“I’ll go, you don’t have to worry,” Drew said, then turned to the others. “Tell Mew I’ll be back tomorrow, and to get the elite and gym masters ready for a meeting.”
When Drew turned around, he saw Wendy pull something from her jacket and hold it out to Golem. “Drew will call you and give you updates,” Wendy said, and the three looked down in utter shock at a smartphone. “The phone I’m giving Drew is in the contact list as a saved number, but don’t you dare call it until he calls you,” she warned. “I don’t want a flood of dogs or lions coming to find out what’s ringing in the forest.”
Golem took the phone and tapped the screen. “Golem, it’s off. You really don’t want to turn it on out here. Yes, we’re in your security zone. But as bright as that thing’s going to be, it could be seen from a good ways off, not to mention your lookout spot,” Wendy told them.
Reaching over, Drew slapped the back of Golem’s head. “Idiot,” Drew spat, and Golem just grimaced as he put the phone in his pocket. It was clear Drew was younger than the other two but was a higher rank, or whatever the Pokémon went by. Wendy was guessing Drew’s age at around thirteen.
“Golem, Blastoise,” Wendy said grinning at the names. “You need to tell your people not to shoot if they see us leaving with Drew. I promise I’m bringing him back tomorrow but if anyone shoots at us, I’ll be dropping Drew off at a pile of bodies. We don’t like people shooting at us, as you should know.”
Both nodded, “Nobody’ll shoot at you,” Golem said, and Wendy motioned Drew to follow then grabbed her PTT.
“Samantha, moving to you,” she said still holding the PTT. “Shawn, crank up the Suburban and have the heater on high. I want you to move to the road and we’ll meet you there.”
“On the way,” Shawn replied as Wendy saw Samantha stand up and she stopped.
“Um,” Drew said, moving up beside Wendy. “I don’t know my way through the Safari Zone.” Hearing that, Samantha and Wendy turned to him, “the area we laid traps,” Drew clarified.
“Oh, we know where they are,” Samantha grinned. “At least we don’t have to fucking sneak out.”
Wendy noticed Drew didn’t even show any sign of shock. “So, Drew, what are you called by the others?” she asked.
“Pikachu,” Drew answered.
When Joseph was little, she and Arthur had played Pokémon with him. One year they’d even used an app on their phones, running around the property playing the game. “I finally caught a real one,” Wendy said with a grin. “I’m taking a picture.”
Chapter Seventeen
Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?
It was midmorning as Arthur watched everyone getting ready for the meeting. “Okay,” he said turning to Albert, Chad, and Jill. “We invited a visitor over last night.”
Wendy stood up, “Samantha and I caught Pickachu!” she announced with pride. Albert, Jill, and Chad just looked at her. “Oh, come on,” Wendy groaned, dropping back in her chair.
“Isn’t that a…” Chad started. “My son used to talk about a Picka something,” he mumbled, racking his brain.
“Chad, it’s a Pokémon,” Arthur told him.
Getting a smile, “You brought one here?” Chad asked, and Wendy just mumbled.
“Yes,” Arthur smiled cutting his eyes at Wendy. All his stitches and staples were out as were Jason’s, but they both still had obvious bruising. “I’m going to give you the breakdown,” Arthur said, tapping his computer. “There’re way more gangs than what I’d first thought or found. But to our credit and Joseph’s, we did find and scout the biggest ones.”
“I have to say, some of those kids are good,” Chad said, leaning back in his chair as Jill and Albert turned to him. “What? Arthur and Jason tried to fight all the dogs in the state, so I offered to help check out some of the spots.”
When Jill and Albert turned to Arthur they found him holding up both hands. “Nobody in your groups is even remotely ready to scout,” Arthur told them flatly.
Dropping his hands to let them know it wasn’t open for discussion, “From what Drew told me-,” Arthur stopped as Wendy chimed in.
“Pickachu!”
Shifting his eyes to Wendy, “I’m not calling him a yellow rat that shoots lightening,” Arthur told her bluntly, then continued.
“Drew helped put the pieces together for me and is certain the Pokémon will meet to discuss joining the coalition. First, we way underestimated the number in the kid gangs,” Arthur said, tapping his laptop as a map came on one of the huge screens on the wall and ten dots sprang up. “These are the biggest,” Arthur said, and tapped another key and thirty more dots appeared. “These are the ones Drew knows about. He doesn’t really know how to read a map so he did the best he could as to their locations. Drew also gave us the names of more gangs, but had no clue where they were.”
“The Witchers?” Chad asked.
“Shit, I knew where they were when I heard those kids talking about them on the radio three weeks ago. I didn’t even need Joseph to look for them,” Arthur replied. “They’re at the castle.”
Chad’s eyes got big, “On that mountain in Van Buren County?!” he cried out.
“Duh,” Arthur sang out. “Didn’t you read the books? Watch the series that was done years ago? Where else would they go?”
“Witchers, here?! In a castle?! In Arkansas?!” Jill cried out totally lost.
Nodding, “Yeah,” Arthur answered. “It was built before World War Two by some oil tycoon. The outer walls enclose, like, fifteen acres. The castle and walls are built from granite. The castle is three stories tall with a basement, has over sixty rooms, and like, twenty bathrooms. Shit, in the basement there’s a swimming pool and bowling alley. The four bastions at each corner of the wall house apartments for the staff, and I can’t even remember how many rooms,” Arthur admitted, turning to Joseph.
“I don’t remember,” Joseph shrugged. “I didn’t like going to the servant quarters.”
“How many times have you been there?!” Chad shouted, looking from Arthur to Joseph.
“Over a hundred,” Arthur answered looking at Joseph, who gave a nod in agreement. “Stayed there a few dozen times I know of.”
“You knew the owners?” Chad panted out in shock.
“Pfft,” Arthur huffed. “Some old actor bought it in the eighties but died, and it’s owned by a mortgage company now. Nobody lives there, and staff only came up on weekends to clean and maintain the place. The alarm system isn’t that great, especially for that place.”
“A castle?!” Jill cried out again.
“Yes, Jill. It’s a real castle, but there isn’t a moat,” Arthur told her.
Flipping open a notepad, “Who are the Witchers?” Albert asked, just giving up on the castle part, and he’d lived around here.
Turning to Albert, “Sorry, we’ve been hearing a lot on them. The Witchers are a problem we’re going to deal with,” Arthur replied. “They’re a pretty large group, between four to five hundred strong. Older teens, boys and girls.”
Setting his ink pen on the table, “Boys and girls?” Albert asked.
“Chad, let me catch them up, since you’ve been going out with your group gathering information,” Arthur sighed. “Yes, some of these kid gangs are co-ed. Some, like the Slayers, Glamour Girls, and PLL, that is, Pretty Little Liars, are just girls, from toddlers to age eighteen. There’re no adults in any of them. Sorry, but I don’t count the eighteen-year-olds as adults, but in the Slayers, hell, most of those girls act like adults. Of all three girl gangs, the Slayers are the biggest with between five to six hundred. The PLLs have around four hundred. Those numbers are from our scouting, not what… Pikachu told us,” Arthur said with a grin and heard Wendy giggle.
Albert said nothing as he just stared at Arthur. After a minute, “So, some gangs are just boys?” Albert asked.
Nodding, “Yes, the Cowboys and Dudes are just boys,” Arthur answered. “Each number five to six hundred, with the Cowboys bei
ng the larger one. Like the girl gangs, they have toddlers to late teenagers, but the Cowboys do have at least four adults. Men, of course.”
Wondering if he was dreaming, Albert reached over and pinched his own arm and gave a wince. “Okay, I’m awake,” he assured himself. “Why aren’t there more adults?”
“They don’t want adults, and when I say ‘men’, I mean by age only. Shit, one of those guys with the Cowboys acts more girlish than most girls. Pikachu answered some of that. It seems some of the adults thought they were in charge and started dictating what was going to happen. Well, you don’t tell kids to do all the work when you just sit on your ass,” Arthur told Albert, then gave a shrug. “The kids either shot or shanked their asses. Yes, the Pokémon killed three who tried that shit, then outlawed the rest of the adults from being in charge. That’s when they became the Pokémon. From Pikachu’s timeline, I think that was in May. I don’t know about the others.”
“So they’re like ‘The Lord of the Flies’?” Albert asked.
Shaking his head, “No, for the most part, most of the kid gangs get along really good and function well,” Arthur said, then gave a glance at Chad before turning back to Albert. “If you’re wondering about bullies, there aren’t any in most of the kid gangs. I told Chad that but he didn’t believe me, so I asked Pikachu and he confirmed what I’d thought. An older kid isn’t going to bully another kid when that kid has a pistol or rifle strapped on. Yes, kids have killed bullies, and don’t you know that shit stopped really fast,” Arthur chuckled. “Now before you jump to conclusions about anarchy, Pikachu said when a fight happens and one is hurt or killed, there’s a trial where everyone takes part. If it was justified, nothing’s done, but if the action wasn’t warranted, someones thrown out. When I say thrown out, they’re stripped naked, tied-up, taken to a town, and thrown out.”
Albert’s face went pale as Arthur nodded and continued. “Yeah, the group who drops them off usually sees the animals, mainly rats, coming out before they get out of sight. Needless to say, they don’t have to do that much.”
“For kids, they’re doing really well,” Chad said.
Smacking his lips to get his mouth wet, “What about the attacks?” Albert asked.
“Didn’t really ask outright, but all the groups have killed, some more than others. I hinted around the subject, but the kids avoid the Caravan Man because they knew I killed gangs. Like Pikachu said, the Pokémon are a gang and they thought when I found them, I’d kill them. So they just fucking hid, and that pretty much goes for the others. That’s why I didn’t outright ask. I didn’t want them to get scared,” Arthur told him.
“But they killed some good people,” Jill tossed out.
Nodding, “Some of the gangs did, maybe all of them, but they were trying to survive. Jill, remember me saying I’d underestimated the numbers?” Arthur asked and she nodded. “Just with our scouting and what Pikachu gave us, there’re over nine thousand kids in the Caravan Man’s territory. If they were killing to survive, with that many kids around here, there wouldn’t be any small groups surviving, but there are. Pikachu did admit, well, I don’t think he knew he admitted it,” Arthur said the last part in a low voice. “That the Pokémon killed one small group because they asked the four adults there for help on how to set up a greenhouse.”
Jill gave a gasp, “Eddy? The group north of Lamar?”
“Yes. I don’t think Pikachu realized he’d admitted to an attack, but I mean, fuck, I would’ve killed the assholes if I knew they didn’t even try to help some kids. Pikachu said they went there and talked to Eddy, even calling Eddy by name. They just wanted to look at the ones Eddy and his group had set up, and wanted Eddy and them to explain what to do. Eddy and one of the other men threatened to kill the Pokémon if they didn’t leave and if they saw them again, they were just shooting first. Jill, they just asked for help. I can understand why the kids attacked them.”
Sitting a few chairs down from Jill, Albert leaned back to look at her. “Jill, I can see Eddy saying that,” Albert confessed. “I wanted to look at his ventilation system for his greenhouses because I couldn’t understand what Arthur had drawn out, until Odie joined us and he understood Arthur’s diagram. But anyway, Eddy told me to fuck off. His group had found that place and it was theirs. It took a bit, but I just sat and talked to Eddy and he finally agreed to let me look. Then four days later we found Odie and those seven kids he was traveling with and he took over the greenhouse construction, so I didn’t even have to do that.”
“Hold up,” Arthur said, looking at Jill and then Albert. “From now on, when someone around here acts hostile towards you, I want to know. When I say, ‘I want to know’ that means, like that fucking day!” Then Arthur turned to Chad. “When you see a large group riding around in our area, I want to know, that fucking day!”
“They took off,” Chad shrugged.
“Have we, and I mean this group here at the ranch, not notified each of you when we spotted something? Like that group of travelers in trucks and cars that was parked near Bullfrog Valley last month? Then that weird motherfucking group near Purdy where everyone has a shaved head? I’ve had some cocksuckers give me the creeps, but those bitches are at the top of the list. Point being, we see something that seems off when we’re out, we let others, all of you know. Why? So you can be on the lookout for them. You should always have your guard up, but you need to tell us shit that seems off,” Arthur said.
“Shit,” Chad groaned, rubbing his face with both hands. “Okay, that was a big fuckup on our part. It won’t happen again.”
“So, we aren’t mad about them killing Eddy and them?” Jill asked. “They killed, like, six adults and I think one older teen.”
“I’m not mad,” Arthur clarified. “Pikachu never offered why they killed the older teen, but I’m certain it’s because he fought back. In case you’re wondering, the eleven other kids were offered a chance to join up with the Pokémon. They did and are still there. It turns out even getting the stuff from the greenhouses, the Pokémon couldn’t set it up. So, now this is the cool part. They got help from another gang, the Slayers.”
Smiling as he continued, “It turns out the Slayers needed help from the Pokémon, and they traded resources. The Pokémon are very good at setting up power, well, a group within the Pokémon. Turns out Pikachu did a science project on tying solar and wind turbines together. Several others did projects on hydropower. That’s why, out of all the groups we scouted, they have the best power set up. They have a fucking electrified moat blocking off that oxbow.”
Pausing, Arthur was happy to see impressed looks from the groups. “Has anyone else noticed batteries missing from cars?” he asked, and everyone nodded. “The Pokémon hauled mobile homes into that summer camp, and two doublewides are packed with car batteries. I’m talking thousands wired in relay, series and parallel, to store power. Now, get this, normally when you’re generating power, you set up something like a heater to dump excess power so you don’t hurt your batteries. Oh, not the Pokémon. The excess power is dumped into that moat. With the solar, wind, and hydro at peak operation they’re generating over a hundred and fifty thousand watts, and the extra is dumped in the moat.”
After several seconds Chad gave a grin. “You’re fucking with us, aren’t you?”
“Nope,” Arthur said and tapped his computer. One of the other screens cut on to show pictures of the moat and the dead animals floating in it. “Pikachu and a few others went to the Slayers to help set up power. Turns out several of the girls in the Slayers had worked at greenhouses. Now, since I’m talking about the Slayers, the Pokémon and many of the other gangs are scared of them. Why? I don’t know, and couldn’t get the reason out of Pikachu. I think he was embarrassed of being scared of a girl. One thing he was very clear about, nobody just goes to visit the Slayers. If you want to talk to them, you go to a spot near their camp and wait. They’ll come and see what you want. If you just head to their camp, you aren’t coming back no matte
r who you are.”
“Maybe they’re the main attackers?” Albert offered.
“They’re the ones who got that child molesting group,” Arthur admitted. “And now, I know of one other group they killed, but I don’t know why. They leave a calling card. In at least one of the bodies, they drive a wooden stake through the heart.”
“Whoa!” Albert cried out. “PLL, Glamour Girls, Slayers, you mean like Buffy the Vampire?” Albert asked and Arthur nodded. “That show was on nearly three decades ago! My sister, my baby sister, watched reruns!”
Shrugging, “Hey, if something’s good, you find it,” Arthur offered. “Yes, the kid gangs are named after shows, video games, and books.”
He tapped the computer as names sprang up at some of the dots. “The Digimon are the next biggest group with nearly two and a half thousand. Then for the other major gangs, you have the Vault Dwellers, that’s from Fallout. Skyrim, that’s a game, up near Tomahawk. The Dungeon Masters, that’s from Dungeons and Dragons. Teen Titans, you should know. Runaways, a TV show. Fortnite, game. PUBG, that stands for Player Unknown Battle Grounds, game. Now the Cowboys and Dudes, I’m not sure because there were movies, but knowing boys, they could’ve just picked those names. And last are the Terminators.”
When he said that, everyone grinned. “I should tell you, they’re the only gang who didn’t name themselves. The other kid gangs named the Terminators. Of all the gangs, they’re the most militaristic and they’ve fought more adults than all of the other gangs combined. We’ve heard the other kid gangs talking on the radio about that and Pikachu confirmed it. I should tell you, the Terminators have even gone after me,” Arthur said, and the smiles fell off as mouths dropped open.
Viral Misery | Book 3 | Revelations Page 30