by K. M. Fawkes
“It’s time for the initiation!” Uncle called out.
The follower who had been holding Anna rushed forward, allowing her to drop to her knees onto the ground. Brad read the signs of shock all over her pale face. He tried to give her an encouraging look without drawing attention to himself. It wasn’t over yet.
He still had no idea when he was going to get the chance to make his move. Hell, he hadn’t put together exactly what that move would be when he made it. But he knew that he was going to try something. What did he have to lose?
Two followers pushed him forward, past the condemned and into the firelight. The blaze wasn’t so bright now that it had the sun to compete with, but it was still incredibly hot. For the first time since he’d been dragged from the cellar that morning, he managed to stop shivering.
It didn’t feel good to be near to the fire for long, though. Brad caught his breath as the follower yanked a branding iron free from the fire pit. He knew the design in that twisted metal. It was the same one that marked Martha. And now they were about to mark him with it as well.
“Followers, join us as we welcome a new convert!” Uncle cried.
His people filed down from the ledges to form a circle around them. Sammy and Martha had ended up in the front row of the circle. As Brad looked down at them, he thought that he saw tears in Martha’s big blue eyes. Sammy’s lips had gone white.
Brad was pushed roughly forward before he could try to communicate anything to either child. He gritted his teeth as the brand hovered near his upper arm. He could feel the intense heat already. He couldn’t imagine how it would feel when it was searing his flesh.
“Not yet,” Auntie said sharply. “First, he must say his vows.”
Brad glanced over. He hadn’t imagined it. With the sun nearly fully risen he could see the faint sheen of tears in Martha’s eyes. She hadn’t been convinced to forget him. He gave her a quick smile and she caught her breath, clearly trying to restrain herself from speaking to him.
“Are you ready?” Auntie asked with a big smile. “Most people say this part hurts worse than the brand.”
“And what’s that?” Brad asked, barely holding himself back from rolling his eyes.
“Well, your confession of course. Your repentance. The only way forward to leave your old life and join a new one serving our Lords. It hurts, but we must sacrifice for Them as They sacrificed for us.”
“No!” Lee yelled out, struggling once more. “Don’t be stupid, Bradley! You can’t save them!”
“Yes,” Brad said over his father’s shouts. He held the woman’s gaze with his and his voice was calm as he said, “I’m ready.”
“Release him,” Uncle intoned and the cuffs were unlocked and dropped to the ground.
Sensation rushed back into his fingers as Auntie opened a massive book with a five-pointed star impaled by a cross on its cover. They really like that image, he thought darkly. Of course, it was probably hard to find a truly creative graphic-design talent in the middle of the apocalypse.
“I confess that I have doubted,” Auntie said and then looked at Brad, clearly waiting for him to repeat what she’d said.
“I confess that I have doubted,” he said. Hell, he had. He’d doubted Anna. He’d doubted himself. And he was done with that.
“And that now I have seen the light.”
He repeated that as well. In fact, he saw a little too much light. It was damn near blinding as it reflected off of the face of the quarry. All of the followers were squinting.
“The Family is destined to inherit the Earth.”
He repeated the words, his plan slowly coming together. The Family was a lot of things, the main two being crazy and numerous. However, they were also led by people with a flair for the dramatic and they were skinny, undernourished, and exhausted. Brad could use that.
“I surrender my own hopes and submit to the new darkness in the world so that I may rise into the new promise of light.”
Anna sobbed from behind him, a sound of fear and pain. Sammy’s hand reached out for Martha’s and their fingers linked. The sun burst fully above the horizon.
“The world is a darker place now,” Brad said, seeing surprise in her eyes that he’d stopped repeating her words. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to surrender what I am to become like you.”
No sooner had he finished speaking, he swung one fist, knocking the book from Auntie’s hands. She gasped and grabbed for it, but it landed squarely in the bonfire, just as Brad had intended.
While Auntie and Uncle were distracted by the burning book, Brad dropped down onto one knee. One quick yank and the pistol was drawn free. That ankle holster really had been a fantastic idea. He saw the shock in Uncle’s eyes right before the bullet blew through his skull.
Auntie screamed as Uncle fell solidly to the ground. She rushed for Brad, tears beginning to pour down her face. The next bullet went straight through her eye and she fell as well, landing backward near the fire. It began to lick at her hair and the smell of it burning floated into the morning air.
“Lee!” Brad shouted. “Help me!”
The followers had crushed in around them. Anna jumped to her feet and grabbed Sammy when Brad yanked him forward. Martha was still holding his hand so she was tugged along in the mass, too. Brad picked her up so that she wouldn’t get trampled. Her skinny arms wrapped tightly around his neck and she buried her face there. He heard her sob in relief and hugged her tightly.
“I was always going to come back for you,” he whispered to her. “Hang on tight.”
Lee grabbed Brad’s gun and cleared the way for them. The shots rang out with brutal efficiency and Brad was glad that Martha’s face was still hidden.
“You need to go that way!” Sammy said, now leading his mother instead of being led by her. His face was set determinedly as he ducked around a fallen Family member, freshly shot by Lee. “That’s the only car that works now!”
Brad shifted direction and headed for the same truck they’d come in on. Lee dove behind the wheel as Brad yanked open the back door. Anna pushed Sammy and Martha inside and then climbed in herself, as Brad closed the door and jumped into the passenger seat so that he could help shoot if they needed cover fire.
They didn’t. Without leaders, the Family was only milling around in confusion. That was the price they had paid for the illusion of safety. They’d lost the ability to think for themselves.
Brad could see that the smoke going up had darkened. Clearly, Auntie’s body hadn’t been moved away from the fire. He wondered if it would eventually spread to Uncle. He considered it a fitting end for them both.
Lee slammed the gas pedal to the floor and they left the remnants of the Family behind them. Brad gripped the dashboard as his father flew down the drive. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to need cover fire, Brad climbed into back with his own family.
Anna was sobbing openly, clutching both of the children to her as tightly as she could. Brad rested his hand on Sammy’s back, proud of the boy. He’d done a good job pretending and an even better job thinking clearly under pressure. He’d gotten the two of them to the front of the crowd, he hadn’t lost his head when the shooting started, and he’d paid enough attention to know which vehicle they could escape in.
Martha was shaking like a leaf, but she wasn’t crying. He rested his other hand on her head. They were both so strong.
He sat down beside Anna, thanking God that they were all back together. He couldn’t believe that they’d managed to pull it off. That they had all survived long enough to see each other again.
Lee glanced into the rearview mirror and Brad said, “Do you want to head back to the cabin and get that other truck? You could have it to drive, since it was Garcia’s.”
“Is this your way of saying that you want to split up?” Lee asked with a sarcastic inflection in his voice.
Brad shrugged. “I figured that you might want to go back to Ashland and find out what happened to Garcia.”
/> “Even if I kill the fuckers that did that to him?” Lee asked. “Or are you not as worried about that anymore since you used me to mow down half a dozen people back there?”
“I—” Brad began, his voice shaking with anger.
Anna cut in. “I’d rather not discuss this where the kids can hear it,” she said firmly. “Are we going to get the truck or not?”
“No,” Lee said flatly. “That’s one of the places that a lot of them know to go. We should drive somewhere that we don’t have any known connection with and then circle back to get the truck later on.”
Brad rubbed his chin. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. We’ll do it that way.”
He didn’t miss his father’s annoyed expression. He also didn’t give a damn about it. Maybe some time in silence would help his father get his shit together again.
Chapter 14
According to the road signs, they were only a few miles away from the Canadian border when Lee at last stopped the truck. Brad leaned up to see that they’d stopped near a good-sized lake.
“Are you guys thirsty?” he asked.
He got enthusiastic nods all around so they all jumped out for a drink. They’d managed to find a few things to eat in the truck, but they hadn’t had as much luck with water. Since most of the food had been dried jerky of one type or another, they were all pretty thirsty as this point.
Brad took an axe from the back of the truck and chopped a hole into the ice. Sammy winced when he dipped his hands into the frigid water and Brad saw calluses on the boy’s hands.
“Did they make you carve in the wall?” Brad asked.
Sammy nodded. “Our shifts were shorter than the adults’. We did ten hours. They did twelve.”
“How generous of them,” Brad said, trying to swallow down the sudden fury that had come with the knowledge that a nine-year-old boy had been out there carving a quarry for those idiot extremists.
Sammy gave a small smile. “It wasn’t too bad. Better than sitting around memorizing things like the girls had to.”
“What did you have to memorize?” Brad asked Martha.
“They called it the new Word,” she said softly. “It was weird. It wasn’t in a book; it was just some papers that they’d written. We had to be able to recite any part at any time or we got punished.”
She knelt by the lake and stared into the deep blue water. After a moment, she shook her head.
“They were so awful,” she said, seemingly aware of the massive understatement she was making in saying it. “The things that they did. The things that they made us do.”
As she and Sammy began to speak, stories of the Family’s brutality toward each other at the order of Auntie and Uncle spilled out. As he listened, Brad had to clench every muscle in his body to keep from shaking.
He wasn’t cold. He was furious. God. If he’d known that before they left, he might have killed more of them. He knew it wasn’t right and he knew that eventually he’d be glad that he hadn’t, but right now it wasn’t easy to see things that way.
Lee listened to the stories impassively as he sat on a log a few feet away, watching the kids as they spoke. There were tears in Anna’s eyes when the children finally wound down. As much as Brad wished that he’d never heard it, they had clearly needed to get these things off of their chests. He could already see some light returning to their eyes.
“You did what you had to do,” Anna said when the children finally stopped speaking. “You did what I told you to do and I’m so proud of you for it.”
Lee snorted suddenly, a sound of pure derision. They all turned to look at him warily.
“They did what you told them to do?” he repeated. “I guess it’s a good thing that they know how to listen better than you do.”
“What?” Anna asked, blinking in shock.
“All you’ve done is screw things up for Bradley,” Lee said, getting to his feet. “How many times have you run away from him exactly?”
Her face flushed red. “Twice.”
“And what kind of danger did you get him into both times? Hell, how many new scars does he have because of you?”
“Lee,” Brad said. “That doesn’t matter. I—”
Lee plowed onward, seeming not to hear Brad at all. “How am I supposed to believe that you didn’t know exactly what you were doing when you led him back to the Family?”
“I didn’t!” Anna insisted, going pale at the enormity of the accusation. “I hoped that he would never even find that note, I didn’t want him to end up with the Family again—”
“Bullshit! But it doesn’t matter, does it?” Lee suddenly turned to Brad. “You’re so damn desperate to get laid that you didn’t even notice all of the ways that she’s played you since this whole thing started. But I see it. I see it all!”
Brad stood up too. “That’s enough,” he said, steel in his voice. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me?” Lee shouted incredulously. “I almost got sacrificed because of you and your idiot girlfriend; that’s what’s the matter with me!”
“Go get in the truck,” Brad said to Sammy and Martha. Eyes wide with surprised fear, they obeyed without question. “Lee,” he went on when the kids had closed the back door of the truck behind them. “You need to calm down. This isn’t Anna’s fault. It isn’t anybody’s fault.”
Lee gave a scoffing laugh that sounded almost like a sob and Brad realized just how close to the edge his father was. “Yeah,” he said. “Just like it isn’t your mother’s fault that you grew up so damn weak.”
“What?” Brad demanded.
“You see, that’s the problem. That’s the whole problem in a nutshell, Bradley! Women like this,” he gestured at Anna with a sneer. “Raising our kids, putting ideas in their heads. I could hear Brenda whispering to you every single goddamn time I tried to set you straight and now look at you! Look at her!” Lee stepped forward, his eyes locked on Brad. “The weak don’t deserve them, Bradley.”
“The weak don’t deserve what?” Brad asked, his fingers inching toward the handle of the axe that was still buried in the ice.
“Kids. Our kids! They shouldn’t get to corrupt them, ruin them, weaken them! The Lord will see them punished!”
“Lee, I think that we need to—”
Brad didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. The minute his fingers wrapped around the axe handle, his father pulled the gun Brad had handed him back at the tent city from the back of his waistband.
“Lee!” Brad shouted.
Lee leveled the gun coolly and fired without hesitation.
Brad’s ears instantly began to ring, but not enough of a buzz that he couldn’t hear Anna’s screams of pain. She fell to the icy cold ground, clutching her thigh and writhing in pain. Brad dropped down beside her, pulling her against him as he stared up at his father in shock.
Lee grinned and Brad could see that it was the same wide, mad grin that Auntie had worn when she’d done her best to indoctrinate Brad.
“Go ahead and say thank you, son,” he said, his voice oddly calm now. “After all, I could have shot her right in the head. Maybe I drilled enough knowledge into your head for you to save her, but I doubt it. Either way, she won’t have a chance to ruin those kids lives. I won’t give it to her.”
Before Brad could move, Lee had headed toward the truck and dived behind the wheel. He drove off before he’d even closed his door fully. Brad could see Sammy and Martha looking frantically out of the back glass for a split-second before the truck fishtailed around a curve and disappeared.
Then he was alone with Anna, who continued to scream as her blood painted the snow a vivid red.
TO BE CONTINUED
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