Mass Hysteria

5

Back in the cabin that the boys were in:
Billie Joe and Mike Dirnt busted out in laughter. "Works like a charm."

"Every time!" They both do their handshake they made up when they were younger and stopped, they both looked at each other and how much one another had changed.

Billie Joe became a drunk soon after he had been forced to leave his family and newborn daughter- St. Jimmy had threatened them all.

But he wasn't drunk now. Oh no, his mind floated back to that night even without beer. He never could seem to escape it..

"I only want you." Jimmy said, he walked around the room that Billie shared with his wife, Cynthia. Cynthia was asleep but Billie was awake, he sat upright in their bed. Billie looked at Jimmy with such hate, it could have obliterated Jimmy on the spot.

Jimmy walked around, ignoring Billies looks that were clearly meant for him. Then, he spied the baby's crib.

"What's this! Oh, Billie you didn't tell me you had a kid!" Jimmy humbly laughs. He goes into the cradle and picks the kid up- its a girl.

Her eyes hadn't opened yet but he could tell it was asleep. He takes the baby in his arms and starts rocking it.

"Hm.." He smiles down at her. "I'll call you Whatsername."

Billie Joe gets his gun from his bedside table drawer and jumps out of bed, aiming the gun at Jimmy.

Jimmy cocks his head to look at Billie doubtfully. "You can't hit me. You can't even shoot me."

Billie looked sure of himself, "Oh really?" He clicked the bullet into the guns chamber. "Put her down now."

"You wouldn't shoot your kid, would you?" He asks, putting the baby up in front of himself in self defense.

"Not her but you, most definitely." He assures jimmy.

"Good." Jimmy drops the baby into her crib and raises his gun he had hidden in his leather jackets inner pocket, shooting Cynthia.

The sound of the shot echoed in Billies ears.

"No!" Billie screams, but it's already too late.

His wife, is now shot in bed. Her blood soaks the mattress.

Jimmy runs from the room with a sick smile on his face. He joins his fellow men that he scrapped together in the living room, they kick and throw various items in the house before they leave in junk car they had stolen.

Billie now goes to his wife's bedside. She lay there, dying. Her life slowly slipping away from herself.

"Keep our baby safe, Bills." She whispered. In the darkened room, you could just barely see her face. It was a pained expression clearly but she was trying to be strong.

Billie stared at his wife. He had tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

Minutes later, He was still looking at his wife, he knew she had passed. He felt numb.

He blindly reached form the bedside table and dialed one of the two numbers he knew by heart.

Mikes.

He was speaking wildly on the phone. He was a complete mess. It was a miracle Mike understood him.

"Cynthia's dead." He managed to squeeze out of his heart and mouth. It killed him to say the two words he never expected to say just yet.

The other end on the line was silent. Billie kept talking.

"Do you remember the early days, when we were all together?" He asks.

"Who? You, me and Tre?" Mike asks. "Of course. How could I not, those days fill my memories."

"Not then. With Christian and Gloria."

Mike is hesitant. "Yes. Why?"

Billie Joe gets up and goes to his daughters cradle. "I need you to find them. My daughter can't grow up like this." Then Billie said, "I can't live in constant fear of Jimmy."

"Alright. I've gotcha Billie. Don't worry, everything's going to be--"

Billie hung up the phone and screamed into the night. He screamed his fears, terrors, and darkest thoughts. He shook his head, nothing good would come from this. With his voice nearly broken, he got up and looked to the window of the wall that the crib was on. Outside, a few houses were broken into, cars on fire, people out on their lawns looking in horror at his house he assumed.

He slowly went down the stairs, his possessions lay on the floor, trashed and destroyed. He stood in the broken doorway and looked about outside. His grass was on fire and his door lay in splinters on his driveway. He stood there with a broken expression on his face.

One of his neighbors kids pulled on his mothers robe and said, "Look mommy! Its a letter."

Billies head snapped up at the kids words. He leaped to the boy. "What letter? What letter is it!"

The boy pointed at it.

Billie turned around to see what it was.

It was a giant J.

Soon after the incident at Billies place, the deed was done. Mike delivered Billies daughter to Christian and Gloria. He didn't know what happened to the kid after that.

Later on, Mike became the organizer in the Green Day Vigilantes. He was the driving force behind the machine. And as much as he didn't like to admit it, Billie was a figure head.

He scoured the country for fans of rock and brought them here, to the camp.

As for Tre, he was doing something similar to Mike. He was scouring in Europe. He hadn't heard from him in a long time.

That was their story, they'd changed over time but that story had stayed with both of them.