They kept watching and finally Del made his way up front, greeting the man on the stage before moving to the side so the man could stand center and address the people.
"Good evening, everyone. I'm very sorry to crash your little dance party here, but it has come to my attention that this place needed a visit. For those of you who don't know me, I'm General Calloway. I'm the leader of the New American Army, or NAA for short, and this town is part of the Calloway Republic."
All of a sudden Dom felt queasy. They were stuck in the middle of a huge crowd, surrounded by militia members with automatic rifles, and boxed in. Matthew held Sarah in front of him as the General talked, since she seemed to be afraid of his booming voice. Cora turned around and made eye contact with Dom, and the look of fear in her eyes killed him inside.
"What does that mean?" someone from the crowd yelled.
"That means this town, everything in it and the land it is on, is owned by me now. The US Government has fallen, and in the wake of an every-man-for-himself race for power, I had the resources to stand out."
"Why are you here now and how come we haven't heard of you?" someone else asked.
"Well that's a very interesting question, and it's actually the reason why I'm here. You see Del, your lovely Mayor, has been working with me since day one to get this place off the ground. This land was once owned by the Honovi and he wanted to see it back to health." Calloway started pacing back and forth across his platform as he spoke. "I heard his story on the radio as did many others, and when he started getting things together I sent someone here to keep an eye on things for me."
At that moment Shawn was brought out to the stage, led by two guards on either side of him. The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place the picture of what happened came more and more into focus by the second. Dom stepped forward and pulled Tori and Diana behind him, and Matthew and John took note, doing the same thing. The three of them stood in front and formed a barrier in front of the girls, human meat shields in case things started to get ugly. And with Shawn, a militia General and Del in the picture, it probably would.
"You son of a bitch!" someone yelled from the crowd, a woman towards the front. "I knew there was something wrong with you!"
Dom realized it was Connie that was yelling and for some reason he felt proud; the fact the someone, a regular citizen, was brave enough to yell at these people in front of everyone, was something that made him feel good about being human again.
"Now now, I won't tolerate behavior like that in my Republic. There are children present at this event. If you can't control yourself miss I will have you removed."
Connie looked livid but kept her mouth shut, most likely out of curiosity of what the man had to say more than anything else.
"OK then. I'm here because, as I mentioned before, this land belongs to me. Del used my resources to get this town started, with my blessing. I gave him food and water. I supply this town with power from my plant that's being maintained by my men. By all rights, this town is mine. Yet still, even with all of my generosity, Del doesn't think it important to mention me to you? His own people? I find that a little insulting."
The guards around the edges of the crowd stopped moving and stood at attention, holding their rifles in a poised-to-strike position. Dom tapped Matthew and John and nodded his head towards them, making sure they were aware of what was happening.
"General I was going to te-"
"Oh shut up Del, you weren't going to tell them anything. You were just going to hope that we could continue with our little secret meetings and that you would just get all the glory for the safe haven that is 'Wanagi' didn't you?"
"Is this guy telling the truth, Del?" The crowd was starting to get involved in the conversation, asking questions to figure out what was going on.
"Well you see I did use his resources to get this place going but I've been working to build it up from the beginning. He didn't do any of the legwork, he just offered supplies. And I've been-"
"You've been what, Del?" John yelled from his spot. "Sitting in your office while the people of this town work their fingers to the bone for scraps? Giving our food to the militia yet telling the citizens of the town that we're flush?"
A chorus of "what?"s and "are you serious?"s rang throughout the crowd. People were starting to angry and the buzz could be felt easily.
"I've been providing them with kickbacks from our stocks, yes, but I did it because General Calloway said he would provide security for us against other outside forces."
"Now hold on Del. Yes, I did say that, but I didn't tell you to clean out your inventory, did I?"
Del was getting visibly flustered and started stammering as he talked. "Now you're twisting things up here Calloway, you know what we discussed-"
"Are you calling me a liar?" General Calloway's question was asked in such a way that Del's face turned pale and he backed up a couple steps.
"What about the weed Del? Is that for them too?" John asked.
"What weed?" asked General Calloway. "You've been growing marijuana on my land without my knowledge or permission?"
Del looked like he was going to throw up if he opened his mouth but he answered anyway. "I was going to get some of my runners to distribute it in some of the outlying areas in trade for food for the people here since most of our stocks were going to you and your men."
The crowd was getting uneasy. No one knew who to believe or what was true and what was partially true but twisted. They couldn't make up their minds on whether Del was on their side or not and the stress of the situation was starting to show. Some of the people in the crowd were getting antsy, starting to move towards the back and the guards up front were getting itchy in the trigger finger.
"Shawn," said the General, "if these people were growing marijuana how come I didn't know about it? Did you forget why you're here?"
"No I didn't but I-"
"He was smoking it himself and selling it to people around here" said Marie, startling everyone around her. Dom turned his head and Marie pushed past him, eyes on the General. "Him and his little gang have been terrorizing the people of this town ever since they got here."
The General's face was calm and collected, but there was something about his posture in which you could tell that he was beyond angry. He was getting downright murderous every time someone new spoke and revealed something about this place that he didn't know. The soldiers swept the crowd over and over, looking for the first sign of a situation breaking out, but the crowd was still miraculously holding together.
"Is this true, Shawn?"
"Sir I can explain-"
The General pulled his gun and shot Shawn in the head right in front of the whole crowd. The gunshot echoed off the buildings and rang in everyone's ears, and the split second between when Shawn's body fell to the ground and the crowd starting to panic seemed like an eternity. Everyone started splitting in different directions, screaming and pushing and running to get out of the area as fast as they could. The General made a waving motion over his head with his right hand, and that's when the bullets started flying.
Screams continued to rip through the air as people moved with abandon, tripping over each other and pushing and shoving to get where they wanted to be. Men pushing women, women pushing children. The horror of it all was it seemed to move in slow motion for Tori. She was being pulled backwards at one point when she saw a young boy, probably nine or ten years old, get trampled under feet by at least a dozen people. She pulled towards him to try to help but whoever had her was stronger and she couldn't get free. Tears poured down her cheeks as the last image of the boy crying and getting kicked burned into her eyes and killed a part of her soul. All of the fear and anger was pressing really hard on her chest and stomach and it was all she could do just to keep moving forward.
The soldiers at the edges pushed people back to try to keep them contained in the center circle. Dom stopped the group and looked around for a way out, and John ended up point towards the direction they came in from. People had started to break free in that zone and soldiers from where they were started to move that way to help contain, leaving a small window for the group to get out. As they moved in that direction they saw some of the civilians shooting back at the soldiers. Apparently, some people had scavenged some weapons during their time in town and weren't afraid to fight back.
The General stepped off of the platform and over Shawn's body as he casually walked to the right side of the crowd. His soldiers kept him well enough soldiered that he didn't even feel the need to pull out his sidearm as he walked. Hundreds of people were screaming and getting killed in front of him by dozens of people with automatic rifles and this man looked like he was taking a walk in the park. Dom felt himself getting angry at the General's lack of empathy, but there was little he could do in such a dangerous moment.
The group made their way to the edge of the crowd but what they found shook them all to the core. At least two dozen bodies lay piled up against the Humvees blocking the road out. It was like people figured if they swarmed hard enough that they would eventually get to the soldiers, but thirteen rounds per second, from eight soldiers sweeping side to side, was enough to take down all of them and then some. Diana's hands covered her mouth and Tori's covered her stomach. The pain from everyone around her was crashing so hard on top of her that she thought she wouldn't be able to make it out alive. Dom laid a reassuring hand on her back and Diana grabbed her hand and held it tight. They ducked away from the soldiers up against the wall to huddle and try to make a plan.
"We gotta find a way out of here" said John, looking over his shoulders to keep an eye out.
"We need to stay away from the people that are shooting back" said Matthew. "They're the ones that are going to get us killed. If we just sit tight and wait this out I don't think they'll kill us."
"What makes you say that?" asked Marie.
"We have a functioning town here. If he kills all of us he loses workers that produce things for him, like all of our food that he has now."
"If this guy is as powerful as he says he is then I'm sure this town doesn't mean much to him" said John.
As they were talking more bullets started flying, coming as close as five feet from them. A spray ripped through the bricks of the building they were standing against and any plan they had in the works was thrown out the window. A scream sounded from near them and Diana was the first to see a soldier that took a bullet to the neck. Blood sprayed out of the side like a showerhead and the man fell off the car, but his killer was dead as well before his body even hit the ground. The group inched up closer to the wall as people were still dropping left and right until a dramatic shift to the left occurred.
Some of the citizens had broken through the left flank and were pouring out into the street towards City Hall. Dom crouched and ran along the building to the other side to see what the situation looked like. Three soldiers lay dead in the middle of the intersection about ten feet from where he stood, and the other soldiers from his flank were engaging combatant civilians on the other side. Dom waved the group on and they tried to sneak around the corner unnoticed, but the wave of people that were on the right had seen the same opening and them and thundered towards it in numbers.
The soldiers switched sides and began firing into the crowd storming them. A women tried climbing over the larger man in front of her and ended up taking a bullet to the shoulder, and Marie was standing so close that the blood spattered onto her face. She spit out the bit that had gotten into her mouth and ducked lower, hoping they might be able to squeeze around the side of the main group. They nudged along the wall until the got the corner, and Dom put up his fist to stop their progress. He tried to assess the position of the soldiers to how many people were there and how far it was to cross the street, and in the middle of his calculations more gunshots ripped through the crowd right near them. Sarah screamed and ran forward into the street out of fear and Matthew jumped out to grab her, taking her by the waist and pulling her back towards the building. As he turned three bullets ripped through his back and he fell forward, pushing Sarah towards Dom so he could get her out of harm's way.
Marie tried to run out into the street but Cora and Diana both grabbed her and held her back. She struggled against them as hard as she could, kicking and screaming as tears fell down her face and stained her shirt with little gray droplets. Diana wrapped Marie up in a bear hug and turned her away from the street so she couldn't see Matthew anymore and Cora grabbed Sarah, scooping her out of the way of the opening to the street. Dom knelt down and reached out to Matthew and Matthew reached back but they were too far apart. A soldier saw Dom sticking out from the corner of the building and lobbed more bullets in that direction so Dom hit the ground, lying on his stomach so the bullets would go overhead.
More people pushed into the barricade and after a bit of a fight they broke the rest of the way through. Dom still lay on his stomach, looking his younger brother in the eyes as the life drained out of them. As soon as he realized the soldiers were down he jumped up and ran the few steps out into the street, bending down to tend to his brother's wounds.
"Hey Matty, stay with me buddy. We're gonna get you out of here."
Matthew coughed and blood spurted out of his mouth, covering his white shirt even more than it already was. "I'm not goin' anywhere Dom, you know that as well as I do."
"Come on now don't talk like that. We're gonna get you somewhere safe and-"
"Dom listen to me" said Matthew, cutting into his brother's speech. "I'm dying, I can feel it." He coughed again and more blood came out.
Dom felt something wet and looked down to see the huge pool of blood underneath Matthew's body that had started edging around his hands and knees. He put his hands together like he was going to put pressure on the wounds to stop the bleeding but Matthew shook his head.
"It hurts too much."
"I have to do something Matty, I can't just sit here and watch you die."
"Then don't." Matthew's eyes faded and his blinking got slower. His eyes started to roll back in his head and Dom couldn't control his shaking. "Get out of here and keep fighting the good fight."
"Come on Matty, fight it. Please. I can't do this without you." Dom had tears for the first time in as long as he could remember.
"Take care of them, Dom. Look after Marie for me, make sure she stays safe." The last part of his sentence was cut off with a raspy cough and the words turned to mumbles, and then Matthew was gone.
Dom flashed back to his parents' funeral. He remembered walking outside and finding Matthew standing by himself in the grass next to the funeral home, tearing leaves up into small pieces and throwing them into the wind. He looked up when Dom came towards him and continued on with what he was doing. They stood outside like that for maybe a half hour, wordlessly enjoying the fresh air and the breeze. The inside of the funeral home was stuffy and full of people that were almost dying themselves to tell the boys how much their parents meant to them or stories about work's Christmas party a few years back where they got drunk and did Karaoke. Neither of them wanted to hear any of that stuff and they naturally ended up going to the same place. They had made a pact that day that no matter what happened they would stick together. They were all they had left in the world as far as family went and they would protect and provide for each other as long as they were able. Now it was just Dom, and the world felt like a much lonelier place.
A minute later he was rudely pulled back into the action as he remembered where he was and what was going on around him. He stood up and faced the group with tear-streaked cheeks and Marie crumpled to the ground at the sight of him. Dom walked straight over to her and picked her up, not rudely but gently, and tucked his finger under her chin so she would look at him.
"With his dying breath he told me to make sure you were safe, and I intend to do just that."
Marie hiccuped herself back into a semi-lucid state and nodded her head. Dom didn't want to leave Matthew's body in the street but he didn't have a choice at the moment. It was too dangerous to get around alone, much less with one hundred and forty pounds of dead weight. While he looked around for a direction for them to go in someone on the other side of the intersection had gotten their hands on a bottle of alcohol and made a Molotov cocktail. They lit it and threw it under one of the Humvees that blocked the exit on the other side, and almost immediately the Humvee exploded in a giant fireball, lifting several feet off the ground.
The power of the blast threw everything back against the wall and Cora hit her head trying to protect Sarah. She wasn't seriously injured but she was washy on her feet, something that Dom and the rest would have to be careful of if they needed to sprint. After the explosion all of the soldiers in the area were trained on the man who threw the cocktail so Dom finally made the call for them to run. He picked Cora up in his arms and Diana took Sarah's hand as they ran across the street towards City Hall. When they got to the other side Dom checked up by the DJ setup and saw what he imagined he would. Del, the General and everyone else were gone.
The next step was to find a place for them to rest and be safe. Tori looked down the stretch of the fence they were next to and realized there was a space that they could squeeze into and maybe check out some of the buildings on the other side of City Hall. She tapped Dom on the shoulder and pointed and he shook his head, setting Cora back onto the ground and helping her get her bearings before they took off. He made a last minute decision and ran forward to the spot where the soldiers were shooting from and grabbed all three of their guns before turning around and running back to the fence.
They scooted along the edge of the fence until they reached the end and Tori looked around as point, laying eyes on an old looking building with a sign in front of it she couldn't see. She trekked up to it and noticed the sign said 'Public Library' so she waved everyone else forward, looking around her as they made their way for the door. She ran up the stairs and tried the handle to find, with a deep breath of relaxation, that it was unlocked, then helped file everyone in before shutting the door and locking it from the inside.
It was dark so Tori tried the light switch, happy to find out that the power still worked. The downstairs area had a reading room with a few couches and a bunch of chairs so Cora took Sarah to a couch by the window and laid her down, covering her up with her sweater. Tori sat down on a couch not far from the one Sarah was on and Diana crashed next to her, leaning into her side with a sigh of exhaustion. Marie came in a little slower than the rest of them and took the end cap of the couch Tori and Diana were on, chewing on her thumbnail and not making eye contact. Dom laid the guns down on the table between them and took one of the chairs while Cora took the one next to it.
"I'm sorry, Dom" said Tori. She didn't say anything else because she knew with Dom that nothing else needed to be said.
"Thanks, Tor."
"What do we do now?" asked Cora. "We're a group of mentally and physically exhausted kids in the middle of a war zone with a child to look after and nowhere to go."
"First we sit tight here and wait it out a bit" said Dom. "I highly doubt Calloway wants anything to do with libraries at the moment so we'll be safe here. If a small squad does show up," he pointed to the table, "we have weapons."
Each person took the time to close their eyes and relax for a few minutes. It was terrible battle zone etiquette, but they had been through so much and they were so tired, that they couldn't help but get just a few minutes of rest. Only half the lights were on in the library and it was dark outside now, so the mood lighting was enough to put everyone to sleep, but the constant threat of death outside the door was enough to keep them from falling deep.
Diana buried her face into Tori's side, amazed to find that after all of that she stilled smelled like herself. That faint vanilla perfume and fresh fruit smell that she always had and drove Diana wild was still apparent but just barely. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes tight, remembering back to when she couldn't sleep during the days between when they'd met and when they went out for the first time. So many things had changed in such a short time it was important that they reflected on their memories to keep from losing who they were before their world ended.
Tori thought about her parents and all of her friends back home in L.A. She wondered if they all made it, and if some didn't, who was the most likely to survive. Of course, freak accidents were always a possibility so she couldn't be really sure, but she liked to think they all made it anyway. She thought of her sister and how she didn't care if Trina was mean to her or not, she just wanted to see her again and be able to give her a hug. There were so many things she liked about being on her own, and the one fear she had before leaving was that she wouldn't be surrounded by family anymore in case she needed them. But that day, she knew for sure that the people in that room with her were family for life.
Marie couldn't get her mind off of Matthew's body in the street. She had always kind of liked him, but she put up a front and had that sort of fake catty relationship with him as a way of keeping herself from pursuing him since she didn't want to get rejected by him. He was best friends with Tori and so was she, so by association they saw each other and hung out a lot, and a rejection would make things awkward. She thought of how she missed all that time that they could have spent together, and for him to be ripped from her arms so quickly and unnecessarily was something she felt she would never get over.
Cora was confused about a lot of things, but she wasn't confused about the people she was with. With her it was just like it was with Diana; she came in a little late to the party, but she fit right into the family no problem. The whole thing with Shawn kind of had her mind on edge, knowing that someone she was so close to at one point could do such awful things. Then seeing him killed like that in cold blood in front of a bunch of people? It wasn't right. Even though Shawn wasn't a good person he didn't deserve to die like that, and Cora felt for his loss even through her anger.
Dom was the same he had always been, except with a huge hole in his chest. From the beginning of their journey it was him and his brother against the world with the help of a ragtag team of commandos on the side. But now, his brother was gone, and he was all alone. His parents had gone and they survived that together, but now that his brother was gone, who was he supposed to turn to? He felt like turning to Marie was cruel since he reminded her of him and he didn't want to put too much strain on Tori, who looked like she was feeling worse for wear lately. So in the end he figured it would be the same as usual. He would bear the brunt of everything and keep it to himself like he always did, fighting the good fight from the front lines and taking chances no one else would without complaining or expecting anything in return.
"The America we knew is gone" said Dom, staring down at the guns on the table. He picked one up and popped the clip out to check the ammo, then slapped it back into place and cocked it. "But that doesn't mean we can't make a new one that our parents would be proud of."
"Where do we go?" asked Marie. "You heard Calloway. Everywhere around here is his."
Dom stood up and looked out the window as he spoke. "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" asked Tori.
"The only way we'll be safe again and be able to live a normal life is if we take back what's ours and set it up properly. And I'm willing to fight til the death in the name of my brother towards that end."
Tori nodded quietly. "I'm in."
"Me too" said Diana.
"Count me in" said Marie.
"I'm in too" said Cora, looking over at Sarah sleeping soundly on the couch.
Dom looked proudly on every face in the room. They truly were his family, not just words he spoke to them in times of need, and he meant it now more than ever. With Matthew gone they were going to need each other even more and he was glad he had a group of people he could trust his life with to take on the next part of the journey. It wouldn't be easy, and they might all meet an untimely end, but they wouldn't have it any other way.
