Trespassers (3)

Everyone came outside hearing noises.

"What's going on?"

"Who are those people?"

"He has a gun pointed at the doctor!"

James looked at everybody and yelled, "What the fuck did I say?! I said put your hands on the air!"

Everybody slowly raised their hands. The children started to crying, some of them loudly, some of them quietly. James ordered Brad and Nia to search the houses and bring all the weapons they could find.

"I need some water. Gotta clean this fucking fake blood."

"Why are you doing this?" Grace cried, "We can give you a place to stay here. You can stay as long as you want."

"Tch tch tch." He shook his head and looked at her, "That wouldn't be thrilling."

"What?" She quite didn't understand him.

"You didn't understand me,did you lady?"

She frighteningly shook her head.

"You see, I was a part of a gang before all this shit. We would fight on streets, steal from banks, go to the party and fuck girls, drink beer and then again of that bullshit. In one word, my life was thrilling." He said, "But now, after all this shit, I have nothing. All of my gang members died. And from then, I've been roaming around here and there. I didn't have anything to do. No people on the streets, no banks to rob, no strip club or shit. Basically, my life went to shit. My life got dull. But, at last..." He smiled.

Grace was looking at him unbelievably. Arthur was also listening to his story without interrupting. He was waiting for an opportunity to attack.

"At last, I found this place." He looked at everyone, "With all these people. I missed it."

"Missed what?" Arthur asked.

"Fear." He said, "Missed the fear on their faces. You wouldn't know the feeling when someone is afraid of you, scared of you. This...this power! The power that you feel at that moment. You got me, right?" He tried to make him understand.

I know exactly what you mean. Arthur thought, I miss that too.

"No." Arthur replied, "Stop bullshitting. And get the fuck outta here."

James sighed, "I thought I was able to understand. Well, that doesn't mean shit."

It took a while for Brad and Nia to collect all the armors in that place. They brought anything they could find. All the weapons were gathered to James.

"You found everything?"

"I guess so. We searched everything. These are all we found." Brad said.

"We'll be fucked if we leave a single gun behind." He said, "Look at me, are you sure that you collected every single armor?"

"Y-yes."

James kept looking Brad's eyes for a while.

"All right."

He let Juan go.

"Now! Listen to me, people!" He shouted as loud as he could, "From now on, this place is under my control! If you have anything against it, speak!"

Nobody said one word.

"Good." He nodded and looked at everyone, "You will be able to move freely, do as you please. However, any sort of armors won't be provided. I repeat, any sort of armors won't be provided. You'll get 2 meals a day and enough water, don't worry."

Basically, we are your hostages. Arthur glared James with a killing intent.

James noticed that. He looked back at Arthur and smiled with a crazy face.

"Basically, you are my hostages." He mumbled.

...

"Are you planning to reach Rust by walking the whole road?" Ethan questioned, "My legs already hurt."

"We don't have much choice." Nolan said, "Be glad that you're still alive.

They decided to walk back to Rust for now. They didn't have their horse, so it was pointless to go search other locations. It would take forever to reach. Waste of energy and time. At least that was what Nolan was thinking. It took them more than 2 hours to reach the place where they lost their horse. So, it would take even more than that to get back.

"Hey, you got water?" Ethan searched his bag, "I think, I forgot to bring mine."

"Hmm, take it." Nolan brought out the water bottle.

"Thanks."

Nolan was still thinking about the incident that happened earlier. He had been known Jack since he was in kindergarten. He and Arthur was good friends, so he used to visit Arthur's house often. Jack was the kind of guy who liked to keep in schedule. He was a baseball team coach of a school. So, he was in good shape. He was strict and really responsible when it came to maintaining stuff. So, the fact that Jack mistakenly marked a dangerous zone as a search location, was really bugging Nolan. He knew that it wasn't a really big deal. But still...it was Jack.

"Hey, don't drink all the water. We still have a long way to go."

...

"Where are we heading next?" Emma asked.

"I'm not sure." Julia rotated the map couple of times, "Ahh, Emma?"

"Yeah?"

"How many locations were to be searched by each team?"

"It was 3 if I'm not wrong. Why do you ask?" Emma kept her eyes on the road.

"But there are 4 locations marked with circles." 

"That can't be right." Emma tried to get a peek at the map, "Yeah...you're right."

"So, it wasn't 3 after all."

"Maybe I misheard or something." Emma tried to keep the horse straight.

"I guess so." Julia said while looking at the map, "So we are on the highway right now. That means...take the first right. It's a bit far though."

"Okay."

"How long will take to search all these locations." Julia put away the map.

"We are usually given 2 days for these. Since, it's our 1st day, we'll take our time and search every area carefully."

"Oh, now that I think about it, you guys always disappear for couple of days around this time of the year."

"Yeah. We go to this mission every year. It's your first time."

"Yep."

"Hope that it's not your last."

"I hope so."

...

"Can I come in?" Manny asked while smiling.

"A-ah, s-sure." Lucas never had anyone coming to his room except Will and Julia. So, he was a bit nervous.

"Wo, you got a lot going on here." Manny looked around the room, "You read a lot of books?"

"I-I try to."

"I read books too." He touched his right leg, "Since I don't have my left leg, I don't have much of a choice but to read in my room."

"Oh...h-how did you lose it?"

"Got bitten. Had to cut off."

"M-must h-have been hard."

"It is." He said, "But I am over it right now."

Lucas had nothing to say back. He kept staring at Manny's leg.

"Anyway, forget about me." He said, "Which book are you reading right now?"

"I am not reading any at the moment."

"Ahh...bummer." He said, "I've read all the books I have. Got nothing else too do all day just to roam around."

"Y-you can borrow some from me if you want."

"Really?"

Lucas nodded uncomfortably.

"Cool." Manny moved his wheel chair and got closer to the bookshelf, "How did you collect all these books?"

"I didn't." He replied, "They were all in these room. Well, Will brought me some from...somewhere."

Manny tried to reach a book higher up. But it was out of his range.

"L-let me help." Lucas took out the book from the shelf.

"Thanks." He started to flip the book, "Do you know how to shoot?"

Lucas scratched the back of his head, "Sort of."

"You want to practice some shooting then?"

"Ahh..." He hesitated, "I-I am not so sure about that."

"Oh." Manny remembered something, "I almost forgot, we don't have our guns."

"O-oh. Yeah, right."

"Plus, now I think that we shouldn't waste bullets either." Manny closed the book, "I'll be borrowing it for a few days."

"Only one?"

"This will be enough for now. I'll borrow more when it-"

"Hey you two." A voice came from the door. It was Brad, "Dinner's ready."

...

Since there wasn't any electricity, people of Rust spent the night hours with candles. The outer area was shining from candle lights. Lucas never actually left his room. Specially not at night. So, he never saw the sight before. The cooker of Rust Gael was standing beside a big drum filled with mushroom soup. People were standing in a line with a plate and a spoon. Brad was standing few steps away from Gael with an AKM. James was a little far away with the others of his crew. Manny and Lucas stood in the line. Julia and Will used to bring the meals to him. But as they were taken hostages now and Will and Julia weren't here. So, he had no other choice but to stand in the line. The line was a long one. It felt like it wasn't even moving.

"Lucas, you can go back to your room. I'll bring the meal to you."

"N-no, you don't have to do all that. I'll do it myself."

"Okay then."

The line kept taking a step forward after 2 or 3 minutes.

Does it take a whole 2 minutes to fill up a plate with soup? Lucas thought.

In that same line, a few people ahead of Lucas, Arthur and his mother Grace were standing together with plates in their hands. Arthur was already annoyed. He had been standing in the line for over 20 minutes. He was never been a patient guy. So was reaching his limits. When his time came, he forwarded his plate. Gael put some soup on it. He looked at the amount.

"You're fucking kidding me, right?" Arthur looked at Gael, "It's not gonna fill my stomach."

"I-I am sorry, Arthur. But the guy told me to save the soup." He looked at Brad.

"Save the soup for what?" Arthur looked at Brad, "For them to have the whole drum by themselves?"

Gael nodded frighteningly.

"Gael, don't be a pussy. Put some more."

"I-I can't."

"Gael...I said more."

"Hey, what's going on here?" Brad came closer.

"Gael." Arthur ignored Brad, "Put. More. Soup."

"Arthur, I think you should stop." Grace touched his son's shoulder. She was standing right behind him.

"Gael, I am telling you for the last time, fill the whole plate."

"Hey, kid. Back off." Brad pocked away Arthur's left chest.

"Arthur, stop please. You can have my soup." His mother insisted.

"Fill up the fucking plate, Gael."

"What did I tell you? Back the fuck off."

"Fill the plate."

"Arthur, stop it."

"Hey, are you ignoring me?!"

"Gael."

"Arthur, enough."

"You piece of shit." Brad grabbed his collar.

"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!" He smashed the plate on the ground.

Everyone backed away. The line broke.

"What the fuck is happening here?" James entered the scene now.

"This brat wanted to have more soup. He got refused and broke the plate." Brad explained.

James looked at the broken plate with soup spreading all around. He was started to rage slowly. He took a breath and let it out and finally looked at Arthur.

"Pick up the pieces and clean the mess."

"You came here...out of nowhere." Arthur completely ignored what he said, "And then took over the place." 

"Pick up the broken pieces."

"Took away our guns like a coward."

"Pick up." He pursed his lips. 

"Then you don't feed us good."

"Pick up, now."

Arthur exhaled and rubbed his face couple of times. He looked at James.

"Fuck you."

"I. Said. Pick. Up. The. Fucking. Pieces!" James landed a solid punch on Arthur's face.

Arthur fell down on the ground. James sat on him and kept landing punches constantly. Arthur tried to block them but after a while he gave up.

"No! Please! Don't!" Grace cried out.

Brad took a few steps back. He didn't want to go closer to the monster. James still kept punching him. His hand got filled with Arthur's blood. Arthur was almost about to lose his sense. He was never this beaten up before. He couldn't breath as his nose broke. He was slowly breathing through his mouth. He tried to look at the monster that was beating him to death.

Someone save me from this monster.

But no one tried to approach him to save. Everyone was moving away bit by bit. Grace couldn't do anything but to cry. Everyone was just watching the show. They already decided that the son of the founder of Rust would eventually die here. But they didn't know one thing...that he was God's favorite person.

"Marco! Open the gate! It's me, Nolan!" A voice of a savior that was sent by the God.

___