Junior Deputy Shaw was consumed by an overwhelming sense of unease. This feeling had wormed its way into the back of her mind about a month into her probation period on the force. Sheriff Whitehorse had been clear upon her arrival in February that he needed more experienced personnel and "Those God-damned Missoula bureaucratic turd buckets aren't taking the Project near serious enough. Oregon's got nothing on this, one measly Ranger building and the feds' are up in arms, meanwhile Eden's Gate has the whole County bought and paid for and not a goddamn'd peep!" She remembered that conversation, sitting in one of the Sheriff's leather arm chairs, newly pressed uniform on sans duty belt with Deputy Hudson standing in one corner with a grim smile betraying that same underlying tension. Sheriff had been waving his brimmed hat about with each word, his paunch vibrating with his deep voice as he glared at Shaw over his aviators. She could hear Nancy, the 52 year old dispatcher with premature gray hair and soft skin, typing away on her keyboard just outside the office door.

Deputy Shaw knew each of these people. She'd been born and raised in Hope County, Montana. Sheriff Whitehorse had been drinking buddies with her father, old man Will Boyd, and Mr. Fairgrave; chugging back Natty's at the Spread Eagle and arguing who sang it better Dolly Parton or Kelly Clarkson. Same old argument they'd been having since 2001. "That Jolene with her long blonde hair and eyes of emerald green!" Shaw had often walked in to collect her father as the drunken group sang the line off key and out of time with each other, Sheriff slamming a hand down on her father's shoulder and demanding his keys before passing them off to his unlicensed daughter. Sheriff had been a heavy drinker back then. Since her return Shaw had noted he didn't drink anymore. Instead he smoked. Not the best trade off but he could have gone the way of her father and driven his truck off the side of the mountain after an evening swimming in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels's #7. The death of her father had precipitated Shaw's return to Hope County some 3 years back. She'd been gone 4 years before that, the day of her mother's funeral, taking all her belongings and her truck and driving 2 days straight to El Paso, TX, swearing to never return. But her father's death had demanded a visitation at the time.

*** 3 years ago ***

It had been strange, coming back. She'd put in emergency absence from school and work for 2 weeks, flew in to Missoula, picked up her rental (a forest green SUV because no way in hell was she going to drive into Hope County in a sedan anything, she knew the area too well to fall into that trap, gas mileage be damned), and drove 3 hours into the mountains. Home had never been more foreign and yet more familiar to her. Not much had changed in four years, but staying one evening in Fall's End was enough to show her that everything had, just not on the outside. What she meant of course was the landscape hadn't changed. The same old buildings, the same roads, the same signs, the same skyline and trees, all the old farms and home steads, the fishbowl aspect of the valley and the towering mountains that loomed overhead. It was the feeling, the people that had changed. Shops that had been family run for decades were now boarded up. Houses that had been in bloodlines for 3 generations or more were vacant with signs out front stating the properties had been sold in auction or in private sale. No one sat outside on their porches, smoking and talking languidly with their neighbors. Blinds were shut and lights were out. The Spread Eagle, which should have been blasting music and spilling sound out onto the street, was all but vacant with only two locals nursing beers and Mary May talking in hushed tones with her father behind the bar, one lonely song keening from the jukebox; an old forgotten ballad by Heart, Dog and Butterfly.

She remembered parking out front of the bar, which would have been impossible not even four years before that, and getting out, stretching long and hard in the freezing cold air, back cracking and shoulders popping. The crush of the snow beneath her boots had reverberated in the empty street and she'd taken a brief moment to look across the road at McNann's store, which was already shuttered and locked up at 6 in the evening. There was a letter tacked to the sign board at the entrance. Even from here she could see the letterhead, a two-lined cross, dark circle at the intersection, with 4 pointed rays protruding outward. The Project at Eden's Gate. That was their symbol. She knew them too.

The Seeds'd been around some 8 years before she left out of town. She remembered the Seed family vividly. 12 years old and sitting in the pews of Pastor Jerome's church, sneaking a peek around her mother's shoulder at the stranger from Georgia. Joseph Seed. With the tattoos and the somber dark blue eyes, sunken in under his brow, swimming in shadows. Fast forward five years, now 17; decidedly tired of attending church altogether, tired of her momma's futile prayers for father, and tired of her blind faith that God would heal the malevolent cancer in her 'with time and prayer'; when Joseph Seed took to the podium and admonished the Pastor in front of the congregation. She remembered his words and his presence. The undertow of emotion in the crowd, volatile and agitated. The division he caused with his softly spoken words, a climate of dissent he had been sowing over the past two years. Crazy she'd thought at the time. But crazy seemed to fit quite a few people in the crowd that day. Her momma included.

His two brothers and a few of his followers had been there that day. She'd been shocked to see Will Boyd, her daddy's friend, sitting with them. Even more surprisingly he looked sober. She hadn't seen him for some time, not since the funeral for his wife and little girl earlier that year. Shaw had watched the Pastor falter as lines of people followed Joseph and his brothers down the aisle and out the front doors after his intoxicating speech. The Pastor's hazel eyes filled with uncertainty and not a bit of anger. As Joseph passed by them she had held tight to her mother's arm, whispering vehemently in her ear that a cult couldn't save her. She glared at those Seed boys, cursing the fire they had put in her mother. It wasn't prophecies about a Collapse and salvation her mother needed. It was money and a good doctor. Which they didn't have, just an old house, unanswered prayers, and piles of empty beer and liquor bottles.

The Seeds had seen her hostile glare and her mother's outstretched hand. Joseph paused and reached out to gently grip the frail, skinbone appendage. Nothing was said, just a soft squeeze and then he let her go. He spared Shaw's defiant teenage glower a quick glance, only for a second before continuing on. John and Jacob followed close after, both paying more attention to the young girl. Jacob stared at her as he passed, head cocked to the side, old burn scars exposed in the Sunday morning light and pale blue eyes calculating under a brooding brow. John had his lawyer smile plastered on, freshly shaved face exhibiting an expression of concern and care, and his gaze shifted from her frail mother's enraptured face to Shaw's own baleful look. His smile could not quite reach his eyes and whereas Joseph's gaze had been regretful and Jacob's calculating, John's was cold and hungry, giving the lie to his false concern. 17 year old Shaw had had the common sense to break eye contact first, looking away to turn her attention to her mother who'd begun coughing raggedly into her sleeve.

Eden's Gate had continued to grow those next two years while her mother shrunk in on herself. She stopped attending church and began going up the mountain to hear Joseph's sermons. She'd begged Shaw to come with her, but she'd refused and often times found herself yelling at her mother's idiocy, her naiveté. Joseph tried to visit their homestead once and for the first time in 18 years, Shaw had been glad for her pa's drunken rage. The sound of the porch shotgun going off and her mother's weak pleas for him to stop. 'Give him a chance to speak.' Shaw would normally have intervened, standing toe to toe with her father, pushing him and yelling back, hitting if need be, but that time… No, that time she let the drunk off his leash. She even let him shove mama out of his way, but was there to catch her quick. She had watched, almost gleefully, as her red-faced and already piss drunk father shoved the barrel in Joseph's face and ordered him off their property. Joseph had raised his hands up in placation, backing up slowly until he was beyond their barbed-wire property fence. He'd then, infuriatingly, bid farewell to momma before getting into the passenger seat of one of his compound's white trucks and he and his driver drove away.

The next day John had showed up with a sheaf of papers and Sheriff Whitehorse and one of his Deputies, both looking extremely uncomfortable. John approached the gate that Shaw had stood resolutely behind, shotgun in the crook of her arm. She was there to greet them, having seen them come up the road. She was alone. Pa was pass out drunk in the kitchen and momma had already headed up the mountain for one of Joseph's services. John stopped just before the gate and made to pass to her over their fence the restraining order and court summons. He had smiled as she reached out to take the documents, two of his fingers surreptitiously brushing the back of her hand. Shaw had snapped back her hand with the documents quickly, frowning. John just grinned, flashing white teeth and ignoring the Sheriff's glare beside him.

"You should come join us, Rebecca." Shaw realized suddenly that this was the first time she had ever heard the youngest Seed brother speak. Unlike Joseph's voice his was less sorcerous and more congenial. Whereas Joseph's voice had often drawn Shaw to listen in awed mysticism, John's voice felt as if it were inviting her to speak. It felt like a trap to her.

"Monica speaks often of you. Such a good girl, she tells us. Misunderstood." He'd placed a hand on one of the fence posts and leaned in. Shaw had been a little surprised to see that instead of his hands being well-manicured and soft, they were, in actuality, calloused and weathered with white lines of old scars, covered over in tattoos. The ones on his knuckles looked fresh, EDENS GATE they spelled out, and she could tell they reached up his arms given the ones that disappeared under the cuffs of his shirt sleeves and long jacket. John's silky voice intruded her musings as he finished,

" 'She just needs some guidance'… Eden's Gate can give you that. Joseph can give you that. We can cleanse you of any doubt. Make you whole." Shaw had grimaced then and spat to the side of the gate.

"No offense, Mr. Seed, but I'll go up that goddamned mountain when chickens have teeth." John's eyebrows cocked up and before he could ask, Shaw clarified,

"That means never. Eden's Gate can go spit." Sheriff Whitehorse and his Deputy's lips twitched in suppressed mirth and that would have made young Shaw proud if not for John's widening grin. His voice was matter of fact.

"That restraining order is only for your father, Ms. Shaw. Not for you. It's too late to save him, but you…" He'd leaned in even further, dark silk shirt making soft noises as he moved, the sunglasses on his head glinting in the pale morning light, steel blue eyes gazing down expectantly. Shaw took a step back, gripping her shotgun tighter, unsure and feeling skewered in place by John's gaze as he stated clearly just for her,

"Your soul is still worth saving." Shaw watched them leave warily and did not move from her spot until the vehicle was long gone. As she trudged back up to the house with the intent of throwing a bucket of water on her father for a late morning bath, she wondered why John's words had been less comforting and more menacing.

Her mother died a year later. She blamed her father. Bastard had drank their money away and they couldn't afford any of the treatments that her mother really needed. The funeral happened on a Thursday morning. Shaw had heard her mother's last request and though she'd promised her she'd carry out her wishes, Shaw had kept silent, only producing to the lawyers the will her momma had writ up upon first finding out about her illness, before she'd ever started following Joseph Seed and Eden's Gate. Instead of remanding her body to be buried up the mountain they'd cremated her and placed her ashes in the church cemetery with the rest of the Shaws.

Joseph and John and a few of Joseph's followers attended the funeral service at the church in Fall's End. Pastor Jerome had cautioned Shaw not to bar them from the ceremony. 'More trouble than it's worth, Becky, and your momma would have wanted them here anyways.' Some choice words were exchanged between them, but in the end Shaw yielded. The tension in the church that day was on par with when she was 17 and Joseph stole half of the congregation out from under the Pastor's nose. Townsfolk who weren't a part of Eden's Gate sat on the opposite side of the aisle, often glancing over at Joseph and his small group of followers and whispering. Shaw's father did not come to the service. Shaw ignored the Seeds and when Joseph and John made to come talk to her after the Pastor's closing words, she'd walked away, down the aisle, out the church and to her truck.

She'd already packed everything in the bed. Mary May had come running up and tapped on her window before she started up the engine. Shaw rolled it down and looked up at her,

"Where are you gonna go?", she asked. Despite their age difference, Mary May and her had formed a strange friendship over the years and the many times they'd hung out at the Spread Eagle; Mary May helping her father work the bar while simultaneously babysitting her kid brother, Drew, and Shaw waiting til her father began to stumble about, forcing Mr. Fairgrave to cut him off and initiating Shaw's attempts to get him home.

"Anywhere not here. Mexico?" Mary May's grin was real and beautiful in response,

"Good tequila down there." Shaw had laughed brokenly then, trying to cover the sob that was attempting to escape. She couldn't conceal her watery eyes or the whites of her knuckles gripping the steering column of her rusty, beat up Ford. Mary May reached in and gripped her shoulder through the window.

"Hey now. You'll be alright, Becky. You don't break." Just then the Seeds came out of the church. Joseph led the small group, his followers with eyes riveted on him as he spoke a few words, one hand gripping the shoulder a young woman in familiarity. John also talked with a few in the rear of the group, expressing the appropriate amount of solemnity. Mary May and Shaw watched them enter their trucks, Mary May with a disturbed frown and Shaw with a look of pure hatred. She growled,

"Fuckin Peggies." John noticed them and as he entered the passenger seat of his vehicle he caught the girls' eyes and made a little salute, his lips twitching perceptibly. Mary May took the opportunity to flip him off, her other hand on top of Shaw's which was gripping the steering wheel even tighter. They watched them drive off and Mary May sighed,

"They're bad news. I think they've been here so long that folk are starting to let them in, normalizing them. They're like one of them rattler's out at Rae Rae's. Snake in the Garden, Dad calls em. Says they'll bite us soon enough while we're not looking." Shaw watched them all the way down the main road til they turned off and out of her line of sight. She grimaced,

"Well, good enough of a metaphor. They're a poison, Mary. They were poison to momma. Joseph's crazy and those brothers of his are fucking creepy." Mary May sighed again,

"Yeah. Creeptastic. Hey girl. Stay safe." Mary May reached all the way in and hugged her round her shoulders, Shaw returned the awkward squeeze. Mary May let go and leaned back out, patting the side of the truck before asking,

"Want me to say anything to your pa?" Shaw turned on the ignition and let the truck rumble to life. More people were coming out of the Church. She wiped at her eyes furtively and put on a pair of tinted aviators. Putting the truck in gear she smiled up at her friend,

"Tell him to rot in hell." With that, Rebecca Shaw left Hope County.

Four years later she stretched out cramped muscles and stared at a letterhead, wondering what the Peggies were up to, if they'd had their followers drink any Kool-Aid recently to precipitate the Collapse.

She found out more than she wanted to know over the next few hours. When Shaw walked into the bar out of the cold and the pink and purple neon glow of the lude sign over the entrance, Mary May and her father were quick to have her sit and fill her in, especially after they began drinking out of Shaw's gift bottle of Patrón. Shaw fiddled absentmindedly with the glass bee on the front of the bottle as they let her know just how much Eden's Gate had grown, how much property they'd started buying up, which families had moved out, joined up, or just plain disappeared. Their voices had gotten quieter as they talked about Eden's Gates visits to the town, how they'd been harassed about selling alcohol, shipments that were starting to go missing. 9 rolled around and Mr. Fairgrave started to close up. Mary May continued to tell Shaw about the goings on and with her father busy she confessed her concerns about her mother's health, how the financial stress was weakening her heart. Worse she spoke of her brother Drew.

"He failed out of Basic you know. Came home and we thought he was fine and then he started hanging around the Peggie compound. One day we find out that John had baptized him. He's been going up that damned mountain, Becky. Now he's fucking living up there. Won't return any of our calls. Won't visit mom. Sheriff says he can't do nothing, he's not being held against his will when he went to check. I'm pretty sure the Seeds have the town's officers in their pockets because they won't do nothin either." Her voice had gotten more frantic by the end and when she went to pour them both their 3rd shot of the night, her hand trembled and some of the tequila sloshed out onto the bar. Shaw frowned. She didn't know what to tell her. She hadn't been able to stop her momma from going up there either, no advice she could give Mary May would help her. So she said what she could,

"I'm sorry Mary. I wished they'd just leave, go back to Georgia, take their craziness with em." Mary May smiled sadly and held up her shot glass. Shaw clinked hers against Mary May's, who swung it back in one gulp. She took Shaw's now empty glass and placed both in the sink behind the counter before stoppering up the Patrón and sighing,

"Yeah, wish that'd happen too, but I think the Seeds have dug in for the long haul." She spared a look to her father who was helping the lonely two drinkers out the door. Her jaw straightened and she pressed on, changing the subject abruptly,

"When's the funeral?" Shaw shrugged,

"Have to see the lawyer first. Was supposed to see her tonight, but it can wait. Should I know something? Did the old drunk sell off the 'stead for a 6 pack?" Mr. Fairgrave returned then, clicking his tongue in admonishment,

"He might have been a right bastard, Becky, but respect the dead." Shaw stiffened noticeably, her fists curling up on the bar, and responded in a tight voice,

"Respectfully, why should I give a damn? He disrespected momma when he didn't even show up to her funeral. I had half a mind not to show up for his!" Mary May held up her hands and made a soothing motion,

"You're tired Becky. Stay in the apartment upstairs tonight. You're going to need your sleep. John's been eyeing the Shaw property these past few years, been wanting it something fierce. Your daddy was putting up a right royal fuss over it. You might have to contend with the Seeds before you leave." Shaw's eye twitched noticeably and she felt a rumble reach up her throat turning into a growl that just as quickly turned into a sardonic chuckle. She uncorked the Patrón and reached over the counter to grab the shot glass in the sink.

"Great."