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.