AN: Hello and welcome!
Here we are! The final chapter! I'm so excited for you guys to see how this all ends. I hope you've enjoyed reading this story because I have sure enjoyed writing it. Please let me know what you think. With that said, let's begin!
Chapter 4 - The Close
John collapsed against a tree, gasping for breath. Blood pounded in his remaining ear as he struggled to stay standing. A branch snapped somewhere behind him, making his heart nearly leap out of his chest. Fortunately, it only turned out to be a deer galloping between the trees and darting past him.
That only means that whatever's behind it is more terrifying than I am.
That thought had scarcely entered his head before the calm was shattered with the crack of a gunshot, the bullet slamming into a neighboring tree. The air seemed to freeze in his lungs as he threw himself off the tree and tore through the brush, limping as fast as his quivering legs could carry him.
He was in agony. Not only were his muscles and lungs screaming so hard he felt like he was dying, but his equilibrium was so thrown off by his missing ear that it was all he could do just to keep moving in a straight line. And if that wasn't enough, he had landed wrong and turned his ankle, so each new step sent new fiery lances of pain up his leg that he could not afford to pay any mind to.
His life depended on making it to the bunker before she caught him.
John's ranch had been a flurry of activity when he finally arrived. Fortunately for him, one of the Project's planes had been fueled and was moments from takeoff, determined to support their forces still out in the field. Knowing that even with the hand of God behind him he'd be unlikely to fly a plane himself with his destroyed equilibrium, he had ordered the pilot to take him to the bunker instead. Moments later he climbed into the copilot's seat, pausing only long enough to don a parachute.
Their plane had just begun to move onto the runway when John once again heard the sound of gunfire. A small column of souped-up pickups and SUVs crashed through the gate, their passengers firing wildly with assault weapons, hunting rifles, or any other firearms they could bring to bear. The other Project members were taking cover and returning fire, but they were too exposed to risk running back to the lodge.
And then he saw her, tearing up the dirt path on an ATV. Her eyes darted across the ranch before landing on his plane. John had the sense that she had no trouble seeing him and he felt a shiver as their eyes met across the distance. She glared icily at him, her chest emblazoned with her great sin. But, in mockery of the Atonement, she seemed to wear it as a badge of honor rather than a burden to be removed. Every action of hers was an insult to him. To Joseph. To the entire Seed family.
The Deputy revved her ATV and streaked toward him, not even slowing down as she drew her pistol with one hand and thoughtlessly gunned down a Project member who stood to take a shot at her.
"Go!" he yelled to his pilot. "GO!" The pilot immediately followed his instructions and steered them out onto the runway where they began to gain speed. The Deputy's ATV smashed through the wooden fence and onto the dirt of the runway.
She was coming for him.
She was going to kill him.
Then his heart leapt as the plane's wheels lifted from the ground and the plane wobbled into the air. Craning his head around to look behind, John saw the Deputy skid to a stop, her eyes following them into the air before she turned and gunned her ATV back toward the hanger. John's heart sank once again.
"Are any of the other planes ready to fly?" he asked his pilot, his voice coming out too high-pitched.
"I don't think so, John," the pilot responded. "At least none that are fully fueled. We only started prepping them for takeoff a few minutes ago. This is the first one that was ready to fly."
John felt himself relax just a bit. It would be alright. They were away. He would get to his bunker and, once he had ten meters of concrete and steel between him and the Deputy, he'd call in Jacob's forces and fix this mess. This valley would be theirs. It's people would Atone. And he would kill the Deputy himself, no matter what anyone said. Joseph would understand, once John made him see how dangerous this girl was.
As John let out a breath, he looked over his shoulder again to catch of glimpse of the receding Seed Ranch. He'd be quite sad to see the place go. It had been a lovely home for their time gathering their faithful in the valley. Joseph and Jacob hadn't been too fond of it, for reasons of piety and stifling comfort respectively, but Faith had liked it quite well.
Perhaps, John thought to himself with a smirk, Faith and I could have another, longer visit before the Gates of Eden open. I have had such wonderful ideas of-
His eyes widened and his jaw dropped open. A red plane was just rising from the airstrip, its wings emblazoned with the white cross of Joseph. However, John was under no delusions about who could be at the controls.
"She's…" he gaped. "She's coming…"
"Contact! Two o'clock below!" shouted his pilot. "Strap in, John!" The pilot immediately spun the plane into a descending barrel roll. Any confusion John had was cleared up by the sound of gunfire and a streak of bright yellow-orange that blasted past his vision.
Nick Rye. And his damned plane.
"I should have cut off your head, Rye!" John raged as the pilot leveled out their plane and swung around to try and go on the offensive. Rye, however, didn't make it easy on them. If you believed the man's ramblings, he had learned to fly a plane while still in elementary school. For all of the sins that glorified crop-duster had accumulated, he was still a damn good pilot. They couldn't even get him in the sights of their guns.
And every moment they wasted on Rye was several fewer meters between him and the Deputy.
When machine-gun bullets streaked by only inches away from their wing, John began to lose himself to fear.
"She's here!" he cried, his knuckles turning white around the straps of his seat restraints. "She's here!"
"Don't worry, John!" his pilot called back. "I will deliver you to safety!"
Their plane descended into a series of rolls, corkscrews, and hairpin turns. The entirety of the plane shook, almost as if it were about to come apart. John couldn't even follow the maneuvers from how dizzy he was. All he could do was hold on and pray.
"We'll use the cloud cover!" called the pilot as he steered them into a large cloud passing over the valley. Instantly the world seemed to vanish. John swallowed, trying to slow his breathing and get a hold of himself.
When they finally ran out of cloud and came out into the sunlight, John looked to the side and felt his heart stop. Just off of their starboard wing, seeming so close he could almost touch it, was the red plane, as well as its vengeful pilot.
She was there.
She was right there!
"How is she doing this?!" the pilot asked. "Her plane should barely have any fuel in it!"
That gave John an idea. He reached forward and grasped the pilot's shoulder.
"Loop around her! Keep out of her sights, but slow down to make the turns sharper!"
"Slow down?!" the pilot said incredulously, turning over his shoulder. "We'll be sitting ducks!"
"Do it!" John responded. "Take heart! The Lord is on our side!"
After a moment of hesitation, the pilot nodded and pulled back on the throttle while maneuvering them into a loop, pointing their nose toward the heavens. Just as John suspected, the Deputy also ascended, pushing her plane to keep pace with them. Their two vehicles danced around each other, rising and dropping and sometimes coming so close that they risked collision. Those times offered him a crystal-clear view of the Deputy and the icy, murderous stare she had fixed on him.
One blessing of this strategy is that Rye was hesitant to engage for worry of shooting down his fellow heretic. Still, that left him with a vengeful deputy to deal with.
Come on… John pleaded. Come on…
Finally, his gambit paid off. The Deputy's propeller suddenly ground to a halt, the perilous acrobatics too much for her fuel reserves. Slowly, her inertia ran out and they pulled ahead of her as she rapidly lost altitude.
"Perfect," John said to himself. The pilot seemed to agree as he pulled their plane out of the climb, ready to crest the loop and come back down on top of the Deputy.
Unfortunately, that was the moment Rye had been waiting for. He seemed to come from nowhere, strafing their plane with a burst of machine gun fire. Glass shattered and metal pinged with the impact of bullets. John ducked and covered his head, knowing that it would do little, but as the final barrage ended, he felt no pain.
Then he saw the front of the cockpit. The shattered canopy. The limp pilot. The plane controls sticky with his blood.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" yelled John. With no one at the controls, their plane began to sag drunkenly in the air. John saw the valley floor to his right side as the plane fell into an uncontrolled descent, with their angle becoming sharper with each passing instant. "Dammit!" John roared as he unstrapped his restraints and fumbled for the latch to snap off the canopy. He would have to reach the bunker the hard way.
With the pull of a lever, the whole glass canopy (what remained of it, anyway) was yanked away and the howl of the wind was all John could see, hear, and feel. His back ground into the co-pilot's chair as the plane screamed toward the ground, but he finally managed to heave himself out of the plane and into the empty air. He spun as if he were in a tumble drier, unable to figure out which direction was up before he finally managed to pull the cord on his parachute. He had used a parachute a few times before, all part of being a jet-setting lawyer in Atlanta, but this time was particularly unpleasant. When the parachute snapped taut and he began his safe descent to the ground, he took stock of where he was and what direction he needed to go. He started to once again feel hopeful about his chances of living to the end of the day.
Those hopes were dashed, however, as the last thing he saw before descending below the treetops was a second parachute several hundred yards away.
She was still coming for him.
John stumbled through a clearing in the trees, trying to ignore the pain in his leg and the feeling of death in his lungs. He had been running for… he didn't even know how long. He didn't even know if he was going in the right direction. All he knew was that if he stopped, he was dead.
The silence of the forest was shattered by the sudden crack of a gunshot. He ducked his head in reflex and threw himself behind a tree. Silence returned to the trees just as quickly as it had been broken. John could hear his heart beating in his ears, so loud he could mistake it for cannon fire. As he struggled to get his desperate lungs and trembling body under control, he heard a voice through the trees.
"Joooo-ohhhnnnn…" a sing-song voice echoed through the woods. "Ooooh, Joooo-ohhhhnnn…"
John felt as if his heart were trying to beat its way out of his chest. She wasn't hunting him down, she was fucking toying with him. He needed to run. He needed to escape. He needed to find help and put them between him and this monster.
Then, just over the sound of his own blood in his ear, he heard the sound of an engine coming from somewhere ahead of him. Giving a prayer of thanks to Joseph, he took a breath, steeled his resolve, and ran. He ran faster than he ever had before, faster than he had ever thought himself capable of. Any moment he expected to feel a bullet drill through his back, but nothing happened as he darted around the trees. Roots tried to grab his legs. Branches lashed at his face. But still, he pressed on, a mere hint of prosperity seeming to be just beyond this grove.
As he broke through the brush, he came upon a winding dirt path cutting around a hill, shadowed on both sides by tall trees. More importantly, he saw an ATV winding its way around the bend. He immediately relaxed when he saw the white paint and the two Project members riding atop it.
"Hey!" he called, unable to keep the smile of relief from his face as he waved like a madman. "Hey!"
"By Joseph! It's John!" one of them yelled, leaping from the ATV and running to him while the other brought the bike to a stop. "John, what are you doing out here?! It's dangerous!"
"I know it's fucking dangerous!" John snapped. "I need to get to the bunker! Now! She's behind me!"
"She?" said the one who had run to him. He looked nervously at the surrounding trees as he unslung his rifle from his back. "Who are you-"
A knife sailed through the air and slid easily into his throat, causing his words to be lost in a blood-choked gurgle.
"No! Eli!" the other man cried as his comrade collapsed to the dirt beneath, drowning in his own blood for a few moments more. With a vicious snarl on his face, John scooped up the man's weapon before firing blindly into the trees. The rapid-fire cracks seemed to echo throughout the world as he spun in random directions, unloading round after round at an enemy he could not see.
"Fucking demon bitch!" he roared. "Show your face! Come out and fight me, you coward!"
All too soon, his weapon clicked empty. In his desperation, he pulled the trigger several more times, almost as if he hoped new bullets would appear when he needed them most. When his wits returned, he dropped the empty magazine and began fumbling around Eli's torso in hopes of more ammunition.
"Do you see anything?!" he snapped to the other Project member. "Do you see her?!"
No answer came.
"Are you fucking-" he began, turning angrily to face the man. But what he saw was a corpse, sprawled on the ground with a long slice across his throat. John gaped at the man, chills crawling up his spine.
"Are you done with your temper tantrum?" a voice asked from behind him. John's heart stopped.
Shit, was all he had time to think before one last gunshot echoed against the trees. The bullet hit his lower back and passed through him, sending John collapsing to the dirt as he gasped in pain.
Joseph tried to scream, but the only sound that came out was a rattling cough. His limbs curled in on themselves as his hands clasped around his midsection. He could feel the blood leaking from his stomach and see it staining the road beneath him.
"Don't you worry too much, John," the Deputy said casually as she walked up to his prone form. "Wherever you're going, I'll make sure that the rest of your family is there soon so you won't be lonely. Jacob. Faith." She dug the toe of her boot under his chest and callously rolled him over onto his back. "And Joseph. Especially Joseph." The Deputy, the greatest enemy that the Project at Eden's Gate had ever confronted, knelt by his side. Her mouth was slightly curved into a tiny smile as she reached for his neck and grabbed the leather cord he wore. The one holding the key to the Holland Valley bunker. Just as she was pulling it taut, John reached up and clasped her wrist. He smiled at her as a dribble of blood fell from the corner of his lips.
"What if Joseph is right?" he gasped. "Have you ever stopped to consider that?" He hacked out a bloody laugh. "I mean, look at the state of the world. Look at who's in charge. You think you're the hero?" He shook his head. "You're nothing of the sort. You're…" His mouth opened wide in another laugh. "I see it in your eyes. You don't care about Hope County. You don't care about its people. You don't even care about yourself!" With a surge of effort, he reached up with his other hand, clawing at the Deputy's shoulder. Her expression twinged slightly in annoyance, but there was no other reaction. "I can tell…" John spat. "I've seen it in the look in your eyes." He began to laugh, laugh like he had lost his mind. Perhaps he had. "You're just like me! You're just as fucked up as I am! You're just as much of a monster!"
For the barest moment, there was a pause as something unfamiliar flashed in the Deputy's face.
Then she punched him in the chest, driving every last drop of air from his lungs in a rattling hiss of saliva and blood. Her frozen eyes, just as merciless as ever, stared down at him impassively.
"You talk too much," she said simply. As John's strength faded, she pried his hand off her wrist and took the key from him, snapping the leather cord. As she stood up, John glanced down at something protruding from his chest.
It was a knife. His own knife.
For some reason, he used his last bit of breath to choke out a laugh before laying his head back onto the dirt. As his perception of the world began to shrink and blur, he dimly heard the sound of the ATV's engine turning over before the bike drove away. Darkness encroached on his vision as his lips smiled for the last time.
"Just… like… me…" he rasped, barely over a whisper. "Just… like…"