Plebs

by Jim Goforth

  It was an eerie sort of quiescence shrouding them as they walked now, alleviating their sounds of motion and the further they headed away from the horrendous church blaze the quieter it got.

  Therefore other sounds in their realms of hearing became more audible and pronounced.

  Corey came to the realisation that he'd been straining his ears to hear, trying to pinpoint if anything was about to come thumping and crashing through the bush and wanting to be ready if that eventuated.

  The canopy of the woods created by hosts of trees growing close together blotted out the light from the moon and they moved in darkness, limited in visibility.

  Temporarily the captivating vision of the burning Spot served to ruin everyone's night vision though Blaise, Desiree and Melissa appeared to have adapted well, giving Corey the strange inkling that the trio could see in the dark.

  Presently Desiree whispered in a hushed undertone.

  "Hear that?"

  "What?" Came in a couple of choruses.

  "Shh," Desiree held a finger to her lips and that was enough of a catalyst for the whole lot of them to stop moving, coming to a standstill.

  "I can't..."

  "Shh!" Desiree prompted again.

  Total uneasy silence descended.

  Corey didn't know what he was listening for. He suspected he might have overstrained his hearing earlier listening for things that weren't there to the point where now he couldn't hear what was there.

  Or what Desiree could apparently pick up.

  Then he heard it. Sporadic rustling. Almost a furtive sound, shuffling, shifting, a sound like something trying to avoid detection, attempting to minimise what noise it was making.

  It came from above them. Up high. In the trees.

  "Up in the trees," Desiree hissed.

  "Birds?" Corey enquired hopefully, though it didn't-or rather hadn't, it was paused now-sound like feathers ruffling or wings flapping.

  It sounded more like larger bodies moving furtively in the midst of the trees, also perhaps feet or limbs scraping accidentally against bark in the process of attempting to remain unnoticed.

  "Shit. Yeah," Blaise was nodding. "They're in the trees!"

  "Shine the light up there," Melissa suggested and Blaise withdrew her flashlight, clicking it on.

  Corey felt a jolt of alarm, damn Melissa, that isn't your best idea of the evening. Alerting them to our presence, brilliant.

  "No, they're not getting me!" Lynn suddenly squealed. "You're not letting them get me!"

  She slumped down onto the ground in the tangles of grass as if bowed and defeated and then came up again very rapidly.

  She had a decent sized fallen branch clutched in both hands, a solid chunk of wood in a two fisted grip.

  She swung it, knocking Desiree's gun flying out of her hand, then clobbered Melissa in the back of the head and dropped her stumbling into the grass.

  Then she flung the timber weapon at Blaise and scurried away, dashing blindly into the woods, heading not out towards the clearing, but instead plunging deeper into the dark.

  "Jesus Christ!" Taken by surprise Corey stood like a dumbstruck fool caught frozen in some game of statues.

  Blaise kicked the bludgeoning device Lynn formerly brandished away, immediately crouching down beside Melissa though Melissa was already regaining her footing.

  "Shit, are you alright?" Corey asked. "Should we go after her?"

  "Nah, fuck her," Blaise dismissed. "Silly cow doesn't know where she's going, what she's doing. She's not going to get far. Just hopelessly lost."

  "Brained me the damn fool," Melissa scowled, rubbing the back of her head, her long black locks bouncing up and down.

  "And sent my gun packing," Desiree bemoaned. "Shot that light over this way babe."

  In the momentary excitement of Lynn's brain snap and panic attack they'd all temporarily forgotten about the reason for it.

  They remembered it now when a quavering voice floated down from the trees.

  "Corey? Is that you?"

  "Shit!" Blaise's flashlight jumped from the ground where Desiree was searching for her wayward pistol and up into the trees.

  It picked up the trunk of the tree and steadily worked upwards, pinpointing a sneakered foot, then a leg, then Lee Hunter attached to both, firmly embracing a thick branch up in that tree.

  Just off behind him the main trunk of the tree forked and sitting in the fork was Tasha, another seemingly disembodied foot hanging near her ear.

  Blaise trailed the beam up higher, following that foot up until it became Jess up on another branch.

  Finally, wrapped around another forking section higher still was Peter.

  The tree dwelling foursome looked like a family of lions up in the trees for a siesta, or better yet like a troupe of monkeys though Lee's painfully tight grip on his particular branch indicated a monkey completely uncomfortable in his current location.

  A big stupid smile of joy jumped onto Corey's face. He couldn't believe it. He could have kissed them all, but he wasn't about to clamber up into the tree to do it.

  "Jesus Christ," he murmured in awe, not for the first time in very recent times.

  "I'll be damned," Blaise laughed. "Look at you pack of monkeys."

  "Don't know that pack is the correct vernacular for a group of monkeys," Desiree pointed out helpfully.

  "Well shit, a barrel of monkeys then. Look at 'em all up there. How long have you lot been up there waiting for the firemen to come get you down?"

  "Too fucking long!" Peter declared. "Reckon you could shine that light elsewhere? It's making me want to fall out of this damn thing."

  "We've been up here since...well since the Plebs appeared out there," Jess added a more comprehensive answer.

  "Damn," Desiree whistled. "That's been a while."

  "Yeah, like I said. Too fucking long. Still, it was a good idea. None of them found us."

  "So how long were you planning to stay up there? Until the sun came up?"

  "Either that or I wake up in my own bed and find out this has just been one big scary ass nightmare," Lee chimed in, sounding slightly more encouraged with the presence of 'friendly' folk here than he had previously. "Speaking of firemen, what the fuck did you guys do over at the Spot? All the explosions, fire, shit is the whole thing is up in flames?"

  "Wasn't us," Melissa spoke curtly.”How about you all get down now. We haven’t been jumped yet so it’s a fair bet you're safe to leave off playing Tarzan for a while."

  "See, coming down could be a problem," Lee said nervously. "Getting up was no worry since I was running for my life and this was about as high as I was prepared to go. But I don't know how I'm going to go about getting down though."

  "We can shake you out," Blaise put in helpfully and put a foot up on the trunk.

  "Hell no! Don't do that!" Lee sounded genuinely alarmed at the prospect.

  "Shit, you're barely seven feet in the air Lee, I don't think you're about to break your neck on the way down."

  There was a sudden rustle and a swishing sound then a thump and Tasha appeared amidst them, Jess not too far behind her.

  "You going down Lee?" Pete asked him from above. "I'm thinking I might knock you off accidentally if I try to."

  Groaning Lee seemed to grow even closer and more attached to his branch.

  "Come on Lee," Corey cajoled, so overly relieved to have his best bud still in the land of the living that he wanted the fellow back down on the ground, reunited with the rest of them. "Remember that shonky rope bridge? Remember that narrow path way we walked on? Well this is nothing like that. This is a cinch. You could do it with your eyes closed!"

  "Great, tell him to close his eyes," Blaise chuckled. "Now he will fall out."

  "Come on, hurry it up!" Melissa snapped. "No way is anybody out of the woods here, not by a long shot. Fucking around is still going to get people killed."

  "Shit, it's not over yet?" Lee moaned.

  "Not even close. No way."


  "Sounds ominous," Pete decided.

  "It is fucking ominous. You don't know the half of it."

  "Okay, sorry Lee, buddy I'm going down. Hang on to your branch."

  Pete climbed down to Jess's branch, put a foot into the fork formerly occupied by Tasha and boosted himself backwards, away from the tree and out into the air.

  His landing was a fraction more haphazard than the two girls resulting in a flailed sprawl and a mess of limbs, but otherwise unhurt.

  "Sounds like I'd be safer up here," Lee said adamantly.

  "Fine Lee. I'm not going to fuck around trying to talk you out of a goddamn tree," Melissa said. "We're going to keep moving, and you want to stay there, go ahead. Build a tree house up there if you want, but you better make it fire retardant. If that church fire spreads to the mess out back and then chains to the woods it will be coming around here."

  With that she headed off, continuing on her way.

  "I've got the flashlight Lee," Blaise told him. "I'm going too."

  "Corey?"

  "Yeah man. I'm going as well. We're all going."

  "Fuck," Lee cursed, squeezed his eyes shut then inched backwards down his branch bit by bit, finally hitting the trunk and slipping ungainly down it in the fashion of an egg smashed against a wall, dripping yolk down the plane of it.

  "Good to see you man," Corey slapped him on the back when his feet eventually collected the ground. "Back on terra firma, or otherwise."

  "Shit Corey, this is a fucking nightmare. Worst fucking night of my entire life."

  "Yours and everybody else’s," Blaise called back. "And it ain't over yet."

  "Where are we going then?"

  "To the cars," Melissa replied brusquely.

  "Great idea!" Lee suddenly sounded enthused, brightened by the idea that they were finally getting out of the hellish scenario. "Got the keys? Ah wait, Pete's got the keys, don't you Pete?"

  "Yeah. I've got Drake's keys to BIGWES still." Pete slapped his jeans pocket to ensure and the faint jingle satisfied him. "Yep. Still do. Can't believe I haven't lost them out here."

  "Well I for one am glad you didn't. Might have had to stay up that tree all night. Or longer. Or less if the fire spread," Lee remembered ominous words from Melissa.

  However being down on the ground, free of his self-imposed tree exile, surrounded by his friends and fully of the belief that the trek to the vehicles meant something other than what it actually meant, Lee's spirits were buoyed.

  Melissa and Blaise kept referring to things 'not being over yet', but hell it wouldn't really be over until they got to the cars, piled in, gunned the engines to life and got the hell away from the Spot, away from the Plebs, away from it all.

  CHAPTER 48

  Lee remembered something else.

  "Hey, Ryan was driving the van. Bent it too, hitting whatever he hit. So he's got the keys to the van too right? Shit, where is Ryan?"

  Lee looked ahead where Melissa led the procession, starting to angle inwards from the woods. She must have been pretty excellent at orienteering for she seemed to know exactly where she was going.

  Just a few paces behind her and off to her right stalked Blaise with a shotgun slung over her shoulder like she was marching in battle.

  Then came Tasha, Jess and Pete in a staggered line, Corey and Desiree of course side by side and hand in hand, each of their free hands filled with pistols.

  Leaving Lee trudging next to Corey.

  No Ryan. No Rachel. No Caroline. No Serena. No Dennis.

  Not that lacking Dennis meant a great deal there. No big loss if Dennis had gotten himself lost. Or reunited with his old buddies.

  Lee looked back behind him, back over his shoulder. He even turned around, temporarily wandering backwards peering into the dark as if he somehow thought the rest of the people they'd made the trek into the woods with en route to the Spot might be dragging the chain a little, walking in a bunch a ways back behind everyone else.

  He didn't see them. He looked questioningly over at Corey.

  "Hey where's Ryan? The others? Where are they?"

  "Rachel, Dennis, don't know," Corey said shortly, answering the inevitable question he'd known would come as obtusely as possible. "Ryan, Caroline and Serena. They're not with us anymore."

  "What do you mean? They left already?"

  "No."

  "Well were they with you at all? Have you seen them? You said they aren't with you anymore. So they were?"

  "They aren't WITH us anymore," Desiree answered softly. "Lee, they're with Tim."

  Corey glanced at Lee and his friend looked as though he had been struck in the back of the skull with a sizeable chunk of wood rather than Melissa.

  "What? They went all the way back to the Pleb house?" Lee babbled obtusely. "Why?"

  "No offence, Lee, but sometimes you're incredibly dense." Melissa's knock to the head hadn't impacted negatively on her hearing at all; even she heard Desiree's addition to the conversation.

  Everyone else had too.

  Pete slowed his walk until he fell in step with Lee. He put a comforting hand on Lee's shoulder.

  "I think being with Tim means they didn't make it buddy."

  "Make what?" Lee was a brick wall everybody else was banging their head against.

  Then it dawned on him. His face underwent a metamorphosis of expressions, not a one of them with any glimmer of joy.

  Disquiet. Disbelief. Dismay. Finally bleak shock.

  "No..." he croaked. "How can that be?"

  "You don't want to know," Corey shook his head. "Really, you don't."

  "Somebody's gotta tell me something!" Lee screeched, balling his hands in fists at the sides of his mouth. "These motherfuckers are killing us all! They had me and Tasha, but we got away, but...but...Ryan wasn't even there? How?"

  "Deep breaths man. That's when they got Serena too."

  "Yeah I know, I know, I know! They just stormed in and captured all of us, and then you were there," Lee stabbed a finger at Blaise who was looking back over her shoulder following the panicked spill of Lee's side of the conversation. "And then, fuck, you got shot!"

  "I'll live," Blaise interjected.

  "Then Plebs everywhere. And we got away, we got away dammit, and we've all been up that fucking tree ever since, just waiting, waiting, waiting for the Plebs to go away. But Ryan wasn't even there. I didn't see him. They only caught us. And Serena."

  Melissa had been stalking ahead, resolutely keeping her eyes to the front on the job at hand.

  Now she was halted at the very edge of the woods, at a place where a large gap of constantly compressed grass indicated where Haskell and co must have brought in their vehicles; a long thoroughfare devoid of trees, the spot that once upon a time would have served as the entry to the church grounds.

  Lengthy periods of disuse had seen the grass grow up steadily in what was less of a track than the dirt track off the main tarred road, but the adopting of the derelict church as their own by Haskell's hooligans and the cars they brought in with them consistently made sure the grass stayed relatively flattened.

  "And then Raven killed Serena," Melissa said brusquely, her voice flat. "Then they killed Caroline and they killed Ryan."

  "And Desiree and me were going to be next," Corey spoke quietly.

  "Where? What? How?" Lee gaped, probably thinking he should add why and who to the litany of one word queries.

  "We were in the church Lee; we were well and truly fucked until Blaise and Melissa came along."

  "And did what? What was happening?" Lee was aghast, still trying to digest Melissa's harsh blunt matter of fact words. "Did they have guns? What were they doing to you? Blaise? Melissa? They set the church on fire?"

  "Never mind Lee. I already said we didn't start the fire. No need to sing any praises Corey; we just did what we do. What we had to do."

  "What you do?"

  "You can sing my praises," Blaise winked. "My deeds are legendary."

  "That's the truth," Corey
murmured.

  "What do you mean 'what you do'?" Lee repeated, thumping his balled fists against his thighs.

  "What we came out her to do," Blaise answered since Melissa now leading the way across the flat grass entrance obviously wasn't going to.

  Silent and with heads bowed, Tasha and Jess contributed nothing to the exchange of words.

  Clearly lost in terrible ruminations about the missing trio they had no words to say.

  Corey kind of wished Lee would be quiet too; talking about it brought back his own horrible visions of all that occurred so brutally not so long ago, and Melissa's blunt emotionless way of relaying it didn't help either.

  "What you came out here to do," Lee mused despondently. "Right."

  "They got revenge for Caroline and Ryan," Corey adding, hoping that might give Lee some tiny vestige of something good.

  "Revenge? How did they do that?" Lee wouldn't stop with the questions.

  "I said never mind!" Melissa snapped.

  "I want to know goddammit! All of my friends are dying and apparently Corey would have died too if you hadn't come along and what?"

  Melissa stopped, turned around and glared at him with a chilling gaze.

  "Killed everyone," Blaise said, and her joking banter was gone, her voice as dangerous as Melissa's venomous look. "We killed everyone in the church aside from a few who got lucky."

  "So therefore we aren't quite done here yet," Melisa said in a low sinister tone.

  "I didn't hear much shooting," Peter mused quietly.

  "They didn't have guns," Corey said. "Let's drop this."

  "Let's not!" Lee shouted suddenly, his voice booming stridently through the night, insanely loud. "Why are we going to the cars?"

  "Lee, if you do something stupid like raise your fucking voice like that and tell everybody where the fuck we are I will shoot you in the face right now," Melissa snarled. "You got lucky getting away from those animals when you did, but that won't happen again because you sure as hell aren't smart enough to know how to keep your ass out of trouble.

  We are going to the cars to get the rest of the guns since you jackasses don't have yours anymore and we have limited ammo in these. A lot of Plebs might have died in that fire, but a lot got out. And then we're going to finish this."