by Jim Goforth
Not when he recalled the lethal look given to him by Raven following the bridge crossing, her constant taunts, her wish for him to fall in the river, the scathing looks bestowed upon others, including members of her own party.
It didn't make him feel any better knowing that she and a pack of renegades were behind the callous slaughter, in fact acknowledging how she seemed to feel about him personally made him feel infinitely worse.
"Turns out Raven and the Plebs have been hand in hand the whole time. We were always losing stuff, supplies, clothes and things and we were wondering why 'cause it didn't seem as if the Plebs were raiding us." Melissa carried on speaking, an explanation of sorts. "And apparently Raven has been trading with them, letting them know if they bide their time soon we'll all be gone."
"She told you that?"
"Did she ever. Couldn't fucking wait to spill her guts, boasting about playing us for fools the whole time when she always planned to take over."
"She can talk to the Plebs?" Corey found that interesting.
"Yeah. They can speak English, some of them. Not real well mind you."
"What the fuck are they?" Lee interjected.
"Later." Melissa held up a hand for silence. "Let me finish this story."
"Sure. Sorry."
"No sooner had you guys taken off, and then you Desiree, when Raven springs her nasty little surprise; she's staging her coup right here, right now. All her girls have guns; I'm the only one of us armed with a pistol. She takes that away and sends Jett off to warn the Plebs you lot are coming.
See the Plebs didn't just snatch Tasha and Erica on a whim, they were promised to them by Raven for another favour."
"What?" Tasha blasted, quietening down as Melissa raised a hand for silence.
"She told us she got those two purposely separated from the rest of us so the Plebs could grab them and then when she sent someone to them they were to come down to our camp to return their favour. Which they did, but only after Corey, Lee and Tim surprised them at the house."
"So that's where they came after they killed Tim," Corey murmured softly as the dreadful pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place.
"How did they completely incinerate everything in a matter of minutes?" Desiree wanted to know.
"Honestly, I'm not sure. They used some sort of accelerant. I don't really know what it was, but they had the whole place surrounded and they had these drums of shit with spray triggers on them," Melissa said, anger glowing in her dark eyes as she relived what must have been a horrendous ordeal. "Raven started getting her people out then these fuckers started spraying and lighting it up. Everything just went up like matchsticks. They linked these fires to the bonfire and for all the girls right in the centre of the camp it was game over. They burned like kindling."
The nightmare visions dancing horribly in Corey’s mind were truly frightening and grotesque and Melissa's blunt manner of relaying the gruesome tale didn't help any.
Though she most likely did care for all her people who'd perished in the hellish flames her brusque speech made her come off as cold and apathetic, which Corey supposed was her own unique way of dealing with the tragedy.
"How the fuck did you lot get away?" He enquired, for if so many had been trapped with no escape route it seemed impossible that there'd been any survivors.
"Well the stupid bitch Raven may have been very cunning in planning all this and being in bed with the Plebs all the while, but since she couldn't resist bragging that we were all fucked and the Plebs were coming we-me and Blaise-got ready to run. We knew there was no chance of staying and fighting-outnumbered, outgunned-so we stayed right on the fringes."
"We stayed there, remaining visible to Raven," Blaise picked up the story. "Right until the Plebs started to swarm out of the trees. Then as people panicked we grabbed what girls of ours we could and vanished. Unfortunately we couldn't save everyone. In the excitement we weren't seen until it was too late. We were safe outside the circle of fire, but like I said, unfortunately we were the only ones. By that time Raven, who was on the other side, saw that the main people she'd been after escaped untouched. I hope that fucking sticks in her throat.
Her crew had more guns than us-like Melissa said; we only had the one-but all the same she wasn't game to follow us or even send the Plebs after us. She knew she wouldn't find us."
"You went to the Hiding Place right?" Desiree interjected.
"Correct." Blaise nodded emphatically.
Feeling like the slow student in the class Corey spoke up with a question.
"What's the Hiding Place?"
"The Hiding Place," Desiree was the explainer now. “Is, as its name might suggest, a little hideaway of ours. Blaise, Melissa and me that is. For situations which arise that require us to beat a hasty retreat from the main camp. This," she gestured with a waving hand at the blackened camp carnage, "is obviously a prime example of such a time. Kind of a backup plan you know, and also a place we could go just to get away from everything and everyone else."
"No offence to you guys," Blaise directed at Tasha, Rachel and the other girls.
"Up until tonight only the three of us knew where it was," Melissa said. "But obviously to keep these girls alive we had to reveal the location to them, besides we needed to go get some back up guns since fucking Raven has all the rest."
"We keep back up everything there," Blaise added helpfully. "Food, clothes, weapons, you know. Think of it as a kind of bomb shelter, you never know when you might need to use it."
"I know Raven doesn't know where it is," Melissa said. "But it isn't gonna remain secret for long if she starts using the Plebs as bloodhounds to flush us out. So we can't go back there. We need to get the fuck away from here fast and come back later."
"What's to come back for?" Lee eloquently pointed out. "You've nowhere to go but this magical bomb shelter."
The group of women exchanged glances, all of them except Blaise and Melissa looking terrified and hopelessly lost.
It looked as though Lee's statement made them all only just now realise that they were all homeless.
In the panic and confusion of the murderous trap set by Raven, Corey reasoned that survival would have been foremost in the minds of the women rather than thoughts of where they were going to live now if they eluded the fire unharmed.
Now the stupefying reality started to sink in entirely it brought renewed bursts of sobbing from various factions in the group.
Not from Melissa, Blaise and Desiree. This trio, particularly the former two, continued to exude calm, though inwardly probably seething with a rage and hatred that Corey could only begin to imagine.
"Yeah, that's right." Melissa snarled bitterly. "We don't have anywhere to go. We don't have any place to live. But we're not coming back to find a new home around here. That isn't the reason at all, is it Blaise?"
"Nope." The glamorous redhead smiled, but it wasn't an expression of happiness or joy. It was a cold predatory smile. "That ain't the reason at all. The reason we're coming back is to kill Raven, all the Plebs and every single one of the traitorous wenches who sided with Raven."
There were a variety of reactions, expressions of shock, gasps from some of the girls and Corey realised that Melissa's group bar Blaise had no idea of the two leaders intentions.
"Isn't it time we went to the cops?" Asked Lee desperately.
Melissa lanced him with a withering stare of scorn.
"Cops?" She snorted derisively. "The cops won't come out her. The cops DON'T come out here. Ever."
"But...but before, didn't you say the cops come round here all the time?" Lee stammered out his inquiry to Blaise.
Blaise still wore her bleak wolven smile.
"I lied." She said bluntly. "They NEVER come here. Not here. They might check out the lake now and then. But not in here. Never, ever, ever."
"Why not?" Lee continued to probe, looking a bit affronted that Blaise had lied to him and openly admitted that she had. Not that any of the women,
even Desiree had been honest about many things.
"Do I look like a cop? Do I look like I know? Or care?"
"They're scared," Melissa said. "They know things aren't quite right out here. So we were always safe to do as we please out here, worrying only about the Plebs getting game to encroach on our territory."
"Which they never fucking did until Raven got pushy for leadership and jumped the fence." Desiree said.
"Fuck!" Lee shouted in frustration. "People are dead! Lots of people! We've got freaks hunting us, your friends have lost the plot, burned your village down and are still after you I assume and you don't want to go to the police? What the fuck are we going to do?"
"I told you." Blaise held up her shotgun and pretended to pump it and blast an imaginary victim, most likely Raven with it. "Bang bang. Eradicate."
Rachel groaned and another of the girls sniffled, murmuring some words of disagreement or disbelief.
"You think they're getting away with it?" Melissa rounded on her sharply. "Well, wrong baby, dead wrong. They all die."
Corey's reaction was minimal. He hadn't expected anything less than a violent vengeful retribution from Blaise and Melissa, and probably Desiree too.
"Besides that," added Blaise. "They're gonna kill all of us if we don't get in first. That goes for you too Corey."
"Me? Why?" Corey queried though once again there was no reason for him to act surprised, knowing how Raven felt about him.
He had an inkling what Blaise was going to say, but he was truly amazed by Raven's reason for wanting him dead.
"She said, and I quote 'After all you bitches cook to death I'm gonna find that Corny motherfucker and kill him nice and slow. And then I'll have Desiree all to myself' End quote."
"What?" Corey and Desiree exclaimed in unison, the expression on Desiree's face making her look as though she’d swallowed something incredibly vile.
"That's the scoop. The murderous bitch is a fuckin' dyke with a like. For you dear Desi."
"Fuck that." Desiree spat on the ground. "Over my dead body."
"Dead or alive I don't s’pose she cares. Either way she'll have your body and Corey won't."
"Fuck that!" Corey echoed Desiree and held up his own pistol. "I'll kill Raven myself!"
Laughing now Blaise laid a hand along the barrel of Corey's pistol and gently pushed it down to aim at the ground.
"No dice buddy. Raven is mine. And I'm gonna kill her slower and more painfully than you can imagine."
The other girls in the group now looked terrified, paralysed with utter fear, trapped in an escalating nightmare.
They certainly weren’t the type of war material army Melissa needed to follow her into battle with the lesbian lunatic, but Corey guessed she didn't really care.
She had Blaise and Desiree to help her spearhead any attack and Corey realised they also had him.
He was into this right up to his eyeballs now and he knew that if they wanted his support they had it. Anything for Desiree.
A sudden flash of brilliant inspiration hit him, but before he could voice it Lee cut loose with another outburst.
"This is bullshit! We need to get the fuck out of this place!"
"Calm down boy," Melissa said. "We know. We are gonna get out. We're not going after Raven tonight. We'll come back."
"The fuck I will," Lee snorted.
"Did you guys come in a car?" Desiree asked Corey and immediately he wished they had done so.
"Shit, no, we sort of stumbled from town."
"Never mind, we'll get one," Blaise said. "Maybe some lovers are fucking at the lake, we'll take theirs."
"You girls are freakin' crazy," Lee snarled.
"That's right. I'd say more insane though," Blaise replied.
Then a gunshot rang out, the sharp sudden crack of a high powered rifle and one of the girls on the fringe yelped like a dog that just had a paw stepped on.
She clasped hopelessly at her chest and then spun around and fell face down on the ground.
"Janet!" Rachel screamed, dropping down to her knees alongside the fallen girl, snatching at an arm, flipping her over.
The woman addressed as Janet flopped like a rag doll, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, her eyes wide open but unseeing.
"Nooo!" Rachel wailed helplessly.
"She's dead!" Melissa snapped, hauling Rachel to her feet.
Rachel made to drop down beside her deceased comrade, but Melissa held her firm, yanking the blue and pink haired woman along with her.
"Leave her, she's dead you idiot. You want to be next?"
Lee and Tasha scrambled up the incline, vanishing into the woods followed by Blaise covering the rest of the girls with her shotgun.
Raising his gun Corey snapped off a retaliatory shot, not expecting to hit anything since he didn't really have a clue where the sniper could be hiding, merely wanting them to know his crew were armed too, though certainly they already knew.
A responsive shot from the rifle rang out just as Desiree grabbed his free arm and pulled him after her and Melissa.
Corey imagined that the crosshairs of the snipers scope had been pinpointed on him for the briefest of seconds, thinking if so Desiree had just returned the favour for him saving her life in the Pleb house.
"Where do we go, where do we go?" Screamed Lee, dancing from foot to foot in the peculiar fashion of a crazed marionette puppet.
"Follow me," Blaise bolted to the head of the party, swiveling to assess the situation, and do a quick head count. "We all here?"
"Janet's not." Rachel sobbed, her hands curled into fists which she beat the air with.
"Where's Desi, Melissa and Corey? Ah here they are! Come on guys, hurry up!"
The last three to join the main body, Desiree, Corey and Melissa charged up the slope into the woods where the shadows of trees lay thick on the ground.
Since it was still well illuminated by the nigh on full moon, visibility was relatively good, but the shadows created stumbling blocks.
With the entire group running Corey knew it would only be a matter of time before somebody tripped on some kind of obstacle and went for a nose dive.
He wasn't particularly worried about that happening.
Unless you were gravely unlucky, stumbled and got speared through the head by an upraised tree root or brained yourself on a rock, death from falling seemed unlikely.
What worried him was getting shot from behind.
"I can't run very fast!" Tasha wailed plaintively, echoing her earlier statement prior to the discovery of the cremated village.
"That's okay," Melissa comforted. "Do what you can, just stay in front of me and Corey, you'll be alright. You won't get left behind."
"Where are we going?" Lee sprinted up alongside Blaise, yelling in her ear.
"The bridge."
"Ah no! NO way! Fuck, there's gotta be another way. Fuck that bridge, that's bullshit."
Without skipping a beat Blaise reached back with her free hand and cuffed Lee Melissa-style up the back of the head.
"That may be true," she puffed "but we don't really have the time to be messing around searching for another way to cross the river. You don't want to die do you?"
"Not hardly. But the bridge is a good way to go about it if I want to."
"Enough negativity."
"You want me all sunshine and lollipops?"
"Shut up. Conserve your energy, you might need it."
"For what?"
"Don't be stupid. Shut up and watch where you're going."
While the main section of the escapee group lead by Blaise and Lee moved along, dashing through the trees and shrubbery at a fairly brisk pace further behind, Corey, Desiree and Melissa took things more sedately, unfortunately hindered by Tasha and her injuries.
They weren't exactly walking but neither were they running, their gait was somewhere between the two.
Continuously flinging furtive glances back over his shoulder in the direction they'd come, Corey resis
ted the almost overpowering urge to bolt like a greyhound.
He knew that Melissa expected him as the other gun bearer at the rear of the party to maintain his cool and keep his head not to panic like many others in the group had done so.
To be fair he did feel rather like panicking and running for dear life, throwing caution to the wind, but by the same token he didn't quite feel like the same terrified soul who'd witnessed his friend speared to death what felt like eternities ago.
He wondered if he was merely becoming desensitized to the eternal maelstrom of violence and death he'd become embroiled in.
Tim had been murdered just feet away from him and he'd lost his head, crying and screaming hysterically.
Janet had been shot by an unseen sniper approximately the same distance away from him and he'd barely batted an eye.
In between those two savage killings he'd gazed upon a tragedy of burnt homes and incinerated body parts while the charcoal aroma of death hung putrid in the air.
Maybe he was becoming immune to the nightmare, for as he ran, though he felt great fear tugging at his heart, he also felt a great strength the old Corey Somerset of old could never have been capable of.
He knew weaker people among the group were relying on him as one of the only two males to remain strong for them and like it or no he realised he had to.
CHAPTER 15
They were at the bridge before Corey acknowledged how far they'd come; all of them spilling out of the woods into the small clearing at the mouth of the bridge.
To his relief Corey saw that the bridge wasn't besieged by hordes of Pleb foot soldiers as he was somehow thinking it might have been.
Raven may have been a sly manipulative so and so, but her plans in overthrowing Melissa and killing all her people left a little to be desired.
If she indeed was as clever and cunning as she seemed to think she was, surely she would have realised that Melissa's crew really only had two options.
Stay and fight, or take flight.
When it became evident to Raven that they weren't going to stay and fight, certainly it should be clear that the flight option would inevitably lead them to the bridge which allegedly was the single way of crossing the river gorge.