most human thing about her. Them. Whatever.
People trail behind the two of you, gas cans in hand, splashing acrid offerings along the sides of each building and forming snail-slick trails between them. Their faces are blank, movements precise, as focused on their work as cells chugging through a body.
None of them are familiar faces; you insisted on that. You can't bear seeing them again, any of them; you're terrified that one look at their smiling faces will be the straw needed to break your back and send you to your knees, begging for redemption, you'll repent for a lifetime if God can bring the world back the way it was.
And you're equally terrified that you'll send them into the houses, one by one, order them to bathe in gasoline and close their eyes. They'd do it, is the thing, hand this weapon you like they'd do any other, childlike in their trust. It's nightmarish, it's intoxicating.
Easy to just ramble about this stupid fucking camp like all of it happened a lifetime okay, recite their arguments and dissect the flaws of each one. How stupid it all was, how meaninglessly hateful.
"I used to tell myself they didn't mean any of it." You kick your boot across the ground, wrinkling your nose at the growing stench. "They were just perverts who wanted to make us suffer, and the Bible gave 'em a good excuse."
You shrug. "Maybe they were faking it, maybe they weren't. Does it matter in the end, if they still did that shit?"
Zosia doesn't respond, which is good because if she starts about how it's different now you might just punch her fucking face in. Instead, she stays quiet when she slips her fingers through your hand, squeezing tight.
You let her lead you a safe distance away from the camp, let her stay by her side as you watch the rest file out after you. Someone hands you a flare that you ignite, pale warmth blooming in your hand. The crackling reminds you of the fireworks, death ruffling your hair before it explodes behind your head.
"Alley-oop, motherfuckers." You toss it through the air, bracing yourself against the answering whomp of flames. More flares are tossed around the campfire, more bursts of heat and light, wounds open in the dragon's side as it staggers to its knees.
Zosia stays beside you, watching as Camp Freedom Falls is engulfed. The light plays across her face and catches gold in her hair, flaring at her temples like a crown. She feels you looking and gives you a small smile, her voice so quiet you have to strain so you can hear it over the inferno: "Does this make you happy, Carol?"
I could go for a couple marshmallows, you'd crack, if you didn't think the crazy assholes might take you seriously. Which might not be the worst thing, but you have something else in mind, a different hunger to satisfy.
Zosia lets you put your hands on her shoulders, lets you shove to the ground. She holds still while you climb on top of her, but you still gather her wrists in one hand and wrench them over her head, pinning her in place.
"Don't be scared," you say, raising your voice so she can hear you loud and clear. You climb on top of her, pinning her with your knees as you yank her pants down with her free hand. She shivers as you drag a rough thumb over your clit, moving in jagged circles. "I'm here to help."
Walls are falling in the camp by now, cracking and smashing horribly. They have a fire truck on hand in case it gets out of control, but for now they're all just standing around, watching. You bite Zosia hard enough to make her cry out and none of them react.
"You're holy," you tell her. Zosia's not really wet, but you shove your fingers inside her anyway, pumping them in and out viciously. "You've got the light of God in you, and I'm going to make sure the whole world can see it."
You kiss her before she can reply, sinking your teeth into her lip. The smoke curls around your bodies like a blanket, raking viciously across your face. Or if it's not the smoke making your eyes sting and drip, well, at least it serves as a good excuse.