“There was no going back a long time ago,” she said. “We passed that when Daddy died trying to get you off the mountain.” She parted the blanket from the frame and looked out. John was waiting there. They had come nearly all the way up the hill now and they stood fifty feet away, twenty of them, if not more. All of them waiting on her as if they knew already she would come.
She went to Drew and placed the gun to his back and told him to turn the doorknob slow and let them out. They came out of the house linked this way, Drew out front and Mary May behind, holding the gun on Drew and walking after him.
Immediately she felt outside her element, sweat began to stand atop her skin and the feeling now was one of complete and utter terror. The line of people, women and men, constricting now upon her, all with weapons and all moving inward to encircle her as she went.
Mary May kept looking around at all the faces, half were people she knew—or thought she knew. One of her elementary school teachers was there. A couple farm workers she recognized from the bar that had not been in for years. A rancher her father had run cows for once upon a time. Many she knew by name and many more she knew by sight. These were people she might have said hello to on an afternoon, passing down the road like anyone else. She could hardly believe it. Drew had been right, Eden’s Gate was everywhere. It was a virus, attacking any that came in contact with it and like any newly discovered virus it was slowly taking over before the cure could be found. She looked ahead of her now to where John stood, waiting on her and Drew.
“What’s your plan here?” John called to her. He had done nothing but stand there and watch the two of them move toward him as Mary May pushed at Drew. Her nerves laced so tight within her that they might snap just from simply breathing.
“We’re walking out of here,” she said, still moving, but feeling at each step that the faces around her were closing in. She stopped now, seeing no opening in the crowd. She had thought in some way she’d be able to make one, that she’d wave the .38 around and they would part and she and Drew would just walk through. Now she stopped and she felt each and every one of them around her. She spun, holding the gun in her hand, keeping it low, but her eyes reaching out to each. “You know me,” she said. “Some of you knew my parents. My family. You have to see this isn’t right.”
None of them said a thing to her and she spun again, the gun held a little higher. The faces that surrounded her were unchanged, cold as stone and just as unforgiving.
“Careful now,” John said. “We’re not the killers you think we are. We’re farmers, we’re shop owners, loggers, mill workers, delivery drivers, mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. We’re like you. All of us. We’re not killers like you think, so don’t go waving that gun around. You might make someone jump who would rather not. Then where would we be?”
She held to her brother’s shoulder now and kept the gun half raised. “How did you find us?” she asked.
“Finding you would imply we lost you to begin with,” John said. He gave a wide look at the crowd around her. She was cut off now from the house and she could see each of them carried a weapon, from baseball bats to machetes to shotguns and assault rifles, they were armed not like any farmer or logger or anything else Mary May had ever seen. “Our people are always watching,” John continued. “They’re from every walk of life imaginable. Our faith is what unites us and our loyalty to one another is absolute. If someone attacks us, we attack back.”
Mary May spun again, she couldn’t trust them and there was ever the feeling of a spider crawling up her back. “I never attacked you,” she said. “I was attacked.”
“You were shown the way to Eden’s Gate. You were shown the same hospitality that all who come to Eden’s Gate are shown. You think you are different but you are not.” John looked around now, he looked to each face as if he were searching for a specific one from the crowd. “Where’s Will?” he asked now. “I assume he is out there somewhere waiting, probably putting the crosshairs of that rifle scope on me as I speak.” John looked now to the house, then he turned and looked to a far growth of pine at the edge of the property, his eyes still searching.
“You would think that we came for you, wouldn’t you? But you’ve already been marked, Mary May. You’ve already been given the blessing of ink upon your chest. All that’s left is for you to accept it.” When John brought his eyes back to her, he said, “We did not come for you, Mary May. We came for Will. He has broken the bond of faith. He has turned his back on us. On his brothers and his sisters and The Father. We’re not here for you, Mary May, we’re here for him.” John now motioned to two groups, three people in each, and they cut away. Mary May saw one group go into the house, while the other moved out across the property, keeping to the grasslands and slope below.
“Loyalty is important to us,” John said. “I think I made that clear. We live our lives by specific rules, we listen only, and we learn and take our faith in The Father seriously, and any among us that would go against that faith and The Father’s teachings, will find we do not forget and we do not forgive.”
WILL JACKED THE BOLT FORWARD ON THE RIFLE AND ADVANCED the fresh cartridge. He lay atop the rock with a view down over the roof of the house to the group below. He had wondered about the walls of tattooed skins he’d seen and now he knew. Many he recognized but many more he did not know. They were from everywhere, from this county and from places far beyond. Eden’s Gate itself was everywhere, like a disease within the system that waits in silence, dormant until asked to attack every conduit of life, sucking blood from the vein and oxygen from the lungs.
Still winded from the climb, Will had moved up the rock face with the bag on his shoulders while Jerome followed, both men trying to move as fast and silently as possible. Both knowing that any missed step would send them falling over the edge, and any loosened rock would bring the attention of those below, and then in that moment they might wish they had fallen to begin with.
Now Will lay atop the rock trying to still his breath as he looked down at those below through the scope. He could see Mary May down there. He could see Drew before her and about ten feet farther on he saw John. At this distance, it was an easy shot and though Will could not tell what they were talking about, he kept his finger on the trigger, the safety already pushed forward, ready at any hint of danger to take a shot. The chaos this might cause was the only way Will could see now that Mary May might escape. But he hesitated. He could not just pull the trigger. He had done it before but he had done it out of fear and in self-defense. This would be simply killing and he did not want to be that man. He was not that cold-blooded and he didn’t want to be. He ran the scope around the circle of people and watched their every move, and he saw in them his own face and his own former desires.
A group of three was sent into the house and then another three were sent out and away from the larger group. Will moved the scope and followed this second group as they ran perpendicular to the house then into the larger darkness. The fire was still burning down at the base of the property and strange shadows were cast here and there that moved one way or another depending on the height and width of flame.
Will watched this group move and then, when he lost them among the far trees, he was quick to run the scope back to John and Mary May. Will called over his shoulder to Jerome, “Those three that went into the trees will likely come out and around on us in the next few minutes. Be ready with the shotgun. If they find us we might have to run. I’d rather that than get into a gun fight here atop the cliff.”