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."