When Everything Changes

Chapter 10

Ten minutes later Amy has everyone gathered at the tables. It's quite a big crowd, actually. It's at least forty people. And they're all going to stare at Collin and I when the meeting starts. I feel this cramping in my stomach that I always get when I'm about to present in front of the class. But I just have to power through it.

I walk up to the front of the room, in front of the non-fiction section. All of the voices simmer down until it's quiet enough to hear a pin drop. I look over to Collin, who didn't even think about following me. I motion up to the front, then he sighs and walk over.

"Hello, everyone. I'm Ian, and he's Collin. You may recognize us, and that's fine. Now, we need to get out of here. All of you will follow Collin and Amy down the hall and to the staircase. I will be at the back, making sure no one is left behind. Now for the rules.

"You need to be quiet. We have no idea where these guys are. Trust me. You can go two minutes with out talking, sneezing, coughing, farting, or burping."

A woman in the back raises their hand. "What?" I'm a bit bothered that she has to talk, even though I said not to.

"Women don't fart. They toot."

"I don't give a shit, no pun intended."

She stares down at her lap. I get back to talking.

"If you talk, a bad guy might hear you, then they will come out and shoot all of us. So just shut up so that we don't all get killed.

"We move swiftly, but quietly. We don't want to be in here longer than we want to be, but we don't want to be loud enough to get caught. Any questions?"

A couple hands raise up.

"Oh, and no questions about the no noise rule."

All of the hands go down.

"That's what I thought. There will be no exceptions to these rules. Got it? We leave in three minutes."

Everyone starts talking at once and I go off to the side with Collin. "Thanks for doing all of the talking," is the first thing he says.

"Don't mention it. Let's call Lenny."

He nods then pulls out his phone and dials Lenny's number. He picks it up once Collin puts his phone on speaker.

"Hey, guys," he says through the phone speaker that sucks.

"Hey, Lenny. We're in the library. We found everyone and we're going to leave in about two-and-a-half minutes. We'll be going out the front door."

"Good, because they locked the doors and we don't want to risk having them shoot. Well, see you in like two minutes." Then he hangs up.

"I guess that means we have to go now. Let's get everyone set." We both go and start telling people to get up.

It takes the full two minutes until everybody is ready. Collin and Amy both go out to the front and start opening the doors. It's now or never.

~_~_~_~

They slowly and quietly walk out to the corner and look around. They check several times before they finally start to move. The rest of the group follows shortly after them.

So far no one has made a noise, which I'm happy about.

Half the group is already out of the doors and down the hallway, and I have started to rush people to move. A couple seconds later, all of us are out and in the hallway, me at the end.

I have my gun out again, just as a precaution, but I hope I still won't have to use it.

Then things turn to the worst.

If things weren't already bad enough.