Ashes of the Sun

by A. Meredith Walters

  And Mom was starting to share my concern. “He wants to donate the money he saved from his service to this church,” she whispered to me one Sunday before I left to go back to school.

  “What?” I had exclaimed a little too loudly.

  Mom shushed me and pulled me into a room away from David, who was sitting on the couch watching another video of the enigmatic Pastor Carter. There weren’t a lot of videos out there. Just four. And David had taken to watching them over and over again.

  Mom was wringing her hands. For the first time, I noticed how wan she was. How her eyes seemed to sink into her face. David wasn’t the only one struggling. We were all affected by the shift in my brother. My dad spent less time at home, finding it too overwhelming.

  And me…maybe I had changed almost as much as David.

  I had stopped being the fun guy and had at some point become the one my family depended on. The stable one. The dependable one.

  The one who—somehow—would make it all better.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that new role. My life didn’t feel like my own. Like it was being sucked out of me little by little as I tried to support my parents. As I tried to help my brother.

  “Do you know anything about these people? This Pastor Carter?” she asked, her eyes darting into the other room to where David was. He hadn’t moved. He seemed unaware of anything but his computer screen.

  I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of him. The video says he’s the head of something called The Gathering of the Sun. Is it a church? A group of random weirdos?”

  Mom’s lips were trembling. “I have no idea. Maybe you could find out something? He can’t donate his money. He barely has enough to live on as it is. Your father and I love him but we can’t support him indefinitely. We’re on a fixed income ourselves—”

  I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take care of it, Mom. Let me see what I can find out.”

  So, I went back to school and I started doing some research. There wasn’t much of a web presence for The Gathering of the Sun. Aside from the videos posted on YouTube, there didn’t seem to be anything else.

  But there was a phone number. In the description underneath the video.

  If you’re lost and looking to be found please call us.

  I called.

  No one answered the first time. Or the second time.

  On the third time a woman picked up. She didn’t say hello like a normal person. That was my first indication that something wasn’t right.

  “Are you searching for the path?”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, sitting up straighter. I hadn’t expected anyone to answer, so I was more than a little thrown by the weird greeting.

  “Are you searching for the path?” she repeated, her voice muffled. I had to strain to hear her. As if she were speaking through cotton.

  “Um…I don’t know. What’s the path?” I guess I sounded a little belligerent because she hung up. And when I called back she hung up again.

  I wasn’t feeling particularly warm and fuzzy about this Gathering of the Sun. But I watched the videos again.

  And again.

  In some strange way, I could see what David saw in the message.

  Pastor Carter was a great speaker. He had a fire that was appealing. A faith that was hard to ignore. If a sane person didn’t listen to the exact nature of the bullshit he was preaching, then you could enjoy the passionate fakery he spewed.

  But he was a fraud. A dangerous fraud. I could see that clear as day. He slammed his hands onto the table in front of him and lamented the loss of innocence. He cried about the evils taking over the world, wiping away everything in a toxic sea of technology and war. He swore the only way to save yourself was to follow the path he laid out for you. To hand your fate over to a man who promised to cleanse you. To nurture you. To walk you forward into the light of the sun.

  He was all doom and gloom paired with the barest sliver of hope.

  And this is where he hooked David. Because my brother was a man desperate for hope.

  “You can’t give this guy all your money,” I argued, trying to make David see sense. To see reality. To see something that wasn’t fantasy disguised as religion.

  “Why? I don’t need it,” David responded despondently. He was sitting in his room, eyes glued to Pastor Carter’s face. Listening to words I wished like hell he’d ignore.

  “Of course, you do, dumbass. You need to eat. You need to pay bills.” I was getting angry. I tried not to. But David’s blasé attitude was pissing me off.

  “I’m going to The Retreat,” was his answer.

  “The Retreat? You going to a spa, D?” I joked. I tried to make him laugh. Trying to elicit some sort of response that would let me know my brother was still in there somewhere. That beneath the shattered exterior was the heart of someone I recognized.

  I got nothing.

  “The Retreat is where they are. It’s where he is.”

  He spoke as if this pastor was the Messiah. As if he was God himself on Earth.

  I knew then what it meant to be completely terrified. Because I wasn’t going to alter David’s decision. I had no control over the future he had set for himself.

  I was an audience to my brother’s tragedy and there was nothing I could do about it.

  His mind was set. He was leaving. Going to live in some backwoods commune with a certifiable cult.

  To say my parents weren’t happy was an understatement. Mom used tears to try to stop him. Dad used threats.

  I, on the other hand, was tasked to fix it.

  “He’s not in his right mind. Those people will take advantage of him. They’re stealing his money. Stealing his life!” Dad growled over dinner. David was in his room sleeping.

  All he did was sleep. And when he wasn’t sleeping he was watching those stupid videos.

  “He’s a damn fool,” Dad shouted, unable to control his temper.

  “Nick, he’s not a fool. He’s sick,” Mom chastised while shushing her husband. She grabbed my hand. “He says he’s leaving at the end of the month. What are we going to do?”

  “I’ll lock him in his room. I’ll call the FBI! There has to be something they can do!” Dad announced and I wanted to roll my eyes.

  “You can’t lock him up, Nicholas. He’s a grown man. As for the FBI, we’d be wasting their time,” Mom pointed out, her lips trembling.

  “If he’s an adult, he needs to act like one. And that means not running off to join up with a bunch of weirdos—”

  “I’ll go with him,” I cut in.

  Mom gaped at me. “You can’t do that, Bastian. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “It’s not, Mom. I’ll go and I’ll talk him out of this crazy idea he has. I’ll get him to come home.” I had believed I could do it. That spending one on one time with David away from Mom and Dad would be all I needed to get him to see reason. Perhaps I overestimated the bond I shared with my brother.

  Dad and Mom had looked shocked. They argued half-heartedly, but in the end, they agreed I would go with David to Virginia. And it was up to me to make him come around.

  My parents looked relieved.

  I could tell they liked this new side of me. This responsible side.

  The one who would solve the problem. The one my parents could rely on.

  I stopped cracking jokes. I stopped getting wasted on Friday nights. I shelved my dreams and forced myself to focus on the only thing that mattered.

  My brother.

  I decided to take a leave of absence from school. I sublet my apartment. I packed a small bag and drove with my brother to head cross country to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

  I hadn’t planned to stay.

  I honestly thought I’d be able to talk David out of his ridiculous plan before actually getting to this place called The Retreat.

  But he wouldn’t hear me. He was shut down and closed off to anything and everything I had to say. Traveling with him was a long and miserable experience. He
didn’t speak to me. He barely acknowledged I was there.

  It wasn’t until we ended up in the tiny mountain town of Whistle Valley, Virginia that he changed. His eyes lost their dull sheen. He seemed a bit more lucid.

  The people of Whistle Valley didn’t have nice things to say about the group my brother insisted he was joining.

  “Complete and total psychos,” the man working at the small convenience store stated when I asked where The Retreat was. David was outside. Tight spaces were difficult for him. He hadn’t walked inside a store since returning from Afghanistan. He insisted on sleeping with the windows open and wouldn’t shower with the bathroom door closed.

  “Really? Why?” I asked, putting a few candy bars and a bottle of water on the counter.

  “You talking about those people on the mountain?” A woman behind me asked.

  “You’ve been up there haven’t you, Nell?” the clerk asked.

  The lady, older with greying brown hair and a haggard expression dropped her basket of groceries on the counter and gave me a stern once over. Clearly judging me for something and I hadn’t even said much.

  “My brother has land up there. Right next to the Carter place. He says there’s a whole bunch of ’em there. Worshipping the sun or something. Bunch of crazies if you ask me. We’ve been trying to find a way to get them off that land for fifteen years.”

  “Why? Are they a nuisance?” I asked.

  “One or two of them come down a couple times a year for items. First aid supplies and the like. They don’t talk to ya. They won’t look at ya. They just get what they need and leave. Sometimes there’s trouble. The boys round here don’t tolerate their kind. Sometimes there’s a scuffle or two. They just stand there and take it. They don’t fight back. Bit strange if you ask me,” the clerk answered.

  I frowned. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  The woman huffed. “Don’t you know what they are?”

  I shook my head.

  She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a whisper that was still loud enough for everyone in a five-foot radius to hear her. “They’re a cult.” Then she narrowed her eyes. “You one of ’em?”

  I didn’t answer. I thanked the clerk, took my bag of junk food, and left the store. I found David waiting in the car, windows all the way down, his eyes closed as if he had fallen asleep.

  “I don’t think you should go,” I said, breaking the quiet between us.

  David opened his eyes, his gaze hard and penetrating. “We’re not going through this again, Baz. I’m going. With or without you driving me there.”

  I tried to talk him out of it. I told him what the woman called these people he deemed his new family.

  “They’re a cult, D,” I argued. My heart fluttered in my chest. I was nervous. I was fucking scared.

  Scared for my brother and this insanity he seemed intent on thrusting himself into.

  David looked at me with something almost like loathing. I was taken aback. He had never looked at me that way. Even when we were kids and I drove him nuts following him and his friends around, he was never hateful. He never looked at me as though he wished I would disappear.

  “You’re speaking from a place of ignorance. A place of hate,” he spat at me, his skin flushed with vehemence. “Pastor Carter wants the best for people. He only wants to save us for the end.”

  “The end? Are you listening to yourself? This is exactly the sort of shit that made those people drink the poisoned Kool-Aid at Jonestown.” I knew I was getting nowhere. I knew that my derision would only build the case for David to run off into the mountains with the whacko cult. But I couldn’t stop myself.

  “What sort of church wants you to give them all your money? Wants you to leave your home and live with them in the middle of nowhere—?”

  David got out of the car and slammed the door. With his army rucksack on his shoulder, he started walking down the road.

  “Fucking hell,” I swore. I got out of the car and locked the doors. I ran down the street after my brother.

  “Stop, David. I can’t keep up with you, you know I suck at running,” I wheezed.

  He slowed a bit, but he didn’t stop. I was able to catch up with him just as he turned towards the road the led up the mountain. I grabbed his arm. “Dude, seriously, just stop for a minute.”

  David wrenched his arm from my grasp. “I need this, Baz. Don’t you see that? If I don’t do this, I’ll die.” His voice broke and something in me did the same.

  “That’s being a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?” I tried to make light of his very serious words. I wanted him to laugh and tell me he was being a diva and to head home. I waited illogically for him to tell me this was all a joke.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead he started to cry.

  David never cried. Not when he was eight years old and got his finger caught in the car door and the tip fell off. Not when he was sixteen and his first girlfriend, Marisa Tomans—and apparent “love of his life”—dumped him for his buddy, Jack.

  And not when he was discharged from the army after he watched most of his platoon get blown to bits in front of him.

  But he cried now. Deep, wretched sobs that came from the marrow.

  I didn’t know what the hell to do.

  “I can’t keep going like this, Bastian. I’ve tried for Mom and Dad. I’ve tried for you. But if I don’t change my life, I won’t have one. I need to do something that matters. Something that has a purpose. I’ve lost fucking everything. Everything!” He finally stopped walking and covered his face with his hands.

  I put my arm around him, hugging him as much as he’d let me. “We’ll make this better—”

  “No. I will make this better. And this is how I am going to do it,” David interrupted, pulling away. “Don’t stop me. I don’t want to say goodbye with my fist in your face.”

  It was the first time in months he sounded anything like himself. And for that reason, I shut up and followed him up that goddamned mountain.

  Pastor Carter wasn’t quite the evil villain I pictured him to be, but he wasn’t the savior David depicted him either. There was something smarmy and not quite right about the way his eyes drifted over the pretty girl who waited with him at the gate.

  Sara.

  She looked like something out of Little House on the Prairie in an obviously handmade dress and hair that hadn’t seen a comb in too long. Her eyes were strange. Oddly colored but with an intensity that was both unnerving and sort of hot.

  She spoke like a fucking drone, going on about God’s way and shit. But it was her insistence that made Pastor Carter open the gate and let me in.

  I wasn’t sure why she did it.

  But I knew why I had to stay.

  I couldn’t leave David here with this man.

  My guts twisted.

  The Retreat felt wrong.

  Only hours after we arrived, Pastor Carter very kindly informed me that I would be required to give a ‘donation’ to my new family.

  He spread out his hands modestly. “The Retreat requires a lot of upkeep. God’s work isn’t cheap. And you can’t put a price on salvation, can you?”

  Fucking asshole.

  “I don’t have any money,” I told him, trying like hell not to deck the dude. It was obvious he was nothing more than a con artist. How did all these people not see that? Why didn’t they question when he told them to hand over their money? Their possessions?

  Why weren’t they demanding answers?

  I could only assume they didn’t want them.

  Pastor Carter bowed his head, closed his eyes, made a real show of looking contemplative. As though receiving a message from high up. What a douche.

  “Part of your journey, Bastian, is to rid yourself of all earthly ties. The car you mentioned has no purpose for you anymore.”

  Yeah, I got the point.

  As much as I hated it, I signed the title over to Jeremy ‘cult-leader’ Carter. It was hard to do. I loved that car.
It was my first solo purchase when I turned eighteen.

  But if I wanted to stay with my brother, I had to suck it up.

  I handed the title to Pastor Carter. The dick never even thanked me.

  I quickly realized I had entered the Twilight Zone.

  The so-called disciples creeped me the fuck out. It was like taking a step back in time. They all dressed the same. They took cold showers, for Christ’s sake. They hardly ever spoke. And there was way too much praying.

  But I’d wear the mask. I’d worship an absent god. I’d do everything I had to until I got David home.

  I sat up and looked around at the group of people all lying on the ground, dressed in white like some sort of virginal sacrifice. I had a hard time believing these people took themselves seriously.

  But they did.

  Their silence was unnerving.

  Their single-minded devotion to their leader was disturbing.

  I felt eyes on me and I glanced over to find Sara watching me.

  She wasn’t praying either.

  We stared at each other for a few minutes. Trying to read one another. Trying to determine the threat—if there was one.

  Why did I get the sense that she saw straight through me? Her gaze was intense. Too intense.

  I broke eye contact first.

  I felt something like relief…something like pain.

  I looked back at her.

  I couldn’t help it.

  She had closed her eyes again.

  I recognized the feeling in my gut.

  Disappointment.

  It was dark. So dark.

  I couldn’t remember how long I had been there.

  One day.

  Two.

  I had started off so angry. I hated Mom for bringing me here. I hated Pastor Carter and his stupid sermons I had to listen to silently.

  I hated the ugly house we lived in.

  I hated the hard mattress and rough sheets.

  Most of all I hated that my feelings didn’t matter at all. Mom had made the choice for us. I missed my old room and my old friends. Here I didn’t even go to a real school. I had to read the Bible a couple of hours and learned some math I had done in first grade. That’s it.