Chapter 28: If Your Right Hand Causes You to Sin


4 Days Later

Narrative Continued by Nathan Porter

I swear I don't think I had ever run as fast or as far in all my life. For 3 or 4 days (I think) after that night, we were literally Running! I understood the urgency, believe me, I saw it and even felt it myself, at least at first. There still comes a point where you end up thinking it might be a good idea to get there alive. What's even more surprising is that Paul was at the head the entire time, even in front of Graham when he knew where we were going. I totally understood what was driving him, but I didn't think Paul even had that in him. No offence to my LT, but he was on the border of 40 and although he was still pretty dang fit for a guy his age, I remember him and Doyle on that little hike out to the Totem a few months back. It seemed like they were asking to stop every 30 minutes on that trip, not this one though.

Our breaks in the night to sleep were only four hours until it was back to sprinting through the wastes once again until the sun rose and then lowered again, and not one person fell out of line. I understood Paul's determination, I understood Herbein's, and I even understood Ramos', but seeing everyone else including that kid Duncan keep up without any complaint was a sight on its own. Unfortunately, it was at least those first three days after setting out that I rapidly lost my original determination. It didn't help with my motivation that I was at the tail end of our group traversing the wastes and it was during these days that I could only think about one thing that Wasn't what happened to Michelle, Sarah Parsons, Mr. Padilla, or Herbein's men.

I completely forgot about that Fancy Lad Snack Cakes eating competition at the barracks I won the night before Michelle came in with those rangers. On any other trek across the wastes, I was leading at the front since objectively, I was probably the fittest guardsman of New Canaan except for maybe Salgado. After 46 Fancy Lads the night before setting out with Paul, Graham, Herbein, and the others, I was doing my absolute best to keep up as the last man in the group while the pain in my gut removed any possibility of being driven by the great injustice fueling the others onward.

It was during this sprint through the wastes and the horrific pain in my guts from so much sugar that I finally understood God's problem with human gluttony firsthand. Or at least how He can punish you for the sin.

In the end, all those pre-war miniature cakes had gone through my system, and after 3 days of little to no sleep, we had sprinted a distance that had taken Michelle and her missionary group nearly a week and a half to arrive at. Arriving at the scene, the vultures flapped their enormous wings and took off as Paul and the rest of us stepped up. What the rangers had told me, John, Rhynes, and Carl, and what John had told Graham, Paul, and then everyone else, was a scene everyone in this group had seen a dozen times… But it had been a scene that hadn't happened to a group of New Canaanites in at least a few years.

It was clear that Mr. Padilla had the group encamp at this wash for a couple days since they should have been nearing the canyon passes to the Zion valley by the time the rangers would have discovered them. Perhaps Mr. Padilla got lost off the trail, or wanted to make sure he was taking Michelle and Sarah the right way since here they were. Here we were, around a week and a half after the rangers gathered the attack took place, and the remnants of Sarah, Herbein's men, and Mr. Padilla were beyond recognition. Picked apart by the vultures and other creatures of the wastes, the little camp of three tents in that little desert wash were torn and burnt to oblivion with everything they packed scattered all over the place. As horrible as it was to see a camp of our friends so destroyed, the only solace for me, and probably for Herbein, Ramos, and the families who would hear the news is that the remains were too destroyed for any of us to know for sure if they suffered before they died. It's always a good idea to assume the best if you're faced with the unknown.

Still, what the rangers pieced together after finding Michelle, and what she told them, told some of us the truth in what was done here. I heard from the rangers directly, and if what Michelle told the rangers was only partly true, the image of that camp gave me back the determination I lost by my actions the night before this trip. It was the same determination that kept Paul an unstoppable silent force, following or leading that equally silent and unstoppable force in our group, Mr. Graham.

The wrapped man led Duncan, our other best tracker away from the destroyed camp, taking Paul to the site where the rangers found his daughter somewhere further south off the dirt road, and the rest of us stood by to pray over the dead and bury their remains. During this time, I let the camp seep its message into my mind as I comforted Ramos, prayed for the dead, prayed for the families back home, and then assisted the rest in burying those remains. All was silent in the minutes after we were done, many of us stuck looking at the sticks we planted as gravestones until Duncan, Graham, and Paul returned to the camp. The latter ordering us with bloodshot eyes and dried tears on his dust speckled face;

"Follow."

Gathering our things in an instant, we set off again, and in no more than three hours, night was falling as we neared the place Duncan and Graham were leading us. Just as the glimmer of the sun setting in the west was nearly gone, we opened fire on the raiders at their camp outside an abandoned old ranch off the crumbling highway. In less than 5 minutes, the sun had disappeared, six raiders lay dead and scattered across the dusty yard, and one survivor was being pinned to the ground for interrogation. John had told us to search the bodies for the locket Paul told us about while Paul himself barked out his questions to the man bleeding out in the grips of Lt. Doyle and Joshua Graham. No locket, and none of these raiders even had the pistol Paul said he gave to Michelle. After the dead were searched, Herbein took over the interrogation and by this time our whole posse learned that the rest of this group's gang was scattered all over the area.

The survivor was bound by his arms to one of the wooden support columns inside the ranch house while we all made our sleeping arrangements and drifted off for another short 4 hours. Not a word was said this night, and waking up around 1 or 2a.m. we packed up and left while the wastes around was nearly pitch black and bitterly cold. Stepping out into those winds, I noticed the raider's silhouette was only kept in place by the binds while the head hung limp. It was easy enough to believe that the survivor bled out while the majority of us slept, and nobody admitted to killing him or even acknowledging his death as we left into the wastes.

A few hours later, and still in the dead of night, Paul had taken us to another raider outpost several miles down the highway. Maneuvering in the dark, fueled by hatred of those who harmed our own, and aided by the sleeplessness of those past days, even the raiders assisted us in their own demise. 2 raiders on watch were bound, gagged, stabbed, and thrown over the edge of the overpass before they knew what happened. Their bodies thudded to the ground, awaking their friends who charged out into the light of the moon and their campfires for us to pour lead on them from above. 10 more killed in only a few short minutes, no survivors this time, but still the bodies were checked, and still no locket or pistol.

The survivor at the ranch didn't know where the rest of the gang or his leader held up, and there wasn't anyone alive at the overpass raider fort to tell us anything else. This lack of direction didn't seem to affect Paul, or anyone. After the bodies were checked, it was still too dark for Graham or Duncan to do any more tracking. So, without any leads from survivors on where to go this time, Graham took the forefront this time, taking us out into the darkness of the wastes once again. Our destination: any place we can turn into a raider's graveyard.

After a short stay with the ones at the overpass and after another two or so hours of charging aimlessly through the dark, the sun was lighting the sky just beneath the mountains in the east, and all of our guns sat perched on stones, aimed at that group of four raiders walking past a toppled electricity tower. The four in that patrol collapsed to the ground in the few seconds of hail from our 14 guns and lay still. Once again, no survivors when we charged forth and searched the four additional raider corpses added to our toll. Again still, no locket, no pistol, but the pockets of one of the filthy rats contained a few maps.

The maps in the patrol leader's breast pocket marked the location of several patrol routes for the gang, several scouting outposts including the ranch we took the previous evening as well as the overpass fort. There were a few more, but each patrol or route was spaced miles apart, and the Xs appeared to indicate sites of successful raids on the region's traffic. No exact mention of tribute or who they killed where, but there was a smaller X in the spot of the map that looked closest to where Mr. Padilla had the girls and escorts set up camp. After this, the only thing that Paul, Graham, Doyle, or Herbein could see was the circled location on the map seeming to indicate where they needed to send their tribute. All we had to do was follow the patrol route, or more specifically, follow the line of ancient electrical towers going a few miles west.

With the sun just beginning to show itself over the east, we charged west, straight to this raider group's headquarters just outside the town of… I don't remember, the raider's map didn't say. I know it was a little ways northwest from the pre-war ruins of Saint George though.

Maybe a little more than an hour after leaving the sight of the patrol we killed, we came down on the raider stronghold at an old shopping mall from the east. The sun sat just above those mountains at our back, blinding the rats who couldn't fire back accurately at their new morning alarm, and I honestly don't remember a whole lot more.

Between so much sleeplessness, so much adrenaline, so much exhaustion, so much gunfire, and so many other things, I know I wasn't the only one feeling that way since we first opened up on the ranch. The past 12 hours felt like it was just nonstop killing, and between all those things I mentioned above alongside so much more, much of that was a giant blur. Especially this last fight at the shopping mall the raiders fortified. Strange as it may sound, I only remember this specific engagement in pieces, and stranger still, I only remember those moments because at some point during the fight a strange fact hit me… It was Sunday.

For whatever reason, I remember dumping the magazine of my Thompson, tossing it deliberately onto part of the asphalt I knew I would be able to find it later, and found myself leaping over the broken barricade to move towards the cars out front of the pawn shop when a tune hit me. Running low to those cars with Hudson and Ray while Paul, John, Carl, and Duncan gave suppressive fire, I found myself mouthing the words to a song I heard on a recovered record one of the boys found a few years back,

"… Your Cross, my Freedom,
Your stripes, my healing,
All praise King Jesus,
Glory to God in Heaven.
Your blood, still speaking,
Your love, still reaching,
All praise King Jesus,
Glory to God forever…"

As the tune played in my head, just then I realized it was Sunday, and I wondered what songs the worship team back home was singing as more bullets whipped past my head from the structures in front.

It was Sunday, and even in the midst of everything, I was so mentally elsewhere due to so many factors I can't feel like I can describe the whole thing adequately enough.

All I can say is that from my brief glimpses of the moment is how everyone back home was probably just finishing up worship at the same time I put that burst of bullets into the chest of the man in the broken gas mask charging me with an axe. Pastor Duvall was likely beginning morning announcements to the congregation when Lt. Doyle stomped on the temple of that bleeding raider with the two hatchets. Pastor Duvall was probably telling the congregation what happened to Mr. Padilla's missionary group and the whole Parsons family were starting to tear up at the reminder when the 20-year-old Ramos plugged that raider in the window of the electronics store four times. My buddy in Doyle's group, Preston Lockwood, was probably wiping his wife's tears for her unfortunate younger sister, Sarah, when that raider in the window impaled himself on the shattered glass as his body fell limp in the burst of gunfire. Bishop Mordecai probably took the podium and started speaking his condolences to the affected families directly when Paul jammed his knife into the neck of that raider with the sledgehammer, dragging the raider and himself to the ground. By the middle of Mordecai's prayer for the families and recovery of Michelle, Hudson chucked a grenade into the window of the store sheltering the last holdouts. The boys in the towers were sitting heads bowed, nodding in agreement of the Bishop's words to God and imagining their own justice if they could join us in the wild as the grenade bursts, sending glass and debris into the dead raiders scattered across the parking lot. Some back home in the Temple were probably raising their hands up to God as tears most definitely streamed down their faces when the debris of the explosion rained down on all of us blood and sand covered New Canaanites sheltering behind cars and barricades. People in the pews behind the Parsons family would find it in themselves to place hands on the grieving Parsons family in the final words of the prayer while the concussed, mutilated, and bleeding survivors of the blast inside the shelter begin to limp and crawl out. Then, the concussed and shrapnel filled raiders collapse to the ground in a hail of gunfire as they emerge into the daylight just as Bishop Mordecai finishes his prayer with the word "Amen." Finally, once everyone has taken a seat back down in the pews and Bishop Mordecai smoothly insinuates that now would be a good time to open Bibles to Matthew 5, I look through the settling dust and smoke to see Mr. Duncan Schmitt scalping one of the perforated raiders while the voice of John sounds in the near distance;

"Keep checking for that locket, boys!"

I look back down for a split second at the mangled face of the raider beneath me, see his shirtless chest with six bleeding bullet holes and innumerable wounds from the flying glass, and don't see anywhere he could have hidden a silver locket or miniature .45 pistol. I immediately turn my attention back to the kid as more of the dust settles, shouting,

"What in His name are you doing, Duncan!?"

I step urgently over to the kid as the rest of our group fans out to search bodies in the settling dust. The kid looks up from his half-completed work with a face of irritation beneath the wide brim of his flat black hat to answer me;

"What? Guy we passed on the road two days ago said the folks at 89 City were paying for scalps."

The kid began resuming his work on the scalp, and it was then that I noticed Duncan had a whole bundle of scalps tied to his belt from our fights earlier that morning before sunrise. Only a haze of smoke and dust hovered in the area around the scene of battle, and everyone was searching bodies when I told the kid automatically, "He said they were paying for 80s scalps."

When the last word left my lips, Duncan was looking at me again, still more annoyed than anything as he said, "Can You tell the difference between these guys and 80s?"

His answer left me wondering why I was even upset about his action or the bundle of scalps on his belt in the first place. I couldn't say anything as I thought about this, and Duncan continued his short work on the scalp before tearing off the rest and exposing a bloody skull. The kid stood himself upright, leveled his hat, and began to tie the newest clump of hair and bloody skin to his belt when he added casually, "… I already checked for the locket on this one if that's what you're mad about…"

I wasn't mad about that, and I knew inside why I was mad at his scalping even if I couldn't put it into words for the young man in that moment. He dusted himself off, saw that I was still at a loss for words, and added something else I couldn't refute in words even if my mind could, "… The least these sacks of garbage could do is compensate us for the ammo we had to spend on them."

The kid smacked the front of my vest in a playful sort of way, smiled, and began walking towards another killed raider. The smoke and dust had settled, the haze was gone, and still the search was underway when John called out, "Anyone find them!?..." A momentary silence hovered around the area before John called out again, "… Keep searching, looks like we found the chief though."

There were still plenty of bodies to search through, and I began to walk towards another bleeding corpse when I saw Paul standing over the body of a giant one nearby. The killed giant wore a gas mask with a long tube apparatus attached to the snout and the back facing me had a large wood and rebar construction strapped to it that looked like it was broken in his collapse (It wasn't uncommon for raider chiefs to wear such totems on their backs to make them appear bigger or more intimidating). Paul stood over the large raider, staring down at it with a look of disgust I couldn't make out from where I stood. My LT hadn't moved, even after I was done searching the killed raider below me. He was frozen and I began to move to the next corpse, but both Paul and I turned at the same time when the voice of Herbein sounded in the distance between a collection of crumbling single-story homes and the shopping mall;

"Paul! Doyle! Got two runners here."

Approaching us down the road was Herbein, Graham, Clay, and Klyto pushing two raiders along dressed like their friends in a mix of prewar and tribal clothes, bedecked in leather pouches and armor of steel and wood. The one on the left walked with a limp and both were covered in so much dust and traces of gunpowder that they looked just as grotesque as us if they weren't hobbling along between the guns of Graham and our brothers. Both men were hurled to the asphalt before their dead Chief and the feet of Paul with their hands bound behind their backs. Paul lorded over the young raider in front of him, Graham standing behind the near kid, while the older one with the limp had the frame of Herbein standing behind him gun at the ready.

The rest of us congregated around the captives and studied the two as Paul knelt down in front of the kid. It really was strange to see the unique contrast between even these two intact raiders. The older had a sneer on his face and a near jovial expression behind the eyes I could see even through the sunglasses. There on his knees protected by decayed cargo pants and steel shin guards, his waist was wrapped in a thick belt full of pouches and canteens for the road. Many scars were across his exposed torso only partially covered by his bodily grime, a leather harness, and a broad eagle either painted or tattooed across his chest. His neck had several chains or necklaces around it, each necklace decorated with beads, bullet casings, human fingers, and ears. He looked around at each of the dusty New Canaanites congregating around him behind the safety of a pair of intact sunglasses while the glimmering sunrise reflected faintly off his bald head. In a sense, he looked just like any other raider in this clan except most of the others had hair before Duncan did what he did to them. In the end, the two looked like any other raider who inhabited the Utah Wilderness, and the look on this older one's face confirmed as much when his lips curled into an ever so faint smile as the rest of us came to a stop around the two.

The younger raider on the other hand looked nearly identical to his older comrade beside him but something was different about him besides the greasy light hair swept back behind his head. The kid, who looked about his late teens refused to meet the face of Paul, his head hung, so dusty but so scarless, so young, so… something… It didn't look like the kid was regretful, humiliated, or anything like that, but he didn't look nearly as "content" as the older raider. I continued to look at that hung head of the young man, and I frankly don't know what the word was. However, a brief glance to my right showed Duncan on the other side of Ramos and for a second, I wondered if Duncan had a doppelganger or long-lost twin given how much the raider kid looked like him. The two looked about the same age, and the young raider was still just as horrible to look at as any one of his killed comrades, but still there was something in that face as Paul kneeled across from him. This something was something that Paul couldn't see when he saw what was around the raider boy's neck.

Just like his older comrade beside him, the young raider's neck was decorated with several necklaces made of all sorts of trash intermixed with decayed ears and fingers. However, the ghastly decorations only made the silver little chain hidden inside the mix of necklaces stand out even more. Paul crouched himself down a bit lower, moved a couple severed ears aside and grabbed the silver chain, holding the locket in his twitching hand as he asked the kid cooly as could be given the look on his face;

"Where did you get this?"

The kid's head stayed hung and unmoving, and a couple seconds of silence passed as Paul's hand twitched a bit more before removing the chain from the kid's neck in one swift jerk. Paul stood himself up, still staring down at the boy's hung head,

"Search him."

Joshua Graham pressed his pistol to the back of the raider kid's head while his other hand searched the rear pockets and satchel on the kid's back. After a moment, Joshua Graham removed a glimmering little .45 pistol with a shortened barrel from the satchel and tossed it to Paul without a word. Paul caught it, opened the chamber, locked the slide back, and inspected it for a few seconds before stopping suddenly. He looked down at the kid once again who still hadn't moved a millimeter and Paul's face twisted to a rage I hadn't ever seen despite the chaos of the violent morning as he stuffed one of his spare magazines into Michelle's gifted pistol. In a fraction of a second, Paul released the slide, and the weapon gave a loud *Clack* as he grabbed the kid's neck and made the boy meet his eyes.

All of us saw the kid's face much more clearly when Paul raised the boy's face, and once again, there was something in those eyes and that face that we couldn't place when Paul pressed Michelle's pistol to the boy's forehead. The kid's face sat almost devoid of all emotion whatsoever. He didn't look angry, sad, scared, regretful, shocked, or in the least bit smug like his older comrade, all the kid's face said to me was "ok" if that makes sense. The raider kid's eyes met Paul's, unmoving and empty, but there was still that "something" that none of us could read behind those eyes. This was something that Paul especially couldn't see when he felt Michelle's locket in his left hand, stuck between his hand and the raider kid's neck. And he really couldn't see it as he adjusted his grip on his daughter's gifted pistol in his right hand when he had the one who rendered his girl to that tragic state on both knees before him. When the pistol was firmly pressed to the boy's head, Paul unleashed a beast within as he barked the question unlike before;

"Where did you get this?"

The kid's face sat blank as he looked into Paul's eyes, "Just found it on some girl-"

Before Paul or the kid could say anything else, all our eyes, including the raider kid's went to the older raider at the sound of a short outburst of laughter. I saw the older raider beside the boy now wearing a broad grin he wasn't even attempting to conceal anymore as he stifled his laughter in an instant and cackled, "'Just some girl' says the kid!? Ha!..."

Doyle looked like he was about to silence the older raider, but a glance at Paul's face told him not to as the older raider added with that gold-toothed smile, "… She wasn't 'just some girl', misters. She was the kid here's first time-"

The kid whipped his head towards his friend and immediately shouted in a demonic way that would rival any of our worsts, "-Shut your Fuckin mouth! Motherfucker!"

We all focused on the older, then the younger, then the older, back and forth as the older raider continued to chuckle lightly to himself. The older raider brushed off the words of his younger comrade and looked Paul straight in his eyes behind those shades, saying to his comrade, "What? It ain't like they're letting us out of this anyway? Look around you, kid! Recognize that corpse right next to you? Looks a lot like Laz don't it? Hahaha-"

Doyle silenced the older for the moment by a sharp crack on his head with the grip of his pistol as the kid screamed at his partner full of rage, "SHUT UP!"

Paul turned the kid's face back to meet his own, "You wanna tell me what he was talking about?"

Now the kid's eyes were full of fire, but fire that wasn't aimed at Paul as much as it was aimed at the one bound and kneeling by his side. The fire in those eyes grew as his comrade recovered from the blow and began cackling to himself once more.

"I didn't do anything to her!" said the kid full of rage as the pistol was pressed further into his forehead. The laughter from the man beside him grew louder and the flame in the kid's eyes grew even more.

When the kid spoke the last word of his lie, his older comrade beside him immediately said, "What did Laz keep telling you? Just own it, Haha! Face your death with some balls!..." the fire and rage in the kid's eyes remained and something about his comrade's words kept him silent, even as the older raider turned his attention between Paul and the kid;

"… Sir, if the kid won't, I will… ungrateful shit. That's the thanks you give Laz for taking you under his wing?..." Pressing the pistol even further into the kid's head, Paul turned his eyes to the older raider who went on, "… Kid was the only virgin we'd ever met out here, Ha! That bitch was a gift to You, boy! A gift from Laz! He aint never done something like that for the rest of us.. I mean, the rest of us had her too, but Laz gave you first go and let you keep her as your prize bitch afterw-"

That was all the older raider could get out. I saw the tears streaming down Paul's face and watched the gun tremble violently against the younger's head when the words of the older were silenced by a short but terrible scream. Joshua Graham had pushed Herbein out of the way and did something to the older raider's bound hands that I couldn't see or understand at the moment. I didn't know what was done to cause the silence, the tears of pain or face of ungodly rage on the older raider's face at the time, and I still wasn't sure what was done as I heard Graham mutter, "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off… but you don't deserve that, do you?" It was almost admirable to hear the older raider's short yelp get channeled into pure hate and near "amusement" after he was momentarily silenced by Joshua Graham, and none of us knew exactly what the wrapped man had done before we turned back to the raider kid… I'd understand when I saw the twisted hands behind his corpse and saw the wrench lying in the sand where he previously knelt a bit later.

When Graham was done, and the raider knelt there paralyzed in pain, shock, and anger. Herbein and John looked at the face of Paul transfixed on the younger, and dragged the older raider to the spot beside Paul. I wanted to look at what was done to the older's hands, but I, like Paul and everyone else, was completely focused on the young raider, and the situation was even harder to look away from when Paul pointed the gun at the older's neck telling the kid in a voice of barely restrained emotion;

"You tell me everything you did to my baby girl, and I will make your punishment a lot quicker than his, boy."

Paul pulled back the hammer on Michelle's pistol, pressing it further into the older's neck, and the younger looked his partner in the eye. The fire in that kid's eyes grew more and more as the older recovered from Graham's punishment enough to begin lightly cackling again. The kid looked as though he would personally pull the trigger on his partner's neck if he didn't have his hands bound behind his back and over a dozen armed men around him. When the cackling became louder, Paul was frozen, staring at the kid, and the gun in his hand began to shake once more when the older raider spoke for his younger comrade again,

"Oh shit? Figured it was something like that. She was your daughter? Told you, you should'a killed her, kid. Well anyway, thanks Mister, she was a lot of fun."

I could see more tears trickle down Paul's face and the gun was now shaking violently as it stood pressed to the older's neck and that cackling increased in spite of the interruptions from the pain in his hands.

Graham, Herbein, John, and Doyle were looking at Paul's face from behind the younger raider, and all at once they all offered what the rest of us on Paul's side were thinking;

"Want me to do the honors, Paul?"

Paul was still frozen in rage at these men for what they did to his baby girl back home and inconsolable despair for his daughter's tragic condition upon return. Paul simply couldn't do anything. Paul couldn't respond even if he wanted to as the gun continued to shake in his trembling hand and the laughter from the older continued. After maybe two seconds since the question was asked, the frame of Duncan appeared on my immediate left just behind the older raider's laughing and kneeling body, saying without almost any emotion whatsoever.

"I got this."

I kept my eyes on the face of the young raider, but saw in my peripherals what the raider boy watched in full horror and clarity. Duncan pulled the older raider onto his back, slid his combat knife across the abdomen, reached in, pulled out a handful of intestines that he draped over the raider's groin, and punctured the throat before the older had a chance to let out a scream. All done in just under 10 seconds, the youngest guardsman did the thing in a completely machine-like way. It was like he did what he did to a gecko or other wasteland critter in prep for a cooking pot, and by second 15, the kid was carefully carving off the top of the raider's bald head while the older raider was still alive… The kicking of the older raider's frantic feet, those wide shocked eyes, and the gurgling of blood pouring and sputtering out of his punctured neck would continue in my lower peripherals for the rest of the event till he finally succumbed to death. By second 20, Duncan had stood himself up, wiped his hands on his dusty cargo pants and was placing the new scalp in his travel satchel. It appeared as if nobody even noticed the whole thing as eyes remained fixed on the raider kid who most certainly did.

Silence reigned intermixed with the sound of a sporadic convulsion from the intestine and scalpless tracheotomy victim, and Paul moved his gun back to the head of the young man still frozen in rage and panic at what his comrade experienced in such a short timeframe.

When the gun was in place, the kid finally turned away from his convulsing friend and met the eyes of Paul. My Lt. wiped his eyes on his sleeve and the second the kid's eyes met Paul's the boy exploded in a mix of tremendous fear and rage as he seemed to fight savagely against the tears beginning to trickle down his own face;

"I'm SORRY! I didn't know she was your daughter!?"

The small tears and untethered wrath in the boy's tone and face seemed so say he was trying his absolute hardest to Not be sorry for what he did, but there was something, regardless of how small and deep inside that regretted everything he'd done in his life to land him in this position.

Paul pressed the gun to the boy's head a bit harder, replying without any emotion at all, "Didn't stop you though."

Again, the kid spoke in his words and face how there was a feeling inside he was fighting very hard, but hated how he was fighting it in the first place;

"I know! I'm sorry! The whole gang is dead! You win! Fucking kill me if you want, but I at least left her alive! Laz killed the other one after they were done with her..."

Every one of us stayed dead silent, no thoughts at all as the boy spoke. The older raider's legs only twitched now, and the lake of blood around his almost corpse had finally grown large enough to touch Paul's boot.

I could just barely see Ramos in the peripherals on my right, seeing the tears silently trickle down his rage-filled eyes and emotionless face as he stared at the young raider. Sarah Parsons was dead, thanks to this gang, and Michelle was forever defiled. The raider kid was right though, if it wasn't for him leaving Michelle in the brush off the caravan trail, she would have likely never been found by the rangers, and her body would have been too destroyed by creatures to identify… Although, it was only hindsight that would tell us this. In the moment, every one of us were all to blinded by the light of day after such a dark night to see the blood we were standing in.

In probably any other circumstance, this was the moment where we would seriously consider showing the young raider boy the light. We would show him his wrong, teach him the right, confine him, help him, and thank him for doing some kind of minuscule good despite so much bad. We would help him grow, help him repent, and help him turn from the ways that had consumed him for so long, the same way God does with us every day no matter the sin. The same thing we did for the wrapped man standing behind the boy… This was different though. At least it felt that way. The wound was far too fresh, and the effects of the sinner's actions were too close to the victim, too painful to the one everyone, especially my Lieutenant loved. It happened to our most innocent and most loving.

Through another torrent of restrained emotion, Paul answered the young raider's words, "You left her for dead on the side of the road in the blistering heat, the freezing nights, unprotected from the creatures and monsters out here…" The raider continued to battle his inner regret, appearing to be silently hoping the rage that made him accepted by his killed friends would win out as Paul spoke his judgment, "… You and your friends raped and defiled my little girl. Neither she nor any of her friends, my family, did anything to you to justify that even if such a thing was possible to justify. She was my daughter, Sarah Parsons, Mr. Padilla, and those men who protected them were my family too-"

The kid screamed full of terrible hate and overwhelming regret for his life's actions into the eyes of Paul, knowing full well the gun was still pressed to his forehead, "I'M SORRY!"

Paul's voice took on the same rage as the boy's, the older raider's, or any of the other killed littering the grounds of this little fortress, "… Did you and your gang really think you could do the things you do and there wouldn't be SOME kind of reckoning!?"

Once more, the boy screamed full of anger and a bitter guilt he really seemed to wish he didn't have, "I don't know! I'm SORRY!"

Then, Paul racked the pistol, sending the bullet already in the chamber flying out of the weapon before returning the muzzle right back to the ring on the boy's forehead as Paul screamed back, "… Well consider this that reckoning and I'll pray you FUCKING BURN!-"

*BANG*

Immediately, the boy's head jolted as a red mist shot out the back and he fell on his face before the feet of Paul. In no more than a millisecond after the young raider's head fell to the blood-stained asphalt, Paul threw Michelle's gifted pistol away from him and he collapsed to his knees letting loose a tremendous sob over the corpse of the boy. The rest of us stayed silent as the grave, not knowing what to say, do, or even think as Paul wept before the corpse of the young raider while the older one finally lay completely still. None of us could move, unsure what to think as Paul's sobs echoed into the morning breeze, and the feeling of that rage, righteous or otherwise, cooled in that same breeze after the deed was done. Several long long seconds passed, and the scene around us began to come into focus while Paul cried into his clenched hands, "I'm so sorry, Lord. Please, release me from this, I beg You…"


Paul, as good a man as he was, could not give mercy to the one who directly harmed his little girl he so cared for, and not one of us blamed him. For we all probably would have fired the bullet even if he couldn't bring himself to do it. What happened to Michelle, to Sarah, to our missionary, to Herbein's men at the hands of this gang was something we and so many others back home would demand punishment for. Perhaps it wasn't our place to offer this particular form of justice, and I think the sobs of Paul made him realize something the rest of us perhaps hadn't picked up on the way he had after pulling the trigger.

"I don't know! I'm SORRY", "I'M SORRY!", "I know! I'm sorry", the cries of the raider continued to ring in my mind… Looking back, even seconds later as Paul cried before the corpses, the raider kid did sound genuinely remorseful, and although I wouldn't say I wished it had turned out another way, hearing the sounds of that raider boy made me look at our own kid, Duncan.

Duncan Schmitt was probably the first one of us surrounding Paul to move after the deed was done, even if it was only a step backward as he brushed his bloody and dusty hands on his pants again. I got to thinking about him and the raider kid. After what he did to the older raider so expertly, and remembering the collection of scalps dangling from his belt, I started to feel the only difference between him and his executed raider twin was how one found a group of raiders to encourage his violent tendencies, where the other found New Canaan to suppress it… Or at least use it in a more righteous fashion.

But was what we did righteous? The sobs of Paul seemed to say otherwise, but slowly, ever so slowly, the nearly two dozen raider corpses surrounding us in this stronghold appeared to take on a new form.

Paul had every reason to do what he did and to feel what he felt, but there was something in the boy's face when he was alive, and in Paul's sobs, that spoke something into the world around this scene of massacre. It spoke of failure of some kind. Paul's cries said he didn't do the right thing for that boy, the righteous answer didn't come to Paul fast enough even if he was capable of acting upon it, and nobody in his shoes could have waited for it either. Looking back to that day, I think I've come to understand what Paul did immediately after pulling the trigger:

Paul had shot the boy not out of justice or righteousness, even if this type of righteousness was the correct response to the boy and the gang's actions. No, Paul's immediate regret, and his promise to pray that the kid burns showed he did what he did solely out of anger, or wrath. He did it in sin, and I think the rest of us knew this too even if we weren't able to articulate it in mind or word. The sobs continued to echo throughout the world around this massacre and words of Paul began to make a bit more sense as more time passed and more clarity set in, "I'm so sorry, Lord. Please, release me from this, I beg You…"

Release me from this anger, this hatred, and this unbearable despair that reduced me to this: a vengeance fueled executioner.

Justified or not, Paul would be haunted by what he did to the raider boy for a long time. Some would later ask upon hearing about the incident, why he felt bad for doing what he did to the one who defiled his daughter, but those people just don't get it. Only he would truly understand the answer: He had lost himself. He let his wrath get the better of him.

When the moment and the immediate aftermath was over however, I think the only question left for him, as well as all of us, was; "What to do about that wrath?"

For whatever reason, it was while I thought about this question that I thought of another part from that song I referred to earlier:

"Oh blood and tears, how can it be? There's a God who weeps. There's a God who bleeds…"

Paul knelt there in the pool of blood, staring at his hands, the hands that sent the misguided ignorant young man to judgment, and his sobs slowed. The rest of us, his brothers, his sons, stood all around him, and I don't think I was the only one to silently pray that Paul remembers there was One who knew exactly what he was feeling. That One knew Paul would fail, would succumb to this state, and One who'd be so sad at what Paul had done, but would still pick him up. Paul must have remembered this as his sobs slowed completely to a stop. He continued to breath heavy breaths and wipe his face before the corpse of the boy, and I thought about one last part of that song;

"Oh praise the One, Who would reach for me. Sing hallelujah to the Son of suffering."

All I can say is that I think there was a reason the first thing Paul thought to do upon wiping his tears and standing himself up was open the silver locket he had clenched in his grip the whole time. After a few seconds and a few more heavy breaths, he closed it, wiped his face on his sleeve, turned around, and handed it to me saying without looking me in the eyes; "Take this for a moment, will you, Nathan?"

I took the locket without word, and saw the tear, dirt, blood, and smoke-streaked face of Paul walk out of the ring of his brothers towards the rising sun as I opened the locket to read the tiny words inside the silver heart;

"I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Matthew 28:20

I read those words, and saw my brothers slowly begin to disperse around the area strewn in the bodies of the dead and saw Paul facing the rising sun when another verse from the book that guided our lives came to mind;

"My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand." John 10:29

Paul felt he had fallen, and I think the rest of us did too when we truly saw how many killed there were surrounding us, but we were still in the Father's hand. Perhaps this was the reason that not One of us in the whole group suffered anything more than a bruise or scraped knees despite fighting so much over the course of 12 hours. Between the ranch, the overpass fort, the patrol, to the gang at the shopping mall, we had taken the lives of so many wicked unrepentant men, and as strange as it was, after it was all over, I thought how each one had a mother and father at some point. I thought of Paul's sobs as I watched him stare into the sunrise, and thought how each person we killed was at one point, an infant incapable of hurting literally anyone… But then again, so was Michelle, and Sarah, and the others.

It's easy to get lost in the thoughts that come to you when your mind catches up to you after a fight like this whole morning was, but the thoughts would stay inside as the calm after this storm set in. For now though, the rest of us collected ourselves, some began to quietly talk amongst themselves, and I began to try and think about what was next now that it was all over and that we were still in the Father's hand. I turned from Paul at the sound of a rustling behind me, saw Graham pick up the little .45 pistol Paul had cast aside. The wrapped man put the weapon in his belt behind his back and met eyes with me.

All he said was, "I'm going to hold onto this for him," and stepped away.

I followed Graham with my eyes until he came to a stop facing the way he and Herbein came with the two raiders, and the murmuring from the guardsmen around me grew a little louder. I saw Doyle, Herbein, and John step up to Paul and ask him calmly,

"You ready to head back, Paul?"

After such a chaotic few days, I was ready to go home, and the feeling hit me like a brick as I think it did us all. The moment was over, our task was accomplished regardless of how it would continue to affect us, and the only way to go was forward with repentance in our heart and Him in our vision.

Still thinking about what was done in the past 12 hours, the murmuring grew louder and allowed for a sense of normalcy we all couldn't be more grateful for when surrounded by so many dead. I felt a presence behind me, saw Paul, Doyle, Graham, Herbein and the others begin to walk north, and turned to see Duncan. The two of us followed the others, the beginning of a slow walk back home. Minds stuck in what we'd done to so many people this morning alone, but still we were moving forward. I glanced at the bundle of scalps hanging from the kids' belt, then to his face, and as the walk home continued on, asked him;

"You alright, kid? Is there anything you wanna talk about?"


A/N: If anyone knows the song Nathan refers to, not only are you a cool person, but yes, I know the song breaks canon a little since it came out only recently. However, in my defense, I believe if you give worship songwriters enough time, they would eventually release a song like that since they all draw from the same well so to speak. Also the movie Silence of the Lambs is canon since it was referred to in Fallout 2 even though it came out in the 90s after the divergance... This all probably wasn't in need of mentioning anyway but hope yall enjoyed the chapter nonetheless :)