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While I waited to hear from them over the last couple of days, I’d been reading up on cults and their methods of indoctrination. The Path of the Covenant was different from many other cult-like groups in that they didn’t actively evangelize or try to recruit, but a lot of their techniques for gaining and keeping members would probably be similar. At least I could safely assume that was the case.

One of the first things cults did to gain the interest of new prospects was a trick that involved dangling a ‘prize’ in front of them. This prize could be anything like great wealth, answers to the world’s mysteries, cures for diseases, or the key to happiness. The cult would act like they had this prize, which just so happened to be exactly what the prospect wanted or needed. All the prospect had to do to have a chance to access it was agree they wanted that prize and would do anything to get it. After that, a cycle of control, guilt, manipulation, and fear would begin in order to keep the new member sucked in.

In this case, Chastain’s so-called ‘church’ seemed to offer a new way of life to men who wanted to assert complete dominance and control over women. For men like that, who genuinely thought of women as inferior, a place like New Eden would seem like paradise. There, women were seemingly raised to believe they were truly inferior in every single way, and the men could probably do almost anything they wanted to them. That was the ‘prize’.

Of course, this was all my speculation based on the few things I’d seen so far. I couldn’t be sure about any of it until I’d made it to the two month trial run and actually begun to live amongst the other members.

I fully intended to make it there. I just had to get through today without raising any suspicions.

Forty minutes later, I was heading down Chastain’s oak-lined driveway, heart pumping rapidly. Like I said to Thad, I had no idea what sort of questions the Elders would have for me during this interview. I just had to play it by ear and hope I said the right things to make them think I was like them.

Jacob came and met me at the front of the mansion like he did last time, flashing a big old white smile at me again. He led me upstairs and into a large room with a semi-circular polished oak table. Behind it sat twelve men, with an empty spot somewhere near the center for him. Most of the other men were middle-aged, but some were even older.

“You already met this friend of mine at dinner the other night, but just to reiterate: this is Mason Ashwood, the son of my old business associate,” Jacob said, holding a hand out toward me. Then he pointed to each Elder in turn. “Mason, this is Elder Thibodeaux, Landry, Schmidt, Weisz, Miller, Moreau, Fontenot, Erikson, Albert, Bertrand, DuVernay, and Chase.”

I nodded respectfully and sat down on a chair across from the table. Jacob took his seat too, clasping his hands in front of him.

“Mason, we get quite a few interested men every year, but the vast majority don’t make it past this interview stage,” he began. “It’s very important to us that prospective members share our values and interests. Unfortunately most do not.”

Yeah, because your values and interests include human rights violations such as refusing to educate girls and women properly whilst keeping them trapped in what essentially amounts to an underground prison,I thought, trying my best to ensure my face displayed a neutral expression.

“It’s also important that any new member can be trusted implicitly.”

Translation: We have to make sure new members won’t run off and expose us to the world once they knew what we do, seeing as it’s quite frowned upon to keep women trapped underground.

“Now, we cannot reveal our everyday ways of life to prospective members, as we have many closely-guarded secrets. This makes our application process very long, stringent, and difficult. Every question we ask of you helps us to decide whether or not you’re a man who shares our moral code, without us having to outright reveal any of our secrets to you.”

“I understand,” I said with a nod. No shit. It wasn’t like they were going to come right out and say, ‘Hey, we convinced all these young women the apocalypse happened so they’d be too scared to do anything in life other than serve us. Sound cool to you?’ to a non-member.

Jacob leaned forward, a smile playing on his lips. “One thing we can tell you is that we don’t exactly believe in the same God that most other people in this country do. We believe in our own God. You see, every one of us spent years searching for a religion which would accommodate our personal needs and beliefs, and we all failed. But then I started to receive messages from above, and I knew what I had to do. I had to start my own church where men like me could be accommodated. A place where we could spread His true word and live like we always wanted to.”

Translation: We’re all assholes, and we spent years looking for a religion which would allow us to be our own particular brand of asshole. Eventually we just decided to make one up to validate our misogynistic beliefs and allow us to subjugate and enslave women the way we always wanted to.

I was trying very hard not to roll my eyes right now.

“Are you ready to start the interview?” Jacob asked.

I nodded eagerly. “I am.”

“Like I said before, many of the questions will seem very general, and we won’t tell you why we’re asking them or give any indication if your answer is right or wrong in terms of what we want to hear from a potential new member. It’s all about us getting to know you and what sort of man you are.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s begin.”

The first fifty or so questions were very basic. Where did I grow up, what did my parents do, what was my childhood like, where did I currently attend church, and so on.

After that, the questions moved toward my views on society. There were a fucking shit-ton of them. I had to answer in a way I thought they’d like, but I wouldn’t be told if I was giving the ‘correct’ responses or not.

It wasn’t easy. I had to be very careful to skate the line between what they wanted to hear and believability. If I sounded too crazy and fucked up, they’d realize I was full of shit and trying to worm my way in with an ulterior motive.

“What’s your opinion on punishment in a society?” Elder Landry asked after I’d answered about two hundred questions.

I hesitated. “I realize this isn’t an acceptable viewpoint to hold in most circles these days, but honestly, I think the world is too soft on crime,” I said. I held up a palm. “This is going to sound very Old Testament of me, but I believe infractions should be punished harshly as a deterrent. An eye for an eye, and so on. I know it certainly would’ve worked on me.”

“What do you mean?” Jacob asked, brows drawing together.

“Well, as you all know from the earlier questions you asked, my mother helped shape my faith from an early age. But when I was a teenager, I went through a stage where I abandoned that faith for a while. I wanted to be cool like the other kids at school, you see. I did a lot of bad things, and for the most part, I got away with it. Of course I eventually came around and returned to the straight and narrow path, but I believe my parents should’ve been stricter. To put it bluntly, if they’d beaten the shit out of me for the things I was doing, I would’ve returned to the correct path much sooner. But instead they let me get away with it for years.”

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