Chapter 6: Well That's Just Rude
The captors rolled Zack's kennel out of what must have been an employee break room or something--hence the fast clock--and into a bigger room, which must have been the meeting room. The meeting room was filled with weapon racks, rope (of course), a mini fridge, and what must have been twenty or so more girls all dressed in the same type of camouflage outfits that made them look like they were in some sort of cult.
Now, I'm not saying that people that are dressed the same are automatically in some sort of cult. They could be in a gang, or just be really bad at coordinating their outfits. Unless of course they're holding deadly weapons, rope, and all cheering as their comrades, drag in a prisoner trapped in a small dog kennel. A prisoner that they shot at with arrows, and then proceeded to verbally abuse. Since this was the case, Zack decided to assume that the girls were in a cult.
Up on the stage that must have been for a speaker in meetings, was a girl, that looked around Zack's age, sitting in a pop-up-chair like it was a throne. The queen had black hair--or more correctly very, very dark brown--with purple tips and was holding a very fancy crossbow that would have cost a small fortune if the adults were still around. Though Zack had a strong feeling she got it for free.
Aside from all the strange sights, Zack also noticed nine unzipped body bags that were squirming off to the right behind the throne. Now either his captors found nine of the worlds biggest worms or those were his new teammates, and being that the giant-death-worm's eggs didn't hatch--crawling their way out of unfortunate dead beasts, eating their innards in the process--until April, Zack was going to guess they were his friends. He wondered that since they only had nine, if that meant that they were yet to catch Tony. He also wondered why biology class had to be so visual.
He shivered off the disturbing images of the giant-death-worm's maggots crawling from mangled corpses. "Hey give me..." Zack started, but was interrupted by a guard banging on his kennel.
"You don't speak unless spoken to," the guard ordered.
"This is a free cou--"
"Silence!" the guard ordered again, pointing her crossbow in at Zack, in a less than friendly way.
He took the hint this time. He was in no position to argue.
A few minutes of head banging, boring silence went by, while Zack tried very hard to avoid making eye contact with any of his captors, who still all creepily stared back anyway--whatever happened to cooties! Finally the lady on the makeshift throne spoke. "Why did you break into our fortress?" she asked, using a very strict queen like tone. Zack didn't buy it for a second.
"Well, you see..." Zack started, but was silenced again.
"DID YOU NOT READ THE SIGNS IN THE FRONT?!" the queen continued this time Zack didn't even try to object to say they went in through the back. "AND DID YOU NOT THINK TO TURN BACK WHEN YOU HEARD THE RIPJAW'S HOWL?!"
True, he had heard the howl, but in his defense, they didn't even give Tony enough time to ask if it really was even a RipJaw. After a few moments of silence Zack tried to talk again, but was yet again scolded being told to wait until the queen gave him permission. Man, these people had so many rules!
"Ah... I'm waiting for your response..." the queen sighed, literally only two-seconds later, sounding rather annoyed with the dumbfounded boy.
"First off," Zack started. "What is your obsession with rope?" Again--Not the most important question. Some would say it wasn't even worth asking. But Zack asked anyway. Perhaps he wanted to see how low his popularity could drop in thirty minutes.
"Um.... What?" Zack was glad to see that for a quick moment the girl with the purple tipped hair's queen act dropped, revealing a much more tolerable girl.
"Rope. Why do you gu--girls--like rope so much? My hands are bound with rope. My cage is tied shut with rope, as is it pulled with more rope. And it's the nice type too--though personally my wrist stuff is a little itchy, duct tape would have been preferred. That aside though, you guys really know your ropes," Zack rambled, trying his best to keep a straight face. True, he probably wasn't in a position to joke around, but he was starting to feel like this whole charade--that he was, quite literally, stuck in--was all just a joke.
"Oh, erm. Yes. Well, you see, rope holds things together, and is easy to find here," the queen explained like an algebra teacher teaching middle schoolers addition--Zack hated algebra teachers.
"Ok. Secondly we didn't try to break in. We just needed supplies."
"If you were not breaking in why did you run when we discovered you?" the queen asked, as if the reason wasn't obvious enough.
"Because you were shooting arrows at us!" Zack now exclaimed, getting angrier by the second. He wondered if these people were for real, or if they were just practicing for a really sick play. And not the cool sick from the days of skateboarders, the bad sick. When were they going to say gotcha? If it didn't come soon Zack knew it would never come. And if it never came then he was going to be really angry--Though it didn't matter if he was angry, he couldn't act on his anger, he was locked in a dog kennel.
"Fair enough," she replied. "Anything else?"
Zack let out a sigh of relief. Finally! "Yes actually. Can me and my useless friends go now?" He added extra emphasis on the useless friends part, hoping that the worthless worming body bags over in the corner could hear him--Why did he have to deal with the awful questioning? Probably because those stupid cowards ratted him out as the leader.
"I mean anything other than everything concerning your release?" the girl replied, crushing the one hope he had left.
Zack re-inhaled his sigh of relief, for it was falsely spent. "No. Honestly I don't care about anything but leaving, can't you pester someone else? I know this group of guys stuck on taking over the city, how--how did you even shoot us? he asked, quickly changing his topic, after noticing that a few of the surrounding girls started loading their crossbows. "It was pitch black."
"Oh... They have a great night vision department here." The queen dropped her strict tone again, sounding more sincere, and--possibly--slightly less hostile. For a split second Zack could have even been friends with the girl... Despite how deranged she might seem. Saying she let them go, that was.
"Hmmm good to know. Now if you don't mind could we please just grab some supplies and be on our way?" Zack asked eagerly.
"No," she answered flatly. "You know too much, we must kill you now," she continued, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Zack couldn't help but wonder if this happened often. With that the nine body bag worms started screaming in objection, while the evil psychopathic warriors--perhaps amazons--all started cheering. Just like that Zack instantly dropped all thoughts of befriending the girl.
"We don't even need the supplies!" Zack offered.
Quickly some of the captors hooked the body bags to pulleys, that were mounted to the ceiling, and raised them up, revealing their shocked faces behind the unzipped front. Based on all their squirming Zack assumed that they too were bound. Another girl started untying Zack's cage but someone else stopped her--leaving Zack still trapped, forced to watch his new comrades demise from a very uncomfortable spot.
By now all of the boys, besides Zack, had started either sobbing or pleading pathetically. Zack didn't cry though. No, he didn't cry because he was a brave hero, or because, as of now, he was virtually in no danger, forgotten in his cage. No, he just noticed that the captors were loading their crossbows with strange orange looking arrows that suspiciously looked like they were made out of foam. The other boys were just too busy sobbing to notice.
"On the count of ten!" shouted the queen. "One, two, ten," she said quickly before the boys could object any more. Right on cue the orange arrows flew in perfect sink, right into the boys skulls....
Well--Not exactly. True they did hit their skulls but then proceeded to bounce off perfectly harmless. Which ironically was the time Mike, Tony, and the rest of the boys decided to attack, perhaps hoping to take the crossbow shooters by surprise while they were out of ammo. Unfortunately Zack noticed this when it was too late--for he, along with all the crossbow holders, was facing away from the door.
The rescue squad--which technically had no one to rescue, aside from Zack as the rest of the boys were dead--in hopes of surprising the enemy yet again, turned off the lights, as they charged into the room, shouting numerous war cries from different books and movies, or in Bob's case something about ponies.
Sadly, as you could imagine, the defenders took this as an ideal chance to use their night vision goggles. Or at least this is what Zack suspected they did, frankly it was too dark for him to see anything. Within two minutes after a lot of surprised shouting the lights came back on revealing Zack's thirteen other friends, who were all.... Unconscious? Save for Derrick and Bob who were, to Zack's embarrassment, weakly hitting at one another. Their eyes closed, heads turned.
The nine other guys finally came out of their shock of not being dead, and all tried to hide their embarrassment. While the captors took this as an invitation to laugh at them. Thankfully, warned by the laughing, Derrick also opened his eyes to find that Bob was the one slapping at him, leading to him elbowing Bob into reality.
"You didn't really think we would kill you... Did you?" asked the queen, in between laughing, thankfully ignoring Bob and Derrick's horrendous display of idiocy. "I mean, at first we didn't know who you were or what you were, but once we did we would never KILL you." With that they cut down the guys in the body bags, and helped the others up.
"You could have said that a bit sooner," Tony groaned, nervously backing away from the girls. No one seemed to hear him,
"By the way, my name is Jane. Queen Jane," the queen offered, directing her introduction towards Zack who was still unfortunately trapped in the dog kennel.
"Ah... Zack," Zack said, still rather confused by what just happened. "Think I could come out now?" By now Zack's legs had both fallen asleep, and he was starting to lose circulation in his hands.
Jane reddened slightly. "Of course." She started coming over, but Tony beat her to it.
"I got it," he challenged. Causing her to step back. He wasted a good few moments fidgeting with the rope, that Zack knew the boy could have quickly untied if he actually wanted to. "What are we doing here Zack? Introducing ourselves to them. Chatting away like song birds?" Tony hissed under his breath, fidgeting some more with the rope. "They put you in a dog cage!"
Zack was about to reason that he was just being polite, and barely said more than five words but Jane cut in as Tony was opening the cage, helping Zack to his feet.
"Hey? By any chance would you guys have a better hideout?" she asked. "....This one draws too much attention and is too close to town."
"Is she seriously asking to join us now! We might as well start keeping RipJaws as pets!" Tony snapped not in an overly quiet voice, one that Zack knew Jane had to have heard. The boy was behind Zack now, working on his wrists--again purposely stalling. "Let's just leave, say something polite and walk away. Trust me, they're bad news."
Zack could tell that Tony's words offended Jane, and he hated it instantly. Casually elbowing him as a warning, Zack shook the rope from his wrists.
"Well, we don't really have a base but we were planning on getting away from town, and we would love to have a bunch of very skilled people that own crossbows on our team," Zack finally replied. Sure he wasn't necessarily sure that he could trust them--Tony did have some valid points, regardless of how harshly he put them--but Jane didn't seem so bad, and Zack was too nice of a guy to shoot her down right away.
"No. No, we would not." Panic was creeping into Tony's voice now, as if welcoming a few girls to their team was the worst thing possible. "Zack must have hit his head harder than expected--you know after you shot at him with arrows."
Zack elbowed him again. The cut of his cheek was barely more than a faint scratch, another week and there'd be no trace of it. "Ignore Tony, he's just upset that a bunch of girls beat him," Zack tried, causing the guy to storm out of the room, although storming out for Tony was more of a silent run.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jane challenged--though she was still smiling.
"Erm... nothing--Hey what time is it? We should probably get out of town before dark, especially since anyone that doesn't know about the grownups' disappearance now, will most likely know by tomorrow," Zack suggested, eager to change the subject.
Jane turned around, to look at a clock in the corner of the room. Zack cursed himself--what an idiot--he could have totally seen that clock if he actually took a minute to look.
"Only around three, if we leave now we should be able to make it out by night on bikes," Jane replied, oblivious to Zack's discussion with himself.
"Oh, we don't need any bikes. Gather up all your subjects and all the supplies you can find, and meet me outside by four."
Zack had a plan, it was actually a pretty good one, it's just he needed to find a van and its keys, or a bus. Lucky for him, his school was just ten miles away. Being on how Mike was rather reliable last time (aside from when he led an unneeded rescue party)--and because Tony was nowhere in sight--Zack invited him.
* * *
The boys didn't talk much on the short ride. True, Zack probably should have thanked Mike for attempting to save his life, or congratulated him on not killing any of the younger boys on the trip to the store. But they were going pretty fast on the bikes, that Mike apparently took from the store, and he probably wouldn't have heard him anyway... At least this is what Zack kept telling himself. Though he had more important things on his mind than thanking people.
It didn't take long to arrive at the school. Although, despite his brilliant idea, Zack still wasn't looking forward to showing up to school on a Saturday. When they arrived, the sun was already getting ready to set, but Zack didn't worry, if they were fast enough they could still make it out of town before all the daylight was gone.
Now Zack's school, unlike most schools we have now, was never really a very cheery place. It just radiated darkness. For instance, if it was a movie scene it would be surrounded by storm clouds, and the occasional lightning strike would scare away a crow perched on a nearby dying tree. See nothing like the usual school. Anyway, with the adults gone, the place was just dark and gloomy. Most of the time one of the teachers would have to stay late to grade papers, so whoever did would lock up the school. Well, except for Mr. Monty the math teacher, apparently he felt like no one would leave the safety of their house in the middle of the night to go back to school.
For once in his life Zack was actually glad that there was a math test yesterday, despite the fact that he most likely failed. Yet another benefit of the grownups sudden disappearance. Being what it was, the guys just walked right in like they owned the place. After that, it was just a short walk, past the abandoned halls, and lonely lockers down to the basement where all the keys were kept, because lately everything Zack wanted seemed to be underground.
The basement was not as creepy as Miss Rosh's cellar, but that really wasn't saying much. At least there was no Feebie or Dramlaks. Just rows and rows of old school junk. As they crept through the basement they passed creepy mannequins, masks of Ralams and RipJaws whose eyes seemed to follow you, and even boxes filled with frogs that were meant to be dissected Monday in science class. The adults really did pick a good day to disappear.
Finally they found the key shelf after what seemed like hours of looking and that's when Mike finally broke the silence.
"You do know how to drive, right?" he asked, perhaps fearing the answer, as he adjusted his cracked glasses.
"Well, I know which pedal does what, and I know how a steering wheel works. As for driving rules I don't think we need to worry about getting pulled over," Zack joked, happy he took a few minutes to look over Garry's instruction book when his roommate was in drivers ed.
"True.... I mean the worst that could happen is you slam into a tree or through a building, potentially killing us all," Mike wisely pointed out.
"Ok. So I'll drive slow."
With that they grabbed the keys and started walking out when Zack had the brilliant idea to set the frogs free. Mike then had an even better idea, why should the school stay a dark and gloomy place, so in hopes of helping the frogs they clogged the bathroom sink drain and turned on the faucet creating a mini waterfall.
"We should hurry," Zack suggested, "The sooner we get out of this town the better. Just my luck, I'd run into Bones."
Mike looked as though he was going to reply but must have decided against it.
In the School parking lot there sat four buses and naturally they chose the shiniest one with the least amount of miles--Or at least the shiniest one, Zack didn't know enough about motorized vehicles to know where to find the mileage.
When Zack was done smashing into the dumpsters, which he totally tried to do, they were off to pick up the rest of their new tribe--as Zack liked to call them, for friends didn't really suit even ten of them.
* * *
They arrived back at the hardware store with seven minutes to spare thanks to Zack's excellent driving. Though he didn't quite get how you were only supposed to use your right foot when there were two pedals? Perhaps Garry accidentally grabbed an instruction book for people with only one leg? Either way his techniques seemed to work fairly well--Pressing the brake only at the very last moment with his left foot and then, once the obstruction (usually some pesky kid trying to flag down the bus) was clear, he'd release the brake and since his other foot was already still on the gas he could easily start up again. How anyone could drive any other way, was beyond him.
Really Zack didn't see what any of the fuss about driving was at all, especially with the curb and sidewalk protecting the bus from hitting any buildings, oddly enough though Mike stayed silent the entire drive....
Pulling into the hardware store's parking lot--or more accurately, jumping the side--Zack saw that they brought out everything he requested. They even brought out twenty some extra assorted weapons which Zack hoped were for all the older boys.
"Wow, great job," Zack shouted from out the bus' window, waving to Jane. This last part was partially unnecessary, as you would've had to be blind, deaf, and stupid to not have noticed the guys arrival.
"Thanks, but you don't honestly expect us to all let a--how old are you again?" Jane asked.
"Fourteen."
"Exactly! You don't actually expect us to let a fourteen year old drive, do you? Look at that poor guy," she started, pointing at Mike, who was shakily exiting the bus. "He still has a piece of seat cushion in his hand."
Zack laughed slightly--casually glancing out the window, just to double check that she was kidding. Unfortunately he could not tell what Mike was holding, for he was puking over the side of a dumpster. "What?" he finally muttered, shoving away the mental image of the fourtysome kids all puking their spleens out simultaneously, while he was driving. "You too scared...?" he teased. "Besides how else would we get everyone out of here?"
"On bikes, like I suggested," she reminded him.
"Bikes are nice! I like bikes!" Mike agreed, stumbling back over towards them, a look of relief and panic still on his face.
"I'm not taking a hundred mile bike ride with all those supplies on my back!" Zack complained, thinking of how terrible it would be--most likely worse than a spleen covered bus. "So unless you can find anyone more qualified I guess you're stuck with a fourteen year old."
"Oh I will," Peter offered excitedly, already moving his action figures on the bus.
"Um no!"
"Good... then it's settled. Now!" Zack exclaimed. "Everybody load up and get ready to leave!"
Zack liked to think that when a guy driving a multi ton vehicle shouted something everyone listened... not so much. Everyone loaded up sure---although Zack wondered if he had Jane's crossbow to thank even for that--but the bus didn't depart for another twenty minutes, despite how organized everyone seemed to be when the bus arrived. It seemed right when they were ready to leave someone would shout that they had to go to the bathroom, or that they forgot something.
Zack was just about ready to get on a bike and run away himself when Jane finally announced that they were all ready. All forty-six passengers (twenty-three boys including Zack and twenty-three girls) crammed into the bus, with all the supplies, and with that they were off. Luckily this time Zack didn't crash into quite as many dumpsters as before.