Plebs

by Jim Goforth

  Corey was glad he'd thought of that before Raven otherwise a different scenario may have faced the escapees here at the perilous bridge.

  All the same, with or without the presence of Raven and her bestial freak army, the crossing wasn't going to be a picnic.

  Blaise was marshalling the troops, sending her girls across in twos; first Rachel and a petite blonde, then a tall brunette and a slightly chubby girl with brown plaits.

  Once this foursome were safely across Blaise sent Lee and the final girl across together.

  Though the relatively strong breeze which had been inexistence the first time Corey and his chums attempted the bridge cross no longer was, in fact all was quite still, Corey could see that Lee was not looking forward to repeating the endeavour.

  His arms were stiff at his sides as he stood behind his partner, a tall lithe girl with short auburn curls, waiting for her to step out onto the godforsaken contraption first.

  Corey couldn’t see the facial expression his dreadlocked mate was wearing, but he was willing to bet that it wasn't one of glee.

  In fact he was almost certain that Lee's face would be pallid, totally drained of colour, eyes squinted, possibly with a section of lip between his teeth to clamp down on and chew with nervous anxiety.

  Of all the atrocious events and happenings over the course of the evening thus far, Corey had no doubt that Lee dreaded this the most.

  Corey himself was hardly jumping for joy at the prospect of making the hazardous crossing one more time, but he saw the endeavour as more of a good thing than a curse.

  Though the terrifying matter of creeping across the dilapidated wooden structure, praying it didn't suddenly collapse beneath your weight weighed heavily on his mind, he knew that once on the other side more distance existed between them and lunatic Raven's battalion of Plebs.

  He watched Lee safely step off on the other side, tugged along by his shorthaired partner, and to his surprise he saw Lee manage a wan smile as Blaise seemed to speak words of encouragement to them.

  With Lee and Curlylocks across only Tasha, Melissa, Desiree and Corey remained.

  Still wondering why Raven didn’t have the foresight to send Plebs to block off the bridge, Corey waved Melissa ahead to aid the wounded Tasha across.

  Of all the crossings this one was the slowest; Tasha leaning heavily on Melissa and trying desperately not to gaze down.

  It was almost painful to watch and Corey could have almost cheered when at last Tasha stumbled onto the other side, assisted off the ramshackle bridge by Blaise.

  As Melissa stepped off behind Tasha, Desiree seized Corey by the arm.

  "Come on baby," she urged and lead the way onto the platform of grief.

  The pair of them were halfway across and looking at completing an eleven person cross without any mishap when things got worse.

  The curly haired woman who'd ventured across the bridge with the height fearing Lee screamed and pointed a shaky finger.

  "Corey, look out behind you!" Hollered Melissa.

  Corey swerved around on the treacherous construction, looking where the fingers pointed to see two Plebs burst from the woods; one of them short, squat and bald, clad in dirty overalls, the other leaner and taller with a greasy shock of lank brown hair.

  They rushed towards the bridge with obvious intentions of grabbing it and shaking its two passengers off to their deaths below.

  Virtually forgetting he was standing on an ancient construction composed of little more than rotten matchsticks and twine, Corey coolly planted his feet, took aim at Pleb number one and squeezed the trigger.

  His bullet blasted the brute right between the eyes and literally before his target had fallen he calmly swiveled, lined up Pleb number two and plugged the second fiend in the left eye.

  Both creatures dropped to the ground in a tangle of spasming limbs as a third approaching Pleb turned tail and fled back into the woods.

  Corey thought briefly about sending a shot racing after this cowardly cur, but by then Desiree was yanking him the rest of the way along the bridge.

  After his original foray into shooting with this pistol, i.e. at the Pleb house, Corey learned how to control the weapons recoil, gripping it firmly two handed with emphasis on forearm strength, hence reducing the kickback.

  Nevertheless when he staggered off the bridge with Desiree both his arms and his legs were shaking considerably, but whether this was from struggling with the recoil of the pistol or from the close encounter with the Plebs he wasn't sure.

  Melissa and Blaise were gaping at him with impressed slack jawed expressions of awe.

  "That was just about the coolest thing I have ever seen," Blaise said of his shooting prowess. "You obviously know how to handle firearms like an expert."

  "Should have seen Tim," Corey said, flushed with both pleasure and exertion. "He was the real firearms expert."

  "Don't sell yourself short," Melissa said. "That was fucking amazing. Never lost your head once, never mind where you were standing. Christ, I'm glad you're on our side."

  Desiree embraced Corey tightly, pressing her breasts against his chest.

  He stood in a daze of emotions, staring at the fallen Plebs on the far side.

  Elation wouldn't last long though, undoubtedly more Plebs and possibly the rogue women would be following shortly.

  "This will slow Raven and her fucking goons down a bit," Desiree declared and relinquishing her firm grip on Corey, she wielded the hatchet she'd swapped him her pistol for and kneeling at the mouth of the bridge began to hack at the supports.

  "Damn straight." Blaise withdrew her knife and slashed at ropes.

  Without warning the bridge creaked and then fell away alarmingly quick.

  The entire structure swung down into the wide ravine, its weight yanking the supports on the other side parallel to the ground.

  It smashed against the rocky side of the ravine with a great splitting sound, showering splinters and broken sections of wood.

  Many planks either broke away or simply slipped free of their rope moorings, cascading down into the roiling waters below.

  Corey tried to shake morbid thoughts of a human body doing the same terrifying tumble as he watched the remnants of the broken bridge slam against the ravine wall again, self destructing, still dropping segments of rotted planking.

  As he gazed down at the piteous bridge now no more than two frayed lengths of rope attached to a few stubborn planks he felt the hideous hand of fear which plagued him most of the night finally beginning to loosen its limpet hold.

  A fraction more relief could eventually breathe its way into his soul as he drew his own conclusions about Desiree and Blaise's sabotaging and ultimately dismantling of the bridge.

  For certain it meant that nobody else -meaning Raven, her renegade girls and the Pleb army-would be navigating their way across the river via the bridge.

  Did he also dare hope that it meant Desiree, Melissa and Blaise had absolutely no intentions of returning to the godforsaken hellhole?

  Trashing the ramshackle construction and rendering it totally incapable of any use whatsoever definitely did seem like an act of finality.

  Lee apparently tended to think it indicated something conclusive, a burning of bridges, no pun intended, as it were.

  He was almost jubilant, punching the air with a fist, possibly forgetting that Tim's body still remained far away on that unreachable side.

  "Yeah!" He enthused, overjoyed by the absolute disintegration of the bridge. "Fuck you Raven and you motherfucking murderous Pleb sons of bitches, we're home free. You bastards will never get us now! Never! We win!"

  Melissa dashed those hopes with a final chilling statement.

  "Don't kid yourself," she told him sternly. "You think they'll just give up because the bridge is out? They want us dead bad enough, and we know they do, they'll find a way across. Taking out the bridge only gives us time to put distance between us. It doesn't give us a get out of jail, home free ticket. The
y'll still come for us."

  "Like you said yourself,” added Blaise. "There's gotta be more than one way across. If there is another way, and there will be, trust me, they will find it."

  The grin fell right off Lee's face, replaced by wary trepidation and growing anxiety, and watching that expression bloom Corey felt the doom hand begin to squeeze his heart a little tighter once again.

  "Shit," he murmured to Desiree. "I was with Lee there, I thought that was it."

  "No," Desiree shook her head. "They won't just let us walk, and we won't let them do what they've done."

  "So you're still going to come back?"

  "Sorry. But yes. We have to."

  "I understand," Corey said though really on one hand he didn't.

  Wasn't it just better to cut their losses, accept what had been done and try to get as far away as humanely possible while they were all still alive?

  Still, easy for him to say, he had a home to go to. These girls now had nothing but the clothes on their backs and the weapons in the hands and the vengeance in their hearts.

  Traversing the treacherous ledge back to the woods on the other side of the cliff passed as if he were walking in a dream.

  A bad dream it was, but a dream all the same, a vivid grotesque menagerie of images and questions which remained unanswerable.

  When at last he began to concentrate on the present instead of talking to the voice in his head asking questions it didn't answer for him, he realised that they were back at the edge of the inlet where they'd stowed the boats, where Blaise had stripped off her sodden jeans, where the group complete with a laughing joking Tim had made fun at his expense.

  The place where the night could have turned into almost anything, a night filled with promise; eight girls and three guys on a light hearted expedition to a party destination.

  Before the ledge, before the bridge, before the camp. Before torture and death, and fire and destruction.

  Before the night snatched away those tantalising promises of lustful debauchery and cruelly replaced them with a violent maelstrom of terror.

  "Where the hell are you gonna go?”

  Lee, now back to his belligerent best, upset by Melissa's solemn promise that the trouble would continue to follow shouted at her.

  "That’s a good question Lee." She said calmly. "We don't have anywhere to go. We’re looking for a place to hide out, catch some sleep and make some plans."

  "Fuck plans, fuck all of this. You don't have any money do you?"

  Now was the time for Corey to voice the brilliant and generous idea which had struck him earlier.

  "You can come to my place," he said simply while Lee goggled at him as if he'd lost his mind.

  "Bad idea Corey," he snapped. "Very fucking bad. No. When we get out of here, we go our way, they go theirs, that's it. Finished. No more of this bullshit."

  "Is that what you want Corey?" Desiree asked him, soulful eyes staring deep into his soul, a quiet note of desperation barely tangible in her voice.

  Corey glanced from her to Lee, to the silent pair of Blaise and Melissa.

  The other girls shifted uncomfortably on the sandy banks of the inlet, playing no part in this stand-off.

  Corey looked back into Desiree's eyes, deep gorgeous eyes he could drown in.

  Once again he stared at Lee, his friends face flushed and angry, daring Corey to defy him.

  Confusion beset Corey like an enraged swarm of wasps, stinging him with indecision.

  He'd made the offer, who was Lee to renounce it?

  "I want you to come and stay at my place," he said simply to Desiree, then to clarify, addressed the others. "All of you. You're all welcome."

  "Fuck you Corey!" Lee exploded, his hands gathered sharply into fists. "You can't fucking do this! Stop thinking with your dick! These girls aren't going to do you any fucking favours, they're gonna get you killed. Just like Tim. Tell them no for fucks sake!"

  "I made the offer."

  "Fucking withdraw it then! No dice, finished. They find somewhere else to go and leave us in peace. Thinking with your dick. Use your head!"

  "I'm thinking with my heart! And my head! They've got nowhere to live, nowhere to go, they don't have anything!"

  "They've got you and your ever generous hospitality! You think they're interested in what happens to you? You think this one cares about you when she's known you all of five minutes? You think they won't fuck you over once they get to your place and see how many guns you've..." Lee's voice abruptly trailed off as it dawned on him mid rant that he could be embedding ideas in the heads of the women.

  He changed tact, back to his original gripe but not before curious and interested glances were exchanged between Blaise and Melissa.

  "Come ON Corey! Get a clue! They don't care about you. They lied to us, they didn't make us at all aware of the sort of danger we were in, they got Tim killed, coulda got us killed too. Probably still a big chance of that happening too. Come on! They got Tim killed and you want to invite them into your home? Don't be an idiot Corey, haven't we suffered enough of this crap?"

  "Stop using Tim for an excuse Lee. You didn't see him die, I did! I can accept that a mistake was made..."

  "A mistake?" Lee interjected with an incredulous roar. "Tim's dead! A mistake?"

  "Alright Tim's dead, that fact is established, but arguing isn't going to bring him back. We're not the only ones who've suffered, Lee. We lost Tim and that may have been because we weren't told the whole truth, but that's beside the point. Tim wanted to go, you can't deny that. We couldn't have stopped him, you know that. He was adamant about that.

  Even if it was anybody's fault other than Tim's own I think maybe these girls have paid for it and paid dearly.

  They've lost their homes; they've lost friends, like us, maybe people they considered family, whatever the people they've lost meant to them.

  I'm hurting over Tim too Lee, believe me I am, but these women have lost so much more than us and I can't imagine the pain they must be feeling.

  Lee, you have a home to go to. Tim's dead, he's gone, he's not coming back and maybe it shouldn't have happened, but it did.

  But you, you're alive and you've got a home to go to."

  "Not if I'm dead I don't," Lee muttered, very taken aback by Corey's impassioned outburst.

  "Don't be obtuse Lee, you're alive, you're getting out of here and you're going home. It's my call as to whether the girls stay with me not yours. And I say they can stay. That's all I have to say about it!" Corey shouted then added. "If they still want to stay."

  "I do," Desiree was very quick to say while murmurs of assent chorused from the others.

  "Yeah, thank you Corey," Melissa said in a heartfelt fashion, slapping him on the shoulder. "Thank you very much. You are a true gentleman. We acknowledge that we played a big part in Tim's death and we truly appreciate your unbiased kindness."

  Blaise elected to show her appreciation of Corey's offer by flinging arms around him in a crushing embrace, her abundant breasts squeezing against his chest.

  He thought she was going to kiss him on the cheek, but instead she nibbled gently on his earlobe.

  Face flushing red, Corey hoped Desiree hadn't witnessed that but figured she probably wouldn't mind.

  "Your fucking funeral," Lee muttered, but he did so halfheartedly, jamming his hands deep in his pockets and stalking off a short distance away from the others.

  Corey's motivations in offering the embattled women sanctuary at his residence did indeed as he'd said stem from 'thinking with his heart and head'.

  There were no sinister ulterior motives; he wasn't as Lee crudely phrased it 'thinking with his dick'.

  It was very true that the thought of having these beautiful women in his home conjured up exciting possibilities, but these were fantasies, tantalising day dream thoughts which lurked in the very back of his mind, buried under more important matters.

  He'd offered out of empathy and couldn't see why Lee didn't empathise too
, didn't understand the depth of the situation.

  He knew Lee was happier in his misery, playing the blame game, but he didn't want to resort to that.

  He was the bigger man, able to rise above the disaster of Tim's death and as Melissa stated, offer an unbiased hand of support.

  Besides...Desiree wanted to come to his house.

  CHAPTER 16

  "Rachel, Jess, Britt, Caroline, get the boats ready," Melissa barked at four of the other girls and the addressed quartet hastened off to do the bidding.

  Corey knew who Rachel was and the tall brunette appeared to be Jess, but he had to guess who was who of the other couple.

  As the foursome vanished in the woods above the bank to retrieve the crafts from wherever they'd previously been stored Corey watched Tasha trail over to where Lee stood alone and scowling.

  She put an arm around his neck and while he immediately stiffened, he didn't pull away from her.

  "Come on Lee," Tasha said cajolingly. "Don't be mad. Everyone's lost someone tonight you know? Doesn't mean we can't be friends still does it? You helped me in the woods, I haven't forgotten that. We don't have to fight. Nobody is going to take advantage of you and Corey, we're all friends now, we have to be. And maybe we can have a good time together at Corey's house?"

  Corey didn't want to intrude on the peacemaking effort, but another thought had occurred to him, a brilliant little nugget of knowledge he'd been too stupid to think of earlier.

  He wandered over closer to Tasha and Lee, but stood a respectable distance from them.

  Lee noticed him from under the curve of Tasha's arm, caught his eye, glaring as if he couldn't quite believe Corey had the audacity to approach.

  "Hey Lee," Corey said conversationally. "So what if Raven and the Plebs do manage to find an alternate route across the river? Big deal. How are they gonna get across the lake when we've taken the boats?"

  The hostile aggressive expression on Lee's face slipped a little.

  Various emotional reflections battled for supremacy on his features as if he didn't quite know which one to convey.