Urban Waite - Far Cry - Absolution

Still winded from the climb, Will had moved up the rock face with the bag on his shoulders while Jerome followed, both men trying to move as fast and silently as possible. Both knowing that any missed step would send them falling over the edge, and any loosened rock would bring the attention of those below, and then in that moment they might wish they had fallen to begin with.

Now Will lay atop the rock trying to still his breath as he looked down at those below through the scope. He could see Mary May down there. He could see Drew before her and about ten feet farther on he saw John. At this distance, it was an easy shot and though Will could not tell what they were talking about, he kept his finger on the trigger, the safety already pushed forward, ready at any hint of danger to take a shot. The chaos this might cause was the only way Will could see now that Mary May might escape. But he hesitated. He could not just pull the trigger. He had done it before but he had done it out of fear and in self-defense. This would be simply killing and he did not want to be that man. He was not that cold-blooded and he didn’t want to be. He ran the scope around the circle of people and watched their every move, and he saw in them his own face and his own former desires.

A group of three was sent into the house and then another three were sent out and away from the larger group. Will moved the scope and followed this second group as they ran perpendicular to the house then into the larger darkness. The fire was still burning down at the base of the property and strange shadows were cast here and there that moved one way or another depending on the height and width of flame.

Will watched this group move and then, when he lost them among the far trees, he was quick to run the scope back to John and Mary May. Will called over his shoulder to Jerome, “Those three that went into the trees will likely come out and around on us in the next few minutes. Be ready with the shotgun. If they find us we might have to run. I’d rather that than get into a gun fight here atop the cliff.”

MARY MAY HELD THE GUN STILL. SHE HAD ONE HAND ON HERbrother’s shoulder but she was looking around at John, feeling exposed. “You say you’re not killers,” Mary May said. “But my father went up the mountain and he never came back down. He died up there trying to get Drew and now I’m trying to do the same. That’s what Daddy wanted and that’s what I made my mind up to do.”

“How?” John asked. “You’ve put your brother in front of you like he’s your hostage. You’ve tied his hands like he’s a prisoner. Why would you do that to your kin? Ask yourself that? Ask yourself why none among you, Will or Jerome, would allow this man to go free.”

She looked around the group now, they were waiting on her, but none seemed to have raised their guns or weapons and she turned again and brought her eyes to John. “He’s one of you. The Father or someone got in his head. He’s not the same man he was. He’s not the brother I knew when we were kids.”

“No,” John said. “He’s better than that. His mind is open. His eyes are open. He has been changed. You are right in that.”

“You talk as if it’s a good thing that he turned his back on family.”

John laughed. He looked around at the faces that looked back at all of them, the witnesses to whatever meeting this had become. “You still don’t get it, do you? It was never about Eden’s Gate. It was never a church issue. All The Father does is listen. He supports. That’s something your own father never did. Your own father, and even your own community, turned their backs on Drew a long time before. The Father came to this place and saw what it could be. We had nothing to do with what passed between your own father and his children. That was not a church issue. That was a family one.”

“But you killed him.”

“We welcomed Gary. We knew about his wife, your mother. Our hearts went out to him. But we,” John stopped now and raised his arms to encompass all of them. “We did not kill him. The Father did not kill him. I did not kill him. What your father wanted from Drew was not something we had any say in. Only Drew could answer to your father and his answer was no.”

She felt her hand loosen from her brother’s shoulder. She had known in some way. But it was beyond knowing, it was like an accident seen in the clear bright sunshine of day, but its action was so horrendous that in memory that same moment was as dark as night. Unseen, unwanted, and pushed away.

Drew turned all the way around now, his eyes seemed to her as cold as she had ever seen them. Hardened like two pieces of glass there within the sockets of his skull, unfeeling.

“Daddy made you proud,” Drew said. “He gave you everything like it was your birthright and not mine to share. When we were kids, when we were teens, when we became adults together, he gave to you before he even thought to give to me. He gave you the bar, him and Mamma. And though there was a place there for me it was never mine to have.”

She shook her head. She could not believe what she was hearing, or that their recollections of their life together could be so different in time and place. “No,” she said. “I was just older.”

“Older. Smarter. Funnier. Stronger. Nothing I did could ever measure up. All I tried to do in high school, all I did afterwards. It never was enough.”

“No,” she said. “That’s not true.”

“The truth,” Drew said, “is that they never listened to me. They never tried to understand me. They never wanted me. Do you know what that’s like? To live in a household and a family that doesn’t want you?” He laughed now, the laugh carrying on into the silence. “Of course you don’t.”

“They loved you,” she said. It was the only thing she could think to say. It was the truth and he needed to hear it. She could barely look at him. The hate she saw, the way he had grown taller almost as if talking about the death of their father had given him new life, while taking it from her, causing her to shrink ever farther now within herself. “Daddy loved you,” Mary May said again, wanting him desperately to hear it.

“No. John is right. Daddy never listened to me. He never understood me. But The Father did. Eden’s Gate did. They gave me a new life when they marked me, and baptized me, and then gave me the birth I always should have had, into the family I should have had.” He turned now and looked at all the members of Eden’s Gate who encircled them, and then he brought his eyes back to her. “I was given a new life and when Daddy came to get me I wanted nothing of the old life and I told him that. But it was like nothing had changed. It was the same between us. He did not listen. He insisted that his way was the true way and that I was in the wrong. He put his hands on me, but I was not the little boy he thought me to be. I had grown. My mind had grown. And whatever power he once had over me was gone.”

“But it was a car accident,” she said in a weak voice, not knowing what to say, not wanting to hear what he was telling her.

Drew looked at her like she was nothing. He looked at her like she was stupid. “You know that’s not true,” Drew said. “You’ve said that yourself. You just can’t see it. You just can’t picture how it was between us.” Drew raised his two hands, banded together by zip ties at the wrist. His palms open and his fingers outstretched but tightening. “Picture him coming to me and trying to tear me out of the life I’d made. Picture his hands on me, trying to drag me away. And then picture the fact that I was finally stronger, faster, and quicker than he had ever been. Picture that and then you’ll understand it was not an accident. That he forced my hand and he paid for all the wrong he’d done to me.” He leaned in now, coming closer. “It was nothing to kill him. It was like sticking a knife into something already dead.”