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Back Surrender Your Sons Save as PDF
Chapters (43)
  1. Author’s Note with Content Warnings
  2. CHAPTER ONE
  3. CHAPTER TWO
  4. CHAPTER THREE
  5. CHAPTER FOUR
  6. CHAPTER FIVE
  7. CHAPTER SIX
  8. CHAPTER SEVEN
  9. CHAPTER EIGHT
  10. CHAPTER NINE
  11. CHAPTER TEN
  12. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  13. CHAPTER TWELVE
  14. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  15. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  16. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  17. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  18. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  19. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  20. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  21. CHAPTER TWENTY
  22. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  31. CHAPTER THIRTY
  32. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  41. CHAPTER FORTY
  42. EPILOGUE
  43. Acknowledgments

BILL: What are you doing? He’s got a sick lung!

<punching, deep wheezing, and then a loud, final thud>

STANLEY: Now, Bill…

<panting>

He’s dead. How did you feel watching that? Helpless? Frozen? You know, I always thought that if I was ever in a crisis, I’d spring into action to help. Nah. When you beat Ricky, all I could do was watch. Just like you watched me beat my dad to death just now.

BILL: Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus.

STANLEY: You have choices in front of you. If you kill me, the staff will think you killed me and Dad both. If you play anyone this tape to expose me, they’ll know you’re a fugitive.

BILL: Are you…gonna kill me?

STANLEY: Not at all. I’m honoring Dad’s final wishes. You’re going to spend the rest of your life with me. Right here. Happy Thanksgiving.

<The tape recorder clicks off.>

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

THERE IS STILL TIME

TODAY

The air in the bunker stiffens, and the spear dips in my limp hands like a rope given too much slack. We stare at the Reverend, caught between pity and terror now that we’ve been drawn into the same conspiracy of silence about what happened to Ricky and Rigo. They were married for only a few hours before Bill Hannigan ripped the world out from under them. And the Reverend—little Stanley—for all his love of Ricky, for as much as he tried to stop his uncle’s attack, betrayed his cousin one last time and hid Bill from justice. A trail of death has followed this family like droplets of water follow you out of a pool.

Rigo. Ricky. Drew. I can now add a highway patrolman and the Reverend’s father to that list.

“I’m still not sure why I did this,” the Reverend says as he slips the Expulsion tape back into his shirt pocket. “Record Bill’s confession, I mean. I think I just wanted to hear Bill and Dad say it out loud. Admit the whole rotten thing. I needed to hear it, so I knew I wasn’t crazy and imagining it. I was worried that, over time, the heat would lower on some of these memories, and I couldn’t let that happen.” He runs a shaking hand over the pearls of sweat dotting his receding hairline. “Ricky’s wedding made me feel awful, but it was also beautiful. I didn’t want to forget the beautiful parts.”

“‘Telling the truth is addictive once you get the taste for it,’” I quote back to him, my jaw locked with tension. “Why did you show us this?”

“I needed you to know,” the Reverend pleads, his cool exterior shattering with volcanic power. “I needed someone to know.”

“You killed Drew to shut him up, but you needed me to know?”