by Onley James
Rebecca held her hand up, listening carefully, repositioning her grip on the gun in her hand. It was eerily silent. If there were thirty children in there, at least one of them would be crying, moving, whispering. Robby’s heart sank as Rebecca’s shoulders sagged. Still, she kept her pistol in hand as they crept into the two story barn, open but for the hayloft above the two large entryway doors.
At first, he thought they were alone, but then he saw a small girl sitting on a hay bale in a dirty shift dress, her bare foot drawing patterns in the dirt below. She couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen.
“Dinah?” Rebecca said. “Where are the others? Where are the children?”
Dinah’s head jerked up, her gaze darting towards something behind them. A trickle of unease shivered along his spine as he slowly turned to see what the girl looked at.
Robby’s mouth fell open at the sight before him. Samuel held a small boy against his chest, an enormous knife leveled against the child’s throat. Ezra. He would have known him anywhere. They looked just alike.
“Hello, sweet Rebecca. Welcome back,” Samuel said. “I see you’ve mended fences with your brother.” He looked to Robby. “I don’t suppose you’ve come back to us for good, Obidiah?”
Robby wasn’t looking at Samuel but at Ezra who mouthed “Obi,” as if he knew who Robby was. Had Rebecca talked about him?
Robby forced himself to stay calm, even as his blood rushed in his ears. “Yeah, no. I’m afraid not.”
Samuel had sweat through his white shirt, the thin fabric clinging to his lanky body, his hair and skin damp. His muscles twitched as if against his will, and his gaze darted around, skating over things but never landing on any one person or thing for long. It gave Robby the creeps and reminded him of the tweakers on the boulevard. When he talked, his Kentucky twang was as sharp as the knife he wielded. “That’s right. You’ve forsaken the almighty for a life of hedonism, just like your daddy.”
Robby didn’t bother to correct him. It was clear Samuel was on something. There was no point in egging him on, if anything he just needed to keep him calm until Calder could get there. Unless Calder hadn’t gotten his messages. The thought stopped him cold. What if Calder wasn’t coming? At least Robby had told him he loved him. That was something.
“Ezra!”
A cry from Rebecca pulled Robby from his thoughts, his pulse skittering as he saw the blade in Samuel’s hand had nicked his brother’s throat, causing blood to trickle along his neck. The boy trembled visibly, tears running down his dirt-stained cheeks, but he didn’t dare move or cry out. God, Robby remembered those days of punishment, where every sound only prolonged the agony.
Samuel laughed, the sound jagged and cutting like broken glass. But he wasn’t looking at Robby, he was looking at Rebecca who had leveled her gun at him. “Oh, sweet Rebecca. You forget, I’m the one who tried to teach you to shoot. How many shots would it take before you managed to hit me? You think you could get one off without hitting the boy here?”
One look at his sister and Robby knew Samuel wasn’t bluffing. Her hands wobbled and tears sprang to her eyes. “He’s your son,” she whispered, looking at Ezra.
Samuel grinned, wiping sweat from his eyes with the hand that held the knife. “Yeah, but I got tons of these critters runnin’ round. But not you. It just kills you that this one wasn’t yours. That your mama managed to pop out, what? Eight? Nine? Yet, you couldn’t manage even one, barren as that rock pit out there.”
Rebecca trembled but not with fear, with rage. “You’re a monster. A crazy, delusional monster.”
Samuel wrenched Ezra’s hair back until the boy cried out, forcing the blade tighter to his neck. “Shall I show you what a monster I am? I’ve got nothing left to lose. Can you say the same?”
Rebecca made a noise of frustration. Robby made a decision. “Rebecca, give me the gun.”
“What?” she mumbled, her brows knitting together, even as she kept her gaze on Ezra.
“You can’t shoot, but I can.”
It was true. Robby hated everything about guns. The noise. The violence. The smell. But he was a crack shot, always had been. It was the only thing that had ever made his father proud.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’ll slit this boy from ear to ear before you can even blink. Drop the gun on the ground and kick it to me.” A sob escaped from his sister’s lips, her confusion giving way to hopelessness. “Do it,” Samuel spit. “You know this mortal skin suit means nothing to me. Our people are ascending even as we speak. Soon, I’ll follow and so will you. But give me the gun and I’ll let your brother here take the boy and go.”
“What do you mean, they’ve started ascending?” Robby asked.
“Just what I said. I know the government’s been watching and I know this one”—he pointed to Rebecca with the knife—“went and ran her mouth about things that were none of her business. That’s why we had to move up our timeline. We were preparing to fight the army of demons outside. We had everything we needed. Now, we have to start over. Fight the demons as angels from heaven.”
Robby’s body grew cold as he realized Samuel believed all of this. Some part of him had always thought Samuel was a charlatan, a narcissistic pedophile following from some cultish playbook. He’d never really let himself believe that his end game was to kill a bunch of innocent people. Robby had imagined this was just a trap, Dinah, the distress call, everything. And it was, he supposed, but he hadn’t thought they’d lose everybody on the compound.
Rebecca dropped the gun, but she didn’t kick it away. “Now, give him to me.”
“Nah, not yet.” He pulled something from his back pocket. It was a flask. He tossed it in her direction. “Drink up, sweet Rebecca. Drink and I’ll give the boy to your brother.”
“No!”
They all turned to see Dinah standing there. Robby had forgotten her the second Samuel had emerged from the shadows. Now, she held the gun in her hands.
“Dinah. You put that gun down or so help me, I’ll flay the skin from your bones,” Samuel snapped, like he was used to intimidating the girl.
She sniffled. “You said it was a trick. You said I just needed to make Ezra tell me the phone number so that you could get them back here, so they could be with us again. You said there was no ascension.”
Samuel shoved Ezra, forcing him to stumble into a hay bale in the corner. As soon as the boy was on his feet, Robby snagged him by the arm and pulled the boy behind him, all of them now watching Dinah closely.
A drug-addled Samuel was nothing compared to a distraught twelve-year-old waving a gun around, a gun she clearly didn’t know how to use.
“Dinah,” Samuel crooned, clearly changing tactics. “I just didn’t want to scare you. Everything is going to be just fine. There’s no cause for worry. Just give me the gun and all’s forgiven. You know you’re my special girl. My true wife.”
Robby forced the bile in his throat back down at Samuel’s words and what that likely meant. Jesus. Dinah’s pupils were blown wide, and she was crying far too hard to make any rational decisions. If Samuel got that gun from her, it was all over.
They all watched, helpless, as Samuel took one agonizingly slow step after another, closing the distance between himself and Dinah. When he was close enough, he reached out, and that’s when the world seemed to explode. Dinah screamed, and Robby’s ears rang as he watched a red bloom across Samuel’s white shirt, just beneath his belly button. Dinah dropped the gun, and Robby hurried to pick it up and stuff it in the back of his pants.
Samuel stood there, just staring at the girl. Robby pulled Dinah away, shoving her beside Ezra, before Samuel could make another move. He looked down at his wound and laughed. “It will take a lot more than that to get me out of your life, Dinah. You little bi—”
The second bang was louder and far more jarring than the last. For a moment, he thought a bomb had detonated, but then he looked to Samuel, stomach lurching as he noted a neat hole between the man’s
eyes and the back of his skull sprayed across the concrete floor a split second before the man crumpled to the ground.
There was a blissful moment of relief where Robby thought, for just a second, it was over. Calder had finally come for him and everything would be okay. But the man emerging from the front of the barn wasn’t Calder at all. It was his father.
“Hello, children.”
Calder parked his truck just before the private property sign. His truck was too loud to risk taking it any farther. He holstered his weapon before pulling an extra clip and his knife from the lock box in the truck’s bed. He scanned for anything—sensors, tripwires, sentries. But there was nothing. Nobody. He carefully hopped the rusty gate that provided little protection should anybody choose to enter the property without permission. It was all too easy.
Calder didn’t like the eerie silence. A place with this many people would be humming with activity with the sun still high in the cloudless blue sky. He followed the makeshift dirt road, always aware of the treeline on either side, listening and watching for any signs of life, but there was only the occasional rustling of the leaves when the wind blew.
As Calder rounded the bend in the road, the trees opened up to a large clearing with several brick buildings. He drew his weapon, releasing the safety and chambering a round. It didn’t look so much like a farm as it did a compound or a makeshift military installation. That sent a shock of adrenaline through his system. Where was Robby? Was he okay? Was he still alive? The idea of finding Robby’s limp and lifeless body made Calder stumble, but he shook the thought away, swallowing the lump in his throat. No. He’d already lost too much. He wouldn’t lose Robby too.
He made his way from building to building, looking inside and finding nothing. It was practically a ghost town. Jonestown. Calder scanned, looking for the biggest building. The one where a crazed cult leader might gather his flock for a final sacrament. He zeroed in on the large rudimentary building in the center of the compound, hoofing it double time to the side of it, grateful there were small windows along the edge that allowed him to peer inside.
Calder shivered as he noted the people on the other side of the glass. A hundred at least, all of them huddled together, some clutching toddlers and infants, as they all looked at each other with uncertainty. On the stage was a large yellow cooler the size of a beer keg, and two people filling paper cups and lining them along a table. Jesus. He really did want to kill all of these people. Shit. Where was Robby? He studied each face, but none of them were him or Rebecca. Had Samuel moved them somewhere else? Had he killed them already?
A hand settled on his arm, and he turned, jamming his gun into their ribcage, coming nose to nose with Connolly.
“At ease, killer. I’m assuming you didn’t check your phone,” Connolly said, nonplussed at the barrel poking against his massive frame. Connolly had a black eye and a busted lip but still grinned like, somehow, he was the one who’d come out on top. He wore camo pants tucked into military issue boots and a black t-shirt. His gun holstered under his left arm.
Calder caught Linc and Webster creeping towards them from the left. Calder relaxed a bit at their presence. “I have to find Robby and Rebecca.”
“The only place we haven’t searched is the barn,” Linc said. “But you need to be aware of something.”
“Yeah?” Calder prompted impatiently, eyes trained on the barn in the distance.
Linc rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “We’re not the only visitors today. There’s a dark blue sedan registered to Magnus Dei parked down the road, not too far from where we arrived.”
“Robby’s father? What the fuck is he doing here? Didn’t he and Samuel part ways?” Calder asked.
It was Webster who answered. “Maybe not. I kept asking myself, ‘Where would a hippy cult get the money to buy black market weapons?’ They don’t sell anything. They don’t import or export anything. There had to be some kind of financial backer. That backer is Magnus Dei.”
Calder shook his head. “What? But why?”
Webster shrugged. “The only people who know that are Jeb Shaw and our phony messiah over there.” He pointed to the barn.
Calder sighed. “Can you de-escalate the situation in there?” he asked, pointing towards the group inside the building.
Connolly peered through the nearest window and snorted. “Yeah, I don’t foresee a lot of pushback from this lot.”
“I’m coming with you,” Linc said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Calder gave a stilted nod before jogging across the open field to the barn doors, which were sitting slightly ajar. He peered inside, his eyes attempting to adjust to the shadows after spending so much time in the sunlight. They could faintly hear voices coming from deep within. Linc gestured for them to breach the barn and separate so they could flank the group and use the hay bales for cover. Calder gave a single nod, then they both slipped inside. Calder was grateful for cement floors instead of aged wood, which might have given away their position.
His heart tripped when he finally got eyes on a living, breathing Robby. He stood with two young children crowded behind his back, fear etched along his face as he stared at something just out of range. Calder took two more steps, then stopped short when he saw Samuel’s body on the ground, blood staining the dirt and hay that littered the flooring. There was a bullet hole in his forehead and a blood stain on his shirt that indicated he’d been shot twice or had sustained another injury. All thoughts of Samuel left him when he saw Jeb Shaw with a forty-four magnum Ruger Blackhawk trained on his son.
Calder almost would have laughed at the ridiculous weapon if he didn’t know the damage a single shot could do. If Jeb Shaw pulled that trigger, Robby was dead in an instant. The look on his face told Calder that Robby was very much aware of the peril he was in.
“What are you even doing here?” Robby asked.
It wasn’t Jeb who answered, but Rebecca. “This is all my fault,” she cried. “Before I came to you, I went to him. I’m the reason he showed back up in your life. I knew Samuel was losin’ it, and I thought Father might be willin’ to help, but he just sent me back to him.”
Jeb shrugged. “A woman belongs to her husband, Rebecca. You know that. If a man can’t trust his wife, he has nothing.”
“So, you showed up at the police station that day, why?” Robby asked, voice wavering slightly.
Calder suspected he was trying to keep his father’s attention off Rebecca. It seemed to work, at least for now.
“I was hoping to get you to come home before your sister found a way to escape again and managed to rope you into all of this. I did it to protect you. The church is your legacy.”
Robby scoffed. “Then why did you send some man to my apartment to kill me?”
Jeb Shaw laughed. “Oh, that wasn’t me either. Tell him, Rebecca. Tell him how you selfishly sent a dying man to break into your brother’s home and sent him to his death.”
Robby’s gaze widened as he turned on his sister so Calder could no longer see his expression. “What? You sent that man after me? Why? What did I ever do to you?”
Rebecca started to cry, waving her hands as if she could erase it all. “It wasn’t like that. I was trapped here. Samuel was starvin’ me. He kept me tied up in here for two weeks. The only person I saw other than him was Dennis. He was new. He was dyin’. He came here hopin’ for salvation, forgiveness for the things he’d done when he was leadin’ a life of crime in Boston. He knew he’d made a mistake almost immediately. We talked when he’d bring me water twice a day and let me use the bathroom. After two weeks, he said he’d help. He’s the one who got me the burner phone, and he’s the one who agreed to get you a message. He tried to talk to you that night, the night you got arrested at the club, but he couldn’t get anywhere near you and when he did, you just blew him off. He wasn’t tryin’ to kill you when he broke in…he was just tryin’ to deliver a message…from me.”
“I killed him,” Robby mumbled.
“I killed an innocent man.”
“He was already dead,” Rebecca cried. “He had pulmonary hypertension. It was fatal.”
“Is that supposed to make it okay?” Robby snapped, back heaving.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just needed help. Father’s just tryin’ to turn you against me. Ask him why he didn’t seem at all shocked that Samuel was stockpiling weapons. Ask him. Where do you think he got the money?”
Robby whipped his head towards his father. “Why? Why would you help him after you worked so hard to distance yourself from him? Jesus, you gave him one of your children just to keep the church's precious name. Why would you bankroll his psychotic break?”
Jeb scoffed. “Why do you think? I only needed him to keep believing in this ridiculous notion of creating God’s army long enough for him to amass enough evidence on the property to make sure he and this ridiculous hippie commune were taken out for good. Hell, why do you think the ATF already knew about this place? I’m the one who told them he was a danger. Once he was behind bars and this whole little band of sycophants disbanded, Magnus Dei would no longer live in the shadows and people would stop calling us a cult.”
“So, you set him up? Did you know he planned to kill everybody?” Robby asked.
“Okay, I confess, that was not part of the plan, but it honestly couldn’t have worked out any better. With no survivors left, this place will become nothing more than an urban legend, a footnote in the history books. Just another failed cult.”
“What about all of us?” Robby asked, voice shaking. “You can’t force us to drink poison and nobody is going to believe Samuel blew his own head off with a different caliber gun after shooting himself in the stomach.”
Robby put both hands on his hips, and that’s when Calder saw it. A gun. Robby had a gun in his waistband. Calder’s stomach lurched as a million scenarios played out in his head. Robby hated guns. He hated them. He’d said so. He hated violence and hitting people. If Robby went for the gun and his father shot him, that would be it. Game over. But Calder didn’t have a clean shot. He locked eyes with Linc from across the barn, but he shook his head. Rebecca and Robby had inadvertently turned themselves into human shields. If he could only get one of them to step out of the way.