On a small island close to the center of Hope County, hidden among trees and surrounded by rivers that ran through the land, a lone figure could be seen walking along a small trail. In his arms, he held the wounded and unconscious Deputy he had just saved in a bridal carry, his eyes scanning the surrounding foliage.
He knew well that they hadn't been followed, he was far too good at covering his tracks, but one of the many lessons he had learned was to always be aware of your surroundings, and always be prepared for the worst-case scenario.
Boots crunching on the familiar path, he stopped infront of a large cluster of rocks in the middle of the island. A large steel door set in the ground below it.
A black tendril slithered out of the young man's side, an electronic keycard held in it that was swiped through the reader beside the door, the lock's light changing from red to green as unlocked. A second tendril came out and pulled the heavy iron door open allowing him through the threshold and down the stone steps within.
The door closed and locking behind him as the added limbs slithered back into his body. Passing through several entrance rooms, he entered a rather large bunker built underneath the Earth, making his way down a corridor with more rooms lining either side before entering one at the very end which was made into a master bedroom.
Laying the Deputy in the bed, he immediately started to assess her situation. Her shoulder still bled, the bullet wound being the cause and needed to be checked first. Taking a deep breath, he carefully removed the young woman's dark-green uniform shirt, leaving her in the black tank top she wore underneath that clung to her modest chest and flat stomach, giving him a better look at her shoulder.
The wound was a through and through, and thankfully didn't hit anything vital.
The Deputy's savior stood and left the room, going into another where medical supplies were being kept. Grabbing what he needed before returning, he cleaned the wound with antiseptic and wrapped it up tightly. She would heal in no time, but she'd have to take it easy with that arm for a little while.
Making sure she was comfortable, the young man stood and walked over to the desk on the side of the room and took a seat, deciding to stay and keep an eye on her when she woke up. Turning on the radio on the desk and scanning through the channels until one caught his interest;
'My children. We must give thanks to God. The day I have prophesied to you has arrived. Everything I've told you has come true...The authorities who tried to take me from you are now in the loving embrace of my Family...save for one. But this Wayward Soul will be found. They will be punished...and in the end, they will see our glorious purpose. I am your Father. You are my Children. And together, we will march to-"
He clicked off the radio, cutting off Joseph Seed's seemingly endless preaching, his fists clenched tightly with a sharp look in his eyes.
"Things will be more difficult now." a demonic voice hissed in the back of his mind.
"I never expected things to be easy." he spoke back, "But you're right, this whole mess just kick started their fucking Holy War. And the rest of the county is going to suffer from it."
A black tendril formed and extended from his back, coming around to his front where the end formed into a face with wide, white eyes and a maw filled with sharp teeth. "Then why are we not out there, tearing the Seed family and their followers to shreds?" spoke the creature.
"Because WE are only one person. If we want any hope at saving the county and everyone in it, we need to get more people on our side." replied the host, both of them turning their attention to the Deputy they had saved.
"Why did we save her?" the creature asked, genuinely curious.
"You know what the Seeds do to people who don't follow with their crazy religion. God help the others they've already captured, and she could help us bring the fight to the Peggies." was the answer as the host got comfortable.
"Do you think she will be willing to help?"
The young man sighed, "I'll leave it up to her to decide. But given what we know already, and with her friends captured, I don't think she'll have much of a choice." The creature nodded and slithered back inside its host, both of them settling in to wait for their guest to wake up.
X
Liz groaned, her mind foggy and her limbs feeling heavy as she slowly came back to consciousness. Her blue eyes swam into focus, taking in the cement ceiling above her head and the fact that she was laying on a soft bed instead of the cold ground.
She gave a sharp hiss when she tried to move, her clenched teeth when her left arm pulsed in pain. Looking at her shoulder, she found her wound bandaged neatly with only a small spot of blood soaked through it.
"Take it easy." Her head snapped around at the voice, finding someone sitting in a chair by the desk against the wall. His appearance hidden thanks to the low light. "You've been through Hell."
"Where am I?" asked the Deputy, sitting up carefully so to not agitate her injury. She got a better look around the room and saw that it was similar to a large jail cell, but had several pieces of furniture lockers and trunks set up. A few articles of clothes were scattered about giving it a more lived in feeling, and an American flag was posted on the wall behind the desk.
"My place." the man said, "Found you on the river bank after your car went off the bridge. A bunch of Peggies were planning to bring you to the Father, but I took care of them and brought you here to treat your wound."
Liz sighed in relief, but was still uneasy given what had happened...that's when she gasped in realization. "The others! Hudson, Pratt, the Sheriff-"
"Captured, by the PEG. Trust me, you're the lucky one." answered her savior before standing up and stepping a little closer where the Deputy got a better look at him.
He was tall, easily over six feet which almost towered over her petite 5'3''. He was dressed in a black thermal t-shirt and cargo pants that showed off a muscled frame. His face had a rugged appearance with a light dusting of stubble along his hard jawline and ending with a head of very short, spikey black hair.
His eyes, which in the faded light had been hard to make out, were a dark-green, showed a great deal of experience that was beyond his years, which couldn't have been a year or two older than she was if she were to guess.
"Got a name, Deputy?" he asked, snapping her out of her observations.
"Elizabeth. Elizabeth Rook. But most folks call me Liz." The Junior Deputy answered.
Her savior nodded, "Name's Mason Black. I ain't gonna lie to you, things have turned to shit pretty fast up top. You're department's attempt to arrest Seed kicked the hornets nest. The Peggies have all the roads are blocked, phone lines cut and the radio signals jammed. Nothing is getting in or out of the valley."
Liz turned her gaze to her lap, remembering that moment back at the church when she made the arrest. "I should have walked away..."
A look of sympathy passed over Mason's gaze. He put a hand on her good shoulder, gaining her attention. "Can't change the past. And right now we really have to focus on the present." he took a step back and motioned to the small bank of lockers against the far wall. "I got spare clothes stashed over there, figured you might want something a little fresher. When you're ready come meet me in the next room."
He turned and left the room through the metal door, giving her some privacy.
She sat on the bed in silence for several moments, wrapping her head around the events that had taken place and trying to figure out what to do next. Although she was grateful that she had been saved by a local, but at the same time she was afraid about what had happened to the others.
Taking a deep, calming breath. Liz stood up and made her way over to the locker Mason had pointed out to her. Going through the contents, she managed to find a couple articles that would fit her.
Kicking off her boots and stripping out of her still damp pants and tank top, she pulled on a dark-blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans that hung off her slim waist that she fixed with a belt. Shivering a bit, she also took out a red and black checkered flannel shirt and put it on as well, rolling the sleeves to her elbows.
When she was finished, the Junior Deputy stepped out of the room and really got a good look at where she was.
It was a bunker, a series of rooms all connected with a small corridor, everything made of concrete and metal with pipes and wires running along a couple walls and ceiling. She'd heard a lot about such places when she first moved out here, a lot of the locals were labeled 'Doomsday Preppers' and made the habit of stashing large amounts of supplies in specially made bunkers built underground or in caves.
Many called such people crazy for doing such things and constantly worrying about the world coming to an end at any moment. But Liz was never one to judge others for their life choices, only when they were doing wrong to other people.
Passing the other rooms, one of which she noticed was an armory filled with weapons of various kinds and calibers, and another that was like a storage room filled to the brim with non-perishable foods and medical supplies. There was even a rec room filled with armchairs, couches, bookshelves and an entertainment system.
The Deputy entered one that looked like a makeshift command center. Maps of the local area were spread out on the walls and table in the center and a bank of monitors and radio equipment were along the walls on the far side where Mason was looking over the equipment.
Shaking his head after hearing something, he turned toward Liz. "I got good news, and bad news. The good news is that your friends are still alive, they've been split up among Joseph's family. Bad news is, there's no help coming. Peggies have taken complete control of the county, they're taking everything and everyone for their crusade and killing anyone who gets in the way."
Liz felt relief that the others were alive, but at the same time she worried about what the Father's siblings will do to them. This was made worse with the knowledge that they were cut off from the rest of the world.
"What is...all this?" she asked, motioning to all the maps and surveillance equipment.
Mason walked to the wall closest to the door that had pictures of the Seed family connected to each other by red string with notes surrounding each. "The PEG have been doing this a lot longer than you think." he said turning back to her, "You're new in the department, right? Not a local?"
"Yeah, moved in to the next town over and started a couple weeks ago." the Junior Deputy answered honestly.
"Seed and his sadistic family moved into Hope years ago. Started small, no one really paid them any attention thinking that they were just another group preaching about God. But as time went on, they expanded and bad things started happening. People started going missing, this new group started getting more aggressive, and before anyone knew it they had the county in a vise-grip." Mason explained. "Everything was balancing on a knife's edge...until last night."
Liz blinked, "The arrest...they were expecting that to happen."
"So they could start their damn Holy War." he added. "This was coming whether or not your office came to arrest Seed, it just sped things up a bit."
Mason motioned around them, "This bunker belonged to my uncle. He was a prepper like a lot of people around here, but was far more dedicated. Everyone called him crazy, paranoid and an extremist, but with what's been happening he had good reason to be so prepared." he pointed at the wall, "He started gathering intel on the Seeds not long after they arrived, he didn't trust them, and made sure to get everything he could on them to take them down should the need arise."
"Joseph's family are considered his 'Heralds', each one controls a section of the county. John, the Baptist; despite how charismatic he comes off he's a fucking sadist on a whole nother level. He's the voice of the PEG, draws people into their beliefs and uses their weaknesses to convert them."
"Faith, the Siren; she's not a fighter, but she uses some kind of drug they've been making in secret. They call it Bliss. It's a hallucinogen that makes anyone influenced by it see, hear and feel things that aren't there, and she uses it to get into your head and believe everything she's saying, hence the title."
"And lastly...Jacob, the Soldier." when Mason said the man's name she could hear a large amount of anger and hate in his voice, "He trains the PEG's militia, up in the White Tail mountains. If you think John's bad, big brother is even worse. He shows no mercy and neither do the people under his command."
"Why haven't the people around here stood up to them?" asked the Deputy, overwhelmed by just how bad things really where.
Mason shook his head, "They're afraid. Anyone that's stood against them was either never heard from again or killed outright. And that's what leads us to now;"
"If we want to have any hope at stopping the Seeds, the PEG, and save your friends, a resistance needs to be formed. No one's going to come and help us, so we need to help ourselves. I know a lot of people in the valley ready and willing to fight back, but we need to get the rest of the county on our side, show them this cult can be beaten if we work together."
Liz thought hard to herself, wondering what she should do. Her training never covered guerrilla warfare against a doomsday cult, and last night was really the first time she ever took someone else's life. But at the same time, these people were suffering under the PEG, and the others needed her to escape their captors.
As unsure as she was about everything, she couldn't walk away from this. Not now. She became a Deputy to help people, and it went against everything she believed to not do what she could to help.
"What do we do first?" she asked with conviction.
Mason smirked, "First, we need to deal with the Peggie patrols that started roaming around the island we're on since sunrise. Once we have some breathing room we'll go from there." he motioned out to the corridor she had come through, "You passed an armory on your way here, grab anything you think you'll need and meet me by the bunker entrance."
The Junior Deputy nodded and left the room, leaving him on his own...or so she thought.
Closing the door after a moment, Mason felt the familiar sensation of his 'tenant' slithering out of its host in tentacle form.
"She seems more than ready to fight." the creature hissed.
"She wants to help, I can tell. And not just to save her partners." replied the host as he addressed the being extending out of him, "I need you to keep a low profile. We can't go scaring off potential allies."
The creature groaned in exasperation, "Fine...but don't forget that we deserve a little fun with these so called zealots."
Mason smirked, "Relax, Venom. We'll both get our shots in. For now we need to get a resistance started." the creature slithered back into its host before he left the room to get ready as well.
Things were about to change, and the Peggies wouldn't know what hit them.
X
Jacob Seed crouched on the river bank near where the sinner's vehicle had gone off the bridge. Observing the dead bodies of the followers of their faith with keen, sharp eyes. His fingers running along the edges of the deep gashes on one of the corpses.
They were claw marks, clearly. But weren't made by any animal known to the region. He looked at the other bodies, including the one that looked like it had the head torn from the neck. The former soldier had seen this before.
Standing to his full height, Jacob took out his walkie;
"Joseph, it's me. We have a situation."
'What has happened, brother?' the Father's voice spoke back calmly.
"Five of our followers are dead. Not killed by bullets or wildlife, but by something...else." he replied with a great deal of meaning.
Joseph was silent for a moment or two, 'It is worse than we feared. The demon has risen again to taint our holy cause, no doubt brought upon by the arrival of the sinners.'
"How do you want me to proceed?" asked Jacob.
'Keep your eyes and ears open, ask the same of your hunters. Find this demon. And purge it with God's holy fire.' replied his brother.
"Consider it done." the oldest of the Seed family lowered his walkie and stalked toward his waiting truck. He needed to prepare, this was going to be his most challenging hunt.
X
A/N: The intro is finally out of the way, now the real fun can begin.
I know full well that FC5 was not the most popular in the series to a lot of people and left a little to be desired, but given that it still had it's good points is enough reason for me to make this story from it. And I intend on improving on the lacking points left open in the original plot. Though I am not against any readers offering any changes they might want to see, especially with everyone's favorite symbiote/anti-hero gunning for the Peggies and the Seeds.
I'll also be unveiling more of both Mason's and Elizabeth's history in later chapters. Just need to build up to the right moments.
A lot more to come, so keep reading and I'll keep writing folks!