Silence Falls

“Bert. Son, look at me.” Doctor McCarter commanded his seemingly passive son the moment Bam and Cris were escorted from the cafeteria, leaving them alone. His child’s grayish blue eyes gradually shifted to bore into his. Doctor McCarter stared at his own eyes for a long time, rousing up as many memories as he had of Bert from a wailing baby to the teenager he had become before he had been sealed underground in the Medical Facility. Feeling his throat constrict at his mounting emotions, Doctor McCarter whispered. “Bert, I...I just wanted to tell you that...I’m sorry. For you being buried in the swamps for all these years, and for you being...here.”

Doctor McCarter needed to start this out slowly for his own selfish reasons as his hands became sweaty with nerves under the frosty glare of his child.

Bert, however, wasn’t stirred by such nerves unlike him, nor by his apology either. The way he saw it, this apology wasn’t something that he ever secretly pined for in the darkness of his locked cell nor sought from his father face to face. But for his friend’s safety, Bert chose to be as cooperative with his father for as long as he could even if that meant he had to listen to his penance for sealing him away underground.

“You have always been my pride and joy. At a young age, you were a very promising lad and I admit I saw a lot of myself in you in those days. I believed that you could one day become a leader of Silence Falls just like your old man.” Doctor McCarter went on, exposing his inner thoughts he never had the chance to broach to his son before. He thought he had all the time in the world to tell him. Unfortunately, their time was cut short by Bert’s incarceration. “All around me I saw families in our community fall apart by their anarchistic children that they hadn’t raised accordingly in the eyes of our Lord, which was why your conduct that night came as a shock to me. That family’s crisis had nothing to do with us, Robert! You didn’t have to get involved! You could have stayed inside and prayed for them in the safety of your bedroom, you could have remained PURE, son!”

“That’s fucking bullshit, and you know it.” Bert spoke surprisingly steady, curbing the impulse to roll his eyes at his father’s outrageous rhetoric. In all the years he was incarcerated, he had never mentally rehearsed a vindictive lecture dedicated to his father for the day he’d finally escaped that underground prison and tracked him down. That’s how done he was with him. His father perished from his heart the day he delivered him into the swamps. “I never did anything fucking wrong. YOU did by ignoring the sounds of a girl being beaten by her own father next door.”

“WE PRAYED FOR HER!” Doctor McCarter defended, slamming his closed fist on the table to jar his son. He needed him to wake up from this absurd belief that anything else but prayer could have saved her.

Bert set his arms on the table and leaned over, their glares jointly intensifying. He couldn’t hold back on upholding his actions, especially because they weren’t erroneous. He had to retaliate. “Cause praying has fixed every obstacle imaginable for centuries which is why it would’ve totally made a difference that night? Don’t you remember what happened, father? IT DIDN’T! She was still getting beaten by her father and no amount of prayers were gonna stop him! But you know what did help? ME! By getting off my ass and helping her instead of standing around reading from a book! ME, father, NOT your fucking God!”

Doctor McCarter couldn’t accept such desecration! “God was there by her si-”

“And watching her face getting beaten into!? Ha! I’m sure everyone would want a God as conscientious as yours!” Bert interrupted sarcastically, making his father’s face turn red as he unexpectedly launched out of his chair.

“DON’T YOU DARE MOCK THE LORD, ROBERT! I TAUGHT YOU BETTER THAN THAT!” Doctor McCarter roared down at him, finally losing his placid lenient disposition.

“WRONG, father! You wanna know what you taught me? You taught me that that sonofabitch in the sky gave a shit about me and the people he loved! Yet there are so many innocent lives being crucified to death in the fucking swamps as punishment for being different instead of being forgiven and saved! If that is your God, then I want nothing to do with him!” Bert stood up from his chair to turn his back on his father. He didn’t want to spend another second in his moronic close-minded presence.

“You will want everything to do with him, mark my words! I believe the lord has brought me here as a second chance for you to get out of this mess once and for all, son!” The Doctor stated, reporting on a belief that’s been concocted inside his head since he was reunited with his son.

Bert turned around to glare at his father. “What the hell are you talking about, old man?”

“I can get you out of here, Robert! You can be freed from this prison right as we speak!” Doctor McCarter couldn’t stop a small smile curving the corner of his lips, internally jubilant that his family would be mended again very soon. All he needed was his son’s full cooperation.

“You can?” Bert doubted this as he crossed his arms again in skepticism. “Hold up. What’s the catch here?”

“Nothing, there is no catch! I just need a yes or no, son.” The Doctor clarified. “What do you say?”

Could he really be telling the truth? Is he really giving me a way out for free, Bert contemplated? If he was then this was a once in a lifetime opportunity that won’t find him again! He couldn’t pass this up, only…what about the others? Bert had to ask. “What about my friends?”

“Your friends? Robert please, those delinquents aren’t your friends!” Doctor McCarter reminded him gently, not wanting to agitate him with his distaste for these patients condemned to the swamps. “Remember, son. They’re just a bunch of sinners that still need to find their way to God’s forgiveness.”

Bert’s brows furrowed. “So you’re not gonna set them free. Only me.”

“Well, yes. Just you, my boy.” Doctor McCarter confirmed this. “What do you say?”

Bert smirked hatefully as he ran a hand through his long hair. “My decision is the same as it’s always been, father. For your God to come down here and kiss my ass. MAYBE then I'll think about it.”

The Doctor’s jaw dropped, his body lurching back as if he was smacked across the face. He just gave a persecuted soul that shared his own blood a way out of this damnation, and he threw it right back in his face like it was nothing?! Has his son truly lost his mind!?

Needing to make sense of this, Doctor McCarter stammered out. “I-I don’t think you understand what I’m asking of you, Robert! I’m giving you a way out from here, to stand by my side and take the Lord within you once again!”

“And I said FUCK NO!” Bert spat back, struggling to limit his temper. His hands closed into fists not destined to be used as he expounded further to help him understand. “I suppose I should be thanking you for wasting your time coming here to liberate me from this hellhole, but I won’t. I won’t pretend to be grateful to you when all I feel is hatred for you. I don’t wish to leave here without my friends when they’ve accepted me for who I am unlike you. They are worth this life sentence of excruciation because all my life I could never be me! I had to be you to please you and everyone around me! No, father, I don’t want to go anywhere with you. I’m staying here, because I’d rather die here with the people I love than having to carry the strain of neglecting my responsibilities in helping those in need by sentencing them off into the swamps to die in isolation for the sake of my precious town’s image. I abhor you, Doctor McCarter, and want nothing to do with you from this moment forward unless it’s the opportunity to drive that pen of yours right through your carotid artery for all the people you’ve murdered!” With that, Bert exited the room without a second glance, leaving the good doctor grief-stricken and infuriated.