The Epilogue
We could hear the adults chasing us in their heavy leather boots and big black vests. They yelled back and forth to each other to keep contact and yelled at us to come back to the relocation center. We ignored them and ran, flinching or ducking as the spotlight beams of their flashlights wavered across us in the dark.
I could see Mildred Sanger's dead body laying on the table mind as we ran. I hated what the adults had become and hated most of all what my mother had allowed herself to become.
The air was cold and damp from the rain earlier, and the ground was slick- forcing us to be careful as we ran. If we slipped on a wet tree root, if we lost our footing on damp leaves, we would be caught and we would be going back.
As I stopped and crouched low under the bent trunk of a tree to catch my breath out of sight, Wolf stopped and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Don't stop. We can hurt later, when we're safe. You can do this bud."
I took several slow breathes and then nodded and took off again, Wolf keeping pace beside me. In the darkness I could see Owl in the lead, a swagger in his retreat I hadn't seen before. I could see Raven and Viper side by side, moving like ghosts through the forest.
But I could still hear the adults chasing. There were lots of kids in the woods tonight. We had made this as difficult as we could for the adults, but they still had most of the advantages. We had to run until they gave up, or we were going back to the relocation center, where we would almost certainly die the slow death of starvation and lack of hope.
And so we ran on in the black woods as the pillars of light from the adults flashlights danced above our heads and the shouts of adults accompanied us like a soundtrack.
I looked at Wolf, "We're family now, for real. Tribe against the world. Now, we are warriors. Win or lose, live or die- we are warriors."
* * *
So that's the start of our story. We were kids. We were just like any other kids that you know. If you are a kid, we were just like you.
Now we aren't. Now we are warriors. I wouldn't wish the events that we experienced on anyone, but it made us who we are. And I have to admit, that I like who I became.
Would I like us to get back everyone and everything we lost? I don't know. I would like to get back everyone I lost. But everything I lost can stay lost.
I didn't know it, but I didn't need all that junk then. And I don't need it now.
And I'll tell you what- neither do you. None of that stuff matters. What matters is what you can do and who you are.
I'm a warrior.
We are warriors.
Who are you?
"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh...
Beneath this mask, there is an idea, Mr. Creedy
...and ideas. Are. Bulletproof."
- V For Vendetta
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Exodus Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
So This is Good-Bye...
We ran through the streets. It was hard to avoid noticing that no lights were on, and very little had been cleaned. The Streets were slick with ice. Cars were buried in snow that, in many cases, had frozen solid on top of the vehicles. The windows of numerous storefronts and several homes had been broken.
We knew that the adults placed under house arrest weren't being kept in the Community Center. Since it had been turned into the Relocation Center we'd all spent too much time there, and it wasn't big enough to hide the more than one dozen adults who had been placed under 'house arrest'. Since only community center and town hall had heat, it was easy to conclude that they must be in Town Hall.
Now the funny part is that because everyone had been chasing us towards the edge of town, when we doubled back and headed to the business center, nobody was around to see us. We arrived at the Town Hall, and checked for a way in. The front door was unlocked, open in fact. Which made me nervous. Lights were on in several rooms, We fanned out and looked everywhere except the council chamber. We could hear a voice or voices in the council room and nobody wanted to draw us into a confrontation in the center of town. Once everywhere else had been searched however, and it was clear that no other room had any of the house arrest adults, we quietly decided to check the council room.
We walked in to see Professor Tuttle with a bottle labelled Vodka in his left hand and a highball glass in his right hand. He sat quietly in the Mayor's seat, looking into nowhere.
As we entered the room, he looked at us, “Seven Billion people with nothing original to say, singing the same self-centered apocalyptic song for the last ten thousand years. And we have the audacity to think that this is our story.”
“Then give it up.” I said.
“And do what? We've scribbled all over the storybook. There's nowhere left for any other stories. We've taken stories away from everybody for all time. We've broken the world, and all we can do is hang on. Maybe, when everything stops falling, there will be something left over.”
“So you're going to keep doing this? Keep helping them run this monstrosity? You turned us in. I'm pretty sure it was you who betrayed Bart as well. Is that what you call hanging on? I call it running from a bear and tripping your friends to feed the bear.”
“This is the only way, and even if it's broken there is nothing else. No other way.”
Viper stared at Professor Tuttle with a ferocious, venomous anger.
“So how do you know that? And even if you're right, what does that mean? And even if you're right, so what? Is there any value left in what you're trying?”
“Good questions.” He said with a bitter laugh.
“You tried to teach us how to think, but you stole what you taught from Raven’s dad, without ever understanding how to ask yourself three questions. Raven's Dad is locked in some dark room somewhere with Bart and they're being fed a weak stew made from Mrs. Giller's cats. And you helped make that, because you don't have the courage to ask yourself those three questions you tried to teach us.”
Professor Tuttle didn't say anything. He just sat there.
“Come on, he's never going to grow up.” Owl said to Viper, who shook her head disgustedly.
“I'm going to raise the alarm now.” Professor Tuttle said in a hollow shell shocked voice. “You'd best run.”
“Betrayer to the end?” Wolf asked.
“This is how it has to be. The good of the many. Survival of the culture. This is how it has to be.”
He pulled a sports whistle from his pocket and blew three long blasts, and then three short blasts on the whistle. We listened to bells ringing in the distance, echoing the alarm the Professor had raised. Owl stared at Professor Tuttle and shook his head. I don't know what I was expecting Owl to do to Professor Tuttle as Owl stepped toward him, but when Owl suddenly backhanded Professor Tuttle across the face I was so shocked I actually yelled in surprise.
Owl looked at me. He didn't say anything, he just looked for a moment and then turned back to face Professor Tuttle. The Professor's nose was bleeding and he looked at Owl with a weird look on his face, somewhere between anger and respect and despair. Owl looked back at Professor Tuttle with utter disgust.
“You have to do more than just talk a good game Professor. You have to get your hands dirty. And my hands are so dirty that they're red. You don't know me, or any of us anymore. Just remember we gave you a chance. This was your chance. We know what you are know, and if you are half a smart as we always thought you were, you know what we are know. Your side has the advantages right now, but it stay like that. We're retreating now, but don't mistake that for victory. We win. And next time we meet, you better be ready.”
Viper turned back to Raven.
“We don't have time to find your parents now, but we aren't abandoning them. We're coming back for them. I promise that we're coming back for them and for Bart and anyone else we can save.”
Raven nodded.
So This is Good-Bye...
We ran through the streets. It was hard to avoid noticing that no lights were on, and very little had been cleaned. The Streets were slick with ice. Cars were buried in snow that, in many cases, had frozen solid on top of the vehicles. The windows of numerous storefronts and several homes had been broken.
We knew that the adults placed under house arrest weren't being kept in the Community Center. Since it had been turned into the Relocation Center we'd all spent too much time there, and it wasn't big enough to hide the more than one dozen adults who had been placed under 'house arrest'. Since only community center and town hall had heat, it was easy to conclude that they must be in Town Hall.
Now the funny part is that because everyone had been chasing us towards the edge of town, when we doubled back and headed to the business center, nobody was around to see us. We arrived at the Town Hall, and checked for a way in. The front door was unlocked, open in fact. Which made me nervous. Lights were on in several rooms, We fanned out and looked everywhere except the council chamber. We could hear a voice or voices in the council room and nobody wanted to draw us into a confrontation in the center of town. Once everywhere else had been searched however, and it was clear that no other room had any of the house arrest adults, we quietly decided to check the council room.
We walked in to see Professor Tuttle with a bottle labelled Vodka in his left hand and a highball glass in his right hand. He sat quietly in the Mayor's seat, looking into nowhere.
As we entered the room, he looked at us, “Seven Billion people with nothing original to say, singing the same self-centered apocalyptic song for the last ten thousand years. And we have the audacity to think that this is our story.”
“Then give it up.” I said.
“And do what? We've scribbled all over the storybook. There's nowhere left for any other stories. We've taken stories away from everybody for all time. We've broken the world, and all we can do is hang on. Maybe, when everything stops falling, there will be something left over.”
“So you're going to keep doing this? Keep helping them run this monstrosity? You turned us in. I'm pretty sure it was you who betrayed Bart as well. Is that what you call hanging on? I call it running from a bear and tripping your friends to feed the bear.”
“This is the only way, and even if it's broken there is nothing else. No other way.”
Viper stared at Professor Tuttle with a ferocious, venomous anger.
“So how do you know that? And even if you're right, what does that mean? And even if you're right, so what? Is there any value left in what you're trying?”
“Good questions.” He said with a bitter laugh.
“You tried to teach us how to think, but you stole what you taught from Raven’s dad, without ever understanding how to ask yourself three questions. Raven's Dad is locked in some dark room somewhere with Bart and they're being fed a weak stew made from Mrs. Giller's cats. And you helped make that, because you don't have the courage to ask yourself those three questions you tried to teach us.”
Professor Tuttle didn't say anything. He just sat there.
“Come on, he's never going to grow up.” Owl said to Viper, who shook her head disgustedly.
“I'm going to raise the alarm now.” Professor Tuttle said in a hollow shell shocked voice. “You'd best run.”
“Betrayer to the end?” Wolf asked.
“This is how it has to be. The good of the many. Survival of the culture. This is how it has to be.”
He pulled a sports whistle from his pocket and blew three long blasts, and then three short blasts on the whistle. We listened to bells ringing in the distance, echoing the alarm the Professor had raised. Owl stared at Professor Tuttle and shook his head. I don't know what I was expecting Owl to do to Professor Tuttle as Owl stepped toward him, but when Owl suddenly backhanded Professor Tuttle across the face I was so shocked I actually yelled in surprise.
Owl looked at me. He didn't say anything, he just looked for a moment and then turned back to face Professor Tuttle. The Professor's nose was bleeding and he looked at Owl with a weird look on his face, somewhere between anger and respect and despair. Owl looked back at Professor Tuttle with utter disgust.
“You have to do more than just talk a good game Professor. You have to get your hands dirty. And my hands are so dirty that they're red. You don't know me, or any of us anymore. Just remember we gave you a chance. This was your chance. We know what you are know, and if you are half a smart as we always thought you were, you know what we are know. Your side has the advantages right now, but it stay like that. We're retreating now, but don't mistake that for victory. We win. And next time we meet, you better be ready.”
Viper turned back to Raven.
“We don't have time to find your parents now, but we aren't abandoning them. We're coming back for them. I promise that we're coming back for them and for Bart and anyone else we can save.”
Raven nodded.
Friday, February 19, 2016
Exodus Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
The School is on Fire
We could see the fire burning from across town. We kept to the shadows, and stayed out of sight. It was impossible to feel safe though, because across town we could hear the unmistakable sound of gun shots. The gun shots were sporadic and there were long pauses between them. But when they sounded, the gun shots sounded in little mobs of sound.
The gun shots were a mixed blessing. If Owl's dad was being fired on, then he was still alive and still acting as a solid distraction from the supply group that Viper was leading. But if he was being fired on, then he hadn't got away clean and was still in danger.
As we skirted from the shadows of one building to another, I started to feel uneasy. As I tried to put my finger on the cause, I realized that the gun shots had stopped. I listened. I could still hear men shouting back and forth, although I couldn't make out the words. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
"Do you think my dad is alright?" Owl asked as we watched the fire from across town.
I wanted to lie to him. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, not even to comfort a friend.
"I don't know. He's pretty cool. But there would've been lots of guards with guns and all."
"It's weird to hear people calling him cool. And weirder to not know if he's alive."
We don't see the setting of the fire, because of course it took place during the training sequence.
We could see the fire burning from across town. We kept to the shadows, and stayed out of sight. It was impossible to feel safe though, because across town we could hear the unmistakable sound of gun shots. The gun shots were sporadic and there were long pauses between them. But when they sounded, the gun shots sounded in little mobs of sound.
The gun shots were a mixed blessing. If Owl's dad was being fired on, then he was still alive and still acting as a solid distraction from the supply group that Viper was leading. But if he was being fired on, then he hadn't got away clean and was still in danger.
As we skirted from the shadows of one building to another, I started to feel uneasy. As I tried to put my finger on the cause, I realized that the gun shots had stopped. I listened. I could still hear men shouting back and forth, although I couldn't make out the words. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
We arrived at the meeting point. And we waited. Hidden in the shadows, minutes crept by as we watched flashlight beams move in the distance and listened to the shouts of adults.
We had heard gun shots earlier of course, but all in the direction of the school. Nothing in the direction of Viper's group. But that didn't mean that they hadn't escaped clean. That didn't mean they had escaped at all. And that certainly didn't mean that they were safe.
Finally a quiet whistle caused us to turn, further back in the alley, we could see Viper's group. We joined them and stared at our new tribe as they laid out the duffle bags and backpacks filled with everything from rice to tarpaulins.
As we took stock of the equipment and supplies, I noticed Wolf watching the lights from the fires. They were visible even from the alleyway.
"The fires are spreading. It's pretty impressive." Wolf said.
"It's a good thing that it's winter." I added.
"Yeah, but we've been hearing gun shots, so it wasn't completely successful." Hawk said.
"They have multiple stockpiles, this was never going to get rid of all their weapons. The idea was cripple their ability to use force, not remove it." Owl said
"Well, we've crippled an angry monster, but we're still within biting distance." I said.
"Isn't that the truth." Owl said as he watched the lights from the fire flicker in the distance. He stared for a long time, until people began to shuffle awkwardly.
"Your dad's not coming my man. He's on the run and doesn't want to bring the heat back to us." Lion said.
Owl nodded, clearly unconvinced.
"Bud, your dad is the man. He pulled himself back together when every other adult went nuts. He'll make it."
"Maybe." Owl said.
"Maybe he let himself get caught to buy us more time." Sparrow offered.
"I hope not. My dad doesn't treat traitors well." Wolf said quietly
"He was never on your dad's side." Viper said.
"That's not how my dad will look at it." Wolf answered.
"That's if he even got caught." I said.
"That's if he even survived." Owl finished quietly.
I sat there thinking about how readily we talked about people not surviving. It wasn't a conversation that I would have guessed that I would have to have so frequently.
"This is it." Owl announced, "from here there is no turning back. We screwed up when we tried to hide in town. We screwed up when we tried to stay at cabin so close to town. From here we disappear. We leave town and we keep going. We don't look back and we don't stop until town more than a day's walk away at least. We don't live in safehopple bluff anymore. Nobody does. Safe hope bluff doesn't exist any longer. And it is time to leave."
We loaded up and began to head out. Everyone was out in force though, not just Them, and we had to move in the shadows and be very careful. Fortunately when I say everyone, I mean everyone who was still fit and healthy. And, the grim reality was that this reduced the number of people who could be seraching for us pretty considerably. Whenever we had to cross Main Street, I could see Mr. Wolf in the distance. He was coordinating the search, pointing where he wanted groups to go. He was limping, I noticed, but it didn't seem to be slowing him much.
"Does that man ever stop?" Owl asked in frustration.
Wolf looked at him.
"He might if he were dead, but I'm not sure. Remember buds,” Wolf added to the restof the group as we moved, “Owl's dad did a number on their guns and ammo situation. But we know they have more than one place that they use to keep that stuff. So that means we''re deep behind enemy lines. And they have guns. We don't." Wolf said.
And, as if on cue I heard an alarm cal go up. And suddenly we were all running to the cover of the next alley as shouts and commands echoed behind us. We were almost to the end of the alleyway when a gun shot rang out behind us.
They were shooting at us.
For a half moment, I almost froze. Several kids did.
“Move! Or you're an easier target! Go! Go!” I could hear Owl and Viper a little further to front yelling much the same things. I scrambled behind a steel dumpster as the gun shots echoed in the alley way. I was being shot at. We were being shot at. They were willing to shoot at children now. That was new.
"Well, I think we've conclusively rendered ourselves their enemies." Sparrow said. As he huddled beside me.
"We need to get some guns of our own," Lion said, "You know, even the odds."
"Do you know anything about gun safety? Or how to properly use a gun?" Owl said from behind a dumpster further down the alleyway.
"I play Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty."
"Then any gun you hold is going to be more dangerous to yourself and us that it will be to any opponent." Owl said. Then Owl paused as the shooting stopped.
“He's reloading,” Owl said sharply, “Now, run!”
We ran and quickly out distanced Them. I don't think most of the adults knew the back alleys of town quite as well as the kids. They probably did when they were our ages, but things change- and adults don't cope with change very well. We were nearing the edge of town when we rounded a corner and came face to face with my mother, holding service revolver at her side and flashlight pointed right at our group.
Nobody said anything, and I pushed my way to the front. She gave me a disappointed look. And then she lowered her flashlight so that it wasn't pointing at me.
"This isn't the right way." She said quietly.
"Was brutalizing Bart the right way, mom?"
"We make the compromises we must to defend what we hold dear."
"You don't have anything left, mom. You've given it all away in compromise. Including me." I said.
"I can't let you leave." She said.
I thought about this. I knew my mother was an outstanding shot with her service pistol. But I didn't think she could bring herself to shoot a child. Still, I wasn't sure that I could take that chance.
"So what will you do mom? Will you shoot us? On your own, that's the only way you're preventing us from going. Will you call for others? We won't stop for them either, and then they'll have to shoot us. Can you live with either of those options?"
She didn't answer.
"Here's an easy answer. You never saw us. You told me before everything exploded that people end up doing far too many things they later regret. Well you've compromised your morals for people whose actions you hate before. You can do it again, once more, for me. Or," I paused and took a breath, "Or you can shoot your son in the back."
We looped back around and took a detour to avoid my mother. The problem that I was noticing, was that we were faster than the adults in almost all cases, but there were too many of us to effectively hide, and so when we came around another corner and almost ran over Viper's parents, I can't say that I was surprised. It wasn't as though we were having great luck at this point.
Viper’s Mom stared acidly at us over a flashlight beam, “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Yeah mom, I do. We’ve made it harder for Mrs. Winter to use force to scare everyone into submission.”
“You’ve destroyed what little semblance of order that was left. You’ve plunged Safehope Bluff into anarchy.”
“It was a dictatorship before we blew things up. If you want it to stay a dictatorship, I’m sure Mrs. Winter will be willing to keep ruling over you.”
“You’ve abandoned your family!” Her father said with crossed arms.
Viper scowled, "You abandoned me when you made me give most of my rations to the brats because they're crybabies. You abandoned me every time you put them ahead of me. I wasn't your family, I was your Cinderella. You can keep your family. I'll make my own."
"Let's get out of here," Owl said, "We're done here."
“No, we can’t leave town yet. We aren’t done.”
“Why not? What’s left?”
“Who’s left? THat's what I’m thinking. I want to see if we can find my parents, and Bart”
"We all want to save our parents." Hawk added," My moms are cool. They've never been jerks to us- but they won't come. I tried to convince them that we should leave, and they were just like 'where would we go?', so I don't see how we can help the adults. They're all kind of blind."
“Why bother? You saw my mom, adults are useless.”
“My mom and my dad opposed all of this until they were stopped. And Bart help them and us the whole way along. And my parents are smart, they could help us. And they might be only one’s besides Owl’s dad who understand, even a little, what we’ve learned.”
"Owl's dad was awesome, and he may have died to buy us time to get these supplies. My dad was one of the few adults who helped us realize what we needed to do. If he's alive, then he can help us and so can my mom. They wouldn't be useless- they would actually help our chances at survival. And let's be honest here. Even with our gear, it's going to be hard going for us too. We're gambling different than the adults, but we're gambling and we need all the resources we can get. And my parents are good resources.
Viper nodded, "You've got a point. I'll go with you."
"We aren't leaving anyone behind, buds." Wolf said.
"Never leave a man behind." Lion said.
"Why not, it's not like we haven't cheated death enough already." Sparrow added.
A murmur swept through the group and I realized everyone was going to back Raven on this. It was an odd feeling. But I guess, when you draw a line between your group and the rest of the world; your loyalty to that group gets really strong really fast.
The School is on Fire
We could see the fire burning from across town. We kept to the shadows, and stayed out of sight. It was impossible to feel safe though, because across town we could hear the unmistakable sound of gun shots. The gun shots were sporadic and there were long pauses between them. But when they sounded, the gun shots sounded in little mobs of sound.
The gun shots were a mixed blessing. If Owl's dad was being fired on, then he was still alive and still acting as a solid distraction from the supply group that Viper was leading. But if he was being fired on, then he hadn't got away clean and was still in danger.
As we skirted from the shadows of one building to another, I started to feel uneasy. As I tried to put my finger on the cause, I realized that the gun shots had stopped. I listened. I could still hear men shouting back and forth, although I couldn't make out the words. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
"Do you think my dad is alright?" Owl asked as we watched the fire from across town.
I wanted to lie to him. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, not even to comfort a friend.
"I don't know. He's pretty cool. But there would've been lots of guards with guns and all."
"It's weird to hear people calling him cool. And weirder to not know if he's alive."
We don't see the setting of the fire, because of course it took place during the training sequence.
We could see the fire burning from across town. We kept to the shadows, and stayed out of sight. It was impossible to feel safe though, because across town we could hear the unmistakable sound of gun shots. The gun shots were sporadic and there were long pauses between them. But when they sounded, the gun shots sounded in little mobs of sound.
The gun shots were a mixed blessing. If Owl's dad was being fired on, then he was still alive and still acting as a solid distraction from the supply group that Viper was leading. But if he was being fired on, then he hadn't got away clean and was still in danger.
As we skirted from the shadows of one building to another, I started to feel uneasy. As I tried to put my finger on the cause, I realized that the gun shots had stopped. I listened. I could still hear men shouting back and forth, although I couldn't make out the words. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
We arrived at the meeting point. And we waited. Hidden in the shadows, minutes crept by as we watched flashlight beams move in the distance and listened to the shouts of adults.
We had heard gun shots earlier of course, but all in the direction of the school. Nothing in the direction of Viper's group. But that didn't mean that they hadn't escaped clean. That didn't mean they had escaped at all. And that certainly didn't mean that they were safe.
Finally a quiet whistle caused us to turn, further back in the alley, we could see Viper's group. We joined them and stared at our new tribe as they laid out the duffle bags and backpacks filled with everything from rice to tarpaulins.
As we took stock of the equipment and supplies, I noticed Wolf watching the lights from the fires. They were visible even from the alleyway.
"The fires are spreading. It's pretty impressive." Wolf said.
"It's a good thing that it's winter." I added.
"Yeah, but we've been hearing gun shots, so it wasn't completely successful." Hawk said.
"They have multiple stockpiles, this was never going to get rid of all their weapons. The idea was cripple their ability to use force, not remove it." Owl said
"Well, we've crippled an angry monster, but we're still within biting distance." I said.
"Isn't that the truth." Owl said as he watched the lights from the fire flicker in the distance. He stared for a long time, until people began to shuffle awkwardly.
"Your dad's not coming my man. He's on the run and doesn't want to bring the heat back to us." Lion said.
Owl nodded, clearly unconvinced.
"Bud, your dad is the man. He pulled himself back together when every other adult went nuts. He'll make it."
"Maybe." Owl said.
"Maybe he let himself get caught to buy us more time." Sparrow offered.
"I hope not. My dad doesn't treat traitors well." Wolf said quietly
"He was never on your dad's side." Viper said.
"That's not how my dad will look at it." Wolf answered.
"That's if he even got caught." I said.
"That's if he even survived." Owl finished quietly.
I sat there thinking about how readily we talked about people not surviving. It wasn't a conversation that I would have guessed that I would have to have so frequently.
"This is it." Owl announced, "from here there is no turning back. We screwed up when we tried to hide in town. We screwed up when we tried to stay at cabin so close to town. From here we disappear. We leave town and we keep going. We don't look back and we don't stop until town more than a day's walk away at least. We don't live in safehopple bluff anymore. Nobody does. Safe hope bluff doesn't exist any longer. And it is time to leave."
We loaded up and began to head out. Everyone was out in force though, not just Them, and we had to move in the shadows and be very careful. Fortunately when I say everyone, I mean everyone who was still fit and healthy. And, the grim reality was that this reduced the number of people who could be seraching for us pretty considerably. Whenever we had to cross Main Street, I could see Mr. Wolf in the distance. He was coordinating the search, pointing where he wanted groups to go. He was limping, I noticed, but it didn't seem to be slowing him much.
"Does that man ever stop?" Owl asked in frustration.
Wolf looked at him.
"He might if he were dead, but I'm not sure. Remember buds,” Wolf added to the restof the group as we moved, “Owl's dad did a number on their guns and ammo situation. But we know they have more than one place that they use to keep that stuff. So that means we''re deep behind enemy lines. And they have guns. We don't." Wolf said.
And, as if on cue I heard an alarm cal go up. And suddenly we were all running to the cover of the next alley as shouts and commands echoed behind us. We were almost to the end of the alleyway when a gun shot rang out behind us.
They were shooting at us.
For a half moment, I almost froze. Several kids did.
“Move! Or you're an easier target! Go! Go!” I could hear Owl and Viper a little further to front yelling much the same things. I scrambled behind a steel dumpster as the gun shots echoed in the alley way. I was being shot at. We were being shot at. They were willing to shoot at children now. That was new.
"Well, I think we've conclusively rendered ourselves their enemies." Sparrow said. As he huddled beside me.
"We need to get some guns of our own," Lion said, "You know, even the odds."
"Do you know anything about gun safety? Or how to properly use a gun?" Owl said from behind a dumpster further down the alleyway.
"I play Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty."
"Then any gun you hold is going to be more dangerous to yourself and us that it will be to any opponent." Owl said. Then Owl paused as the shooting stopped.
“He's reloading,” Owl said sharply, “Now, run!”
We ran and quickly out distanced Them. I don't think most of the adults knew the back alleys of town quite as well as the kids. They probably did when they were our ages, but things change- and adults don't cope with change very well. We were nearing the edge of town when we rounded a corner and came face to face with my mother, holding service revolver at her side and flashlight pointed right at our group.
Nobody said anything, and I pushed my way to the front. She gave me a disappointed look. And then she lowered her flashlight so that it wasn't pointing at me.
"This isn't the right way." She said quietly.
"Was brutalizing Bart the right way, mom?"
"We make the compromises we must to defend what we hold dear."
"You don't have anything left, mom. You've given it all away in compromise. Including me." I said.
"I can't let you leave." She said.
I thought about this. I knew my mother was an outstanding shot with her service pistol. But I didn't think she could bring herself to shoot a child. Still, I wasn't sure that I could take that chance.
"So what will you do mom? Will you shoot us? On your own, that's the only way you're preventing us from going. Will you call for others? We won't stop for them either, and then they'll have to shoot us. Can you live with either of those options?"
She didn't answer.
"Here's an easy answer. You never saw us. You told me before everything exploded that people end up doing far too many things they later regret. Well you've compromised your morals for people whose actions you hate before. You can do it again, once more, for me. Or," I paused and took a breath, "Or you can shoot your son in the back."
We looped back around and took a detour to avoid my mother. The problem that I was noticing, was that we were faster than the adults in almost all cases, but there were too many of us to effectively hide, and so when we came around another corner and almost ran over Viper's parents, I can't say that I was surprised. It wasn't as though we were having great luck at this point.
Viper’s Mom stared acidly at us over a flashlight beam, “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Yeah mom, I do. We’ve made it harder for Mrs. Winter to use force to scare everyone into submission.”
“You’ve destroyed what little semblance of order that was left. You’ve plunged Safehope Bluff into anarchy.”
“It was a dictatorship before we blew things up. If you want it to stay a dictatorship, I’m sure Mrs. Winter will be willing to keep ruling over you.”
“You’ve abandoned your family!” Her father said with crossed arms.
Viper scowled, "You abandoned me when you made me give most of my rations to the brats because they're crybabies. You abandoned me every time you put them ahead of me. I wasn't your family, I was your Cinderella. You can keep your family. I'll make my own."
"Let's get out of here," Owl said, "We're done here."
“No, we can’t leave town yet. We aren’t done.”
“Why not? What’s left?”
“Who’s left? THat's what I’m thinking. I want to see if we can find my parents, and Bart”
"We all want to save our parents." Hawk added," My moms are cool. They've never been jerks to us- but they won't come. I tried to convince them that we should leave, and they were just like 'where would we go?', so I don't see how we can help the adults. They're all kind of blind."
“Why bother? You saw my mom, adults are useless.”
“My mom and my dad opposed all of this until they were stopped. And Bart help them and us the whole way along. And my parents are smart, they could help us. And they might be only one’s besides Owl’s dad who understand, even a little, what we’ve learned.”
"Owl's dad was awesome, and he may have died to buy us time to get these supplies. My dad was one of the few adults who helped us realize what we needed to do. If he's alive, then he can help us and so can my mom. They wouldn't be useless- they would actually help our chances at survival. And let's be honest here. Even with our gear, it's going to be hard going for us too. We're gambling different than the adults, but we're gambling and we need all the resources we can get. And my parents are good resources.
Viper nodded, "You've got a point. I'll go with you."
"We aren't leaving anyone behind, buds." Wolf said.
"Never leave a man behind." Lion said.
"Why not, it's not like we haven't cheated death enough already." Sparrow added.
A murmur swept through the group and I realized everyone was going to back Raven on this. It was an odd feeling. But I guess, when you draw a line between your group and the rest of the world; your loyalty to that group gets really strong really fast.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Exodus Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen
Training Day
Mr. Wolf was red in the face as he stared at all of us. Finally his eyes stopped moving and he stared at Wolf. I could feel the bottom drop out of my stomach, and I knew what was coming next.
"I've tried, for years I've tried to make you a man, and you keep insisting on acting like a child. I am going to whip you into shape this time even if it kills me."
The space between Mr. Wolf and his son seemed to warp and absorb the sound like sponge- making everything deathly silent. Nobody moved for the longest time, and I kind of started to think that time had actually stopped.
And then Owl stepped between them.
"We are men." He said, arms crossed, "You told us that we needed to be men and not boys. Well we took you serious. And men make their own damn decisions, they don't let other people do it for them. You aren't mad that we're still children, you're mad that these men decided to oppose you anyway."
Mr. Wolf turned his head away, almost like he'd been punched in the face. And then he slowly turned back to Owl, “You are a spoiled brat who has no idea what it takes to keep civilization together."
Owl moved his hands to his hips, "You think we're still kids. Then we'll prove it."
Owl looked at me then, and I nodded and stepped up to join him and Wolf.
Owl continued, "You want to whip Wolf into shape? I think you're a coward who likes to hit people smaller than yourself. But you want to be a bully, I say even the odds. We'll all take that whipping. If you can manage it. If you can take us."
Silence stretched like a monster growing between us. Owl had baited the giant, would he bite?
"You boys all want to share the whipping, that's just fine with me. You all need a lesson anyway."
I could hear Mr. Wolf's men whispering about the awful things that were about to be visited up us as Mr. Wolf marched us out of the school yard and back to Wolf's house, back to the Carport where Wolf spent more of his childhood that was probably far. The carport was cold enough that our fingers went numb almost immediately. Mr. Wolf seemed oblivious to the cold.
Mr. Wolf didn't say anything. I think he was too angry to speak. he just walked to the center of the ring and pointed to his son and ushered him with an open hand. Wolf nodded, and held up a fist for me to bump and then did the same to Owl. Then, without a word, Wolf stepped into the ring and hell broke loose. I had watched Wolf fight. And I had seen Mr. Wolf fight Lion and Owl. But this was brutal. Wolf was going harder and faster than I had ever seen, and Mr. Wolf was handling it. The traded blows so fast, I frequently couldn't follow it. Wolf was pressing his father, trying to force the man to respond and burn out. But in doing so, Wolf was being aggressive and it was leaving him open more than was probably safe. Mr. Wolf was not a fast as his son, although only by a narrow margin, but he clearly hit much harder than Wolf could, because every blow he landed, shook Wolf and forced him onto the defensive- least briefly.
I looked at Owl. The reality of challenging the man who had brutalized him before had clearly sunk in, and Owl looked like he was tied to the tracks of a railroad in an old movie. I looked back at Wolf. This was a war of attrition. We had to stall his father with our bodies. And We needed to pace ourselves and stay in the fight long enough for everyone else to do their jobs. But it was clear that Wolf was losing ground and taking hits that might prevent him from coming back in later on if it went that far.
I couldn't wait any longer. Wolf was landed solid blows consistently, but his father kept acting like they didn't matter, and countering with blows that staggered Wolf. Then Wolf telegraphed a punch a little too much, made a little to obvious before he threw the blow, and Mr. Wolf took advantage. He stepped around his son's punch and hammered Wolf hard in the ribcage and followed it up with a blow to Wolf's hip. Wolf dropped to his knees and stayed there. Mr. Wolf didn't pursuse, he stepped back and folded his arms and looked over at us.
I could feel my legs shaking, literally shaking. Mr. Wolf had always been the scariest man I'd ever known, but Wolf wasn't getting up. And somebody needed to do something.
"My turn," I said, trying desperately to sound brave, "Wolf doesn't get all the fun."
I walked over, and Mr. Wolf grinned like a cat with a mouthful of canary. Wolf pulled himself to his feet and I fist bumped him, and then turned with my fists up to face his father as Wolf limped out of the ring.
"Tag," I said, and I could hear the waver in my voice, "I'm in."
I'm a decent fighter. It would be almost impossible not to be with Wolf as my best friend. But I'm no where near as good as Wolf or his father. I knew this as I stepped into the ring. I'm neither nor incredible strong or fast. But I also knew that I didn't have to win. I just needed to draw this out. Wolf had clearly been hoping to do some damage to protect us from the worst of his father's rage. But his dad didn't seem slowed much by the previous round with his son.
He also didn't unload on me like he had on Wolf. He let me come in and throw a few jabs, and then contented himself with pounding my forearms raw as I brought them up to block his lightning fast counter attacks. It was painfully clear that he was trying to take my arms away from me so that he could punish me at his leisure, and as I tried to stay mobile and keep throwing enough blows to keep things going, I could feel the pain in my arms slowly becoming unmanageable.
Finally I couldn't keep my hands up anymore. And I let them drop. Immediately he moved in and threw several fast jabs, I managed to dodge them with footwork, but found myself almost at the back wall, and with no good place to move. Mr. Wolf pressed forward, and the second round of jabs hit me in the face and I lost of second or two before I could tell what was happening. I dragged my arms back into guard position and tried my best to weather the incoming storm.
I was having trouble thinking, every time my head started to clear, something slammed into it again, shaking my concentration. I think it hurt too, but I couldn't tell anymore, because everything hurt. I was vaguely aware of the fact that I was being punched, but I couldn't find my hands to block with them.
And then the hitting stopped and my mind steadied. I become slowly aware of somebody standing between me and the hitting.
I looked up and was surprised to recognize Wolf standing there.
"You've hurt my friend enough dad. My turn again."
"You're in no shape to tag in, let the loud one do it."
"I'm your opponent dad, worry about me."
"Whatever you want. I'll get to him eventually."
I dragged myself to side and Father and son began again. This wasn't a fight anymore though, this was a beat down. Wolf was already hurt and tired and Mr. Wolf didn't seem to care. He was more vicious against Wolf than he had been against me. And in the state Wolf was in after the first round, his father was simply too much for his Wolf to handle. It was painful to watch. Mr. Wolf simply pounded his son, while Wofl struggled to remain standing. I wanted to tag back in, but hadn't recovered enough to step in.
I looked at Owl, and saw raw terror in his eyes. There was no way Owl was getting into that ring in the state he was in. And Wolf needed a break if he was going to walk out of here. I tapped Owl on the shoulder and he swun his head sharply to look at me with wide eyes, before calming back down.
“I can't do it.” He said, “I shouldn't have pretended I could. He'll just beat us all to death.”
I thought about that for a moment, and then I answered, “He hasn't killed anyone that I know of, but you know who has? You have. You beat Mr. Pinchen to death. Wolf's dad is a soldier, but you are a proven killer. What did you think about when you killed Pinchen?”
I could see Owl focusing, “I just kept thinking about what he had done to my mother. It was really easy with that in mind. I wasn't there to fight him. I just wanted him dead.”
“Well,” I said, “Who do you think was responsible for putting Mr. Pinchen in that position and giving him the equipment and the opportunity to kill your mother? Mr. Pinchen was a weapon that somebody else pointed at your mom. Who do you think did that?”
Owl nodded, suddenly in control of himself and stood up.
"Okay, that's enough. Tag. I'm in." I could here a waver in Owl's voice, but he stepped into the ring, and Mr. Wolf let him tag Wolf, who retreated gratefully to the sidelines.
"The loudmouth finally steps up to take his medicine. I figured you we too much of coward to go toe to toe with me. All talk, that was what I figured. So you managed to impress me a little by finally stepping into the ring, but you're going to regret it."
“I regret every time I pretended to agree with you or like you or not offend you. But I don't regret this. Game on old man.”
Mr. Wolf was tired by this point, but nowhere near tired enough. Owl had to know this, because he was playing a defensive game like I had. The biggest danger for Owl was making a mistake. We had to hold on, and neither Wolf or myself could manage to get back into the ring. Owl struggled, he was faster than any of us, but he was also the smallest and even when he blocked, Mr. Wolf's hits would often stagger him back several steps. Mr. Wolf was working Owl even slower than he had me though, drawing things out, I think, to teach a lesson. Of course with Wolf's father the lesson was simple- don't disobey or cross Mr. Wolf.
Then one of Owl's jabs hit low, below the belt, but only just and Mr. Wolf actually winced momentarily. I noticed a flicker on something Owl's eyes when it happened though and suddenly Owl was moving less defensively and using more footwork to try and stay mobile. Owl's next blow was a low blow as well, only this time there was no way it was an accident. Mr. Wolf actually staggered when Owl landed the blow to his groin.
"You're cheating, you little turd!" Mr. Wolf spat angrily at Owl.
Owl grinned.
"Cheating is what the big guy calls it when the little guy fights in a way that doesn't favour the big guy. You're a full grown man. You're a moose compared to me. And wolves don't bring down a Moose by challenging it to one on one combat and playing by nice rules. Wolves gang up and they use every advantage they can find."
Mr. Wolf looked over at me and Wolf. Recognition of our plan flickered over his face, and then Owl stomped onto his knee from the side. I heard a strange pop, and Mr. Wolf dropped to one knee with a roar of pain.
"What are you little boys playing at?" He said and he pulled himself back to his feet. Owl let him get back up, playing for time.
"We're tired of you taking out your anger on Wolf. He our friend. He's our tribe. We will stand by him, we will fight beside him- even if it means fighting against his dad."
Mr. Wolf righted himself and threw a series of sharp jabs that penetrated Owl's guard and knock him back, almost into the ropes. Owl wasn't looking so good. I didn't know how much longer we needed to hold out. And I didn't know how much longer we could hold out.
Then we heard the explosion.
Mr. Wolf looked up in shock and turned to face the school. I could see the horror written in the lines of his face and he saw the flames leaping from where we all knew the school should be.
It was in that moment, with Mr. Wolf staring away in shock, that the risk of what we were doing sank in. His gun was on the table and there was nobody here. I wasn't ready to kill Mr. Wolf. Call me stupid, but I couldn't do it and don't think Owl or Wolf could either. We looked at each other, and understood our mutual danger.
I don't remember if we nodded or made any movement, but we knew, and so we turned as one and ran. Really, we shouldn't have been able to run at this point. We were in awful shape, but we didn't have a choice did we? So we ran. It was several moments after we had cleared the garage that we heard Mr. Wolf yell after us.
"What did you do?"
Owl grinned beside me.
"We destroyed you." He answered quietly under his breath.
Training Day
Mr. Wolf was red in the face as he stared at all of us. Finally his eyes stopped moving and he stared at Wolf. I could feel the bottom drop out of my stomach, and I knew what was coming next.
"I've tried, for years I've tried to make you a man, and you keep insisting on acting like a child. I am going to whip you into shape this time even if it kills me."
The space between Mr. Wolf and his son seemed to warp and absorb the sound like sponge- making everything deathly silent. Nobody moved for the longest time, and I kind of started to think that time had actually stopped.
And then Owl stepped between them.
"We are men." He said, arms crossed, "You told us that we needed to be men and not boys. Well we took you serious. And men make their own damn decisions, they don't let other people do it for them. You aren't mad that we're still children, you're mad that these men decided to oppose you anyway."
Mr. Wolf turned his head away, almost like he'd been punched in the face. And then he slowly turned back to Owl, “You are a spoiled brat who has no idea what it takes to keep civilization together."
Owl moved his hands to his hips, "You think we're still kids. Then we'll prove it."
Owl looked at me then, and I nodded and stepped up to join him and Wolf.
Owl continued, "You want to whip Wolf into shape? I think you're a coward who likes to hit people smaller than yourself. But you want to be a bully, I say even the odds. We'll all take that whipping. If you can manage it. If you can take us."
Silence stretched like a monster growing between us. Owl had baited the giant, would he bite?
"You boys all want to share the whipping, that's just fine with me. You all need a lesson anyway."
I could hear Mr. Wolf's men whispering about the awful things that were about to be visited up us as Mr. Wolf marched us out of the school yard and back to Wolf's house, back to the Carport where Wolf spent more of his childhood that was probably far. The carport was cold enough that our fingers went numb almost immediately. Mr. Wolf seemed oblivious to the cold.
Mr. Wolf didn't say anything. I think he was too angry to speak. he just walked to the center of the ring and pointed to his son and ushered him with an open hand. Wolf nodded, and held up a fist for me to bump and then did the same to Owl. Then, without a word, Wolf stepped into the ring and hell broke loose. I had watched Wolf fight. And I had seen Mr. Wolf fight Lion and Owl. But this was brutal. Wolf was going harder and faster than I had ever seen, and Mr. Wolf was handling it. The traded blows so fast, I frequently couldn't follow it. Wolf was pressing his father, trying to force the man to respond and burn out. But in doing so, Wolf was being aggressive and it was leaving him open more than was probably safe. Mr. Wolf was not a fast as his son, although only by a narrow margin, but he clearly hit much harder than Wolf could, because every blow he landed, shook Wolf and forced him onto the defensive- least briefly.
I looked at Owl. The reality of challenging the man who had brutalized him before had clearly sunk in, and Owl looked like he was tied to the tracks of a railroad in an old movie. I looked back at Wolf. This was a war of attrition. We had to stall his father with our bodies. And We needed to pace ourselves and stay in the fight long enough for everyone else to do their jobs. But it was clear that Wolf was losing ground and taking hits that might prevent him from coming back in later on if it went that far.
I couldn't wait any longer. Wolf was landed solid blows consistently, but his father kept acting like they didn't matter, and countering with blows that staggered Wolf. Then Wolf telegraphed a punch a little too much, made a little to obvious before he threw the blow, and Mr. Wolf took advantage. He stepped around his son's punch and hammered Wolf hard in the ribcage and followed it up with a blow to Wolf's hip. Wolf dropped to his knees and stayed there. Mr. Wolf didn't pursuse, he stepped back and folded his arms and looked over at us.
I could feel my legs shaking, literally shaking. Mr. Wolf had always been the scariest man I'd ever known, but Wolf wasn't getting up. And somebody needed to do something.
"My turn," I said, trying desperately to sound brave, "Wolf doesn't get all the fun."
I walked over, and Mr. Wolf grinned like a cat with a mouthful of canary. Wolf pulled himself to his feet and I fist bumped him, and then turned with my fists up to face his father as Wolf limped out of the ring.
"Tag," I said, and I could hear the waver in my voice, "I'm in."
I'm a decent fighter. It would be almost impossible not to be with Wolf as my best friend. But I'm no where near as good as Wolf or his father. I knew this as I stepped into the ring. I'm neither nor incredible strong or fast. But I also knew that I didn't have to win. I just needed to draw this out. Wolf had clearly been hoping to do some damage to protect us from the worst of his father's rage. But his dad didn't seem slowed much by the previous round with his son.
He also didn't unload on me like he had on Wolf. He let me come in and throw a few jabs, and then contented himself with pounding my forearms raw as I brought them up to block his lightning fast counter attacks. It was painfully clear that he was trying to take my arms away from me so that he could punish me at his leisure, and as I tried to stay mobile and keep throwing enough blows to keep things going, I could feel the pain in my arms slowly becoming unmanageable.
Finally I couldn't keep my hands up anymore. And I let them drop. Immediately he moved in and threw several fast jabs, I managed to dodge them with footwork, but found myself almost at the back wall, and with no good place to move. Mr. Wolf pressed forward, and the second round of jabs hit me in the face and I lost of second or two before I could tell what was happening. I dragged my arms back into guard position and tried my best to weather the incoming storm.
I was having trouble thinking, every time my head started to clear, something slammed into it again, shaking my concentration. I think it hurt too, but I couldn't tell anymore, because everything hurt. I was vaguely aware of the fact that I was being punched, but I couldn't find my hands to block with them.
And then the hitting stopped and my mind steadied. I become slowly aware of somebody standing between me and the hitting.
I looked up and was surprised to recognize Wolf standing there.
"You've hurt my friend enough dad. My turn again."
"You're in no shape to tag in, let the loud one do it."
"I'm your opponent dad, worry about me."
"Whatever you want. I'll get to him eventually."
I dragged myself to side and Father and son began again. This wasn't a fight anymore though, this was a beat down. Wolf was already hurt and tired and Mr. Wolf didn't seem to care. He was more vicious against Wolf than he had been against me. And in the state Wolf was in after the first round, his father was simply too much for his Wolf to handle. It was painful to watch. Mr. Wolf simply pounded his son, while Wofl struggled to remain standing. I wanted to tag back in, but hadn't recovered enough to step in.
I looked at Owl, and saw raw terror in his eyes. There was no way Owl was getting into that ring in the state he was in. And Wolf needed a break if he was going to walk out of here. I tapped Owl on the shoulder and he swun his head sharply to look at me with wide eyes, before calming back down.
“I can't do it.” He said, “I shouldn't have pretended I could. He'll just beat us all to death.”
I thought about that for a moment, and then I answered, “He hasn't killed anyone that I know of, but you know who has? You have. You beat Mr. Pinchen to death. Wolf's dad is a soldier, but you are a proven killer. What did you think about when you killed Pinchen?”
I could see Owl focusing, “I just kept thinking about what he had done to my mother. It was really easy with that in mind. I wasn't there to fight him. I just wanted him dead.”
“Well,” I said, “Who do you think was responsible for putting Mr. Pinchen in that position and giving him the equipment and the opportunity to kill your mother? Mr. Pinchen was a weapon that somebody else pointed at your mom. Who do you think did that?”
Owl nodded, suddenly in control of himself and stood up.
"Okay, that's enough. Tag. I'm in." I could here a waver in Owl's voice, but he stepped into the ring, and Mr. Wolf let him tag Wolf, who retreated gratefully to the sidelines.
"The loudmouth finally steps up to take his medicine. I figured you we too much of coward to go toe to toe with me. All talk, that was what I figured. So you managed to impress me a little by finally stepping into the ring, but you're going to regret it."
“I regret every time I pretended to agree with you or like you or not offend you. But I don't regret this. Game on old man.”
Mr. Wolf was tired by this point, but nowhere near tired enough. Owl had to know this, because he was playing a defensive game like I had. The biggest danger for Owl was making a mistake. We had to hold on, and neither Wolf or myself could manage to get back into the ring. Owl struggled, he was faster than any of us, but he was also the smallest and even when he blocked, Mr. Wolf's hits would often stagger him back several steps. Mr. Wolf was working Owl even slower than he had me though, drawing things out, I think, to teach a lesson. Of course with Wolf's father the lesson was simple- don't disobey or cross Mr. Wolf.
Then one of Owl's jabs hit low, below the belt, but only just and Mr. Wolf actually winced momentarily. I noticed a flicker on something Owl's eyes when it happened though and suddenly Owl was moving less defensively and using more footwork to try and stay mobile. Owl's next blow was a low blow as well, only this time there was no way it was an accident. Mr. Wolf actually staggered when Owl landed the blow to his groin.
"You're cheating, you little turd!" Mr. Wolf spat angrily at Owl.
Owl grinned.
"Cheating is what the big guy calls it when the little guy fights in a way that doesn't favour the big guy. You're a full grown man. You're a moose compared to me. And wolves don't bring down a Moose by challenging it to one on one combat and playing by nice rules. Wolves gang up and they use every advantage they can find."
Mr. Wolf looked over at me and Wolf. Recognition of our plan flickered over his face, and then Owl stomped onto his knee from the side. I heard a strange pop, and Mr. Wolf dropped to one knee with a roar of pain.
"What are you little boys playing at?" He said and he pulled himself back to his feet. Owl let him get back up, playing for time.
"We're tired of you taking out your anger on Wolf. He our friend. He's our tribe. We will stand by him, we will fight beside him- even if it means fighting against his dad."
Mr. Wolf righted himself and threw a series of sharp jabs that penetrated Owl's guard and knock him back, almost into the ropes. Owl wasn't looking so good. I didn't know how much longer we needed to hold out. And I didn't know how much longer we could hold out.
Then we heard the explosion.
Mr. Wolf looked up in shock and turned to face the school. I could see the horror written in the lines of his face and he saw the flames leaping from where we all knew the school should be.
It was in that moment, with Mr. Wolf staring away in shock, that the risk of what we were doing sank in. His gun was on the table and there was nobody here. I wasn't ready to kill Mr. Wolf. Call me stupid, but I couldn't do it and don't think Owl or Wolf could either. We looked at each other, and understood our mutual danger.
I don't remember if we nodded or made any movement, but we knew, and so we turned as one and ran. Really, we shouldn't have been able to run at this point. We were in awful shape, but we didn't have a choice did we? So we ran. It was several moments after we had cleared the garage that we heard Mr. Wolf yell after us.
"What did you do?"
Owl grinned beside me.
"We destroyed you." He answered quietly under his breath.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Exodus Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Returning What was Stolen
Owls dad wasn’t an imposing man. He was niether tall nor well muscled. He wasnt somebody you would expect to stare down anyone. But he surprised me by staring at Owl with a face full of parental disapproval.
"Why were you trying to hunt in town boy? You ought to know better than that. What's eating your sense?"
Owl shifted uncomfortably.
"You going to answer me? Or you going to stare at the ground till you burn a hole through it? Weren’t you kids trying to get away from all of the bad stuff happening here in town?”
"I don't know okay! I mean, we’re planning on leaving town, but we just keep ending up back here. It’s like there’s no way to get away. I hate this place. It’s eating everything I love. But I guess it felt I was running away."
"And what's wrong with running away?"
"I don't know, but it felt bad!"
"That's your white boy showing. They been training you for so long to think that this whole city thing is normal. And they got so good at it, that even somebody like you still thinks this place ought to exist. And you hate this stuff so much I don't dare share my liquor with you. You got comfy with the idea of you not being part of the city, but you still believed them when they told you that the city ought to exist. And now that it's falling apart, you can't pretend that you running away doesn't mean leaving the city to fall apart on its own."
"Why do you think those people who think they're so smart called us indigenous? Its not just a fancy word. It means 'belonging to a place', and that's the thing. We used to belong to the place, the place didn't belong to us. Why are you trying to stay in a dead city? Do you think you're going to rebuild this? And then what? Wait until it falls again? You need to belong to the place you're in, and no city and no town ever belongs to a place, they try to make the place belong to them."
"So you're saying just leave, and let everyone else die?" Hawk said.
“Little girl, you know as much as any of us that people are going to die anyway. There ain’t enough of anything left in town to feed everyone who’s still here and people who try to stay here are either going to die or scavenge off the things that are dying. If you want a chance you got to do what I told my son to do way back before the avalanche. You got to run. Right now. the only place to run is to the woods.”
"Wolverine always found peace in the woods. Maybe we can too." Wolf Added.
"Some people are just bound and determined to go down with their stupid sinking ships boy. You can't make them save themselves. They can't imagine themselves without this big machine world behind them feeding them grapes and playing the TV for them whenever they want. My grandpa always said they made things too loud."
"You watch TV too dad."
"I also drink their alcohol. Whatever gets you through the day. That was the way thing ran in their world. No place you couldn't go that didn't have their claw marks. But you know what? I don't think they can reach so far anymore. I think you might actually be able to run for the hills."
"Me? What about you?"
"I'm a run down alcoholic boy. I'll run probably, but you have a chance to actually get somewhere and do something now that things are changing. But I'm touched. I think that's the first time I ever heard you worried about your old man."
"You're my dad, you’re the only family I have anymore."
"Not anymore, boy. I see what you're doing and I'm proud of you. You're building a tribe, and a tribe is family. It ain't blood, but it's still family- family by deed and not blood. And sometimes, that's more important."
"When did you start talking so much sense dad?"
"I ain't talking any different than I always did. You're just listening a wee bit closer than you used to. I can see what you're thinking and what you're planning to do. And I say good for you. But you've been raised in this world, and when you realize how bad it's lied to you. Then you'll learn what I learned. When you get it, when you understand, we'll talk. And if I've made it back out of this bottle, I might be able to help you."
"I don't understand."
"That's why I have to wait until you do. So why didn't you raid our cabin and then just head out?"
"A Bunch of jerks from Sumpter's ridge raided it, and almost hurt some of our group. A fire started in the fight and a propane tank exploded, There wasn't much usable after that."
"That's harsh."
"Yeah, so we thought we would raid the council's supplies, distract them by setting fire to their ammo, but we weren't able to get it to ignite."
“Sounds like a good idea. What went wrong?”
“We couldn't get the fire going fast enough.”
“That's it?” Owl's dad said, and he seemed to be thinking about something, “Then why don't you let your old man teach you the fine art of arson?”
“You'd help us do that?” Owl asked.
“Yeah, why not?” He asked.
“We haven't exactly had good luck with adults.” Hawk answered.
“Ask my boy. I have no loyalty to this thing. I have no reason to protect it. I will help you. I'll help you start a big distracting fire so you can get your supplies. We'll need to make it very hard for them to stop you from leaving. But you still need supplies to get started.”
“Yeah. We've learned that much from these last few days.”
“One group will wait for the signal and then raid their supplies- dried food and camp gear, that sort of thing. The other group will act as a distraction. I’ll help you start a proper fires. I taught you how to light a fire with a bow drill. I’ll teach you how to light a fire with gun powder.”
“Alright gang, how about it?” Owl asked, “Shall we take another crack at getting out of town away from all the crazy, or do we want to keep trying to hide here?”
The crowd of kids nodded and quickly the consensus was clear. Owl was back in charge and we back in the attempted arson game.
"Okay, so me and my boy are quiet like ninjas. So we go on the sabotage run. And Rabbit, I hunted with you- you're quiet enough too." Owl's father looked around, and then he looked back at Owl, "Hey, this is your show not mine. I should waiting on your decisions."
Owl nodded and looked around, "Mouse, Lion, Hawk. You guys can all fight and you're big enough, but you're too loud. I'll teach you that later. That means you're on guard duty for the supply run."
"You've never even seen me fight," Hawk said.
"No, but I've seen Lion fight, and I know Lion respects you for what you can do in a fight. Raven, your family gardens and you can cook. You need to be in the supply run side so we know what to grab."
"Viper should come with us too," Hawk said.
"Why?" Viper said looking over in surprise.
"You're the second in command aren't you?" Hawk asked, "We should keep our command team separated. You know, like the President and the Vice President never travel together. And you're the brain of the group. We need somebody to herd these cats. They don't know what to do on their own."
Viper bit her lip and furrowed her brow.
"Fine, I'm not very quiet anyway. I was the loudest on the hunt with Owl's dad."
"You'll get better," Owl's Dad said with a grin.
"I'm not super quiet, but you'll need some muscle- and all I do is muscle." Wolf said looking at Owl.
"I won't argue with that. You're quiet enough."
"I'm not quiet or good in a fight," Sparrow announced, "But I'm clever, and I bet I can help pick what we need and what we don't- so I volunteer to go with Raven and Viper's team."
"I won't argue with that." Owl answered, "Actually, I think the sabotage team should be a small as possible. Dad, do you want anyone else, or do we have enough already?"
"This is probably good, and the more folks you have on Viper's team, the more supplies you can haul out."
As we headed out, Owl began questioning his father.
"So what's the plan, Dad?"
"What we need is heat. If you want to cause a discharge of the ammunition with a fast cook-off you need a fire. And from what you told me last time, you didn't have the proper equipment to get the fire up and roaring last time. So you need to accelerate the fire. Like with alcohol or gasoline. You have to bring the casing up to the proper temperature first if you want to make the propellant discharge."
"Gas and alcohol. Those aren't exactly common commodities anymore Dad."
"you remember when you saw me drinking, and asked how I got it? And I said I had hidden it?"
"Yeah."
"I lied. I got given that alcohol. And then, after I got given it, I hid most of it. I mean, I drank some- but I promised you I'd try to quit and I thought I'd need it to help me get dry slower. Ease the crash, you know. But, if you need an accelerant, then that hard home brew liquor they gave me is just the thing."
"Who would give you alcohol in the center? Dad, that makes no sense."
"I guess somebody felt like they owed me something.I used to help a lot people when I was dry. Some people remember if you help them when they're down."
Wolf looked up sharply at the comment, and then looked away, but didn't say anything. I watched Wolf's face. He didn't say anything. Wolf didn't show huge amounts of emotion most of the time, but I could see conflicting emotions on his face. Finally, he spoke.
"You're talking about my dad, aren't you."
"I got deer for lots of people, why do think it's your dad?"
"I'm right aren't I? He hates alcohol, but he never talks badly about you. He still feels like he owes you, and so he got you your alcohol even if he disagreed. Didn't he?"
"It isn't my place to speak about why people do what they do."
Wolf shook his head and looked away.
"Are we doing the right thing here buds? I mean should we maybe try and work with them and reason with them or something?"
"That doesn't sound like the Wolf I know," Owl said.
"People are complicated you know. You can see somebody every day and think you know them, and think they're awful and cold and hard and just kind of jerks; and then it's easy to forget that they can do good things too." Wolf paused, clearly searching for words, "I mean, Ra's Al-Ghul loves his daughter, and he even goes easy on Batman because of that every now and then."
I looked at Wolf, "And he murders people left and right as eh tries to conquer the world and institute his brand of order. Just because you pet your dog and love your daughter, doesn't mean you don't lock up people who disagree, starve people who won't obey and beat up people who speak out. Darth Vader saved Luke Skywalker's life at the end of Return of the Jedi. He still Destroyed whole planets with the Death Star."
"He's a human being, but that's not enough." Owl said, "There are so many people on the planet. And because those supply lines are breaking and because of the systems are falling apart, most of them- I bet- have less food than we do here. A people all over the place are going to starve, and die in riots over food like my mom. And people who think it's okay to act like kings are people I don't think we need- do you? Do you have loyalty to a false king?"
"He scares me." Wolf said, "The avalanche didn't scare me. Having no food doesn't scare me. Most of the time, when people get scared I don't have any idea what they're feeling and I feel weird watching them be so afraid of things that don't bother me. But he scares me, and when people aren't afraid of them, I wonder what wrong with them."
"Fear isn't loyalty." I said.
"It is to him."
"And that's why he's wrong. So let's break his ability to make people afraid."
Owl's dad led us back to his trailer. He headed to his ill tended garden, and I noticed that the soil in the garden all looked freshly tilled, despite the snow everywhere else.
"You buried it in your garden?" Owl said in surprise.
"Gardens don't look suspicious if there's a pile of turned earth in them, now do they?"
"Yeah I guess not. I'm glad you didn't hide it in the cabin."
"Shame about that moonshine though," Owl's dad said as he dug into the frosty earth, "That was Joe Duck's best stuff."
"You don't need any more, Dad."
"I might."
"Dad, please. You don't need it, please."
Owl's father sighed.
"I spent a lot of time letting a bottle carry the weight for me. You know how exhausting it is to carry that weight alone again?"
"What makes you think you're carrying it alone?" Owl answered.
His dad didn't say anything in response. We loaded up the alcohol and headed out. As we got close, we noticed that there were more of Them around the school yard this time, almost double in fact.
"They've beefed up security." Owl said.
"Well, what did you expect. You guys got spotted last time, and they couldn't catch you. They'd be fools to think you wouldn't try again."
"There are no more deer around the school." I noted.
"I wouldn't think so." Owl answered.
"It's just weird. It's like we're in a different world." I said.
Owl's father tapped my forehead, "The world isn't the ground beneath your feet boys. It's the ideas that run things, make people get up in the morning, tell them how to act, what's right and what's wrong, and let's them make sense of the world."
"So it's not a new world yet," Owl said. "It the same old world- we're just watching it die."
"Let's just make sure we don't die with it." I said.
Owl's father watched Them from a distance, watching and pointing out their patterns, looking at what they noticed and what surprised them.
"They have guns and body armor." Owl's dad whispered, "But they ain't that alert."
“They're acting weird. Jumpy.” Wolf said as we watched Them patrol the school grounds.
“Well they ain't looking very hard for us.” Owl's dad said, “But you'r right about jumpy. And they're not thinking right. Look at them jumping at shadows. I don't like this. I can see them being cautious, but why would they be this edgy?”
Then we got close enough to two of Them to here them talking.
“There are people running through town, did you here?”
“Doing what?”
“No idea, they're keeping out of sight. But the spot patrols are hearing what sounds like a group. It's probably the same kids as last time.”
“It's Viper's group,” Owl whispered, “They've been spotted.”
“Then we need to set up our distraction or else their going to be screwed.” I said.
“Let's move then,” Owl whispered and took a step. There was a loud crackle from where Owl's foot landed, and we all looked down in horror to see a pine conepoking out from where it had lain hidden under the fallen leaves.
The guards swung back around and levelled their rifles at us.
“We know you’re in there! I don’t care if you are kids; you’re going to come out with your hands up or we're going to start shooting.”
“Well that’s kind of definitive.” I said.
“It’s also wrong. It’s not just us kids.” Owl said.
“What do you mean?” Wolf asked.
“I’m going to count to three!” The guard yelled.
“Dad, I need to trust you. Can I trust you?” Owl asked, looking his Dad in the eyes and not blinking.
“One!”
“Why? What are you thinking?” Owl's dad asked.
“No time. Dad, can I trust you?”
“Two!”
“Yeah, you can trust me.” He said.
“Good. I love you dad. Now light this place up. We’ll buy you time. Meet us where we bagged the deer on our hunt, okay?”
And then Owl stood up.
“I’m right here.” He said.
“You aren’t alone. You little monsters travel in packs.”
I looked at Wolf and he shrugged, and I nodded.
“You kids don’t have to do this.” Owl’s Dad whispered.
“He’s our bud, so yeah, we do. Take away their toys, sir.” And with that Wolf and I stood up.
“We’re here.” I said.
Returning What was Stolen
Owls dad wasn’t an imposing man. He was niether tall nor well muscled. He wasnt somebody you would expect to stare down anyone. But he surprised me by staring at Owl with a face full of parental disapproval.
"Why were you trying to hunt in town boy? You ought to know better than that. What's eating your sense?"
Owl shifted uncomfortably.
"You going to answer me? Or you going to stare at the ground till you burn a hole through it? Weren’t you kids trying to get away from all of the bad stuff happening here in town?”
"I don't know okay! I mean, we’re planning on leaving town, but we just keep ending up back here. It’s like there’s no way to get away. I hate this place. It’s eating everything I love. But I guess it felt I was running away."
"And what's wrong with running away?"
"I don't know, but it felt bad!"
"That's your white boy showing. They been training you for so long to think that this whole city thing is normal. And they got so good at it, that even somebody like you still thinks this place ought to exist. And you hate this stuff so much I don't dare share my liquor with you. You got comfy with the idea of you not being part of the city, but you still believed them when they told you that the city ought to exist. And now that it's falling apart, you can't pretend that you running away doesn't mean leaving the city to fall apart on its own."
"Why do you think those people who think they're so smart called us indigenous? Its not just a fancy word. It means 'belonging to a place', and that's the thing. We used to belong to the place, the place didn't belong to us. Why are you trying to stay in a dead city? Do you think you're going to rebuild this? And then what? Wait until it falls again? You need to belong to the place you're in, and no city and no town ever belongs to a place, they try to make the place belong to them."
"So you're saying just leave, and let everyone else die?" Hawk said.
“Little girl, you know as much as any of us that people are going to die anyway. There ain’t enough of anything left in town to feed everyone who’s still here and people who try to stay here are either going to die or scavenge off the things that are dying. If you want a chance you got to do what I told my son to do way back before the avalanche. You got to run. Right now. the only place to run is to the woods.”
"Wolverine always found peace in the woods. Maybe we can too." Wolf Added.
"Some people are just bound and determined to go down with their stupid sinking ships boy. You can't make them save themselves. They can't imagine themselves without this big machine world behind them feeding them grapes and playing the TV for them whenever they want. My grandpa always said they made things too loud."
"You watch TV too dad."
"I also drink their alcohol. Whatever gets you through the day. That was the way thing ran in their world. No place you couldn't go that didn't have their claw marks. But you know what? I don't think they can reach so far anymore. I think you might actually be able to run for the hills."
"Me? What about you?"
"I'm a run down alcoholic boy. I'll run probably, but you have a chance to actually get somewhere and do something now that things are changing. But I'm touched. I think that's the first time I ever heard you worried about your old man."
"You're my dad, you’re the only family I have anymore."
"Not anymore, boy. I see what you're doing and I'm proud of you. You're building a tribe, and a tribe is family. It ain't blood, but it's still family- family by deed and not blood. And sometimes, that's more important."
"When did you start talking so much sense dad?"
"I ain't talking any different than I always did. You're just listening a wee bit closer than you used to. I can see what you're thinking and what you're planning to do. And I say good for you. But you've been raised in this world, and when you realize how bad it's lied to you. Then you'll learn what I learned. When you get it, when you understand, we'll talk. And if I've made it back out of this bottle, I might be able to help you."
"I don't understand."
"That's why I have to wait until you do. So why didn't you raid our cabin and then just head out?"
"A Bunch of jerks from Sumpter's ridge raided it, and almost hurt some of our group. A fire started in the fight and a propane tank exploded, There wasn't much usable after that."
"That's harsh."
"Yeah, so we thought we would raid the council's supplies, distract them by setting fire to their ammo, but we weren't able to get it to ignite."
“Sounds like a good idea. What went wrong?”
“We couldn't get the fire going fast enough.”
“That's it?” Owl's dad said, and he seemed to be thinking about something, “Then why don't you let your old man teach you the fine art of arson?”
“You'd help us do that?” Owl asked.
“Yeah, why not?” He asked.
“We haven't exactly had good luck with adults.” Hawk answered.
“Ask my boy. I have no loyalty to this thing. I have no reason to protect it. I will help you. I'll help you start a big distracting fire so you can get your supplies. We'll need to make it very hard for them to stop you from leaving. But you still need supplies to get started.”
“Yeah. We've learned that much from these last few days.”
“One group will wait for the signal and then raid their supplies- dried food and camp gear, that sort of thing. The other group will act as a distraction. I’ll help you start a proper fires. I taught you how to light a fire with a bow drill. I’ll teach you how to light a fire with gun powder.”
“Alright gang, how about it?” Owl asked, “Shall we take another crack at getting out of town away from all the crazy, or do we want to keep trying to hide here?”
The crowd of kids nodded and quickly the consensus was clear. Owl was back in charge and we back in the attempted arson game.
"Okay, so me and my boy are quiet like ninjas. So we go on the sabotage run. And Rabbit, I hunted with you- you're quiet enough too." Owl's father looked around, and then he looked back at Owl, "Hey, this is your show not mine. I should waiting on your decisions."
Owl nodded and looked around, "Mouse, Lion, Hawk. You guys can all fight and you're big enough, but you're too loud. I'll teach you that later. That means you're on guard duty for the supply run."
"You've never even seen me fight," Hawk said.
"No, but I've seen Lion fight, and I know Lion respects you for what you can do in a fight. Raven, your family gardens and you can cook. You need to be in the supply run side so we know what to grab."
"Viper should come with us too," Hawk said.
"Why?" Viper said looking over in surprise.
"You're the second in command aren't you?" Hawk asked, "We should keep our command team separated. You know, like the President and the Vice President never travel together. And you're the brain of the group. We need somebody to herd these cats. They don't know what to do on their own."
Viper bit her lip and furrowed her brow.
"Fine, I'm not very quiet anyway. I was the loudest on the hunt with Owl's dad."
"You'll get better," Owl's Dad said with a grin.
"I'm not super quiet, but you'll need some muscle- and all I do is muscle." Wolf said looking at Owl.
"I won't argue with that. You're quiet enough."
"I'm not quiet or good in a fight," Sparrow announced, "But I'm clever, and I bet I can help pick what we need and what we don't- so I volunteer to go with Raven and Viper's team."
"I won't argue with that." Owl answered, "Actually, I think the sabotage team should be a small as possible. Dad, do you want anyone else, or do we have enough already?"
"This is probably good, and the more folks you have on Viper's team, the more supplies you can haul out."
As we headed out, Owl began questioning his father.
"So what's the plan, Dad?"
"What we need is heat. If you want to cause a discharge of the ammunition with a fast cook-off you need a fire. And from what you told me last time, you didn't have the proper equipment to get the fire up and roaring last time. So you need to accelerate the fire. Like with alcohol or gasoline. You have to bring the casing up to the proper temperature first if you want to make the propellant discharge."
"Gas and alcohol. Those aren't exactly common commodities anymore Dad."
"you remember when you saw me drinking, and asked how I got it? And I said I had hidden it?"
"Yeah."
"I lied. I got given that alcohol. And then, after I got given it, I hid most of it. I mean, I drank some- but I promised you I'd try to quit and I thought I'd need it to help me get dry slower. Ease the crash, you know. But, if you need an accelerant, then that hard home brew liquor they gave me is just the thing."
"Who would give you alcohol in the center? Dad, that makes no sense."
"I guess somebody felt like they owed me something.I used to help a lot people when I was dry. Some people remember if you help them when they're down."
Wolf looked up sharply at the comment, and then looked away, but didn't say anything. I watched Wolf's face. He didn't say anything. Wolf didn't show huge amounts of emotion most of the time, but I could see conflicting emotions on his face. Finally, he spoke.
"You're talking about my dad, aren't you."
"I got deer for lots of people, why do think it's your dad?"
"I'm right aren't I? He hates alcohol, but he never talks badly about you. He still feels like he owes you, and so he got you your alcohol even if he disagreed. Didn't he?"
"It isn't my place to speak about why people do what they do."
Wolf shook his head and looked away.
"Are we doing the right thing here buds? I mean should we maybe try and work with them and reason with them or something?"
"That doesn't sound like the Wolf I know," Owl said.
"People are complicated you know. You can see somebody every day and think you know them, and think they're awful and cold and hard and just kind of jerks; and then it's easy to forget that they can do good things too." Wolf paused, clearly searching for words, "I mean, Ra's Al-Ghul loves his daughter, and he even goes easy on Batman because of that every now and then."
I looked at Wolf, "And he murders people left and right as eh tries to conquer the world and institute his brand of order. Just because you pet your dog and love your daughter, doesn't mean you don't lock up people who disagree, starve people who won't obey and beat up people who speak out. Darth Vader saved Luke Skywalker's life at the end of Return of the Jedi. He still Destroyed whole planets with the Death Star."
"He's a human being, but that's not enough." Owl said, "There are so many people on the planet. And because those supply lines are breaking and because of the systems are falling apart, most of them- I bet- have less food than we do here. A people all over the place are going to starve, and die in riots over food like my mom. And people who think it's okay to act like kings are people I don't think we need- do you? Do you have loyalty to a false king?"
"He scares me." Wolf said, "The avalanche didn't scare me. Having no food doesn't scare me. Most of the time, when people get scared I don't have any idea what they're feeling and I feel weird watching them be so afraid of things that don't bother me. But he scares me, and when people aren't afraid of them, I wonder what wrong with them."
"Fear isn't loyalty." I said.
"It is to him."
"And that's why he's wrong. So let's break his ability to make people afraid."
Owl's dad led us back to his trailer. He headed to his ill tended garden, and I noticed that the soil in the garden all looked freshly tilled, despite the snow everywhere else.
"You buried it in your garden?" Owl said in surprise.
"Gardens don't look suspicious if there's a pile of turned earth in them, now do they?"
"Yeah I guess not. I'm glad you didn't hide it in the cabin."
"Shame about that moonshine though," Owl's dad said as he dug into the frosty earth, "That was Joe Duck's best stuff."
"You don't need any more, Dad."
"I might."
"Dad, please. You don't need it, please."
Owl's father sighed.
"I spent a lot of time letting a bottle carry the weight for me. You know how exhausting it is to carry that weight alone again?"
"What makes you think you're carrying it alone?" Owl answered.
His dad didn't say anything in response. We loaded up the alcohol and headed out. As we got close, we noticed that there were more of Them around the school yard this time, almost double in fact.
"They've beefed up security." Owl said.
"Well, what did you expect. You guys got spotted last time, and they couldn't catch you. They'd be fools to think you wouldn't try again."
"There are no more deer around the school." I noted.
"I wouldn't think so." Owl answered.
"It's just weird. It's like we're in a different world." I said.
Owl's father tapped my forehead, "The world isn't the ground beneath your feet boys. It's the ideas that run things, make people get up in the morning, tell them how to act, what's right and what's wrong, and let's them make sense of the world."
"So it's not a new world yet," Owl said. "It the same old world- we're just watching it die."
"Let's just make sure we don't die with it." I said.
Owl's father watched Them from a distance, watching and pointing out their patterns, looking at what they noticed and what surprised them.
"They have guns and body armor." Owl's dad whispered, "But they ain't that alert."
“They're acting weird. Jumpy.” Wolf said as we watched Them patrol the school grounds.
“Well they ain't looking very hard for us.” Owl's dad said, “But you'r right about jumpy. And they're not thinking right. Look at them jumping at shadows. I don't like this. I can see them being cautious, but why would they be this edgy?”
Then we got close enough to two of Them to here them talking.
“There are people running through town, did you here?”
“Doing what?”
“No idea, they're keeping out of sight. But the spot patrols are hearing what sounds like a group. It's probably the same kids as last time.”
“It's Viper's group,” Owl whispered, “They've been spotted.”
“Then we need to set up our distraction or else their going to be screwed.” I said.
“Let's move then,” Owl whispered and took a step. There was a loud crackle from where Owl's foot landed, and we all looked down in horror to see a pine conepoking out from where it had lain hidden under the fallen leaves.
The guards swung back around and levelled their rifles at us.
“We know you’re in there! I don’t care if you are kids; you’re going to come out with your hands up or we're going to start shooting.”
“Well that’s kind of definitive.” I said.
“It’s also wrong. It’s not just us kids.” Owl said.
“What do you mean?” Wolf asked.
“I’m going to count to three!” The guard yelled.
“Dad, I need to trust you. Can I trust you?” Owl asked, looking his Dad in the eyes and not blinking.
“One!”
“Why? What are you thinking?” Owl's dad asked.
“No time. Dad, can I trust you?”
“Two!”
“Yeah, you can trust me.” He said.
“Good. I love you dad. Now light this place up. We’ll buy you time. Meet us where we bagged the deer on our hunt, okay?”
And then Owl stood up.
“I’m right here.” He said.
“You aren’t alone. You little monsters travel in packs.”
I looked at Wolf and he shrugged, and I nodded.
“You kids don’t have to do this.” Owl’s Dad whispered.
“He’s our bud, so yeah, we do. Take away their toys, sir.” And with that Wolf and I stood up.
“We’re here.” I said.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Exodus Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
A Stray Spark
The Snow cascaded down the mountain. A wall of angry frozen snow rolling over itself as it bore down the mountainside at us.
"We should probably seek cover!" Sparrow yelled as he ran.
We scattered. Which, looking back was dumb, but we didn't have much practice at working together in a larger group yet. We were still kids, really. And, in the face of an unrushing avalanche, we panicked and chaos reigned.
I ducked behind a stand of trees and huddled as small as I could. The snow hit like a frieght train, exploding in white and noise- cold stinging spray erupting around me. The roar of the snow was like a lion, but it seemed like it would never end. I held onto a smaller pine tree and closed my eyes.
When the noise died and the freezing air stopped moving around me, I opened my eyes. I found myself not buried under miles of snow. Which was good. I also noticed that around me, clinging to various plants and rocks were several other kids: Raven, Hawk, Viper, and Sparrow. Which was good. I couldn't see anyone else. Which was bad. And the snow had completely blocked the road behind us. Which was very bad.
We helped pull each other out of the hip deep snow that was everywhere. It didn't take long to realize that we couldn't get over the snow. But after much searching we did find a goat trial leading down from the road into the valley.
"Look, we have to assume that everyone else is heading to the Owl's cabin." Viper said, "That's the last thing that we agreed on before this happened."
"Okay, that makes sense, but how to do we get there without Owl? It's the Freak's cabin, how do we find it without the Freak?"
Viper grinned and put her hands on her hips," You ask the Freak's girlfriend really nicely. Because he's taken me there."
He'd taken both of us there, but I didn't say anything so as not to spoil the moment. That' said, getting there was another matter. We could orient ourselves with the road, but once we started down the goat trail it got harder. Viper kept looking at the sky and her shadow, and I could tell she was trying to use what Owl had said about the sun and finding north and south. We ended up crossing several loggin roads twice and having to back track, but between Viper and myself, we eventually crest a hill to see the cabin a few hundred yards away.
As we approached the cabin, Raven brightened up.
"Hey!" She said, "The cabin door is open, they're already here."
Something felt off, but I couldn't put my finger on it
We got closer, and I could hear the sounds of people moving and rattling about in the cabin. The sounds weren't orderly sounds. It sounded to me as though somebody we digging through the cabin with a snow shovel.
And then a man stepped out of the cabin with a backpack stuffed high with equipment from the cabin. He looked at us, as we stopped in our tracks, and ushered whoever else was in the cabin to come out with a wave of his hand. I stared in horror at the three figures in front of us. They were the three men from Sumter's ridge who had beaten Owl and nearly killed Frisk.
"Well look who it is." The one with the moustache, Ed announced with a grin.
"They ain't got the punchy one." The short one said.
"They ain't got the bitey dog no more either." The skinny one said.
"I took care of that dog," Ed grinned, "Well come in and sit down. All these pretty girls here, we ought to be showing some manners and class."
I didn't like the way he said pretty girls, he made the words sound oily and threatening. As they ushered us in with the points of their hunting rifles, I noticed the heavy padlock that Owl's dad had used on the door. The lock lay in the snow with a rough cut through it.
The inside of the cabin looked like it had been clear cut and a garbage dump piled on the kitchen table. Dishes had been scattered off the counter and broken. All tools and equipment had been laid out on the now cleared counter tops.
I remembered Owls dad commenting that he never left any weapons in the cabin, not even a steak knife. He didn't want to be responsible for somebody getting hurt with gear stolen from the cabin.
The three men had taken everything else, or were in the process of packing it up: gas lanterns and sleeping bags and propane fuel and candles and several big heavy plastic tubs that were marked with 'beans' in black felt marker.
It ran through my head that these were the resources that we needed to get out of town and get away from all the adults who were acting crazy.
I also noted that on table were about a dozen bottles of homemade liquor with handwritten labels. Three of the bottles were completely empty already and two more were half empty. That struck me as a lot of alcohol even between three men, and I didn't know how strong the homemade alcohol might be.
"I think little miss dreadlocks should have a more country western. This ain't New York or Los Angeles. You got to fit in." the short man leered at Viper.
"These are corn rows." Viper said, "Dreadlocks are ugly."
He snickered at that and drew out a metal lighter.
"Well they look way too city girl for my liking. We couldn't find no knives or scissors in here, but I got me a lighter. I could give you a trim with that." He leaned in with the lighter and flicked a flame onto the end, inches from Viper's hair.
Raven was looking uncomfortable as the skinny man crowded her.
"So how are your pants fitting these days? Do you wear a diaper after what Frisk did to you?" I gave Raven a meaningful look as I spoke.
The skinny man glared and swung a plastic water jug and hit me in the face. The blow knocked me back, and I belatedly realized that the water jug must be at least partially full to be that heavy.
I pulled myself to my feet in time to see Raven driving a knee into the skinny man's groin. He let out a sagging moan and doubled over in pain.
The other two men looked shocked by Raven's actions, clearly not considering her a threat. Taking advantage of their inaction, Hawk grabbed on of the liquor bottles off the table and swung it like a golf club against on the metal propane tanks. The bottle shattered and sprayed clear liquid and shards of glass across the legs of Ed with the moustache.
"Viper! I need a light here!" Hawk called as she stepped back towards the wall.
Viper looked at the alcohol soaked legs of their leader and to the lighter inches from her face. She grabbed the lighter and stomped down on the skinny man's foot with her heavy healed boots. He yelped in pain and let go of the lighter. Viper pitched the lighter at the soaked legs of Ed with the moustache. The lighter bounced off liquor soaked blue jeans and the vapor around the pants ignited in a blossom of flame that bloomed up Ed's legs almost to hi belt.
The flames leapt from Ed to the alcohol on the propane tanks, and as Ed spun and leapt in panic, the flame spread to the wooden table and the patches of spilled acohol there as well.
"Get out of the way!" Ed yelled at the hunched over skinny man, shoving him to the side and running past.
"Roll in the snow Ed!" the short man called, running after his burning leader.
The skinny man looked at the spreading fire, his gaze moving across the table with it's homemade alcohol down to the propane tanks on the ground. I could see his brain adding up the potential for disaster and then he turned and limped out the door.
"You realize, that we're now trapped in a burning building, with wounded murderous rednecks waiting outside for us," Sparrow said, "This song goes out to fans of Johnny Cash, because we are truly in a burning ring of fire now."
"You and your non-existent songs can go out the back window like we're going to do," Hawk answered.
The windows weren't glass fortunately. They were just wooden shutters on the outside and the inside. The windows were big enough that we could all squeeze through. I was the biggest and so I waited.Sparrow went first, being buy far the skinniest. He scrambled out without a pause and disappeared down below the window fram.
I looked back and saw that the table was completely engulfed in flames.
"Next!" I called, and Raven climbed up and crawled through. Her dress hooked on a loose nail and stopped her for a moment, and we all flinched. She looked back and just grabbed the waist band on the dress and heaved forward, tearing the bottom of the dress, but pulling herself free. And with that she dropped to the ground on the outside.
"Viper, you're next!" Hawk demanded offer a pair of cupped hands to boost Viper up as I put my hand over the loose nail, so that none of viper's loose clothes caught as well. Viper was through in moments and now it was Hawk's turn.
The floor had now caught fire.
I offered a boost to Hawk via the same cupped hands techniques she gave Viper, but Hawk waved me off. She pulled herself up with both hands and wriggled through the window and disappeared.
And I was alone with the fire and propane tanks.
I looked briefly around, thinking about whether I could save anything, but the fire seemed to have found all the good stuff- even the men's guns which they had left when they evacuated. And on top of that, I had no idea of those propane tanks would explode or not. I turned back to the window and heaved myself up and begane to worm myself through the opening, when I felt my pant leg catch on the same loose nail that had caught Raven. I paused and gently moved my leg back to loosen the nail's grip. Behind me in the cabin, I heard something pop or crack loudly- but I couldn't see what it was. Squeezing as far as I could to the opposite side of the opening and wriggled myself through and dropped into the snow. I looked around and saw Sparrow and the girls signalling me from the trees.
I ran.
I huddled in amongst the trees and watched as the cabing burned. The fires were now pouring out the windows, like lava defying gravity as it crawled up the out walls to lick at the snow on the roof.
Off by the front door, I could see that Ed had just finished rolling the snow and his two cronies were shovelling snow onto his pants with their hands.
"Didn't it strike you as kind of crazy to break the bottle against the propane tanks?" I whispered to Hawk." I mean what if it had blown up when Viper lit the fire?"
"Not really," Hawk answered, "Mythbusters tested that. It's really hard to make a propane tank explode. I mean it can happen, but unless I damaged the pumps somehow or if it had a factory defect or something, I don't think we need to worry about it. And Mythbusters also said that its harder than you think to break a bottle over sombody's head- so I figured metal would be easier to break the bottle against."
"Fair enough. You don't argue with Mythbusters."
After several minutes of shovelling the two men pulled Ed from the snow, and they began talking and looking around. Occasionally one of them would point in this direction or that.
"I think they're arguing about whether to look for us or not." Sparrow said.
"Well on the upside, They don't have their guns now." I said.
"It's amazing how that helps." Hawk added.
"It only helps so much," Viper said, "They're still full grown men that we've made really angry."
The three men finished talking, and began looking around, heads forward like dogs on the hunt.
"Yeah, they're looking for us." Viper said.
"And with the trail we've left in the snow, hiding is going to be hard." Raven added.
"Hey!" A familiar voice called from behind the men.
They turned to see Owl standing at the head of what looked like everyone else, Wolf and Frisk prominent in the front of the group.
The men paused.
"they're kids, we can take them."
"There's over twenty of them, and I don't fancy having to fight that one again.” He pointed at Wolf, “And some of them look as big as him."
"Nothing to gain here," Ed said disgustedly, "Let's ship out and give them their victory for all the good it will do them."
We joined the group and took stock of our situation.
"Well," Owl said as he looked at the flames rolling out of the windows and boiling under the overhang on the cabin roof, "I guess we can't use this our any sort of hideaway, temporary or otherwise."
"And we couldn't get the food out or the sleeping bags or anything." I said, by way of apology.
"We're back to square one, then aren't we?" Sparrow asked.
Wolf shook his head, "Owl has skills, we can cope."
"I'd rather have a little bit of a fall back plan given how hard hunting has been." Owl said.
"It'll get better." Viper said.
"We can't count on that." Owl said, "I'm flattered by the faith, but we need a back up."
There was suddenly an odd thud followed by a hollow clanging sound that echoed out from the cabin in pressure wave that pushed me back a step, knocked the door to the cabin open, and briefly knocked the flames out with its rush of air.
"What was that?" Hawk asked, looking around.
I looked up and saw a ragged chunk of metal embedded in the pine tree less than a foot above my head- the word 'propane' still visible on the metal.
"Well," I said to Hawk, pointing up at the shard of metal, "I guess at least one of those little tanks had a flaw of some sort."
Hawk looked up, "Whoa."
A moment later I heard the same popping cracking sound as I'd heard while exiting the window.
Owl swung back towards the cabin.
"Did those idiots leave their guns in there?" He asked.
I nodded and Owl immediately dropped flat to the ground. The rest of us followed him down into the snow and we waited in silence. Another crack sounded a minute or so later, and then a fourth another minute after.
We waited in the snow cold an wet, until thirty minutes had passed and we'd heard no sounds for the past ten minutes before we slowly followed Owl back to our feet.
“You know,” Owl said looking back at the burning cabin, “I think I know a way to help our parents and ourselves. The school used to hold al sorts of mixed supplies, but it's almost entirely an ammo dump now. If we could set that on fire, the same would happen to their guns as happened to the guns in the cabin.”
"It's kind of hard to be a dictator if you haven't got all the guns." Lion said.
“So let's take away their guns.” Owl said.
We snuck back into town and made our way back to the school. It occurred to me that I had no idea how we were going to light the fire. Lion had that covered though. He had a disposable lighter. As far as I knew, he didn't smoke. I think he liked having something that the adults would take away if given the chance.
The plan was to get into the school the same way as when we searched Mrs. Winter's office and then sneak into the gymnasium and start a fire. The guards weren't particularly attentive, and with a little effort we were inside the building. Owl used Lion and Wolf as a ladder this time, and I was excused from duty. Most of the kids hid back in the woods. But our core plus Hawk's gang made our way inside to the Gym.
“Alright,” Owl said, grabbing a bundle of the newspaper used to pack one of the boxes, “Let's light this up.”
Lion flicked the lighter and held it to the paper, and we watched as the paper began to burn. Once the fire was going, Owl droped the paper into the crate containing several cardboard boxes marked ammuntition. The fire slowly began to spread. We sat huddled around that first box, urging the fire on, and then suddenly the huge doors leading out the field clattered up and a flashlight shone on us.
“I guess you were right to be suspicious about an open door.” I heard Mr. Wolf say as he stepped forward, flanked by four of Them.
Owl froze as he stared at Mr. Wolf looming above us. His eyes were wide and weren't quite focusing right. He looked like the white tail deer the moment before owl shot it- beyond scared, beyond action. I looked at Wolf, and could see that he understood what we were seeing. Mr. Wolf looked that the expression on Owl's face and grinned a nasty grin and then began stomping forward.
We backed away and Mr. Wolf strode forward, grabbing a fire extinguisher off one of the piles of supplies as he did. He readied the fire extinguisher before he reached the burning box and then deftly blasted the box until our little fire was out.
"Did you kids really think that it would be that easy to set our ammunition on fire? Did you really think that there wouldn't be safety precautions."
"You yelled at the smoking guard pretty bad." I managed.
"Of course I did. I want them to respect the site and accidents do happen. Do you know how many forest fires have starts from dropped cigarettes? That doesn't mean any stray spark is a threat!"
Owl hadn't moved. I looked back at the group. They were staring at Owl. The sight of the guy who had been leading them up to this point frozen in fear wasn't going over well.
“Take them.” Mr. Wolf said sharply, “Truncheons only. I want to discipline them later. Don't escalate unless explicitly ordered.”
The Guards drew their nightsticks and attacked. The largest hit me like a snowplow with a jet engine, I managed to get a little leverage and grappled with him, but he was significantly bigger and stronger. I could see Viper from where I was pinned against the wall. The guard swung his rifle and hit her in the face with butt, knocking her to ground. I struggled against the guard who had pinned me, but I couldn't budge him. I heard him chuckle at my efforts. Viper had landed well, I could see, rolling when she hit the ground and gaining some distance between her and the guard. Despite this, he closed the distance and kicked her hard in the mid section.
The guard kicked Viper again as she tried to get to her knees, and knocked the wind out of her. She crumpled back to the ground, and lay still for a moment. I was afraid she was out cold, and that the guard would just keep hitting her, but then she reach out and grabbed a piece of glass and jammed it against the guard's boot. The guard jumped back, but I couldn't tell if the glass actually penetrated.
Viper used the distraction to pull herself up to her feet and back away from the guard. The guard was bigger than Viper by a large margin and I could see Viper looking around for something to use against him. She picked up a length of wood and began swinging it in wide arcs, forcing the guard to keep his distance. But I could see him gauging the distance and getting ready to step in and grab Viper's weapon.
Wolf had knocked out one guard back back handing the man's helmet off, revealing the face of Mr. Tolmin who lived two doors down from Wolf, and then throwing a right hand blow to the jaw that dropped Mr. Tomlin to the ground and unconscious. Raven had twisted gently and done what looked like a judo or aikido throw to the guard that had tried to grab Owl, stepping between them and easily diverting the guard's forward motion.
“You're losing.” I whispered to my guard, who turned to look, allowing me enough room to reposition and drive a knee into his groin.
“You kind of stupid too.” I added, and finished by driving a second knee into his face as he crouched, doubled over from the pain.
Wolf drove a boot into the face of the guard that Raven had thrown. The guard didn't move, and we turned back to Mr. Wolf. He wore a look of complete disgust as he drew his own nightstick.
“We can't take him.” Wolf said.
“Listen to him and surrender.” Mr. Wolf said to us. The kids behind me murmured in confusion.
“I'm not afraid of him.” Lion said, “Grab fearless leader and I'll hold the line.”
Wolf and I eyed Owl, as he stood shuddering.
"We carry him." Wolf said. I nodded and we grabbed Owl around the waist and hoisted up onto Wolf's shoulder. And together we bolted.
“Move boy,” Mr. Wolf said as he tried to step around Lion, “You're in my way.”
Lion squared himself in front of the exit had raised his hands into fists.
"Sorry, but I'm your opponent."
As we ran, I could hear Owl muttering, “I can't. I couldn't. I'm sorry. I just can't.”
Behind us, I could hear the sound of Mr. Wolf and Lion fighting.
Finally I heard Lion announce, “Okay, Pharaoh its time to let my people go!”
“None of this accomplished anything. I am going to catch you. And the longer you hide, the worse it will be.” I heard Mr. Wolf yell.
We didn't stop running until we hit the business section of town. Lion caught up with us. I guess being in the football team helped. We hid out in my dad's travel agency office, up on the second floor in the back room. Owl was starting to come back to himself. I knew the Wolf understood, and so did I. I was fairly certain that Raven and Viper understood the fear. But Lion clearly didn't. Lion's arms were bruised up from the fight, but he wasn't shaken by it.
"This is stupid. We can't fight them. We can't even start a fire." Mouse said, as we sat recovering.
"We can stay in town. There has to be food somewhere we can eat." Maize added.
"No. that's the problem" Owl said.
"No, you're the problem.” Lion said, “You still think you're the hero. You aren't. That was the villain and you couldn't take him. I had to. You aren't in charge anymore. I am.”
Lion was good at leading the way, when somebody else had already stuck their neck out and acted like a leader first. Lion was also a bit of a jerk, but he always wanted to be on the side of the heroes and always wanted to do the right thing- or at least be seen doing the right thing. So he was best kept as a friend and best kept happy. Let people see him doing stuff and he would work hard for you. Let him look good and he would fight beside you like his namesake.
But right now the group was on his side and they weren't listening to us anymore.
"You know where we haven't checked? The dump. There's bound to be food in the dump." Lion said.
"It'll be rotten." Hawk responded.
"No it won't. It's winter. There'll be something we can eat there."
"There has to be." Mouse said.
"No there doesn't. The world isn't going to do what you want. That's the whole point." Owl said shaking his head.
"You aren't in charge anymore. We're going to the dump." Lion said.
The dump was not a pleasant place to walk through. Even in the winter, the dump smelled bad. There were gulls and pigeons that nested here year round, eating the garbage. But I noticed that there were fewer pigeons and gulls as we began to walk through the piles of discarded trash.
We poked around with very little succes. I found a fridge and went to investigate. But when I looked into the fridge, empty, even the shelves had been removed. Lion leaned over my shoulder and looked into the fridge as well.
"No luck, but I bet you fit." He said and gave me a shove into the fridge. He swung the door shut and walked off with a laugh. It was easy to forget that Lion could be a jerk, because he was normally better.
We kept searching, with Lion egging everyone on. I was about to tell them that they could keep looking on their own, when I heard a sound too big to be a kid. It had to be an adult and a big person at that to make as much noise as it was. I moved around a pile of garbage to see who it was.
It was a bear, with black fur. I was surprised that it didn't look bigger. I was expecting it to be bigger than me. I'm sure it would be bigger if it stood up, but it was only about shoulder height on all fours. I want to be clear here. The bear was big compared to me, but it was small compared to what I had expected a bear to be. Reality has a way of surprising us. The bear made a sort of snorting sound and pounded the ground with its front paws. the group scattered, several kids shrieking in fear.
"It's a black bear!" Owl called, "They're not grizzlies! They aren't anywhere near as aggressive."
"Then let's scare it off," Lion said marching towards the bear and banging on a dented sauce pan he had picked up from the trash.
The bear took a couple steps back, but didn't flee. Instead it rose up on it's hind legs- proving that it was in fact much bigger than me if it stood up- and bellowed into the air. Lion fell back a step or two and the bear dropped back to all fours and began turning in a cirle. It kept looking back at Lion, but it's head kept going this way and that.
I suddenly noticed that, despite scattering and backing away, none of us had moved very far. And in fact as I looked at the bear moving its head back and forth and slowly turning in circles, I realized that we had accidentally surrounded the bear. Lion seemed to want to prove that he wasn't afraid, because he kept taking a step back and then pushing himself forward again.
The bear bellowed again and turned in a circle. It seemed to have decided that Lion was the most direct threat, because it charged at Lion, sending him stumbling back in a blind panic. Lion scrambled back until he back straight into the abandoned refigerator. He glanced back, and quickly flung the door open and scrambled inside. The bear hit the fridge moments later and slammed the sides of the fridge with his paws. It rose up on it's hind legs again and bellowed to the sky.
While the bear was focused on the fridge, Owl yelled to the group.
"Everyone back off and spread out! Give it an escape route. We're scaring it into a confrontation. Let it think it's won. Let it wander off."
Nobody moved right away, and Owl yelled again, “Now!”
Slowly the kids began to back off, pull away into smaller groups, leaving big open patched for the bear to use as exits. The bear pounded on the fridge for a few more minutes and then abruptly noticed that it was no longer boxed in. It looked around, taking an apparent appraisal of where we all were. Then is huffed, dropped back to all fours and walked out of our accidental circle and out of sight.
Lion emerged slowly from fridge. I looked him in the eye and commented, "Looks like we both fit huh?"
"Okay, yeah, that was mean." He looked at Owl, "I thought you said it wasn't aggressive?"
"I said it was less aggressive, it's still a bear. The fact that it was a black bear and not a brown bear is the reason that it didn't try bowling with your hiding place."
Lion shivered.
"Be careful what kind of bear you make angry."
"what am I looking at here?" A voice said.
"I thought you kids escaped. Who escapes from prison and then hides in the prison outhouse?"
We all turned in the direction of the voice, and saw Owl's father standing staring at us- back lit by the rising sun.
A Stray Spark
The Snow cascaded down the mountain. A wall of angry frozen snow rolling over itself as it bore down the mountainside at us.
"We should probably seek cover!" Sparrow yelled as he ran.
We scattered. Which, looking back was dumb, but we didn't have much practice at working together in a larger group yet. We were still kids, really. And, in the face of an unrushing avalanche, we panicked and chaos reigned.
I ducked behind a stand of trees and huddled as small as I could. The snow hit like a frieght train, exploding in white and noise- cold stinging spray erupting around me. The roar of the snow was like a lion, but it seemed like it would never end. I held onto a smaller pine tree and closed my eyes.
When the noise died and the freezing air stopped moving around me, I opened my eyes. I found myself not buried under miles of snow. Which was good. I also noticed that around me, clinging to various plants and rocks were several other kids: Raven, Hawk, Viper, and Sparrow. Which was good. I couldn't see anyone else. Which was bad. And the snow had completely blocked the road behind us. Which was very bad.
We helped pull each other out of the hip deep snow that was everywhere. It didn't take long to realize that we couldn't get over the snow. But after much searching we did find a goat trial leading down from the road into the valley.
"Look, we have to assume that everyone else is heading to the Owl's cabin." Viper said, "That's the last thing that we agreed on before this happened."
"Okay, that makes sense, but how to do we get there without Owl? It's the Freak's cabin, how do we find it without the Freak?"
Viper grinned and put her hands on her hips," You ask the Freak's girlfriend really nicely. Because he's taken me there."
He'd taken both of us there, but I didn't say anything so as not to spoil the moment. That' said, getting there was another matter. We could orient ourselves with the road, but once we started down the goat trail it got harder. Viper kept looking at the sky and her shadow, and I could tell she was trying to use what Owl had said about the sun and finding north and south. We ended up crossing several loggin roads twice and having to back track, but between Viper and myself, we eventually crest a hill to see the cabin a few hundred yards away.
As we approached the cabin, Raven brightened up.
"Hey!" She said, "The cabin door is open, they're already here."
Something felt off, but I couldn't put my finger on it
We got closer, and I could hear the sounds of people moving and rattling about in the cabin. The sounds weren't orderly sounds. It sounded to me as though somebody we digging through the cabin with a snow shovel.
And then a man stepped out of the cabin with a backpack stuffed high with equipment from the cabin. He looked at us, as we stopped in our tracks, and ushered whoever else was in the cabin to come out with a wave of his hand. I stared in horror at the three figures in front of us. They were the three men from Sumter's ridge who had beaten Owl and nearly killed Frisk.
"Well look who it is." The one with the moustache, Ed announced with a grin.
"They ain't got the punchy one." The short one said.
"They ain't got the bitey dog no more either." The skinny one said.
"I took care of that dog," Ed grinned, "Well come in and sit down. All these pretty girls here, we ought to be showing some manners and class."
I didn't like the way he said pretty girls, he made the words sound oily and threatening. As they ushered us in with the points of their hunting rifles, I noticed the heavy padlock that Owl's dad had used on the door. The lock lay in the snow with a rough cut through it.
The inside of the cabin looked like it had been clear cut and a garbage dump piled on the kitchen table. Dishes had been scattered off the counter and broken. All tools and equipment had been laid out on the now cleared counter tops.
I remembered Owls dad commenting that he never left any weapons in the cabin, not even a steak knife. He didn't want to be responsible for somebody getting hurt with gear stolen from the cabin.
The three men had taken everything else, or were in the process of packing it up: gas lanterns and sleeping bags and propane fuel and candles and several big heavy plastic tubs that were marked with 'beans' in black felt marker.
It ran through my head that these were the resources that we needed to get out of town and get away from all the adults who were acting crazy.
I also noted that on table were about a dozen bottles of homemade liquor with handwritten labels. Three of the bottles were completely empty already and two more were half empty. That struck me as a lot of alcohol even between three men, and I didn't know how strong the homemade alcohol might be.
"I think little miss dreadlocks should have a more country western. This ain't New York or Los Angeles. You got to fit in." the short man leered at Viper.
"These are corn rows." Viper said, "Dreadlocks are ugly."
He snickered at that and drew out a metal lighter.
"Well they look way too city girl for my liking. We couldn't find no knives or scissors in here, but I got me a lighter. I could give you a trim with that." He leaned in with the lighter and flicked a flame onto the end, inches from Viper's hair.
Raven was looking uncomfortable as the skinny man crowded her.
"So how are your pants fitting these days? Do you wear a diaper after what Frisk did to you?" I gave Raven a meaningful look as I spoke.
The skinny man glared and swung a plastic water jug and hit me in the face. The blow knocked me back, and I belatedly realized that the water jug must be at least partially full to be that heavy.
I pulled myself to my feet in time to see Raven driving a knee into the skinny man's groin. He let out a sagging moan and doubled over in pain.
The other two men looked shocked by Raven's actions, clearly not considering her a threat. Taking advantage of their inaction, Hawk grabbed on of the liquor bottles off the table and swung it like a golf club against on the metal propane tanks. The bottle shattered and sprayed clear liquid and shards of glass across the legs of Ed with the moustache.
"Viper! I need a light here!" Hawk called as she stepped back towards the wall.
Viper looked at the alcohol soaked legs of their leader and to the lighter inches from her face. She grabbed the lighter and stomped down on the skinny man's foot with her heavy healed boots. He yelped in pain and let go of the lighter. Viper pitched the lighter at the soaked legs of Ed with the moustache. The lighter bounced off liquor soaked blue jeans and the vapor around the pants ignited in a blossom of flame that bloomed up Ed's legs almost to hi belt.
The flames leapt from Ed to the alcohol on the propane tanks, and as Ed spun and leapt in panic, the flame spread to the wooden table and the patches of spilled acohol there as well.
"Get out of the way!" Ed yelled at the hunched over skinny man, shoving him to the side and running past.
"Roll in the snow Ed!" the short man called, running after his burning leader.
The skinny man looked at the spreading fire, his gaze moving across the table with it's homemade alcohol down to the propane tanks on the ground. I could see his brain adding up the potential for disaster and then he turned and limped out the door.
"You realize, that we're now trapped in a burning building, with wounded murderous rednecks waiting outside for us," Sparrow said, "This song goes out to fans of Johnny Cash, because we are truly in a burning ring of fire now."
"You and your non-existent songs can go out the back window like we're going to do," Hawk answered.
The windows weren't glass fortunately. They were just wooden shutters on the outside and the inside. The windows were big enough that we could all squeeze through. I was the biggest and so I waited.Sparrow went first, being buy far the skinniest. He scrambled out without a pause and disappeared down below the window fram.
I looked back and saw that the table was completely engulfed in flames.
"Next!" I called, and Raven climbed up and crawled through. Her dress hooked on a loose nail and stopped her for a moment, and we all flinched. She looked back and just grabbed the waist band on the dress and heaved forward, tearing the bottom of the dress, but pulling herself free. And with that she dropped to the ground on the outside.
"Viper, you're next!" Hawk demanded offer a pair of cupped hands to boost Viper up as I put my hand over the loose nail, so that none of viper's loose clothes caught as well. Viper was through in moments and now it was Hawk's turn.
The floor had now caught fire.
I offered a boost to Hawk via the same cupped hands techniques she gave Viper, but Hawk waved me off. She pulled herself up with both hands and wriggled through the window and disappeared.
And I was alone with the fire and propane tanks.
I looked briefly around, thinking about whether I could save anything, but the fire seemed to have found all the good stuff- even the men's guns which they had left when they evacuated. And on top of that, I had no idea of those propane tanks would explode or not. I turned back to the window and heaved myself up and begane to worm myself through the opening, when I felt my pant leg catch on the same loose nail that had caught Raven. I paused and gently moved my leg back to loosen the nail's grip. Behind me in the cabin, I heard something pop or crack loudly- but I couldn't see what it was. Squeezing as far as I could to the opposite side of the opening and wriggled myself through and dropped into the snow. I looked around and saw Sparrow and the girls signalling me from the trees.
I ran.
I huddled in amongst the trees and watched as the cabing burned. The fires were now pouring out the windows, like lava defying gravity as it crawled up the out walls to lick at the snow on the roof.
Off by the front door, I could see that Ed had just finished rolling the snow and his two cronies were shovelling snow onto his pants with their hands.
"Didn't it strike you as kind of crazy to break the bottle against the propane tanks?" I whispered to Hawk." I mean what if it had blown up when Viper lit the fire?"
"Not really," Hawk answered, "Mythbusters tested that. It's really hard to make a propane tank explode. I mean it can happen, but unless I damaged the pumps somehow or if it had a factory defect or something, I don't think we need to worry about it. And Mythbusters also said that its harder than you think to break a bottle over sombody's head- so I figured metal would be easier to break the bottle against."
"Fair enough. You don't argue with Mythbusters."
After several minutes of shovelling the two men pulled Ed from the snow, and they began talking and looking around. Occasionally one of them would point in this direction or that.
"I think they're arguing about whether to look for us or not." Sparrow said.
"Well on the upside, They don't have their guns now." I said.
"It's amazing how that helps." Hawk added.
"It only helps so much," Viper said, "They're still full grown men that we've made really angry."
The three men finished talking, and began looking around, heads forward like dogs on the hunt.
"Yeah, they're looking for us." Viper said.
"And with the trail we've left in the snow, hiding is going to be hard." Raven added.
"Hey!" A familiar voice called from behind the men.
They turned to see Owl standing at the head of what looked like everyone else, Wolf and Frisk prominent in the front of the group.
The men paused.
"they're kids, we can take them."
"There's over twenty of them, and I don't fancy having to fight that one again.” He pointed at Wolf, “And some of them look as big as him."
"Nothing to gain here," Ed said disgustedly, "Let's ship out and give them their victory for all the good it will do them."
We joined the group and took stock of our situation.
"Well," Owl said as he looked at the flames rolling out of the windows and boiling under the overhang on the cabin roof, "I guess we can't use this our any sort of hideaway, temporary or otherwise."
"And we couldn't get the food out or the sleeping bags or anything." I said, by way of apology.
"We're back to square one, then aren't we?" Sparrow asked.
Wolf shook his head, "Owl has skills, we can cope."
"I'd rather have a little bit of a fall back plan given how hard hunting has been." Owl said.
"It'll get better." Viper said.
"We can't count on that." Owl said, "I'm flattered by the faith, but we need a back up."
There was suddenly an odd thud followed by a hollow clanging sound that echoed out from the cabin in pressure wave that pushed me back a step, knocked the door to the cabin open, and briefly knocked the flames out with its rush of air.
"What was that?" Hawk asked, looking around.
I looked up and saw a ragged chunk of metal embedded in the pine tree less than a foot above my head- the word 'propane' still visible on the metal.
"Well," I said to Hawk, pointing up at the shard of metal, "I guess at least one of those little tanks had a flaw of some sort."
Hawk looked up, "Whoa."
A moment later I heard the same popping cracking sound as I'd heard while exiting the window.
Owl swung back towards the cabin.
"Did those idiots leave their guns in there?" He asked.
I nodded and Owl immediately dropped flat to the ground. The rest of us followed him down into the snow and we waited in silence. Another crack sounded a minute or so later, and then a fourth another minute after.
We waited in the snow cold an wet, until thirty minutes had passed and we'd heard no sounds for the past ten minutes before we slowly followed Owl back to our feet.
“You know,” Owl said looking back at the burning cabin, “I think I know a way to help our parents and ourselves. The school used to hold al sorts of mixed supplies, but it's almost entirely an ammo dump now. If we could set that on fire, the same would happen to their guns as happened to the guns in the cabin.”
"It's kind of hard to be a dictator if you haven't got all the guns." Lion said.
“So let's take away their guns.” Owl said.
We snuck back into town and made our way back to the school. It occurred to me that I had no idea how we were going to light the fire. Lion had that covered though. He had a disposable lighter. As far as I knew, he didn't smoke. I think he liked having something that the adults would take away if given the chance.
The plan was to get into the school the same way as when we searched Mrs. Winter's office and then sneak into the gymnasium and start a fire. The guards weren't particularly attentive, and with a little effort we were inside the building. Owl used Lion and Wolf as a ladder this time, and I was excused from duty. Most of the kids hid back in the woods. But our core plus Hawk's gang made our way inside to the Gym.
“Alright,” Owl said, grabbing a bundle of the newspaper used to pack one of the boxes, “Let's light this up.”
Lion flicked the lighter and held it to the paper, and we watched as the paper began to burn. Once the fire was going, Owl droped the paper into the crate containing several cardboard boxes marked ammuntition. The fire slowly began to spread. We sat huddled around that first box, urging the fire on, and then suddenly the huge doors leading out the field clattered up and a flashlight shone on us.
“I guess you were right to be suspicious about an open door.” I heard Mr. Wolf say as he stepped forward, flanked by four of Them.
Owl froze as he stared at Mr. Wolf looming above us. His eyes were wide and weren't quite focusing right. He looked like the white tail deer the moment before owl shot it- beyond scared, beyond action. I looked at Wolf, and could see that he understood what we were seeing. Mr. Wolf looked that the expression on Owl's face and grinned a nasty grin and then began stomping forward.
We backed away and Mr. Wolf strode forward, grabbing a fire extinguisher off one of the piles of supplies as he did. He readied the fire extinguisher before he reached the burning box and then deftly blasted the box until our little fire was out.
"Did you kids really think that it would be that easy to set our ammunition on fire? Did you really think that there wouldn't be safety precautions."
"You yelled at the smoking guard pretty bad." I managed.
"Of course I did. I want them to respect the site and accidents do happen. Do you know how many forest fires have starts from dropped cigarettes? That doesn't mean any stray spark is a threat!"
Owl hadn't moved. I looked back at the group. They were staring at Owl. The sight of the guy who had been leading them up to this point frozen in fear wasn't going over well.
“Take them.” Mr. Wolf said sharply, “Truncheons only. I want to discipline them later. Don't escalate unless explicitly ordered.”
The Guards drew their nightsticks and attacked. The largest hit me like a snowplow with a jet engine, I managed to get a little leverage and grappled with him, but he was significantly bigger and stronger. I could see Viper from where I was pinned against the wall. The guard swung his rifle and hit her in the face with butt, knocking her to ground. I struggled against the guard who had pinned me, but I couldn't budge him. I heard him chuckle at my efforts. Viper had landed well, I could see, rolling when she hit the ground and gaining some distance between her and the guard. Despite this, he closed the distance and kicked her hard in the mid section.
The guard kicked Viper again as she tried to get to her knees, and knocked the wind out of her. She crumpled back to the ground, and lay still for a moment. I was afraid she was out cold, and that the guard would just keep hitting her, but then she reach out and grabbed a piece of glass and jammed it against the guard's boot. The guard jumped back, but I couldn't tell if the glass actually penetrated.
Viper used the distraction to pull herself up to her feet and back away from the guard. The guard was bigger than Viper by a large margin and I could see Viper looking around for something to use against him. She picked up a length of wood and began swinging it in wide arcs, forcing the guard to keep his distance. But I could see him gauging the distance and getting ready to step in and grab Viper's weapon.
Wolf had knocked out one guard back back handing the man's helmet off, revealing the face of Mr. Tolmin who lived two doors down from Wolf, and then throwing a right hand blow to the jaw that dropped Mr. Tomlin to the ground and unconscious. Raven had twisted gently and done what looked like a judo or aikido throw to the guard that had tried to grab Owl, stepping between them and easily diverting the guard's forward motion.
“You're losing.” I whispered to my guard, who turned to look, allowing me enough room to reposition and drive a knee into his groin.
“You kind of stupid too.” I added, and finished by driving a second knee into his face as he crouched, doubled over from the pain.
Wolf drove a boot into the face of the guard that Raven had thrown. The guard didn't move, and we turned back to Mr. Wolf. He wore a look of complete disgust as he drew his own nightstick.
“We can't take him.” Wolf said.
“Listen to him and surrender.” Mr. Wolf said to us. The kids behind me murmured in confusion.
“I'm not afraid of him.” Lion said, “Grab fearless leader and I'll hold the line.”
Wolf and I eyed Owl, as he stood shuddering.
"We carry him." Wolf said. I nodded and we grabbed Owl around the waist and hoisted up onto Wolf's shoulder. And together we bolted.
“Move boy,” Mr. Wolf said as he tried to step around Lion, “You're in my way.”
Lion squared himself in front of the exit had raised his hands into fists.
"Sorry, but I'm your opponent."
As we ran, I could hear Owl muttering, “I can't. I couldn't. I'm sorry. I just can't.”
Behind us, I could hear the sound of Mr. Wolf and Lion fighting.
Finally I heard Lion announce, “Okay, Pharaoh its time to let my people go!”
“None of this accomplished anything. I am going to catch you. And the longer you hide, the worse it will be.” I heard Mr. Wolf yell.
We didn't stop running until we hit the business section of town. Lion caught up with us. I guess being in the football team helped. We hid out in my dad's travel agency office, up on the second floor in the back room. Owl was starting to come back to himself. I knew the Wolf understood, and so did I. I was fairly certain that Raven and Viper understood the fear. But Lion clearly didn't. Lion's arms were bruised up from the fight, but he wasn't shaken by it.
"This is stupid. We can't fight them. We can't even start a fire." Mouse said, as we sat recovering.
"We can stay in town. There has to be food somewhere we can eat." Maize added.
"No. that's the problem" Owl said.
"No, you're the problem.” Lion said, “You still think you're the hero. You aren't. That was the villain and you couldn't take him. I had to. You aren't in charge anymore. I am.”
Lion was good at leading the way, when somebody else had already stuck their neck out and acted like a leader first. Lion was also a bit of a jerk, but he always wanted to be on the side of the heroes and always wanted to do the right thing- or at least be seen doing the right thing. So he was best kept as a friend and best kept happy. Let people see him doing stuff and he would work hard for you. Let him look good and he would fight beside you like his namesake.
But right now the group was on his side and they weren't listening to us anymore.
"You know where we haven't checked? The dump. There's bound to be food in the dump." Lion said.
"It'll be rotten." Hawk responded.
"No it won't. It's winter. There'll be something we can eat there."
"There has to be." Mouse said.
"No there doesn't. The world isn't going to do what you want. That's the whole point." Owl said shaking his head.
"You aren't in charge anymore. We're going to the dump." Lion said.
The dump was not a pleasant place to walk through. Even in the winter, the dump smelled bad. There were gulls and pigeons that nested here year round, eating the garbage. But I noticed that there were fewer pigeons and gulls as we began to walk through the piles of discarded trash.
We poked around with very little succes. I found a fridge and went to investigate. But when I looked into the fridge, empty, even the shelves had been removed. Lion leaned over my shoulder and looked into the fridge as well.
"No luck, but I bet you fit." He said and gave me a shove into the fridge. He swung the door shut and walked off with a laugh. It was easy to forget that Lion could be a jerk, because he was normally better.
We kept searching, with Lion egging everyone on. I was about to tell them that they could keep looking on their own, when I heard a sound too big to be a kid. It had to be an adult and a big person at that to make as much noise as it was. I moved around a pile of garbage to see who it was.
It was a bear, with black fur. I was surprised that it didn't look bigger. I was expecting it to be bigger than me. I'm sure it would be bigger if it stood up, but it was only about shoulder height on all fours. I want to be clear here. The bear was big compared to me, but it was small compared to what I had expected a bear to be. Reality has a way of surprising us. The bear made a sort of snorting sound and pounded the ground with its front paws. the group scattered, several kids shrieking in fear.
"It's a black bear!" Owl called, "They're not grizzlies! They aren't anywhere near as aggressive."
"Then let's scare it off," Lion said marching towards the bear and banging on a dented sauce pan he had picked up from the trash.
The bear took a couple steps back, but didn't flee. Instead it rose up on it's hind legs- proving that it was in fact much bigger than me if it stood up- and bellowed into the air. Lion fell back a step or two and the bear dropped back to all fours and began turning in a cirle. It kept looking back at Lion, but it's head kept going this way and that.
I suddenly noticed that, despite scattering and backing away, none of us had moved very far. And in fact as I looked at the bear moving its head back and forth and slowly turning in circles, I realized that we had accidentally surrounded the bear. Lion seemed to want to prove that he wasn't afraid, because he kept taking a step back and then pushing himself forward again.
The bear bellowed again and turned in a circle. It seemed to have decided that Lion was the most direct threat, because it charged at Lion, sending him stumbling back in a blind panic. Lion scrambled back until he back straight into the abandoned refigerator. He glanced back, and quickly flung the door open and scrambled inside. The bear hit the fridge moments later and slammed the sides of the fridge with his paws. It rose up on it's hind legs again and bellowed to the sky.
While the bear was focused on the fridge, Owl yelled to the group.
"Everyone back off and spread out! Give it an escape route. We're scaring it into a confrontation. Let it think it's won. Let it wander off."
Nobody moved right away, and Owl yelled again, “Now!”
Slowly the kids began to back off, pull away into smaller groups, leaving big open patched for the bear to use as exits. The bear pounded on the fridge for a few more minutes and then abruptly noticed that it was no longer boxed in. It looked around, taking an apparent appraisal of where we all were. Then is huffed, dropped back to all fours and walked out of our accidental circle and out of sight.
Lion emerged slowly from fridge. I looked him in the eye and commented, "Looks like we both fit huh?"
"Okay, yeah, that was mean." He looked at Owl, "I thought you said it wasn't aggressive?"
"I said it was less aggressive, it's still a bear. The fact that it was a black bear and not a brown bear is the reason that it didn't try bowling with your hiding place."
Lion shivered.
"Be careful what kind of bear you make angry."
"what am I looking at here?" A voice said.
"I thought you kids escaped. Who escapes from prison and then hides in the prison outhouse?"
We all turned in the direction of the voice, and saw Owl's father standing staring at us- back lit by the rising sun.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Exodus Chapter Fifteen
Part Three
The Burning Bush
Chapter Fifteen
A Sacrifice to the Future
We had crossed a line when Owl killed Mr. Pinchen. A big line and there was no way to go back. I know only Owl actually killed him, but we were all there as support and witnesses. Owl actually put the knife in Mr. Pinchen’s lungs, but we were all responsible for his death. There was no going back anymore.
We stuffed Mr. Pinchen’s body into an empty box large enough to hold it. It took four of us to lift him into it. It was the most unnerving thing I had done up till that point. Then we snuck back to the main room in small groups and waited. It didn’t take long until They were moving around in nervous loops and talking to regular people more than normal.
"They look upset," Owl said.
"Yeah, but they're trying to hide it," Raven added.
"Well aren't the face mask guards supposed to patrol on loops? They must have noticed that Pinchen is missing." Viper said.
We nodded. Mr. Wolf and Mrs. Winter were present now, discussing something with a group of Them as we watched.
"Even Mrs. Winter is out looking. This has them worried." I added.
"Okay, everyone remember; if you're asked about Pinchen, you saw him go that way after he finished chasing Raven and Viper. You didn't see him actually talk to Viper or Raven though." Owl said to our new larger group. He waited until everyone nodded.
"And don't volunteer any information, make them ask you, and maybe get angry before you tell them." Viper added.
We all tried to stay casual, or at least do what we would normally be doing when trapped in a converted community center like criminals.
Abruptly one of Them pointed at Raven and Viper.
"You! Yeah, you two girls! I saw Pinchen following you. What happened? Where is he?"
Raven looked up that the two of Them facing her and Viper. As she answered, her voice wavered and she sounded scared and overwhelmed.
"You mean the guy with the sticker was Mr. Pinchen? We thought the sticker looked cute. He thought we were insulting him or something, and when we tried to leave- he followed us. We hid behind some boxes. When he couldn't find us, he kicked a bunch of stuff and said a lot of words I'm not supposed to say."
"And then he stomped off that way!" Viper interjected pointed towards the opposite end of the community center, "He said something about teaching people to respect him or something like that."
The girls were silent as the two of Them looked at each other. Finally they nodded to each other.
“Good enough.” One of Them said.
As They walked off in the direction that Viper had pointed, I heard one of Them say, “Pinchen must have found some other girl to take a swing at. You know what he’s like when if he can’t take it out on somebody.”
“Well, then let’s find him, before he beats some girl too much.”
I shook my head. They knew, the whole town knew, and they did nothing. I didn’t understand how any of them could just keep letting Pinchen abuse his wife, and hit girls when he got angry and not turn on him.
I turned back to the group, “You hear that? They all knew Mr. Pinchen liked to hit girls, liked to his his wife. Nobody stopped him. The only person I ever saw call him on it, was Mildred Sanger and she’s dead. Anyone still thinking it might be safer to stay here with adults who are going to protect you?”
Even Mouse shook his head this time.
We knew that we didn’t have a lot of time. Owl quickly gathered us all back together and explained the plan. We were to head to doors on the opposite end of the center than the direction that we had send Them in to look for Mr. Pinchen.
We would leave the main room in small groups. The doors locked from the outside and not the inside. So it wouldn’t be hard to get out the doors, the hard part would be if we got spotted. Even with our new group, there were more of Them than there were of us.
Everyone looked tense as we timed things. Owl sent Viper and Raven and Wolf in the lead group. He and I would go with the last group.
Every time a group slipped out, I waited for everything to go wrong and for alarms to sound and for Them to come running. Thankfully it didn’t happen, and soon all of us were out of sight, and moving as a group.
However halfway through the maze of halls, we found Skunk standing in front of us.
"You know, the none of the adults seem to know what you're going to do. But I have you figured out." Skunk said, blocking out way.
"If you had figured anything out Skunk, you'd be standing here not there."
"I'm on the winning side. You're running away."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that." Viper said.
"You aren't going to stop us." Owl said.
"You don't have your knife, I have it. How are you going to get past me?"
Raven looked at Owl was a worried expression, "A knife fight is the nastiest sort of fight. Even an untrained person with a knife can do a lot of damage."
Owl nodded, "But that's my knife. And he doesn't get to keep it."
And then Owl charged. He wrapped both his hands tightly around Skunk's knife hand and yanked down- throwing Skunk off balance. Skunk was larger though and he recovered and pulled back, heaving Owl towards Skunk's leering face.
Owl kept a strong grip on Skunk's knife hand and the rest of us watched nervously. I wasn't sure how much time we had until They started searching around here, or until They found Mr. Pinchen's body and put two and two together to make a sandwich.
The two boys pulled and struggled back and forth, vying for control of the knife. Then Owl's foot hit a bag of dried beans and punctured through the plastic. Beans slid across the floor with a discomforting hiss and first Owl and then Skunk fell the ground. Owl retained his grip on the knife and managed to roll onto his side, just saving himself from winding up under Skunk.
The two struggled amidst the dried beans, black eye peas sliding everywhere as they fought for control of Owl's hunting knife.
Then Owl managed to get his foot braced against the deflating bag of beans and used that for leverage. He kicked out with his other leg and hit skunk hard in the groin.
"This is almost a tradition isn't it?" Owl said.
Then he wrenched the knife from Skunk's hands; but to everyone's horror, Owl lost his grip on it and the knife launched up and landed blade first in a cardboard box high upon a stack of boxes.
"That's practically Excalibur, Bud." Wolf said.
"I don't have time to go King Arthur though do I?" Owl asked as he pulled himself up. Owl looked back down at Skunk, who lay hunched up in a ball, his arms wrapped defensively around his head.
"I'm not going to keep hitting you," Owl said, "You're not my enemy, you're a stupid willing victim of my enemy. You're a casualty and you don't know it. Stay down, and you'll be fine. We're leaving. If you wise up, we might even help you one day."
Skunk didn't move, and owl eventually turned and picked his was though the spilled beans back to the group.
"Let's move, we've wasted way too much time here and for no benefit."
Owl looked around the pile of boxes, quickly scanning everything at ground level. His gaze settled on a small tool box against a wall. He knelt beside it and flipped it open.
"Of course they don't have cutting tool." He muttered as he dug through, finally emerging with a screw driver, "This will have to do for now."
We continued through the community center, moving behind the boxes of supplies. It amazed me how many boxes had been piled into the community center when it was deemed the Relocation Center; especially since Mr. Wolf had admitted that the supplies weren't enough to get everyone through the winter. So much food, so much equipment and it couldn't get even our small town through this crisis. I thought about Professor Tuttle's spider webs, the supply lines, and I shuddered as an image of what must be happening in the big cities ran through my head.
We rounded a pile of boxes and put Skunk out of sight. I could see the double door to the outside. We were within spitting distance of getting away clean, when I suddenly heard Skunk shouting.
"Help! Come Quick! Help! Help!"
"You really should have known better." Viper said.
"Yeah, I should have- but I was feeling noble."
"Don't be noble, be smart."
And so, with the alarm well and truly sounded, we ran again. We pushed through the doors to the outside and came face to face with another one of Them.
As the doors closed behind us, the sound of the center disappeared. I realized, as he looked at us in surprise, that he hadn't heard Skunk's alarm through the doors.
"Hey," he said, marching towards us, "You shouldn't be out here!"
"Move." Owl said and turned to run.
The guard grabbed owl by the shoulder, "I said you shouldn't be over here!"
Owl twisted, and revealed the hidden screwdriver. He rammed the point of the tool into the guard's knee between the padded areas so that it penetrated right down to the person under all that armour.
He let a gasp of pain. And I think he was about to call for help, when Wolf grabbed his head from behind and pulled the plexi-glass mask off revealing Mr. Nottingham, our old vice principal. Wolf kicked Mr. Nottingham in the back of the leg and forced the tall man to drop down. Wolf wrapped one arm under Mr. Nottingham's chin and another behind his head and squeezed. His face was bright red and Mr. Nottingham struggled to get a handle on Wolf, but the angle was all wrong and bent backwards like he was, he had no leverage.
It took over a minute, but Mr. Nottingham finally stopped struggling and Wolf was able to loosen his grip and drop him gently to the ground.
"Is he dead," Raven asked.
"I hope not." Wolf said, and put an ear to the man's mouth, "Nope, breathing just fine. Just gave him an oxygen deprivation induced nap."
Looking around at the rest of the town, wreathed in darkness was weird. Virtually no other buildings had lights on. And no building within sight besides the community center itself had any active street lights.
The center seemed to glow in the blackness, snow flakes sparkling as the drifted into the light and landed on the muddy slush at our feet.
We started moving again, kids jostling each other as we started to pick up speed. And then I hard the sound of the double doors opening behind us as we started to put a little distance between us and the community center.
We looked back and I saw Mr. Wolf bearing down on us.
"Your dad has our number Wolf."
"Run!" Wolf didn't look back as he said it.
"He's going to catch us! Somebody needs to delay him."
"Whoever does isn't going to walk away from it." Wolf said.
"Well somebody needs to do it, or he's going to catch us."
“That’s my Dad, You don’t fight him. If you’re lucky, you survive him.”
But by that point Owl had already started running back towards Mr. Wolf. Mr. Wolf stopped, and waited for him. Owl squared off, his hand carefully hiding the screwdriver that he picked up.
Mr. Wolf didn't drop into a fighting stance, he just stood there, looking angry. He held his night stick loosely. And the whole thing felt like a standoff before a quick draw contest in the old west.
At the distance I was from them, I couldn't hear the conversation, but they were definitely talking.
A moment passed, and it felt like a tumbleweed should roll across the hallway. Then Owl sprang forward and whipped the screwdriver from where he had concealed it. Owl drove the screwdriver at Mr. Wolf's left hip.
Mr. Wolf was faster, slapping the screwdriver out of Owl's hand with hard backhanded left hand. Owl paused in surprise for a half moment, and countered with two quick left jabs and a hard right handed punch- none of which landed as Mr. Wolf diverted all three strikes with forearm parries. Owl launched a soccer style kick towards Mr. Wolf's groin, which Mr. Wolf countered by stepping down hard with his heavy boot on Owl's shin, knocking Owl off balance and causing him to fall to one knee.
Then Mr. Wolf swung the Night stick and it smacked across Owl's face with a sharp snapping sound that I could hear even from a distance. Owl recoiled and tried to get back to his feet. And Mr. Wolf swung again. And again the nightstick struck owl with a sharp smacking sound.
I turned back to the group pushing through the door.
"He's getting butchered back there." I called.
Hawk looked back, "That was the idea, he'd buy us time."
I looked back at Owl, he was lying on the ground, unmoving. Looming over him, Mr. Wolf slid his nightstick back into his utility belt.
"He's down. He's not moving." I paused and considered the options. The rest of the group probably couldn't get away at this point. And I couldn't leave Owl, "I going back." I said.
"I'm with you bud," Wolf said, suddenly standing beside me, "Let's go die like heroes."
Lion stepped up beside us as well, "Sounds like a plan, Let's do this."
I broke into a run, Wolf right beside me. Lion was close behind us. Mr. Wolf looked at us with a stone blank expression as we bore down on him.
I stumbled as I stepped around owl as he lay in hallway, and as I did, Mr. Wolf grabbed my shoulders with his hands, one above and one below and twisted. I fell and rolled against the wall. Dazed but unhurt I pulled myself to a crouch and saw that Mr. Wolf was trading punches with his son. Wolf was holding his own not too badly, being Wolf, when his father got a sharp jab through to Wolf's solar plexus. Wolf doubled over, and Lion stepped in between them.
I put a hand on Owl's shoulder as Lion traded blows with Mr. Wolf. Lion wasn't doing as well as Wolf had been, but he had realized that he could last longer if he went fully defensive. He was trying to buy us time.
"Owl, are you alright?" I said.
Owl's head lay face down and I couldn't see if his eyes were open. He didn't answer right away, and as the silence stretched out I got worried. Above me was the sound of strikes being exchanged. Then finally, I heard Owl's voice.
"No, I'm not. I can't stand. Too dizzy. He hit me too hard."
"Lean on us, bud." Wolf struggled up to a crouch beside us.
"You got hit hard too," I pointed out.
"That's what my dad does." Wolf said.
"If you guys are done talking, it'd be awesome if you could retreat." Lion said. Mr. Wolf got a blow throw Lion's blocks as Lion said that and he stumbled.
"Get him up." Wolf said and I nodded. We pulled Owl out from underfoot of Lion and hoisted him up between us.
"There's no where you can go." Mr. Wolf said, speaking for the first time, "I'm going to find you if I have to march on hell itself."
I heard a heavy grunt from Lion coupled with a nasty smacking sound, and I looked back to see that Mr. Wolf had managed to get the nightstick back out of its loop in his belt.
Lion stepped in and grappled Mr. Wolf to prevent another strike with the nightstick. But Mr. Wolf was clearly the stronger of the two by a substantial margin. And Lion was going to have to back off.
We positioned Owl between us, interlocking our arms, and then we ran. Owl legs dragged on the floor and we pushed our legs to move faster. A few moments later I heard a another set of footsteps.
"Time to go guys!" Lion said behind us.
"You're only delaying the inevitable." Mr. Wolf's voice called.
Lion coiled his body down suddenly and speared Mr. Wolf in the mid section. The big man absorbed Lion's hit and seemed about to counter when Lion reached Down and grabbed both Mr. Wolf's legs at the back of the knees and stood up sharply. The motion pulled Mr. Wolf's legs out from under him and sent the him spralling to the ground on his back. Mr. Wolf let out a whooshing noise as he landed, and Lion turned to join us in retreat.
"Push it!" Lion said, We need to catch up with the group and put some distance between us the the monster."
"Easier said than done," Wolf said and the three of us struggled along, "My dad didn't knock the wind out of two of us by accident."
"I didn't drop him on his back by accident either, so maybe it will even out." Lion answered as we ran.
"In an even match, my dad will murder us all." Wolf said.
I noticed that Wolf seemed to be recovering, probably from practice with his father. I shuddered at the thought of training with Mr. Wolf. Owl was not looking as good. he was pale and still having trouble getting his breath back. I suppose that made sense. He was the youngest and smallest of us, even if he attitude made you forget it sometimes. He hadn't grown into his body yet, and he hadn't trained in the way Wolf had with his father, Lion had on the football team or I had with Wolf.
I glanced back, and saw what was probably a worst case scenario for us, because Mr. Wolf had pulled himself to his feet and was jogging after us. he wasn't moving as fast as I had seen him run before, so Lion must have winded him good. But like Wolf, he was clearly recovering fast. This wasn't good.
We were just about out of the parking lot, when I noticed three figures crouched behind a snow bank signalling us. Leaning against the slushy pile of snow were Viper, Raven and Hawk. They were pointing at a pile of snow on the path. I looked at the pile as we approached and suddenly realized what they were referring to.
"Guys, go past that pile of snow, really close. But don't step in it, whatever you do." I said as we stumbled on.
"Okay, but why?" Wolf asked.
"Because we walked past this spot when we were all going into the center for the first time." I said and kept moving.
We passed the snow, and I looked back to see Mr. Wolf now at a near full speed run and almost within grasping distance. We were just past the snow, and I silently hoped that he wouldn't notice that there had been no snow there before. And then I also silently hoped he wouldn't step around the snow even if he didn't notice.
Mr. Wolf charged straight into he little pile of slush, clearly trying to close the lsat few steps between himself and us. And as he did so, his lead foot disappeared into the snow and he fell to the ground with an angry bellow of pain.
"Plastic over that pot hole you stepped in." Viper said grinning, "My idea."
"We found the plastic sheet in the dumpster to put the snow on." Hawk said pointing to Raven, who grinned sheepishly.
"Brilliant!" Owl said, "Now run before he gets back up and catches us."
We ran. And we ran. I looked back, but Mr. Wolf wasn't pursuing any longer. He was gingerly putting weight on his leg and scowling at us.
"My men will bring you in. This only means a harsher lesson!" He called, as we disappeared into the darkness.
He was right though, already I could here the sounds of other people coming from the center. And I could see Them pouring like locusts into the parking lot.
"I think we've upset them." Owl said with a grin.
Once we were out of sight of the parking lot and into the protective darkness of the unlit town, we slowed down to a cautious and more queit prowling pace.
Pausing whenever we heard a set of pounding footsteps and taking cover within and behind anything close when those footsteps got to close to be ignored; we continued slowly away from the relocation center.
"Psst, Freak. Where are we going?" Hawk asked Owl.
"My family's hidden hunting cabin. We'll figure out further details there." He answered.
"Good enough for me." She answered.
The problem with this plan, is that it wuickly became apparent that They had blanketed the town in flashlights and search parties. Keeping a group this large hidden became very difficult very fast. Every time we moved, we made a certain amount of sound, and even the slightest sound seemed to attract at least some of Them. We were slowly being forced slowly towards the south end of town, not intentionally, I don't think. They just seemed to be concentrated at the north end of town.
We were getting to within sprinting distance of the town limits when a group of Them latched onto us like a pit bull. They were never in sight, but we could always hear them, and it was a good bet that they heard us every time we moved.
Suddenly Owl paused mid step, foot dangling in the air. I pulled to a halt a moment later. I followed his gaze and saw the skunk.
It looked scared, and threatening. The skunk had its legs spread and had already raised its tail.
We waited, in a silent stand off. I could hear the sound of pursuit behind us. Slowly Owl lowered his foot, and then he carefully took two steps back. I followed his lead. I couldn't see behind me, but I hoped the others were doing likewise.
The skunk seemed to understand this, because he lowered his tail, not entirely, but enough that I felt comfortable breathing again. Finally, with the sounds of pursuit way to close for comfort, the skunk returned to digging through the garbage.
"Okay, let's take a detour here and let them meet the skunk shall we?" Owl said with a horrible grin.
We slowly edged away and followed Owl. A few minutes later we heard a tell tale yell of alarm.
"Skunk, Oh d..!"
"..on't scare him!"
And a familiar horrible smell erupted a few blocks back. We kept going, but didn't hear sounds of futher pursuit. The skunk seemed to have stopped them from looking in our direction.
We reached the edge of town and headed out on the highway. It didn’t take too long for Owl to decide that we were too exposed on the highway, and so he drew us off into the woods.
We walked for a while with Owl in the lead. Owl changed directions every so often as the terrain required. And as we got further and further away from town, it became harder to tell where we were or what direction we were heading in. I noticed the group was beginning to whisper amongst themselves. Finally Mouse spoke up.
"We're lost," Mouse said, "I told you we should have stayed at the center. Mr. Wolf and Mrs. Winter are the leaders and we should have respected them."
"We aren't lost," Owl countered, "The town is about an hour's walk that way."
Owl pointed to indicate as he spoke and Hawk looked where he was pointing in confusion.
"How do you know that?"
"We've been going pretty much exactly due south the whole time, and that means the town is due north- that way."
Mouse shook his head, "You don't know. You're just guessing to keep us from realizing that you don't know."
Owl closed his eyes for a moment and then shook his head, "You guys really don't know, huh? Then I'll show you."
Owl pointed at the sun ahead of us.
"We live in the Northern Hemisphere. And that means that sun is going to be in the southern sky, especially in the winter when it sits even lower in the southern sky. So if the sun is up and your looking at the sun, then you're looking at least sort of to the south. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. So if you're looking at the sun around noon, like we are, then the sun is due south. If it's morning, then the sun is south east. If it's evening, the the sun is south west."
Owl pointed back behind us, "I've kept us walking into the sun the whole time. So we've been going roughly due south. That means that home is behind us, which is due north. And since we've been going uphill for a little less than an hour, I figure we're about an hour's walk back, since we're tired now. There, believe me now?"
"So how do you know this?" Hawk asked, "Your Mom?"
Owl was quiet for a long moment, "My Dad actually. He told me when I was little, that there are tribal peoples who don't have words for right and left, because they always know where north and south and everything are. I couldn't figure out how they would know, so he taught me. I was pretty young then, back when he lived with Mom and me."
Hawk looked surprised, "You complain about your dad all the time. He seems pretty cool, even with everything he did wrong. You know?"
Owl nodded, and tried to say something, but the words didn't quite come out.
Raven put an arm around him. She was good at stuff like that.
"He knows." She said.
"When you think about it." Viper said, "He's the only adult still around who been honest with us from the start of this."
We continued this way for a while, until we came around a corner in the road and discovered that the road was gone- buried beneath so much snow that it looked like the mountain had swallowed the road whole.
"Damn." I said quietly.
Nobody else said anything. The wall of snow rose above us, taller than a house, taller than the chamber of commerce building in town. The road simply disappeared beneath it.
"This is the avalanche. the one that got Russell and his family. And Russell was the funny one. The funny one never dies in the movies." I said quietly as we looked at the mountain of snow where the highway used to be.
“This isn't a movie,” Owl said.
“They say that in movies you know?” I added.
“Then maybe we are in a movie,” Owl responded, “Let's just make sure that the movie doesn't suck. You know how we do that?”
“How?”
“By being bigger and badder and crazier than everyone else in the movie. We have to out hero and out villain everyone else, because only the most epic deeds are worth remembering. So let's get epic.”
"We don't know that Rusell died, not for sure." Raven said slowly.
"We don't know a lot of things." Owl added, "And that puts us at a disadvantage."
"What do mean?" Raven asked.
"Most of us don't know how to hunt, don't know how to farm or garden, we can't make our own clothing, can't do first-aid. And the adults are looking for us to try and drag us back to their slow death march. We have our work cut out for us. Between the five of us we can probably teach a bunch of what we need- but it's going to be hard work. And we aren't even at my family's cabin yet, so we're still not safe."
"Okay, so which way?"
"Well, we're far enough south, but we’re on the wrong side of town entirely." Owl said, "So we'd best get moving."
Mouse looked at snow and then said, "Without this avalanche, we wouldn't be in this mess would we?"
"Yeah, we kind of still would." Owl said.
"But if the avalanche hadn't happened, then we would have been able to get food in. We could get people out if the road were open. This made everything so much worse, so fast."
Viper nodded, "Mildred Sanger talked about this with us. The crisis triggered other crises because people handled the first part badly or panicked. And then with everything so fragile already, anything that goes wrong stops being a problem and becomes a catastrophe. This is only a huge problem, because the government wasn't going to send the stuff to clear the road. And they didn't do that, becuase they probably had bigger problems in the cities and then they didn't have extra people to send."
"So it was the avalanche," Mouse said.
"Sort of," Viper answered, "But the thing is, that if it wasn't the avalanche somethign else proabably would have happened and might have even been worse."
"It was the avalanche," Mouse said and grabbed up a rock and threw it up the mountain.
Mouse is a strong guy and the rock flew way farther than I was expecting. It hit an expected chunk of slate with an echoing crack and buried intself in a snow drift. And then something happened. The snow right below where the rock had hit tore away from the snow shelf above it. And the snow came roaring down the mountain towards us.
Sparrow looked at Mouse, "Okay, I'm not an expert like Owl. But I get the sense that this is a bad thing."
The Burning Bush
Chapter Fifteen
A Sacrifice to the Future
We had crossed a line when Owl killed Mr. Pinchen. A big line and there was no way to go back. I know only Owl actually killed him, but we were all there as support and witnesses. Owl actually put the knife in Mr. Pinchen’s lungs, but we were all responsible for his death. There was no going back anymore.
We stuffed Mr. Pinchen’s body into an empty box large enough to hold it. It took four of us to lift him into it. It was the most unnerving thing I had done up till that point. Then we snuck back to the main room in small groups and waited. It didn’t take long until They were moving around in nervous loops and talking to regular people more than normal.
"They look upset," Owl said.
"Yeah, but they're trying to hide it," Raven added.
"Well aren't the face mask guards supposed to patrol on loops? They must have noticed that Pinchen is missing." Viper said.
We nodded. Mr. Wolf and Mrs. Winter were present now, discussing something with a group of Them as we watched.
"Even Mrs. Winter is out looking. This has them worried." I added.
"Okay, everyone remember; if you're asked about Pinchen, you saw him go that way after he finished chasing Raven and Viper. You didn't see him actually talk to Viper or Raven though." Owl said to our new larger group. He waited until everyone nodded.
"And don't volunteer any information, make them ask you, and maybe get angry before you tell them." Viper added.
We all tried to stay casual, or at least do what we would normally be doing when trapped in a converted community center like criminals.
Abruptly one of Them pointed at Raven and Viper.
"You! Yeah, you two girls! I saw Pinchen following you. What happened? Where is he?"
Raven looked up that the two of Them facing her and Viper. As she answered, her voice wavered and she sounded scared and overwhelmed.
"You mean the guy with the sticker was Mr. Pinchen? We thought the sticker looked cute. He thought we were insulting him or something, and when we tried to leave- he followed us. We hid behind some boxes. When he couldn't find us, he kicked a bunch of stuff and said a lot of words I'm not supposed to say."
"And then he stomped off that way!" Viper interjected pointed towards the opposite end of the community center, "He said something about teaching people to respect him or something like that."
The girls were silent as the two of Them looked at each other. Finally they nodded to each other.
“Good enough.” One of Them said.
As They walked off in the direction that Viper had pointed, I heard one of Them say, “Pinchen must have found some other girl to take a swing at. You know what he’s like when if he can’t take it out on somebody.”
“Well, then let’s find him, before he beats some girl too much.”
I shook my head. They knew, the whole town knew, and they did nothing. I didn’t understand how any of them could just keep letting Pinchen abuse his wife, and hit girls when he got angry and not turn on him.
I turned back to the group, “You hear that? They all knew Mr. Pinchen liked to hit girls, liked to his his wife. Nobody stopped him. The only person I ever saw call him on it, was Mildred Sanger and she’s dead. Anyone still thinking it might be safer to stay here with adults who are going to protect you?”
Even Mouse shook his head this time.
We knew that we didn’t have a lot of time. Owl quickly gathered us all back together and explained the plan. We were to head to doors on the opposite end of the center than the direction that we had send Them in to look for Mr. Pinchen.
We would leave the main room in small groups. The doors locked from the outside and not the inside. So it wouldn’t be hard to get out the doors, the hard part would be if we got spotted. Even with our new group, there were more of Them than there were of us.
Everyone looked tense as we timed things. Owl sent Viper and Raven and Wolf in the lead group. He and I would go with the last group.
Every time a group slipped out, I waited for everything to go wrong and for alarms to sound and for Them to come running. Thankfully it didn’t happen, and soon all of us were out of sight, and moving as a group.
However halfway through the maze of halls, we found Skunk standing in front of us.
"You know, the none of the adults seem to know what you're going to do. But I have you figured out." Skunk said, blocking out way.
"If you had figured anything out Skunk, you'd be standing here not there."
"I'm on the winning side. You're running away."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that." Viper said.
"You aren't going to stop us." Owl said.
"You don't have your knife, I have it. How are you going to get past me?"
Raven looked at Owl was a worried expression, "A knife fight is the nastiest sort of fight. Even an untrained person with a knife can do a lot of damage."
Owl nodded, "But that's my knife. And he doesn't get to keep it."
And then Owl charged. He wrapped both his hands tightly around Skunk's knife hand and yanked down- throwing Skunk off balance. Skunk was larger though and he recovered and pulled back, heaving Owl towards Skunk's leering face.
Owl kept a strong grip on Skunk's knife hand and the rest of us watched nervously. I wasn't sure how much time we had until They started searching around here, or until They found Mr. Pinchen's body and put two and two together to make a sandwich.
The two boys pulled and struggled back and forth, vying for control of the knife. Then Owl's foot hit a bag of dried beans and punctured through the plastic. Beans slid across the floor with a discomforting hiss and first Owl and then Skunk fell the ground. Owl retained his grip on the knife and managed to roll onto his side, just saving himself from winding up under Skunk.
The two struggled amidst the dried beans, black eye peas sliding everywhere as they fought for control of Owl's hunting knife.
Then Owl managed to get his foot braced against the deflating bag of beans and used that for leverage. He kicked out with his other leg and hit skunk hard in the groin.
"This is almost a tradition isn't it?" Owl said.
Then he wrenched the knife from Skunk's hands; but to everyone's horror, Owl lost his grip on it and the knife launched up and landed blade first in a cardboard box high upon a stack of boxes.
"That's practically Excalibur, Bud." Wolf said.
"I don't have time to go King Arthur though do I?" Owl asked as he pulled himself up. Owl looked back down at Skunk, who lay hunched up in a ball, his arms wrapped defensively around his head.
"I'm not going to keep hitting you," Owl said, "You're not my enemy, you're a stupid willing victim of my enemy. You're a casualty and you don't know it. Stay down, and you'll be fine. We're leaving. If you wise up, we might even help you one day."
Skunk didn't move, and owl eventually turned and picked his was though the spilled beans back to the group.
"Let's move, we've wasted way too much time here and for no benefit."
Owl looked around the pile of boxes, quickly scanning everything at ground level. His gaze settled on a small tool box against a wall. He knelt beside it and flipped it open.
"Of course they don't have cutting tool." He muttered as he dug through, finally emerging with a screw driver, "This will have to do for now."
We continued through the community center, moving behind the boxes of supplies. It amazed me how many boxes had been piled into the community center when it was deemed the Relocation Center; especially since Mr. Wolf had admitted that the supplies weren't enough to get everyone through the winter. So much food, so much equipment and it couldn't get even our small town through this crisis. I thought about Professor Tuttle's spider webs, the supply lines, and I shuddered as an image of what must be happening in the big cities ran through my head.
We rounded a pile of boxes and put Skunk out of sight. I could see the double door to the outside. We were within spitting distance of getting away clean, when I suddenly heard Skunk shouting.
"Help! Come Quick! Help! Help!"
"You really should have known better." Viper said.
"Yeah, I should have- but I was feeling noble."
"Don't be noble, be smart."
And so, with the alarm well and truly sounded, we ran again. We pushed through the doors to the outside and came face to face with another one of Them.
As the doors closed behind us, the sound of the center disappeared. I realized, as he looked at us in surprise, that he hadn't heard Skunk's alarm through the doors.
"Hey," he said, marching towards us, "You shouldn't be out here!"
"Move." Owl said and turned to run.
The guard grabbed owl by the shoulder, "I said you shouldn't be over here!"
Owl twisted, and revealed the hidden screwdriver. He rammed the point of the tool into the guard's knee between the padded areas so that it penetrated right down to the person under all that armour.
He let a gasp of pain. And I think he was about to call for help, when Wolf grabbed his head from behind and pulled the plexi-glass mask off revealing Mr. Nottingham, our old vice principal. Wolf kicked Mr. Nottingham in the back of the leg and forced the tall man to drop down. Wolf wrapped one arm under Mr. Nottingham's chin and another behind his head and squeezed. His face was bright red and Mr. Nottingham struggled to get a handle on Wolf, but the angle was all wrong and bent backwards like he was, he had no leverage.
It took over a minute, but Mr. Nottingham finally stopped struggling and Wolf was able to loosen his grip and drop him gently to the ground.
"Is he dead," Raven asked.
"I hope not." Wolf said, and put an ear to the man's mouth, "Nope, breathing just fine. Just gave him an oxygen deprivation induced nap."
Looking around at the rest of the town, wreathed in darkness was weird. Virtually no other buildings had lights on. And no building within sight besides the community center itself had any active street lights.
The center seemed to glow in the blackness, snow flakes sparkling as the drifted into the light and landed on the muddy slush at our feet.
We started moving again, kids jostling each other as we started to pick up speed. And then I hard the sound of the double doors opening behind us as we started to put a little distance between us and the community center.
We looked back and I saw Mr. Wolf bearing down on us.
"Your dad has our number Wolf."
"Run!" Wolf didn't look back as he said it.
"He's going to catch us! Somebody needs to delay him."
"Whoever does isn't going to walk away from it." Wolf said.
"Well somebody needs to do it, or he's going to catch us."
“That’s my Dad, You don’t fight him. If you’re lucky, you survive him.”
But by that point Owl had already started running back towards Mr. Wolf. Mr. Wolf stopped, and waited for him. Owl squared off, his hand carefully hiding the screwdriver that he picked up.
Mr. Wolf didn't drop into a fighting stance, he just stood there, looking angry. He held his night stick loosely. And the whole thing felt like a standoff before a quick draw contest in the old west.
At the distance I was from them, I couldn't hear the conversation, but they were definitely talking.
A moment passed, and it felt like a tumbleweed should roll across the hallway. Then Owl sprang forward and whipped the screwdriver from where he had concealed it. Owl drove the screwdriver at Mr. Wolf's left hip.
Mr. Wolf was faster, slapping the screwdriver out of Owl's hand with hard backhanded left hand. Owl paused in surprise for a half moment, and countered with two quick left jabs and a hard right handed punch- none of which landed as Mr. Wolf diverted all three strikes with forearm parries. Owl launched a soccer style kick towards Mr. Wolf's groin, which Mr. Wolf countered by stepping down hard with his heavy boot on Owl's shin, knocking Owl off balance and causing him to fall to one knee.
Then Mr. Wolf swung the Night stick and it smacked across Owl's face with a sharp snapping sound that I could hear even from a distance. Owl recoiled and tried to get back to his feet. And Mr. Wolf swung again. And again the nightstick struck owl with a sharp smacking sound.
I turned back to the group pushing through the door.
"He's getting butchered back there." I called.
Hawk looked back, "That was the idea, he'd buy us time."
I looked back at Owl, he was lying on the ground, unmoving. Looming over him, Mr. Wolf slid his nightstick back into his utility belt.
"He's down. He's not moving." I paused and considered the options. The rest of the group probably couldn't get away at this point. And I couldn't leave Owl, "I going back." I said.
"I'm with you bud," Wolf said, suddenly standing beside me, "Let's go die like heroes."
Lion stepped up beside us as well, "Sounds like a plan, Let's do this."
I broke into a run, Wolf right beside me. Lion was close behind us. Mr. Wolf looked at us with a stone blank expression as we bore down on him.
I stumbled as I stepped around owl as he lay in hallway, and as I did, Mr. Wolf grabbed my shoulders with his hands, one above and one below and twisted. I fell and rolled against the wall. Dazed but unhurt I pulled myself to a crouch and saw that Mr. Wolf was trading punches with his son. Wolf was holding his own not too badly, being Wolf, when his father got a sharp jab through to Wolf's solar plexus. Wolf doubled over, and Lion stepped in between them.
I put a hand on Owl's shoulder as Lion traded blows with Mr. Wolf. Lion wasn't doing as well as Wolf had been, but he had realized that he could last longer if he went fully defensive. He was trying to buy us time.
"Owl, are you alright?" I said.
Owl's head lay face down and I couldn't see if his eyes were open. He didn't answer right away, and as the silence stretched out I got worried. Above me was the sound of strikes being exchanged. Then finally, I heard Owl's voice.
"No, I'm not. I can't stand. Too dizzy. He hit me too hard."
"Lean on us, bud." Wolf struggled up to a crouch beside us.
"You got hit hard too," I pointed out.
"That's what my dad does." Wolf said.
"If you guys are done talking, it'd be awesome if you could retreat." Lion said. Mr. Wolf got a blow throw Lion's blocks as Lion said that and he stumbled.
"Get him up." Wolf said and I nodded. We pulled Owl out from underfoot of Lion and hoisted him up between us.
"There's no where you can go." Mr. Wolf said, speaking for the first time, "I'm going to find you if I have to march on hell itself."
I heard a heavy grunt from Lion coupled with a nasty smacking sound, and I looked back to see that Mr. Wolf had managed to get the nightstick back out of its loop in his belt.
Lion stepped in and grappled Mr. Wolf to prevent another strike with the nightstick. But Mr. Wolf was clearly the stronger of the two by a substantial margin. And Lion was going to have to back off.
We positioned Owl between us, interlocking our arms, and then we ran. Owl legs dragged on the floor and we pushed our legs to move faster. A few moments later I heard a another set of footsteps.
"Time to go guys!" Lion said behind us.
"You're only delaying the inevitable." Mr. Wolf's voice called.
Lion coiled his body down suddenly and speared Mr. Wolf in the mid section. The big man absorbed Lion's hit and seemed about to counter when Lion reached Down and grabbed both Mr. Wolf's legs at the back of the knees and stood up sharply. The motion pulled Mr. Wolf's legs out from under him and sent the him spralling to the ground on his back. Mr. Wolf let out a whooshing noise as he landed, and Lion turned to join us in retreat.
"Push it!" Lion said, We need to catch up with the group and put some distance between us the the monster."
"Easier said than done," Wolf said and the three of us struggled along, "My dad didn't knock the wind out of two of us by accident."
"I didn't drop him on his back by accident either, so maybe it will even out." Lion answered as we ran.
"In an even match, my dad will murder us all." Wolf said.
I noticed that Wolf seemed to be recovering, probably from practice with his father. I shuddered at the thought of training with Mr. Wolf. Owl was not looking as good. he was pale and still having trouble getting his breath back. I suppose that made sense. He was the youngest and smallest of us, even if he attitude made you forget it sometimes. He hadn't grown into his body yet, and he hadn't trained in the way Wolf had with his father, Lion had on the football team or I had with Wolf.
I glanced back, and saw what was probably a worst case scenario for us, because Mr. Wolf had pulled himself to his feet and was jogging after us. he wasn't moving as fast as I had seen him run before, so Lion must have winded him good. But like Wolf, he was clearly recovering fast. This wasn't good.
We were just about out of the parking lot, when I noticed three figures crouched behind a snow bank signalling us. Leaning against the slushy pile of snow were Viper, Raven and Hawk. They were pointing at a pile of snow on the path. I looked at the pile as we approached and suddenly realized what they were referring to.
"Guys, go past that pile of snow, really close. But don't step in it, whatever you do." I said as we stumbled on.
"Okay, but why?" Wolf asked.
"Because we walked past this spot when we were all going into the center for the first time." I said and kept moving.
We passed the snow, and I looked back to see Mr. Wolf now at a near full speed run and almost within grasping distance. We were just past the snow, and I silently hoped that he wouldn't notice that there had been no snow there before. And then I also silently hoped he wouldn't step around the snow even if he didn't notice.
Mr. Wolf charged straight into he little pile of slush, clearly trying to close the lsat few steps between himself and us. And as he did so, his lead foot disappeared into the snow and he fell to the ground with an angry bellow of pain.
"Plastic over that pot hole you stepped in." Viper said grinning, "My idea."
"We found the plastic sheet in the dumpster to put the snow on." Hawk said pointing to Raven, who grinned sheepishly.
"Brilliant!" Owl said, "Now run before he gets back up and catches us."
We ran. And we ran. I looked back, but Mr. Wolf wasn't pursuing any longer. He was gingerly putting weight on his leg and scowling at us.
"My men will bring you in. This only means a harsher lesson!" He called, as we disappeared into the darkness.
He was right though, already I could here the sounds of other people coming from the center. And I could see Them pouring like locusts into the parking lot.
"I think we've upset them." Owl said with a grin.
Once we were out of sight of the parking lot and into the protective darkness of the unlit town, we slowed down to a cautious and more queit prowling pace.
Pausing whenever we heard a set of pounding footsteps and taking cover within and behind anything close when those footsteps got to close to be ignored; we continued slowly away from the relocation center.
"Psst, Freak. Where are we going?" Hawk asked Owl.
"My family's hidden hunting cabin. We'll figure out further details there." He answered.
"Good enough for me." She answered.
The problem with this plan, is that it wuickly became apparent that They had blanketed the town in flashlights and search parties. Keeping a group this large hidden became very difficult very fast. Every time we moved, we made a certain amount of sound, and even the slightest sound seemed to attract at least some of Them. We were slowly being forced slowly towards the south end of town, not intentionally, I don't think. They just seemed to be concentrated at the north end of town.
We were getting to within sprinting distance of the town limits when a group of Them latched onto us like a pit bull. They were never in sight, but we could always hear them, and it was a good bet that they heard us every time we moved.
Suddenly Owl paused mid step, foot dangling in the air. I pulled to a halt a moment later. I followed his gaze and saw the skunk.
It looked scared, and threatening. The skunk had its legs spread and had already raised its tail.
We waited, in a silent stand off. I could hear the sound of pursuit behind us. Slowly Owl lowered his foot, and then he carefully took two steps back. I followed his lead. I couldn't see behind me, but I hoped the others were doing likewise.
The skunk seemed to understand this, because he lowered his tail, not entirely, but enough that I felt comfortable breathing again. Finally, with the sounds of pursuit way to close for comfort, the skunk returned to digging through the garbage.
"Okay, let's take a detour here and let them meet the skunk shall we?" Owl said with a horrible grin.
We slowly edged away and followed Owl. A few minutes later we heard a tell tale yell of alarm.
"Skunk, Oh d..!"
"..on't scare him!"
And a familiar horrible smell erupted a few blocks back. We kept going, but didn't hear sounds of futher pursuit. The skunk seemed to have stopped them from looking in our direction.
We reached the edge of town and headed out on the highway. It didn’t take too long for Owl to decide that we were too exposed on the highway, and so he drew us off into the woods.
We walked for a while with Owl in the lead. Owl changed directions every so often as the terrain required. And as we got further and further away from town, it became harder to tell where we were or what direction we were heading in. I noticed the group was beginning to whisper amongst themselves. Finally Mouse spoke up.
"We're lost," Mouse said, "I told you we should have stayed at the center. Mr. Wolf and Mrs. Winter are the leaders and we should have respected them."
"We aren't lost," Owl countered, "The town is about an hour's walk that way."
Owl pointed to indicate as he spoke and Hawk looked where he was pointing in confusion.
"How do you know that?"
"We've been going pretty much exactly due south the whole time, and that means the town is due north- that way."
Mouse shook his head, "You don't know. You're just guessing to keep us from realizing that you don't know."
Owl closed his eyes for a moment and then shook his head, "You guys really don't know, huh? Then I'll show you."
Owl pointed at the sun ahead of us.
"We live in the Northern Hemisphere. And that means that sun is going to be in the southern sky, especially in the winter when it sits even lower in the southern sky. So if the sun is up and your looking at the sun, then you're looking at least sort of to the south. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. So if you're looking at the sun around noon, like we are, then the sun is due south. If it's morning, then the sun is south east. If it's evening, the the sun is south west."
Owl pointed back behind us, "I've kept us walking into the sun the whole time. So we've been going roughly due south. That means that home is behind us, which is due north. And since we've been going uphill for a little less than an hour, I figure we're about an hour's walk back, since we're tired now. There, believe me now?"
"So how do you know this?" Hawk asked, "Your Mom?"
Owl was quiet for a long moment, "My Dad actually. He told me when I was little, that there are tribal peoples who don't have words for right and left, because they always know where north and south and everything are. I couldn't figure out how they would know, so he taught me. I was pretty young then, back when he lived with Mom and me."
Hawk looked surprised, "You complain about your dad all the time. He seems pretty cool, even with everything he did wrong. You know?"
Owl nodded, and tried to say something, but the words didn't quite come out.
Raven put an arm around him. She was good at stuff like that.
"He knows." She said.
"When you think about it." Viper said, "He's the only adult still around who been honest with us from the start of this."
We continued this way for a while, until we came around a corner in the road and discovered that the road was gone- buried beneath so much snow that it looked like the mountain had swallowed the road whole.
"Damn." I said quietly.
Nobody else said anything. The wall of snow rose above us, taller than a house, taller than the chamber of commerce building in town. The road simply disappeared beneath it.
"This is the avalanche. the one that got Russell and his family. And Russell was the funny one. The funny one never dies in the movies." I said quietly as we looked at the mountain of snow where the highway used to be.
“This isn't a movie,” Owl said.
“They say that in movies you know?” I added.
“Then maybe we are in a movie,” Owl responded, “Let's just make sure that the movie doesn't suck. You know how we do that?”
“How?”
“By being bigger and badder and crazier than everyone else in the movie. We have to out hero and out villain everyone else, because only the most epic deeds are worth remembering. So let's get epic.”
"We don't know that Rusell died, not for sure." Raven said slowly.
"We don't know a lot of things." Owl added, "And that puts us at a disadvantage."
"What do mean?" Raven asked.
"Most of us don't know how to hunt, don't know how to farm or garden, we can't make our own clothing, can't do first-aid. And the adults are looking for us to try and drag us back to their slow death march. We have our work cut out for us. Between the five of us we can probably teach a bunch of what we need- but it's going to be hard work. And we aren't even at my family's cabin yet, so we're still not safe."
"Okay, so which way?"
"Well, we're far enough south, but we’re on the wrong side of town entirely." Owl said, "So we'd best get moving."
Mouse looked at snow and then said, "Without this avalanche, we wouldn't be in this mess would we?"
"Yeah, we kind of still would." Owl said.
"But if the avalanche hadn't happened, then we would have been able to get food in. We could get people out if the road were open. This made everything so much worse, so fast."
Viper nodded, "Mildred Sanger talked about this with us. The crisis triggered other crises because people handled the first part badly or panicked. And then with everything so fragile already, anything that goes wrong stops being a problem and becomes a catastrophe. This is only a huge problem, because the government wasn't going to send the stuff to clear the road. And they didn't do that, becuase they probably had bigger problems in the cities and then they didn't have extra people to send."
"So it was the avalanche," Mouse said.
"Sort of," Viper answered, "But the thing is, that if it wasn't the avalanche somethign else proabably would have happened and might have even been worse."
"It was the avalanche," Mouse said and grabbed up a rock and threw it up the mountain.
Mouse is a strong guy and the rock flew way farther than I was expecting. It hit an expected chunk of slate with an echoing crack and buried intself in a snow drift. And then something happened. The snow right below where the rock had hit tore away from the snow shelf above it. And the snow came roaring down the mountain towards us.
Sparrow looked at Mouse, "Okay, I'm not an expert like Owl. But I get the sense that this is a bad thing."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)