Part 20 A week with homeschoolers

Part 20 Almost morning light escape
Most of them tossed and turned. Many of the couples got together and the men hugged and the women sobbed. It was hard indeed to see the happy group suddenly being so transformed. Probably the major feeling was shock. These situations only happened in horror flicks, zombie movies. These weren’t Zombies… they were people, but they were sleeping now. They needed sleep too, they needed to eat from what they saw. They did eat a lot too. Go figure, most of them were guys. It was going to be interesting to say the least. Chris was staying up all night until he found a solution. It really puzzled him but at last at 4 in the morning he found an answer. See all along he had been trying to brute force it, but he had forgotten a cardinal rule, if you can’t go through go around. How do you go around a mirror? You can’t, but you can angle it. Bounce it off… Chris knew the location of every cell tower in the US and Canada. He figured if he could get to a tower he could angle it and point at the mirror at a 45 degree angle, then you can rebound it off the earth and have enough of a signal to correspond with a satellite, then a simple 911 works. But they didn’t need to do much really, just hop in one of the vehicles and get on out of the town.
With sunshine came reprieve. The beasts hated the bright light from above. They weren’t really beasts I guess. They were humans at one point I guess. Sara had been puzzling her head all into a bother about it. She just couldn’t figure it out. They were humans, she even recognized some of them she had seen before by their clothes. Or by what was left of their clothes. They were hunched over in the shadow of the trees snoring. Of course they would snore. Most of them were men, or had been men. Some girls would claim that the beasts were just normal men anyways, just more guttural and violent than normal. Then it happened. The guys went and checked the vehicles.. and none of them worked. Every single spark plug in every vehicle was gone. Could the beasts be that clever? Is it possible that they retained some mental capacity? But they were utter primeval. They couldn’t have opened the locked cars and sprung the hoods taken out the spark plugs, and then closed and locked everything back up. Someone out of the group had to have done this as a practical joke. It sure wasn’t funny anymore. Who did this?
Shock registered on the guys faces. Chad spoke up, “Dude, what idiot stole the spark plugs!?! If you don’t give them back, you are so dead.” Ben snickered sarcastically, “Dude, if we don’t find the spark plugs we are all dead.”
Elisabeth and Kim noticed all the expressions. Chad was frustrated, Chris was puzzled, no duh, it didn’t make logical excuse. Matt and Jay were puzzled, and Michael was angry. Ben had this look, of utter darkness that if you looked really deeply into, you would swear you saw hell inside. Hell is being alone with only your memories to keep you company, and they aren’t the pleasant ones, they are your mistakes the things you wish you could take back. And you are forever alone.
Michael spoke up. “What if it was one of the others? We’d never find it then.”
Chris spoke up logically.”We don’t even know if it was one of us. We aren’t going to get it fixed by arguing over it. Anybody got any extra sparkplugs?”
Elisabeth ducked her head and frantically dug in her purse. She promptly pulled out 6 spark plugs. “Will these work?”

A Week with Homeschoolers Part 19

Part 19 Secrets revealed

Ben shouldered a jacket on and his eyes smoldered. Then he walked into the other room and grabbed a rifle. He walked up the stairs and disappeared. The group of people milled around discussing escape options. Chad suggested that they wait until morning and just drive out. See, these homeschoolers, for all their smarts, they continued to make mistakes involving common sense. Like putting hot cocoa mix in the cup b4 the hot water. Gee, or milk b4 the cereal. The car should have been a first idea. Oh well, just because you have an IQ of 140+ doesn’t mean that you have the common sense to tie your own shoes. There was this one guy in my basic.. well that is another story for another day. Then they proceeded to do a very homeschool thing, hug and cry, over a game of spoons. Carol and Scarlett sat and hugged each other, and then they went upstairs. In Carol’s room , Scarlett and Carol prayed and went through some of Klaus’ things. After about an hour they heard a crack.

“Did you hear that? I think that I have heard that 4 times this last hour.” Carol cocked her head. “lets check it out”

They went into the hallway and they heard the crack again from the adjoining room. “Do you think it is the beasts breaking in?” Scarlett gripped her 38 snub nose and cocked the hammer back while easing the door slightly open. She squinted and pointed the pistol at a dark figure by the window.

“If you are going to shoot me with that, pull it back one more time. It’s on safe now” Scarlett blushed in embarrassment.

How could she do that? She walked in with Carol and the two of them sat on the bed as Ben relaxed and sat up, putting the rifle on the side. Ben got up and sat down on the bed and hugged Carol as she broke into tears again. When she stopped crying Ben started talking.

“I had a girl I talked with a long time ago. I fell in love with her. 5'6, funny, stylish, yet kinda shy but would open up when she knew you, loved God, comical, loved babies, loved to cook, read, make things, had a real sympathy for people and wanted to make them feel better. Affectionate and caring, yet would tease a bit, loved everyone and yet strong, emotional (in a good way)...She was everything I ever wanted but I rushed it. I wanted more. I ended up hurting her deeply. I waited a year, then I tried again. Her dad told me that b4 I could talk to his daughter again I had to work on so much. I sent letters for 6 months to the dad before he gave me permission to talk to Ava again. I began to court her when he gave me permission. It was awesome and we really grew in God. We got engaged and had a whirlwind courtship. We got married 2 years ago and she got pregnant with a baby boy. It was awesome. I was so happy. 2 months into our marriage we were walking in the park and a drive by shooting happened. I covered Ava with my body but I was too late. My wife died in my arms and I couldn’t do anything! She didn’t say anything to me, just died. I couldn’t get over it for several months. Today is the 2nd year anniversary. I miss her so much. I just want her back to hold her and tell her I love her.”

Scarlett and Carol were shocked. Why had they never been told? Why did they not know? Tears flowed down Ben’s face as he continued. “I have failed, I couldn’t keep anyone safe, Klaus, Charlyn, a lot of people are dead, and I think we all going to die. I am trying so hard, but I am failing so miserably. What do I do? What can I do? I don’t know what to do. I’ve been trying to be strong but I feel so inadequate. I know I need to be a man, but I want to be held and this to end.”

Scarlett just hugged Ben and they had a group hug. You can’t say much when stuff like that happens. They all went downstairs again and rejoined the group. A couple of the group, Kim, Chad, and Michael were keeping an eye on but the beasts had retreated. Ben divided the group into shifts despite Matt’s angry disturbances. The ones not on shift went to an uneasy sleep. I know Homeschoolers going to bed b4 the sun goes up is weird. Oh well, this wasn’t a normal reunion.

Part 18 A week with Homeschoolers

Part 18 Besieged
The figure behind the beast crossed his arms, muscles rippling and knives dripping blood as the beast head rolled away. Frank looked up, “Cool! Where did you learn that move?”
Ben snarled, “The Chronicles of Riddick, Escape from Butcher Bay”
Frank looked puzzled as he tried to revive Carol. Ben walked over wiping some of the blood off of his knives and sheathed them. He bent over and started slapping Carol’s hands. “Come on, we have to head back now. We can return and bury them in the morning, when we have tools.”
They heard a shot, startled they looked up towards the direction of the hotel. It was time to move. Carol didn’t wake up, so Ben picked her up and through her over his shoulder. Frank picked up the extra shotgun and they headed back.

Michael spoke up. “I see something!!!” He racked his rifle and sighted down. His finger tightened and his 30-30 rocked and he levered in another round. “I missed.” He sighed
Then they heard the howls and hoots again. Bekah and the other girls started crying, yes even Kim started crying. Bekah was shaking and went into hysterics. Sara hugged Bekah and sobbed uncontrollably. Scarlett ran over to Matt and just wanted to be held. The other girls who could followed suit. Sara and Kim hugged each other and cried yet more as the howls and hoots got louder and more frequent. Chris muttered as he tried everything possible to try and get his Cell card to work, or Klaus’ Sat Phone, neither of which worked. It was so wrong. Even the wireless and phone lines for the hotels were down. The power lines and phone and internet could be down, maybe even the Cell towers had malfunctioned. All of them at the same time were suspicious but the Sat phone was downright disturbing. There had to be a short circuit somewhere! Or worse, someone had somehow drawn a communication umbrella over the whole area cutting off everything. It was possible to do it, theoretically. He had only heard on some of his backwater chats that it was suspected that the government could do it with a laser in the atmosphere, turning it into a radio mirror. But why would they block this podunk town. He checked anyways. There was deff something blocking his connection. He poked at it a bit. Yup, someone had placed this umbrella over it all. Now what? He would figure it out!! Finally a challenge worth his mastery of Cyberspace! Chris reached for his bag of illegal hack tricks.
Chad fired twice. The others fired too. “They are closing in!” Elisabeth grabbed a shotgun and ran to a window where she fired off her entire magazine missing everything except the antique sign, which she riddled. The dark figures ran about as the others inside the hotel started wasting ammo with little success.
“Stop!!” Scarlett screamed and knocked away Matt’s gun. “Carol, Frank and Ben are out there. We might hit them.”
“Serve Ben right if he did end up dead.” Matt put down the rifle. “Well can’t be sure I hit anything anyways, what are those things?”
Everyone stopped firing and just watched. The beasts stayed out of the light horizon. They did wonder how the others would get back, if any of the other party would get back, if any one would survive.

The sounds of gunfire echoed off the surrounding mountains as Ben carried Carol back. Well, he didn’t carry her like you see in the movies, but he carried her like a sack of grain, way easier. They hurried back as quick as they could. It was a good thing that Carol was as light as she was or Ben would have never been able to make it back. He really wasn’t Superman if you hadn’t figured it out by now. The firing stopped. Ben panicked and looked at Frank.
“Do you think they are? We need to get back now.”
The two of them started running, panting heavily as they covered the ground. Frank held up his hand and Ben lowered Carol gently to the ground. He checked her pulse and breathing then the actions and clips on his weapons. Frank did the same. Ben did a very ungentlemanly thing and proceeded to sling Carol over his muscular back then fashioned a sling around her feet and chest so she was like a giant bandolier. Ben hollered that he was back and they started to run towards the hotel. As soon as Ben yelled the beasts that were running around the hotel stopped. They saw Ben and Frank running hell bent for leather. Then the beasts moved in screaming and running. Frank, while running, started to use his shotgun like it was an extension of his arm. Ben pulled his twin 45s and started firing. One shot one kill. Frank dropped his shotgun and unslung the one Ben had given him and blasted a nearby thing. It was an aggressive thing, not the thing that Elisabeth shot. That poor sign.
Inside they all heard a “Hello the Hotel!” Kim grabbed a rifle and ran to the back window. Every one readied their weapons and were at their posts and Scarlett ran to the door. Kim leveled her rifle and squeezed off a round. Scarlett swung open the door as Ben and Frank ran in. Ben accidentally swung Carols head into the door frame… waking her up rudely.
The guys fired a few more rounds off as the others gathered around Ben, Carol, and Frank. The others took in the sight of the three. Carol shook herself awake while rubbing her head. “Ouch…” then she burst into tears. Scarlett just hugged her as everyone realized that the other party was all dead.
Matt clenched his fists in anger as he saw the blood all spattered over his sister, then the slight matter of gore besmirching Frank, then all the blood covering Ben. He was a bloody man indeed. Ben would be the death of them all.
Ben dropped his clips and reloaded, chambering a round in each. Then he spoke up, “There are tons of those things out there, I think we are besieged.”