Exodus Chapter Fifteen

Part Three
The Burning Bush

Chapter Fifteen
A Sacrifice to the Future
        
We had crossed a line when Owl killed Mr. Pinchen. A big line and there was no way to go back. I know only Owl actually killed him, but we were all there as support and witnesses. Owl actually put the knife in Mr. Pinchen’s lungs, but we were all responsible for his death. There was no going back anymore.

We stuffed Mr. Pinchen’s body into an empty box large enough to hold it. It took four of us to lift him into it. It was the most unnerving thing I had done up till that point. Then we snuck back to the main room in small groups and waited. It didn’t take long until They were moving around in nervous loops and talking to regular people more than normal.

"They look upset," Owl said.

"Yeah, but they're trying to hide it," Raven added.

"Well aren't the face mask guards supposed to patrol on loops? They must have noticed that Pinchen is missing." Viper said.

We nodded. Mr. Wolf and Mrs. Winter were present now, discussing something with a group of Them as we watched.

"Even Mrs. Winter is out looking. This has them worried." I added.

"Okay, everyone remember; if you're asked about Pinchen, you saw him go that way after he finished chasing Raven and Viper. You didn't see him actually talk to Viper or Raven though." Owl said to our new larger group. He waited until everyone nodded.

"And don't volunteer any information, make them ask you, and maybe get angry before you tell them." Viper added.

We all tried to stay casual, or at least do what we would normally be doing when trapped in a converted community center like criminals.

Abruptly one of Them pointed at Raven and Viper.

"You! Yeah, you two girls! I saw Pinchen following you. What happened? Where is he?"

Raven looked up that the two of Them facing her and Viper. As she answered, her voice wavered and she sounded scared and overwhelmed.

"You mean the guy with the sticker was Mr. Pinchen? We thought the sticker looked cute. He thought we were insulting him or something, and when we tried to leave- he followed us. We hid behind some boxes. When he couldn't find us, he kicked a bunch of stuff and said a lot of words I'm not supposed to say."

"And then he stomped off that way!" Viper interjected pointed towards the opposite end of the community center, "He said something about teaching people to respect him or something like that."

The girls were silent as the two of Them looked at each other. Finally they nodded to each other.

“Good enough.” One of Them said.

As They walked off in the direction that Viper had pointed, I heard one of Them say, “Pinchen must have found some other girl to take a swing at. You know what he’s like when if he can’t take it out on somebody.”

“Well, then let’s find him, before he beats some girl too much.”

I shook my head. They knew, the whole town knew, and they did nothing. I didn’t understand how any of them could just keep letting Pinchen abuse his wife, and hit girls when he got angry and not turn on him.

I turned back to the group, “You hear that? They all knew Mr. Pinchen liked to hit girls, liked to his his wife. Nobody stopped him. The only person I ever saw call him on it, was Mildred Sanger and she’s dead. Anyone still thinking it might be safer to stay here with adults who are going to protect you?”

Even Mouse shook his head this time.

We knew that we didn’t have a lot of time. Owl quickly gathered us all back together and explained the plan. We were to head to doors on the opposite end of the center than the direction that we had send Them in to look for Mr. Pinchen.

We would leave the main room in small groups. The doors locked from the outside and not the inside. So it wouldn’t be hard to get out the doors, the hard part would be if we got spotted. Even with our new group, there were more of Them than there were of us.

Everyone looked tense as we timed things. Owl sent Viper and Raven and Wolf in the lead group. He and I would go with the last group.

Every time a group slipped out, I waited for everything to go wrong and for alarms to sound and for Them to come running. Thankfully it didn’t happen, and soon all of us were out of sight, and moving as a group.

However halfway through the maze of halls, we found Skunk standing in front of us.

"You know, the none of the adults seem to know what you're going to do. But I have you figured out." Skunk said, blocking out way.

"If you had figured anything out Skunk, you'd be standing here not there."

"I'm on the winning side. You're running away."

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that." Viper said.

"You aren't going to stop us." Owl said.

"You don't have your knife, I have it. How are you going to get past me?"

Raven looked at Owl was a worried expression, "A knife fight is the nastiest sort of fight. Even an untrained person with a knife can do a lot of damage."

Owl nodded, "But that's my knife. And he doesn't get to keep it."

And then Owl charged. He wrapped both his hands tightly around Skunk's knife hand and yanked down- throwing Skunk off balance. Skunk was larger though and he recovered and pulled back, heaving Owl towards Skunk's leering face.

Owl kept a strong grip on Skunk's knife hand and the rest of us watched nervously. I wasn't sure how much time we had until They started searching around here, or until They found Mr. Pinchen's body and put two and two together to make a sandwich.

The two boys pulled and struggled back and forth, vying for control of the knife. Then Owl's foot hit a bag of dried beans and punctured through the plastic. Beans slid across the floor with a discomforting hiss and first Owl and then Skunk fell the ground. Owl retained his grip on the knife and managed to roll onto his side, just saving himself from winding up under Skunk.

The two struggled amidst the dried beans, black eye peas sliding everywhere as they fought for control of Owl's hunting knife.

Then Owl managed to get his foot braced against the deflating bag of beans and used that for leverage. He kicked out with his other leg and hit skunk hard in the groin.

"This is almost a tradition isn't it?" Owl said.

Then he wrenched the knife from Skunk's hands; but to everyone's horror, Owl lost his grip on it and the knife launched up and landed blade first in a cardboard box high upon a stack of boxes.

"That's practically Excalibur, Bud." Wolf said.

"I don't have time to go King Arthur though do I?" Owl asked as he pulled himself up. Owl looked back down at Skunk, who lay hunched up in a ball, his arms wrapped defensively around his head.

"I'm not going to keep hitting you," Owl said, "You're not my enemy, you're a stupid willing victim of my enemy. You're a casualty and you don't know it. Stay down, and you'll be fine. We're leaving. If you wise up, we might even help you one day."

Skunk didn't move, and owl eventually turned and picked his was though the spilled beans back to the group.

"Let's move, we've wasted way too much time here and for no benefit."

Owl looked around the pile of boxes, quickly scanning everything at ground level. His gaze settled on a small tool box against a wall. He knelt beside it and flipped it open.

"Of course they don't have cutting tool." He muttered as he dug through, finally emerging with a screw driver, "This will have to do for now."

We continued through the community center, moving behind the boxes of supplies. It amazed me how many boxes had been piled into the community center when it was deemed the Relocation Center; especially since Mr. Wolf had admitted that the supplies weren't enough to get everyone through the winter. So much food, so much equipment and it couldn't get even our small town through this crisis. I thought about Professor Tuttle's spider webs, the supply lines, and I shuddered as an image of what must be happening in the big cities ran through my head.

We rounded a pile of boxes and put Skunk out of sight. I could see the double door to the outside. We were within spitting distance of getting away clean, when I suddenly heard Skunk shouting.

"Help! Come Quick! Help! Help!"

"You really should have known better." Viper said.

"Yeah, I should have- but I was feeling noble."

"Don't be noble, be smart."

And so, with the alarm well and truly sounded, we ran again. We pushed through the doors to the outside and came face to face with another one of Them.

As the doors closed behind us, the sound of the center disappeared. I realized, as he looked at us in surprise, that he hadn't heard Skunk's alarm through the doors.

"Hey," he said, marching towards us, "You shouldn't be out here!"

"Move." Owl said and turned to run.

The guard grabbed owl by the shoulder, "I said you shouldn't be over here!"

Owl twisted, and revealed the hidden screwdriver. He rammed the point of the tool into the guard's knee between the padded areas so that it penetrated right down to the person under all that armour.

He let a gasp of pain. And I think he was about to call for help, when Wolf grabbed his head from behind and pulled the plexi-glass mask off revealing Mr. Nottingham, our old vice principal. Wolf kicked Mr. Nottingham in the back of the leg and forced the tall man to drop down. Wolf wrapped one arm under Mr. Nottingham's chin and another behind his head and squeezed. His face was bright red and Mr. Nottingham struggled to get a handle on Wolf, but the angle was all wrong and bent backwards like he was, he had no leverage.

It took over a minute, but Mr. Nottingham finally stopped struggling and Wolf was able to loosen his grip and drop him gently to the ground.

"Is he dead," Raven asked.

"I hope not." Wolf said, and put an ear to the man's mouth, "Nope, breathing just fine. Just gave him an oxygen deprivation induced nap."

Looking around at the rest of the town, wreathed in darkness was weird. Virtually no other buildings had lights on. And no building within sight besides the community center itself had any active street lights.

The center seemed to glow in the blackness, snow flakes sparkling as the drifted into the light and landed on the muddy slush at our feet.

We started moving again, kids jostling each other as we started to pick up speed. And then I hard the sound of the double doors opening behind us as we started to put a little distance between us and the community center.

We looked back and I saw Mr. Wolf bearing down on us.

"Your dad has our number Wolf."

"Run!" Wolf didn't look back as he said it.

"He's going to catch us! Somebody needs to delay him."

"Whoever does isn't going to walk away from it." Wolf said.

"Well somebody needs to do it, or he's going to catch us."

“That’s my Dad, You don’t fight him. If you’re lucky, you survive him.”

But by that point Owl had already started running back towards Mr. Wolf. Mr. Wolf stopped, and waited for him. Owl squared off, his hand carefully hiding the screwdriver that he picked up.

Mr. Wolf didn't drop into a fighting stance, he just stood there, looking angry. He held his night stick loosely. And the whole thing felt like a standoff before a quick draw contest in the old west.

At the distance I was from them, I couldn't hear the conversation, but they were definitely talking.

A moment passed, and it felt like a tumbleweed should roll across the hallway. Then Owl sprang forward and whipped the screwdriver from where he had concealed it. Owl drove the screwdriver at Mr. Wolf's left hip.

Mr. Wolf was faster, slapping the screwdriver out of Owl's hand with hard backhanded left hand. Owl paused in surprise for a half moment, and countered with two quick left jabs and a hard right handed punch- none of which landed as Mr. Wolf diverted all three strikes with forearm parries. Owl launched a soccer style kick towards Mr. Wolf's groin, which Mr. Wolf countered by stepping down hard with his heavy boot on Owl's shin, knocking Owl off balance and causing him to fall to one knee.

Then Mr. Wolf swung the Night stick and it smacked across Owl's face with a sharp snapping sound that I could hear even from a distance. Owl recoiled and tried to get back to his feet. And Mr. Wolf swung again. And again the nightstick struck owl with a sharp smacking sound.

I turned back to the group pushing through the door.

"He's getting butchered back there." I called.

Hawk looked back, "That was the idea, he'd buy us time."

I looked back at Owl, he was lying on the ground, unmoving. Looming over him, Mr. Wolf slid his nightstick back into his utility belt.

"He's down. He's not moving." I paused and considered the options. The rest of the group probably couldn't get away at this point. And I couldn't leave Owl, "I going back." I said.

"I'm with you bud," Wolf said, suddenly standing beside me, "Let's go die like heroes."

Lion stepped up beside us as well, "Sounds like a plan, Let's do this."

I broke into a run, Wolf right beside me. Lion was close behind us. Mr. Wolf looked at us with a stone blank expression as we bore down on him.

I stumbled as I stepped around owl as he lay in hallway, and as I did, Mr. Wolf grabbed my shoulders with his hands, one above and one below and twisted. I fell and rolled against the wall. Dazed but unhurt I pulled myself to a crouch and saw that Mr. Wolf was trading punches with his son. Wolf was holding his own not too badly, being Wolf, when his father got a sharp jab through to Wolf's solar plexus. Wolf doubled over, and Lion stepped in between them.

I put a hand on Owl's shoulder as Lion traded blows with Mr. Wolf. Lion wasn't doing as well as Wolf had been, but he had realized that he could last longer if he went fully defensive. He was trying to buy us time.

"Owl, are you alright?" I said.

Owl's head lay face down and I couldn't see if his eyes were open. He didn't answer right away, and as the silence stretched out I got worried. Above me was the sound of strikes being exchanged. Then finally, I heard Owl's voice.

"No, I'm not. I can't stand. Too dizzy. He hit me too hard."

"Lean on us, bud." Wolf struggled up to a crouch beside us.

"You got hit hard too," I pointed out.

"That's what my dad does." Wolf said.

"If you guys are done talking, it'd be awesome if you could retreat." Lion said. Mr. Wolf got a blow throw Lion's blocks as Lion said that and he stumbled.

"Get him up." Wolf said and I nodded. We pulled Owl out from underfoot of Lion and hoisted him up between us.

"There's no where you can go." Mr. Wolf said, speaking for the first time, "I'm going to find you if I have to march on hell itself."

I heard a heavy grunt from Lion coupled with a nasty smacking sound, and I looked back to see that Mr. Wolf had managed to get the nightstick back out of its loop in his belt.

Lion stepped in and grappled Mr. Wolf to prevent another strike with the nightstick. But Mr. Wolf was clearly the stronger of the two by a substantial margin. And Lion was going to have to back off.

We positioned Owl between us, interlocking our arms, and then we ran. Owl legs dragged on the floor and we pushed our legs to move faster. A few moments later I heard a another set of footsteps.

"Time to go guys!" Lion said behind us.

"You're only delaying the inevitable." Mr. Wolf's voice called.

Lion coiled his body down suddenly and speared Mr. Wolf in the mid section. The big man absorbed Lion's hit and seemed about to counter when Lion reached Down and grabbed both Mr. Wolf's legs at the back of the knees and stood up sharply. The motion pulled Mr. Wolf's legs out from under him and sent the him spralling to the ground on his back. Mr. Wolf let out a whooshing noise as he landed, and Lion turned to join us in retreat.

"Push it!" Lion said, We need to catch up with the group and put some distance between us the the monster."

"Easier said than done," Wolf said and the three of us struggled along, "My dad didn't knock the wind out of two of us by accident."

"I didn't drop him on his back by accident either, so maybe it will even out." Lion answered as we ran.

"In an even match, my dad will murder us all." Wolf said.

I noticed that Wolf seemed to be recovering, probably from practice with his father. I shuddered at the thought of training with Mr. Wolf. Owl was not looking as good. he was pale and still having trouble getting his breath back. I suppose that made sense. He was the youngest and smallest of us, even if he attitude made you forget it sometimes. He hadn't grown into his body yet, and he hadn't trained in the way Wolf had with his father, Lion had on the football team or I had with Wolf.

I glanced back, and saw what was probably a worst case scenario for us, because Mr. Wolf had pulled himself to his feet and was jogging after us. he wasn't moving as fast as I had seen him run before, so Lion must have winded him good. But like Wolf, he was clearly recovering fast. This wasn't good.

We were just about out of the parking lot, when I noticed three figures crouched behind a snow bank signalling us. Leaning against the slushy pile of snow were Viper, Raven and Hawk. They were pointing at a pile of snow on the path. I looked at the pile as we approached and suddenly realized what they were referring to.

"Guys, go past that pile of snow, really close. But don't step in it, whatever you do." I said as we stumbled on.

"Okay, but why?" Wolf asked.

"Because we walked past this spot when we were all going into the center for the first time." I said and kept moving.

We passed the snow, and I looked back to see Mr. Wolf now at a near full speed run and almost within grasping distance. We were just past the snow, and I silently hoped that he wouldn't notice that there had been no snow there before. And then I also silently hoped he wouldn't step around the snow even if he didn't notice.

Mr. Wolf charged straight into he little pile of slush, clearly trying to close the lsat few steps between himself and us. And as he did so, his lead foot disappeared into the snow and he fell to the ground with an angry bellow of pain.

"Plastic over that pot hole you stepped in."  Viper said grinning, "My idea."

"We found the plastic sheet in the dumpster to put the snow on." Hawk said pointing to Raven, who grinned sheepishly.

"Brilliant!" Owl said, "Now run before he gets back up and catches us."

We ran. And we ran. I looked back, but Mr. Wolf wasn't pursuing any longer. He was gingerly putting weight on his leg and scowling at us.

"My men will bring you in. This only means a harsher lesson!" He called, as we disappeared into the darkness.

He was right though, already I could here the sounds of other people coming from the center. And I could see Them pouring like locusts into the parking lot.

"I think we've upset them." Owl said with a grin.

Once we were out of sight of the parking lot and into the protective darkness of the unlit town, we slowed down to a cautious and more queit prowling pace.

Pausing whenever we heard a set of pounding footsteps and taking cover within and behind anything close when those footsteps got to close to be ignored; we continued slowly away from the relocation center.

"Psst, Freak. Where are we going?" Hawk asked Owl.

"My family's hidden hunting cabin. We'll figure out further details there." He answered.

"Good enough for me." She answered.

The problem with this plan, is that it wuickly became apparent that They had blanketed the town in flashlights and search parties. Keeping a group this large hidden became very difficult very fast. Every time we moved, we made a certain amount of sound, and even the slightest sound seemed to attract at least some of Them. We were slowly being forced slowly towards the south end of town, not intentionally, I don't think. They just seemed to be concentrated at the north end of town.

We were getting to within sprinting distance of the town limits when a group of Them latched onto us like a pit bull. They were never in sight, but we could always hear them, and it was a good bet that they heard us every time we moved.

Suddenly Owl paused mid step, foot dangling in the air. I pulled to a halt a moment later. I followed his gaze and saw the skunk.

It looked scared, and threatening. The skunk had its legs spread and had already raised its tail.

We waited, in a silent stand off. I could hear the sound of pursuit behind us. Slowly Owl lowered his foot, and then he carefully took two steps back. I followed his lead. I couldn't see behind me, but I hoped the others were doing likewise.

The skunk seemed to understand this, because he lowered his tail, not entirely, but enough that I felt comfortable breathing again. Finally, with the sounds of pursuit way to close for comfort, the skunk returned to digging through the garbage.

"Okay, let's take a detour here and let them meet the skunk shall we?" Owl said with a horrible grin.

We slowly edged away and followed Owl. A few minutes later we heard a tell tale yell of alarm.

"Skunk, Oh d..!"

"..on't scare him!"

And a familiar horrible smell erupted a few blocks back. We kept going, but didn't hear sounds of futher pursuit. The skunk seemed to have stopped them from looking in our direction.

We reached the edge of town and headed out on the highway. It didn’t take too long for Owl to decide that we were too exposed on the highway, and so he drew us off into the woods.

We walked for a while with Owl in the lead. Owl changed directions every so often as the terrain required. And as we got further and further away from town, it became harder to tell where we were or what direction we were heading in. I noticed the group was beginning to whisper amongst themselves. Finally Mouse spoke up.

"We're lost," Mouse said, "I told you we should have stayed at the center. Mr. Wolf and Mrs. Winter are the leaders and we should have respected them."

"We aren't lost," Owl countered, "The town is about an hour's walk that way."

Owl pointed to indicate as he spoke and Hawk looked where he was pointing in confusion.

"How do you know that?"

"We've been going pretty much exactly due south the whole time, and that means the town is due north- that way."

Mouse shook his head, "You don't know. You're just guessing to keep us from realizing that you don't know."

Owl closed his eyes for a moment and then shook his head, "You guys really don't know, huh? Then I'll show you."

Owl pointed at the sun ahead of us.

"We live in the Northern Hemisphere. And that means that sun is going to be in the southern sky, especially in the winter when it sits even lower in the southern sky. So if the sun is up and your looking at the sun, then you're looking at least sort of to the south. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. So if you're looking at the sun around noon, like we are, then the sun is due south. If it's morning, then the sun is south east. If it's evening, the the sun is south west."

Owl pointed back behind us, "I've kept us walking into the sun the whole time. So we've been going roughly due south. That means that home is behind us, which is due north. And since we've been going uphill for a little less than an hour, I figure we're about an hour's walk back, since we're tired now. There, believe me now?"

"So how do you know this?" Hawk asked, "Your Mom?"

Owl was quiet for a long moment, "My Dad actually. He told me when I was little, that there are tribal peoples who don't have words for right and left, because they always know where north and south and everything are. I couldn't figure out how they would know, so he taught me. I was pretty young then, back when he lived with Mom and me."

Hawk looked surprised, "You complain about your dad all the time. He seems pretty cool, even with everything he did wrong. You know?"

Owl nodded, and tried to say something, but the words didn't quite come out.

Raven put an arm around him. She was good at stuff like that.

"He knows." She said.

"When you think about it." Viper said, "He's the only adult still around who been honest with us from the start of this."

We continued this way for a while, until we came around a corner in the road and discovered that the road was gone- buried beneath so much snow that it looked like the mountain had swallowed the road whole.

"Damn." I said quietly.

Nobody else said anything. The wall of snow rose above us, taller than a house, taller than the chamber of commerce building in town. The road simply disappeared beneath it.

"This is the avalanche. the one that got Russell and his family. And Russell was the funny one. The funny one never dies in the movies." I said quietly as we looked at the mountain of snow where the highway used to be.

“This isn't a movie,” Owl said.

“They say that in movies you know?” I added.

“Then maybe we are in a movie,” Owl responded, “Let's just make sure that the movie doesn't suck. You know how we do that?”

“How?”

“By being bigger and badder and crazier than everyone else in the movie. We have to out hero and out villain everyone else, because only the most epic deeds are worth remembering. So let's get epic.”

"We don't know that Rusell died, not for sure." Raven said slowly.

"We don't know a lot of things." Owl added, "And that puts us at a disadvantage."

"What do mean?" Raven asked.

"Most of us don't know how to hunt, don't know how to farm or garden, we can't make our own clothing, can't do first-aid. And the adults are looking for us to try and drag us back to their slow death march. We have our work cut out for us. Between the five of us we can probably teach a bunch of what we need- but it's going to be hard work. And we aren't even at my family's cabin yet, so we're still not safe."

"Okay, so which way?"

"Well, we're far enough south, but we’re on the wrong side of town entirely." Owl said, "So we'd best get moving."

Mouse looked at snow and then said, "Without this avalanche, we wouldn't be in this mess would we?"

"Yeah, we kind of still would." Owl said.

"But if the avalanche hadn't happened, then we would have been able to get food in. We could get people out if the road were open. This made everything so much worse, so fast."

Viper nodded, "Mildred Sanger talked about this with us. The crisis triggered other crises because people handled the first part badly or panicked. And then with everything so fragile already, anything that goes wrong stops being a problem and becomes a catastrophe. This is only a huge problem, because the government wasn't going to send the stuff to clear the road. And they didn't do that, becuase they probably had bigger problems in the cities and then they didn't have extra people to send."

"So it was the avalanche," Mouse said.

"Sort of," Viper answered, "But the thing is, that if it wasn't the avalanche somethign else proabably would have happened and might have even been worse."

"It was the avalanche," Mouse said and grabbed up a rock and threw it up the mountain.

Mouse is a strong guy and the rock flew way farther than I was expecting. It hit an expected chunk of slate with an echoing crack and buried intself in a snow drift. And then something happened. The snow right below where the rock had hit tore away from the snow shelf above it. And the snow came roaring down the mountain towards us.

Sparrow looked at Mouse, "Okay, I'm not an expert like Owl. But I get the sense that this is a bad thing."

Exodus Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen
The Slow Death


"We need new names. Our old names are what our parents called us. And they don't know us anymore."

I remembered the rabbit that lived in Owl's blackberry bush, the one Owl had saved from Frisk. Mildred Sanger had said that the rabbit taught the Plains Indians magic and storytelling.

"I'm Rabbit from now on. The storyteller. That's me." I said.

Viper snickered. I ignored her.

"Well, if we're doing animal names, then I'm Wolf; because wolves are bad ass."

"Raven is always talking for the people, speaking to monsters to help people who can't and tricking them into doing right. So, if we're doing animals, then I'm Raven."

Viper pouted for a minute, and then said, "Well snakes are keepers of knowledge, but 'Snake' sounds stupid. So I guess I'm Viper, because then I have poison if you mock me."

"I guess, I'm last. I like Owl. Silent when hunting and like a sniper in the night, and wise too- the symbol of wisdom and strategy.”

“Do you know how silly it is, giving ourselves new names?”

“That's what children do when they become adults. They get new names.”

“Okay, fine.” Viper said, “But now what?”

"Bruce Lee always said, 'real living is living for others.' If we are just doing this ourselves, maybe that's why we're failing. Maybe we need to help other people who will listen." Raven said to Owl.

"Nobody is listening." Owl said quietly

"The adults aren't. But what about the other kids? How many of them could we convince? How much more could we do with five more people? With ten?" Viper added. Owl looked at her in surprise as Viper kept talking, "I think we should do like Victoria from Twilight and form an army of our own?"

"Wasn't she the bad guy?" I asked.

"And so are we, and you shouldn't think otherwise."

Raven shook her head, “Anyone doing something big is a villain from somebody else's point of view. Other people can call of villains. I still say we're heroes.”

"In brightest day it's easy to be heroes. But the Green Lanterns knew that you also had to be a hero in blackest night. This is blackest night bro. Every night ends, but you gotta fight the whole way through if you still want to be a hero when dawn hits. I'll run interference, you build us the Green Lantern Corps." Wolf smiled as he spoke.

And with that Wolf got up and ambled back over to the food line. As he was in line, we quickly began whispering to kids who would listen that a big secret meeting was about to take place- just for kids. And we told them to watch for the distraction and the follow us.

Wolf waited until he got back to the front of the line and was told that he had already got his meal for the evening.

“But I’m hungry!” Wolf said loudly, “What about him, he’s a skinny little runt. He doesn’t need that much food. I’ll take some of his.”

“Wolf reached for the soup bowl on the plate of the nearest boy. And adult reached out to restrain Wolf, and Wolf hammered a fist into the man’s gut.

“I want my food!” Wolf yelled, as he swung his fists in the midst of what was quickly becoming a melee around the food line.

“Well, that’s a distraction.” Viper said.

“Yup.” Owl said, “Let’s hurry.”

We quickly led the kids who had listened to us out of sight. And got everyone sitting on boxes facing Owl, who positioned himself at the front of the room.

"You guys know me. I'm the freak in the cowboy hat. I'm the guy whose mom got shot 'cause she talked too loud. You shouldn't even be listening to me. Old Lady Winter and her goons wouldn't like it. They will probably slash your rations for listening to me."

Owl let that sink in for a second. the kids shuffled, but nobody moved.

"But you and me, we know something. Old Lady Winter will slash the rations anyway, to punish us, to control us, to keep us helpless. Well, I don't want to be helpless. Do you? Do you like waking up in this place and begging for food from the school bully? Do you like watching your parent turn on you one by one? Is this how you want to die? 'Cause you're probably going to die if you stay here. You know I'm right. We've all seen death, we've learned that nice little lesson. Maybe you didn't get it as close up as I did, before this how many of us had seen a dead body? And how many now?"

Once everyone had raised their hand, Owl continued.

"So why are we still here? So we can starve and be miserable, die slow instead of fast?"

Hawk stood up.

"You talk tough, but what do we do?

"We leave, and we make it hard for them to follow."

"And then what? We starve."

"And then we live. You don't think we won't starve here?" Owl spread his hands and stared Hawk in the eye. "We leave, maybe we starve. We stay, you know we starve and we get kicked while it happens just to make it that much better."

The crowd began to murmur amongst themselves, and a bunch of kids got up and left. Viper looked around and tightened her lips into a line as sharp as a metal roof. She stalked up Owl and spoke to him, loud enough for the crowd to hear.

"Enough of this, they aren't up for it. You wanted warriors, and all we have here are cowards who want their moms to make everything better. Let them die sucking thumbs and praying for the adults to fix it. As if the adults didn't cause it in the first place."

The crowd had gone silent, listening to Viper's rant. Owl looked at me, and I winked. And Owl smiled for just an eye-blink and then shook his head and spoke to Viper.

"They aren't cowards. They're scared, there's a big difference. You're scared and so am I. You'd have to be nuts not to be scared. But they aren't cowards, that's why I picked them. Think about how many kids there are in town. I didn't call all of them did I?"

Viper shook her head, "So?"

"So, these are the ones who are smarter, sharper and braver than the others. These are kids who have seen what's going wrong. They know what's wrong, but we're asking them to do something big- huge really. So of course they aren't going to just jump into line."

"I don't think there are even five kids here with the guts to leave with us." Viper said and folded her arms.

The kids were squirming and murmuring again.

Hawk was still standing, and she spoke again, "Okay, I'll bite. How do we keep from starving? It's winter. We've got no stored food and no grocery store close by that's still open."

Owl grinned, "You know me. You know my Mom. What did my mom let me do?"

"Wear a cowboy hat and carry a pocket knife?" Hawk asked.

"And go hunting." Owl said, facing her with a broad grin.

Hawk considered for a second, and turned and looked back towards the main room.

"And what about our parents? How do we help them?"

"Will they let us?" Owl answered, "My mom knew the score right up to where They shot her. Look at Raven's parents, they knew. What happens to every adult who knew that the town is doomed? Mrs. Sanger's dead, my Mom is dead and all the rest are under house arrest. House arrest, think about what that means? I bet you've tried talking to your parents. Haven't you? And I bet they're like everyone else's parents here. If they aren't scared into line, then they're under house arrest like this is Nazi Germany. You tell me what to do about our parents."

Hawk's shoulders dropped, "I don't know."

Owl put a hand on her shoulder, "Then let me tell you. We let them choose. They're grown ups, they're allowed to stay here.”

“But that’s breaking the rules. That’s breaking the law. Like actual laws you go to jail for.”

"Do you think laws made of paper are going to keep us safe after this?" Owl said. “Right now, adults are useless. The adults don't know that the world they lived in, built and paid for, is already dead. Their world is gone now and they can't handle it. They're going to fight until they die or smarten up. That's their choice. Now its time to make yours. Do you think we can make it to spring living under Old Lady Winter and her goons?"

Hawk shook her head.

“Exactly. We aren't going to make it staying here. We need to run. We have to stay hidden, because the adults- our parents- will drag back to live on this corpse until we all freeze or starve or tear each other to pieces.”

“I guess.” Hawk said.

"Does anyone else think that we can make it to spring like this?" Owl said to the group, now dwindled to about twenty-five. Nobody spoke.

"Does anyone else think that our parents will save us this time?"

Nobody spoke.

"Who's hungry?"

Murmurs.

"Who's tired?"

Murmurs.

"Who's sick of being pushed around?"

"Who's sick of being scared of the adults that are supposed to protect us?"

"Well, I say let them deal with this mess. They made it. I say we leave. We can't do worse than they already are. So who wants to be free?"

And then, one by one, the kids still here stood up and then we knew.

We snuck back in small groups to the main room. When I got back, I saw Wolf sitting by himself with several choice bruises on his face. I sat down beside him.

“So?” I asked.

“Well let’s see. I was on one third rations for running away. And Now that’s been cut in half, so I guess I’m on one sixth rations,” Wolf grinned, “I think their going to need a teaspoon to serve my last few meals here bud. So how did it go?”

“We didn’t get a lot, maybe twenty five kids.” I said.

“Better twenty five that care than five hundred that don’t.”

As we talked we were joined by the rest of the group, and also Hawk and her crew. Sparrow in particular seemed pleased by the whole turn of events.

"This song goes out to everyone who's ever fought for freedom." Sparrow said.

"Why do you say that? You don't even sing." Hawk said, rolling her eyes.

"Dunno," Sparrow said, "Sounds good? Always wanted to be a DJ? It irritates you?"

"So, your plan is to walk away?" Hawk said, keeping stride with Owl.

"Yeah, I don't see any other option. This isn't working and now that all those spider webs that Professor Tuttle talked about seem to have snapped, I don't see us putting it back together any time soon. We can’t stay near town. Not at all near town. That’s what we learned the last time we ran away from here. The whole area around town is hunted out. So we need to walk away, completely." Owl said.

"Then what happens after we walk away? I mean seriously, where are we going? Out into the woods to hang on as long as we can before dying like everyone else?"

"My mom," Owl paused, "My mom married my dad, because she saw something in him and what he dreamed about that she thought was noble. It didn't last. At first I blamed my dad, I thought he was a lazy slob. He's no prize, I know, but he isn't lazy. He's broken. He saw something that he valued die, and it broke him. When he looked at this world that's dying now, he saw a monster that was devouring everything he loved."

"What's your point?" Hawk asked.

"My point is that you see nothing beyond this world of ours that's dying. My dad didn't see it that way. He saw a whole other world being devoured by this world of ours, which he saw as a monstrous cannibal nothingness."

"So, do you know what he saw? I don't know that you ever talk much with your dad? And if we don't have something, then this is still a dumb idea."

"I don't. Dad is broken, still too broken to teach probably. But I know what we need to look for, and what we need to find. It's a gamble, but staying here is worse."

"This means we're all stuck trusting you and your cowboy hat."

"No, it means we all need to trust each other. I'm not in charge of this. If I am, then we're screwed. People being in charge is part of the problem, I think. We need to be something different, a tribe maybe and not whatever this is."

"So it boils down to going native? Doesn't that seem a little silly."

"I am native- remember? They lived here for ten thousand years without everything we had, and they did okay. I don't think that's it exactly. But I think we need to find what they had. Because whatever it was, we don't have it now."

"I still think this is one big gamble."

"Nobody is forcing you to help us. Stay here and starve. We don't need people who don't want us."

"No, I'm with you. I just want to know how crazy you are."

"Mr. Wolf says that things will get better after the initial crisis has lowered the population to realistic levels, and then the real leaders will rebuild," Mouse said abruptly, causing both Hawk and Owl to jump.

Owl was quiet for a moment and then he said, "What are they going to rebuild with, Mouse? Before we lost TV, everything we saw said that everything was breaking. We're going to end up in the Middle Ages by this time next year at this rate."

"No we aren't. The real leaders are stockpiling essential technology." Mouse countered.

"Okay, so that will buy them time. But how do they repair things, and get new materials? Everything is made in super huge factories now. Parts are made miles and miles away- you remember what Professor Tuttle told us. How do we rebuild that?"

"The leaders will know," Mouse said.

Owl looked around, "Does this feel like rebuilding?"

"We have to wait for the population to drop to manageable levels."

"You mean we have to wait for people who oppose Mr. Wolf and Mrs. Winter to die off or disappear like Mayor Tailor did. You mean we have to wait for them to get rid of anyone who doesn't agree with their ideas. You mean that we have to wait until everyone is so weak from lack of food and scared from the men with masks and guns that nobody will say 'boo' to them anymore. Yeah, that sounds like the answer to me too."

"But what if it works?" Hawk asked, "What is they do manage to get people through this?"

"You tell me," Owl answered, "Do you want to live in a town where Mrs. Winter is Queen, Mr. Wolf is judge, the his goons are the secret police?"

"I like Mr. Wolf," Mouse said quietly, "He thinks I'm strong. A real man."

"He told me that too, once. And then I started to make my own decisions and he didn't think I was a man anymore. See if he still thinks you're a man when you ask him the questions Professor Tuttle taught us. And then decide if you still like him."

"Thank-you Mouse,” Raven added, “Now we know their endgame. Turn back the clock to when a few people controlled everything because they think that they know better than everyone else."

"But I don't think that is going to work. I don't think we have enough food and water and power to last the winter. Do you guys?"

"No. But what do we do?"

"We trust Owl," Viper said, "we should have listened to him in the first place."

"Then the least I can do is get you that white picket fence. Maybe not today, but someday."

"Take your time. I trust you."

“So we’re running, fine. How do we get out?” Hawk asked.

“I’m working on that. Last time we had a distraction. We’ll probably need more this time.” Owl said.

We sat in silence, all thinking then, all watching, looking for something useful.

I was watching the 'Hello Kitty' gunman, the one who murdered Owl's Mom. He was watching a group of people walk march through the food line. As I was watching, he brought his thumb up to his face again- like he had when he shot Owl's mom. Then he stepped forward and dragged Mrs. Lamb out of line for some apparent infraction. And I realized that he wasn't giving a thumbs up, as I had originally thought. He was reflexively trying to wipe his nose like Bruce Lee spoiling for a fight. And suddenly I realized that I had seen that before.

I turned to Owl, "Did you see that?"

Owl glared at the 'Hello Kitty' gunman.

"Yeah," He said, "I saw that, and I know what that means."

We kept sitting though and Owl just scanned the room like he was looking for something. Then his eyes settled on Skunk.

Skunk sat on a yellow plastic folding chair next to a pile of boxes containing bags of rice. He carefully unfolded his knife, making a show of it, so that the kids around him would see it- and presumably be afraid of him for it. Then Skunk set to work cutting open the boxes and removing the bags and then flattening the boxes once they were empty.

Once he had finished the boxes in front of him, Skunk stood up and walked out of the room to get more boxes. I returned to talking to Wolf.

Sparrow looked back at us and asked, “So, a tribe huh? What does that even mean?”

Raven answered, “It means we stick together. It means everyone is valuable. I hear the adults talking a lot about the needs of the many and the good of the group. My dad never talked about that stuff, even when he was band chief. He always looked at each person as being as important as the tribe, maybe each person was the tribe to him in some way.”

“Okay, so what do we do with that?”

Wolf grinned, “No kings, no presidents, no mayors, none of that stuff. Any time you got that, then you got somebody taking more than their share.”

“So how do we get stuff done and decided things?” Hawk asked.

“We talk it out. Leaders can be different,” Viper said, “They don’t have to have formal power. Owl ends up leader for us a lot lately, because he actually knows stuff about how to survive. But it’s not like we’re going to bow to him and call him King. And if he doesn’t teach us how to do what he does, then we’re going to either make him, or tell him to get lost. He’s leading right now, because he’s the right person to do the leading right now. But he’s only leading, because we let him.”

“Don’t most kingdoms or gangs or whatever start that way? I mean Mrs. Winter didn’t start in charge. Mr. Wolf didn’t start in charge. They acted like leaders and then suddenly they were in charge.”

“Definitely true,” Raven said, “And we have to guard against that. Mildred talked about needing three things to be warriors. You had to know how to think for yourself, how to provide for yourself and how to defend yourself. And Mrs. Winter has used people not having enough of the first two, and Mr. Wolf has used people not having enough of the last one, so that they stay in charge.”

“Mildred also said that you have to admit that there is no single right way.”

“Then why leave this place if there is no right way?” Mouse said.

“She didn’t say that there weren’t wrong ways. There are lots of wrong ways, but there isn’t just on right way. And so you can’t stop people from leaving or doing different. And anyone who does is dangerous.”

“Mildred also said no wars, don’t wage war. This whole thing feels an awful lot like war- even if I can’t figure out who my Dad and Mrs. Winter are at war against.”

Maize shook her head, “Maybe you can’t figure it out, but I can. They’re at war with people who disagree. They’re at war with their own people: us, our parents, the whole town.”

“Sounds about right,” I said, “The other thing Mildred talked about, was that we need to live for the future. You need to do things so that you aren’t damaging your ability to stay alive tomorrow, or next year, or twenty years from now. That’s the problem with what’s happening in town here. The town is eating up everything that would give food next year. If they run out of food, what do they plant if they survive the winter? They’ve over hunted the whole area, what’s going to be left to have baby’s to grow into new deer and grouse and ducks and rabbits to hunt around town next year.”

“Okay, but that isn’t good for us, either is it?” Hawk said, “How do we not do that?”

“That’s a question for Owl.” I said. As I said it, I realized Owl hadn’t said anything for the whole conversation. I looked around and saw Owl sitting just behind me.

“Don’t do that.” I said. “So how do we avoid over hunting?”

“Don’t hunt underage animals, don’t hunt females during the times when their probably pregnant or raising babies. Hunt the bigger older males over the younger males. Don’t take more than you need. It’s pretty simple. Mom and Dad drilled all that stuff into me pretty early on. I can teach you guys. I figure that I’ll be doing a lot of teaching for the first little while. I didn’t han out with the band much, but something one of the elders told me once. I kind of ignored it at the time, but it makes more sense now. He said that the reason Natives were called indigenous is because indigenous means that something belongs to a place. He said that city people always wanted things that belonged to them, but that the earth was too big to belong to anybody- you had to belong to it. I think, that’s what we need to relearn, in order to survive.”

“Okay good, but what do we do until then?”

"We could act like Malificent in 'Sleeping Beauty' and transform into something scary in order to fight them." Viper said.

"That didn't exactly work for her did it?"

"And again, she was the bad guy."

"And so are we. But in the books the bad guys lose. Bad guys win in real life all the time."

“I can feel it, you know.” Owl said to me, quietly.

“Feel what?” I asked.

“The transformation that Viper's talking about, that Mildred talked about. I can feel the stories, the mythology, that Mildred talked about. I feel it thick around us. And I can feel the outrage. The Witch Doctor, the one without a home. We don't have a home Rabbit. I don't think we've ever had a home. I don't think our parents did either, or their parents, all the way back- I don't know how long. This is what happens if you scratch the surface off everything our parents and their parents have built. This crap is what we've all been raised on. How many years back did that story Mildred tell us happen? I can feel the outrage, and I think its older than me.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Well then, I'm officially freaked out.”

“Good, because none of this will be easy.

"Why? What you are doing?"

"Thinking."

"That's dangerous."

“Isn't that the truth. We think and we think and we think and we don't do anything. Thinking doesn't work on its own, because unless start breaking rules and shaking everything to the ground, thinking won't change anything.”

“We've already broken more than a few rules.”

“Fine. Now it's time to break the biggest rule of all. People rebel all the time in the history books, you know? The French Revolution, the American Revolution, The Russian Communist Revolution- all those people rebelling against other people doing horrible things, and nothing really changes except the people doing the horrible things. It's a game of musical chairs. And people are dying because now we're almost out of chairs to sit on.”

“And?”

“And now it's time to admit that this is a stupid game, and that it's time to leave. We need to break the biggest rule the adults ever taught us. Mildred's story was about people trying to keep growing forever to out run the prophecy that if they ever stopped everything would fall. Well, you can't keep growing forever can you? Eventually you run out of stuff or space or both. And things are falling apart. Mildred's story is warning about how our parent's have lived and everyone's parents all the way back to whoever started this. We need to admit that this whole thing: cities, the spiderwebs of factories and roads and supply lines, all the stuff the adults are trying to hang on to- none of works anymore and maybe it never really did. And then, we need to leave.  I figure it will be pretty hard and scary, so be ready for that.“

“Alright, let’s not bunch up like we have some big secret conspiracy. I think I have the beginnings of a plan. I’ll let you know once I’m ready.”

We nodded and all kind of moved off as casual as possible. Wolf and I wandered off to practise sparring. Owl and Viper found and bench and sat down together and Viper snuggled into Owl. Raven wandered from kid to kid talking, probably reassuring people. Hawk and Lion found a spot and started arm wrestling. Maize and Sparrow pulled out a deck of cards and started playing. Mouse wandered off. And I hoped that he wasn’t going to listen to Mr. Wolf again, or worse yet to expose us. Mouse was a problem, he was loyal as a German Shepherd to Sparrow, but I was never sure how smart he really was.

"Hey!" Skunk yelled, and I turned to look at him.

"Who took my pocket knife?" Skunk demanded, looking back and forth at the people- mostly kids- sitting within easy distance of his chair.

His eyes settled on Sparrow and Maize, who were playing cards just a few feet away from where Skunk had been working. Neither was very big and that was probably part of Skunk's reasoning. Skunk stomped over to the two and glared down at them.

"Alright small fry, give it up, or I'll start enforcing rationing restrictions."

"How would taking your knife help anyone here?" Maize asked. She looked like she was trying to calm Skunk, but Skunk wasn't having it. He rounded on Sparrow and snatched Sparrow's glasses clean of the smaller boy's face.

"What about you four eyes? Are you going to lie to me, like your girlfriend here?"

Sparrow stood up, "Those glasses cost significantly more than your stupid knife. I don't care about your toy. I don't care about you power trip. And I don't care about your threats of rationing. If my glasses are not in my hand very shortly, you are going to regret mistaking me for a helpless nerd."

Skunk shoved Sparrow over, knocking the smaller boy to the ground, "You are helpless and you are a nerd. This is my house. And these are my rules. So, where is my knife?"

"You never had a knife." Owl said. He wasn’t shouting, but he spoke loud enough that Skunk turned.

"What was that, freak?" Skunk asked.

"You never had a knife. I had a knife, you had a toy. A little boy who's lost his toy and now is throwing a tantrum. I should be the one to complain. My knife was actually worth something. Yours is just silly and pitiful. Not only is your knife a little toy, but you're crying, because you lost it."

Skunk looked Owl up and down, as though considering the potential altercation. Finally his eyes lit up and he tossed Sparrow's glasses to the ground and jogged off.

Sparrow picked up his glasses and wiped them clean and put them back on.

"This song goes out to all the wimps who couldn't stand up for themselves," Sparrow said in frustration, "If Mouse were here, this would be different."

"Yeah, but Mouse likes listening to Mr. Wolf a little too much." Owl said.

"You did fine." Maize said and Sparrow sat down, "The timing wasn't right to escalate that."

Sparrow nodded.

Hawk tossed an MRE bag at Sparrow, "Don't be a Chotch Monkey!"

"What the heck is a Chotch Monkey?"

"Somebody who's way too full of themselves, generally male."

Sparrow spread his arms, "I'm too little to be full of anything. You are talking to the literal 98 pound weakling. The only I'm alive these days is because I don't eat much and people still think that Nerds are cool."

"And cute." Maize added with a wink.

Skunk strode back to his seat. He was carrying Owl's sheath knife.

"So somebody took my knife. But now look what I've got. Anyone who thinks my knife gives them clout, remember that my new knife is bigger."

With that, Skunk sat back down and continued opening boxes and removing rice.

Hawk shook her head, “Okay Sparrow, you are officially not a chotch monkey.”

Wolf and I looked at Skunk and then each other, and then stopped sparring and walked over to Owl.

"Hey bud. Why did you remind him that they had your knife?" Wolf said.

"Yeah," I added, "It seemed like you wanted him to take your knife."

Owl nodded, "That's better than him beating up Sparrow. I like Sparrow, he's smart and has fight in him. And anyway, now I know where my knife is. Don't I?"

"So that was on purpose?" Wolf asked.

Owl nodded, and Wolf suppressed a chuckle.

"Epic Win Bud."

"Thank you."

"He does have a bigger knife now."

"But he has no idea how to use it."

"True, but that might make him more dangerous, not less."

Conversation turned back to the guard with the Hello Kitty sticker, and how to get him alone.

“I figured that I'd just confront him and let him chase me to an empty room,” Owl confessed as we talked.

“That's dumb,” Viper said, “Everyone will see it and other guards will follow.”

“But we know his weakness,” Raven said, “We know what gets him angry and who he likes to hurt. Women. I bet if he overheard me talking about how dumb his sticker looks and what a wimp he looks like with that sticker on him, then he would follow after me to teach me a lesson. And I bet the other guards wouldn't think much of him going after a girl, compared to the number one troublemaker in the seventh grade. Men always underestimate us ladies.”

Wolf and I both objected at the same time, “You could get hurt!”

“We all could get hurt. Don't talk like Wolf's dad. We aren't any weaker than you boys,” Viper said.

Owl nodded, “I know. The only problem that I see with the plan is that you can't taunt him or just sit there talking to yourself. Both would be kind of obvious.”

Viper nodded, “You need another poor weak and defenceless girl to join the conversation, so that we can giggle at the stupid sticker. I can do that.”

“I didn't mean you.” Owl said abruptly.

“Why not?” Viper asked, “You just said you knew we girls weren't weaker than boys. So why not me?”

Owl breathed in and seemed to be trying to find words that were hiding from him somewhere in his ribcage. Eventually, his shoulders sagged a little and he shrugged.

“I just didn't want to put anyone on the spot. You can totally do this. Just, you know, just be careful and don't get hurt.”

Our new team of kids, minus Raven and Viper wandered off in groups to an used corner, hidden from view by stacks of boxes. Isolated and hidden from view, we waited.

“What are you going to do?” Lion asked.

“Yeah,” Hawk added, “You still haven’t told us the plan.”

“The guard with the ‘Hello Kitty’ sticker? That’s the one who murdered my Mom.”

“Oh.” Hawk stopped and seemed to be searching for words, but couldn’t find them.

“And now I also know who he is.”

Lion leaned in with interest, “And so, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to do something colossally stupid. And then I’m going to use it to help us escape.”

I could see Hawk adding things up her head, “Is this a good idea? I mean I normally don’t run from a fight.”

“This is almost certainly not a good idea. But I need to do this. And I think I can use it to add a distraction to get us out of here.”

“I like it.” Lion said.

“I don’t.” Maize interjected.

“Okay, I understand that not everyone likes this.” Owl said, “But does anyone hate it enough to stop me?”

Nobody answered And then the girls darted around the corner and quickly stepped into the crowd of kids, with Owl standing just ahead of myself and Wolf.

Seconds later Mr. Pinchen came barrelling around the corner in his riot gear, with his helmet under his arm. He pulled to a stop when he saw the group of us and stared. Owl had his hands clasped behind his back like a general addressing disobedient troops as he faced Mr. Pinchen.

"So, Mr. Pinchen, that thing you do with your thumb is a bit of a give away, huh? I mean, I don't know any other adult who tries to imitate a Bruce Lee movie before being a jerk or a creep. So I know you wear the uniform with the 'Hello Kitty' sticker on the shoulder pad- which is really lame, by the way. But that means I know something else. I know what that means. That means, I know who killed my mother. Want to guess who did it?"

Mr. Pinchen looked around, I think to see who was watching. Once he realized it was just us, he grinned and did his thumb wipe again.

"I don't think you thought this through little boy. Nobody here can help you, and none of the bleeding hearts can see you to cry and moan about what I'm going to do to you."

Owl had a wild look in his eyes now, one I didn't like. He looked like he was swinging between supremely confident and absolutely terrified.

"So Mr. Pinchen, I know you like your victims unarmed. My mother, your wife and so on. " Owl said, "We kids aren't dumb Mr. Pinchen. We see things, we understand more than you might think. And once we realize that there is no Santa Claus, we know that adults lie to us, all the time. We aren't fooled. You aren't lying to protect us. You're lying to protect yourselves, and we're tired of it."

"Doesn't matter," Mr. Pinchen replied, raising up his fists into a boxing position, "You're still a thirteen year old boy who hasn't grown into his body, and I'm still a grown man who knows how to fight."

"You know how to beat unarmed opponents," Owl corrected, "I don't think you know how to fight. I know you think you've got this in the bag. After all, my sheath knife was confiscated and everyone knows Skunk has it now. So, I understand that you must feel pretty confident right now," And then Owl raised a eyebrow and glanced subtly over Mr. Pinchen's right shoulder, looking behind the man, "But I'm not the only kid who carries a knife around here."

Mr. Pinchen twisted reflexively to look where he had noticed Owl's gaze looking, and Owl swung his hands back into view, his right hand carrying Skunk's missing pocket knife. Owl thrust the pocket knife into Mr. Pinchen's mid section, just below the ribs in the soft bits- but pointing upwards at his lungs.

Mr. Pinchen gasped in pain. Then, before his opponent could cry out, Owl let go of the knife, cocked his right arm back and drove a palm strike into the knife- jamming the knife up into the older man's lung- burying the knife in Mr. Pinchen's mid section until it was almost entirely invisible.

The impact drove the air out of Mr. Pinchen's lungs, and he gasped for air, but the knife now lodged in the lower part of his right lung was causing him breathing problems. He gasped and wheezed and tried to make noises, but every sound he made was crushed to a laboured whisper.

"You killed my mother. You shot her from the safety of a crowd, hidden by a mask and large numbers and false authority. You guys aren't the good guys, and maybe you never were. But you got what you deserved today. For my mother's murder, for your wife's abuse, for your general cruelty while hiding behind that mask- plastic or otherwise. This is it. Today you get to answer for how you've lived your life."

"Sticker..." Mr. Pinchen managed to wheeze, "...from ...daughter ..."

Owl paused at this, mid stride. And then I noticed that he had begun crying, silently, like he had when his mother was murdered. Then his gaze hardened.

"You beat your wife Mr. Pinchen. I don't know if you beat your daughter, but you certainly weren't a father to her. It doesn't matter what you told yourself. Fathers don't abuse mothers. You aren't a father. you're a monster. And you know what? I didn't know this about myself before, but it turns out, I'm okay with killing monsters."

Owl was still crying. I didn't say anything. It was okay. He could handle it.

Mr. Pinchen did not die quickly. He faded off slowly crumpling to the ground. He pulled at the butt of the knife in his stomach, but couldn't get a grip- and probably didn't have the strength to remove it had he managed to get a proper grip on the handle.

Owl looked down at his right hand, now wet with Mr. Pinchen's blood. Reaching out he placed his hand on the stickered shoulder pad and pushed the bigger man over onto the ground, leaving a red hand print over the 'Hello Kitty' sticker.

"I guess our hands are always red from now on." Owl said quietly, “I can live with that. I thought this would break me. I really did. It didn't, and I can't imagine anything breaking me if this didn't. I'm something else now, something new. I guess we'll find out what, huh?”

And we just stood there watching him. I didn't know what to feel. There was a human being dying in front of me. I could feel something approaching horror crawling under my skin. At the same time, I could feel satisfaction in what Owl had done. I hated Mr. Pinchen, and everything he and the rest of Them stood for- and this felt like justice. It felt wrong too, but it felt like justice- and I couldn't pry those feelings apart.

Exodus Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen
Helter Skelter

             
Okay boys and girls, and gentlemen and ladies, this is where any timid readers who've pushed on should stop now and go no further.

At this point you can pretend that the national guard stepped in. You can pretend that the outside world still had the resources to provide emergency relief and reinstate a normal world of rules and laws and safe living rooms where nobody else has to die in a food riot.

Anyone who isn't one of us should really put this book back, you know we're looking for you right now.

This is the point where we step past the point of no return. This is the point where any chance at a happy ending, as they show up in children's books and films, vanishes forever. This is where anyone from a happier world should stop and go no further.

Tell yourself whatever lies you want about what happened in Safehope Bluff. Pretend I'm lying to you. Pretend I don't know what I'm talking about. But whatever you do, don't keep reading if you can't handle a world where people don't ride in on white horses to save children from unhappy endings.

You think 'Old Yeller' is traumatizing to children? You think they should never have killed Optimus Prime in the animated 'Transformers' Movie? You think 'Bridge to Terabithia' went a little bit too far? Was it too much for you when Dumbledore bit the dust?

You haven't seen anything yet. Stop reading.

Only warriors should step beyond this point.

You have been warned.

* * *

Bart’s capture had shaken us. My mom hadn’t done anything, just stood by and watched while Mr. Wolf beat Bart like a dog. Everything felt unsafe. The death of Owl’s mom could have blamed on heat of the moment and losing control of the situation. But now I didn’t think so. The leadership obviously felt that this was okay. Mr. Wolf had brutalized Bart because he was the the focus of Mr. Wolf’s anger. This left us all feeling cold and unsafe. We knew they didn’t have enough food. We knew Mrs. Winter didn’t have a problem with letting people she didn’t like starve. We knew Mr. Wolf was happy to assault anybody he didn’t like. We knew that Raven’s parents hadn’t been seen since the protest. We knew that all the town council members who had objected were likewise gone, disappeared. Any business that disagreed had been used as a storage facility, the businesses own supplies confiscated. We had watched all of this happen, little by little. But seeing Bart bleeding in front of us seemed to bring it all into focus.

And so after Bart was captured we went back to our Obi-won in Mildred Sanger to ask for advice. It's funny, but Mildred was one of the last people assigned a bed. She came in after my own family. I still don't know how she managed that. But once she arrived we were able to rely up here and that lifted our spirits a little.

“Magic is creating through will alone. Taking thought and making it action.” Mildred said, as we spoke off from the main area on metal folding chairs.

“I showed you Tarot cards and I told you that magic is something that you understand that others do not. That is true, magic is a shapeshifting word. Magic is many things. In the sense that I currently am using it. Magic is created change through meaning.”

“Okay, but what does that mean?” Viper asked.

“Do you remember the story of Brave Young Man and Corn Lady.” She asked.

“It's pretty hard to forget. Especially looking at everything that's happened.” Viper answered.

“In other words, you see meaning and parallel between the story and your current situation? How did that happen? This was a fairy tale. This was a story that I told you outright had never happened. And yet it has helped transform your  understanding of the situation compared to those of the other people in this building. How could a simple piece of fiction do that?”

“Well the story showed us another way to interpret what we were experiencing.” Raven said.

“Magic is creating change through meaning. You have a new story that you have made yours. That story is part of how you understand the world and your place in it, and it has made you different. I wrote many such stories, although I was not allowed to retrieve them when I was forced to vacate my house, so I do not have them here to share. But such stories are key to changing the game that you play.”

“My dad told me that tribes are a different game from the game everyone's playing right now.” Owl added.

“You father is quite correct. Tribes are a different game, or more correctly, they play different games and the tell different stories. And not just different stories, tribes tell different types of stories. And the stories that they tell are what make the games that they play different. Different fairy tales produce different adults, eventually. Magic. The thing about tribes is that they need to be free, that is why they do not survive captivity- their stories and games do not function and cannot be played in captivity, whether a community center gymnasium or a reservation.”

"Well.” Raven ventured, "Bruce Lee always said to be like water."

"You mean wet and miserable?" Viper asked.

"He meant that we should be patient when trapped and flow throw any available opening." Raven answered. “I'm we wait until we see an opening and then take advantage of it.

“And do what?” Viper asked, “I mean, seriously, at this point what can we do?”

“My dad says that we should run away. He's told me three times now. I'm starting to think he's right. Maybe we can play a new game if we can get away.”

Wolf shook his head, “That's a big freaking scary idea there bud. Seriously? Walk away and never come back? That's your idea?”

I though about my mother with her silence and Mr. Wolf with his bloody nightstick.

“I think I would prefer that to this.” I said.

“Okay,” Raven said carefully, “But we aren't a tribe, not really, not yet. Even if we all agreed that this was the best option, we don't know how to live like a tribe, we don't know how to turn ourselves into one. I mean where on earth would we start?”

“Well, didn't you just say that they story about the Brave Young Man and the Corn Lady is part ofbeing a tribe,” Owl said to Mildred, “What if we started with that? What would we do next?”

“I don't have an easy answer for you, I'm afraid.” Mildred Sanger said quietly, “This is the work of the Witch Doctor, the Lonely Hero who comes with storm and has no home.”

“When it comes time for somebody to do the thing that nobody else has the fortitude to do, you will find yourself possessed by an outrage so deep that something is reborn within you, something ancient and powerful, and you will find that a ghostly force guides your hand. But never try to master it, for there is no victory for the Master.”

Viper shook her head, “Mrs. Sanger, are you saying that ghosts are real? Are you saying that a ghost will actually possess one of us?”

“You decide if ghosts are real or not. I will not say yes or no for you. I am saying that you should listen to the moving of forces grander and older than either you, your parents, or the civilization now decaying around us. I am saying nothing more than this, listen to what was here first.”

"There are many things that are useful, without necessarily being true. A fairy tale can be useful to teach a lesson. A myth or fable can encapsulate the broad strokes of a historical event even if it uses metaphors and is largely a fabrication in itself. Explanations of how to perceive the world, spirits in the earth, souls and things- need not be true to be useful."

"So it doesn't matter if magic is real or not?" Viper asked.

"That's not the point. Magic means different things to different people. But each belief, whether in ghosts, or psychics or ancient stories, can be measured both by whether it is true and by whether it is useful. And certainly it does matter if something is true. But something can be untrue factually, while still being useful for other reasons. And then it does matter, you need to remember that no matter how useful a belief may be, that doesn't make it true."

Mildred never liked to talk where other people could intrude. And so we had been meeting out of the way and hidden behind a pile of boxes labelled as soap. As we were finishing our conversation, we heard a door open on the other side of the wall of the boxes. I don't think we would have taken much note, if it weren't for the fact that the footsteps that followed were accompanied by the sound of rubber dragging across tile, a quiet squeaking of two shoes being pulled.

We turned and moved over to peer over and around the boxes. On the other side we could see Mrs. Winter and two of Them, holding the semi-conscious form of Bart.

“You are an agent of the enemy.” Mrs. Winter said to Bart as her guards held his limp form, “Your disinformation has made my job more difficult at every turn. You have disrupted our ability to control the message. You have challenged our authority. And I will not tolerate it any longer. My associates believe that you can be used as an example to show people how we can bring anybody in line. But I suspect that this will merely allow you one last chance to oppose me by becoming a martyr. I'm not going to allow you to become a martyr. You are simply going to vanish. And, in time, you will be forgotten.”

“People. Will wonder. I'm too loud. Will be missed.” Bart wheezed out throw split lips.

“Oh I don't agree. This is quite a crisis and if a few people go missing in the crisis, that's just what we call casualties and missing persons. Come spring all people will remember is that they have made it through and that they owe that and their continued survival to the new council. We'll need to come up with a new name. Interim is so, temporary sounding. And if people do wonder about your fate, it won't matter. They will depend upon us for food and protection and thus their loyalty will be assured. You've lost. I've won.”

“You can't. Kill ideas.”

“Perhaps not directly,” Mrs. Winter said, “But ideas only survive in a very particular environment, the human mind. And although I may not be able to kill an idea; I can certainly kill a human.”

She held out her hand, and the guard on her right placed a large straight bladed military style knife in her hand. She grabbed Bart's hair and pulled his head back, exposing his neck.

“Now. We know. Who the villain. Is.” Bart managed, and then Mrs. Winter thrust the knife into Bart throat and then quickly turned it and drew the blade upward and under the chin line. Blood spurted across Mrs. Winter's shoulder, some spattering across her sky blue blazer.

We pulled ourselves back around the boxes in horror.

“She can't do that!” Raven whispered.

“She did.” Wolf said.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

“We run.” Viper said, “Like Owl's dad said we should. We get out of here. Anywhere is better than here.”

We were whispering. But we clearly weren't quiet enough.

“Do you hear that?” Mrs. Winter said from the other side of the boxes.

“No ma'am.”

“I heard something. Clean this up and get rid of it. You with me, we're making certain there are no loose ends.”

Mildred looked at us, and then looked around the room. She pointed to a set of boxes where we could see a space large enough to squeeze through and hide.

“Go. I can buy time for you to escape. Make a new way, find a new game, a new story. Make me proud.”

There wasn't time to argue. We could here the sound of Bart's body being dragged away. And then the sound of two sets of footprints moving slowly towards our position. As we turned to run, Mildred said to Raven.

"Remember, hope is like a fire. Don't let it go out. Even dying embers can become a fire again if they are fed."

Raven nodded. And then we ran. Behind us I could hear footsteps approaching and then Mrs. Winter's voice.

“What is this, Mildred?”

“Call it a protest. I know you don't like that word Helen, but I don't have another for you I'm afraid.”

“A protest against what Mildred? Us keeping this town alive for so long?”

“A protest against your methods. That's quite a stain you've got on your jacket.” Mildred said, “I certainly wouldn't call you a people person at this point.”

"People will let you down if you let them. Control is safety. Give people a free hand and they will hurt you and break the rules and make everything fall apart. And so I need control. When my father walked out, I learned a lesson in human nature. And so now I know what people are really like. Everything will end up looking right- like it did in the old days." Mrs. Winters continued talking as she turned away from Mildred and back towards our position.

"These days, everyone assumes that Summer is just to make the story work," Milderd Sanger said, "But of course it might actually be a nickname."

Mrs. Winter froze in her tracks and turned back to face Mrs. Sanger.

"Explain yourself Mildred." Mrs. Winter said.

"You know the joke Helen. Winter froze her husband into Summer's bed. Did you think that people made the joke just because summer is warm compared to winter's snow and ice? Didn't you think that maybe the word summer was in some way descriptive of your husband's lover?"

As we moved along silently, I could hear them talking although I could no longer see them.

"How would it describe his lover Mildred?"

"Who was the town hippie, Helen?"

"You were Mildred. I don't like where you are going with this."

"People so rarely like the truth. Lies are fair more convenient. Far more useful. So Helen, what did hippies take part in?"

"You're going to have to tell me Mildred."

"The summer of love maybe?"

"And of course, therefore my husband might have nicknamed his lover 'Summer', because she- you- were the only hippie in town."

"I loved Gerard. Deeply. I didn't think much of marriage as a convention then, and I was so much less respectful of other people as a young woman. That said, he was miserable with you and he was happy with me. And then he was gone. What did you do to him Helen? Mmmm."

"You did everything! I did nothing! You stole him and I took him back!"

I heard a sharp heavy sound and heard Mildred Sanger gasp. Then I heard the sound of something hitting the ground and Mildred Sanger groaned in pain.

"I tracked him down and I took him home. He'll never leave me now."

"So," Mildred said slowly, "The ice boils at last Helen."

Once we were out of that room, nobody was watching and we crept along in the other direction. Before too long we were out of the building and running through the parking lot towards the shelter of the alleyways and their shadows.

“I hope Mildred is okay.” Raven said.

“They're going to put her under house arrest like they did your parents. They might even kill her, like they did Bart. She's out for the count. This was her last move on our behalf.” Owl said.

“I hope my parents are okay too.” Raven said quietly.

“We all do,” Viper said, “I think Owl just means that we count count on them for support. We're on our own now. He's just a dork about how he says it.”

Owl didn't look up as he spoke, “I need some supplies from my house."

"Nothing is going to be there. They've cleaned out all the houses after they send us to the relocation center."

"They did, but they didn't look really hard. I think they felt guilty about one of Them shooting my mom. And I know Mr. Wolf kind of feels some kind of loyalty or gratitude or something to my dad for that deer he brought over way back when. So there's a bunch of hidden things in my house that I want to grab."

We headed to Owl's house. The first thing I noticed when we arrived was that the windows were boarded up and so was the front door. The old pickup truck was missing from the drive way. I guess that They had decided they needed another truck.

"They took all the stuff that Mom and I hadn't hidden, and pretty much all the big hidden stuff as well. So there won't be much left, but we can use what is left.

As we walked up, Owl reflexively checked the birdhouse. And as he did, a note fell out, and landed in the snow. Owl stared at it, as though it were an unexploded grenade.

We all looked at the paper, and finally Raven snatched it up. "It's going to get damp in the snow." She admonished.

Raven handed Owl the note, and Owl stared at it for a long time before opening it.

"Well what does it say?" Viper asked.

"It's from the day she was shot." Owl said, trembling, "It looks like she wrote it right before she went out."

"Well? What does it say?"

"Hey kid, things are getting crazy and we need to make sure certain people understand that they aren't kings and queens to rule over the rest of us." Owl stumbled a little here.

"Doesn't that sound like Mildred?" Viepr asked.

Owl gathered himself and continued, "I don't want you to be scared. Remember that I love you, always. Remember that I'm proud of you."

Owl's voice drained away as he tried to keep reading, and Viper leaned in and put her arm around him.

"I'll see you in time for dinner. Love Mom." He finished haltingly.

The woods were really eerie as we walked through them. Owl was in the lead and the big difference was how quiet things were. We'd never had problems seeing animals in the woods before this, even in the winter. BUt there was nothing. The woods were silent as a graveyard.

We wandered for several hours, finally hitting a fence that marked one of the cattle fields for a farm on Sumter's Ridge. Owl climbed over it, and the rest of us followed. I think Owl was planning to kill a cow for meat. Wolf went over last and got caught on the barbed wire. He wrenched himself free and the old wooden posts of the fence shook with the force of it,  The post knocked against a red cedar tree next to is and a huge dump of snow landed on Wolf. He laughed and shook himself clean, brushing off what stuck.

As we entered the field, we discovered that we weren't the first people to think that. The field was almost empty. Most of the snow had been stamped down to brown mush. Around the field were sporadic red spattered stains on the earth. Big red patches amidst the white and brown. And in one corner, was a cow carcass. The cow had been partially skinned and dressed, but not completely. Animals had got to carcass now, and had eaten the meat off the bones and the organs out of the exposed torso of the animal.

"Why didn't whoever killed it, finish skinning it and cutting it up?" Wolf asked, confusion  apparent in his voice.

We moved closer, but everyone was on edge, so we moved slowly. As we got close enough to see around the carcass we saw the body of a man lifeless in a bank of crimson snow, with a pick axe rammed through his midsection. He was dressed in red flannel, which helped hide the gore, but it wasn't pretty to look at either way. The animals had been eating his corpse as well. There wasn't much in the way of skin or meat on the body and more than one creature had made an attempt at tearing open the heavy corduroy pants the corpse was wearing to get at the meat on the legs. The corpse looked as those it had been nibbled apart by thousands of sets of tiny jaws with tiny teeth. Kind of how I imagined that piranhas would eat.

I turned away. Wolf put a hand on my shoulder, "Bud, don't look away. Not looking is what got us all into this mess."

"there's not much left to hunt, I guess." Raven said, "It makes sense. If I was an animal, I'd stay away from here too."

"Maybe they've mostly just over hunted this area. Maybe there isn't anything left to stay away."

"That's not good for anyone if it's true."

"When has anything that we've learned in the last few months been good for anyone?"

We stalked around the woods for several hours, but didn't see anything larger than a chickadee. Owl was looking more and more defeated the longer we hunted and saw nothing. When we finally gave up and headed for town, Owl looked like a helium balloon a week after the party- crumbled and deflated.

As we swung around towards our hide out, we got close to the town dump. As we passed by the dump, Raven noticed a stray dog- some sort of poodle breed- nosing around in the piles of garage for food. We stopped for a moment to watch. The dog was thin, not starving, but hanging on.

"Should we help it?" Raven asked cautiously.

"I don't know if we can. I think it's doing better than we are." Owl said.

We watched the poodle for several minutes as it scrounged litte bits and peices of things it was willing to eat out of the piles of garbage and wolfed them down hungrilly. Then we heard the sound of something big moving through the garbage, the weird sound of styrofoam on aluminum as large legs pushed through piles of waste. A skinny faced woman in a heavy ill fitting man's winter coat pushed over the pile of garbage and looked around. I recognised her as coming from Sumter's ridge, but didn't know her name. She spotted the poodle, and called to it. The dog looked up warilly and cautiously wagged its tail. The woman reached into her coat and pulled out a small revolver pistol. She brought the gun up, held it with both hands and fired, and then fired again.

Raven gasped and covered her mouth.

Both shots hit the poodle in the face and the dog twisted horribly before falling to the ground in a heap. The woman waded through the garbage to the dog. She pulled out a skinning knife and began to dress and clean the dog right where it fell.

I could see Raven was crying.

"Let's go," Wolf said sourly, "It's kind of obvious that nobody is doing better than anybody else right now."

Once we were well away from the dump, Raven spoke.

"I can't do this on my own. Even with you guys, you're great, but we need sombody else to help or we're going to end up like that poor poodle, or that poor cow, or that guy with the pick axe in his tummy. We need somebody. We lost Mildred. Who else can we turn to?"

I noticed that Wolf was shivering. I looked a little closer, he was breathing really quickly too. He looked really pale too, now that I was looking him carefully.

"Wolf are you okay?" I asked.

"I don't know. Are you okay? Wait. If I don't no, then does that mean yes?" Wolf shook his head.

Owl looked over at Wolf, "You sound drunk." he said slowly.

"I don't, dad would murder me more than usual. I'm just tired. Maybe a little spaced out." He shook his head again, as though trying to clear it.

Owl looked closer, and then he turned to Raven and Viper, "You guys have first-aid training. Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

Raven nodded.

Viper added, "Hypothermia, your mom called it with him not wearing a coat."

"It looks pretty mild, even though he's loopy. Everything else says he's still in the first stages." Raven said

"That makes it sound like I'm losing a video game." Wolf said.

"Since its mild, we should just use his own body heat." Raven said.

"So let's get him out of his wet shirt, and get him into something warm and dry." Viper said.

"Can we get him to the cabin?" Raven asked.

"We're closer to town, let's find an empty home and raid it for clothes." Owl suggested.

"Now we're stealing." Viper said flatly.

"This is Wolf. Yes, we're stealing. friends trump stuff." I said.

We ended up using Mrs. Giller's house. She had left a window open on the second floor, propped open with a copy of 'The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire'. I boosted Owl up to her balconey and from there he squirmed in through the window. From there he was able to unlock the back door and let us in.

Wolf was a little spacey, but he wasn't delirious or antyhing. His shirt was the only thing that was wet, probably from the snow that fell on him earlier. We dug out a t-shirt that wasn't pink for him to wear, which took a while. In the end Wolf had to settle for a powder blue shirt with a pile of cartoon kittens on the front. From their we stuffed him in a knitted sweater with a floral design that was mostly brown. And we followed that up by wrapping him in Mrs. Giller's housecoat because none of her jackets would fit him.

The house was as cold as the outside, but there wasn't any wind and we were dry. So we rested here for a bit while Wolf warmed back up. The whole thing had been a draining experience at the end of a draining ordeal and we were pretty much run dry.

"That was weird." Wolf said at last. "It felt like part of me was dying."

"Hey." I said, "That's kind of the point, isn't it? This is not about who we were. We aren't those people anymore, they died. The town we knew is gone- it died, our parents are strangers to us. We aren't who we were.  We're something new."

“We don't know enough yet. Owl, you know a lot about this stuff, but what do we do when everything's broken?”

“I don’t know.”

"Of course we don't. Batman trained his whole life to be Batman. We're a little behind in our homework here." Wolf said.

“We haven't become adults yet. We aren't warriors. We need adults to help us, to teach us. We need somebody that we can trust.”

“we don’t need adults. We need elders.”

“I don’t trust anybody trying to do the same old thing anymore.” Viper said quietly.

“We don't have elders anymore, do we?”

“We have Mildred.”

“She’s gone.”

"Gone Obi-won Kenobi style. And you know, what I think. I think that if Mildred Sanger is going to go all Obi-Won Kenobi, then we kind of owe it to her to go all Rebel Alliance on Them." I added.

“Okay, but how do we do that? We don’t exactly have much to work with here. We can’t even get by on our own.”

"You need to be like Batman here, not Superman. You don't have the super powers to be the good guy. Only people way stronger than the villains can afford to play fair when the bad guys don't." Wolf said to Owl.

“Maybe we can find somebody on our side. Most people are trying to get along as best they can. But I bet a lot of people disagree with what’s happening. Professor Tuttle tried to warn us about all of this stuff in his lessons. Maybe he can help us. Be our Yoda, now that Mildred is gone.”

“It’s worth a try. I don’t know who else to turn to at this point.”

Viper shook her head, “I don’t think we should turn to anybody. That was whole point. Adults are useless.”

“Yeah, but so are we until we can manage on our own.”

“Okay, fine. But I have a bad feeling about this. And so if we're going to see an adult, we should hide our equipment first."

"There's a lack of trust."

"I don't lack trust, I just trust him to act like all the other adults we've seen."

We trudged through slush and gravel towards Professor Tuttle's house. The Professor lived in a big old house that had belonged to the Professor's father. Professor Tuttle had inherited it a few years back when his father passed away after struggling with throat cancer for years. Before that, Professor Tuttle lived in basement suite of the house and paid his father rent. Now the whole house was the Professor's.

We approached cautiously and tried to ring the doorbell. A lot of places had no electricity these days. But the bell rang, clearly Professor Tuttle's power was till on.

Professor Tuttle answered the door, and looked at us in confusion for a moment before regaining his composure.

"I'm sorry. I didnt't expect to see any of my students on their own recognizance these days. How can I help you?"

"We need advice." Raven said.

"We need guidance." Owl added.

"We need a clue." Wolf finished.

"I suspect you also need a decent meal. Come in, I'll get you something and we can eat while you explain what you need from me."

He ushered us in. I noticed how warm Tuttle's house was compared to the relocation center. He sat us down in his living room, in chairs that were really old grandfather type chairs, and went into the other room. We waited nervously while he clattered around in the other room. He seemed to take a long time, but it was hard to tell. the professor's comment about food had reminded me how hungry I was. And hearing him rattle around making food was making my stomache ache with hunger.

He finally came back with bowls of chicken vegetable soup. It was clearly instant soup from a can, but it smelled amazing, and all of us devoured it.

Professor Tuttle waited while we ate, with a sad patient smile on his face. When we finished, he cleared away the bowls and sat back down.

"All right. Now, since you aren't in the relocation center, and since I know that you were assigned to the center; I assume that you are AWOL and attempting to manage on your own. Is this correct?"

Owl nodded.

"Everything's broken and we need another way. We were hoping you could help."

Professor Tuttle furrowed his brow.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"All your spider web lines have broken down. Haven't they? The crisis that Mr. Wolf was warning us about has broken everything, because people panicked and did the wrong things and the wrong times. Right?" I said.

After a moment's pause, he nodded.

Viper continued, "And without your spiderwebs connecting everyone who makes stuff with the people who buy it and the people get the material used to make stuff, everything breaks down. No more life the way we know it. No more white picket fences and two car garages."

The Professor was silent, but nodded again.

"My dad and Mrs. Winter have stockpiled a bunch of food and supplies and stuff, but they didn't get enough before things fell apart, and they're running out early I think." Wolf said.

The Professor was still silent.

Raven continued, "And people don't know how to live together without that, so everyone is fighting, and trying to control things and nobody seems to know what to do. And we don't see how any of this is going to work, or how it will do anything except let everyone die really slowly."

"And?" Professor Tuttle quietly.

"And Mrs. Winter seems to be planning to use Mr. Wolf's army to make sure that the people who starve first are the ones that she doesn't like. And I guess she wants to build her own little country to rule with the people who are left over. Only I'm not sure that she can pull it off." Viper said.

"And so we need another way. We've tried doing this on our own, but we don't know enough yet. The animals are all gone or been hunted by other people," I added, "So we need advice on how to get through, because we aren't sure what to do. All of options seem like bad ones."

Professor Tuttle was quiet for a long time, and finally, when he spoke, he asked, "How do you know that the method being used by your parents and teachers and the other adults won't work?"

"Because my mother is dead. Raven's parents are locked up. Rabbit's mom feels blackmailed into what she's doing. Everyone on the Town Council who disagreed was either locked up, or disappeared in an avalanche." Owl said.

"This is like something out a 'The Empire Strikes back'," I said.
Professor Tuttle nodded.

"And where's the value in looking for another way? So what, in other words?"

Viper took a deep breath.

"The old way isn't working. So we need a new way."

"You are, of course, correct." Professor Tuttle said, "What you are missing, and it's only one thing- so don't take it too hard- is that this is the new way. It isn't pleasant, of course, but it is a reality."

"So you think we should just go back to the relocation center then?" Raven's voice had raised a little.

There was a heavy knock at the door. And then a voice said, "Council Authority, we're coming in. Do not attempt to run."

Professor Tuttle nodded again.

"Yes, that's exactly what I think."

"You sold us out." Viper said in disbelief.

Heavy men in ballistic armor and face plates marched into the room.

"Well done sir, excellent job keeping them here until we could arrive. We'll take them back to the center now. They shouldn't be any trouble in the future."

"Professor, what's the point in teaching us to think, to set our minds free, if you're going to help put the rest of us in cages?" Viper said, her voice cracking in outrage.

"The Castle walls do not hold, if the stones are removed from their places." Professor Tuttle said, but he wouldn't look at us when he spoke.

"Hey Professor. How do you know that they won't lock you up once you aren't useful to them anymore? It's not like Mr. Wolf trusts people who think too much."

They marched us back to the Community Center, where Mrs. Winter stood waiting for us. Mrs. Winter looked at us three, mostly at Owl, who appeared to be trying to staring her down.

“What you are doing is criminal. If we are going to preserve human life, we must maintain structure and order.”

Owl shook her head, “Structure and order are code words for dying slowly. I do okay in math and I can see that there are only so many containers of rice in the warehouse. And I can see that no more food is coming in. And I can see that every day, the people that stay here get less and less to eat. Your structure and your order are just there so we can can starve all neat and tidy. Screw you and your goon brigade Mrs. Winter. Adults are worthless if this is the best they can come up with, I'd rather go wild than die tame.”

Mrs. Winter shook her head and one of Them reached out a long arm to grasp Owl by his collar, “Order will be maintained whether you like it or not. Disciplinary action will be a reduction of rations to one third general levels for a period of three weeks.”

Mrs. Winter paused and then continued.

"I know you snuck out during the disturbance created by the late Mildred Sanger. I suspect that may have even been planned to do so. As a result, I think it's only just that you have a look at the human cost of the disturbance that you hid behind."

Mrs. Winter had four of Them lead us into a large unheated annex build behind the ice rink. The inside was unheated, and bitter cold, and lined up on mismatched tables that looked stolen from people's living rooms were about twenty corpses. Raven coughed and then doubled over and retched. We helped her up. They seemed oblivious to Raven's pain, they just waited until she straightened and then ushered us through the room to a table at the back. We passed the corpses of several people I recognized, including Viper's grandmother. Viper saw it and cried out. She buried herself in Owl's chest and began crying. Owl held her and again They waited without a word. When Viper managed to pull herself together, They pushed us forward again. On the table in the back of the room was Mildred Sanger's Corpse.

In September, I had never seen a dead body, and now I had seen dozens. The first was Owl's Mom and I didn't like how close together these two occurrences sat in the story of my life so far. I had the sudden sense that I would be getting far more practice staring at dead bodies than I ever expected to get.

The first thing I noticed is that everything became hyper real and unreal at the same time. I was staring at Mildred's face and it stood out in microscopic detail while everything around me warped and defocused.

Mildred's eyes were closed. I had, for some reason, expected them to be open. I think I had seen a lot of movies where the hero had to close the victim's eyelids. I noticed that her grey hair was wet, as though it had been washed, and was laid strangely- as though the hair were being positioned to hide something. The strangest thing was her skin color. Her skin was grey, she looked like a black and white photo that somebody had been trying to colorize, but hadn't quite finished. The color was devastating. The grey said, more than anything else- this is not a person anymore. The color told me that this is a body, decaying on a table. And from the color of her skin alone I knew, there was nothing left of the person I had known and depended upon for answers.

Mildred wasn't just dead. She was gone.

We marched like zombies back to the main seating area, and sat down.

"I'm used up." Owl said. Viper nodded, and I found myself nodding along with them.

"We tried everything. And people have died for us, and none of it helped. And none of it mattered. We can't recognise the town now. Would anyone call this place Safehope anymore. What's left?"

Viper said, "Everyone who ever helped us is either missing, broken, or dead- or has already betrayed us. We're alone. We're kids. We've got nothing left to try."

I added, "I don't know who my mom is anymore. We don't know where Raven's parents are. Viper's parents are even weirder than they were, and we can't trust them. Owl's dad is still broken, and his Mom...And Wolf's dad, well what do we do when the world is like this?"

We were silent for a minute or so, soaking in our grief and misery as though it were a swimming pool. And then Raven stood up.

"I'm used up too." She said, "I don't know what's happened to my mom and my dad. They were good people and they were trying to save us from the adults, and they were even trying to save the adults. But they lost. And Mildred was trying to save us too. And she's, she's gone. She's dead. And we still ended up back here. And Owl's mom is dead, trying to get food for us kids. And so I don't care if I think I'm used up. Mildred got used up. Owl's mom got used up. That's what used up really is. We only think we're used up."

"This is pretty harsh buds." Wolf said from sidelines.

"It's only harsh if we stop." Raven said, her voice actually sounded angry- which was new for Raven, "Right now I don't know who else is fighting their fight. My parents, Owl's mom, Mildred, they fought for us and our future, and if we stop fighting then everything they did was pointless. I don't care if we think we're used up, we owe it to them to try as hard as they did. I'm not done until I'm talking to Mildred Sanger again. I'm not done until they stop me."

“How many people have died because of us? Russell? My mom? Mildred? I don’t feel like I’m worth that many people dying?”

“No,” Raven said firmly, standing up as she continued to speak, “This does not end here. We have lost too much, had too many sacrifices and too much pain to stop here. Every person who’s died, whether for you or me or us or just for the idea that people could still be good to each other, is our responsibility.”

“What are you talking about? That’s not fair?”

“I never said it was fair. But if we stop, if we decide that this is all too much, then Mildred died for no reason. Then Frisk died protecting nobody. Then your Mom died fighting for nobody. Then we lost Russell and his family for no reason. The Bart got beaten up, and my parents disappeared all for no reason.”

“Oh come on!” Owl said.

“No! You will listen right now! Because, I! Am! talking!” Raven, and Owl’s eye’s widened and he sat down, “I don’t know where my parents are. And the reason I don’t know is because they tried to make this right. I don’t know if they are alive or dead, if they are okay or starving worse than the people here!”

“But that’s my point it's too much.” Owl said weakly.

“Then if it's too much, we can fail. We can die or get dragged away like Bart and my parents. But we do not quit. That’s what we owe everyone else who has either died or been punished up till now. We don’t stop, we don’t fall apart. We stand together and if we fall- then we fall fighting. I will not give up, when my parents never did. I will not give up after what Mildred did for us.”

“But it didn’t work. We failed.”

“We lost a battle. One battle. We are not done until we can’t get back up. And I am not going to let any member of the only family I have left decide not to get back up and fight when I know they could. So I don’t care how much it hurts. You still have your dad, I may not have either- so you will drag your butt up and stand with us and get back in the fight. You know how to do the stuff we need. More than anyone else amongst us, you know what we need- so get up and man up and let’s get going.”

“Well, hell.” Wolf said, “After that, I’m not backing out. Let’s go die like heroes.”

“I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere. I watched my mom compromise until there wasn’t anything left of what she wasn’t trying to protect. So yeah, to the death if we have to.”

"You can't see the whole until you break it up, and then its gone. You only know it when you've lost it."

Owl was standing in the darkest part of the room and the shadows seemed to swallow him whole and make him a part of them.

"The master loves the good slave. But what makes us good? The master wants us to obey and behave, and the master says that this is good. Well, I aim to misbehave. Because a good slave is a poor human being."

"You aren't making a lot of sense Owl."

"Mrs. Sanger died standing up and being free. My mom died trying to stay free. But more than that, I think they both died trying to keep us kids free. And I think that we owe them our best efforts on subject. I'm tired of being a little boy and I'm tired of being helpless. The only people that helps is the people who want to be in charge. I think it's time to be free."

Sparrow had walked up beside us. He tapped Owl on the shoulder, "So, what are you in for?"

"Thinking like a hero." Owl answered.

"Oo, good answer."

“No, not good enough!” Hawk said, striding towards Owl.

“You know,” Owl said, “I'm starting to associate your voice with immanent doom.”

“You'd better! Our town is dead, your mother is dead and your dog is dead. And we're all probably next. And there is no hope and nothing left to fight for or believe in!" Hawk had grabbed Owl by his shirt and was shaking him.

I could see Wolf tense up- his hands closing into fists- about to intervene, when a low growl intervened first.

Hawk froze mid shake. Owl's mouth dropped open in startled recognition and he looked around wildly.

Finally his gaze settled on a folding table with a plastic table cloth. Crouched ono his belly with his fangs barred, Frisk was glaring out from under the table at Hawk.

There was a moment like a note held in the middle of a song, where time seemed to stop. Owl eye's shone like he was about to cry, although he didn't. I couldn't tell if anyone was speaking, but everything seemed really quiet. Time hung there, floating slowly around Owl. And then he grabbed Hawk's hands, pulled free of her grip and ran over to the table and knelt in front of his dog.

The fangs vanished and Frisk's tongue hung out in joy, and his butt wiggled in excitement and Owl scratched behind the terrier's ears. Frisk vibrated with obvious joy at Owl's presence and squirmed and wiggled in delight as Owl rubbed his belly and scratched his ears and back. But to Frisk's credit, he didn't sit up or leave the safety of the table and its concealing table cloth.

Nobody said anything. For all I knew, Frisk was the only non-guard dog left alive in town. That he was still alive, somehow alive, seemed like a miracle, a gift from a universe that I would have previously called mean and nasty. Nobody spoke. Nobody wanted to jinx things, nobody wanted to get the miracle dog caught and killed.

In the midst of so much awful stuff, we had found a delicate fragile miracle, and we had to protect it.

Owl stood up.

"My mother is dead. My teacher is dead. My town may even be dead. But my dog is alive. And I am alive and you are alive and we are all alive. My mother died fighting. My teacher died fighting. If I'm going to die, I want to die fighting. If I'm going to live, I want to live the same way.”

Nobody spoke. Frisk's survival seemed to have granted Owl the right to speak uninterrupted.

“You can do what you like. I've got a fight to pick."