Urban Waite - Far Cry - Absolution

Will ran his eyes to the house again. He’d looked up a hundred times at it already, as if he feared it would go away. “I’m not sure what’s up there anymore. We’ll see. There used to be some supplies put away, but I honestly don’t know anymore. I’ll look for a bolt cutter then come back down and cut the lock. Then we can bring the car up away from the road here.”

“Just shoot it off,” Drew said.

Will spun to look at the man. Will had in some way forgotten he’d been with them, staying quiet there on the ground where they’d put him after they took everything from within the car. Will shook his head now. “That seems a sure enough way to get your buddies looking out this way.”

“They’re your buddies, too,” Drew said.

Will ignored him. He bent and picked up the backpack with his water, snares, traps, and remaining .308 cartridges within. He brought it to the gate and tossed it over. Next he slid the rifle in between the metal gate rails, making sure it was out of anyone’s way.

Now, he told them to start climbing. They took with them the flak jacket and the shotgun. Jerome helped Mary May to get up and over the gate. Will and Jerome both noticed how hard it seemed for her to move her arms, each pull of muscle or stretch of skin causing her face to change. From what they’d seen of the tattoo they both knew why, in many places, the letters looked carved upon the bone.

Now, Will bent and lifted Drew up then brought him to the gate. And between the three of them they got him over. Will followed. He looked up at the house again. However it came out in the end, he knew without a doubt that this was where it had all started for him, one way or another, years before.

He was trying to hide what it meant for him to come back here, but he knew in some ways they must have known. He lifted his rifle and bag then turned back to the group and told them it was time to go. They walked two by two up the hill and though Will hoped to find some salvation here, he did not know what they would find, and though he had forgotten about this place for years, he wondered now if that had been true for all.

When they came to the top he could see the rope swing was still there beneath the lone tree like it had been when he’d given the property over. He stopped and stared at the two lengths of rope and the wooden seat below. He knew he was here for a reason, but he wondered now why the fear of death had been the deciding factor in his return. He stared at the swing while the others passed him by. When he was able to break free from the spell it had cast upon him, he turned and saw that Mary May, Jerome, and even Drew, were waiting on him, staring back at him from where they stood next to the house.

“Just taking a trip down memory lane,” Will said. He had said it as a joke but no one laughed and they were all still watching him as he walked up. The single-story house had been left pretty much the same. The paint was chipping and the surrounding land was overgrown. In several places weeds grew out of the gutters, but it was his home still, even now that it wasn’t.

He’d raised his daughter, Cali, here. He’d put that swing up himself, pushed her in it when she’d been little, watched her play on it when she got older. He looked on it now as if it had no reason to be here, though he knew very well that it did. He gave a piece of himself away when he gave this property to the church, and foolishly he thought he’d be rid of it.

Under a stone near the door he found the key. After turning the key in the lock he used his shoulder to push the door the rest of the way. The sound of the wood working against the frame was harsh in the relative silence. Shadows were waiting inside and warm trapped-away air ran out and met them where they stood. The air smelling of old locked-away places and the damp unused hint of dirt and mold.

He stepped in and ran his eyes about the room then took several steps inside, kicking an old beer can that sat there on the floor. He had not seen it and he heard it roll away from him then saw it move into the light of the moon that lay in a square on the living room floor.

“Looks like you had squatters,” Jerome said. He had come into the room leading Drew behind him, Mary May last. She closed the door now and all of them looked about the place.

Will had never thought his drinking was as bad as it was until the morning after he had lost them. Even now, looking around, he could see how wrong he’d been about even that—his drinking had been even worse than he had thought. Empty bottles were everywhere, some from before the death of his wife and child, but many more were from after. He would drink them and toss them and, in one corner of the living room, a pile of shattered glass lay from all the bottles he had thrown. In spray paint on the wall above the broken glass was written the single word, MURDERER. Though Will knew they were all thinking it must have been someone else, Will knew he had written it with his own hand, and that he had meant it at the time.

He wished now that he’d died instead of them. He wished now that he had just pickled himself in alcohol, like he’d tried to do so many days and nights after they’d gone. And though it hurt him to think on it now, he wished they hadn’t loved him as much as they did. Then, he thought, they wouldn’t have been out on that road that night. But even as he thought it he knew it was not the answer. And if he was being truly honest with himself he knew he should have been the one to change.

“There should be some kerosene lanterns in the kitchen,” Will said now. He looked around on the three of them. He could see the careful study they were giving this place, as if they’d stepped unwelcome into the prison of memories Will had made here. “Top shelf on the right. Matches should be there, too. And if the fuel is gone I think there is some more beneath the sink. At least there should be.”

They went out of the room and he heard them rummage around, then find the lamps. First one went on then the other, he saw the warm glow build back in there and he heard their talk. There were cans of food and at the bottom of one shelf they found a twelve pack of soda water.

Will came into the kitchen and saw them laying out the plunder and already he could see that the simple fact of food had put them in a better mood. He tested the faucet but nothing came. Then he tested the stove and there was not a click or spark of any kind. He stepped away and stood trying to figure out what could be done.

After five minutes, he came back in with the old two-burner camp stove he’d used when he was a young man, freshly back from the war. He found fuel for it as well and after dialing up the fuel pressure, he tried the knob then heard the hiss of gas. With a match, he lit the burner and they all stood there in a bit of wonder while it danced then settled.

By the time Will had found the medical kit they had started heating green beans and corn in an ancient pan, and on the other burner they had concocted a kind of soup with diced spam and tomato paste, made fluid with water taken from cans of soda.

“It smells like heaven,” Mary May said. She held the medical kit. “Thank you. I know that it must have been hard to come here.”

“Twelve years is a long time,” Will said. “I should be okay.”

“But you aren’t,” she said. “We can see that and that’s okay, too.”

He looked at her. He had been trying not to meet her eyes. She had lost her mother and her father and maybe even her brother in the span of three weeks and she was the stronger one. He knew that. He could see it just as easily as she could probably see his own pain.

“My brother,” she said, turning now to where Drew was slumped against one wall of the kitchen, his hands still tied behind him and his legs outspread on the kitchen floor. “I want to untie him. His fingers look blue at the ends. I know he’s hurting.” She had turned back to Will and he watched her and thought about what she was asking him to do.