Chapter 1: Escape
"Amazing Grace~..."
In the wreckage, alarms and flames, through the ringing of her ears came the distinct and calming voice filling her head. Hudson felt the dizziness puring as her vision slowly started to become clearer. Everything was upside down, her hands bruised and bloody, she felt like shit quite frankly, but that was the least of her concerns currently. As more of her vision became clearer, she noticed yet another thing, the damn chopper was catching fire.
Every bone in her body was screaming at her to move, to get away and start hauling ass away from there
"Hello? Earl, are you there?" she heard the headphones hanging near her call out, it was Nancy's voice.
"How sweet the sound~..." the sickly sweet tone entered her ears yet again.
"Please, somebody, anybody, answer me!" Nancy's cries were akin to that of a heartstruck mother searching for her kids, she wanted to just grab the headset and tell her everything was gonna be fine, but her body was still paralyzed.
"That saved, a wretch, like me~..." and yet there he saw him, Joseph Seed. Hovering over the Rookie. She finally took notice of her other deputies. Pratt sat still as a statue at the pilot's seat, as unconscious as the rest of them. The rookie, however, seemed to have been the first one to wake up, and without even noticing the target above him he went for the headset.
The moment Joseph grabbed the Rook she wanted to tear his eyes out, he just kept singing. Looking into Rook's eyes as he did, further and further.
"I told you God wouldn't let you take me." Joseph whispered. He then grabbed hold of the headset, and spoke into the radio through Nancy's worried cries. "Dispatch, everything is alright here. No need to call anyone."
Hudson couldn't believe what she was hearing, and worse still what came out from the other end. Her blood chilled as Seed turned his head and began looking at her now.
"Yes Father. Praise be to you." her voice shaking, yet noticeably more calm. Hudson's eyes leapt right open as Joseph passed her by, exiting the helicopter, just as he did, he whispered into her ear.
"No one is coming to save you."
His followers flooded in like a tide, all rushing to help their Father as they called him. All of them seemed both relieved yet unsurprised that Seed survived the crash
"God has kept you under the shadow of his wings!" one of them shouted, looking damn near ready to give the man a smooch on the mouth. The cultists were amazed at seeing their Father crawl out of death, like it was akin to witnessing Jesus emerging from the tomb after three days.
As Seed began preaching to his choir, she felt a hand reaching around her waist, unbuckling the belt holding her onto the seat. The Rookie seemed to have escaped his bindings just in time. "We gotta go." he said simply, unbuckling her as Hudson reached out her arms to the hood of the chopper above her head to shield from impact.
The moment she dropped down, she expected every cultist there to start turning to them, yet all were still ravaged by the Father's speech, so she used this to their advantage. 'Pratt.' she thought, and turned over to Rook who was already turning his back to her. "We gotta get the rest out." she whispered.
The Rookie seemed almost reluctant in the moment, she wasn't sure if it was fear or just pure survival that she saw in his eyes, but after a brief silence he nodded and began unbuckling the Marshal as Hudson did her best to sneak over to the front seat and release Pratt and Whitehorse. Burke was already somewhat conscious like her and Rook were, but Pratt and Whitehorse seemed to be out cold, that wasn't gonna stop her though. "Pratt…" she whispered in his ear, lightly tapping his face to wake him up. "Pratt wake up, come on we gotta go." it seemed almost in vain, but thankfully, she started to see the flickers of blinking in Pratt's eyes.
"H-... Hudson…" his mouth was quivering, and he could barely speak, but he was conscious and alive, that was most important.
"Come on, get yourself out of the harness and move!" The urgency in her voice made Pratt immediately perk up and get rid of all confusion, immediately remembering what had just happened.
Pratt began tinkering with the reins of his harness as Hudson moved over to help the Sheriff, to her dread, he looked to be out cold, she tried the same method but it looked like her luck had run dry now. The sound of the helicopter's doors violently opening, with Rook on the other side, seemed to gain the attention of the Peggies.
"Begin the Reaping!" Joseph declared, his arms up high in the air as his followers began charging at them in a frenzy.
"Move!" she heard Rook yell out as he dashed for the woods, thankfully it looked like Pratt managed to get out of his harness just in time and was running right beside her.
The Marshal, and even the Rookie, had quickly gone out of their sites, but at that point it didn't even matter, gunshots were heard behind the both of them as stray bullets whizzed right past them. She heard dogs let out feral growls and barks. 'They're sending out the damn bloodhounds for us…'
Chaos ensued, her and Pratt did their best to avoid the cultists tailing after them, retreating into the thick forest and ducking in between the trees to avoid the gunfire. All the while the barking of their mutts started to fade and soon enough the shots faded. The two continued to run, or at least that's what she thought until she turned her head to the side just for a moment.
Pratt wasn't there.
Stopping dead in her tracks Hudson turned every which way she could through tired breaths to try and find her fellow deputy, but it was in vain. Too afraid to even try and call out for him, she could only hope the Peggies didn't catch up to him, or worse yet shoot him. The thought of one of her own, a friend like Pratt, being gunned down like that without even noticing…
'No, focus.' she slapped herself out of that memory.
The moment of silence allowed her to come back to her senses and scan her surroundings. Trees, nothing but damn trees, but where there's a will, there's a way. She spotted a flock of birds up in the sky flying up from the ground, that direction perhaps was a good way to go, as it was still the opposite from where she was running from.
Stealthily, she broke into a light jog, trying her best to hide her footsteps. Through the treelines, in the shadows, Hudson could see the faint flicker of flashlights scanning the horizon. There was enough foliage and rocks to cover her frame whenever a tree proved insufficient, and so she managed to avoid the search parties, eventually stumbling upon a small encampment.
Two cultists stood around the still lit campfire, looking around in a circular patrol. Behind them was a bridge that connected across a small part between two tall hills and a small creek river running below.
The Peggies themselves she couldn't give less of a cow's ass about, it was what was in their hands that got her more interested. One was holding an AR with his finger on the trigger, it looks like they were already on high alert. The other held a shotgun rested on his shoulder, his bald, tattooed head almost glistening in the moonlight. If she could get close… undetected… 'Those guns are mine, and them I'm gonna come for all you fuckers.' and so she approached, keeping quiet and staying low. Using what tall grass and foliage standing between her and the small encampment to get closer and closer. Managing to maneuver herself into an advantageous enough position, she exited her hiding place in the wild and closed in on the bald one with the shotgun. There was a knife on his belt.
Her heartbeat quickened the closer she came up to the Peggie. Stifling her breathing, she did her best to not give away her position. Just a meter away, she could practically jump at him now and wrestle the gun from him, if only the other bastard wouldn't riddle her with holes the moment she did.
The moment came, and Hudson leapt towards the cultist. Putting her hand over his mouth she stood behind him, using her other arm to grab the knife from his belt and thrust it into the cultist's knife, red blood gushing from the hole the knife made. Unfortunately for her, the Peggie decided to fire off that shotgun of his into the air as his final will and testament and soon enough his buddy was aiming the AR at her in panic.
Instinctively Hudson held the now dead cultist's body in-between her and the rifle.
"Sinner! You! You tried to take the Father!" the Peggie shouted at the top of his lungs, as if he wanted to alert every single thing in the forest of his words. Understandable. Aiming his rifle at both his dead comrade and Hudson herself, he shifted his rifle sights left and right to try and get an angle at her. It wasn't that he was trying to not hit the body though, the finger was fully on the trigger, the gun simply wasn't firing.
Hudson narrowed her eyes for a moment and peeked past the shiny bald head shielding her from the bullets. She let out a small laugh, vindictive in nature.
"Safety's on, dumbass." She didn't know for certain if she was right, but it was the next best guess as opposed to the assumption that the idiot didn't have any bullets loaded in the gun.
Apparently the Peggie didn't consider her that much of a threat, even as she had a knife implanted into his buddy's neck. The sentence made the Peggie avert his eyes from her at that moment, and it was all she needed. She dropped the body and grabbed the cultist's shotgun at her feet, with a single slug Hudson sent the rifle wielding Peggie flying, a red mist of blood escaping his chest as he was filled with bullets, flying backwards.
She waited a moment for the body to stop twitching before lowering the shotgun and releasing a sigh of relief. Killing wasn't in her nature, it wasn't her forte. Even stuff like Hunting never appealed to her. These people weren't all that difficult for her though, not after what had just happened, and especially not after everything that's been culminating up to this point.
Hudson took the rifle and slung it over her shoulders, but not before checking on whether she was right or not. 'The Idiot was just walking around with his finger on the trigger without even knowing if his safety was off.' maybe it was sadistic to think about such a thing, but again, she didn't consider much sympathy when talking to herself about these Peggie fucks.
The shotgun stayed close to her hands, but not before placing a Sig pistol the bald one was carrying onto her hip holster. Armed and ready for action, she had half the mind to go back to that crash site and pump all those cultists full of lead, but logic won this round and she decided against it, for her own survival. Dying wouldn't make her any more useful to killing as many of those Peggies as she could.
Scanning her area once more, she quickly spotted a log cabin out in the distance, cultist trucks all parked right outside but no bodies or guards from where she could see. There was no time to waste, those shots were sure to attract the hunting parties again, and even with her new armory, numbers still played more of a game in this scenario. No use in trying to play the one-woman army.
The encampment was in a good spot to overlook the cabin, had she any binoculars on her she could probably scout it out well enough, but none of the guns she had on her right now had a scope on them unfortunately. So without missing another beat she started to make her way towards the cabin.
The place was as empty as she originally thought it to be, at least from the outside. Several trucks were parked at the front but none had keys in them, hotwiring was never her specialty, she left that to Pratt. Slowly entering through the doors she checked her corners and made sure that no one would be able to sneak up on her, minding her footing the entire time and keeping check on what little noise her boots were still making as the creak of the wood beneath her feet echoed with each step.
Hudson could swear she heard someone breathing on the other side, and fidgeting on the inside of a room right in front of her. Someone was here, for sure, but if it was a friendly or a cultist she still wasn't sure. People used to live on this little island before these Peggies made it a compound, normal people. Maybe not all of them ran away? No, thinking like that is only gonna get you killed. She knew the deal. A place belonged to someone before, until it didn't. Until Joseph and his brothers would come in and take control of it. Anyone caught in Peggie territory not part of the cult didn't last long. Convert or Die.
Slowly she opened the door with the barrel of her shotgun, the door slightly creaked open as she slid in, until the barrel was grabbed by someone she couldn't see from her left. She didn't see much in that moment, just a green blur and an arm with a bat in it flying towards her. Instinctively she grabbed the arm assailing her. Struggling with the assailant she steadied her sight to see that it was no other than Pratt of all people currently trying to bash her skull in.
"STACI, STACI STOP IT'S ME!" she grunted out in a panic.
Pratt stopped in an instant, the struggle turning lopsided as all strength left her fellow Deputy. "Joey… oh fuck, oh sweet Jesus." Hudson let go of Pratt's arm and he in turn let go of the barrel of her shotgun. "Holy Sweet Mary, am I glad to see you." he dropped the bat on the ground, throwing his head back and leaning against the wall next to the door.
"Didn't look like it for a moment there…" she said through panicked breaths. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to reach for her gun, so she was trained enough to know not to immediately jump for the trigger and fire off the shotgun. "Still, I was afraid you didn't make it. How did you find this place?"
"I just… I ran, I kept running and running. When I lost you I didn't know what to do. I couldn't stop, fucking Peggies were still on my tail so I just jumped down a ditch and hoped they passed me." it was then she saw how dirty the Deputy uniform Pratt was wearing had become, the front still had some semblance of green on it that was normal for their uniforms, but the rest may as well have been put through a dung heap. "I found this cabin and tried to hunker down, most of them passed me…" Pratt's attention turned to the body laying over by the fireplace, a woman with maple brown hair, though most of it became obscured by the pungent red color coming out of her scalp. "One didn't."
"Was anyone else with 'em?"
"If they were, they've long since passed. Haven't heard anything for the past five minutes before you came in."
"Good… that's good…" she let out another tired sigh as she limped over to a nearby couch, placing her shotgun down in front of her. "Here, this'll do you more good than that thing." she passed the AR over to Pratt, who grabbed it gleefully.
"Nice." he said simply, quietly, and quickly. The cocksure grin returning only for a moment before that face of worry came back as quick as it went. "You get this off the Peggies."
She nodded in reply, her palm resting on her forehead. "Just make sure to turn the safety off."
In that moment a noise burst into both their eardrums, the door to their room burst open and both Deputies grabbed their weapons, aiming it at the entrance in almost robotic fashion, acting purely out of instinct. Opposite to both of them stood their newly affirmed Deputy, the Rookie, his uniform ragged and dirty, same with the rest of him. He was heaving and puffing heavily. They all froze for a moment there, the Rookie looking at both of them with a dead look in his eyes, as if he was ready to take them both on and wring their necks. Pratt and Hudson meanwhile immediately lowered their guards, and their guns more importantly.
"Rook… you're alive!" Pratt said in a relieved tone.
"Thank God. I wasn't sure if you two made it out in time." The Rookie didn't seem fazed at all by the quick altercation, putting on a brave face and stopping the heaving from his lungs he managed to get another sentence out. "And by the looks of it you had a better time than me, those aren't from our armory."
She noticed just how beat up Rook's uniform looked, there were cuts and shreds everywhere, one sleeve was gone entirely and the other seemed to be on the brink of staying on. His pants were torn up from the feet down and his boots had its soles almost completely gone. Worse yet, the uniform seemed to be the least beat up. Rook himself had blood all surrounding his hands and arms, specks of blood also trickling across his neck up to his chin.
"Lucas, are you alright? You're fucked all over." Hudson almost whispered, her and Pratt were obviously roughed up by the crash, but looking at the Rookie you would scarcely miss him going through the damn jungles of Vietnam.
The Rookie looked down at his hands for a moment, and then took a general look at himself. "I'm fine." he replied simply, trying to wipe off the blood on his hands onto his jeans as he walked past the both of them towards the window. "The Sheriff? The Marshal? Don't suppose they'll try and jump me from a closet in here?"
"Just us." Pratt replied.
The Rookie sighed and leaned against the window for a few moments. It was strange to Hudson how she hadn't even heard the man come in through the entrance, much rather approach their room. This cabin wasn't really sneak-worthy. Maybe she just didn't notice him, but Pratt too? He always was the more paranoid of the two. Her thoughts were interrupted by the slightest of sounds, a drop of blood falling onto the floor. Maybe she was the one becoming paranoid.
She looked again at Rook's hands and noticed the small cut across his index finger, even though it was covered in blood and grunge.
"You sure you're alright man?" Pratt was the one to speak up this time. "That don't look like the hands of someone who's fine…"
"It ain't mine." Lucas replied casually, once again trying to wipe the blood and dirt off his hands. "Least not most of it." Walking away from the window and towards his fellow deputies, Lucas looked at his two coworkers with a strange gaze. "You two don't look all that well yourselves."
"I'll take a few bruises over looking like I just came out of a meat grinder." Hudson said.
"Fair enough. So then, what's the plan?" the Rook looked to the two senior Deputies for answers, though something told her he just wanted to hear something more from them that wasn't talking about him.
"Simple really, we get the fuck outta here, go back to the Sheriff's department, grab everyone and everything we can and bring the wrath of God down on these fuckers." Pratt explained, it looked like he had it all planned out already. "We just need to find some way to contact HQ, get Nancy on the phone and-"
"Won't work." Hudson interjected.
"What?"
"Nancy's with the cult." The Rookie answered Pratt's question.
"WHAT?!" Any sense of confidence Pratt had deflated in an instant, she forgot that only her and the Rookie were conscious when Joseph made his little power play in front of them, them and the Marshal, but he wasn't here, God knows where he got dragged off to.
Hudson rested her gun on her shoulder, placing two fingers on her chin as she contemplated. "If Nancy's with them, then that means there's no telling who else in the Department's been turned. Maybe it's just her, maybe it's everyone but us. Either way, relying on anyone else right now is a long shot." she explained to her fellow Deputies, but mainly to Pratt it seemed. "Still, I agree with Pratt that we should get the hell out of here as soon as possible."
"I heard shots coming a few ways from here." the Rookie commented. "Don't suppose that was you?" Hudson confirmed his question with a nod. "Then that means they'll already have their little hunting parties zeroing in on our location. We either make a break for it now or we're all fucked."
"What about the Marshal?" Pratt asked. "Could he be somewhere close by as well, should we just leave him?"
"Yes." Lucas replied simply. "Unless you want all of us to be an example for whatever The Reaping is supposed to be."
"The what now?"
"Don't worry about it." Hudson interjected. The more time they spent talking meant more time wasted in setting up an escape plan. "Right now we gotta find ourselves a pair of wheels to get us off this damn compound. There's trucks out back but no keys to get the engines running. Pratt, think you can help us with that?"
"Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard." he nodded to himself in assurance.
"Good, now starting a car is bound to rile up more attention than we should want right now but I suppose we'll have to make do. We got guns, I say let's use 'em." her statement would have been correct, had she not noticed Rook wasn't actually carrying any firearms on him. 'I guess that explains it all.' she reasoned. "Here Lucas, don't mean to demean you but I'd me and Pratt hold onto what we got." Hudson passed the Rookie her pistol.
After checking the magazine and nodding in confirmation, he turned back to the two of them. "Then let's go, we're wasting moonlight."
As if on queue, the three Deputies started making their way out of the cabin when they heard shouting from outside. Light could be seen shining through the window and Hudson instinctively ducked to avoid detection as her and Pratt crawled to the window and leaned against the walls, the Rookie covering the door behind them.
"This way! The trail leads into the building!" she heard a shout coming from outside. All the fear that had been building up in her body came to a boiling point, every single inch of her being fought not to break down at what was waiting for her when she peeked her head up. It was a damn army of them, from every single angle they came in from the forests and trails, hounds in toe and with enough firepower to turn them into a bloody red paste.
In that moment she also saw what they were following, it was bound to happen eventually from the gunshots, but the trail of blood leading here didn't help either. She took a glance at the Rookie, who already knew why she was looking at him. 'No time.' she thought, 'No time. Gotta think, gotta find a way out of this.'
"Hudson, Pratt." she felt a hand on her shoulder, the Rookie's face was right in between the two of them. It startled her, if only for a moment, the man was fast, or he had to be since he was several feet from them a few seconds ago. "Here's what we're gonna do. You two draw their fire, take as many of them out in the first volley before they figure out we're in here. After that, I'll lead them away into the woods and then you two take that damn truck and drive like there's no tomorrow. Make sure they don't get a good look at you, fire off one at a time. They have to think I'm the only one here. Understood?"
Even though he asked, Lucas' tone made it clear there was no room for argument. Still, she looked at him as if he was crazy. Did he really think he could outrun all those people? Take them on with just a single pistol? Next to her, Pratt simply nodded along, in the same amount of disbelief yet tempered by the fear he no doubt was feeling at seeing the same thing they all were.
Before Hudson could object in any way, Lucas crawled back to his spot and stood ready for the two of them to make their assigned moves. She hesitated for yet another moment, but Pratt had no such restrictions and managed to catch the Peggies unguarded, just as planned. Opening up the glass of the window silently, he peeked both his head and the AR outside ever so slightly and opened fire, firing off a spray of bullets in a horizontal line. Acting quickly he dove back in before the Peggies could understand what had just happened. Out of instinct Hudson followed soon after him, spraying a barrage from her shotgun to the nearest groups and hitting several of them, the slugs knocking them down to the ground quickly. Through the sudden mayhem she heard a whimper from one of the hounds, good, she got one of them too. Just as Pratt did, she dove quickly back in, and the Peggies finally organized themselves. Nodding to the Rookie, she signaled him to start running, like a bolt of lightning Lucas smashed through both doors and began firing blindly into the crowd of Peggies trying to get in cover. In a three pronged attack they looked to have taken down over a dozen of them just like that.
The rest soon followed, seeing the Rookie escaping into the woods and heading into hot pursuit. She couldn't believe it, but the plan actually worked, most of the Peggies had bolted after the Rookie the moment he made his presence known, and the cabin was once again dead with silence.
Hudson and Pratt sprinted without a word to the trucks as fast as they could. Grabbing onto the first one, the closest, Hudson entered into the passenger seat with Pratt on the driver. He ripped out the panel below and started fiddling with wires to jump start the engine.
"Come on come on come on…" Pratt mumbled to himself.
"Just stay calm Staci." she tried to comfort him, the more his hands shook the harder it would be for the both of them to get out of here, still her words meant very little when she was frantically looking around in a panicked state,
"I am calm dammit!" he tried to shout in a whispered tone as small sparks came from the wires Pratt held in his hands.
The wait felt like an eternity, but eventually, the car did boot up, and Hudson felt like jumping for joy. "YES!" they both shouted in unison and smiled. "Now drive and let's get the hell outta here!"
"Will do!" Pratt almost felt like he was back to his normal self for a second there, cranking up the engine and putting his hands behind the wheel he reversed the truck and started driving down the dirt path towards the main road, before abruptly stopping. "Wait…" he said, "Rook, w-what about him?"
Her eyes widened at the realization that she was so willing to just abandon Lucas like that, not even sparing a second thought at the moment. She looked back behind them, hearing the rampant gunshots and shouting coming from behind them. Screaming and dogs barking, it sounded like he was giving them a hell of a chase, or worse yet, a hell of a fight. "He told us to get out of here, but he never mentioned anything about himself…"
"Joey, I don't think he's planning on meeting us halfway." Pratt sighed as he tried to keep the engine running. The gunfire behind them only seemed to escalate the longer they stood there. Before long, the two only looked at one another and decided there was only one choice, stick to the plan.
'I'm sorry Rook, by God I hope you manage to make it out of this.' she thought to herself.
The truck drove along the road in a hurry. It was marked in the cult's colors, a pure painted white with Joseph Seed's little cross on the sides. It helped them not draw attention from the bikes and other trucks passing them in a hurry to where all the action was. Every time a new patrol would pass they would duck slightly to not be recognized. She couldn't really believe it would be this easy, she refused to believe it.
Clutching her shotgun tightly the echoing sounds of a firefight still echoed across the entire compound as more and more of the Peggie forces converged onto the area where it seemed to be coming from. She had just turned around once more when she saw it, a massive chain of explosions ravaging through the treeline. The ground itself shook for a moment and Hudson could only stare in disbelief, leaning through the window to get a better look at the cataclysm happening in front of her eyes. The explosion nearly blew her eardrums out, any sense of hearing replaced with a loud ringing in her ears. Eventually, just as the flames forming around all of the trees, the ringing subsided, quickly replaced with Pratt's yelling.
"GET BACK IN JOEY!" he shouted at her, pulling her back inside the car just as a spray of bullets riddled their windshield. Thank God these fuckers made all their glass bulletproof. "Fuck!" Pratt swore as he swerved away from the Peggie roadblock that seemed to recognize Hudson leaning out the truck as not one of their own. Their cover had been blown, and all Hell came blaring down on them once again.
Taking Pratt's rifle and loading a new magazine into it, she began firing on all the cultists who turned to pursue them, managing to take some out before it all ran dry. It was the last of the bullets in the AR, so she decided to swerve back in with the shotgun, and wait for them to get closer. One pair of idiots on a quad bike chose to do just that. She waited just for the right moment for them to align with her sights, in an instant the pair were blown away, the quad bike rolling off into a pair of trees to the side.
It wasn't long before the shotgun too ran out of ammunition, and all they could do was keep up the pace and hope to God one of those fuckers doesn't get in a lucky shot. Yet their salvation was just within reach, the bridge leading out of the compound was right in front of them.
And so was a blockade of Peggie trucks.
"No, dammit all!" Pratt screamed. "HUDSON?!" he turned to her in distress as the truck began losing pace.
"Drive Pratt, we're getting out of here!" she ordered.
With all the might he could muster, Pratt pushed his foot on the gas as hard as he could. The truck went barreling towards the blockade without a hint of stopping, something that seemed to take the Peggies by surprise as she saw them all running and jumping to the sides to avoid being minced meat. The two braced for impact and the moment of truth they prayed to God and the Virgin Mary this crazy idea would work.
With a thunderous crash they collided with two of the Peggie trucks, their own vehicle spiraling out of control. Pratt was a good driver though, he knew exactly where they needed to hit, and at the point of impact he spun his wheel to regain control before they both went careening off the bridge. In some miracle, they actually succeeded, and Pratt once again put the pedal to the metal as they gained distance from the cultists. Eventually, all that was left was the two of them and a beaten and shot up truck as it drove noticeably slower along the road towards Fall's End.
They did it, they made it out alive. Despite the relief though, something told Hudson this was just the beginning of their troubles.