'What have I gotten myself into?'
That was the thought going through America's head when she saw the giant statue of one Joseph Seed. AKA "The Father."
She looked back at her phone, while Sheriff Whitehorse and the Marshal talked about the Cult Eden's Gate. The videos uploaded by those vloggers had gone viral in a matter of days and was more then enough to warrant an arrest by the authorities.
The thing was, other then the Marshal, no one believed going after the Father was a good idea right now. Three deputies, a sheriff, and one marshal? From what she heard, they would need more then that.
Only three days she's been in Hope County, hardly any time to even unpack her stuff, and she's heard more things about the Project at Eden's Gate or Peggies as the locals called them, then anything else. And this was the valley that was famous for the greatest daredevil in the world, Clutch Nixon.
"Oh my Jesus . . ." The Marshal breathed bewildered.
"This is a bad idea." Deputy Hudson said.
America looked out the window and saw the main compound of Eden's Gate. An old, tiny, white church, stood proudly in front of a plethora of makeshift houses. It looked normal enough, but a second glance made you realize what it really was. A military base.
Sheriff Whitehorse once again tried to talk the Marshal out of doing this. But the Marshal was adamant on arresting Joseph Seed. They landed the helicopter and started walking through the compound.
The Sheriff, Marshall, Deputy Hudson, and Deputy Jones walked ahead. Deputy Pratt stayed in the chopper to await their return with the target.
America stayed in the back and saw the look of every Peggie eyeing her with suspicion, anger, and hatred. She saw one Peggie lighting a bonfire with a flamethrower. The eyes behind his leather mask sent chills down her spine. Her hand slowly reached for the butt of her .44 revolver when some cultists with ARs glared at her. Every pair of eyes she passed by stayed on her and when she looked behind a crowd of cultists were blocking their return route. She nearly yelped when a dog barked, rattling the chain-link fence and a Peggie told her to get lost and leave them.
She took a deep breath and rubbed the tattoo on her neck to calm her down. It always gave her strength.
The short walk to the church, that didn't even take three minutes, felt like an eternity. And through the whole walk the Marshal was acting like the toughest badass in the state. The Sheriff was trying to get him to realize that this was a sensitive situation and the wrong move could get them all killed. But the Marshal's bravado prevented him from seeing the danger and only seeing the glory this arrest would give him. He really believed none of this could, in no way, get out of hand.
They reached the church. America remembered seeing one almost like it in in the little town of Fall's End. From the other side she could hear the chorused song of "Amazing Grace."
After cooling down Marshal Burke, the Sheriff ordered Hudson to guard the door, to which she replied by pumping her shotgun. Then ordered Jones to follow him behind.
Quietly they opened the doors, just as the occupants of the church stopped singing.
"Something is coming. You can feel it, can't you? That we are creeping toward the edge . . . and there will be a reckoning."
A voice, strong and velvety, echoed through the church. It was so calming . . . loving almost . . . but there was an edge to it. And the more the man spoke, the more that edge felt like a knife being pressed into her chest making her more uneasy.
"That is why we started the project. Because we know what happens next. They will come. They will try to take from us. Take our guns. Take our freedom. Take our faith.
The three slowly walked through the church. It was dark, with the only light coming from the other end, silhouetting the man they were looking for: Joseph Seed. He was just a shadow now, but America could see plainly all the others. The cultists slowly rose from their seats when they saw them. Like the others outside, they glared at them with suspicion and rising anger.
'They all know why we're here.'
"But we will not let them."
"Sheriff—" The Marshal tried, but the Sheriff settled him down.
"We will not let their greed, or their immorality, or their depravity hurt us anymore!" Joseph preached with more intensity. "There will be no more suffering!"
"Sheriff." Burke tried again.
"Do not pull that trigger. Remain calm." Whitehorse pressed.
But the Marshal's patience ended as Joseph continued to preach. Burke raised up the warrant and spoke with a commanding voice.
"Joseph Seed! I have a warrant for your arrest on the suspicion of kidnapping with the intent to harm. Now I want you to step forward and keep your hands where I can see 'em!"
Slowly, Joseph raised his hands. The people began to shuffle. A couple people yelled out telling them to leave. Any second could mean life or death. The place was tense and it felt like it could snap any second like a thin string.
"Here they are . . . the locusts in our garden. You see they come for me. They've come to take me away from you. They've come to destroy all that we have built!"
Cultists gathered in front of the Father, ready to defend him. What once was a chorus of singing now was a chorus of hateful shouts. The more the crowd stirred the more restless they were becoming. It was like watching a pot of water boil. At first it seemed fine, but it was getting closer and closer to overflowing the edge.
America and Whitehorse stayed calm, but Burke was now reaching for his side arm, to which the Sheriff tried to stop him.
Just when it looked like things would result in a firefight, without even uttering a single word, Joseph calmed the entire room with his mere presence. America had never seen anything like that before.
"We knew this moment would come." He said. Behind him, America recognized the rest of the Seed family. John, Jacob, and Faith Seed gathered where the Father just stood before he addressed the crowd.
"We have prepared for it. Go." The crowd was hesitant. "Go." The Father insisted.
They didn't need to be told again and quietly they left, giving each of them a hateful gaze as they passed by.
"God will not let them take me." Joseph raised his hand in the air magnanimously and proclaimed, "I saw when the lamb opened the first seal and I heard as if it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts say, come and see…"
"Step. Forward." Burke said impatiently.
Joseph ignored him and continued. "And I saw and behold," He approached Burke, but then pointed at the Sheriff. "it was a white horse."
Joseph's eyes then made contact with America's. "And Hell followed with him."
America felt entranced by this man. Every word he spoke she felt inclined to listen to every syllable. The man was like pure charisma, but something inside her told her, warned her, to not listen. Something was wrong. Really wrong.
Joseph reached his hands out. Whether he was reaching out to her or for him to be cuffed she was unsure.
"Rookie, cuff the son of a bitch." The Marshal ordered.
. . .
"God will not let you take me."
She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. Whatever she felt a moment ago, unease, fear, anxiety, it was now gone. Determination and anger. That's what replaced it. Remembering what she saw and what she heard and what she felt. It was like a veil was lifted from her mind and she could see plainly what this man was.
It was barely noticeable behind the man's tinted glasses, but The Father's eyes widened slightly when he saw the defiance in the Deputy's eyes.
She didn't have to be told twice. She pulled out her cuffs and roughly restrained Joseph Seed. All the while his siblings did nothing, except glare at her.
As she finished cuffing him, the Father whispered in her ear. "Sometimes the best thing to do . . . is walk away."
"Sometimes there are things you shouldn't walk away from." She challenged. Once again, putting a bit of surprise in The Father's eyes.
The walk back to the copter almost felt like a blur. The compound was now fully awake and riling up like a herd of spooked cattle. They saw their leader, their "Father" cuffed and being arrested and none of them were thrilled about it.
They slowly surrounded the four but made no sudden moves. They just shouted, they cursed, begged, heckled, did everything except attack. It was looking like the start of a riot . . .
And it became one when they started throwing rocks and Burke discharged his weapon.
Seed was put in the helicopter and the cultists charged. They jumped on the helicopter, they banged against the vehicle and reached in to try and pull The Father out of it. America and Burke pushed any of them that tried to get in, while the Sheriff and Hudson secured Seed.
The helicopter took off, with several people still on it. America strongly kicked off a few cultists and then caught Burke who was nearly dragged to the ground by a cultist who grabbed his arm. Burke fired his gun, killing the cultist or maybe the fall was what killed him.
America looked around. It was still a frenzy outside, with the only calm being from Joseph Seed, who was singing Amazing Grace. Looking out front America had a split second to see a cultist willingly throw themselves into the rotating fans of the helicopter.
Blood spattered, rotaries groaned and screeched. The copter spun like a tornado and everyone held on for dear life.
Then all went black.
She came to not long after. Her bleary eyes opened slowly, the sound of Nancy's voice, the mission director, was heard in the background. When America's eyes finally opened she saw everyone was upside down and out. The seat where Whitehorse sat was now empty.
'Did he fall out? Is he dead?' She didn't focus on those morbid thoughts. 'We need back up.'
"Amazing grace . . . how sweet the sound . . ."
Suddenly she heard the Father's soft voice and she tried reaching for the headphones to contact Nancy. She struggled, but grabbed them at last. Just as she was about to bring the speaker to her lips a strong hand grabbed her arm.
"that saved a wretch like me."
She stared into the green, yellow-tinted eyes of the father. Like everyone else, he was amazingly unharmed.
All she could do was stare as fear once again consumed her. Nancy, over the radio called again and again, sounding so desperate to hear someone.
The Father made her let go of the headphones and his eyes bore more deeply into her being.
"I told you God would not let you take me."
She wanted to curse him, but the words caught in her throat.
"Please. I need to know what's going on." Nancy pleaded.
Without taking his eyes off her, Joseph reached for the headphones and spoke into it.
"Dispatch."
"Oh God." Nancy gasped.
"Everything is just fine. No need to call anyone."
The fear inside her hitched even higher when Nancy responded.
"Yes Father. Praise be to you."
America's eyes widened, her heart felt like it would leap out of her chest. The Father leaned in, his hot breath burned more then the surrounding fire. And he whispered . . .
"No one is coming to save you."
He crawled out, just as the cultists finally caught up. They were all relieved to see their leader unharmed, even calling it a miracle. The fact they were all alive, she really couldn't fault them for thinking that.
"Everything is unfolding according to God's plan. I am still here with you." Everyone in the chopper was now waking up. The Father stood on top of a car and announced his flock. "The first seal has been broken. The Collapse has begun. We will take what we need. And we will preserve what we have. And we will kill all those who will stand in our way. And these." He pointed to them. "The harbingers of doom will see the truth."
"We gotta get out of here." Burke said." "We gotta get out of here!"
Both the Marshal and the Deputies tried to get out of their harnesses.
"BEGIN THE REAPING!"
But it was too late. Like a pack of wolves attacking an injured sheep, the cultists descended on the law-keepers. They took Pratt first. Hudson tried putting up a fight, she got in one hit before she was finally taken. Her screams was the last thing America heard from her fellow officer, before she was pulled out of sight.
Before they could get either Burke or America the helicopter lit up in flames.
"Let them burn." The Father said. "This is God's will. This is their punishment."
Burke finally got free. But instead of trying to help America, he crawled out and escaped.
"Hey! Hey! Help me! Get me out!" America screeched at the Marshal, but he ignored her.
She looked back at the flames. She tried again, she put all of her strength into this pull and finally the belts snapped, and she fell. America crawled out just in time before the flames got to her.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey! They're getting away!" A cultist yelled.
America didn't even look back. Her legs kicked up dirt and sprinted. The cultists went around the copter and started shooting at her. She ducked and prayed no bullet would hit her. A few likely would have, if it weren't for the timely explosion from the helicopter knocking them all down. It gave her a window of opportunity to escape into the forest.
She ran. And ran. And ran. And ran. Until the shouts of the cultists were so distant they were barely audible.
And then she stopped. Just for a moment. To catch her breath. She was panting so hard her throat felt tense, her lungs felt like they were burning. She moved into a jog, until she came across a small decrepit cabin. With a single armed cultist.
Her hand reached for her pistol but stopped when she realized the noise from her gun would attract the others. She looked around and picked up a large stick.
Crouching, America crossed the threshold between her and the cultist and gave him a whack across the head.
He wasn't dead, but adrenaline still pumped through her body. She hit him again. She remembered Joseph Seed. Whack! She remembered how his fucking cultists brought down their chopper. Whack! She remembered how Nancy betrayed them. Whack! She remembered the Peggies that took her friends, kicking and screaming. Whack! She remembered how Burke left her to die!
WHACK!
Panting again. There was hardly anything left of the cultist's head now. She threw away the stick and took his gun before walking into the cabin.
She started pacing now. "Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Everything's fucked!"
The cult, Eden's Gate, Joseph Seed—fucking Joseph Seed—had them all between a rock and a hard place.
"What am I going to do?" She mumbled breathlessly. "I can't go back to the Sheriff's Station. Fuck, maybe I can call for help?" She took out her phone and remembered there was no signal in Peggie territory. "Maybe I can leave? Get help outside the valley—Fuck—no, they'll have all exits blocked off before then."
There was nothing. Nothing she could do. Nothing she could think of. The only thing she could do . . . is pray.
Inside the cabin was an old wooden cross tossed aside to the ground like garbage, to be replaced by the Eden's Gate symbol. She grabbed it, knocked over the Cross of Eden's Gate on a nightstand and placed the cross where it should have rightly belonged.
"God, our Lord, our true Father" Her hands clasped as she spoke under her breath. "Please, I don't know what to do. Please, give me a sign. This Joseph Seed, he's unlike anything I've ever seen. He claims to be your prophet, but I don't believe that. He uses his words and voice to control people. Manipulate them by using your name."
She looked at the cross. "He's like the Devil."
"Hello? Anyone hear me? Hello?"
Her radio! It was Marshal Burke.
"I think I lost them . . . I see . . . a trailer nearby. It's next to a long bridge. I'm gonna try and get inside. If anyone's still out there . . . If anyone's still alive . . ."
There was still hope. America giggled from relief. "There's hope."
She collected herself, then gathered whatever ammo was lying around and even took a pipe that was lying on the floor as a weapon. She left the cabin, walking over the fresh headless corpse she made.
The Peggies set up a couple of camps between her and the trailer, but she easily avoided them. It didn't take her long to find the trailer. After making sure there were no cultists around she walked in.
As soon as she stepped in, Burke shouted and charged her, pushing her against the wall. Once he realized who it was he apologized and backed off.
"I-I'm sorry, rook. I . . . I thought they got you too." He said breathlessly.
*THWAK*
"AH! What the fuck!?" He rubbed the spot on his face where she punched him. Hard.
"You son of a bitch . . . you left me to die. You left me at the hands of those maniacs!"
She tried punching him again, but he restrained her by grabbing her wrists. He was surprised to find himself being pushed back, even losing his grip on her. She was surprisingly strong.
Another punch collided with his face, but this time it put him on his back.
"Get a hold of yourself, Rook!" The Marshal tried calming her down.
"The Sheriff told you. He fucking told you!"
"I didn't know! I didn't know it was this bad!"
"Yes, you did. Because the Sheriff told you many times before we left. He told you many times on our way there and he even told you when we were walking through that fucking compound!"
"I am a US Marshal—"
"A US Marshal that got us all fucked over because he couldn't learn to use his head instead of his gun." She would not let him use his rank to intimidate her.
"Fine! I was wrong! I fucked up the situation. Is that what you wanna hear?"
America grabbed him by his vest and brought their faces almost nose to nose. Her blue eyes bore into his brown. "I want my friends back." She said through grit teeth. "So, you better have a good plan, otherwise God led me here just to kick your ass."
After a moment of silence, a moment for her words to sink into his head, he said, "I have a plan."
She pulled him up to his feet and both glared at each other.
The Marshal walked over to the trailer's gun rack. Before arming himself, his attention was taken by a portrait of the whole Seed family. Looking at their serene faces caused his glare to intensify.
"We're going to put this whole family away, Rook. All of them. Fucking lunatics!" He grabbed and threw the picture, shattering it.
America looked down at the portrait, seeing the cracks go over each sibling, save for Joseph himself. She stepped on the frame to join Burke, crunching the glass under her boot.
"We're gonna get out of this Rookie. First thing's first, gotta arm ourselves. Here." He handed her an AR rifle he raided from the rack. He took his own pistol and loaded it with a fresh clip. They both crouched down near a window that faced the main road.
"Alright, here's what we're gonna do. There's a road out there. We're gonna take it, we're gonna head northeast. It's probably only few hours back to Missoula. And then we're gonna come back here with the goddamn National Guard and then—"
Suddenly the window on the other side blasted to pieces. Bursts of gunfire went off. Eden's Gate had found them.
Both officers of the law took shelter and fired at anything that moved in the dark forest. America's rifle popped. Peggies went down one by one. They returned fire, their bullets imbedding in the body of the trailer or zooming over the officer's heads.
Burke fired his pistol, downed a Peggie, but didn't kill him. A cultist tried to help his comrade, but America shot him full of holes before he could reach. The downed cultist bled out.
Some of the cultists took cover behind stacks of timber. She saw a red barrel of gas sitting next to it. She took the shot and the rest of the cultists were obliterated in the explosion.
"I got the keys to the truck." Burke said, taking the window of opportunity. "Cover me!"
America laid down suppressing fire for the Marshal. One burst, two bursts, three. Reload and repeat. Peggies went down left and right. She got one in the head, another riddled with holes, one got shot in the gut and bled to death.
Many shot back, nearly taking her life. But by some stroke of luck or grace of God, they missed her and the peggies paid for their failure with their lives.
The truck engine finally came to life and Burke told her to get in. America didn't hesitate. She emptied her entire clip as she ran to the truck and got in. Unholstering her pistol, she released six bullets from her chamber as they sped off.
Burke crashed the truck through a Peggie, then through the gate. They had a moment of peace, but only a moment.
"You ok?" Burke asked.
"I'm fine." She responded. She reloaded each of her weapons.
"Nice work back there. I'd be dead if it weren't for you."
"What now?"
"Now we gotta get back, but we have to be smart about what we do. We don't know who we can trust. Fucking Nancy."
America wondered just how much of the Sheriff's department was working for Joseph and his family. They were screwed from the start! If she ever saw Nancy again, she'd put a bullet in through her skull.
Their moment of peace ended. Up ahead was a roadblock.
"Oh no. Oh no! They got the roads blocked."
The peggies saw them coming. One let off a flare and alerted the rest to their location. America leaned out of the truck and fired her assault rifle. She blasted one that stood on the road and another that was standing in the back of a truck. The others discharged their weapons or jumped out of the way before Burke ran them over. They crashed through the blockade and kept moving.
More white trucks followed behind them and all of them were firing bullets at them. America did her best to shoot the drivers, but Burke's erratic driving was messing up her shots.
"I'm going off road! Hang tight, I'm gonna try and lose them."
The truck hitched roughly, it nearly threw her out of the vehicle. It was bumpy now, but America managed to get a few good shots. She shot the drivers, making the trucks veer off course. One still alive Peggie driver crashed into another truck.
"There's some dynamite in the back use that!"
She reached into the back and found three sticks of dynamite in a toolbox marked "EXPLOSIVE."
Despite herself, she giggled sadistically, and lit a stick. She waited until the wick was just low enough before tossing it. It exploded right in the windshield of the cultist truck.
Another stick. She lit it and tossed it. A truck drove right over it, just as it exploded. Last stick and one last truck. Burke drove off a ramp. The dynamite spun high into the air when America threw it. The white truck that jumped off the ramp after them, caught the dynamite. The stick clanked against the back of the truck and destroyed the truck in midair like a Fourth of July firework.
"Yeah nice one, rook!" Suddenly, they heard a loud noise. "Is that a FUCKING PLANE?! Don't tell me they have air support!"
His question was answered in the form of bullets raining down on them as a white plane flew overhead.
A truck suddenly appeared in front of them, in the back cultists opened fire on them. Burke and America leaned down as bullets destroyed their windshield and shredded their seats.
"AAH, FUCK!"
America sprayed and prayed, taking out the cultists in the back. When the coast was clear she shot the driver and the truck veered out of their way.
"Nice, shot Deputy!"
They crashed through another blockade. More trucks arrived in front of them, this time with machine guns mounted on the back. America tried to take out the gunners before their high caliber bullets completely destroyed them.
They came onto a bridge just as the Eden's Gate plane came back around.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Burke screeched. Instead of releasing bullets, the plane released a dreaded whistling sound. "Oh no. Ohnonononononono! Rook!" The bomb collided, blowing up all the trucks on the bridge and causing theirs to plummet into the lake.
When they crashed into the surface of the water America hit her head against the dashboard. Her sight faded in and out of darkness as the truck sank. When she finally regained her sight she saw Burke swim to the surface, abandoning her once again.
She escaped the sinking vehicle and swam back up. She crawled to shore, breathing heavily. Her adrenaline had run out, she could hardly breath because of the water, and she was just so exhausted from all the excitement in the last hour.
In the distance she saw Burke get captured by the cultists. He tried putting up a fight like the others, but also like the others he got captured. Suddenly, she heard footsteps. She turned around and saw a shadowy figure standing over her.
She reached out desperately. "Help . . ." She gasped.
Her sight blacked out and she fell unconscious as the man picked her up. The cultists never found her.
Author's Notes:
I'll be updating this story slowly. I'm waiting for the DLC's and live events to pass so I can use everything the game has to offer in my story. Don't worry there is more to come!