[ The sky twists red, red, red, and - not for the first time - Carver wonders if he's in Hell. If this is finally the reckoning, God's punishment for his failure and all his many sins, if he'll be sentenced to walk through this dead-eyed version of Meridian again and again until he gets it right and fixes shit that cannot be fixed. The bodies sway and sway and sway, the ropes creaking overhead and the rot stink somehow hangs heavier than he remembers: you can get blind to these things, he knows. You can get used to them.
He doesn't know any of the people swaying above him. That wasn't the point. They were just in front of him, a mission to be completed. And now they're rotting out under a red sun, a warning to the rest of the goddamn world, a promise unfulfilled.
Pope would be so disappointed in him. But now there's a motherfucker moving cat quiet, or quieter through the ground.
This isn't right. This is Meridian and not-Meridian at the same time, with a mountain in the back like Rushmore except the faces are wrong. It doesn't make sense. So little of this does.
In that respect, calling it Hell doesn't seem like much of a stretch. Carver narrows his eyes at the pale motherfucker with the red eyes, some stranger moving too quiet - entirely too goddamn quiet - but he doesn't bring the weapon up to bear. Doesn't shoot him in the head to end this. That's probably a sin. ]
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He doesn't know any of the people swaying above him. That wasn't the point. They were just in front of him, a mission to be completed. And now they're rotting out under a red sun, a warning to the rest of the goddamn world, a promise unfulfilled.
Pope would be so disappointed in him. But now there's a motherfucker moving cat quiet, or quieter through the ground.
This isn't right. This is Meridian and not-Meridian at the same time, with a mountain in the back like Rushmore except the faces are wrong. It doesn't make sense. So little of this does.
In that respect, calling it Hell doesn't seem like much of a stretch. Carver narrows his eyes at the pale motherfucker with the red eyes, some stranger moving too quiet - entirely too goddamn quiet - but he doesn't bring the weapon up to bear. Doesn't shoot him in the head to end this. That's probably a sin. ]
How?
[ It comes out short, and cool. ]