"They've been gone over fifteen minutes," Tracy reported anxously, as she checked the small silver watch she wore on her left wrist. "What if something happened to them?" she asked, still clutching the cell phone in her right hand. Ashley, a short distance away, gave her friend what appeared to be an attempt at a calming, reassuring look.
The four teens that stayed behind in the bus hadn't talked much in the ten or so minutes after Chad's walk down memory lane speech and tensions were begining to run high.
"They're fine," Chad said, trying to calm her down while thinking of his two good friends, wondering if they really were fine. He prayed they were, hoping that what he just said wasn't a lie.
There was another bit of silence before Chad added, "We'll give them five more minutes, if they don't call, we'll call them. Is everybody okay with that?"
The three girls nodded they're muted approval.
Chad sighed; he was getting a bit uncomfortable sitting on the bus floor, staying out of sight. He was looking around the bus at the three girls, then caught sight of Ali, who was trying to keep still but wasn't doing very well. She was quite apparently the fidgity type.
A question came to Chad's mind as he watched her. "Hey," he said. "What were you doing on the bus? You were here when we got here, right?" Chad addressed the small red haired girl.
Ali jumped a bit when she was called, but recovered fairly quickly.
"Oh, yeah..." she said softly. There was a pause and she continued a few moments later. "I'm on the soccer team."
"No shit, you're on varsity?" Chad grinned, glad for some conversation to fill the void. "Wasn't that the team this bus was supposed to trasnport?"
She nodded twice, once for each question, confirming both of them.
"Damn," Chad muttered. "You're on freakin varsity?" He knew he was using present tense, and he knew full well that there was no more girl's varsity soccer team., but somehow mentioning that fact didn't seem like the right thing to do.
"Yeah," Ali confirmed quietly. Ashley and Tracy remained silent and listened to the conversation. Anything to keep they're minds off of what was going on outside the bus was a blessing.
"Dude, you're like five foot nothing, and you're a Sophmore, I think. You must've had to work you ass off to get on varsity," Chad said with a smile.
"Four, eleven, actually," Ali corrected him in with a small voice as she stared at the floor. That was all she said.
"That's awesome," Chad replied, not knowing what else to saw to coax the red-head out of her not-speaking trance. He had heard a few times that just talking was the best fear repellent.
There was silence again. And in complete silence, the teens could hear the screams and gunshots off in the distance. No one in the then bus liked silence, for that very reason. Even whispered talking would blare out the noises of death from the outside world. Problem was, no one could think of anything to say.
But Chad wasn't going to shut up without a fight.
"So, Ali, What's your full name?"
"Alexandra," She muttered, not looking at him.
Chad nodded once. This was going to be a touch harder then he had hoped.
"Um...How to you spell that? Ali, I mean..." Man, that was weak. Chad suppressed a look of irritation at himself.
"A-L-I" She recited the letters mechanically, as though she had had to do so on numerous occasions. And to top it off, she still wasn't looking at him, not really regestering his presence. Ashley and Tracy just continued paying just a slight amount of attention to what was being said. Just enoug hbto concentrate on something other then the world outside.
"If it's spelled that way, isn't it pronouched like Ali, the boxer?" That was weak, too. Chad was mentally cursing himself out.
Ali looked up at him. Finally.
"No," she whispered. "It's spelled like that, but pronouced "Ally"."
Chad smiled a bit. Making progress. Now he just needed to get the other two girls' attention.
But he remembered what he said about five minutes ago.
Chad took a deep breath, "Hand me the phone, would you?" he asked, turning his head to stare at Tracy.
Tracy also jumped a bit at being addressed, but she also recovered pretty fast and turned her head to lock eyes with Chad. After several seconds of processing what was just said top her, the blond girl then reached her right arm out from her sitting position, cramed between the leg space of the front row of seats of the bus and she handed Chad her small phone.
Chad noted the phone was rather warm from the death grip she'd had on it for nearly twenty minutes.
He flipped the tiny phone open, and was just about to dial Nick's number, when the small device started to ring.
All four of the teens jumped a bit at the sudden sound of the phone.
"What do I do?" Chad gasped. He didn't own a cell phone, and wasn't all that adapt as using them.
"Hit the SEND button, the green one." Tracy exclaimed, almost jumping up in suprise, but maneging to keep her head down far enough to stay out of site from anything that could be looking in.
Chad did as he was told, and hit the button.
He raised the phone to his ear. "Hello?"
"Hey, man," The voice of Nick came through the phone as the three girls stared at Chad in complete silence waiting to find out what exactly was going on in Mike's house.
Chad breathed a sigh of relief at his freinds voice. "You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, we're both fine. None of them were in here. House is empty. You guys all okay?"
"Yeah, we're all good. You get the guns?"
"Naturally."
"I get the M1,"Chad grinned. He had grown fond of that rifle when he had used it on the range.
"Already figured that, man," Nick replied, knowing of Chad's preference for the WWII ventige weapon.
"Have you seen any of them at all? Anything?" Nick question his friend with a tone of urgency mixed with a hint of readiness.
"No, but get this: there's gunshots every once in a while. There's other people still out there. I mean, actual people."
Nick paused for a moment. "They're not our concern," he said quietly. "There's nothing we can do for them, just as there's nothing anyone can do for us. It's basically everyone for themselves."
Chad didn't respond to that disheartening but unfortunantly true remark. He turned the conversation back to the guns; they could be considered the biggest source of good cheer the group had recieved as of yet.
"What are you gonna use? What gun?" Chad questioned, giving himself some satisfaction at getting to use the old M1. He just loved that rifle.
Nick gave a laugh, the first Chad had heard since this whole thing had started. "Get this, man: There's a small armory here. Apparently Mike's dad was in the military. Some classified bullshit. He's got an assload of guns to prove it."
"Like what?" Chad asked, really interested now.
"Like this M4 carbine I'm holding."
"No fucking way!" Chad said, a bit louder then he wanted too. The three girls just stared anxiously, wanting to know what the hell the guys were talking about.
"Yes fucking way," Nick responded, giving a smile that Chad, of course, couldn't see. "Mike's got this big shotgun; a Remington, I think."
"Did Mike know about the guns?"
"Yeah," Nick replied. "He negleted to inform me. He was too preoccupied thinking about Molly. His words, not mine. Anyway, we're gonna need help moving everything, so I want everyone to come inside. And why we're all here, we'll rest, get something to eat and watch the news. It's still on. Just found that out. Then we need to go get Molly; I'm going to call her after we hang up. Make sure she's still okay. Mike's almost throwing a fit over here."
Chad closed his eyes for a moment at the news comment, thinking of the news channels and how they must be broadcasting everything. He then asked, "Is it bad?"
Nick didn't respond for a moment and the response he gave wasn't an answer.
"We have a plan for coming to get you all, kay?" he said in his business-like manner. "And yes, the house is secure. We just checked it again. Nothing here but us," Nick said calmly.
"Alright... What happened to the old plan?" he asked sarcastically.
"Old plan got fucked," Nick replied dryly.
"Okay," Chad started hoping his friend knew what he was doin. "What's the new plan?"
He listened quietly and intently as his best friend layed the plan out.