A Life Sentence

September 20th, 2026

September 20th, 2026

I suppose I should be happy that I am even able to write another one of these, but part of me wishes I couldn't. We finally took care of the church. The cult or, whatever it was, won't be giving us any more problems, and lucky for us the fire did not spread to the trees or the weeds and stuff that was growing around the building. That mysterious rain storm that popped up did us a huge favor. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Part of me wants to stop here and not say anything at all, but I feel like I need to. We are all having issues with this. Lucas is being very quiet and I have caught Kate crying several times. To be honest I think I caught Lucas crying as well. I would be lying if I said I haven't.

We all are having some buyer's remorse. I think we are all thinking the same thing, "Could we have done this differently."

I spent three nights camped out across the road from that place. The entire time I was there I got bored to tears. Kate stayed with me one night, and that was nice, but I thought we were making too much noise carrying on, so that was the only time.

The entire time it was creepy as all get out. Just as creepy as one would think that spending the night across from an abandoned church that some weird cult had taken for its own would be.

I have to admit I thought I might get caught, or maybe even see them heading towards our house, but I never did. Finally, on the third night they showed up. I was relieved and nervous all at the same time. Now here was the choice I had to make. Do we move now or wait and watch? If we wait, it may take forever for them to come back.

It was very cloudy. The moon and stars were all gone. In fact it looked like it was going to rain. Visibility was crap for them, and for us.

First though I had to see how many there were. I could see them walking around from the back of the church and going right inside. I couldn't see much else since the windows were boarded up, but I will swear until the day that I die that I heard chanting as the line snaked inside.

Once I was sure they were all there I was about to head back toward the house when I heard someone coming down the road. I squatted lower in the brush I was hiding in and made sure I had my shotgun at the ready.

They passed so close to me that I probably could have spit on them, but since they were carrying a coffin I decided I would keep my loogy to myself. There were four of them carrying the coffin. They were struggling with this one. It was full sized. For some sick reason that made me feel better. At least it wasn't a kid.

They marched right up to the front of the church. The door opened and the four of them wrestled the coffin inside and then the door closed. As long as they were not planning on delivering this coffin to us like a few nights ago, this would be our chance.

All the way back to the house one thing kept going through my mind. They had not bothered us since that night at the house. In fact it had been eerily quiet. Lucas thought too quiet, like they were just biding their time. Kate thought it was done and over, and I wasn't sure. But we were all still nervous having them so close.

When I got back to the house Kate was on guard duty with Chonk. The goofy dog's tail was wagging so hard I thought he would take flight. It was good to seem them both. Once I gave the update both Allen and Kate agreed that now was our best chance. We grabbed the boards, the nail gun and the weird tank of compressed air we rigged up as a backpack to run it. We also brought the two pre-packed duffels. We moved fast, but we had to be very careful with the bags and the tank of compressed air. We were not totally sure it would not explode on Lucas's back.

Thank god we are all in good shape or we would have been worn out before we even got halfway there carrying all that stuff. When we got there we all took one last look at one another. We were all clearly questioning whether this was the right thing, but these people were dangerous and depraved.

We went fast. I have no idea if they heard us approach the church or not, but if they did they didn't make a move against us.

The boards went up across the door even faster than we thought. The nail gun worked flawlessly. The rigged tank held up and didn't explode. As expected those inside the church started banging on the door trying to force it open. I actually thought they could beat it down since the wood of the church was so rotten, but it held. Then came the second part.

We opened the duffles and took out two electric drills and started using wood screws to reinforce the barricade. As Lucas and I did that Kate prepped part three.

Once we got all the screws in and we were sure that the door was secure we started to light the cocktails. After that it was just throwing practice. We managed to get a few to go through the holes in the roof and fall inside. Judging by the screaming and the rather violent beating on the door the molotov cocktails burned just like we wanted.

The rest of the bottles we broke on the roof or on the walls. The old dry wood caught fire pretty easy, a simple match would probably have been enough, but we wanted to be thorough. Once that was done all we had to do was wait. Lucas took one side, Kate took the other and I took the front. The job was now to shoot anyone if they happened to get the boards off the door or the windows. Before long the church became the single largest inferno that I had ever seen.

I will never, ever forget the screaming, those god awful screams. That was when I started crying. Kate was also crying and I saw Lucas vomit. In that moment I think we all thought we just did the most terrible thing that we would ever do in our lives. I guess that's the price to pay to survive in a world such as this.

After a while it got really quiet. All we could hear was the cracking of fire. We could feel the heat, even as we backed far away from it. The smoke was terrible and I won't go into what the smell was like, but at least the screaming stopped and no one got away. Then when the roof collapsed we knew it was done.

It was only then that I think we all realized a rather large problem with our plan. What if we just set the whole damn county on fire? Already the weeds around the church were burning. There wasn't any kind of wind, but I could still see floating embers in the air like flaming snow. A quick gust could set the entire forest on fire. We might very well burn the forest down, and our own home.

But just like in a bad movie it just so happened that the clouds above provided a surprise summer downpour. It soaked everything around the church and us. Even though we were soaked to the bone we definitely did not feel any cleaner. The fire on the church didn't get put out, but it was enough to dampen the flames so they would not spread. We stayed there for the rest of the night.

By morning the fire had burned itself out. When we left to go home all that was left was one wall that was still standing, burnt wood and some smoke.

The trip home sucked. None of us said a damn thing, none of us knew what to say. We didn't even bring any of the gear back, we just left it. We never wanted to see that damnable place again.

That night I broke out the booze. I got drunk, very, very drunk. Kate and Lucas joined me, but it was the worst drinking party I had ever been to. We just sat on the front porch and barely said a word. A thunderstorm rolled through to fill the silent void. Even the dogs could tell something was wrong. Chonk laid right next to me and every now and then would look at me with this odd look in his eyes.

I hate what we did. We all do. To be honest I thought Lucas would be the one of us who would be able to best deal with it, or at least justify it easier than us, but that turned out out to be totally wrong. I also hate what I was forced to become to survive in this world. 

Chonk it sitting next to me right now, Kate is sitting across from me. Her eyes are kind of blank. Lucas is pacing from one side of the porch to the other. Abby is sticking close to Lucas. The rest of the dogs are kind of floating between all three of us, with Sadie spending most of her time with Kate.

If only our pooches could make this guilt go away. If only they could erase this sin. If we had done this a year or two ago we would all be sentenced to death. I am thinking that is exactly what should happen.

Well, that got dark! The next chapter will be posted soon!