Set the Night on Fire

Set the Night on Fire

Shannon West and Remy Devereaux

Set the Night on Fire

Copyright © 2013 by Shannon West, Remy Devereaux

Smashwords Edition

Published by Dark Hollows Press

Cover Art by Michelle Williams

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Set the Night on Fire

Copyright © 2013 Shannon West, Remy Devereaux

E-book ISBN: 978-1-940756-9-7

Original E-book Publication: February 2013 as Sins of the Father

Second E-book Publication: November 2013

All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Dark Hollows Press

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

Dark Hollows Press, LLC Publisher

Chapter One

Michael

After looking through the disturbing articles one more time, trying to pretend I didn’t linger way too long over the picture of Blake Lewis, I picked up the phone. It wasn’t the article that surprised me so much, though it was shocking enough. It was the picture that accompanied it that had my palms sweating and my heart racing—the picture of a man who had to be Blake Lewis, still as damned beautiful as ever. Still as fucked up as ever too, probably. I had an old score to settle with Blake Lewis, one that had feelings of anger bubbling up inside me like vitriol. Gripping the picture so hard my knuckles went white, the paper crumpled under my hands.

The articles had been forwarded to me by an old fraternity brother, Chad Bentley. Chad and I had gone to school together at UT in Knoxville. Our fraternity was a national gay fraternity called Delta Lambda Phi, and Chad had been among the students who started the fraternity on campus. Since graduation ten years ago, I heard that Chad had been active in Queer Action, a quasi-militant group that loved to out politicians and other public figures, and did a lot of important work against the hate groups that still seemed to spring up everywhere, but especially in the Bible Belt south.

Queer Action had pretty much died out by 2005, and since then, I had lost touch with Chad as I built my own career. Traveling all over the United States, and lucky enough to be able to work for magazines like Newsweek and Time, I’d gradually built a successful career in photojournalism. A few years before, I’d decided to go freelance, and had been traveling the world ever since. About a week before, I had finished a grueling assignment in Pakistan, and decided to take a little time for myself to relax and regroup. It was about this time that Chad tracked me down and forwarded the articles on the Escape group, hoping to attract me to take an interest in exposing the group to national and international attention.

Chad had just formed a new group he was calling FAB or Fags Against Bigots. The group was a pretty militant group who actually targeted these illegal religious camps and had been known to even raid a few of the camps and rescue the young boys inside, moves that were undoubtedly also outside the law, or at least definitely on the fringe of it, and made me nervous to be involved. He’d been trying to convince me for the past few days, and these articles I received this morning were the latest attempt.

Chad Bentley here, Chad said, as he answered the phone halfway around the world from me.

Well, Michael Lance here—how you doing, buddy?

Michael, I can’t believe you called me. I was hoping I could get you fired up enough like back in the old days, but I wasn’t sure. You’re quite the big deal now, I hear.

Don’t believe everything you hear, man. Yeah, I must admit I was pretty pissed off when I read those articles. How can this kind of shit still be going on?

I don’t know, but it is. A poor kid in Atlanta…he was only eighteen years old, Michael, and a freshman in college. Hung himself in his dorm room the day after he got back home from one of Escape’s fucking camps, just last week.

What can I do, Chad? I think I’m finally willing to help you out.

Man, I was so hoping you’d say that. Hell, yes, I’d love that. But hear me out first. You may not want to get involved when you know what I have planned.

Like what?

Well, the raids we’ve been doing don’t go far enough. I want to set up my own camp to help these young men out. I want to re-educate them too, only with love and acceptance, not hate and bigotry. They need to know that there’s so much life out there beyond their parents’ narrow little world, and like the ads say, it does get so much better.

Sounds good, but how are you going to get them to come? I don’t see their parents exactly lining up to send them.

No, but these guys won’t be young kids. Some of the more radical parents are taking their sons right out of college dorms, like the kid in Atlanta, with help from Escape. They say they’re saving their souls. No, the ones I’ve targeted are over eighteen and already at a camp, the Escape camps. I just have to get them out of there and take them to my facility. My plan is to bust in and raid the place, round up the young men and offer them a choice. They can be taken to a safe location at a hotel or a friend’s house or even back home if they want to, though home is where they’ve just been taken from and might not be safe. Or if they choose to, they can stay with Escape, or go with us and get counseling and even financial support, if they need it, to help them become self-sufficient so they don’t have to rely on their parents. The parents who have turned their backs on them because they’re gay.

Whoa, wait a minute, Chad. You’re talking about kidnapping them away from an Escape camp?

I’d be kidnapping them from their kidnappers, Michael. These men are not there of their own free will. They’ve either been taken by force or sold a bill of goods by their families—coerced into it, really, by threats and lies. What the parents and Escape did is just as illegal. I doubt any of them would press charges, especially the ones who helped drag their kids kicking and screaming. They’d hate that kind of exposure, and Escape promises them complete anonymity.

I hesitated, thinking about it. It still sounded pretty iffy to me.

Look, Michael, the young men of legal age who want to leave will be released immediately, or they can choose to come with us. We’re not forcing anybody. By the time Escape figures out what’s happening and what to do about it, me and my camp will be long gone. This is just a one-time thing, to embarrass and humiliate the Escape folks.

Embarrassment and humiliation sounded like just what I had in mind for Blake Lewis, but I had to control my emotions. Sounds very risky, Chad. Not to mention shady. You say no kidnapping, but what about the leaders? Won’t you be taking them against their will?

Escape is kidnapping first—also highly illegal. What are they going to say?

When I still hesitated, he continued. Michael, if you’ll join us, we’ll leave the leaders alone. We may have to lock them in a storage room or something, until we can get away, but we’ll call in an anonymous tip to their home base. They might have to spend a couple of uncomfortable hours, but it’s no more than they deserve. What do you say?

My pulse was racing again at the idea of seeing Blake again. Chad, it’s twisted enough that I like the concept, but I don’t know…

"C’mon, we’ll take precautions. Remember, we’d be rescuing a lot of these young men, whose parents coerced, lured or outright forced them to be there. Neither those parents nor Escape want anything to do with the police. I have the site all picked out. It’s in a very remote forest in North Carolina in the mountains. No way will anyone locate us. We will never identify ourselves. We’re not going to hurt anybody. C’mon, can I count you in? We can bust this operation wide open."

I looked down at the picture accompanying the news story again. It showed Blake holding a sign that said God Hates Fags.

I’ll probably regret saying this, I said, but count me in. At the sound of glee on the other end of the line, I spoke up again. Nobody gets hurt, though, Chad, and I insist on that, either physically or mentally. If the leaders resist, we won’t use any force on them, or use weapons. I won’t be a party to that.

Oh hell, absolutely not, man. I have no desire to hurt anybody. The two leaders of the camp don’t seem like the violent type. One of the guys is the son of the leader, Tom Lewis. Lewis preached a sermon about how he turned his boy straight, and you know that’s got to be bullshit. He’s brainwashed him, more likely. Now get on down here and I’ll show you all the plans.

After a few more minutes, I hung up, wondering what in the world I might have just gotten myself into. I think I would have let my cold feet dissuade me then and there if it hadn’t been for the picture of Blake. Brainwashed, Chad had said. Could that be true? Blake was gay, all right. Of that, I had no doubt. But was he so indoctrinated that there was no hope of bringing him back? Would he—could he—ever admit who he really was?

I read the article for the second time, still not believing what I was seeing. The report detailed the activities of the religious group Blake belonged to. The group, who called themselves Escape, claimed they could take young gay men to a special camp they were calling Camp Salvation where they would work with them on