Laurence

Laurence Deckers Sr was always a very troubled person. Many unusual habits and concerning behaviors. While he was very questionable in his private life, he managed to have a successful social life. He ran his own butcher shop, had a wide group of friends, and was popular in his church. He eventually felt like the teachings in his LDS faith weren't good enough. He started to tell his ideas to his closer friends, who agreed with him. This eventually kick-started his cult. They had beliefs very similar to fundamentalist mormons, and he eventually moved his group from Utah into the Appalachia wilderness.

While their beliefs were very similar to fundamentalist mormons, Laurence had intertwined his vices into the set of beliefs. He had a fetish for cannibalization, which he could now practice freely while far away from civilization. He taught his group that cannibalization was a form of baptism, an act that the group could provide for outsiders to relieve them of their sins. By ingesting them into their pure bodies they would purify them, and accept them into themselves. It was common in the cult for people who began questioning to be eaten by other members, sometimes as a group. Often a group would lure or kidnap outsiders into the camp and the cult would share the meal together. They also practiced polygamy, and most men had multiple wives. A lot of the morals this group believed they had were just grandstanding. They were very forgiving of very immoral acts, all forms of abuse were often excused.

Laurence Deckers jr was born from one of the many wives of Laurence Deckers. His mother dealt with heavy postpartum depression, which developed into psychosis. She was eventually locked away in a shed on the property. Laurie was raised by multiple women, many of them his sisters and step-moms. He was allowed to visit his mother, who had eventually degraded so far mentally that she often spoke nonsense or just cried. Laurie took comfort in some of her lucid moments, when she would talk about the life she had before or something mundane. She’d peer through the cracks of the shed, her red wet eyes trained on her only son. In the moments that she recognized Laurie she’d tell him how loved he was. Eventually, the shed grew quiet and began to smell. It was cleaned out once the flies and rats became pests. Laurie would go inside the clean shed when he wanted to feel comfort. Later in his teenage years he would spend most of his time in this shed.

Laurie was a very soft child, very quiet and shy. He was often picked on for his weight and his personality by other children. His father often spoke to him and would say he had to live up to the name he was given, he was supposed to be a golden child. His mother had ruined most people's perception of him, her sin of being ‘crazy’ made Laurie seem dirty by association. His father eventually ignored him, only paying him any mind when necessary. He eventually had another son who he named Laurence as well. This child was the real golden child that he wanted, and he treated him much better than Laurie.

During his late teen years Laurie became more of a workhorse for the cult, his status as their prophet's son eventually forgotten and ignored. He felt useful when he was performing manual labor, repairing things and chopping down trees for firewood. He sometimes would help with the cooking as well. He enjoyed his time alone in the woods, finding that he preferred to be away from people. It was out in the woods that the seed of doubt was planted. He felt like the cult was a prison more than a home, the way he was treated by them enforced this belief more and more. While most young boys his age were already getting married, Laurie was not seen as desirable. While this felt troublesome for him at the time, it ultimately saved him from a lot of predators.

When Laurie was 19 he had finally received a summon from his father, which was terrifying for him. When he met with his father, he was informed that he had been matched with a wife and that they would be married as soon as possible. Laurie asked to be left to do his work, but his father told him he was tired of having to deal with having such a failure as his offspring. At least as a husband he could fulfill his duty to god to be a father. Laurie was sent to put on his nicest clothing, and was sent to the temple. His wife was much older than him, and had been a woman he had known as a child. They were married, and Laurie packed up all his belongings and moved into her home. She already had children, which were now Laurie’s responsibility. After she and the kids had fallen asleep, Laurie had stayed awake. He felt himself splitting, the reality of his situation becoming too much for him. When he left the home, he went to his mothers shed and found his chainsaw among his work tools. He went to the temple where his father slept, and killed him. Then he set a fire in the temple and ran. Laurie was in a daze, doing what his body told him to do. He went back home and grabbed some of his important things and ran away.

When Laurie was farther than he had ever been from the camp he began to find ruins, all the buildings were crumbling and dilapidated. He found a settlement that took Laurie in and fed him. They told him about the war, how the world had ended, they caught him up on all they knew. Laurie was very grateful, but he still felt troubled. When he woke up he was covered in blood, his mouth was filled with blood. He looked around and he was surrounded by the remains of the couple that had taken him in. He was afraid of what he had done, the cannibalism was familiar, but his loss of control was unusual. He stayed in the settlement for a few days, then moved on.

Laurie wandered around for many years, the wasteland hardened him. He was always quiet and frigid, but the wasteland made him rough and brutal. He sometimes would imitate his father if he needed to be social, or if he needed to convince someone of something. He fit in well in the rougher parts, he was strong from years of manual labor and already accustomed to violence. He learned to survive on his own, never keeping company long. He succumbed to his cravings for human flesh often, always regretting it afterwards. He managed to keep it in check for a while before he relapsed. When he came out of it he noticed his victim had been wearing a blue jumpsuit and had a pip boy. He took it with him mindlessly and moved along. While camping later on, he looked through the pipboy, he found a lot of notes about goals and destinations the person had been going to. Laurie had not really been doing anything important in his life, and all of these notes pointed to some kind of important mission to help humanity.