Plebs

by Jim Goforth

  They all merely had to accept that the tragedy occurred and while many were doing a remarkably good job of doing just this and trying to move forward, still many others were not coping with it so well.

  Corey had lost one of his best mates tonight, but he couldn't put himself in the shoes of those who'd lost many.

  To be honest he wasn't sure how he'd react. Maybe he'd be a lot like Serene, withdrawn, sullen, uncommunicative, and uncooperative.

  Presently he realised that they were rowing back into the lake.

  Looking ahead he saw Blaise’s boat had already arrived on shore, pretty much where they had originally cast off from prior to anybody dying.

  He pointed towards it for Melissa's benefit as she was steering the boat a little wide of that position.

  "They're over that way," he added helpfully and with a nod Melissa corrected the trajectory of the craft, rowing with big solid strokes, slicing the boat through the water.

  CHAPTER 17

  By the time Melissa had the dinghy sliding up to shore the passengers from the other crew were already all out on the bank, three of the women hauling the craft right up underneath the low hanging branches.

  Considering he hadn't yet put his socks and boots back on, Corey figured it was easiest for him to jump back out to haul the boat up onto shore.

  Painfully aware of what happened last time he attempted this maneuver Corey was extremely careful not to repeat it, making certain he could vault cleanly over the edge.

  He landed with a solid splash in water which came up mid calf, thankful he had the foresight to roll his jeans up previously.

  It was true they were basically on the home stretch, but he still had no desire to get all soaking wet again.

  Thinking of that reminded him of the clothes he'd changed out of in the blood-splattered storage shed.

  Very obviously those same clothes had come to grief in the blaze. He didn't expect he'd be seeing those again, or the bottle of bourbon stored in the jacket.

  He wasn't entirely happy about losing the jacket-two hundred dollars down the drain-but bigger things had been lost tonight.

  Corey would have gladly given up all his clothes and then some just to have big goofy jackass Tim back with them, alive and well.

  Feeling a fraction despondent with thoughts of Tim torturing him, Corey hauled the boat with the assistance of Blaise up onto the sandy bank.

  The crew in the boat piled out in the fashion of scurrying rats abandoning a sinking vessel.

  Corey distracted his mind by counting the arsenal of weapons they had amongst them.

  Blaise and Melissa carried a shotgun apiece, Corey had his own pistol and Blaise had another holstered pistol.

  That made four guns in total if none for the others appeared to have firearms.

  Knife-wise they were armed to the teeth.

  Melissa had two on her belt, Blaise also wore one, as did Jess and the woman identified as Caroline.

  Desiree, Corey presumed, still had possession of the hatchet and Lee should still have the knife originally given to him.

  In a close hand to hand combat the armed posse would do well, but if it happened to come down to a long range shootout they were sunk.

  Raven and co. seemed to be armed with sniper rifles fitted with night scopes and that did not bode well.

  Corey and Blaise carried the only distance guns for while the two shotguns would be devastating at close range, their accuracy over a longer distance was questionable.

  With any luck it wouldn't really matter considering they'd crossed the lake and destroyed the bridge, putting as much distance as possible between them and the pursuers.

  It might never come to a battle, Corey told himself though he knew in his heart this was pure fantasy, wishful thinking.

  Blaise, Melissa and Desiree weren't running away to escape permanently.

  They were running to place a place to rest up and plan a violent vengeful counterattack.

  Corey had provided that resting place to them on a silver platter.

  His place.

  Putting him in any retaliation blueprints right up to his neck.

  "Somebody is here," Blaise said as they all assembled together on the bank, the pair of boats sufficiently hidden. "And boy do they have a beauty of a vehicle just built for us."

  "You're just going to steal somebody's car?" Lee sounded affronted, but not very surprised.

  "Sure are. What, did you think we were gonna call a taxi?"

  For what certainly wasn't the first time over the course of the evening Corey felt his heart start to thud alarmingly.

  If Blaise was correct and there was a vehicle parked at the lake, and she'd obviously seen it so obviously she was correct, what purpose could it be serving?

  Somebody out this late parked in the seclusion of the usually abandoned lake car park could only be up to something nefarious.

  True Corey and his friends had stumbled here from town, but they'd been mildly intoxicated and on foot, they hadn't driven here in what must have been a reasonably sized automobile if it was 'just built' for Blaise and the rest of the party.

  Maybe it was the police; they did come as far as the lake after all, if no further.

  Corey didn't think that scenario was too likely.

  No, it must be somebody else. Somebody distinctly up to no good.

  Why else would you drive all the way to the lake in the wee dark hours of the morning?

  Corey vaguely remembered beginning the night wearing a wristwatch.

  Now he wasn't and where it had gone was anybody's guess so as a consequence he didn't have the foggiest what time it was.

  Definitely much later than when he, Tim and Lee first arrived.

  He didn't have a good feeling about this alleged vehicle and for that matter didn't feel real flash knowing Blaise and accomplices fully intended to take the car with or without permission.

  If it was cops, walking up to them and waving shotguns in their faces was going to escalate things from very bad to much worse...

  "Let's roll lads and ladettes," said Blaise hoisting her pistol grip shotgun like it was a toy. "We need that van, let's go get it."

  In a tight-knit formation with Blaise at the head, the group began to move along the bank, heading for the picnic table area and beyond that, the parking lot.

  As they moved out from under the low hanging branches of trees, Corey gazed ahead and saw that Blaise hadn't invented the idea of the car.

  Parked in the otherwise deserted parking lot beyond the cluster of picnic tables was a solitary vehicle, a dark coloured Econovan.

  Corey could easily see why Blaise made the suggestion that it was 'just built for them’; the automobile looked large enough to transport a small herd of cattle.

  Under the ghostly light of the moon the van appeared to be black, but considering the moonlight stole all colour away and rendered things in shades of black, white and grey it could have been a dark blue or green.

  Supposing the hue of the vehicle was inconsequential Corey nervously found himself clenching his pistol tight in two hands, one hand under the butt of his weapon.

  Melissa allowed herself a long low whistle of appreciation and marched up alongside Blaise before the shotgun toting pair fanned out onto either side of the group; Blaise walking next to the trees, Melissa by the edge of the lake.

  "Desi," Blaise called quietly, one hand unclasping the holster containing the pistol on her hip. "Take my piece."

  Desiree trailed up alongside Blaise, lifted the gun free of the holster and then dropped back behind the main body of the assemblage.

  Without being told to do so, Corey mimicked her actions and slowed his pace so that he too, the final gun bearer, was walking with Desiree behind the rest.

  He wasn't entirely comfortable being at the rear of the party, but nor was he comfortable about the idea of approaching a strange vehicle with guns drawn.

  It indicated to him that they were all expecting some sort of dange
r lurking in the van, or alternatively that Melissa and Blaise were not going to react very kindly to any resistance from the owner.

  The nearer they got to the picnic tables and consequently the van, the more Corey started to feel a bizarre sense of familiarity about the vehicle.

  For some reason he seemed to feel as if he knew this van, or who it belonged to. Somehow he'd seen it before.

  That didn't decrease his tense agitation any.

  He would have liked to have seen Lee's face to see if any recognition about the still, silent van was registering on his friend’s visage, but walking behind the congregation all he could see was the dreadlocked back of Lee’s cranium.

  He could hear Lee muttering in an undertone to Tasha and Britt next to him, but the words weren't clear.

  Probably talking about what a bad idea it was.

  "It'll be okay, Corey," Desiree suddenly spoke quietly to him, as if she'd tapped into his thought waves. "Nobody will get hurt."

  "I hope not." Corey responded. 'Especially us' he added to himself, though he was fearing that the vans owner might not be exactly happy to see them coming, particularly if as Corey suspected, they were out at the lake for some sinister purpose.

  Once they reached the picnic tables Blaise leveled her shotgun at the van, training it on dark tinted windows.

  The dark tint on the windows was deceiving and a little disturbing to Corey.

  It made it impossible to see if anybody was inside.

  If somebody was inside perhaps they were sitting in the passenger seat with a similar gun trained on Blaise.

  Perhaps the spacious back of the van was loaded with armed thugs ready to spill out and open fire at the approaching party.

  Heart thumping frighteningly, Corey clutched his pistol so tight his knuckles were white and his palms sweaty.

  It didn't seem completely likely that his troupe of intrepid souls were about to be ambushed, but after the freak events of tonight Corey flung any preconceived notions about anything right out the window.

  Blaise was at the vehicle now and with her free hand she rapped on the tinted window.

  Corey whipped up his pistol, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Desiree did also, the pair of them stepping out wide so the people before them weren't in the line of fire.

  'This is fucking insane' Corey swore to himself.

  With her knock on the window garnering no response Blaise tried the door and it swung open.

  Corey could see right into the front seat of the van.

  It was devoid of presence, but the driver’s door was standing wide open and either always had been or somebody had just slipped out of it.

  The latter possibility was refuted a second later when Corey saw Melissa appear on the driver side through the two open doors.

  She evidently hadn't found any refugee from the van skulking on the ground next to it or attempting to make a dash for cover elsewhere for she didn’t suddenly open fire with her shotgun.

  As Corey watched, along with the others in the group, reluctant to lower his raised pistol even though the van seemed to be empty, Melissa reached in through the open driver’s door and plucked something off of the seat.

  She held it up so they could all see her displaying a set of car keys, a fact which continued the alarm bells chiming in Corey's head.

  If the driver of the car had foolishly left the keys in the vehicle in a very irresponsible place like the driver’s seat, with the driver’s door gaping wide open, then surely they didn't plan on being absent from the car for more than a very short duration of time.

  Either that or they assumed that they weren't going to be disturbed.

  That assumption was an astronomical blunder for now their car keys were in the hands of Melissa, an aggressive alpha female with a shotgun and nothing else to lose.

  A safer assumption now was that the vans owner was surely very unlikely to ever see the car keys or the vehicle again.

  Corey disagreed with the notion of merely appropriating the van, but even with a loaded pistol clenched in his mitts he wasn't prepared to voice any qualms he had to either Melissa or Blaise.

  He didn't even think he'd be game to broach the subject with Desiree.

  Hell, the entire bunch of them were armed and dangerous desperadoes and as far as Corey could tell they didn't have a dollar between the lot of them.

  He'd hardly be astonished if after loading up in the van their next plan of attack was to rob a service station.

  Even without that on the agenda he figured it was too late to stop himself becoming a felon.

  Though he personally wasn't the mastermind of the vehicle purloining he was certainly an accessory to the fact.

  That made it grand theft auto, never mind how many Plebs he'd bumped off.

  Whether they were considered human or not was irrelevant wasn't it?

  He'd shot four unarmed beings, that probably made him guilty of murder one.

  He was guilty by association in any event.

  Self defence? He had the gun, they had nothing.

  This night was escalating into a crime spree of epic proportions; fuck the petty mindless vandalism which kick started the descent into sheer madness.

  Blaise was waving the remainder of the hesitant group forwards to the car.

  "Come on," Blaise hurried them along. "Fucking move it. Into the back."

  "Corey you wanna drive?" Melissa directed a query at him. "Since it's your house and all and you know where to go?"

  Shit, now he'd be well and truly implicated if he got behind the wheel.

  No he didn't want to drive, not at all thank you.

  He had a way of avoiding it too he suddenly realised. Though he felt as sober as a judge and couldn't really recall when he'd stopped feeling intoxicated at all he was bound to still have alcohol in his blood.

  Wouldn't that be a winner if the van was pulled over for a random breath test? A car full of unrestrained passengers with unregistered firearms, half of them splattered with blood, none of them with a licence on their person, never mind licences for the guns.

  A driver with a dodgy blood alcohol reading to boot?

  Add to that the fact that none of them could claim ownership of the vehicle.

  On top of the fact that Corey was now very suspicious that at least Melissa and Blaise, and probably Desiree too were fugitives from the law in the first place.

  "You can drive," he replied to Melissa. "I will direct you."

  "That sounds fair," Melissa nodded then to the other who were milling around outside the side door, none of them yet making a move to get in. "Anybody getting in?"

  Desiree was first to climb into the dark interior of the van though Corey would have preferred that she rode up front with him, that is assuming he as navigator was riding up front.

  "Shit," Desiree's voice floated back out of the darkness of the vehicle, sounding hollow and disembodied.

  "What's up?" Asked Jess, a worried expression traversing her features.

  "Smells like blood in here."

  "For real?" Lee sounded greatly alarmed. "Corey, shine your light in there."

  Corey remembered he had a flashlight stuffed in the pocket of his borrowed jeans.

  Probably just his luck for the bulb to be busted or the battery to be dead.

  He fumbled for it with his gunless hand, dragging it out.

  "Hurry up," Blaise commanded. "Doesn't matter if the fucking thing's drenched in blood, we're taking it anyway."

  With fumbling fingers Corey switched on the flashlight, directing a thin beam of light into the car.

  On any ordinary car one would expect that the action of opening doors would have switched various lights on.

  Considering the driver’s door had been standing open for god knows how long with no light showing it would have been fair to say this van's interior lights were either faulty or nonexistent.

  The feeble flashlight didn't illuminate a great deal, but it did show Desiree crouching in the ba
ck plus a long black sports bag of some description lying parallel to the vans interior wall.

  Playing the beam of light around the remainder of the van Corey found it to be spacious and empty.

  There were no windows in the vehicle bar the one in the rear door which was tinted in the same dark colour as the two front door ones.

  "There's no blood in here Desi," Jess confirmed gazing over Corey's shoulder.

  Corey didn't see the presence of blood either, but with his head stuck inside the van he could smell what Desiree had picked up on; a thick blood scent, a cloying coppery aroma pervading through the automobiles inside.

  "What's in the bag?" Lee wanted to know.

  "Never mind the bag," Melissa spoke firmly. "We'll take the van, but we'll leave the bag behind. Desi throw it out on the ground."

  Desiree stooped and seized the bag by the handles, tipping it up slightly as she did.

  Corey helpfully shone the light upon it and where it moved he saw thick pooling blood underneath it and sticking to its bottom.

  "Ah gross!" Exclaimed Britt. "There's the blood!"

  "Where?" Lee morbidly craned his neck to see, as if he hadn't already laid eyes on enough gore and gruesome discoveries tonight to last him a couple of lifetimes.

  Before Desiree could haul the bag up any further a hoarse enraged male voice some distance away on the far side of the van bellowed,

  "Hey! HEY! What the fuck? Get the fuck away from my van, you motherfuckers! HEY! Get outta there!"

  "Well, well," Blaise murmured with something approaching amusement colouring her voice. "Here comes the hero to rescue his van."

  "Desi, throw the bag out now!" Melissa commanded. "Everyone else, in! Now!"

  "I'm not sitting in no van with blood everywhere." Britt said.

  "Get in!" Melissa snarled. "Everyone! Fucking NOW!"

  Desiree was struggling to heft the bag; it was evidently quite a weighty item.

  Careful not to touch the bloodied bottom Corey lent her a hand and together they hoisted it and flung it out the side door, away from the vehicle.

  As Britt, Lee, Tasha, Jess, Serena, Caroline and Rachel scrambled inside, all of them avoiding slipping in the treacly pooling mess where the bag had been, Corey saw the tossed bag thump on the ground and flip over.