When Hope Dies

The Witness (John)

       Baby Carmina Rye was born at 3:00 A.M. and my oh my was she adorable. I drove on the backroads back to the Rye home, barely avoiding the Peggies driving about. When we did make it back, the sun was rising. It had taken longer to get here than it should've. I parked the car, Nick and Kim got out and went inside. I drove around back to the hangar where everyone else was.

       They were talking as I walked up, discussing something to do with the three brothers. They couldn't agree on who to attack first. But it was decided that Faith would need to wait, she had Daniel with her. And he was a force to be reckoned with.

       "We should just go for John first. We're already here, and it's just up the road. We don't even need cars!" Mary May reasoned, motioning in the general direction of John's Bunker.

       "Well we could, but what if he's at his ranch? Don't you think someone with standards like his would rather spend time in a comfortable bedroom then some dark, dank, metal bunker?" I asked as I walked in, leaning against the doorway.

       "That's the thing. We know he's at his bunker, he just took a whole lot of people from Fall's End. If he's doing anything, he's up in that bunker torturing them." Mary May countered, satisfied when both Jerome and myself nodded in agreement.

       "Alright. So lets go get him. Like she said, he's just up the road and if he's torturing people then he's distracted. We storm the bunker, kill the Peggies, take out John, and bam. We've freed Holland Valley once again." I stated, removing myself from where I leaned on the wall.

"We'll still need to take back all of the outposts and Fall's End. The Peggies will probably be ten times crazier with their boss dead." Adelaide countered.

       It took a bit more convincing, but soon enough everyone agreed. We were going after John. We readied our weapons, back up weapons, throwable items like the Molotov's that Sharky made or any, disturbingly enough, grenades that were lying around. I'd never held a grenade, let alone seen one in real life. I rolled the explosive around in my hand, wondering if I'd be able to use it to actually kill someone. We told Nick when he came back, and he was a little less than enthused with our plan.

       "What? Are you for real? I've got my baby to think of, if this fails then that psycho's gonna come here." He argued, refusing to come with and take out John.

       "Nick, we're going to kill him. There's no if's, and's, or but's about it. The longer he's alive, the more danger your baby's in. Just come with us. We'll kill him and they'll be safe." I reasoned, waiting for him to argue more or just straight up walk out and not come with. But to my surprise, he nodded in agreement and grabbed his gun.

       After Nick got ready, we all left, trekking through the forest towards John's bunker. We made it to some sort of checkpoint, a concrete arch with a small security office. It was full of Peggies. Two on the ground, two standing up on it, and one in the office. Who knew how many there were that we couldn't see.

       It was ultimately decided that Jess and I would shoot the two up above, Grace would shoot one on the ground, and Jerome and Nick would sneak up on the last two Peggies and take them out quietly. Hurk and Sharky were... too loud for this kind of sneaky stuff.

After that, we had to stay well into the forest. Sure, there was only about one or two cars that passed by the whole time, but it was better safe than sorry.

       As we made it to the edge of the forest that surrounded the bunker, we all crouched down and hid among the trees and bushes. There weren't as many Peggies outside as I thought there'd be. A handful of guards and five other Peggies in the simple outfits who were moving some boxes inside the little area where the trucks deposited things.