Life after Kyle (but before the end of the world)
- But for the Grace of God
When John was two years old, he and Sarah joined a para-military religious cult.
Years later she couldn't remember the group's name, but a vague references to God's Army came to mind. When she heard of the tragedies in Waco en Jonestown, the faces of the innocent children running around the farm flashed before her eyes and she briefly wondered what had happened to them after she and John had left.
Life in the cult was hard. The desert in which they had carved out their little piece of the promised land was unforgiving. The men and women of the group had to work day and night to make sure their commune stayed self-sufficient. Even the soldiers, who were usually held in high regard, had to work the fields, in between their drills and practice runs. The children were excused from hard labor, learning how to read and write in the school, but there were always chores like fetching water and removing the weeds, with which they eagerly helped their elders. Even though Sarah thought the name 'Eden' that their glorious leader Caleb had awarded their cornfields was very ironic, for a while the farmhouses had been safe haven for her.
When they arrived, the commune welcomed them with open arms. No one found it suspicious she refused to share even the littlest detail of her past. Everyone that came there, wanted to start a new life. They all assumed she had ran away when her husband had hit her or the baby one time to many. (The nightmares from which she woke up bathing in sweat and screaming "Don't hurt my John" helped feed that belief.) During her first target practice – every member learned how to protect their own and got their time practicing with live ammo – she outshot even some of toughest soldiers. The men looked at her in awe and had some new suspicions about what had happened to her (supposed) husband. Caleb just cocked his eyebrow and promoted her to his private militia, as one of very few women.
In the next months she learned all there was to know about weapons: how to assemble them, clean them and load them even while blindfolded and how to inflict the most damage with just one shot. They also fought hand-to-hand every week, sometimes using knives. The most scary part was learning how to build bombs. It filled her with dread that the storage room, stocked to the roof with TNT, lay so close to the school where little Johny played. All the children knew that the yellow shed was dangerous and that they weren't even allowed to even look at it. Still, sometimes Sarah dreamed of the school blowing up, killing all of the children, before men even built robots capable of such destruction. But during the days Sarah soldiered on, filing away every scrap of information and of military tactic, knowing that she or her son would someday need it.
John fitted right in. After months on the road with only his mother as company, he jumped at the chance to play around with other kids. He was too little to help on the farm or to even go to school, so he and the other toddlers were watched after by the keepers. The kids did belong to the group, being their future. So they had little tasks, like picking berries and distributing the hymnbooks before the services (that were held every day to Sarah dismay). John picked up the pace of life on the farm fast, like he had been born there, whereas Sarah often struggled with the strict rules.
He did stand out af times, being quite bright. He learned to speak in full sentences long before his peers. This endeared him to the keepers, who prodded him to learn even more. They gave him little treats as rewards, for memorising and reciting pieces of poems and scripture, that he didn't yet understand. But he did know that sharing his treats made him as popular with the kids as he was with the adults.
Seeing that John had found his place, Sarah doubled her efforts and became the picture of a converted sinner. She was an obidient soldier of God, bearing the grueling practice drills and helping out the other mothers on the farm even when she was too tired to think straight. When promted she cried out Hallelujah and sang every hymn in church like she meant it. She even managed a blissfull smile when Caleb one day preached about Judgement Day that was inevitably coming (the nightmares were even worse that night).
Sarah never did figure out if their leader was just waiting for God to impose his punishment or if he was planning his own human made revolution. She was just glad that their arsenals were fully stocked, for she and she alone knew for a fact that the End would soon be near.
After a year of living on the farm, came the offer to become their leaders third wife. She accepted (not that she really had a choice), because she knew that the marriage came with an official adoption of John. Caleb's first wife, whom he still loved and spent most of his time with, was barren. His second attempt at progeny only bared little adorable, but in his regard useless girls. John already was popular with his followers and making him his heir would save him the trouble of fighting of a usurper later on. The knowledge did keep him from trying to father more sons. Sarah allowed him into her bed. She did lie about her fertile periods and just hoped for the best, knowing John had found his future resistance army. With the firepower that the cult possessed, even a small scouting party of these bastards could take one of those metal monsters.
The months passed by without incident, and before Easter, she'd already been 'promoted' to second wife. Her predecessor had mysteriously dissapeared and Sarah hoped with all her heart that the woman had escaped. It didn't seem very likely, seeing as her three little girls sat between the other kids, in front of the church where the congregation had gathered for a special Easter service. John, no longer a toddler, but already a child, was led in front of the audience. Prompted by his keeper, who played a few chords on the organ, he began singing.
It wasn't his beautiful voice or her motherly pride that caused Sarah's eyes to burn with tears, it were the words he sung with such conviction. It was one of the group's more standards hymns about Jesus the Son of God, who would save all their souls. She'd often sung it herself, feeling like a hypocrite doing so, but now she saw the believe shine in John's young eyes. It was wrong.
As she rose and clapped enthousiasticly, showing her son that she was proud (she always was), she'd already started planning their escape from this God-filled place. Faith in an higher power was useless. God, if there ever was such a creature, had abandonned mankind long before. Judgment Day was coming and there would be no angels coming forth from the skies coming to their rescue.
If anything, John would be mankind's savior. He'd just have to start believing in himself...