The Rebels (on break)

Chapter 9: Tears

   The sound of the footsteps closed in on me as I hit the wall and crumpled to the floor. Shit. Whoever attacked me, I'm guessing an official, then moved toward me and crushed my foot, before lifting me up by yanking my hair and standing me up and then they put me in a headlock.

As mystery person was trying to restrain me, their flashlight flailed around and for a split second I saw them. It was indeed another masked official. Of course. I was thrashing around determined to not be controlled as I watched my three friends look at me with horror as the light flew around them in spurts. Shannon had shrunken back into the corner as Eddy tried to find some kind of light. Zach was trying to hit the guy somewhere it would hurt, but he was having trouble seeing in the strobe light of the flashlight. At one point he got my arm by mistake and I yelped.

I continued to try to defend myself against this guy when suddenly the lights came on making it shockingly bright in the long hallway. Gee, thanks Eddy! Now that we could all see properly, I went to punch my attacker in the head which really got him mad. Of course it barely made an impact as he had on this white helmet/mask type thing. All he had to do was throw a strong punch directly into my stomach and I was down. I wailed in pain and hugged my stomach. He could feel how I crumpled into his arms, useless, and he tossed me to the floor, ready to take down the rest of them. I crawled over to Shannon as I couldn't even stand at the moment and turned back around once I reached her to watch the fight that ensued.

The official dove for Zach and knocked him to the floor and was on top of him crushing him. I screamed as he punched Zach in the head. Zach looked knocked out but not quite; he looked to be in and out of consciousness, in an in between state. Then the official stood over Zach and reached behind him. I watched in horror as he pulled out the weird weapon. He rose it and aimed at Zach, but just before he pulled the trigger, he collapsed and red blood began spreading out on the side of his bright white helmet.

I looked to my left and saw Eddy sinking down to the floor next to his open bag with all the contents strewn around the hallway. Looking for a gun... He had a small pistol in his hand and he was crying hysterically.

"I killed him. I killed him." He was so worked up and I completely understood. Well I didn't, I'd never killed anyone, but I could imagine.

"Shannon stood up and ran over to him and dropped down next to him, holding him, "Eddy, Eddy, it's ok, it's ok. You saved us. Hey! Eddy! Look at me!" He looked up at her with tears streaming down his face. "He would have picked us off one by one and left us frozen here like a statue. You. Saved. Us."

Eddy was just kind of nodding repeatedly. He seemed to be calming down a little bit, thankfully. By this point, he was sort of laying in Shannon's lap and he had almost stopped crying. Once my stomach stopped feeling like I was about to throw up from the impact of the punch, I stood up. I unzipped my jacket and pulled up my black t-shirt just enough to see a fist sized bruise already forming on my belly. Ugh. When I ran my hand along the bruise, it hurt ten times worse than without touching it at all. Great.

I looked away from my stomach over to Zach, and I smiled with relief as I saw he had come to, and was pushing himself up into a sitting position. I made my way over to him as quickly as I could in my hunched over state and sat down next to him. "Hey." I smiled at him.

"Hey El." He reached up and touched my cheek. I felt very emotional at that moment. I was still trying to swallow the fact that it all could've been over, and here he was touching my cheek, evoking emotions inside me that I didn't want to feel for him, especially now in crisis.

So I did the more innocent option of the two and I hugged him in spite of what my heart wanted. He hugged me back and for a second, I was genuinely content, until Zach broke my silence.

"El, what...what happened?" I looked at him and then back toward Shannon and Eddy.

"Eddy, he...he shot the, the guy. The official. He's dead." Zach turned his head around to look at the still official behind him and he visibly shivered at the sight. He turned toward me again. "More of them will probably come, we should try to get somewhere out of this hallway. We kind of have ourselves cornered here." I nodded at him. I noticed that his head didn't look that bad luckily.

We helped each other stand up and we hobbled over to the others. "Um, Ed...you okay man?"

Eddy looked up at Zach and nodded in response. Shannon took his hands and pulled him into a standing position and then she hugged him and then knelt down and began refilling his bag. She had everything except the pistol in the bag and she hesitated for a minute.

"Eddy, do you want this? I can take it if you don't." He didn't answer her, but simply took it out of her hands and put it in his belt. It occurred to me then that it was a bit bizarre that he'd had a gun in the first place.

"Eddy, where'd you get the pistol?" I hoped he wouldn't get mad at my curiosity.

"I found it a couple days ago in my dad's office. I kept it in my bag since then, just in case I ever needed it. Surprisingly he never noticed it was gone." I nodded and picked up my own bag and fumbled around for my pocketknife. Pulling it out, I put that in my belt as he did his gun.

"Does anybody else have any weapons?" I questioned. Not that my pocketknife was much of a weapon compared to a gun, but it could do some damage. Shannon rummaged through her bag and she had a pocketknife as well and she put it in her belt too. Seeing Zach just stood still, I assumed he didn't have anything.

"Zach, why don't you take whatever that is." I gestured toward the official's abandoned weapon on the hallway floor. He walked over and slowly picked it up and then came back over to us. The small print on the weapon read Zapter .02 on the side. Zach took the strap and slung it over his shoulder and swung it around so it rested on his back. Then he knelt down again and began sifting through the guy's pockets.

Shannon looked worried again, "What are you doing?"

Zach continued what he was doing, "I'm looking to see if this asshole has anything we can use."

He stood up after a moment holding a small palm sized device. It looked a little larger than my Sidekick, and looked to be all touch screen. Zach tapped the screen and it lit up. Looking closer at it, it looked like a mini Birchwood on a map, with the ocean off to one side and a large area in red in the opposite direction. The Zone.

On the side with the ocean, far out in the ocean looked to be something in a red blinking light moving slowly toward the Birchwood part. The tsunami.

"Guys, that's the tsunami! Hell, it is coming!" I had a panicked feeling rising in my chest again. I was so confused. Why would they say it wasn't coming when it says right here on their mini radar map thingy that it is.

Shannon looked like she was gonna pass out. "This just doesn't make sense."

Zach was playing with the device and after he kept fiddling with it, it zoomed in a little bit. With it zoomed in, you could see a lot of little green dots all over the screen. He zoomed in more near the area that was near where we were, by the exit and focused in on four little green dots next to one red one with an "O" on it. "Guys, this is us. We have to move. Anyone else that has these is gonna see that we're somewhere we shouldn't be. O for official, probably. Plus the tsunami's coming."

We all looked at each other and then began moving down the hallway. Then Zach stopped suddenly and went back over to the official and knelt down. "What are you doing?"

He started to pull off the mask, "Hold on, I want to see what this asshole looks like." He continued to pull off the mask and then stopped abruptly with a shocked look on his face.

"What happened? Who is he?" I yelled down the hallway

"El, this is no "he", it's Mrs. Eva, our instructor."

Then I watched Shannon's face turn a ghostly white.

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